Darkest Knight

19

Moving to a stronger branch and gripping the tree trunk to ensure her balance, Jaina leaned over, anxiously peering into the forest depths where Chewbacca had tumbled. “Chewie!” she shouted.

She heard a Wookiee howl of pain rise toward her from the murky shadows below. He was still alive—and conscious—though she knew he must be injured.

Adjusting her grip on the vine-draped trunk of the wroshyr tree, Jaina bent over and cast the pale, pink light of the swirling phosfleas into the leaves below. As she had suspected, the light did not penetrate far enough for her to locate her friend. “Chewie, I’m here,” Jaina yelled, using the Force to amplify her call. “Can you move? Can you climb back up here?”

She heard a far-off rustling and crackling of branches, then a loud yelp. Chewbacca groaned in dismay and then roared something about a fractured leg.

His words doused Jaina’s sense of relief like an icy torrent of rain on a candle flame. A wave of weakness spun behind her eyes. Jaina clung to the tree, pressing her face against its rough bark.

Kashyyyk’s jungle was dangerous enough for a healthy human with a full-grown Wookiee guide, but Jaina had no idea how to get herself out of the jungle—much less herself and an injured friend whom she’d undoubtedly have to carry. And then how could she help her brother and the others?

Meanwhile, she realized, Chewbacca’s injury might even draw predators hoping for an easy kill….

The thought snapped Jaina out of her momentary weakness. She had to think; she had to help Chewie. She was in training to be a Jedi Knight—and this problem certainly couldn’t be impossible to solve, she told herself. First things first. She had to get down to Chewbacca right away. She felt ashamed that she had wasted precious seconds with her panic.

“Chewie,” she yelled again, “keep calling to me until I find you.”

She would have to move quickly. She felt around for a sturdy vine, yanking one after another until she found a rough strand that would hold her weight. Pressing the toes of her boots against the tree trunk, Jaina lowered herself hand over hand, maneuvering around the splintered stumps of branches broken by the Wookiee’s fall. “I’m coming,” she said, as much to reassure herself as to comfort Chewie.

By the time she located the injured Wookiee, her feet ached, her palms burned, and every muscle in her body shook with weariness. She unstrapped the phosflea lamp from her waist and held it close to Chewbacca’s body to get a better look at him. The fuzzy light swirled as she moved.

A quick examination of his injuries told Jaina that the news was grim. The minor scrapes, bruises, and cuts could be dealt with easily enough, but one leg was broken. Chewbacca would never be able to walk out of here.

Jaina knew she was not equal to the task of transporting a wounded Wookiee hundreds of meters up to the forest canopy, even if she used the Force. She had barely made it this far herself.

Besides that, her brother and the others still needed her help. Jaina didn’t know what she could do for them.

She thought the problem over while she used a few of the meager emergency supplies from their packs to clean Chewie’s wounds. He groaned and did his best to help her.

Clearly, Jaina had no choice but to abandon her search for the others. Jacen, Tenel Ka, and the two young Wookiees were still fleeing from the Imperials. Jaina was no tracker, and she had little chance of finding them down here.

But she and her twin brother had always shared an uncommonly close mental bond, just like the one their mother Leia shared with her twin Luke. Perhaps if she sent out a cry for help, Jacen might be able to find her.

Concentrating all of her mental effort, Jaina sent out a cry—“Help me!”—that rang through her mind like a mallet striking a cymbal.

Opening her eyes, Jaina checked the fracture in Chewbacca’s leg again. The bone fragments had not torn through the skin, but the injury was still serious. Jaina raised her phosflea light high and looked about for any sturdy material she could use as a splint.

The pinkish glow fell on a pair of black boots. A familiar voice said, “Did you call for help?”

Jaina started and nearly fell off the branch. Growling, Chewbacca bared his fangs, though he could make no move to attack.

“Zekk—what are you doing here?” Trying to check her astonishment, Jaina stood and held the glowing light higher, but the leather-clad figure took a step backward, keeping his face partly in shadow.

“I had business here on Kashyyyk.”

“Imperial business?” Jaina asked, and bit her lip as soon as she had said it. Her heart contracted painfully. “What’s happened to you, Zekk? How could you stay with the Shadow Academy? I thought we were friends.”

He ignored the question, and asked two of his own. “Why are you here, Jaina? Why couldn’t you have stayed away? I don’t want to hurt you.”

Chewbacca voiced a snarl of warning at these words, though at the same time he hissed in pain from his injury.

“Then don’t hurt me, Zekk,” Jaina said reasonably. She took a step along the branch toward her former friend. “I’m no threat to you. I’m your friend. I care for you.”

“Step back and stay out of my way,” Zekk snapped. “It’s already too late for the others.”

Jaina flinched and shut her eyes, feeling the blood drain from her face. Could it be true? Had Zekk already killed Jacen, Lowie, Tenel Ka … even an innocent stranger like Sirra?

No, she decided at last, it couldn’t be. She would have felt it. Her brother and her friends were still alive. They had to be. She couldn’t believe that Zekk’s heart had become so scorched and black that he could murder someone he had once called a friend.

In an effort to distract him, as she had done with Garowyn, Jaina tried her trick again. She used the Force to riffle the leaves in the branches surrounding him, as if a chill wind were blowing through the claustrophobic cage of the forest underlevels.

Zekk looked up, his green eyes bright even in the shadows. It took him only a moment to realize what she was doing. His pale lips curled in a smile, then he gestured with one hand. The wind picked up, the branches clacked together, and a storm of dislodged leaves and twigs whipped through the air with the force of a small tornado.

Jaina shut her eyes, shielding them and shrinking back from the whirlwind. Chewbacca yowled, but Zekk paid no attention to the Wookiee. “I’m not impressed with your tricks, Jaina,” he said. “Don’t play games with me.”

Then, with a whoosh, a sizzling brightness stabbed through her eyelids. Jaina opened her eyes to see Zekk holding the weapon of a Jedi, his face lit by its pulsating scarlet glow. “Don’t go for your lightsaber, Jaina,” he warned.

She shook her head. “I won’t raise a weapon against you, Zekk. And I don’t believe you’d kill me either.”

Zekk’s face distorted with warring emotions. “Then stay away from the Jedi academy. If you ever get out of here, don’t go back. The Second Imperium will soon target Yavin 4—and I will fight as a loyal warrior for my Emperor.”

“Emperor? Zekk, you don’t know what you’re saying,” Jaina pleaded.

“Stop treating me like I’m an ignorant street kid!” he snarled back. “You’ve always underestimated my abilities, denied me opportunities. But Lord Brakiss doesn’t. He has shown me what I’m capable of.” He tilted his head to look up into the dark nest of branches overhead, as if he could see the daylight far above.

“I’ve already sent a signal for a fast ship to pick me up. I believe our raid has been quite successful. Time for me to return to the Shadow Academy.”

Zekk twitched his lightsaber from side to side as if shaking a finger in warning. “For the friendship we once had, I’ll spare you this time, Jaina. But don’t ever test my loyalties again.”

With a harsh laugh, Zekk swept his lightsaber upward, releasing a storm of leaves and twigs that showered down on Chewie and Jaina, knocking the phosflea light from her hand. Jaina ducked and covered her head. She couldn’t see.

A moment later Zekk was gone, his hollow laughter ringing behind him as he left them in darkness.