Without warning, the creature reacted.
A slithering flap of wet, slimy meat in the form of a monstrous sluglike beast raised itself from its sleeping position. The motion knocked the stormtrooper completely off the branch, and he tumbled screaming into the depths of the forest.
With a thick slurping sound the enormous slug creature reared up and up and up, thrashing from side to side, knocking two other stormtroopers from their positions. The Imperial soldiers were thrown into pandemonium, shouting and shooting.
Jacen did his best to send a thought to the thing, identifying the white-armored guards as the enemy and planting the idea that Jacen, the two Wookiees, and Tenel Ka were the slow-witted creature’s friends.
Stormtroopers opened fire on the monster, but the blasters did little more than annoy it. Branches crashed and snapped. Energy bolts ricocheted around in the forest as the slug creature continued its reflexive attack.
Jacen stood transfixed, fascinated with the battle and the havoc the beast had already caused. Zekk and Vonnda Ra shouted conflicting orders.
The next thing Jacen knew, Tenel Ka slammed him aside. A blaster bolt sizzled past him as she wrapped a vine around her arm, grasped his waist, and dove to a lower branch. The two Wookiees were already ahead of them in their headlong flight.
Making quick use of the diversion, the young Jedi Knights continued down, down—dropping all the way to the bottom levels of the forest.
17
The forest darkness was so thick Jaina could practically taste it. She followed the agile Chewbacca more by sound than by any other sense, finding herself relying more and more on the Force to guide her hands and feet. The air was cooler here below the canopy. Jaina shivered, though she doubted it was entirely because of the drop in temperature.
With his sharp Wookiee vision, Chewie led the way without hesitation. He barked an occasional warning about a patch of slippery moss or a weak branch. Neither made any great attempt to keep quiet: their one concern was to catch up with their friends before it was too late.
Gradually Jaina’s eyesight adjusted enough that she could make out the shadowy forms of tree trunks, black against deep gray. It wasn’t much to go by, but it helped. Chewbacca made a snuffling sound and gave a low woof of triumph.
“They came this direction?” she asked.
He yipped an affirmative. Their smells were here. He detected four … no, five of them, as well as a faint smell of metal. Jaina decided he must be picking up on Em Teedee. Chewie growled low in his throat, muttering about other smells too: plasteel, burned branches, the thunderstorm-smell of ozone from blaster discharges.
Jaina’s heart skipped a beat. “Definitely sounds like the Nightsisters brought stormtroopers down here with them.”
Chewbacca increased his speed, following the fresh trail. Once Jaina misjudged the spacing and almost fell between a pair of tree branches that were farther apart than she’d thought. “Chewie, I can barely see,” she said.
With a chuff of understanding, the Wookiee stopped briefly, rummaged through the emergency pack he had taken from the fabrication facility, and pulled out a small mesh jar. Jaina recognized a phosflea lure. He broke the seal.
Moments later, as if the glowing specks had materialized directly from the air, the lure’s surface was covered with tiny phosphorescent insects. Chewbacca fastened the lure to a strap around Jaina’s waist. The “light” now shed a pinkish glow directly in front of her that swirled like a comet’s tail as she moved along.
Chewbacca pointed below Jaina to a freshly broken branch and the burned scoring from weapon fire. The others had come this way.
“You’re right,” Jaina said. “I can feel them, not too far ahead.”
The Wookiee helped her across the broad gap and they resumed their descent. Jaina climbed after him, watching handholds and footholds more carefully now as the glowing phosfleas lit her way. A feeling of dread mounted more strongly within her as they descended to each deeper level. She could feel the weight of the overlying forest pressing down on them.
Unseen predators bounded across leafy limbs, pursuing their quarries; the shriek of victims fallen in the endless hunt echoed through the thick labyrinth of branches. Smaller creatures chirped, buzzed, and chittered. None of them sounded friendly to her.
Jaina knew that her friends were good fighters, but she knew, too, that even Lowie, the strongest of all of them, feared the jungles of Kashyyyk. That alone was cause for worry, but the young Jedi Knights and Sirra had more to fear than the deadly plants and animals that populated the lowest levels of the forest.
Jaina could feel that something was about to happen. “No time to lose!” she urged. She picked up her pace. Chewbacca, sensing her urgency, did the same, barely taking time to rest his foot on one limb before bounding down to a lower branch.
In the distance Jaina heard a shout, a human voice that sounded loud and chilling, mixed with the wild noises. When she stopped to look in that direction, she saw flickers of light and heard the sizzle of blaster fire.
Just then, the rotting branch beneath her feet creaked and threatened to give way. In her haste, she had not bothered to check the branch before stepping on it. Chewbacca spun and reached out to pull her to safety on a thicker branch closer to the trunk. She scrambled for purchase.
But the whole side of the wroshyr tree must have been weakened by rot or disease, for at that moment the bough on which the large Wookiee stood gave way as well. Snapping and popping, the gnarled wood dropped out from beneath him.
Jaina watched, her mouth open in a silent scream, as Chewbacca plummeted, crashing into the darkness below.
18
Exhausted, Zekk stood with the lightsaber still gripped in his sweaty hand. He found it hard to breathe the thick, cloying air of the underworld.
The smoking carcass of the dead slug beast, now sliced in pieces, lay draped across the overspreading branches. Burned slime bubbled with a noxious stench. Small fires crackled from stray blaster bolts that had ignited portions of the dense foliage. The surviving stormtroopers shouted to each other over helmet comlinks, completing their damage assessment.
Vonnda Ra stood trembling, jaw set, face drawn, as if the fury she had unleashed to fight the monster had drained her somehow. The new Nightsisters were supposedly proof against the physically damaging effects of the evil powers they invoked, but the tremendous battle Vonnda Ra and Zekk and the stormtroopers had waged against the mindless slug had left her looking shriveled.
Zekk slumped against an upright tree trunk, feeling the soft squish of blue moss mixed with ichor from the slug creature.
Only four stormtroopers remained with their party. The slug beast had crushed the others or flung them into the unseen depths below. Chunks of the dead thing sloughed off the main branches, oozing down to where rodents and scavengers rustled through the darkness in a feeding frenzy.
Zekk heard a crash and a crackle of snapping twigs far behind them. Suddenly, with a tingle through his own Force senses, he knew that two others followed, attempting to catch them—and he identified one of the pursuers. In astonishment, he blinked his green eyes into the forest shadows, reaching out with the focused power of his senses.
“It’s Jaina Solo,” he said to Vonnda Ra. “Behind us. She’s coming this way.” He planted his black boots firmly on the branch. He had to choose, but he could not. With all of Brakiss’s promises, he had never thought it would be so difficult.
Ahead Jacen, Lowbacca, Sirra, and Tenel Ka had succeeded in eluding Imperial pursuit so far—but Jaina, completely unaware, was heading straight toward them. He would have to confront her himself.
“We must split up,” Zekk said. “I will go back alone and stop Jaina. The rest of you, continue after these others.”