Jaina slipped the holorecording out of her pocket and pressed it into Peckhum’s hand. “Will you get this message to Zekk for me?”
“Sure will,” Peckhum said. “Least we know the people we love are safe,” he added. “Which is more than my passenger can say.”
“Raynar?” Jacen guessed.
Peckhum nodded. “I’m afraid that boy could use a good deal of cheerin’ up right now.”
Lowie rumbled his willingness to help and headed up the ramp.
“Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of him,” Jaina assured the old spacer.
“This is a fact,” Tenel Ka said. “We will remain close to him while we unload supplies.”
“We’ll find a way to get his mind off his worries,” Jacen said, following Lowie up the ramp. “I’ll even tell him some of my best jokes.”
“Uh-oh,” Jaina said as she and Tenel Ka hurried on board. “We’re all in trouble now.”
2
A shooting star streaked across the velvety blackness of the night. From his safe perch in the treetops, Lowbacca looked up hopefully, wondering if it was a ship arriving unannounced. Perhaps a stranger, perhaps another addition to the New Republic defense fleet … perhaps his friend Raaba.
His golden eyes studied the trail of light—but it dwindled to a fiery sparkle. Just a small meteor. The complex gravitational paths in the Yavin system sent many fragments of rock and dust into the fourth moon’s orbit.
It wasn’t Raaba, then. Not yet.
With a grumbling sigh, Lowie leaned back against the cushioning branches of the Massassi tree. Another false alarm. Returning to his routine of scouting the night sky, he let his thoughts and his memories drift again….
He had come here alone after dark, disregarding the dangers of Yavin 4’s wilderness. Lowbacca was a powerful Wookiee, and he could take care of himself. The jungle moon’s predators couldn’t hold a candle to the nightmares he’d already encountered in the lower forest levels on Kashyyyk.
Trying to hide his inner turmoil from his friends Jacen, Jaina, and Tenel Ka, Lowie had climbed out of the partially rebuilt Great Temple in the middle of the sleeping period. Lowie had hauled himself along the dew-slick stone blocks until he reached the place from which he could spring across to the wide boughs of the nearest Massassi tree. From there, he climbed higher until he reached the treetop canopy. He spread the shiny leaves and found himself a spot where he could sit back and look up into the vastness of stars. Where he could keep watch.
His friend Raaba was out there … somewhere.
Lowie touched his syren-fiber belt where Em Teedee normally hung. He had left the little droid switched to recharge mode on a shelf in his quarters. Em Teedee would have scolded him for going out alone at night, and undoubtedly would have talked too much when Lowbacca simply wanted peace and quiet.
Below, he heard a large animal crashing through vines and underbrush. Plant-eating creatures chittered through the leaves, searching for tender night-blooming flowers. He heard the howls and snarls and snapping twigs of some violent struggle, but the commotion was far away. A nocturnal stalker had found its food for another day.
It seemed long ago that Lowie had undergone his ordeal, risking his life in the lower Wookiee forests. It had been an important rite of passage to secure the gossamer fibers from the jaws of the carnivorous syren plant. And he had done it alone.
Lowie had been cocky, so foolishly brave, but he had come back a hero, earning new respect from his fellow Wookiees. That newfound standing had won him the freedom to choose what he wished to do with his life. More than anything else, Lowie had wanted to be a Jedi Knight….
He hadn’t dreamed, though, that his bravado might prove deadly for his friend Raabakyysh, a chocolate-furred Wookiee female who was a close companion of Lowie’s sister Sirrakuk.
Normally, comrades would accompany Wookiees during this coming-of-age ritual. But Raaba had been so impressed by Lowie’s solo feat that she had attempted to duplicate it. If Lowbacca could do it alone, Raaba reasoned, then she needed no assistance either.
Raabakyysh had vanished that night, leaving behind only a bloodied backpack. Lowie and Sirra had mourned the loss of their friend. Everyone had presumed her dead.
But on Kuar, while Lowie and the other young Jedi Knights were searching for Bornan Thul in the ancient ruins, Raaba suddenly reappeared. She had been hiding all this time, trying to find her own way in life.
During her long absence, Raaba had joined the Diversity Alliance, a political movement she believed in fervently. Its leader, a Twi’lek woman named Nolaa Tarkona, demanded restitution for all the damage inflicted by humans upon alien species. When Tyko Thul offhandedly insulted Tarkona in conversation, Raaba had taken offense and departed from Kuar.
Now Lowie feared his long-lost Wookiee friend might not come back—at least not anytime soon. But he still held out hope.
From his perch in the trees he perked up again as he saw another flaming streak cross the sky. The burning white line sliced the night. But it was just another shooting star.
He sighed again and settled back to wait. It would be a long night.
The next morning, his body aching from his long vigil, Lowie went to the comm center and requested permission to send a message to his family. The request was quickly granted. All Jedi trainees had the freedom to communicate home whenever they wished.
While Lowie secured a transmission link back to Kashyyyk, he checked the chronometers on the wall and calculated the time shift, hoping he wouldn’t wake his family in the middle of the night. He saw that it was early morning back on the forest world; both of his parents would be at work in the high-tech computer fabrication facility.
Lowie’s sister Sirra answered the call; her image glowed brightly before him. She stood back in surprise, opening her mouth in a wide grin as she recognized her brother. Thanks to her radical trimming and cutting, Sirra’s fur stood up in bristly shocks. She shaved it in various patterns at the wrists, ankles, knees, and elbows to give herself a distinctive look, an individuality that many younger Wookiees preferred. They each designed their own fur patterns, trying to establish a new identity for the youth of their species in this time of prosperity after years of Imperial oppression.
No one else in the comm center had any idea what the two barking, growling Wookiees were saying to each other, so Lowie did not worry about eavesdroppers. He had wanted to let Raaba keep her secret, give her time to deliver the news herself, but he needed to talk to someone—someone who understood.
Warning Sirra to keep his words in strictest confidence, he told her he had good news and bad news. Lowie stumbled around at first, unsure of how to begin. Finally, he blurted out that Raaba was alive, then breathlessly summarized how the chocolate-furred Wookiee had shown up on Kuar.
Sirra was overjoyed to hear the news and voiced a yelp of ecstatic surprise. She followed with several minutes of joyous questions and demands for details, interspersed with low crooning and cries of delight.
When Lowie explained how Raaba had vanished again, though, Sirra gave a concerned growl. But even that sad note was not enough to diminish her joy at learning that Raaba still lived.
Lowie’s own thoughts remained in turmoil. No matter how often he contemplated Raaba, he still couldn’t make up his mind how he really felt about her, what he hoped might happen between them, or what he expected her to do.
After leaving appropriate greetings for his parents, Lowie signed off. He shuffled down winding stone corridors on the way back to his quarters. With a long, throaty sigh, Lowie picked up the. translating droid and switched it on, finally ready to face the day’s training activities.