by Timothy Zahn
And from nozzles nestled half-hidden beneath their cockpits spat a deadly salvo of blue fire.
But their target was no longer there. An instant before the aliens’ thrusters had fired, Luke had caught the subtle disturbance in the Force; and by the time their weapons flashed he had thrown the X-wing into a sharp climb, curving up and around in a tight loop that would take him back around into attack position behind his attackers.
Or at least, that was the normal endpoint of the maneuver. This time, though, Luke had other plans. Instead of pulling out of his loop behind the aliens, he held the X-wing’s nose pointed toward the ground for an extra pair of heartbeats. Then, at what seemed like the last second, he twisted the starfighter into a stomach-wrenching, twin-rotational turn. An instant later they were running bare meters above the ground on a vector perpendicular to their original course.
“What are they doing?” Luke called, not daring to take his eyes away from the landscape long enough to look for himself.
The droid’s warning screech and a sudden tingling in the Force were his answer. From behind came another volley of blue fire, most of it going wide but a few shots splattering off his rear deflector shield. “Any new friends joined them?” he called.
Artoo warbled a negative. That was something, anyway. Still, those ships were good and the crews clearly knew what they were doing. At two-to-one odds, Luke was going to have his hands full. Especially since—
Artoo twittered an urgent question. “No, leave the S-foils as they are,” Luke told him. “We’re not going to shoot back.”
The droid’s question was a disbelieving whistle. “Because we don’t know who they are or why they’re here,” Luke told him, eyes measuring the ground ahead. Just beyond Mara’s canyon the terrain abruptly became something shattered-looking, broken into granite-walled cliffs and deep, sharp-edged crevices. “I don’t want to kill any of them until I know who and what they are.”
Artoo’s rejoinder became another screech as the latest enemy salvo blew a thin layer of metal from the top of the starboard S-foil. “Don’t worry, we’re almost there,” Luke soothed him, risking a quick glance at his status displays. No serious damage yet, but that wouldn’t last long once the attackers got a little closer.
Which meant that his best hope was to keep that from happening.
Behind him, Artoo whistled suspiciously. “That’s exactly where we’re going,” Luke confirmed. They were nearly to the shattered landscape now; and off to portside he spotted a likely looking gorge. “Oh, relax—it’s no worse than some of the other things we’ve pulled off,” he added, twisting the X-wing’s nose toward the gorge. “Anyway, we haven’t got a choice. Hang on—here we go.”
Beggar’s Canyon on Tatooine had been a tricky but familiar obstacle run of twists and corners and switchbacks. The Death Star trench had been far straighter, but with the addition of turbolaser fire and attacking TIE fighters to keep it interesting. Now, the Nirauan cliffs took the challenge a step farther by adding unpredictable curves and breakpoints, with varying widths and depths, jutting rocks, and clinging tree vines.
The newly signed Rebel recruit at Yavin would have recognized the risks involved. Even the cocky adolescent on Tatooine would have hesitated at the stupidity of tackling such an unknown labyrinth at such high speeds. The seasoned Jedi Luke had become, though, knew he wouldn’t have a problem with it.
He was mostly right. The ship sliced through the first series of twists with ease, Luke’s piloting skill and prescience in the Force combining with the X-wing’s innate maneuverability to leave the alien ships far behind. He shot through an open valley, changed direction toward a new canyon—
And nearly lost control as a burst of blue fire raked across the portside fuselage.
“It’s all right,” he called back to Artoo, feeling a flash of annoyance with himself as the X-wing plunged again into the relative safety of his chosen ravine. This had happened before: focusing his attention—and the Force—too narrowly in one direction had a tendency to blind him to anything happening outside that cone. Clearly, at least one of the alien pilots had been smart enough to abandon the chase and fly up over the maze to wait for the target to show himself.
But the gambit had failed; and if the terrain cooperated, he wouldn’t get another chance at it. The X-wing emerged into a second valley, this one smaller than the first, and veered off into another ravine. Letting the Force guide his hands, Luke watched the cliffs around him, looking for just the right place …
And then, suddenly, there it was. On both sides of the X-wing steep cliffs rose upward, one of them angling sharply toward the other until only a tiny ribbon of daylight showed at the top between them. Lines and clusters of drab and scraggly bushes clung to various parts of the craggy rock, with a thick matting of brown bushes and squat trees covering the canyon floor below. Ahead and behind, the canyon curved sharply to either side, leaving this center part as an isolated bubble surrounded by rock.
It was the perfect place to go to ground.
Artoo didn’t squeal or screech as Luke swung the starfighter around in a hundred-eighty-degree skid in a classic smuggler’s reverse. Probably, Luke decided as he fed power to the thrusters, because the little droid was too busy holding on for dear life. For a handful of seconds the X-wing bucked beneath him, and he fought hard for stability as it tried to flip out of control. Outside, the canyon walls shooting past began to slow, and as they did so he eased off on the drive and keyed in the repulsorlifts. The deceleration pressure crushing him against the seat cushions faded; spinning the X-wing around to face forward again, he threw a quick look around. Directly ahead, a pair of squat but bushy trees rose up from the canyon floor, straddling what appeared to be a dry creek bed, their trunks just the right distance apart. Killing the last of the X-wing’s forward velocity, he dropped its nose down to slide neatly between the tree trunks.
“There,” he said, running the last steps of the landing cycle and shutting down the repulsorlifts. “That wasn’t so hard, now, was it?”
There was a weak and slightly shaky whistle from behind him. Apparently, Artoo hadn’t found his voice yet.
Smiling tightly, Luke popped the canopy, wincing at the high-pitched scratching sounds as dozens of thorn-edged leaves scraped across the transparisteel, and slid off his helmet and gloves.
The air flooding in from outside was cool and smelled vaguely mossy. For a long minute he listened, stretching out with Force-enhanced senses for sounds of pursuit. But there was nothing except the normal sounds of wind rustling through the leaves and the distant chirps of avians or insects. “I think we’ve lost them,” he told Artoo. “At least for now. You figured out where we are?”
Artoo beeped, still sounding a little dazed, and a map appeared on the computer display.
Luke studied it. Not too bad, but not too good either. They were no more than ten kilometers from Mara’s cave, but most of the territory between here and there consisted of the same kind of narrow gorges and rocky cliffs they’d just been flying through. At least a full day’s travel, probably two, possibly three.
On the other hand, the very roughness of the ground would give them better cover than they could reasonably have asked for. All in all, a pretty fair trade.
But it wouldn’t be much of a trade if the aliens found them before they even got started. “Come on,” he said, easing out of the cockpit and rolling out to the ground. The attempt to avoid the leaf thorns was only partially successful, but only a couple of them actually drew blood. “Let’s get the pack sorted out and get out of here.”
It was the work of a few minutes to break out the camo-net Karrde had sent along and to pull it snugly over the X-wing. Then, as an extra precaution, he cut up some of the smaller bushes and tree limbs with his lightsaber and scattered them on top of the net. It wasn’t perfect, especially at close range, but it was the best he could do in the available time.
Karrde’s people had also put his survival pack together, assemb
ling the supplies and loading them aboard the X-wing while Luke hurried through the datawork necessary for getting off Cejansij. And as Luke had come to expect from the smuggler’s organization over the years, they’d done a first-rate job of it. Split into two separate carrypacks, the supplies included ration bars, water filter/bottles, medpacs, glow rods, a good supply of syntherope, a spare blaster, a survival tent with bedroll, and even a small selection of low-yield grenades.
“I’m surprised they didn’t try to cram a landspeeder in,” Luke grunted as he hoisted one of the packs experimentally onto his shoulders. It was heavy enough, but the weight had been well distributed and would be reasonably easy to carry. “I guess we’ll have to leave the other pack here. You ready to do a little climbing?”
Artoo warbled questioningly, his dome swiveling to peer first one direction down the canyon and then the other. “No, that’s where they’ll expect us to come out,” Luke told him. He pointed upward toward one of the cliffs towering over them. “That’s our route, up there.”
The droid swiveled his dome again, whistling skittishly as he leaned way back to look up. “Relax—we won’t have to go all the way to the top,” Luke calmed him. “See that gap about two-thirds of the way up? If I read the aerial pictures right, that should lead into a cut that’ll take us the rest of the way to the top.”
Artoo warbled forlornly, looking back and forth along the canyon again. “No, Artoo, we can’t go that way,” Luke told him firmly. “And we don’t have time to argue the point. Even if those ships can’t get in there, they may have smaller ones back at the fortress. And they can always come in on foot, too. You want to be sitting around when they get here?”
The droid beeped emphatically. Swiveling himself around, he started bumping determinedly along the dry creek bed toward the base of the cliff below the gap Luke had pointed out.
Smiling, Luke gave his pack one final settling shrug. Then, stretching out with the Force, he lifted Artoo high enough off the ground to clear the undergrowth and headed toward the cliff.
As it turned out, the climb had looked more daunting than it really was. Though certainly steep enough, the wall wasn’t nearly the impossibly vertical slope that it had seemed from the canyon floor. Hand- and footholds were plentiful; the whole cliff face seemed to be dotted with narrow ledges and small caves, and the bushes and vines provided sturdy handholds as well.
The only problematic part was Artoo, but even that quickly settled into a more or less comfortable routine. Finding a secure place to stand, Luke would use the Force to lift the droid up past him to a narrow ledge or conveniently spaced pair of caves, hold him in place while using the syntherope to lash him to the nearest bushes, then climb past him to the next convenient resting point and repeat.
Artoo didn’t care for any part of the procedure, of course. Midway up the cliff, though, he at least stopped complaining about it.
They were almost to the gap, and Luke was once again catching up to the point where he’d anchored Artoo, when he heard the faint voice.
He stopped, one hand gripping a lumpy vine, and listened. But there was nothing but the distant insect chirping he’d been hearing since they landed. Running through his Jedi sensory-enhancement techniques, he stretched out his hearing; but though the chirps became louder and more varied, the voice he thought he’d heard wasn’t there.
There was a loud squeal from above him: Artoo, whistling softly in his enhanced hearing. “I thought I heard something,” he murmured back, the words booming in his head. Hastily, he eased his hearing back to normal. “It was like a voice—”
He broke off at Artoo’s startled twitter. “What is it?” he asked, looking up. The droid was facing down and along the cliff; turning his head, Luke tracked along his gaze—
And froze. Perched on a thorn-leafed bush not three meters away was a small, slack-winged brown-gray creature.
Watching him.
“Take it easy,” Luke soothed Artoo, taking a moment to study the creature. About thirty centimeters long from head to talons, it was covered with smooth-looking skin. Its folded wings were more of the same, though it was hard to guess their size, and arched slightly over in a way that reminded Luke of hunched shoulders. The head was proportionally small and streamlined, with a pair of dark eyes nestled beneath fleshy folds and two horizontal slashes beneath them. The upper slash was undulating with the steady rhythm of respiration, while the lower was pressed into a tight slit. A pair of segmented, wide-taloned feet gripped the bush it was perched on, apparently not bothered in the least by the sharp thorns. The overall effect was like something halfway between a mynock and a preying makthier, and he wondered if it was related to either of those species.
Artoo gave another warble, this one wary. “I don’t think it means us any harm,” Luke assured him, still watching the creature. “I don’t sense any danger from it. And we’re a little big for a snack for something that size.”
Unless, of course, they hunted in packs. Still watching the creature, he stretched out with the Force, searching for others of the species. There were definitely more of them in the canyon, but most seemed to be fairly distant—
The lower slit on the creature’s face opened, revealing twin rows of tiny sharp teeth, and emitted a loud chirp.
Who are you?
Luke blinked in surprise. There was the voice he thought he’d heard, except that this time it was clear enough to understand. But had it come from—? “What?” he asked.
The creature chirped again. Who are you?
He was right: it was the creature who’d spoken.
Only it hadn’t spoken. Not really. But then how had Luke understood—?
And then, abruptly, he understood. “I’m Luke Skywalker,” he said, stretching toward the creature with the Force. “Jedi Knight of the New Republic. Who are you?”
The creature emitted a short series of chirps. What do you do here, Jedi Knight Sky Walker?
“I’m looking for a friend,” Luke said. His guess had been right: while he couldn’t understand the creature’s actual chirping language, he was pulling the essence of the communication from its mind via the Force. An extremely rare event, in his experience, and it probably implied the creatures were at least marginally Force-sensitive. “She landed near here nearly two weeks ago and then disappeared. Do you know where she is?”
The creature seemed to shy back a bit. It fluffed its wings partially open, resettled them across its back. It chirped again—Who is this friend?
“Her name is Mara Jade,” Luke said.
Is she another Jedi Knight?
“Sort of,” Luke hedged. Mara had dropped by his Jedi academy occasionally over the past eight years, but she’d never stayed long enough to complete her training. Actually, there were times Luke wondered if she’d ever truly begun it. “Do you know where she is?”
The wings fluffed again as the creature chirped. I know nothing.
“Really,” Luke said, letting his tone cool just a bit. He didn’t even need the Force for this one; he’d watched Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin pull this trick enough times to recognize guilty knowledge when he saw it. “What if I told you a Jedi can always tell when someone’s lying?”
From behind him came a loud and authoritative chirp. Leave the young one alone.
Luke turned his head. Perched on the bushes and craggy rocks on the other side of the cliff face were three more of the creatures. They were each twice as big as the first one; but even without the size differential the subtle differences between adult and young were instantly apparent “Your pardon,” he said to them. “I wasn’t trying to intimidate him. Perhaps you can help me in my search for my friend.”
One of the creatures spread his wings and gave a short hop to a bush closer to Luke, twisting his head one way and then the other as if studying the intruder out of each eye individually. You are not one of the others. Who are you?
“I think you know,” Luke said, a quiet sense prompting him to play a hunch. “Why don’
t you tell me instead who you are?”
The creature seemed to consider. I am Hunter Of Winds. I bargain for this nesting of the Qom Qae.
“In the name of the New Republic I greet you, Hunter Of Winds,” Luke said gravely. “I presume you know of the New Republic?”
The elder Qom Qae fluffed his wings exactly the same way the young one had. I have heard. What is the New Republic to us?
“I suppose that depends on what you want it to be,” Luke said. “But that’s a matter for diplomats and bargainers to discuss. I’m here to help a friend.”
Hunter Of Winds chirped decisively. We have no knowledge of any strangers.
But we do, the younger Qom Qae chirped from behind Luke. The Qom Jha spoke of—
Hunter Of Winds cut him off with a squawk. Is your name Seeker After Stupidity? he demanded pointedly. Be silent.
“Perhaps you’ve merely forgotten,” Luke suggested diplomatically. “A nesting bargainer must have many other matters to think about after all.”
Hunter Of Winds fluffed his wings. What happens outside this nesting does not properly concern us. Go to another nesting of the Qom Qae, or to the Qom Jha if you dare. Perhaps they will help you.
“All right,” Luke said. “Will you guide me to them?”
They are outside this nesting, Hunter Of Winds chirped. They are not our concern.
“I see,” Luke said. “Tell me, Hunter Of Winds, have you ever had a friend in danger?”
The Qom Qae spread his wings, his two companions following suit. This conversation is ended. Young one: come.
He leaped out from his bush, gliding away toward the canyon floor below on outstretched wings, his two companions following. Turning back, Luke saw the young Qom Qae follow them.
