He trudged on down the street, feeling dread. He realized he would never find Fonterrat here … at least not alive. And what good would it do him to find the scavenger dead? He did not want to go inside the darkened buildings, which were little more than decaying tombs.
Then, through a gap in the buildings leading to a broad courtyard beyond, he saw a glint of metal not yet covered with dust—a ship!
Apparently it had landed not long ago.
As he stopped, he recognized the vessel’s configuration, the odd elongated form and ovoid main body. He had seen that vessel among the shards of Alderaan and chased it through the asteroid field, but it had eluded him in the forest of rocks.
Slave IV!
Feeling a sudden sharp tingle of warning, Zekk whirled in his bulky suit and stumbled to one side just as a blaster bolt struck the ground at his feet, fusing the sand into a lump of molten glass.
Unable to run in his unwieldy suit, he staggered against a railing outside one of the prefab buildings and saw the helmeted form of Boba Fett stride out from a sheltered doorway.
The bounty hunter pointed his heavy blaster directly at Zekk.
Zekk had a weapon attached to his suit, but he would never be able to draw it in time … and he doubted he could shoot faster or more accurately than the fearsome mercenary Boba Fett.
Slowly, he raised both of his gloved hands in surrender. His thoughts whirled as he tried to figure out a way to escape this situation. If Boba Fett recognized Zekk as the one who had shot at him in the asteroid field of Alderaan, the bounty hunter might take great pleasure in eliminating him just for revenge.
“I had thought no one remained alive on this world,” Boba Fett said in a rough voice filtered through the speaker in his sealed Mandalorian helmet. “But I see I was wrong. And now you are my captive.”
10
“Ah. Kuar, fifth planet orbiting a single sun in a star system of the same name,” Tenel Ka said, reading from her datapad while sitting in one of the crew seats of the Hapan passenger cruiser. “Still capable of sustaining human life, but apparently abandoned for some time…”
“Does it say anything about particular cities or structures?” Jaina asked, craning her neck to look out the Rock Dragon’s cockpit windowport, peering down toward the unwelcoming landscape below.
“Unfortunately, no,” Tenel Ka said, consulting the datapad again.
Lowbacca rumbled a question about the level of technology that might remain on the planet.
“No data on the technology of Kuar’s inhabitants either. In fact,” Tenel Ka said, holding up a finger to forestall the question Jacen was about to ask, “other than the legends of the Mandalorian warriors, I have found nothing about the former inhabitants.”
Jacen’s face fell, then he brightened again. “What about wildlife? Interesting animal species or plants?”
Tenel Ka shook her head grimly. “These files contain minimal data. Little that is of any use to us—only the ramblings of historical scholars speculating about the original inhabitants, before the Mandalorians swept through. None of the data is current. Even planetary archaeologists do not place this site on their priority research lists.”
“Hey, Em Teedee, do you have any other information about Kuar?” Jacen asked.
“Dear me, I’m afraid to say there’s not much, really, aside from what Mistress Tenel Ka has already told you. And I have the coordinates, of course.” The little droid made a sound like an aggrieved sigh. “I imagine that’s not very useful at this point, is it? We’re already here.”
“We’ll be able to speculate all we want about Kuar in a couple of minutes,” Jaina said. “We’re almost to the atmosphere. Okay, hit it, Lowie.”
The young Wookiee flicked a few switches, and the ship nosed down toward the vast sky that spread its thin blanket over the curved surface of Kuar.
Jaina flashed a conspiratorial grin at her brother and Tenel Ka. “As I always say, show me—don’t tell me.”
Tenel Ka raised an eyebrow and turned to Jacen. “Does she always say that? I have not heard her say it before.”
Jacen merely shrugged. The Rock Dragon dove into the atmosphere.
The magnified views of the distant landscape below alternated between occasional rock formations and various colors of dust or sand. It seemed as if the dusts of time had sifted over the entire world. But excitement had overtaken Jacen, and he was impatient to know more about the mysterious place beneath them. “Hey, what do the readings say?” he asked.
“Life-forms,” Jaina answered succinctly. “Quite a few, in fact. Definitely nonhuman—at least the life-forms we’re picking up right now.”
Lowie gave a thoughtful purr. “Quite right, Master Lowbacca,” Em Teedee said. “There’s no telling yet whether the life-forms are sentient or not.”
A few thin clouds drifted high in the atmosphere like worn and tattered lace, but they did little to obstruct Jacen’s view through the windowport. From this height, the surface seemed relatively flat and featureless.
“What about buildings?” he asked.
Lowie studied the readouts again and woofed a few times. “Most assuredly, Master Lowbacca. Those are definitely not natural formations,” Em Teedee said. “I’d hardly call them buildings, however. The structures are certainly old, but there’s something odd about them—irregular, as if they’re only half there.”
“Ruins, perhaps?” Tenel Ka suggested.
“Quite probably,” Em Teedee agreed.
“Why don’t we just get closer and see?” Jacen asked impatiently. “That’s the best way to find out.”
Jaina sighed. “I purposely stayed high, in hopes that we’d spot a city or smugglers encampment, or pick up a beacon of some sort to show us where any inhabited areas might be. I thought it would be the easiest way to figure out where Bornan Thul might have gone. You’re right, though—we’ll have to go down closer.”
Jacen grinned at her, raising his eyebrows. “Well, what are you waiting for?”
She took the Rock Dragon lower until they were skimming just two hundred meters above the surface. In most areas, the vegetation was fairly sparse. Rocky spikes and pillars and mesas jutted up from the landscape.
Occasionally, Jacen saw what looked like a nest of Some sort on one of the outcroppings. The color of the dirt, sand, and rock varied from cream, to saffron, to gray, to pale blue with purplish striations, to bright ochre, to stark obsidian.
Lowie woofed and tapped the control panel in front of him.
“Yep, I see it,” Jaina said.
“What kind of structures?” Jacen asked.
“I’m afraid I can’t say,” Em Teedee replied. “They are approximately three kilometers ahead of us. At least that’s what the ship’s sensors indicate.”
“There,” Jaina said as she slowed the Rock Dragon and dropped even lower. The thick wall that surrounded the small city atop a high, strategic hill was broken in several places. Some of the buildings inside the enclosure seemed in good repair, but others were cracked and crumbling. A variety of furred and feathered creatures bounded, scurried, or swooped from building to building. Yellow, six-legged reptiles with curly tails clung to the sunny side of every wall or turret.
“No people,” Tenel Ka observed.
“Somebody must live on this planet. Maybe they just don’t like this city for some reason,” Jacen said.
“The others might still be inhabited, though.” He wished they could stop to explore, so he could study the strange creatures he had just seen, but Jaina pulled the Rock Dragon up and had already begun looking for the next city.
They flew for hours across the surface of the planet, zigzagging back and forth to cover more ground. They came upon a score of other ghost cities, fortresses, and villages in varying states of disrepair.