"Help me!" Peckhum cried, his voice tinny with fright.
At the jungle's edge, the hideous monster turned, as if distracted by something. Jacen felt his heart leap, thinking at first that perhaps the wild creature had seen the three of them approaching. But he saw that its attention was fixed instead on another figure walking alone, emerging from the lower levels of the temple pyramid, confidently gliding over the clipped grasses and weeds.
Luke Skywalker wore only his Jedi robe. Jacen expected to see him holding his light-saber, but both of Luke's hands were empty.
Luke stared at the creature, and the creature stared back with a dozen eyes waving at the ends of tentacles covering its face.
The Jedi Master continued to walk forward, directly toward the monster, as if he were in some sort of trance. He took one step, then another. The beast bristled, but held its ground, bellowing loudly enough to make the trees swish. Jungle birds and creatures fled from the horrifying sound.
While the beast was momentarily distracted, old Peckhum dove to the ground, scuttling on all fours through the open cargo doors of his battered shuttle. Jacen was glad to see the supply runner safe inside the shielded metal walls.
The monster roared upon losing its prey. But Luke spoke in an oddly calm and clear voice that was not at all muffled by the distance. "No, here! Look at me," he said.
Tenel Ka reached the ground by leaping down the last four steps and landing in a crouch. Puffing and red-faced, Jacen and Jaina dashed down beside her, then all three teens stood rigid, watching Luke Skywalker face the jungle beast. They had no weapons of their own.
Suddenly, unexpectedly, old Peckhum charged back out of the open bay doors of the Lightning Rod. In his hands he held an old-fashioned blaster rifle. "I'll get him, Master Skywalker! Just stay there." He ducked down and aimed.
But Luke turned to him and motioned with his hand. "No," he said.
The blaster rifle went flying out of Peckhum's grip. The old supply runner stared in astonishment as Luke continued to stroll toward the monster, seemingly without a care in the world.
"This creature means no harm," Luke said, his voice quiet but firm. He never took his eyes off the beast. "It's just frightened and confused. It doesn't know where it is, or why we are here." He drew a deep breath. "There's no need for killing."
Jacen's stomach knotted with unbearable tension as Luke approached the monster. The thing's long eyestalks waved at him, and its six tree-trunk legs took ponderous steps like an Imperial walker.
The beast lowered its triangular head, shaking it from side to side so that the pointed tusks seemed to scratch holes in the air. It let out a strange, soft blat of puzzlement.
Jacen hissed with fear, and his sister's entire body clenched. He had used his own talents with the Force to confront many strange animals out in the jungle, but never anything as powerful as this monster, never such a boiling mass of anger and confusion.
But Luke stepped right up to the shaggy, angry thing, within touching distance. The Jedi Master looked incredibly small, yet unafraid.
Beside the battered freighter, Peckhum fell to his knees. The discarded blaster rifle was at hand, but he didn't dare pick up the weapon again. He looked from the monster to Luke, then to the three watching teens--then off into the jungle, as if terrified that another one of the creatures might appear.
Luke stood in front of the nightmarish beast and took a deep breath. He didn't move. The monster held its ground and snorted. Its eyestalks waved unblinking, pointing slitted pupils down at him.
Luke raised his hand, palm out.
The monster snuffled and waited, motionless, its wicked tusks less than a meter away from Luke Skywalker.
The jungle fell silent. The breeze died away. Jacen held his breath. Jaina gripped his hand. Tenel Ka narrowed her cool gray eyes.
The silence seemed so overwhelming that when Luke at last broke the frozen moment, his whisper sounded as loud as a shout.
"Go," Luke told the creature. "There is nothing you need here."
The monster reared up on its hind set of piston legs, its eye tentacles thrashing in a frenzy. Then it let out another high-pitched trumpet before it spun around and crashed off into the thick undergrowth. Branches cracked, trees bent to one side as it plowed a wide path back to the mysterious jungle depths from which it had come.
Like a snapped string, Luke's shoulders slumped with exhaustion. He seemed barely able to keep himself from trembling as Jacen, Jaina, and Tenel Ka rushed toward him, calling his name. "Uncle Luke!"
Luke turned and looked at the three friends with a smile.
Old Peckhum stumbled up, clutching the antiquated blaster rifle. His eyes glittered with unshed tears. "I can't believe you did that, Master Skywalker!" he said. "I thought I was dead for sure, but you faced that monster with no weapons at all."
"I had enough weapons," Luke said with calm conviction. "I had the Force."
"I wish I could do that, Uncle Luke," Jacen said. "That was really something."
"You will be able to do anything you want, Jacen," Luke said. "You have the potential--as long as you have the discipline."
Luke gazed off into the jungle, where they could still hear trees crashing and shrubs snapping as the monster continued to blunder its way through the forest.
"There are many mysterious things in the jungles," Luke said, then he smiled at the twins and Tenel Ka. He nodded toward Peckhum's ship, the Lightning Rod, which still sat open, filled with crates and boxes of supplies and equipment.
"I think our friend Mr. Peckhum is having a rough day," Luke said. "He's got a lot more to unload, and he's probably eager to get back up into orbit, where it's safe." He flashed a smile at the old supply runner, who nodded vigorously.
"Why don't you three consider it a Jedi training exercise to help him. Besides, we need to get ready because tomorrow--" He looked at Jacen and Jaina, eyes sparkling. "Your father and Chewbacca are bringing us another Jedi trainee."
"Dad's coming here?" Jaina said with a yelp.
"Hey, why didn't you tell us before?" Jacen added. His heart leaped at the thought of seeing his father again after a full month.
"I wanted it to be a surprise. He's flying in on the Millennium Falcon, but he had to stop at Chewbacca's planet first. They've already left Kashyyyk, and they're on their way here."
Filled with excitement, the young Jedi Knights eagerly helped unload Peckhum's supply ship. It was hard work, demanding more concentration and control of their Jedi lifting abilities than they were used to, but they finished in less than an hour. Jaina and Jacen chattered to Tenel Ka about all the adventures Han Solo had experienced. Jaina groaned about how much work it would be to clean up their quarters in time, so they could impress their father.
Finally, the battered old freighter flew off into the misty skies toward the orangish gas-giant planet of Yavin.
Jacen smiled and looked wistfully at the trampled clearing. The next ship to arrive on the landing pad would be the Millennium Falcon!
Chapter 4
"There," said Jaina, mentally relaxing her hold on a large mass of tangled wires and cables. It came "to rest in a more or less contained jumble atop one of the newly tidied stacks of electronic components in her room. "That should do it," she added with a satisfied nod.
"Does that mean we can go to morning meal now?" Jacen said. "You've been at this half the night."
"I want Dad to be impressed." Jaina shrugged.
Jacen laughed. "He never stacks his tools this neatly!"
"Guess I did get a little carried away," Jaina replied, matching his grin. "We've still got a few hours before they get here."
Jacen snorted and stood up from the floor, where he'd been sitting next to his sister while they worked. He brushed the dust off his jumpsuit and ran long fingers through his dark brown curls. "Well, how do I look?"
Jaina raised a critical eyebrow at him. "Like someone who's been up all night."
He hurried over to peer anxious
ly into the small mirror that Jaina had hung above her cistern. She realized that her brother was just as nervous and excited about seeing their father again as she was.
"It's actually not too bad," she assured him. "I think raking the twigs and leaves from your hair really helped. Here, put this on." She pulled a fresh jumpsuit from a chest by her bed. "You'll look more presentable."
When Jacen went into the next room to change, Jaina took his place at the mirror. She wasn't vain, but, as with her room, she preferred to keep her personal appearance neat and clean.
She ran a comb through her straight brown hair and stared at her reflection. Then, with a quick peek over her shoulder to be sure her brother wasn't looking, she pulled back a handful of strands and worked them into a braid. Jaina would never have gone to this much trouble for an ambassador or some silly dignitary--but her father was worth the effort. She hoped Jacen wouldn't notice or comment on it. Finished, she stepped through her doorway and poked her head into Jacen's room. "All the animals fed?" she asked.
"I took care of that hours ago," he said, emerging in his clean, fresh robe. He heaved a long-suffering sigh. "At least someone's had their morning meal."
Jaina gnawed her lip, anxiously scanning the sky for any glimmer that might herald the arrival of the Millennium Falcon. She and Jacen stood at the edge of the wide clearing in front of the Jedi academy, where the hideous monster had appeared the day before. The area's short grasses had been trampled down by frequent takeoffs and landings.
Jaina smelled the rich green dampness of the early morning in the jungle that surrounded the clearing. The foliage rustled and sighed in a light breeze that also carried the trills, twitters, and chirps that reminded her of the wide profusion of animal life that inhabited the jungle moon.
Beside her, Jacen shifted impatiently from one foot to the other, a frown of concentration etched across his forehead. Jaina sighed. Why did it seem like everything took forever when you were looking forward to it, and things that you didn't want to happen arrived too soon?
As if sensing her tension, Jacen suddenly turned to her with a mischievous look in his eye. "Hey, Jaina--you know why TIE fighters scream in space?"
She nodded. "Sure, their twin ion engines set up a shock front from the exhaust--"
"No!" Jacen waved his hand in dismissal. "Because they miss their mothership!"
As was expected of her, Jaina groaned, grateful for a chance to get her mind off waiting, even if only for a moment.
Then a comforting hum built and resonated around them, as if the sound of their mounting excitement had suddenly become audible. "Look," she said, pointing at a silver-white speck that had just appeared high above the treetops.
The glimmer disappeared for a few moments and then, with a rush of exhaled breath that she hadn't realized she'd been holding, Jaina saw the Millennium Falcon swoop across the sky toward the clearing.
The familiar blunt-nosed oval of their father's ship hovered tantalizingly above their heads for a moment that seemed to stretch to eternity. Then, with a burst of its repulsor-lifts, it settled gently onto the ground in front of them. The Falcon's cooling hull buzzed and ticked as the engines died down to a low drone. The scent of ozone tickled Jaina's nostrils.
Jaina knew the shutdown procedures for the Corellian light freighter, but she wished that just for today there was some way to speed things up. When she thought she could wait no longer, the landing ramp of the Falcon lowered with a whine-thump.
And then their father bounded down the ramp, gathering the twins into his arms, ruffling their hair, and trying to hug both of them at once, as he had done when they were small children.
Han Solo stepped back to take a good look at his children. "Well!" he said at last, with one of those lopsided grins for which he was so famous. "Except for your mother, I'd say this is the finest welcoming committee I've ever had."
"Dad," Jacen said, rolling his eyes, "We are not a committee."
As her father laughed, Jaina took a moment to study him, and was relieved to note that he had not changed in the month that they had been gone from home. He wore soft black trousers and boots that fitted him snugly, an open-necked white shirt, and a dark vest--a comfortable, serviceable set of clothes that he sometimes jokingly referred to as his "working uniform." The battered, familiar shape of the Millennium Falcon was unchanged as well.
"How do we look, Dad?" Jaina asked. "Any different?"
"Well, now that you mention it..." he said, turning his gaze to each of them in turn. "Jacen, you've grown again--bet you even caught up with your sister. And Jaina," he said with a wicked grin, "if I didn't think you'd throw a hydrospanner at me for saying so, I'd tell you that you're even prettier than you were a month ago."
Jaina blushed and gave an unladylike snort to demonstrate what she thought of such compliments, but secretly she was pleased.
A loud, echoing roar from inside the ship saved her the embarrassment of having to come up with a response. A large form thundered down the boarding ramp. Huge heavily furred arms reached out to grab Jaina and threw her high into the air.
"Chewie!" Jaina shrieked, laughing as the giant Wookiee caught her again on the way down. "I'm not a little kid anymore!" After Chewbacca had repeated this greeting ritual with her brother, Jaina finally said what she and Jacen were thinking. "It's good to see you, Dad, but what brings you to the Jedi academy?"
"Yeah," Jacen added. "Mom didn't send you to check if we had enough clean underwear, did she?"
"Nah, nothing like that," their father assured them with a laugh. "Actually, Chewie and I needed to come out this direction to help my old friend Lando Calrissian open up a new operation."
Jaina had always had a great fondness for Lando, her father's dark and dashing friend, but she also knew him well enough to realize that her adopted "uncle" Lando was always involved in some crackpot moneymaking scheme or another. She held up a hand to stop her father.
"Wait, let me guess. He's--he's starting a new casino on his space station and he needed you to bring him a shipload of sabacc cards."
"No, no, I've got it," Jacen said. "He's opening a new Nerf ranch and he wants you to help him build a corral."
At this Chewbacca threw back his head and bleated with Wookiee laughter.
"Not even close." Han Solo shook his head. "Corusca gem mining deep in the atmosphere of the gas giant." He pointed up to the great orange ball of the planet Yavin in the sky overhead. "He asked us to come and help him set up the operation."
"Oh, blaster bolts!" said Jacen, snapping his fingers. "That was going to be my next guess."
Another faint Wookiee-sounding bellow came from inside the Millennium Falcon. Chewbacca turned and strode back up the ramp.
"What was that?" Jaina asked.
"Oh, I forgot to mention," Han said. "When Luke found out we had to come here anyway, he asked us to stop by Chewie's homeworld of Kashyyyk and pick up a new Jedi candidate. He's going to be your fellow student."
As Han spoke, Chewbacca thumped back down the ramp, closely followed by a smaller Wookiee, who was still taller than Jacen or Jaina. The younger Wookiee had thick swirls of ginger-colored fur, with a remarkable swirling black streak as wide as Jaina's hand that ran from just above his left eye up over his head and down to the middle of his back. He wore only a belt woven of some glossy fiber that Jaina could not identify.
"Kids, I'd like you to meet Chewie's nephew Lowbacca. Lowbacca, my kids Jacen and Jaina."
Lowbacca nodded his head and growled a Wookiee greeting. He was thin and lanky, even for a Wookiee, with gangly fur-covered arms and legs. The young Wookiee fidgeted. Chewbacca barked a question to Han and waved one massive arm in the direction of the temple.
"Sure," Han said. "Go ahead-take him to Luke for now. The kids can get to know each other later."
As the two Wookiees headed off to find Luke, Han said, "Wait here, I have something for you," and ducked back into the Falcon. He returned in a few moments, his arms laden with a st
range assortment of packages and greenery.
"First," he said, tossing each of them a small message disk, "your mother recorded these personal holo letters for you. There's another one from your little brother Anakin. He can't wait to come here himself."
Jaina looked at the glittering message disks, anxious to play them. But she slipped them into one of the pockets of her jumpsuit.
"And now..." Han said, holding up a large bouquet of green fronds sprinkled with purple and white star-shaped blossoms. Grinning, he waggled the flowers.
"Oh, Dad, you remembered!"
Jacen ran forward ecstatically. "My stump lizard's favorite food." He took the leafy bundle gratefully and said, "I'll feed 'em to her right away. See you later, Dad." Then he ran off in the direction of the Great Temple.
Jaina stood alone with her father, looking expectantly at the last bulky package he held in his arms. He set it on the weedy ground of the landing clearing and stepped back so that Jaina could pull aside the rags that covered it.
"Great wrapping job, Dad," she said, smiling.
"Hey, it works." Han spread his hands.
Jaina gasped as she removed the coverings, then looked up at her father, who grinned and shrugged nonchalantly. "A hyperdrive unit!" she said.
"It's not in working condition, you understand," he said. "And it's pretty old. I got it off an old Imperial Delta-class shuttle they were dismantling on Coruscant."
Jaina remembered fondly the times she had helped her father tinker with the Falcon's subsystems to keep it running in peak condition--or as close as they could get. "Oh, Dad, you couldn't have picked a better present!" She jumped up and hugged him, wrapping her arms around his dark vest. She could tell that her father was pleased--and maybe even a little embarrassed--by her enthusiasm.
Her father looked down at her and raised one eyebrow. "You know, there's a couple more components on the ship. If you wanted to help me bring 'em out here, your dad could show you how they all go together."
She ran after him into the ship.
Star Wars - [Young Jedi Knights 1] - Heirs Of The Force Page 3
