Two of the largest knaars, their silvery razor frills raised and yellow eyes glowing like lamps in the darkness, circled around to the left to charge ahead of the fleeing group and cut off their retreat. Tenel Ka turned to face them, glaring with her granite-gray eyes as if daring them to approach.
The two reptiles kept moving, staying close together. When the larger knaar stomped on one of the burrowing detonators, the explosion knocked both creatures aside, tearing open their rib cages. They lay wounded on the ground, honking and roaring in pain. Tenel Ka would have dispatched them herself, but their noises only served to attract other hungry knaars. Before long, under the double moonlight of Anobis, the two predators fell silent as their roars were replaced by the wet sounds of tearing meat and gnashing fangs.
The Falcon soared above the knaars, blasting more of the creatures.
One of the villagers tripped. Before he could scramble to his feet again, two monsters fell upon him. When another young man turned back with a shout and tried to defend his friend, the knaars attacked him as well.
At the last instant, when it seemed the young man was surely doomed, Anja appeared beside him. Her lightsaber swept out in a blazing swath of acid-yellow to lop off both forearms of the predator. The sizzling stumps of its clawed hands fell to the ground, and the monster roared, flailing about, unable to grasp anything. In blind rage it chomped at the nearest creature—another knaar. The two reptiles tore at each other, wrestling one another to the ground. In moments, other predators came in to finish off both of them.
The cropland stretched ahead, seemingly forever. Jacen continued to run, finding it easier to pick his way around the burrowing detonators now. He saw some active ones shifting their positions underneath the soil.
Beyond, the thick forest looked like a goal line. If only they could get to the shelter of the trees, perhaps they could fight better than out in the open. But Jacen couldn’t be sure. For now they were just running.
He couldn’t imagine how the group could possibly turn aside all the knaars, even with five active lightsaber blades and assistance from the Millennium Falcon.
Two more explosions ripped the night, and Jacen was relieved to see that it was only more reptilian predators stumbling upon the explosives. He looked to one side and saw a bobbing metallic sphere.
Em Teedee had detached himself from Lowie’s belt and drifted ahead on his microrepulsorjets, flitting from side to side in front of the beasts like a remote practice drone.
One of the largest knaars lumbered forward, attracted by Lowie’s molten-bronze lightsaber blade. The Wookiee stopped his headlong run and whirled to face the monster. The knaar charged forward, exposing its razor teeth.
Em Teedee flitted in front of the monster’s jaws, distracting the creature so that it snapped at the silvery sphere and diverted its fiery gaze from Lowbacca. Lowie used the moment of distraction to strike sideways, severing the knaar’s body at the waist; its head still twisted and snapped even though it had no body to move.
The surviving villagers kept running. Ahead of them, the forests loomed taller. Dozens and dozens of the saurian giants had been killed, but though the pack seemed to be thinning a bit, Jacen did not feel at all relieved. The Falcon circled by again, blasting away.
More of the monsters died. The people continued to stumble along on the haphazard path the young Jedi Knights picked for them through the booby-trapped field. Many villagers were in shock, just following, placing one foot in front of another, unable to fully face their peril.
Jacen sensed their fear and could only hope the situation would change once they entered the thick trees. “Hurry up. Get to the forest!” he shouted. With despairing sighs, the people nearest him tried to increase their pace, but they were too exhausted. Weak from malnutrition and years of living in fear for their lives, several of them stumbled and fell, only to be helped to their feet by their equally exhausted companions. Jacen could tell that everyone’s energy reserves were running out.
If they had to continue this battle, they would not make it much farther.
15
The Falcon swept overhead, strafing the oncoming monsters. Jaina and Anja fought behind the others, attacking more of the knaars. The air was filled with the snarls of the predators, the sizzling buzz of the lightsabers, and the despairing cries of the staggering villagers.
Then, to Jacen’s surprise, the migratory knaars faltered in their advance, honking at each other uneasily. Many in the pack were covered with blood from their victims, both human and reptilian. But they all paused in their tracks as if unwilling to come any closer to the forest.
Jacen, sensing the monsters’ hesitation, desperately tried to use his Jedi senses in another way. The knaars were at the edge of their territorial range. Jacen could feel that they had never come this far before, that the forests ahead were a great unknown, and that the predators had little desire to keep following. He sent out his thoughts, giving the knaars a vague feeling that they had come far enough, that they should turn and go home.
They smelled the blood in the air, dimly understood that a great many of their number had already died on this trek.
The knaars honked at each other in a rudimentary form of communication.
With sagging shoulders and trembling knees, the villagers turned to watch in shock as the predators ground to a halt, snapping sharp teeth into the air as if they had reached some invisible boundary.
Lowie gestured with his big hairy arms to keep the people moving toward the forest during this unexpected respite. “Dear me! How very odd! I do hope the knaars don’t change their minds and attack again,” Em Teedee said.
The Falcon circled back and blasted one motionless knaar who stood in the lead. The other reptiles howled and snapped their jaws in defiance of the disk-shaped ship that cruised overhead. Then they turned about, moving much slower now, and began their trek back through the minefield. The stragglers stopped to snort among the scraps of meat that remained on the carcasses they’d left behind during their chase after the fleeing villagers.
Jacen stood at the edge of the forest, surveying the tall dark trees and the shadows beyond. Farther in the distance, beyond the forest, steep mountains with winding switchback roads led up to the open tunnels and cliffside stone villages of the miners.
The Falcon came to the edge of the forest and hovered low. Jacen and Lowie reached out with their Jedi senses, found an area clear of the burrowing detonators, and gestured for Han to land. With a hiss not unlike that of the monstrous knaars, the ship settled down on the uneven terrain. The boarding ramp extended, and Han and Zekk bounded out.
“You kids okay?” Han said, breathless.
“We are, Dad,” Jacen said. His sister, looking exhausted, came up next to him.
“We lost quite a few of the villagers,” Jaina said, “but there was nothing more we could do. We tried our best.”
Zekk turned his emerald-green gaze on her. “Without you, they would all have been slaughtered. I just wish I’d had my own lightsaber so I could have fought at your side.”
Jaina touched his arm. “You’ll have one soon, Zekk—and you’ll earn it the right way.”
“You helped us out just fine in the Falcon,” Anakin said.
Jaina smiled. “You weren’t so bad yourself—for a little brother, or course.” Anja joined them now, sweating, flushed, but seething with energy.
To Jacen it almost seemed as if she wanted the knaars to attack again, just so she could enjoy the fight.
His droid foot clanging on the boarding ramp, Ynos stepped to the opening of the ship and gazed back across the fields to where an explosion boomed in the distance. One of the retreating knaars had stepped on another burrowing detonator.