Instantly Jaina saw that the battle was hopeless. Even with their lightsabers, even with the Millennium Falcon’s blasters, they couldn’t possibly drive the knaars away. Their best choice was to flee and hope to find a place of refuge or a protected area in which they could make a stand.
And their only path to escape lay through the detonator-salted fields.
The Falcon blasted two of the leading knaars. Several of their fellows fell upon the bodies, stripping the meat off the bones of the dead predators. But scores of knaars kept coming.
The Falcon fired again. Heedless of this minor interruption, the monsters surged forward, slashing with claws, snapping their jaws at their helpless prey. Jaina, with her companions and the remaining villagers, turned and ran headlong into fields full of burrowing detonators.
14
As the Millennium Falcon took off with a roar, Zekk heard the villagers crowded in the back of the Falcon moan with fear. His attention, though, was focused on the sparks and flashes of light that signified lightsabers as the young Jedi Knights fought down below.
“Zekk, get into the gun well and start blasting those creatures!” Han Solo shouted.
“I hope your laser cannons are fully charged,” Zekk said, climbing down into the gun well. He dropped into the chair, strapped in, and powered up the Falcon’s weaponry.
Han soared low to the ground, swooping back toward the ramshackle village. The reptilian predators prowled along, moving with the speed of hunger, cunning evident in their intelligent yellow eyes.
“There are so many of them!” Zekk muttered, seeing the sinuous shapes dart forward like purplish-blue shadows. One of the creatures grabbed a young man and swallowed him in a single gulp before Zekk could aim the laser cannons. He wondered if that victim had been one of the brash young men who had tried to act so brave when the knaars were first coming.
Zekk targeted and fired, blowing the reptilian creature to sizzling bits. He rotated in the gun well again, seeking another target. It was difficult to zero in on the dark shadowy monsters—and he didn’t dare risk hitting one of the people.
Below, a knaar advanced along the pale wall of a building. One villager had tried to take shelter around the corner, in the doorway.
The knaar approached, sniffing, its claws extended. Zekk targeted and fired.
The frightened villager scrambled to one side as the smoking body of the enormous reptile slumped to the ground in front of him, its fanged mouth open wide.
A shot now fired from the other gun well, striking one of the saurians in its lower leg. The moment it collapsed, honking and howling in pain, other knaars fell upon their wounded companion.
“Hope you don’t mind, Zekk,” Anakin said through the comm system. “I’ve had a bit of target training myself, but the twins get to practice more often.”
The knaars continued to sweep forward. Two new ones seemed to appear for every one Zekk blasted.
Han Solo circled around and came back for another run. His concerned voice came over the comm system. “What’s she doing?”
“Jaina’s leading them toward the minefield!” Anakin’s voice replied.
Zekk looked down and saw by the glow of the lightsaber blades that the young Jedi Knights had turned and headed with the remaining villagers into the barren fields that were full of burrowing detonators.
He thought of Jaina down there fighting against monsters and running into even more dangerous territory. His heart sank, but he gritted his teeth and grabbed the firing controls. If he couldn’t pull off a spectacular rescue, at least he’d do his part to keep her safe—or as safe as she could possibly be under the circumstances.
Jaina planted her feet firmly on the rough ground and held her lightsaber high. The slavering knaar in front of her did not seem at all intimidated by her violet Jedi blade. The reptilian creature gave a high-pitched bellow, then reached forward with its claws, snapping with powerful jaws that looked strong enough to rip a repulsorpod from a starship engine.
Jaina swung forward and down with her crackling lightsaber, cleaving the monster from its shoulder down to the center of its rib cage.
The creature thrashed and fell down as smoking blood bubbled from its dying heart.
Anja continued to let out loud whoops and shouts of challenge. She ran faster than the knaars, darting from one to another, wounding them with her lightsaber and diving out of the way as their claws slashed at her.
She let the other carnivores do the rest of the work for her. She needed only to wound a beast, then the other knaars would tear it to pieces for the meat.
Anja’s hair flew in the wind, barely held in place by the leather band.
Sweat dripped down her temples onto her flushed face, but she was so full of adrenaline she seemed incapable of slowing down.
Lowbacca let out a loud Wookiee roar as he and Jacen motioned the villagers to follow them into the treacherous cropland. The villagers dropped their farming implements and ran. Panicked, some of them dashed right past the young Jedi.
“Wait! We have to find a safe path for you!” Jacen yelled. But one middle-aged woman clutching a satchel of valuables over her shoulder tore ahead in blind terror as she fled from the knaars. “No! Wait!”
She ran through the uncleared cropland. Jacen felt an intuitive stab and a chill at the back of his neck—a premonition—just before she stepped down on one of the hidden burrowing detonators. The explosion ripped the night with a flash of brilliance and a boom of echoing thunder. The woman fell instantly, but the monsters charged toward the fields and Jacen could not take a moment to determine whether or not she had survived. The villagers screamed in despair, caught between their fear of the minefield ahead and the rampaging predators behind.
Lowie roared something at Jacen about the Force and gestured to the ground. Em Teedee quickly translated. “Master Lowbacca suggests that by using your Jedi senses, you could perhaps determine the locations of the burrowing detonators and thus avoid them. That would give us the best chance of survival.”
Jacen realized that his Wookiee friend was right. If he could calm himself enough to use the Force, he might be able to map out a safe path that the villagers could follow—a path that the knaars would not understand.
“And I do suggest you be careful,” the little droid added. “I have no desire to become a useless lump of floating metal with no one to translate for.”
As his eyes adjusted to a darkness lit only by the green glow of his lightsaber and Em Teedee’s optical sensors, Jacen trotted ahead as fast as he dared, keeping his eyes to the ground. Stretching out his free hand before him, he sensed ripples in the dirt, tiny echoes of movement—and then he spotted a slight trembling where the mechanical explosives had tunneled beneath the surface. Across the fields he could see a checkerboard pattern of places to avoid, and places where it was safe to walk.
“Follow us!” he shouted, holding his emerald lightsaber like a beacon overhead. “We can see a path!”
The ginger-furred Wookiee bellowed a confirmation, raised his own molten-bronze blade, and sprinted ahead on his long legs. A magenta glow from Tenel Ka’s rancor-tooth lightsaber indicated another safe path.
Jaina and Anja remained behind to guard the group’s retreat and to slow down the charging beasts. Overhead, the Millennium Falcon’s engines rumbled in the air. Laser beams lanced out from both gun turrets, striking knaars. Still more of the migratory pack surged like a carnivorous flood out of the rocky hills.
The villagers ran onward, grasping at any shred of hope as they followed Jacen and Lowie through the minefield. Fortunately, the knaars did not understand the explosives. They surged forward on their scaly, muscular legs, ready to snatch anyone who fell behind.