The miners gasped. Lowie went over to a stout tree and with his bare hands ripped the controls away, shorting them out. The hologram flickered and faded, revealing the open pit and its sharp spikes.
The miners looked furious at the thought of the cowardly trap the farm villagers had set. But one farmer snarled, “Is that any more vicious than your monofilament wire that can butcher us into pieces as we walk?”
The miners took the lead, showing where they had strung their wires between trees. Lowie could barely see the laser-sharp lines, but he knew they were there. He and Tenel Ka drew their lightsabers and swept through the air, as if fighting invisible spiderwebs. The scaring blades severed the monofilament wire, making the passage safe again.
Lowie sniffed. On the forest floor below where the cutting web had been strung, he saw numerous dead animals: birds whose wings had been neatly amputated when they flew between the wrong trees, and larger forest animals, cut down as they walked, left to decay in the forest mulch, surrounded by the bodies of carrion eaters who’d also ventured into the deadly trap.
Both sides were subdued now, resentful but cowed.
“Come,” Tenel Ka said gruffly, marching forward. Her pale skin and glittering lizard-hide armor looked out of place in the silent, primeval forest. “We have much ground to cover, and years of accumulated dangers to eliminate.”
Jaina once again took her place as the Millennium Falcon’s copilot.
She felt very comfortable in the position, though she realized that as soon as they left Anobis, her father would travel with Chewbacca again.
She didn’t feel sad, however. Being her father’s copilot was a wonderful experience and had taught her much, but she preferred flying the Rock Dragon. Even though the Hapan passenger cruiser technically belonged to Tenel Ka, Jaina knew that once her skills were sufficiently advanced, she would get a cruiser of her own, perhaps an old ship like Zekk’s Lightning Rod, or maybe something newer and faster…. She grinned at the thought.
Han looked over at her, wondering what she was thinking. “Don’t get distracted now, Jaina,” he said. “This is a touchy operation.”
The Falcon cruised over the treetops and suddenly burst out above the open cropland. Jaina could see where the land had long ago been cleared for farming. Green weeds showed how fertile the dirt could be, but first the deadly harvest planted beneath the soil, the burrowing detonators that waited for any unsuspecting footfall, would have to be removed.
“All right, kids,” Han said. Anakin came forward to stand between Jaina and his father. “I need something that not even the Falcon can do for me. Use your Jedi senses to help your old man find those detonators and get rid of them.”
Anakin nodded, squinting his eyes in concentration. Jaina recalled how she had avoided the buried explosives during their desperate flight from the knaars. In her mind she saw a dotted pattern of ripples below, like a scrambled checkerboard of targets on the ground.
“There’s an awful lot of them, Dad,” Jaina said.
“Swarms,” Anakin added.
“Well, let’s get started then. Give me some coordinates.”
“Just fly in a slow zig-zag across the field, Dad,” Jaina said.
“It will be hard not to find a detonator,” Anakin agreed. He helped his sister aim one of the ship’s laser cannons.
Jaina fired from the copilot’s controls, and was rewarded with a large explosion, much greater than the laser should have made. “Got one!” she cried.
“There are hundreds more,” Anakin said.
Jaina targeted another detonator, and the laser cannon eliminated that one as well. After she blew up three more, Han asked, “We getting close?”
“Not in the least,” Jaina said. “This’ll take all day.”
“A single footstep could set one off at any time,” Anakin said. “But they move around a bit. We’ll have to target each one precisely.”
“You kids are doing great.” Han patted the Falcon’s control panel. “But I think I’ve got a faster way.”
“We can’t miss a single one,” Jaina warned. “It could start the fighting all over again.”
“Don’t worry, I think we can get full coverage.” Han activated the ship’s deflector shields, which had blasted comets out of the way during their final trial run of the Derby. Now, as he cruised low, the force field pressed down, like a heavy unseen hand, on the ground.
“We’ll just cruise over the fields. The force field will push down and pop any of those land mines we encounter.”
The Falcon moved slowly, its deflector shields placing pressure on the dirt. As the deflectors ruffled the soil, one of the burrowing detonators exploded directly beneath them, rocking the craft from side to side.
Jaina and Anakin looked at their father.
“Not to worry,” Han said. “This ship can handle a lot more than that.”
They flew in a straight line as Anakin marked the pattern of their flight on a holochart he called up. Three more detonators exploded.
Clouds of suspended dust and smoke looked like phantom trees growing from the barren field.
“Ah, looks like our reinforcements have arrived,” Han said.
Jaina looked into the sky to see the fleeting shape of another ship—a familiar ship. The Hapan passenger cruiser circled low, coming in to pace them. “But—we left the Rock Dragon on Ord Mantell.”
Han shrugged. “I asked somebody to pick it up for us.” He toggled the comm switch. “Hey, Kyp. That you, kid?”
“You bet,” Kyp Durron said. “With Streen—and I brought some more assistants from the Jedi academy, in case you could use an extra hand.”
“Or hoof,” another voice broke in.
“Is that Lusa?” Jaina asked, suddenly recognizing the voice of the centaur girl who had come to Yavin 4 after escaping from the Diversity Alliance.
“Yes, we’ve got Lusa here, and young Raynar, another friend of yours,” Kyp continued. The young man from the Bornaryn trading fleet greeted them.
“Looks like we’re going to have quite a reunion tonight,” Kyp said. “But for now, we’ve got some land mines to clear.”
“Hey, I’m just a good pilot who happens to be here on a diplomatic mission,” Han Solo said. “I’m trusting all of you to use your Jedi powers to make sure we do a thorough job.”
The two ships parted and began to crisscross the vast acreage that had once been cropland. It was clear that the fields of Anobis could grow food enough to feed all its inhabitants, once the land was made safe again.
The rumble of repeated land-mine detonations sounded like rapid gunshots in the empty sky. The Rock Dragon and the Millennium Falcon continued without pause. Their deflector shields pushed down on the fertile ground, at the same time smoothing out many of the jagged holes and pits left from earlier explosions.
“Never thought we’d be using our spaceships to harvest bombs,” Jaina said.
Han smiled at her. “The Falcon’s good for just about anything,” he said. “ ’Course I prefer to give her more glamorous duties.”
Both ships left their comm systems open. Jaina chattered with Raynar and the centaur girl Lusa, catching up on news as they continued their work. Toward the end of the afternoon, Lowie and Tenel Ka emerged from the dense forest and waved up at the ships crisscrossing the air.
“Looks like they’re finished,” Jaina said. “But I have the feeling we just did the easier parts of the job. We can go home once these weapons are cleaned up. But the people of Anobis still have to come to terms with all their hatreds and prejudices. They’ve got a long history to overcome.”