She looked up in bleak despair, her dark eyes burning as she blinked and blinked. Her throat constricted painfully. Heedless of the blood that stained her hands, she touched the young man’s shoulder, ran her fingers along the wispy blond strands of his beard that now would never grow to bushy fullness like his older brother’s.
The commandos stared speechless at what they had inadvertently done.
Anja’s heart felt like a lead weight in her chest. She knew that she herself, and no one else, would have to tell Elis.
19
In one of the stonewalled gathering rooms, Elis’s anguished wails echoed from the rocks and seemed to hang in the air like cold icicles.
Jacen shuddered at hearing the pain and sadness in that voice. The dark-bearded man cried out again, a wordless moan. He squeezed his eyes shut, and tears coursed down through the rugged crevices in his dusty face. When he ground his teeth together, his bushy beard stood out like black spines.
Jacen stood without moving, frozen in the moment next to his friends and his father. It was early morning. They had slept uncomfortably, restlessly, and then they had been summoned from their rooms to meet with the mining leader. Elis wanted to discuss what the New Republic could possibly do to improve the situation on Anobis.
With fresh hope, the group had trooped into the room to listen to the village leader and to offer suggestions as to how the long and painful civil war might finally reach a cease-fire, so that the parties could start talking. Although nothing had changed in decades, nothing was likely to change until the miners and the farmers at least began to communicate. Then, perhaps they could learn to talk in a civilized fashion.
But before Han Solo or Elis could speak, Anja had burst into the room, her face drawn, her huge eyes even more grief-stricken than Jacen was accustomed to seeing them. She kept her trembling voice low, but Jacen understood most of the devastating news she passed to Elis. Zekk caught his breath. Lowbacca, with his sensitive Wookiee ears, listened and groaned. Em Teedee made no effort to translate. Han Solo fidgeted uncomfortably. Jacen and Jaina looked at each other.
Elis turned away from them, hiding his face. The darkhaired mining leader clenched his left hand into a fist and began pounding on the stone wall of the meeting room. His chest was racked with sobs that he tried to contain within himself. As Elis smashed his knuckles again and again against the stone, Jacen saw a growing smear of blood blossoming there.
Finally, the leader drew a deep breath and seemed to control himself.
When Elis opened his eyes, the look of pure hatred behind them made Jacen turn cold. “I will kill them!” Elis roared. “Bring Ynos here now!” he shouted, and other miners scurried off to the cells to fetch the one-legged farming leader.
“Why blame him?” Zekk asked, his voice surprisingly stern. His nostrils flared. “Those farmers didn’t do anything this time. From what I could hear, the fault belonged to your brother—and those who went with him.”
Anja looked up in dismay, but did not argue.
Jaina spoke up. “Ynos and his villagers didn’t kill Protas, did they, Anja?” she said. “It was one of your own burrowing detonators, Elis. You planted them. You seeded the fields so that no one could grow crops anymore. It was an accident caused by your people, with your own weapons.”
“Yeah,” Jacen said. “You certainly can’t be angry with the farmers for this.”
“The true casualties of war are rarely those we expect,” Tenel Ka added.
Stricken, Elis was unable to sort through his thoughts. He didn’t seem to hear anything the young Jedi Knights said. He stood up and looked down at his bloodied knuckles, as if surprised. “I will call Lilmit or one of our other suppliers. They will help us get enough weapons to wipe out the farmers and end this war forever. My brother will be the last casualty on our side.”
“It’s kind of odd, don’t you think?” Han Solo said. “That Lilmit is selling weapons to both sides, I mean. If you buy more, then the other side will buy more. Pretty soon you won’t be able to count all the victims.”
“What?” Elis said, astonished. “Lilmit? Impossible. He wants to help us win.”
“No,” Anja croaked, her voice rough and weak. “We intercepted him on his way here and confiscated his cargo. He had weapons for our miners, all right. But he also had sonic punchers and other equipment the farmers use against us.”
“They’re selling to both sides?” Elis said in horror.
Just then, the guards dragged in an indignant and weary-looking Ynos.
His mechanical droid leg scraped along the stone floors. He had heard the last of the exchange. Standing, he shook off the grasp of the guards.
“You buy weapons from Lilmit as well?” he growled.
Elis looked at him, and the expression on his face rippled with pure rage. “They’re playing both sides for fools-supplying all of us, while we continue to fight and harm each other all for nothing!”
“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Zekk crossed his anus over his chest. “They may have been keeping this little war going for as long as possible, just because business is so good.”
Ynos and Elis glared daggers at each other.
“I understand your little brother was trying to destroy our village, and had a little accident,” the one-legged man taunted.
With a roar, Elis charged toward the farming leader, but Jacen and Jaina moved with their father and friends to block his way.
“Protas shouldn’t have gone to the village last night. Anja was there with him,” Jaina said. “Ynos had nothing to do with it.”
“It’s my fault,” Anja said. “I planted that burrowing detonator to destroy Ynos’s home. It went off… too soon, and the explosion killed your brother.”
“My home is gone?” Ynos said. “Our village is ruined, as well.”
He hung his shaggy head. He turned his eyes toward Anja. “And who would have died if the detonator hadn’t gone off ‘too soon’?”
Anja did not meet his eyes.
“Someone must pay,” Elis insisted. “You farmers have much to atone for all of the sonic punchers you have planted, the tunnels you have collapsed, the miners you have killed with your cowardly hidden weapons.” Ynos drew himself up. “And who will pay for all of my people who died while trying to plant crops for our very survival? What of the victims of your burrowing detonators, your monofilament nets in the forest?”
“Nothing you do can bring those people back,” Jacen said. “Blaster bolts! If you keep trying to take revenge for what the other side does, this war will never end.”
“Your people have demonstrated that over the last twenty years,” Anakin pointed out.
“But we can’t just forget and put it all behind us,” Elis said with a scowl. “Too much blood has been shed, and too many traps remain. People will continue to die for years as they stumble upon leftover sonic punchers buried by these… renegades in our precious mines.”
“And how are we to farm?” Ynos cried. “All of our most fertile land is still full of deadly explosives. We can’t even plow the fields, much less plant our seeds.”
“Then maybe all of you should work together to clear out those traps and explosives,” Jacen said, “instead of wasting all your time rigging more murder weapons to strike back at each other.”
“Why spend your efforts on causing more damage instead of on healing your world?” Tenel Ka asked.
Anja looked up at them, her eyes weary. She heaved a huge sigh. “You ask the impossible.”
Jacen and Jaina looked at each other, recalling their uncle Luke’s story of his Jedi training with Yoda. Luke had thought Yoda asked the impossible.