A whizzing sounded in his ears, followed by a soft clank. He felt himself slide toward the deadly gap and he grasped the railing, but the corroded metal broke away in his hand. He yelled for help, reaching back for anything to hold on to—and felt a strong arm wrap around his waist, then found himself being swept forward. Almost before he realized what had happened, Tenel Ka had swung both of them across the chasm on her fibercord rope and deposited them onto a sturdy metal stairway on the opposite side.
With a creaking groan of protest, the remainder of the bridge gave way behind them and fell in ominous, eerie silence into the deep blackness below.
It wasn’t until Tenel Ka released him that Jacen realized they had been clinging together for dear life. After what they had just been through, the metal stairway where Tenel Ka had anchored her rope seemed none too safe to Jacen. Nevertheless, the two young Jedi Knights stood in silence for a moment longer, staring down into the bottomless gap between the buildings.
“I guess we make a good team—always rescuing each other,” Jacen said at last. “Thanks.” Without waiting for an answer, he turned and climbed down a few steps to a building entrance. Once inside, he sank to the floor in relief, reveling in its comparative solidity.
Tenel Ka lowered herself shakily beside him. In the dim light, her face looked troubled and serious. “I was afraid I might lose a friend.”
You almost did, thought Jacen ruefully. But instead he said, “Hey, I’m not that easy to get rid of.”
Although she did not smile, Tenel Ka’s mood lightened. “This is a fact.”
They came upon the crashed shuttle less than ten minutes after they resumed their search. When they saw it, they both spoke at once.
“Zekk’s been here,” Jacen said.
“Something is wrong,” Tenel Ka said. Hearing her, Jacen realized that something was indeed wrong. Tenel Ka noticed his hesitation, and stepped forward. “It is my turn to go first. You may wait here, if you prefer.”
“Not on your life,” he shot back. “After all, I’ve got to stay close to you—just in case you need me to rescue you again.”
“Ah,” she said, raising a skeptical eyebrow. “Aha.” She entered the shuttle, and Jacen heard her say, “It is all right. No one here.”
Following her inside, Jacen saw that while the shuttle was unoccupied, someone had been there recently, picking out the remaining salvageable items. Tangles of wire and cable snaked across the dusty deck plates. Stripped bolts and broken fasteners lay strewn about. Several access panels gaped open, showing empty spaces that had once housed the shuttle’s vital equipment.
“Looks like Zekk may have been scavenging here after all,” Jacen said. “That’s a good sign.”
“Perhaps,” Tenel Ka said, lifting a finger to trace the frighteningly familiar symbol that was etched with crude strokes into one of the access panels. “Or perhaps not.”
Jacen looked at the fresh scratches that formed a triangle surrounding a cross—the threatening symbol of the Lost Ones gang. Jacen swallowed hard.
“Well,” he said, “I guess we know where to look next.”
16
Still deeply worried about Zekk, old Peckhum piloted his battered supply ship, the Lightning Rod, out of its sheltered hangar. The New Republic would have provided him transportation if he’d requested it, but Peckhum liked to take his own ship, though even on its best days it functioned less reliably than the Millennium Falcon. And it had never been made to carry so many passengers.
Lowie crammed himself beside Jaina into the back compartment, his ginger-furred legs stiff and awkward as he maneuvered his lanky Wookiee body into a seat built for someone little more than half his size. Lowie wished he had the T-23 skyhopper his uncle Chewbacca had given him the day he started at the Jedi academy, but the small craft was still on Yavin 4.
Peckhum had cleared tools and cartons of junk from the Lightning Rod’s cockpit—he usually flew the ship alone—so that Chewbacca could ride in the copilot’s seat. Chewbacca brought his own tool kit of battered hydrospanners and diagnostics, gadgets he used while working with Han Solo to keep the Falcon up and running … if just barely.
When the Lightning Rod received clearance from Coruscant Space Traffic Control, Peckhum angled upward through the misty clouds at high acceleration until the glowing atmosphere faded into the night of space. Lowie watched, bending his shoulders to stare out the front viewport as Peckhum maneuvered the ship into a high and stable orbit. The huge solar mirrors remained in position like a lake of silver, spreading a broad blanket of sunlight across the northern and southern regions of the metropolis-covered world.
Although the mirror station was temporarily empty because of the emergency switchover of caretakers, the critical solar mirrors could not be left untended. Peckhum’s name was next on the roster, and he had to report for duty, whether or not Zekk had run away from home.
Peckhum brought the Lightning Rod to dock against the corroded old station, which looked like a tiny speck dangling beneath the kilometers-wide reflector. Chewbacca and Lowie blatted to each other in Wookiee language, expressing their admiration for the huge orbital mirror.
The thin silvery fabric was like an ocean of reflection, only a fraction of a millimeter thick. It would have been torn to shreds had it approached Coruscant’s atmosphere, but in the stillness of space the mirror was thick enough. Space engineers had connected it to the dangling guidance station by dozens of fiber cables, gimbaled to attitude-control rockets that could direct the path of reflected sunlight onto the colder latitudes.
With the Lightning Rod docked, Peckhum opened the access hatch, which still bore markings from the Old Republic, and they all scrambled through into the austere station where they would spend the next few days.
“Well … isn’t this cozy,” Jaina said.
“According to my dictionary programming, I should think cramped is a better word,” Em Teedee observed. “I am fluent in over six forms of communication, you know.”
The metal ceiling was low and dark, strung with insulation-wrapped coolant tubes and wires running to control panels. A single chair sat in the middle of an observation bubble, surrounded by windows that looked down upon the glittering planet below. Old-style computer systems blinked with reluctant readiness, waiting for Peckhum to awaken standby routines and begin the tedious monitoring of the solar path.
Drawn by the spectacular view of space and the planet, Lowbacca went toward the observation dome. He grasped a cold metal pipe that thrust out from the curved wall and bent down to look at the huge ball of Coruscant. High clouds masked the daylight side of the planet, while the darkened hemisphere gleamed with millions upon millions of city lights that sparkled like colorful jewels in the night.
Lowie had seen planets from space before, but somehow it had never struck him how intimate the setting was. Here, high above the world, he felt a part of the universe and apart from it, a piece of the cosmos and an observer at the same time. It was strange to have such a perspective, and it made the galaxy seem both small and immensely large at the same time.
“Don’t just stare, Lowie,” Jaina urged. “We’ve got work to do. Our first priority should be to get those communication systems up and running.”
Chewbacca roared his agreement, clapping a strong hand on his nephews hairy shoulder. Peckhum seemed to be working hard to keep his attention on the routine aboard the station, rather than letting his thoughts wander to Zekk. “I really appreciate what you’re all doing,” he said.