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

by Kevin J. Anderson

  "My night has been no more enjoyable than yours," Tenel Ka interrupted drily.

  "Listen!" Em Teedee said. "Oh, thank goodness! Those dreadful creatures are leaving."

  Tenel Ka didn't know whether Em Teedee was referring to the woolamanders or the giant flying reptiles, but she realized that the sounds of the overhead battle were moving farther and farther away through the canopy.

  "We must make our escape immediately, Mistress Tenel Ka."

  "We can't. We'll have to wait until morning. Can you keep a watch out tonight while I sleep?"

  "I'd be delighted to keep a watch for you, Mistress, but must we spend the night here?"

  "Yes, we must," Tenel Ka snapped, defensive now that the worst danger was over. "I need to wait until daylight so I can climb a tree and find out where we are."

  "Oh," said Em Teedee. "But whyever should you want to do something like that?"

  Tenel Ka growled, "Because we're lost in the jungle. This is a fact."

  "Oh, dear--is that all that's bothering you?" Em Teedee said. "Why didn't you say so? After all, I am fluent in six forms of communication and I am equipped with all manner of sensors: photo-optical, olfactory, directional, auditory--"

  "Directional?" Tenel Ka broke in. "You mean you know where we are?"

  "Oh, most assuredly, Mistress Tenel Ka. Didn't I just say so?"

  She groaned and shook her head. "All right, Em Teedee, let's go. Lead on."

  Tenel Ka's spirits were brighter than the twin beams that shone from Em Teedee's eyes and lit her way along the forest floor. As annoying as the little droid could be, she was glad of his company. Em Teedee seemed genuinely interested in hearing all that had happened to her since the TIE fighter pilot had tried to capture them that afternoon. In turn, she found herself enjoying his descriptions of the T-23 crash and his adventures with the woolamanders. She wondered what had happened to Lowbacca, and to the twins.

  They stopped only a few times, so that she could drink or check the dressing on her minor wounds. Using rudimentary first-aid supplies she kept in her belt, she had bound up the claw scratches on her arm and the gash on her leg. The wounds throbbed and burned, but did not slow her down. She jogged much of the way, and kept to a fast-paced march even when she needed to rest.

  The distant white sun of the Yavin system was bright in the morning sky when Tenel Ka and Em Teedee finally broke through the last stand of trees into the cleared landing area. The sun-warmed stone of the Great Temple glowed like a welcome beacon in the distance.

  "Oh, we made it!" Em Teedee said joyfully. Tenel Ka looked around and saw in the center of the clearing a ship that she recognized well: the Millennium Falcon.

  Running toward the modified light freighter at full speed were two Wookiees, one large and one smaller, and Jacen and Jaina's father, Han Solo. She guessed immediately what mission they were on and changed her course toward the Falcon, waving and shouting as she ran.

  Overhead, she heard the bone-chilling howl of a fast-approaching TIE fighter. She put on another burst of speed toward the ship.

  But Solo and the Wookiees did not see her. In their hurry to rescue Jacen and Jaina, the three scrambled up the ramp of the Falcon. They must have kept the engines idling to keep them warm, she figured, for she could hear their whine.

  Tenel Ka wanted to help rescue the twins; she couldn't let them down again. "Call them, Em Teedee," she said, pouring on a last burst of speed, though her legs already trembled with exhaustion.

  Em Teedee mused, "Am I to take it that you wish to communicate with them?"

  "This is a fact."

  "Certainly, Mistress. I would be delighted, but what shall--"

  "Just do it!" She gritted her teeth and sprinted as fast as she could.

  Suddenly Em Teedee's voice boomed at top volume through the clearing. "Attention, Millennium Falcon. Please delay departure momentarily to take on two additional passengers."

  Tenel Ka didn't even mind the ringing in her ears when she saw the ramp of the Millennium Falcon lower. At full tilt, she ran up the ramp.

  "Okay," she gasped, collapsing to the floor in the crew compartment. "Let's go!"

  Han Solo and the two Wookiees looked at her in amazement for an instant, but no one needed any further urging. Even as she spoke, the hatches sealed, and with a surge of defiance the Millennium Falcon took off.

  Chapter 20

  Qorl flew his single fighter at top speed over the thick jungle canopy. The rushing air of Yavin 4 screamed around the TIE fighter's rounded pilot compartment and the rectangular solar arrays. He remembered his days as a trainee. He had been an excellent pilot--one of the best in his squadron--soaring through mock battles and enforcing the Emperor's unbending will.

  Air currents buffeted him, and the pilot reveled in the sensation of flight. He had not forgotten, not even after so many years. The vibrating power that pulsed through the fighter's engines, along with a sense of freedom and liberation after so long an exile, buoyed him.

  Qorl watched the knotted green crowns of Massassi trees flowing beneath him in the storm of his ship's passage. With his thickly gloved, badly healed arm, he found it difficult to control the Imperial craft--but he was a fighter pilot. He was a great pilot. He had managed to land his ship, despite grievous engine damage, under heavy enemy fire. He had survived undetected in hostile territory for two decades.

  Now, flying low over the trees to avoid notice from any possible defenses at the Rebel base, Qorl felt his memories, his ingrained skill, come flooding back to him.

  The Empire is my family. The Rebels wish to destroy the New Order. The Rebels must be eliminated--ELIMINATED!

  His greatest advantage was surprise. This attack would come out of nowhere. The Rebels would be expecting nothing. He would streak in with all weapons blazing. He would level the Rebel base structures, blast them into rubble. He would kill all those who had conspired to blow up the Death Star, who had killed Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin. He, a single soldier, would secure vengeance for the entire Empire.

  There! Qorl squinted through the scratched goggles of his blast helmet. Protruding from a clearing in the dense jungle, a towering stone temple rose up--a ziggurat, the squarish pyramid that served as the main structure of the base.

  Qorl roared low over the facilities of the old Rebel stronghold. A wide, sluggish river sliced through the jungle near the site of the temples. On the opposite side of the brownish-green current lay other crumbling ruins, but they seemed uninhabited. Then he noticed a large power-generating station next to the towering ziggurat and knew for certain that he had not been, wrong: this base was still used as a military installation.

  As he brought the TIE fighter in on his first attack run, Qorl saw that the jungle had been cleared to make a large landing area in front of the Great Temple. On the flat field he saw only one ship--disk-shaped, with twin prongs in front.

  Qorl didn't immediately recognize the make or model of the lone ship below. It was some kind of light freighter, not a Rebel X- wing or any of the familiar battleships he had learned about during his rigorous combat training.

  On the ground, several people ran toward the ship, sprinting away from the stone pyramid. Scrambling to battle stations perhaps? His lip curled in a snarl. He would take care of them.

  He flicked the buttons on his control panel, powering up the TIE fighter's weapons systems. Before he could align the victims in his targeting cross, though, all the small figures below managed to climb aboard the light freighter. Its boarding ramp drew up, preparing for launch.

  He dismissed the light freighter as a possible target--for now, at least. It was probable, Qori realized, that the Rebels kept a large force of more powerful fighters in an underground hangar bay. If so, his first task was to prevent those craft from launching--even if only by damaging the doors enough to keep the ships trapped inside.

  He decided his best strategy would be to continue his straight-line course and fire with full-power laser cannons on the main s
tructure of the Great Temple. He would blow the entire building to rubble--perhaps causing it to collapse internally, thus eliminating the Rebels and destroying all their equipment inside.

  Then he could swoop around and take care of the single light freighter, even if it managed to get up off the ground. His third target would be the power-generating station.

  With the Rebels completely paralyzed by his lightning attack, he would swing back for the last time. He would charge up his laser cannons again and go for the kill, mopping up anything he had missed the first time.

  From start to finish, it would take only a few minutes to bring the Rebels to their knees.

  Qorl centered the Great Temple in his targeting cross, aiming at the apex of the squared-off pyramid, with its thin banks of skylights and ancient vine-covered sculptures. The TIE fighter zoomed in.

  He grasped the firing stick with his good hand. At exactly the right moment he depressed the firing buttons, letting an expression of anticipation light his normally emotionless face.

  Nothing.

  He squeezed the button again and again--and nothing happened! The weapons systems did not respond.

  Qorl flicked on the backups as he spun the TIE fighter in the air, barreling down again on his target. Over and over he tried to fire, but the laser cannons were completely dead. His eyes swept the diagnostic panels, but all the readings seemed normal.

  With his gloved hand Qorl pounded on the instrumentation panel, as if that would fix anything--and with old Imperial equipment, sometimes it did. But not this time.

  He frantically worked with the controls, digging under the panels to restart the weapons systems even as he flew on. He reached down and felt around his seat, searching for anything he could use to jump-start the malfunctioning laser cannons.

  Qorl caught the glimmer out of the corner of his eye, reflected against the dark goggles of his helmet. He glanced down and noticed something moving ... sinuous, barely seen, glittering and transparent.

  The crystal snake reared up right beside him, its triangular head showing up as a faint rainbow in the glow from the cockpit lights. Qorl, who had seen plenty of the reptilian creatures during his exile on Yavin 4, spotted it immediately and reacted.

  He let out a startled cry and tried to brush the snake away. It lunged and bit down as he reached out with his crippled arm to block it. The crystal snake dug its spearlike fangs info the thick leather of Qorl's gauntlet, but was unable to penetrate all the way to his skin.

  As he flung his hand back and forth, Qorl could feel the heavy weight of the crystal snake writhing, snapping, though he could see almost nothing at all.

  He let the TIE fighter fly itself as he reached with his good hand to grab the long body of the serpent just behind its head, He ripped the fangs free and stuffed the thrashing creature into the cockpit jettison chute. With a cry of disgust he ejected the snake into the air, where it fell toward the treetops of the jungle moon, disappearing instantly in the bright sunlight.

  He wrestled for control of his weaponless vessel. The Jedi twins must have done something in their repairs.

  He managed to stabilize his erratic flight... but before he could decide on a new course, bright streaks from an enemy laser cannon sizzled through the air, bolts of energy that ionized the atmosphere around Qorl's TIE fighter.

  He yanked at the control stick with his good arm, and his fighter lurched into a starboard spin. The Rebel light freighter had taken to the air and was flying after Qorl like a furious bird of prey. And its weapons worked just fine.

  Qorl punched in full power to the twin ion engines and decided that his only chance for now was to try to escape.

  In the heart of the jungle, next to Qorl's primitive dwelling, Jacen and Jaina sat beside each other, deep in concentration. They reached out with the Force to see what was going on back at the Jedi academy. Their powers were only sufficient to bring them shadowy images, distant echoes of thoughts... but it was enough.

  "He didn't know I never fixed the weapons systems... but then, he never asked. I managed to jury-rig the readouts so they would lock normal," Jaina said at last. "He can fly, but his ship is defenseless."

  "Yes, and I think the crystal snake must have distracted Qorl somehow," Jacen said.

  "I wonder what happened to it." They smiled at each other.

  "I suppose our next step," Jacen said, squinting up at the morning light that filtered through the trees, "is to figure out how to get back home."

  Jaina pushed a tangle of her usually straight brown hair back from her face and took a deep breath. "Agreed," she said, then clapped her hands and rubbed them together. "So what are we waiting for?"

  Chapter 21

  "Hang on!" Han Solo yelled.

  As the Millennium Falcon lifted off from the trampled landing area in front of the ancient temple, Tenel Ka struggled to a seat beside Lowbacca and strapped herself in.

  "That TIE fighter's coming in, and it looks mean," Han said as he and his Wookiee copilot frantically set switches and calibrated the weapons targeting systems. "Hope Tionne managed to get all the Jedi trainees to safety."

  Their seats tilted back as the Falcon angled up into the air, its sublight thrusters roaring behind it. The Imperial TIE fighter broke through the sky overhead like a yowling battering ram.

  Han Solo looked grim as he gripped the controls. His jaw was set, his shoulders rigid, At the moment he had no way of knowing whether his children were safe, or if this Imperial enemy had killed them both, just as the pilot had tried to blast Lowbacca and Tenel Ka.

  Tenel Ka wished she could give him some reassurance, but she knew nothing herself. Still panting with exhaustion from her long run through the jungle, she adjusted the restraints across the reptilian armor on her chest. At her side Em Teedee's thin, warbly voice spoke up. "I beg your pardon, Mistress Tenel Ka, but I can't see a thing! Your crash webbing has blocked my optical sensors."

  When Tenel Ka freed the flat, silvery device from its restraints, Em Teedee let out what sounded like a sigh of relief. "Ah, yes, much better. Now I can see perfectly. Oh, dear!" he said in alarm. "I didn't want you to rescue me from that dreadful jungle just so we could all be blown up chasing that TIE fighter."

  Lowbacca grunted and looked over at the small translating droid with obvious surprise and relief.

  "This is yours, Lowbacca," Tenel Ka said. "I found it in the jungle." She handed Em Teedee to the young Wookiee, who accepted the little droid gratefully, bleating his thanks.

  Han Solo spun the Falcon around in a tight arc, its engines rumbling behind them as they pursued the TIE fighter. "He's coming in on an attack run," Han said. "But he's not firing his weapons for some reason."

  Through the cockpit windows, Tenel Ka watched as the TIE fighter she had helped to repair zoomed low over the Great Temple, seemingly bent on destruction-but its laser cannons did not fire.

  "I'm going to get his attention, Chewie," Han said. "You open a comm channel. That guy did something to my kids--and I want to find out where they are."

  Chewbacca growled and reached with his long hairy arm to toggle a few switches on the Millennium Falcon's control panel.

  Han fired two warning shots. Bolts of brilliant light streaked past the squarish planar wings of the Imperial craft-bracketing it, but doing no damage.

  "Attention, TIE pilot," Han said. "You're going nowhere if I don't find out where..." He paused."... the two young Jedi Knights are. You're in the middle of my targeting cross, so your choices are simple: surrender, or we blow you out of the sky."

  A gruff voice came back over the comm systems. "Surrender is betrayal," the pilot said, then broke the connection.

  The TIE fighter zoomed upward on an impossibly steep trajectory, climbing into the air above the dense green treetops. Then the Imperial ship wheeled about in an evasive maneuver.

  "All right," Han said, his anger evident. "This old ship has taken on plenty of TIE fighters in its day. We can take on one more. Punch it, Chewie."
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  The Falcon lunged forward in another burst of speed as Chewbacca worked the controls.

  Em Teedee wailed, "Oh, no! I can't watch. Somebody cover my optical sensors."

  Han spared a second to glance back at the droid, and found Lowbacca cradling Em Teedee in his lap. "Just like having See- Threepio with us again. I think we may have to adjust that programming."

  "Oh, dear," Em Teedee said.

  In the back Lowbacca grumbled a suggestion, which his uncle seconded loudly.

  "Good idea," Han said. "Let's try the tractor beam first. Maybe--just maybe--we can bring that ship to the ground without destroying it. That way we can get some information. If we say 'Please,' he might be a little more cooperative."

  Chewbacca worked the Falcon's tractor beam generator, casting out the invisible beam like a force-field net to grab the Imperial ship.

  The TIE fighter lurched and jerked to one side as the tractor beam snagged a partial hold--but the pilot alternated bursts from his twin ion engines and tore free, spinning upward in a tight corkscrew that made Han whistle with reluctant admiration.

  "This guy's good," he said. "After him, Chewie! Full speed."

  The TIE fighter, as if seeing it as his one chance for escape, darted back down toward the rough greenery of Massassi trees. It dodged jagged branches that thrust up like blackened witches' fingers where lightning and forest fires had burned the jungle, dipped down to trace the winding courses of rivers, and streaked over lush canyons--all with the Millennium Falcon following in hot pursuit.

  If it were only a matter of speed, the Falcon's more powerful engines could have outrun the TIE fighter and brought it down, but the small ship's maneuverability among the dangerous treetops gave the Imperial pilot a definite advantage.

  Han Solo, however, had greater determination. "What have you done with my kids?" he yelled into the comm channel.