“Hmm?” he asked groggily.
“Jacen, my friend. Tell me a joke.” Jacen’s eyes snapped open. Had he really heard correctly? He put his face close to hers so that he could see her eyes in the starlight. How had he ever thought of her eyes as cool gray? he wondered. Had it taken the contrast with true cold for him to be able to see it? It was obvious now that they were warm, so warm….
“Wh-what? What did you say?”
She leaned her forehead against his. “Would you please tell me a joke?”
He smiled, though his lips cracked painfully.
“Umm … what side of a Wampa ice creature has the most fur?”
“I might welcome the company of even a Wampa ice creature at this moment, and invite it to join our group for warmth. I do not know, Jacen, my friend. Tell me—which side of a Wampa ice creature has more fur?”
Odd, Jacen thought. Tenel Ka must have known this joke. He was certain he had told it to her before. But at the moment that seemed very, very unimportant. Jacen smiled again into the soft red-gold cloud of hair that now drifted across his face. He could feel the Force flowing between them, giving them strength … yes, even warming them. “The side with the most fur is the outside,” he said.
Tenel Ka shook ever so slightly, though whether it was from cold or from laughter Jacen couldn’t tell. She pressed her cheek briefly against his, and whispered, “Thank you, Jacen, my friend.”
Then, releasing him, she took one of his hands in hers.
Jacen looked around the rock toward the pass that led to the temperate zone. “We lost ground,” he observed.
“Yes, but only a little. The pass should not be more than an hour’s walk now. Our path appears clearer and easier—with a short climb uphill at the end,” Tenel Ka pointed out. “We can make it, Jacen. We must continue.”
Jacen believed her. He felt a new spring in his step as they left the shelter of the rock. They passed many caves or tunnel entrances—Jacen couldn’t be sure which—but the ground was solid. On the slopes ahead they saw the strange mechanical towers of wind turbines erected by the Twi’leks. The structures appeared ancient, but still functioned. Jacen wondered how often any of the tunnel inhabitants braved the cold temperatures to service the turbine mechanisms.
The wintry air took its toll as they continued.
Jacen’s mind began to go numb. He had entered a trancelike state and had no idea how he kept putting one foot in front of the other. He was in the lead, holding his lightsaber aloft, when Tenel Ka put her hand on his arm and pulled him to a stop.
“What is it?” he asked.
She nodded toward the frozen peaks above them; gaps in the crags showed the line of twilight in the distance. But the air appeared to ripple as if alive. Shimmers of light contorted and danced through the air in an invisible undulation that seemed to make the icy rock surfaces ripple like an ocean.
Suddenly, a jet of steam half a kilometer high spewed upward from the frozen ground where the shimmering waves touched down. It seemed like a whirlwind, a spinning mass of displaced air and wind roaring over the mountains and sweeping toward them.
“Heat storm,” Tenel Ka said tersely. “I have read about them.”
“Heat?” Jacen asked, feeling hopeful.
“Heat storm,” Tenel Ka warned. Her grip tightened on his arm. “Hot winds from the daytime side of the planet. They can travel through the temperate zone to the night side and still retain enough heat to boil alive any creature in their path. We must find shelter.”
The shimmering waves swirled, forming a superheated funnel cloud that began whirling directly toward the side of the mountain. Rocks shattered, ice evaporated, and scalding, shrieking wind plowed through side canyons with a battering ram of displaced temperature.
“The caves!” Jacen yelled, grabbing her hand and turning back toward the last tunnel entrance they had passed, beneath one of the old wind turbines. Together they ran, forgetting caution on the rough ground.
The hot whirlwind climbed the slope toward them, howling like a vengeful spirit.
When he saw the broken entrance a few meters ahead of them, Jacen switched off his lightsaber and concentrated all of his efforts on speed. Not a minute too soon, he and Tenel Ka threw themselves into the narrow mouth of the cave. The furnace-hot blast roared toward them, flash-evaporating ice. Rock cracked and crumbled.
Jacen and Tenel Ka backed up to where the dark cave widened out and pressed themselves against the rough stone wall. Hot wind buffeted the rock outside, melting ice and sending up sizzles of steam, but the narrow-mouthed cave protected them somewhat.
Sinking wearily to the floor, Jacen said, “I didn’t know I had the energy left to run.” The storm grew louder, closer, as if angry that they had escaped.
Beside him, Tenel Ka looked around suspiciously. “Jacen, my friend—we are not alone.”
18
Feigning a calm nonchalance, Lowbacca led his sister Sirra through the tunnels toward the smallcraft bay where the Rock Dragon waited.
The Diversity Alliance engineers had not managed to crack its access codes yet. They could not get into the ship’s main memory, activate the hyperdrive controls, or set a course in the navicomputer.
But Lowie knew the codes. He and Sirra could use the Rock Dragon as an escape vehicle. They had few choices at this point. He had to get his friends away from Ryloth and Nolaa Tarkona.
Lowie hoped the preprogrammed warning sirens would keep the Diversity Alliance soldiers occupied. Technicians, dock workers, inventory control officers, and maintenance engineers ran through the tunnels, panicked by the alarm klaxons.
Lowbacca had stripped off his guard armor and tossed it down a waste chute into an underground well. He smoothed his black streak back with a brush of his hand, and once again looked like a studious Wookiee who spent too much time around computers.
Lowie had found Sirra diligently helping out in a loading bay. She hadn’t seemed to mind the hard work of lifting pallets of materials in sealed containers labeled FOOD or MEDICAL SUPPLIES to be taken to downtrodden alien worlds. And she had been glad to see him.
Lowie had pulled her aside and breathlessly told his story of betrayal.
The truth had been kept from them, he explained; the young Jedi Knights were being held captive down in the spice mines. Sirra was shocked at the news, and reluctant to believe it. But she had seen the Rock Dragon herself, Lowie reminded her. Em Teedee’s very presence substantiated his story. How else could Lowie have gotten his translator back, since he had left the little droid on Yavin 4?
Lowie crept behind one of the supply crates and motioned for his sister to follow him. The other workers, intent on the blaring alarms, took no notice of them. Lowie punched his fist through the side of a crate, breaking a hole in its thin veneer to reveal not medicinal supplies or food, as the labels declared, but power packs for long-range, military-style blaster rifles.
Sirra swallowed hard; her shaved patches and tufts of fur stood out prominently in all directions.
She picked up one of the blaster packs and stared coldly at it.
“I believe Mistress Sirra will require no further demonstration of the veracity of your claims,” Em Teedee said.
Sirra groaned, realizing that Raaba herself must have known the truth.
Lowie growled in sympathy. Hi wanted very much for Raaba to see the light, to escape with him and Sirra—but their Wookiee friend was too much a part of the Diversity Alliance and its plans.
As Lowie and his sister left the loading dock behind and made their way toward the smallcraft bay and the Rock Dragon, he found himself wondering if the young Jedi Knights had found their way to safety in the mountains by now.
When the false sirens fell silent, though, Lowie realized instantly that they were in trouble.