“And you want us to help you get it?” Jaina asked.
“That’s the idea,” Zekk said. “Your friend Tenel Ka there has a pretty strong rope—as I found out! And some of you look like good climbers, especially that Wookiee.”
Em Teedee shrilled, “Oh no, Lowbacca. You simply cannot climb down there! I absolutely forbid it.” Lowie hadn’t looked too eager at first, but the translating droid’s admonishment only served to convince him otherwise. The Wookiee growled an agreement to Zekk’s plan.
Tenel Ka attached her grappling hook to the side of the walkway. “I am a strong climber,” she said. “This is a fact.”
Zekk rubbed his hands together with delight. “Excellent.”
“Let me get the eggs,” Jacen said, eager to touch the smooth, warm shells, to study the nest configuration. “I’ve always wanted to see one up close.” This was such a rare opportunity. Hawk-bats were common in the deep alleyways of Coruscant, but they were horrendously difficult to capture alive.
Pulling the fibercord taut, Tenel Ka wrapped her hands around it and began lowering herself to the old construction crawler. Jacen had seen her descend the walls of the Great Temple on Yavin 4, but now he watched with renewed amazement as she walked backward down the side of the building, relying only on the strength of her supple arms and muscular legs.
Jacen admired the girl from Dathomir—but he wished he could make her laugh. He had been telling Tenel Ka his best jokes for as long as he had known her, but he still hadn’t managed to coax even the smallest smile from her. She seemed not to have a sense of humor, but he would keep trying.
Tenel Ka reached the construction crawler and anchored the fibercord, gesturing with her arm to summon him down. Jacen wrapped the cord around himself and started down the slick wall, trying to imitate Tenel Ka. He used the Force to keep his balance, nudging his feet when necessary, and soon found himself standing beside Tenel Ka on the teetering platform.
“Piece of cake,” he panted, brushing his hands together.
“No thank you,” Tenel Ka said. “I am not hungry.”
Jacen chuckled, but he knew the warrior girl didn’t even realize she had made a joke.
Lowie slid down the fibercord with ease, while Em Teedee wailed all the way. “Oh, I can’t watch! I’d rather switch off my optical sensors.”
When they all stood on the creaking platform, Jacen bent over, straining to reach the tangled nest just below. “I’m going to climb down there,” he said. “I’ll pass the eggs up.”
Before anyone could argue, he dropped between two thin girders, holding a crossbar to reach the piping brace that supported the odd nest. The eggs were brown, mottled with green, camouflaged as knobs of masonry covered with pale lichen. Each was about the size of Jacen’s outspread hand; when he touched the warm shells, the texture was hard and rough, like rock. With the Force, he could sense the growing baby creature inside. Perhaps he could use the Force to levitate the prize up to his friends.
He smiled, tingly with wonder as he hefted one of the eggs. It wasn’t heavy at all. As he touched a second egg, though, he heard a shrill shriek from above, coming closer.
Tenel Ka shouted a warning. “Look out, Jacen!”
Jacen looked up and saw the sleek form of the mother hawk-bat, swooping down at him and screaming in fury, metallic claws extended, wings studded with spikes. The hawk-bat’s wing-span was about two meters. Its head consisted mostly of a horny beak with sharp ivory teeth, ready to tear a victim to shreds.
“Uh-oh,” Jacen said.
Lowie bellowed in alarm. Tenel Ka grabbed for a throwing knife—but Jacen knew he couldn’t wait for help.
The creature dove toward him like a missile, and Jacen closed his eyes to reach out with the Force. His special talent had always been with animals. He could communicate with them, sense their feelings and express his own to them. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “I’m sorry we were invading your nest. Calm. It’s all right. Peace.”
The hawk-bat pulled up from her dive and clutched one of the corroded lower crossbars with durasteel-hard claws. Jacen could hear the squeaking sound as the claws scraped rust off the metal, but he maintained his calm.
“We didn’t mean to hurt your babies,” he said. “We won’t take them all. I need only one, and I promise you it’ll be delivered to a fine and safe place … a beautiful zoo where it will be raised and cared for and admired by millions of people from across the galaxy.”
The hawk-bat hissed and pushed her hard beak closer to Jacen, blowing foul breath from between sharp teeth. He knew the hawk-bat was extremely skeptical, but Jacen projected images of a bright aviary, a place where the young hawk-bat would be fed delicacies all its life, where it could fly freely, yet never need to fear other predators or starvation … or being shot at by gang members. Jacen snatched the last vision—blurred figures of young humans shooting as she hunted between tall buildings—from the mother’s mind.
This last fear convinced the mother, and she flapped her spiked leathery wings, backing away from the nest and leaving Jacen safe … for the moment. He grinned up at his friends.
Tenel Ka stood poised, dagger in hand, ready to jump down and fight. Jacen felt a pleasant warm glow to think that she was willing to defend him. He took the hawk-bat egg he was holding and used the Force to carefully levitate it into Jaina’s hands. She cradled it, then handed it to Zekk.
“What did you do?” Zekk called.
“I made a deal with the hawk-bat,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“But what about those other eggs?” Zekk said, holding his treasure with great amazement.
“You only get one,” Jacen answered. “That was the deal. Now we’d better get out of here—and hurry.” He scrambled up to join Lowie and Tenel Ka.
Lowie climbed the fibercord first, racing up the side of the building to the upper ledge. Jacen urged the others to greater speed, and finally, when they were all standing back on the walkway, Zekk said, “I thought you made a deal with the mother. Why do we have to hurry?”
Jacen continued to hustle them out of sight of the construction crawler. “Because hawk-bats have extremely short memories.”
3
As the five companions left the hawk-bat’s nest behind, Jaina stuck close to Zekk. She watched the dark-haired boy move instinctively, hurrying through the maze of upper and lower walkways and cross-connecting bridges as he made a beeline back to his living quarters. The green-eyed boy beamed with self-congratulatory pride at the precious egg he held, as if it were a trophy he had hoped to win for a long time.
“Peckhum is going to be so pleased!” Zekk crowed, looking from Jaina to Jacen. “He’ll know just what to do with it. He’s got a line on everyone who’s looking for anything.” He glanced sidelong at Jacen again. “Don’t worry about it. We’ll find a good home for this baby, just like you promised, Jacen. It shouldn’t be too hard for a professional zoologist to incubate this egg until it hatches.”
Tenel Ka cleared her throat and said ominously, “If we bring the egg back intact.”
Jaina suddenly noticed that they had returned to the abandoned levels emblazoned with gang graffiti. The Lost Ones.
The sharp corners of the cross in a triangle symbol seemed brighter now, as if freshly painted. Jaina wondered if the gang members could have marked their territory afresh in the short time since the young Jedi Knights had passed through. If the gang members kept such a careful eye out for everything, they might have spotted the five companions already.
Maybe they were watching from hidden, shadowy corners right now….