Darkest Knight

18

Exhausted, Zekk stood with the lightsaber still gripped in his sweaty hand. He found it hard to breathe the thick, cloying air of the underworld.

The smoking carcass of the dead slug beast, now sliced in pieces, lay draped across the overspreading branches. Burned slime bubbled with a noxious stench. Small fires crackled from stray blaster bolts that had ignited portions of the dense foliage. The surviving stormtroopers shouted to each other over helmet comlinks, completing their damage assessment.

Vonnda Ra stood trembling, jaw set, face drawn, as if the fury she had unleashed to fight the monster had drained her somehow. The new Nightsisters were supposedly proof against the physically damaging effects of the evil powers they invoked, but the tremendous battle Vonnda Ra and Zekk and the stormtroopers had waged against the mindless slug had left her looking shriveled.

Zekk slumped against an upright tree trunk, feeling the soft squish of blue moss mixed with ichor from the slug creature.

Only four stormtroopers remained with their party. The slug beast had crushed the others or flung them into the unseen depths below. Chunks of the dead thing sloughed off the main branches, oozing down to where rodents and scavengers rustled through the darkness in a feeding frenzy.

Zekk heard a crash and a crackle of snapping twigs far behind them. Suddenly, with a tingle through his own Force senses, he knew that two others followed, attempting to catch them—and he identified one of the pursuers. In astonishment, he blinked his green eyes into the forest shadows, reaching out with the focused power of his senses.

“It’s Jaina Solo,” he said to Vonnda Ra. “Behind us. She’s coming this way.” He planted his black boots firmly on the branch. He had to choose, but he could not. With all of Brakiss’s promises, he had never thought it would be so difficult.

Ahead Jacen, Lowbacca, Sirra, and Tenel Ka had succeeded in eluding Imperial pursuit so far—but Jaina, completely unaware, was heading straight toward them. He would have to confront her himself.

“We must split up,” Zekk said. “I will go back alone and stop Jaina. The rest of you, continue after these others.”

“Yes.” Peering ahead into the forest maze, Vonnda Ra seethed. “I’ll make them pay for what they’ve done to us!”

With a gesture of her clawed hand, the Nightsister and the remaining stormtroopers set off after the young Jedi Knights.

Though Jacen fought to stay within sight of his companions, this deep level of the forest had become so dark he felt as if he were swimming through a pool of ink. Finally, surprisingly, the depths began to shimmer with wonder. He noticed the cold illumination of phosphorescent organisms, glowing insects, pulsing fungi and lichens that threw heatless chemical light into the smothering darkness.

All around him in the branches and leaves he could see spangles like starlight, as if—instead of being deep within a dense forest—he stood on a sprawling plain under a clear night sky. Jacen found it breathtaking, and nudged Tenel Ka’s warm arm to get her attention. The immensity of it overwhelmed him. He had never thought he’d experience something so wonderful down here.

As he and Tenel Ka stared upward, wordlessly sharing the experience, an unexpected volley of blaster shots streaked across the jungle like fireworks. A sparking white-hot globe of fire blazed toward them like a meteor—the stormtroopers had shot a dazzling flareball that spewed light in all directions.

The flareball crashed into the crook of a nearby tree and lodged there like a tiny sun, sputtering as it burned hot and bright. The flare sharpened the shadows and washed the humid air with garish light, stripping away the cloaking darkness.

Jacen saw to his dismay that four stormtroopers were standing on a single wide branch and aiming their weapons at the exhausted Jedi trainees, though the brilliant flareball had dazzled their eyes as well.

Tenel Ka shoved Jacen away from her. “Hide!” she said, and dashed off into the thick branches. Jacen ducked just as a blaster bolt sheared off a steaming chunk of wood above his head.

A rustling noise through the branches told him that Lowie and Sirra had also fled. He heard somebody else, but he could see only the four stormtroopers. He wondered if it could be Zekk … and he wondered if his dark-haired former friend would show them any mercy.

“Oh, blaster bolts,” he said as another shot tore through the air too close to him. “Hah—no kidding,” he muttered to himself.

In the strobing light he could discern only brilliant colors dancing before his aching eyes. Then he glimpsed the flickering movement of a slender figure suddenly sprouting a bright turquoise blade—Tenel Ka with her lightsaber … and she was just beneath the four stormtroopers!

The Imperial troopers saw her, too. They shouted excitedly and took aim—but too late.

With a single stroke, Tenel Ka slashed through the bough that supported the stormtroopers. Her rancor-tooth lightsaber flared, and sparks spat off in all directions as her blade severed the centuries-old tree branch.

Tenel Ka dove out of the way. Wood cracked, vines snapped, and leaves were torn asunder under the enormous weight of the surprised Imperial soldiers. They fired randomly, shouting in panicked bursts through their comlink helmets as the branch fell away, spilling them into the forest floor below. The four stormtroopers toppled to their deaths, blaster rifles still firing.

Looking fiercely satisfied, Tenel Ka deactivated her lightsaber and clipped it to her belt. Jacen, standing within her view, gave the warrior girl a round of silent applause.

Farther down, in the shelter of a curved and stunted tree, Lowbacca crouched close to his sister Sirra as the thick branch bearing the four hapless stormtroopers plummeted past them through the darkness. With his dark-adapted Wookiee eyes, he could see Sirra sniffing the air, waiting.

Sirra seemed preoccupied with testing the air and studying her surroundings. Then Lowie caught a twinge of scent—the frightening, tingling aroma of a syren plant, a large one, farther below.

With a quiet groan, he searched the area with his golden eyes until he saw the monstrous carnivorous flower in the thick underbrush of the ground level, its glossy yellow petals spread wide, its blood-red central stalk giving off a tempting scent. Sirra maneuvered herself until she was above the dangerous plant, then sought a safe way to get down to it.

Suddenly, Vonnda Ra leaped out of nowhere and slammed into Lowie, her hands crackling with evil lightning force. Jolts of searing electricity coursed through Lowie, and his fur began to smoke even as he staggered backward with a bellowing roar, stunned and disoriented.

In a blur of claws and teeth, Sirra leaped into the fray, flashing her ferocious Wookiee fangs. Her strong arms pushed Vonnda Ra away from her brother. The Nightsister turned on Sirra and released a bolt of her sizzling evil power.

Sirra cried out in pain and stumbled, then regathered her strength, launching off with powerful leg muscles into a full-body tackle of Vonnda Ra. Together, they went over the edge of the slippery, moss-covered branch and out into open air, tumbling and slashing.

Lowie shook himself and leaped into motion, rushing toward his sister. He reached out and caught the falling Nightsister’s black cape, but the tough, slick fabric slipped through his fingers.

Sirra and Vonnda Ra fell.

Lowie howled in despair as the two combatants careened directly toward the waiting jaws of the syren plant.

Struggling as they dropped, Sirra managed to get on top. With an impact heavy enough to knock the wind out of a gundark, they crashed onto the broad, deadly petals. Vonnda Ra’s back struck the soft sensitive tissues inside the syren plant’s open maw first. Sirra instantly pushed herself up to her feet, but the huge petals squeezed together in a reflexive, hungry action.

Roaring, Lowie leaped off the high branch, frantic to do something. His attention fixed on the glossy petals as they contracted, folding around its two new victims. High above, Jacen and Tenel Ka yelled down to him.

Vonnda Ra squirmed as the plant’s trap squeezed tighter. Lowie saw his sister’s head disappear as the thick muscular petals swallowed her up. Only one arm with pattern-shaved fur extended from between the deadly flower’s jaws.

Lowie reached the syren plant, then grasped the leathery petals with his clawed hands, pulling, straining. The roots of the plant squirmed, digging deeper into the forest loam.

Lowie didn’t dare take out his lightsaber and slash the flower to pieces, because he knew that would kill his sister as surely as the plant would. He tugged, groaning, and the sealed petals peeled slightly apart. The syren plant made a gurgling, gasping sound. Sirra’s hand still protruded from the opening, flexing and struggling, as if she were in great pain.

While Jacen grasped a vine and began to climb down, Tenel Ka dropped beside Lowie, one of her throwing knives in her hand. She stabbed at the leathery wall of the plant, but her knife could not penetrate the tough skin.

Then a burst of black lightning and static from within caused the plant to convulse. Its petals flapped open again, as if in a gasp of agony. Inside, Vonnda Ra struggled to her knees, teeth gritted together and eyes blazing with the Dark Force concentrated in her. Lowie took the opportunity to reach in and get a firm grasp on Sirra. He pulled.

Laboring for breath, the young Wookiee moved as rapidly as she could across the slippery, shifting petals. Tenel Ka grabbed for Sirra’s outstretched arm, and pulled. The syren plant began to contract. Jacen gripped the edge of one waxy petal to slow its closing and murmured low, soothing words to the plant. Lowie braced himself and leaned back, dragging his sister away with all his strength. Her feet slipped free of the petals just as the syren plant clamped shut again—with Vonnda Ra still inside.

Its deceptively beautiful, fleshy yellow petals squeezed with viselike muscles, squashing its remaining prey. A few flashes of black lightning flickered from within the plant, and Vonnda Ra gave one last, muffled cry. The lumpy form caught in the folds of the flower struggled once, twice, then subsided into stillness.

Lowie held Sirra, knowing she might be injured and might need help to get back up to the higher levels. He noted with anguish the burned patches on his sister’s fur where Vonnda Ra’s power had singed her—yet to his amazement Sirra seemed happy, even delighted. She let out a roar of greeting.

Her eyes sparkled as she lifted her other arm up so he could see what she was clasping as if it were the greatest treasure she had ever held. During her ordeal inside the syren plant, before it had opened long enough for her to escape, Sirrakuk had managed to grasp a handful of the gossamer fibers with her trapped hand and yank them free.

She held up the silken strands in triumph, and Lowie barked with proud laughter. He embraced his sister and pounded her good-naturedly on the back with enough force to crack stormtrooper armor.