Delusions of Grandeur

14

The Rising Star dipped and looped and cavorted with its pilot’s exuberance as Raaba flew across the jungle canopy of Kashyyyk. Lowie didn’t have to use his Jedi senses to see how excited she was about coming back home.

He couldn’t wait to see his sister’s face when she saw her best friend again. Of all Raaba’s friends and relations, Sirra alone knew that the long-lost Wookiee was actually alive. But even Sirra didn’t know that Lowie and Raaba were coming for a visit.

He bared his teeth in a gleeful grin as Raaba accelerated, flipped the little star skimmer over, and flew briefly upside down just above the dense canopy. The branches were so thick and interlocked that thoroughfares as wide as highways had been chopped through the treetops so that beasts of burden could walk from place to place. Deep beneath the rooftop of branches lay the dark underworld where few Wookiees ever ventured.

Raaba flipped the Rising Star over again and waggled the tiny craft’s airfoils back and forth so that the skimmer ruffled the leaves below it, like a Calamarian seaskitt dancing across the green waves. Then, finally, they headed toward the vast treetop city where they had both grown up.

The crowns of the tallest wroshyr trees rose above the level canopy like islands in an ocean; wooden platforms at various heights served as gathering areas and landing pads. High-tech facilities, such as computer fabrication labs and the planetary traffic control tower, had been erected in some of the larger trees, while more distant tree clusters served as dwellings for Wookiee families.

Raaba chose an open landing platform high on the outskirts of the city. Cinching the red band tight around her head, Raaba bounded out of the star skimmer, as full of cheerful energy as Lowie had ever seen her.

She made Lowie promise not to tell anyone, not even Sirra, of her presence. Instead, she planned to make her way unobtrusively to the Great Tree Arena, where she would register a request for an all-city meeting. She would let the Wookiee registry spread the word for her, and then make her surprise reappearance tonight with everyone present.

Raaba had much to do between now and then, and it had to be done just right. The sleek, dark Wookiee woman hurried off after Lowie agreed to urge his sister and family to attend the gathering.

It was a long way to Lowie’s house yet, but he was in no hurry. His parents, Kallabow and Mahraccor, were probably still at work at the computer fabrication facility. After hours of cramped flight, he wanted to stretch his legs by striding along the spicy-smelling branchtop thoroughfare. The morning sun was warm, and the breeze fragrant. It felt good to be home.

He went to see his sister first.

A distinguished-looking older Wookiee with yellowing fur pointed Lowie toward the flight training area where Sirra took classes to become a star pilot. He leapt and climbed from branch to branch to reach the leafy field above which Sirra flew her training vessel.

He looked upward, watching her ship make one long dive and then another pass. With no slight amusement, he noted that Sirra’s piloting style was very much like Raaba’s. The two had been fast friends for years, after all.

The refurbished Y-wing had a cramped instructor’s station built into the compartment where the gunner formerly sat. From the speed with which Sirra banked and looped, however, one would never have guessed that her practice vessel was a discontinued model now used primarily for training.

Sirra simulated a perfect reverse-throttle hop against an imaginary opponent, followed by an under split, then disengaged after performing a flawless Tallon roll. Her exhaust nacelles glowed orange-white as she roared back toward the treetop city.

With her lesson finished, Sirra brought the Y-wing to the landing platform low and fast, barely a meter above its polished surface. No doubt showing off, she pulled up into a steep climb, looped around, and landed with microcaliper precision directly in the center. Her ship’s repulsorjets let out a hiss like a nervous sigh of relief.

Sirra popped the Y-wing’s canopy and sprang out of the cockpit. Because she was pumped with adrenaline from her flying antics, she did not notice her brother at first, but Lowie had a front row seat for an amusing exchange.

Sirra raked long fingers through her ruffled patchwork fur, while her instructor, a portly human whom Lowie did not recognize, levered himself slowly and painfully out of the rear compartment. The man’s face was flushed and indignant, and his voice shook when he spoke. “Why, in my day, young lady—” he began.

Wookiee, Sirra corrected him, growling in her own language.

“Yes, well, Wookiee then,” the man said. “In my day, trainees understood how to follow instructions. And they did it politely with a ‘Yes, Captain Thorn’ or a salute. No grandstanding.”

Sirra reminded Captain Thorn that she was not in the military, nor did she ever intend to be. Then, with sly deliberation, she pointed out that she had actually followed every one of his instructions. She had simply added a bit of … embellishment.

“Precisely,” Thorn said, “embellishment. I did not tell you to embellish.”

But he hadn’t told her not to embellish, Sirra insisted in a mild voice, wrinkling her black nose.

Lowie, nearly shaking with laughter, chose this moment to heave himself up onto the landing platform where his sister could see him. Sirra uttered a yelp of happy surprise and crossed the platform in two long leaps. She threw herself into her brother’s arms, and the two Wookiees set up a joyous interchange of growls, barks, and chuffing laughter.

Captain Thorn flushed a deep red all the way up to the scalp that showed through his thinning hair and stalked off the platform, mumbling something about needing a pay raise.

Sirra wanted to know why Lowie had come unannounced, when he had arrived, why his little translating droid had not accompanied him, how he had gotten to Kashyyyk … and whether or not he had heard anything from Raaba.

Lowie tried to explain without giving away Raaba’s secret. Sirra gave a pleased growl, not noticing how he had evaded her questions. His timing was perfect, she assured him—though she cast an annoyed look in the direction of her departed instructor. She hoped that Lowie could stay a while and watch how well she had learned to fly since she, too, had completed her rite of passage down in the dangerous underworld.

She had so much to tell him, it might take days.

At early evening, Lowie and Sirra made their way to the amphitheater just outside the treetop city. Their parents were already there, along with half the city’s inhabitants.

Sirra complained that they would have more fun staying home and playing combat-simulation games on their entertainment unit. Why in the sector would he want to attend an open city forum in the Great Tree Arena? Such meetings were always dull and never had any relevance to the younger members of society.

With a mysteriously cocked brow, Lowie hastened to assure his sister that she would find this particular meeting very interesting. Sirra threw him a doubtful glance, but did not argue further.

They chose seating branches high in the amphitheater, where they could get the best view. The sun sank below the horizon of the sprawling forest, and the sky grew rich and dark overhead. Lowie had a hard time distinguishing between the soft rustling of Wookiees finding their seats and the whisper of leaves in the evening wind.

Sirra grew restless for the meeting to start. Lowie began to worry that something had gone wrong or that Raaba had changed her mind. Maybe she had reconsidered her confession, and was ashamed after all to tell how she had staged her own death.

Then, just as the first few stars brightened in the sky, a shaft of blazing light stabbed upward from the center of the stage. In the center of the light stood a chocolate-furred female Wookiee—wearing her own dazzling belt made of syren fiber. Fresh syren fiber!

Sirra nearly fell backward off her branch in surprise, and Lowie fared no better. He had known Raaba set up this meeting, but the implications of her belt were enough to stun him as much as everyone else in the assembly. Surprised murmurs of recognition spread through the crowd, and Lowie heard Raaba’s name repeated over and over. Sirra glared at her brother accusingly. He had kept this a secret from her!

Before Lowie could explain why he had kept silent about her friend’s return, Raaba raised her arms to quiet the crowd. In a loud, clear voice she introduced herself, so that there could be no mistaking who she was.

Next, the beam of light in which Raaba stood split into a hundred smaller rays that opened and spread themselves flat on the stage, like the petals of some gigantic fiery flower with her at its center. She told everyone how she had been all but dead after attempting her rite of passage … and how the Diversity Alliance had given her back her life.

In much the same way, she said, the Empire’s enslavement of Wookiees had taken the life of Kashyyyk. To a great extent, Wookiees still slaved for humankind, in one way or another. Lowie sat listening uneasily. He had not known Raaba was going to make this a political speech. Sirra, though, seemed thoroughly enthralled.

Raaba continued. Aliens of all species had suffered similar treatment since before the rise of Emperor Palpatine—all at the hands of humans. And the most shameful part, she said, spreading her arms to the crowd, was that none of it would have been possible if the nonhuman peoples hadn’t allowed it to happen.

The Diversity Alliance and its visionary leader, Nolaa Tarkona, were ready to show the way. If Wookiees and Talz and Biths and Twi’leks and all other species would band together, unified under one leader, they would never need to fear the domination of humans again. She urged anyone who was willing to help to send a message to the Diversity Alliance, to go to Nolaa Tarkona herself on Ryloth, or to talk their friends into joining the cause as well.

Wookiee murmurs ran through the crowd again, this time sounds of approval. Raaba’s voice grew no louder, but her words became more persuasive. Each of the glowing rays around her shattered into a million tiny shards of light, surrounding her like a swarm of phosfleas.

Individually, Raaba explained, each of them was no more than one of these tiny specks. Alone, they could do nothing. But together—she raised her arms high over her head and the phosflea-specks of light coalesced into a hundred dazzling rays—they could change the galaxy!

The rays snapped together again into a single brilliant beacon that speared upward toward the stars.

Then the stage went completely dark.

Wookiees on every side shook the branches to show their approval. Swept along by the emotion, Lowie and Sirra joined in.

Suddenly and without warning, Raaba stood there with them, out in the amphitheater seats. With a roar of joy, Sirra hurled herself upon her friend, pounding Raaba on the back and growling happily. Raaba chuffed her own delight to see Sirra again as she showed off her glossy new belt.

Unable to restrain his curiosity any longer, Lowie asked Raaba when and how she had gotten her trophy. The chocolate-furred Wookiee flashed her fangs in a wide grin, pleased by his surprise.

She had gone down to the world below only that afternoon, just before returning home to visit her stunned parents. Raaba had been hiding for almost a year, running away—and she wanted to have her trophy before she showed herself again. Completing the fateful mission that had been interrupted so long ago had made her return even more dramatic.

But then her expression grew serious again. Raaba looked shrewdly at her two friends. She needed to return to Ryloth that very night, she said; she had to report in to Nolaa Tarkona and the Diversity Alliance. There was no time to waste. Her eyes burned with an intensity Lowie could not entirely understand.

Then Raaba eagerly clasped both of their shoulders. If Lowie and Sirra would accompany her to Ryloth, just for a few days, she would tell them all about her adventures in the lower levels and her battle with the syren plant.

Before Lowie could consider the question, Sirra enthusiastically agreed for both of them.