Star Wars - [Young Jedi Knights 1] - Heirs Of The Force

by Kevin J. Anderson

Chapter 5

  It was late that morning when Jacen and Jaina finally caught up with their father, Chewbacca, and his nephew Lowbacca. The twins, who had spent hours at their respective assigned duties and Jedi training exercises, arrived back at the students' quarters just as they saw the threesome emerge from a formerly empty room.

  "Hi!" Jacen called, hurrying up to Lowbacca with his sister in tow. "Are you tired from your trip? If not, I could show you my room. I have some really unusual pets. I collected most of them from the jungles here and Jaina made some cages for them-you should see those cages--and Jaina could show you her room too. She's got all sorts of broken-down equipment that she uses to build things out of." In his enthusiasm, Jacen never even paused to take a breath.

  The much taller Lowbacca looked down at the human boy as Jacen rattled on. "Do you like animals? Do you like to build things? Did you bring any pets or equipment with you from Kashyyyk? Do you like-"

  His father chuckled into the stream of questions. "There'll be time enough for that later, kid. We spent most of the morning with Luke, and then we got Lowbacca settled in his room. You two want to take him on a tour of the academy, get him familiar with the place? By now, you probably know your way around better than Chewie or I do."

  "We'd love to," Jaina answered before their father had finished his sentence.

  "We're the perfect tour guides," Jacen added with a confident shrug. "Jaina and I came to the Jedi academy for the first time when we were only two years old." He smiled a cocky, lopsided grin--the one their mother always said made him look just like his father.

  Lowbacca gave an interrogative growl. "He asked how many times you've given this tour," Han translated.

  "Well," Jacen sputtered, his face reddening slightly, "if you mean in an official capacity, as opposed to, er, um..." His voice trailed off.

  "What he means is," Jaina put in firmly, "this is our first time."

  Lowbacca exchanged a glance with his uncle. Chewbacca raised a furred brown arm, indicated the long corridor with a flourish of his hand, and gave a short bark.

  "Right," Han said. "Let's go."

  The twins led the group down a set of mossy, cracked stairs to the main level and out onto the grassy clearing in front of the Great Temple. Jacen was eager to prove himself a good tour guide and pointed to each squarish level of the gigantic pyramid as he spoke.

  "At the very top is an observation deck that gives one of the best views of the big planet Yavin overhead--unless of course you climb one of those huge old Massassi trees in the jungle," he said with a laugh. "The top level of the pyramid has only one enormous room--the grand audience chamber--that can hold thousands of people."

  "That's where the Jedi trainees gather when Uncle Luke--I mean Master Skywalker--gives his lessons," Jaina said.

  Jacen went on to explain that the lower levels had been remodeled in recent years. The larger level directly below the grand audience chamber housed those who lived at the academy--trainees, academy staff, and Master Skywalker himself--and also contained rooms for storage or meditation, as well as chambers for guests and visiting dignitaries.

  The pyramid's huge ground level held the Communications Center, the main computers, meeting areas and offices, and common rooms in which meals were prepped and eaten. It also held the Strategy Center-the chamber that had been known as the War Room in the days when the temple had housed the Alliance's secret base. Under ground, and completely invisible from where they stood, was a gigantic hangar bay that stored shuttles, speeders, fighters, and other aircraft.

  On two sides of the Great Temple and along the landing area flowed broad rivers, and beyond them lay the lush and mostly unexplored jungles of the fourth moon of Yavin. "The temples were built by the Massassi, a mysterious ancient race. There are actually lots of structures scattered throughout the jungles," Jacen said. "Some of them are just ruins, really--like the Palace of the Woolamander across the river there."

  He described the power-generating station next to the main temple, a series of plate-shaped wheels, twice as tall as Jacen himself, standing on edge and connected through the center by a long axle.

  "So you see," Jaina said, picking up the narration where her brother had left off, "with the power station, the river, and the jungles, the Jedi academy is fairly self-sufficient. Come on, let's go inside."

  The tour concluded at the twins' quarters, where Jacen and Jaina delighted in showing their father and the two Wookiees their respective treasure troves of pets and salvaged bits of machinery. Han Solo beamed with fatherly pride. Lowbacca displayed a gratifying if subdued interest in the creatures in Jacen's menagerie.

  When the group moved into his sister's room, Jacen quickly slid the crystal snake he had been showing off back into its cage and hurried after them. By the time he bounded through the door, Lowbacca was already engrossed in an assortment of gadgets and wiring that he had spread out across Jaina's floor. He was far more interested in the electronics than in the wild jungle creatures.

  "Do you like working on machines, Chewie--uh, I mean, Lowbacca?" Jaina asked, bending next to the gangly Wookiee.

  The hairy, creature expressed his fascination with such a long series of grunts, growls, and rumbles that Jacen was at a loss to understand how a simple yes-or-no question could produce such an animated answer.

  As usual, their father translated. "First of all, Lowbacca would take it as a great sign of friendship if you would call him Lowie."

  Jacen gave a pleased nod. " 'Lowie,' huh? I like that."

  "And for the rest..." Han continued, "well, I'm not sure I followed it all. The thing he really gets excited about is computers."

  Jaina patted the young Wookiee on the shoulder. "We can do a lot of things together, then, Lowie." Chewbacca chuffed in agreement.

  But Jaina's forehead furrowed with sudden concern. "Uh, Dad?" she said. "It's obvious that Lowie has studied our language and understands us as well as Chewie does. But we can't understand him. After all, it took you years to learn the Wookiee language. How is he going to get by here at the Jedi academy where nobody can understand him?"

  Jacen nodded agreement, looking at the young Wookiee. "Who'll translate for us?"

  They were interrupted at this point by a triumphant bark from Chewbacca.

  "We have just the answer for you," Han said, clapping his hands and rubbing them together. "A little something that See-Threepio and Chewie cooked up."

  Chewbacca turned and held out a shiny metallic device for everyone to see. The sidewise-ovoid apparatus was silvery, slightly longer than Lowie's hand and about four fingers thick, flat on the back and rounded on the front. It looked like a face, with two yellow optical sensors unevenly spaced near the top, a more or less triangular protrusion toward the center, and a perforated oblong on the lower portion that Jacen took to be a speaker.

  Chewbacca fiddled with something at the back of the device, and the yellow eyes flickered to life. A thin metallic voice, careful and correct, issued from the tiny speaker. "Greetings. I am a Miniaturized Translator Droid--Em Teedee--specializing in human--Wookiee relations. I am fluent in over six forms of communication. My primary programmed function is to translate Wookiee speech into other humanoid languages." It paused expectantly and then added, "Might I be of assistance?"

  Jacen laughed. "It can't be!"

  Jaina gasped. "Sounds just like Threepio!"

  "Almost," their father replied, his mouth twisted in wry amusement. He scratched under his collar with one lazy finger. "A little too much like Threepio, for my money. But since he did most of the programming on Em Teedee, I couldn't talk him out of it." He shrugged apologetically.

  "Why don't you kids try it out during the midday meal? Chewbacca and I still have some business to discuss with Luke, then well take off in the Falcon later this afternoon. We've got to see Lando at his mining station."

  The common room the Jedi trainees used as a mess hall was filled with wooden tables of various heights. The seats-chairs, benches, ne
sts, ledges, cushions, and stools--ame in a broad variety of shapes and sizes to accommodate the differing customs and anatomies of human and alien students.

  The plantlike members of the Jedi academy had gone outside to the bright sun-washed steps of the Great Temple, where they could soak up light from Yavin's white sun and photosynthesize for nutrients, adding small packets of minerals into their digestive orifices. Inside the mess hall, though, dozens of unusual species sat together eating exotic foods particular to their own kind.

  Jacen followed a step behind, still chattering about the old Massassi temples, as Jaina found a table at one end of the large hall that had a chair appropriate for Lowbacca. So far Jacen had been unable to elicit more than a few nods and gestures from the Wookiee, who seemed deep in thought, intent on absorbing the smells, sights, and sounds around him.

  Determined to start a real conversation with the new trainee, Jacen cast about in his mind for a good question. So, Lowie, how much stuff do you need to move in? Naw, that was a stupid question.

  How about, How old are you? No, that would get him only a short answer. And anyway, their father had told them that earlier this morning. Lowie was nineteen, barely an adolescent by Wookiee standards. Maybe something like, How did you know you wanted to become a Jedi? Yes, that was good.

  But before he could pose the question, the solid, muscular form of Tenel Ka swung into the seat next to him, across from Lowbacca.

  "New student," she said, acknowledging Lowbacca in the brief, direct way that was so characteristic of her.

  "Lowie," Jacen said, "this is our friend Tenel Ka, from the planet of Dathomir."

  "And this," Jaina responded, making the introductions for her side of the table, "is Lowbacca, nephew of Chewbacca, from the Wookiee homeworld of Kashyyyk."

  Tenel Ka rose formally and inclined her head, tossing her red-gold hair. "Lowbacca of Kashyyyk, I greet you," she said, and resumed her seat. Lowbacca nodded in return and uttered three short growls.

  Jacen waited for a moment, looking at the little translator droid clipped to Lowie's belt, but nothing happened.

  "Well?" Jaina said expectantly. "You going to translate for its, Em Teedee?"

  "Goodness me, Mistress Jaina, I am sorry," the tiny droid replied in a flustered, mechanical voice. "Oh, how dreadful! My initial opportunity to perform my primary function for Master Lowbacca, and I've failed him. I assure you, masters and mistresses all, that from now on I will endeavor to make each translation as speedily and as eloquently as possible-"

  Lowbacca interrupted the translator droid's self-reproach with a sharp growl.

  "Translate?" the little droid replied. "Translate what? Oh! Oh, I see. Yes. Immediately." Em Teedee made a noise that sounded for all the world as if it was clearing its throat, and then began. "Master Lowbacca says, 'May no sun rise upon a day, nor any moon rise upon a night, in which, he is not as honored to see you, and to be in your presence, as he is at this very moment.' "

  Jaina rolled her eyes. Jacen shook his head in disbelief. But Tenel Ka's face remained expressionless.

  From the corner of his eye, Jacen caught sight of the troublesome young student Raynar in his colorful robes, snickering at them from a nearby table. Automated servers carried generous bowls of food from the kitchen and placed them in front of each trainee.

  But Jacen's attention was brought back to his own table when Lowie growled down into the optical sensors of the translator droid.

  "Well, so what if I did embellish a bit?" the droid asked defensively, as a plate of steaming, blood-red meat was placed in front of the Wookiee. "I was only attempting to make you sound more civilized."

  Lowbacca's threatening growl left no doubt as to whether he was grateful to the droid.

  "Very well," Em Teedee huffed. "Perhaps a better translation of Master Lowbacca's words would have been, 'The sun has never shined so brightly for this humble Wookiee as on this day we meet.'"

  Jacen accepted a hot cup of soup that his sister passed across the table to him. He shot a questioning look at Lowie, who growled again at Em Teedee.

  "Well, have it your way then," the droid said haughtily, but in a more subdued voice, "But I assure you that my translations were much more refined. Ahem. What Master Lowbacca actually said was, 1 am pleased to meet you.'"

  When the Wookiee finally grunted in satisfaction, Tenel Ka replied gravely, as if she had not heard any of the other translations, "It is a pleasure shared, Lowbacca."

  As an automated tray trundled past toward Raynar's nearby table, Tenel Ka reached out and snagged the last jug of fresh juice. She poured the rich ruby liquid into each of their cups and then set the jug with a gentle thump on the table before them. She blinked her cool gray eyes and solemnly held out her cup.

  "Jacen and Jaina are already my friends. I offer you friendship, Lowbacca of Kashyyyk."

  The Wookiee hesitated, unsure of what to do. Jaina pressed a cup into his hand. Jacen raised his and said, "Friendship."

  "Friendship," Jaina echoed.

  Nodding, Lowie lifted his glass high in the air, threw his head back, and let out a roar that rang through the hall.

  The small voice of Em Teedee broke the silence that followed. "Master Lowbacca most emphatically accepts your offer of friendship and extends his own." To everyone's surprise, the Wookiee did not correct the translator.

  "Accepted," Tenel Ka said, taking a drink. When everyone had followed suit, she said, "And now we are friends."

  "That means you can call him Lowie now," Jaina said.

  Tenel Ka considered this for a moment. "I choose to honor him by using his complete name."

  At another table, three short reptilian Cha'a sat around a trayful of warm, rocking eggs, staring fixedly at them like the predators they were. When the eggs cracked and opened, the Cha'a lunged for the bright pink furry hatchlings as they emerged fresh from the shells.

  Two whistling avian creatures shared a plateful of thin, writhing threads covered with fluffy blue hair-tantalizing ropy caterpillars which they slurped one at a time through their narrow, horny beaks.

  As Jacen sat at the table spooning his soup, trying to think of something amusing to say to Tenel Ka, or at least to continue the conversation with Lowie, he caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye-something slithering toward the table beside them. A glassy glitter. A serpentine flash.

  Jacen's heart leaped into his throat. He suddenly wondered if he had fastened the cage of the crystal snake when his father and the Wookiees had finished their tour of his chambers.

  "Hey," Raynar said, leaning over the table beside them, his flashy robes so brilliant that they made Jacen's eyes ache. "Would you mind giving our juice jug back?" Raynar used his own Jedi powers to snatch the jug from their table and carry it through the air back toward himself. "Next time please ask before you just take it." He leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest with a self-satisfied expression.

  Just then, light fell on the crystal snake, and Jacen saw it with perfect clarity. It reared up on Raynar's lap and hissed at him, its flat triangular head staring the boy right in the face.

  Raynar saw it and shrieked, losing his Force concentration. The jug wobbled, then fell, spilling deep red juice all over his bright robes.

  Jacen leaped to his feet and jumped for the snake. He had to catch it before it wreaked more havoc. He tackled Raynar, trying to grab the serpent from the other boy's lap. Raynar, thinking he was being attacked from all sides, screamed in terror at the top of his lungs.

  As he and Jacen struggled, their entire table toppled over, spilling dark brown pudding, knocking other beverage containers right and left, spraying food on Raynar's companions at the table.

  Tenel Ka, not understanding the problem but always ready to defend her friends, jumped into the fray. She picked up Jacen's hot soup and hurled it toward Raynar's companions, who, seeing the attack coming from a new front, decided to retaliate.

  A platter of honeyed noodles sailed across the
dining hall toward Jaina, but she ducked. The noodles instead splattered and clung to the bristly white fur of a Talz--a bearlike creature that stood up and blatted a musical note of dismay. When Jaina saw the noodles sticking to the alien's white fur, she couldn't stop herself from laughing.

  The crystal snake slithered out of Jacen's grasp as Jacen crawled across Raynar's squirming lap. The young Jedi screamed as if he were being murdered, but Jacen scuttled under the dining tables after the serpent. Bumping one of the tables over while grabbing for the snake, he felt smooth, dry scales against his fingertips--but the snake slid through them, and he could not hold on.

  Another table was knocked over as Lowie came to help. With a flurry of feathers, the avian creatures squawked and fought over their plateful of squirming, fuzzy blue thread-worms.

  More food flew through the air, levitated by Jedi powers, and tossed from one table to another. The Jedi students were laughing, seeing it now as a release from the tension of the grueling studies and deep concentration required of them during their training.

  Steamed leaves flew in the faces of the reptilian Cha'a, interrupting their predatory concentration. All three of them stood up and whirled to meet the attack, back-to-back, standing in a three-point formation, hissing and glaring. The milky tan eggs on their eating platter continued to hatch, and the pink fuzzy hatchlings chose that moment to escape.

  Lowie let out a stone-rumbling Wookiee roar, and Em Teedee squeaked with a high-pitched alarm. "I can't see a thing, Master Lowbacca! Comestibles are obscuring my optical sensors. Do please clean them off!"

  Artoo-Detoo trundled into the dining chamber and let out an electronic wail, but his droid cries were drowned out by the laughter and the tumult of flying food. Before Artoo could wheel around and sound the alarm, a large tray of creamy dessert pastries splattered across his domed top. The astro-mech droid beat a hasty, whirring retreat.

  As the crystal snake slithered toward the cracked stone walls to escape, Jacen desperately plowed forward. He reached out with one hand and grabbed the pointed tail. The serpent rippled around invisibly in a fluid motion, flashing its fangs toward Jacen, ready to bite down on the hand holding it. But Jacen held out his other hand, pointing with his finger and the Force, touching the snake's tiny brain.