Tenel Ka, not understanding the problem but always ready to defend her friends, jumped into the fray. She picked up Jacen’s hot soup and hurled it toward Raynar’s companions, who, seeing the attack coming from a new front, decided to retaliate.
A platter of honeyed noodles sailed across the dining hall toward Jaina, but she ducked. The noodles instead splattered and clung to the bristly white fur of a Talz—a bearlike creature that stood up and blatted a musical note of dismay. When Jaina saw the noodles sticking to the alien’s white fur, she couldn’t stop herself from laughing.
The crystal snake slithered out of Jacen’s grasp as Jacen crawled across Raynar’s squirming lap. The young Jedi screamed as if he were being murdered, but Jacen scuttled under the dining tables after the serpent. Bumping one of the tables over while grabbing for the snake, he felt smooth, dry scales against his fingertips—but the snake slid through them, and he could not hold on.
Another table was knocked over as Lowie came to help. With a flurry of feathers, the avian creatures squawked and fought over their plateful of squirming, fuzzy blue thread-worms.
More food flew through the air, levitated by Jedi powers, and tossed from one table to another. The Jedi students were laughing, seeing it now as a release from the tension of the grueling studies and deep concentration required of them during their training.
Steamed leaves flew in the faces of the reptilian Cha’a, interrupting their predatory concentration. All three of them stood up and whirled to meet the attack, back-to-back, standing in a three-point formation, hissing and glaring. The milky tan eggs on their eating platter continued to hatch, and the pink fuzzy hatchlings chose that moment to escape.
Lowie let out a stone-rumbling Wookiee roar, and Em Teedee squeaked with a high-pitched alarm. “I can’t see a thing, Master Lowbacca! Comestibles are obscuring my optical sensors. Do please clean them off!”
Artoo-Detoo trundled into the dining chamber and let out an electronic wail, but his droid cries were drowned out by the laughter and the tumult of flying food. Before Artoo could wheel around and sound the alarm, a large tray of creamy dessert pastries splattered across his domed top. The astro-mech droid beat a hasty, whirring retreat.
As the crystal snake slithered toward the cracked stone walls to escape, Jacen desperately plowed forward. He reached out with one hand and grabbed the pointed tail. The serpent rippled around invisibly in a fluid motion, flashing its fangs toward Jacen, ready to bite down on the hand holding it. But Jacen held out his other hand, pointing with his finger and the Force, touching the snake’s tiny brain.
“Hey! Don’t you dare.” he said aloud. Then, as the crystal snake hesitated, Jacen grabbed it around the neck and lifted it into the air. The lower part of its long body whipped and thrashed. Jacen coiled the snake around his arm and sent soothing thoughts into its mind. He stood up, grinning and relieved.
“I got it!” he cried in triumph—just as three overripe fruits splashed against his face and chest, bursting their thin skins and spilling rich purple pulp all over him. Jacen sputtered and then allowed himself to giggle, still maintaining his hold on the crystal snake.
“Stop!” A booming voice enhanced by the Force echoed through the dining hall.
Suddenly everything froze as if time itself had paused. All the flying food hung suspended in the air; each drip of liquid dangled motionless above the tables. All sound ceased, save for that of the trainees’ gasps.
Master Luke Skywalker stood in the entrance to the dining hall wearing a stern expression as he surveyed the suspended food fight. Jacen looked at his uncle’s expression and thought he saw anger, but also a concealed amusement.
Luke said, “Was this the best and most challenging way you could find to put your powers to use?” He gestured to all the motionless food and seemed very sad for a moment. Then he turned to leave—but not before Jacen noticed a smile spreading across his face.
As he departed, Luke called, “Instead, perhaps you can use your Jedi powers… to clean up this mess.” He gestured briefly with his right hand, and the suspended food platters, bowls of soup, desserts, fruits, and messy confections were released, tumbling down like an avalanche. Practically everyone was splattered all over again as sticky gobbets sprayed into the air.
Jacen looked at the aftermath of the food war. Still holding the crystal snake, he wiped a smear of frosting from his nose.
The other Jedi students, though subdued, began to chuckle with relief, then set to work cleaning up.
6
The warm afternoon sun sparkled in the heavy, moist air as Lowbacca accompanied his uncle and Han Solo back to the Millennium Falcon. Beside him the Solo twins chattered gaily, apparently oblivious to the thick jungle heat. He could sense an underlying tension, though: Jacen and Jaina would miss their father every bit as much as he would miss his uncle Chewbacca, his mother, and the rest of his family back on Kashyyyk.
Lowbacca’s golden eyes flicked uneasily about the clearing in front of the Great Temple. He was still uncomfortable with wide-open spaces so close to the ground. On the Wookiee homeworld all cities were built high in the tops of the massive intertwining trees, supported by sturdy branches. Even the most courageous of Wookiees seldom ventured to the inhospitable lower levels of the forest—much less all the way to the ground, where dangers abounded.
To Lowbacca, height meant civilization, comfort, safety, home. And although the enormous Massassi trees towered up to twenty times as high as any other plant on Yavin 4, compared with the trees of Kashyyyk they were midgets. Lowbacca wondered if he would ever find a place high enough on this small moon to make him feel at ease.
Lowie was so lost in thought that he was startled to see that they had arrived at the Falcon.
“Never have the chance to do a preflight when we’re under fire,” Han Solo said, “but it’s a good idea when we do have the time.” Standing at the foot of the entry ramp, he smiled disarmingly at them. “If you kids aren’t too busy, Chewie and I could use some help doing the preflight checks.”
“Great,” Jaina said before anyone else could respond. “I’ll take the hyperdrive.” She rushed up the ramp, pausing for only a millisecond to brush a kiss on her father’s cheek. “Thanks, Dad. You’re the best.”
Han Solo looked immensely pleased for a long moment before bringing himself back to business with a shake of his head. “So, kid, you got any preferences?” He looked at Lowie, who thought briefly, then rumbled his reply.
Although Han Solo had doubtless understood him very well, the pesky translator droid piped up. “Master Lowbacca wishes to inspect your ship’s computer systems in order that he might tell it where to go.”
Han Solo gave Chewbacca a sidelong glance. “Thought you said you fixed that thing,” he said, indicating Em Teedee. “It needs an attitude adjustment.”
Chewbacca shrugged eloquently, gave a menacing growl, and administered emergency repair procedure number one: he held the silvery oval with one huge hand while he shook the little droid until the circuits rattled.
“Oh, dear me! Perhaps I could have been a bit more precise,” the droid squeaked hastily. “Er… Master Lowbacca expresses his desire to perform the preflight checks on your navigational computer.”
“Good idea, kid,” Han Solo agreed, briskly rubbing his palms together. “Jacen, you take the exterior hull; see if anything’s nested in the exterior vents in the last couple of hours. I’ll start on the life-support systems. Chewie, you check the cargo bay.”
This last was said with a lift of the chin and a twinkle in Han Solo’s eye that Lowbacca knew must have meant something to the older Wookiee—but Lowie hadn’t a clue. He wondered dispiritedly if he would ever understand humans as well as his uncle did.