Diversity Alliance

14

Squeezing all the young Jedi Knights into Raaba’s interstellar skimmer proved to be a challenge, especially with the two large Wookiees. But Lowie did not mind being in such cramped quarters with his friends … and Raaba.

The wound in his side still burned, but Raaba had efficiently applied a graft bandage to the injury, finding her well-stocked medikit quickly, as if she had cause to use it with some frequency. She calmly helped the exhausted companions settle into her crowded skimmer, which she had named the Rising Star.

Lowie found it very unsettling to see the chocolate-furred young Wookiee woman, a friend whom he had once mourned as dead—now resurrected before him. He kept his eyes on Raaba’s glossy coat as she guided the little craft across to the rim of the crater where the Rock Dragon waited.

She flew with a speed and conscious skill that stopped just this side of recklessness.

Her eyes flashed bright, her movements were strong—and she seemed to be avoiding conversation.

Lowie felt a growing discomfort. He wanted to ask Raaba so many questions, find out why she had disappeared, why she hadn’t communicated with him for so long.

Her loss and apparent death had been one of the saddest experiences in Lowie’s life.

“Er, Master Lowbacca, if you would be so kind as to give me a bit more room…. “Em Teedee said. Lowie looked down at his waist to find that he was so hunched over in the cramped cockpit that the little droid had been smashed between his stomach and his thigh. Yet somehow Lowie hadn’t noticed the discomfort. After he rearranged his lanky limbs to remedy the problem, the little droid sighed. “Ah, thank you, Master Lowbacca. That’s much better. Now my systems aren’t in danger of overheating.”

Circling the broad crater, Raaba brought her skimmer in for a smart landing fifty meters from the Rock Dragon, and the young Jedi Knights gratefully climbed out, stretching their cramped muscles. In the aftermath of their ordeal with the combat arachnids, they all thanked her profusely.

Raaba, though, seemed indifferent to the gratitude of the humans.

Jacen and Jaina joked in relief after their near brush with death.

Lowie could see curiosity about Raaba on the twins’ faces and sensed the questions that clamored to be asked. Tenel Ka’s expression was less readable, but he could sense her interest as well.

Raabakyysh straightened her dusty red headband, pushed the ornamented armlets more firmly against her biceps, and gruffly asked if she could do anything else to help.

Jaina’s brandy-brown eyes narrowed in a shrewd expression that Lowie knew well.

“Yes. Matter of fact, I really need to run a calibration check on the jump sequencer in our hyperdrive,” she said, “I’ll need Jacen and Tenel Ka to help.”

A surprised-looking Jacen interrupted. “But Lowie always helps you with—”

Jaina nudged him none too gently with her elbow, and Jacen subsided into conspiratorial silence.

“Thing is,” she continued, “we’re here looking for someone, someone important, and I’m wondering if we overlooked any clues that might help. It would really mean a lot to us if you and Lowie would do one more circuit of the crater rim—just to see if there’s anything we missed. And maybe you could do a few flyovers of the crater while you’re at it.”

“Ah,” Tenel Ka said, nodding. “Aha. An excellent plan.”

Humans could be much more perceptive than aliens gave them credit for, Lowie reminded himself. He was pleased when Raaba instantly agreed to the arrangement.

She seemed happy to help in the search for Bornan Thul—or perhaps she just preferred to be away from the other young Jedi Knights. She made no objection to Lowie’s accompanying her, though, and he hoped she wouldn’t avoid talking to him once they were alone.

Lowie knew from their past time together that Raaba was not one to stand around once a decision was made. With a few bounding leaps she was back at her skimmer, climbing inside as she tossed a glance behind her at Lowie. He trotted after her, and then settled himself in the Rising Star’s copilot seat, a position that had begun to feel natural to him.

With a blast of repulsorjets that sent plumes of dust into the shimmering air, the Rising Star lifted off, and Lowie’s spirits lifted with it. Through the front viewport he could see Jaina toss him a lighthearted salute before Raaba banked the skimmer and took off in the opposite direction around the rim.

Finally sharing a moment of privacy with her, Lowie felt the growing impact of the good news: Raaba was alive! She had not been torn to pieces by Wild animals in the lower levels of Kashyyyk’s jungle, or swallowed whole by a deadly syren plant.

But where had she been for so long? And why had she not tried to contact her friends or family to reassure them of her safety?

Lowie’s sister Siren had been as distraught as he himself had been.

He remembered their terrible months of shared grief.

Lowbacca stared through the skimmers front viewport for a few minutes, dutifully searching for clues that might lead them to Bornan Thul … and hoping that Raaba would broach these difficult subjects herself.

She did not. In fact, she said nothing to him.

At first he grew irritated that Raaba did not start a conversation. She had been the one who disappeared, leaving all of them to mourn. Then, knowing the pain and discomfort her words would necessarily bring, and wondering what excuse she could possibly give, he began to dread what she might say.

Finally, Lowie could no longer remain silent. Clearing his throat with a growl, he began his question in a voice filled with tension. At the same moment, Raaba started to talk. The two Wookiees’ words tumbled over each other, merging unintelligibly in the confines of the small cockpit. As each realized the other was speaking, they stopped, waited, began again at the same time, then burst into chuffing laughter at the absurdity of the situation.

With that tension released, Lowie was finally able to ask Raaba what had happened on the night of her disappearance.

Raaba replied in halting tones at first, averting her eyes. Her yearning to do something important and unusual with her life had been great, so great that she had been willing to risk her life to assure it.

Lowie had already known that much.

One night, without telling anyone, Raaba had brashly decided to attempt her rite of passage alone, asking for no help from Lowie or Sirra. But she had no sooner set out from the Wookiee tree city, had barely descended into the reasonably safe upper midlevels of the thick Kashyyyk forest, when a vicious katarn had attacked her.

Immediately, her hopes for completing the mission by herself were ended. Though she managed to drive the katarn away, the beast left its mark on her, tearing a pair of deep gouges along her ribs with its fangs.

Raaba knew full well that the scent of blood would bring other nocturnal predator running, ready for an easy meal. To stay in the forest now would be foolish, she realized, and to descend farther would mean certain death. But to go back would mean impossible shame and embarrassment.

Her only hope for survival lay above, in the treetops, in the safe, cozy Wookiee homes where she had lived all her life. Yet even as she hauled herself up branch after branch through sheer determination, Raaba found little hope in the prospect of simply surviving, going back to what had been her routine. Her brave attempt had been an utter failure—even cocky children climbed deeper than she had gone. She had no heart to go back to her friends and family and admit that she had begun her rite of passage only to retreat in cowardice at the first sign of danger.

If was better for them to think her dead.

And her death would free her to pursue other dreams….

Raaba and Lowie finished their search around the crater’s rim, and the dark-furred Wookiee woman took the Rising Star out into the center of the crater, landing it atop another tall building on the pretext of getting the best overall view of the city in the deep rock-walled bowl.

When the two Wookiees climbed out of the croft, Lowie saw that Raaba had brought him to the highest point inside the crater.

From the top of the creaking building rose a towering structure made of open metal latticework—a lookout tower or a corroded communications relay, Lowie guessed. Its peak rose more than a hundred meters above the top of the building, level with the distant rim of the crater. Wind whistled through the rusted girders.

Lowie’s heart raced at the sheer height of the structure. Without hesitation, Raaba sprang onto the latticework and began to climb.

Needing no encouragement, Lowie followed suit.

“Master Lowbacca, do be careful,” Em Teedee scolded. “Do I need to remind you that you are injured? You shouldn’t be exerting yourself in such a fashion.”

Exhilarated at being with Raaba, though, Lowie ignored the pain in his side, careful not to tear loose the graft bandage. Soon he drew even with Raaba as they climbed higher and higher, where their Wookiee instincts told them they would be safe and protected.

After a few minutes he prompted Raaba to continue her story where she had left off.

The feigned death had been a liberating experience for Raaba.

Once she had decided that her family would be better off thinking her dead than a failure, a giddy feeling had come over her. If she was truly “dead,” she had nothing left to lose. She could start over, become a new person.

She had pressed her supply pack against her stomach to stanch the flow of blood from the injuries the katarn had inflicted.

Then, knowing she would travel more easily without it, she left her pack behind as a decoy, in hopes that the bloodstained pack would draw away some of the voracious predators already on her trail. She concentrated only on climbing, climbing, increasing the distance between herself and danger. At the same time, she distanced herself mentally from her home, her friends, everything she had known.

Now, as they climbed the open framework of the rickety tower, Raaba looked over to check the graft bandage covering Lowie’s injury from the combat arachnids.

Perhaps, Lowie thought, it reminded her of the wound that—as far as her loved ones knew—had cost her her life….

Finally, during that long nighttime ordeal, weak from loss of blood, Raaba had made her way to the hangar platforms on the outskirts of the Wookiee tree city and stowed away on a Talz freighter.

The Talz first mate who found her, tended her wounds, and listened to her story, told Raaba that he knew of someone who could help her in her plight. He had been as good as his word.

The furry white pilot and first mate had taken her directly to Nolaa Tarkona and invited her to join their burgeoning new political movement, the Diversity Alliance.

Lowie absorbed the name of Nolaa Tarkona with great interest. It seemed that the charismatic leaders name came up in conversation more and more frequently, yet he knew little about the Twi’lek woman.

The two Wookiees finally reached the top of the tower and perched themselves comfortably on the creaking metal latticework, letting their feet dangle. Lowie relaxed into the sense of peace and safety he always felt when he was up high, as high as the tops of the wroshyr trees on Kashyyyk.

His ribs still stung, but he ignored the pain.

Raaba touched Lowie’s arm and pointed to a feathered avian that swooped and dove around the tower, snatching irides cent flying insects from the air. Then she continued with her story.

The compassionate, visionary Twi’lek woman, Nolaa Tarkona, had frightened Raaba at first. Her lone twitching head-tail and stern features intimidated the young Wookiee. But Nolaa had asked nothing of her and had seen to it that Raaba had the best of medical attention.

When Raaba was fully recovered, the Twi’lek had offered her a place to stay, a ship of her own, intensive pilot training, and a job flying for the Diversity Alliance and helping to spread the word about the idealistic new movement. The opportunity was everything Raaba had hoped for, and she gratefully accepted. She came to admire Nolaa Tarkona, to identify with her fiery enthusiasm, her single-minded pursuit of her goals.

Day by day Raaba learned more about the atrocities that humans, whether in service to an empire or a republic, inflicted on the alien species of the galaxy—all alien species. As Lowie listened uneasily, Raaba described many examples of the torture or enslavement of aliens by humans. She explained how Nolaa Tarkona believed that by banding together, the nonhuman races could put a stop to such practices and protect themselves. In their unity, in their diversity, lay their strength against the oppressors.

Nodding his shaggy head, Lowie agreed that it did sound like a worthy cause, to help the many downtrodden species recover from the damage inflicted by the prejudiced and evil Emperor. He and his friends, Jacen, Jaina, and Tenel Ka had often banded together to fight for an important cause or against a common enemy, he told Raaba, and they had always been stronger together.

Flashing him a dubious look, Raaba pointed out that humans could not always be trusted, and that deception came in many forms.

The remark hurt. Lowie trusted his friends as much as he had always trusted Raaba and Sirra. Brushing down the dark streak of fur over his eyebrow, he asked mildly if letting friends think you were dead—letting them spend months mourning you and grieving for you—was one of the forms that deception came in.

Raaba groaned at the rebuke, admitting in a pained growl that she had been unfair to Lowie and Sirra and to her own family.

She had been reluctant to go back to Kashyyyk, however, until she had made something of herself, something she could be proud of. She wanted to return home successful and triumphant, a Wookiee hero.

She refused to be seen as a coward who could not finish what she set out to do.

Now, with her work for the Diversity Alliance, she felt proud of who she had become, and things were changing.

Then her voice sank almost to a whisper and she apologized for leaving Lowie, for all the pain she had caused him.

Lowie nodded mutely and traced a finger along the trimmed fur at Raaba’s wrist and knee. He thought of his sister Sirra and how she, too, still felt the pain of a lost friend. He couldn’t wait to bring Raaba back home. It would be a fine celebration.

Far below, a pair of avians chased each other through the rusted latticework and darted out the other side. Almost as if she could read his thoughts, Raaba turned her hand palm-upward to grasp Lowie’s and assured him that she would no longer hide behind a lie. She had important work to do, important work for the Diversity Alliance, and that required her to stop hiding.

Lowie wondered what Nolaa Tarkona had said to Raaba that could possibly command such devotion.