Jaina and Tenel Ka suggested that Em Teedee scan the fruit for implanted poisons, but the little droid happily pronounced each one of the red scaly clusters to be clean of contamination.
Lowie looked up at a tall, silver-trunked tree and chuffed a suggestion. “Master Lowbacca wishes to climb up to the canopy and take a look around,” Em Teedee said. “He believes it might be useful in making certain we’re close to the mountain village.”
“I agree,” Jaina said. “Go take a look around, Lowie.”
With his lanky arms and legs, the Wookiee scrambled from one branch to another, in no time disappearing into the mass of silvery-blue leaves.
Lowbacca loved to climb tall trees and sit in solitude. The Wookiee probably wanted to rest up there, but they couldn’t sit back and wait.
With a crashing of small branches, Lowie bounded down, leaping from branch to bough, enjoying the freedom. He landed on both feet in the middle of the clearing, and gave his quick report with barks and growls.
“We are very close to the edge of the forest,” Em Teedee said. “I am so pleased to be nearly out of this dismal place.”
“Then let’s get moving,” Jacen said. “I’m anxious to have our whole group back together.”
With a collective groan of weariness, the villagers struggled into motion again. The man who had been injured from the laser blast was carried along by two of his companions. They moved slowly, with exquisite care, and Jacen was very proud that they had not lost any of their party through the various traps planted among the trees.
One of the villagers called for them to move left in order to avoid a flower-filled meadow. Jacen saw nothing suspicious, though he did feel a tingling through the Force, warning him of danger. With a wan grin, the young man slipped over to another tree trunk and pushed a hidden button, switching off a tiny holographic generator. Part of the placid meadow disappeared, revealing a jagged-edged hole filled with durasteel spikers that gleamed in the forest light.
“The mountain miners aren’t the only ones who can plant traps,” he said proudly.
Jacen felt sickened. “That’s no way to end a war,” he muttered, thinking that Anja’s villagers might have fallen into that deadly trap.
“You’ve seen what the miners have done to us,” one farmer said. “How can you fault our people for defending ourselves?”
“This is no defense,” Tenel Ka said.
Soon they could see daylight and cliffs through the tattered edge of the forest. The mountain and its steep pathway lay ahead.
As they were about to emerge from the forest, though, just when Jacen thought they had passed through without incident, one member of the group close to Lowbacca stepped on a flat stone, which triggered a detonator that blew up beneath one of the wide-trunked trees.
The booby trap didn’t kill the woman who had triggered it, but instead blasted the roots from the huge tree and shoved it back toward them.
Its sprawling branches crashed through the adjoining trees as it tumbled.
“Look out!” Jacen cried.
Lowie roared and slashed at the oncoming branches with his lightsaber.
The other villagers scattered, screaming. One ran straight between two microfilament-laced trees and died an instant, bloody death. Another villager stepped on a small explosive, which blew him into the air before he fell dead and broken atop the thick-trunked tree as it crashed in among where they had all been standing only moments before.
The villagers wailed. Jacen felt a sharp pain in his heart. “We almost made it through,” he said.
“We’re all going to die,” one of the villagers said.
“No you’re not,” Jaina snapped. “We just have to keep moving.”
Raising her chin high, she walked bravely forward, accompanied by her brother and friends. The villagers followed, relieved to stand in the sunlight again, where they could look up at the sky after so many hours in the murky shadows. But now, free of the forest at last, they gazed at the steep pathways chiseled into the gray granite sides of the mountain, and they appeared on the verge of despair again.
“Come on. It’s up this road,” Jacen said. He could see the cave openings—numerous mining tunnels and the large, smooth-edged mouth where Jacen figured the mining village must be located. “My father and Ynos have already been in there, making arrangements for us. I’m sure they’ll have food and water and a safe place for us all to rest.”
“Or they’ll just use blasters to gun us down as we walk toward them,” one farmer said.
“And maybe a comet will crash down right now and wipe out the mountain village,” Jaina said, impatient. “You can worry all you want, but I’d like to get where I can rest.”
They started up the steep switchbacked pathway. Since it was a road used by the miners themselves, Jacen didn’t expect to find any pitfalls planted there.
Though the clear sunlight baked down, the air grew thin and cooler.
Overhead, wispy white clouds did little to cool off the day. The rugged mountainside provided no shade, but Jacen and his companions led the others on a slow, steady march. He could sense people watching him from above, thought he saw faces peering out from the honeycombed mine shafts in the rock face.
Now that they had accepted their destination, the villagers plodded along without complaint, without any comment whatsoever. Jacen could tell they were at the end of their rope. They had little to live for, and little hope that anything would get better soon.
Finally, panting and sweating, Jacen and his sister arrived at the top edge of the cliff city. Wearily, with a heavy arm, he gestured down to the group that had straggled out along the steep path. “Come on. It’s cool, and there’s shade up here.”
The city seemed quiet, though he could see people in doorways, watching them suspiciously. But he could think only about getting inside and resting. The farmers trudged in, standing in the cool rock grotto, where burn marks on the floor showed that many spacecraft had come and gone.
Jacen’s heart surged when he saw the Millennium Falcon, landed off to one side with a rippling rock wall arcing overhead. “See? We’re all safe now,” he said as Tenel Ka and Lowbacca brought up the rear.
“Oh, my. This is much better,” Em Teedee quipped.
Then, when all the villagers stood inside the cave, the miners marched out in a well-coordinated group. Others poured out of the mining tunnels below and came up from the rear, encircling them. Jacen saw no sign of his father or Anja, nor did he see any welcoming expression on the miners’ faces. Each one of them bore a weapon of some sort.
“As enemies of the mining community,” one man spoke up, “we will hold you as prisoners for crimes you have committed against our people.”
17
Zekk found himself imprisoned in the same stonewalled room with Han and Anakin Solo. The miners provided them with some sparse comforts—food and water, blankets and furniture. Anja’s work, perhaps?
Zekk wondered. Zekk guessed they were being treated far better than the other captive villagers, though their repeated questions about Ynos and the farmers went unanswered.
After hours without explanations, the darkhaired and bearded leader Elis came to them with surprise guests in tow, surrounded by guards from the mountain villages.
“Jaina!” Zekk cried. Jacen, Tenel Ka, and Lowbacca also came with them.
Han Solo leapt to his feet to see his children safely arrived. “You made it through the forest then,” Han said. “I was worried about you.”
“Had a pretty unpleasant welcoming committee when we got up here to the mining settlements, though,” Jaina said. “What do these people think they’re doing?”
“They think they can end their war this way,” Zekk mumbled.
“You don’t understand the type of people we’re dealing with,” Elis said, his voice a low growl. “The farmers have done heinous things—”