Diversity Alliance

13

Raaba sprinted ahead on her long Wookiee legs, leading the way to safety as they fled up broken ramps and half-collapsed staircases in the honeycombed warrens of the cliffside stadium. A network of sagging chains draped across the dust-filled crater, connecting to weathered buildingtops in a sinister high-wire network.

Raaba cinched her ragged headband, once bright red but now faded to a dusty carmine, more tightly around her forehead.

She chuffed at them to hurry and continued to lope through alternating islands of sunlight and barricades of shadows.

“Dear me, all this running is beginning to jiggle my circuits loose,” Em Teedee said. “I do wish we could pause so that Raabakyysh could explain a few things. I’m most curious to know why she would allow poor Master Lowbacca to believe she was dead all this time.”

Just then, a series of clattering, rustling noises came from several cliffside tunnels, like the ghostly echoes of long-departed spectators at the great gladiatorial games….

No. Like marching insectile feet with sharp claws and hard body armor.

“Then again, explanations can wait,” the little translating droid said. “I propose that we make getting to safety our highest priority!, “Sounds like more combat arachnids,” Jacen said, panting and puffing as he ran. “Lots and lots of them. This place must be infested.”

“I thought you said they were rare creatures,” Jaina snorted. “They’re a bit too common for me right now.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault!” Jacen said. “They are rare. But combat arachnids were bred for showcase battles in arenas like this one. So I’m guessing that a bunch of them were brought here for exhibition fights. These’re probably feral descendants of the victorious ones left by the Mandalorians when they abandoned this world.”

“Survival of the fittest?” Tenel Ka said, her granite-gray eyes flashing at Jacen. “They seem fit enough to hunt for their own food!”

“Don’t worry, Tenel Ka. I won’t let any of them get you again,” he said. She raised an eyebrow at the very suggestion that she would require anyone to protect her now, and kept running.

Lowie turned around and snarled when he heard something else approach. Something threatening. He pressed a paw against the bleeding gash in his side, ignoring the pain of the wound as he sniffed the air.

As Jacen turned to look, three combat arachnids scurried out of the shadows in front of them, mandibles clacking, deadly spines extended, positioned to fight as a predatory team.

“They’re in front of us! We’re doomed!” Em Teedee said.

A moment later, two more combat arachnids boiled out of the chambers behind them, trapping the companions along the walkway precipice that looked out upon the sprawling crater.

“Oh, no! We’re double-doomed,” the little droid wailed.

Raaba held her battered blaster in front of her. Jacen and Jaina, Tenel Ka, and Lowie each powered up their lightsabers again.

Raaba growled and looked meaningfully, almost apologetically, at Lowbacca, as if she hoped to live long enough to give him all the explanations he desired. She gestured across the bowl of the crater to the broken building tops where her ship, a small interstellar skimmer, waited on one flat rooftop.

Thick, dangling chains stretched out from the wall across the yawning gulf, connecting to the distant tower. The chocolate-furred Wookiee bellowed and pointed urgently.

“You want us to climb … out there?” Jacen said.

Tenel Ka strode to the thick corroded chain and grasped it with her one arm.

“You can use the Force to help you balance, my friend Jacen,” she said. “If you concentrate, it will be no worse than walking on a forest path.”

“Forest path, huh?” Jacen asked with a gulp. “Sure. No problem.”

Raaba bounded onto the chain as the combat arachnids stuttered forward from both directions, their pointed limbs flailing, multiple eyes blazing with hunger.

Lowie bellowed and lunged back at the creatures, sweeping his molten bronze light saber in a broad arc. He lopped off three limbs from the nearest creature as if they were stalks of grain.

The combat arachnid shrieked and staggered backward into one of its companions.

The second, already-enraged monster struck out at the stumbling, wounded arachnid and the two creatures began to rip at each other.

Greenish clots of blood flew through the air.

The other arachnids ignored the distraction, however, and drove in for the kill, focused on their intended victims.

Tenel Ka stood easily on the rusty chain, legs spread, perfectly balanced in her glittering lizard-hide armor. She reached down and grabbed hold of Jacen. “Come, my friend, I will assist you.”

“Hey, thanks!” he gasped. “To show my appreciation, I’ll tell you a joke when all this is over, okay?”

“That will not be necessary,” the warrior girl answered quickly. “Please—I require no such expression of gratitude.”

With fluid Wookiee grace, Raaba began to sprint across the incredible drop as if the sagging chain were a rope bridge. Her heavy footsteps sent jolting vibrations along the links, and even with the Force, it was all Jacen could do to maintain his balance.

He crept along one tiny step at a time.

Jaina climbed up after him.

Lowbacca, agile from climbing trees and vines for most of his life on Kashyyyk, easily brought up the rear. He moved backward along the chain, still pressing one hand against his wound and holding his lightsaber with the other.

Unfortunately, the thick chains and the perilous height did not deter the combat arachnids. The spined carnivorous creatures clambered onto the chain as if it were a web they had spun.

When the companions had scrambled about halfway to where Raaba’s ship had landed, Lowie bellowed an order. Em Teedee called to the others, “Master Lowbacca urges you to increase your speed, although I myself would suggest that you also exercise extreme caution.”

“We’re being careful, Em Teedee. Don’t worry,” Jacen said, easing forward a couple of steps.

“That is most reassuring, Master Jacen. However, I still reserve the right to express concern about your well-being.”

As if to make Em Teedee’s point, a cold, dry breeze picked up, howling in the open air. Jacen wobbled. “Blaster bolts!” he said, windmilling his arms to stabilize himself.

The chains creaked and swayed beneath him. “I’m not sure this is such a good idea.”

“Maybe not,” Jaina answered, glancing at the chasm below them, “but falling down there is an even worse idea. So what are we waiting for?”

Although the combat arachnids moved more slowly along the chains than the agile Wookiees, they might still be able to catch up with the humans before they reached safety. Realizing this, Lowie held his ground, wrapping his Wookiee feet around the links of the chain, bending his hairy knees, and holding his lightsaber up to defend his friends from attack. He gestured with his claws extended, urging them to go on ahead without him.

Raaba grunted encouragement to him and increased her speed, leading the way.

Tenel Ka followed, keeping her careful balance, but Jacen had trouble following as quickly. Jaina held both of her hands out to steady herself.

They crept forward as quickly as they dared, desperately making their way toward Raaba’s ship, and possible rescue.

One of the horrible creatures finally reached Lowbacca, and he met it with his lightsaber. The combat arachnid reared up, using several legs to maintain its balance.

Its crimson body core glinted menacingly under the hazy sun of Kuar.

Lowie slashed with his lightsaber, but the arachnid dodged sideways, eluding the beam, In a counterstrike, it swept out a segmented leg and caught the ginger-furred Wookiee with the tip of one footpad. The blow knocked him backward—and Lowie toppled off the thick chain. Jacen and Jaina both screamed.

At the last instant, though, Lowie reached out with his free arm and grabbed one of the heavy metal links of chain. He swung beneath it, using his momentum to bring him up and around to the other side of the combat arachnid. As the creature stretched down to snatch at him, like a fisher trying to scoop a meal from a stream, Lowie grasped one of the arachnid’s stable rear legs and used it to haul himself back up onto the chain.

The arachnid turned, trumpeting its outrage.

Lowie swung his lightsaber like a club and cleaved a long gash through the center of the monsters eye cluster. The creature roared and thrashed, spewing venomous saliva from its mouth hole. It took all of Lowie’s strength to evade the arachnid’s attack and reach its body core. Then, with a great growl he shoved the monster off the thick chain. It railed its many legs as it fell down, down, down, until it splattered in a starburst pattern far below at the bottom of the crater.

Lowie scrambled backward, getting to his feet and regaining his balance again as the other combat arachnids hesitated, wary now that they had seen their Wookiee foe emerge triumphant from battle with one of their kind.

Raaba finally reached the other end of the chain where it was anchored to the high rooftop. She sprang from the chain and stood waiting, ready to offer her help to the young Jedi Knights.

Tenel Ka moved to the anchor point and stopped to extend her hand to Jacen as he inched toward her, trying not to look down.

Lowie’s wrestling match with the combat arachnid had made the chain bounce and shake so much that Jacen and Jaina had been forced to spend most of their concentration on not falling, rather than making forward progress.

Now, though, as they neared the dubious safety of the rooftop and Raaba’s ship, Lowie began bounding toward them along the chain, running with uncanny balance to catch up. The two combat arachnids that had not yet given up the chase scrambled after him, hissing and clicking, ravenous for fresh food.

Raaba yanked one of the small detonators from her crisscrossed ammunition belt, set the timer, and without pausing lobbed it in a perfect arc. The detonator sailed across the open air.

Seeing the glittering object, the foremost combat arachnid reared up to catch it, as if the thermal detonator might be some sort of flying prey. The grenade detonated, shattering the creature’s exoskeleton like a thousand chips of glass, spraying its innards in all directions.

The shock wave from the explosion hurled Jacen sideways. He spun, grabbed for balance, and then slipped from the chain but Tenel Ka’s arm shot out like lightning to seize him by the elbow and halt his terrible fall.

Spurred by the thought of all that open air below, Jacen and Tenel Ka drew on the Force together to bring him back up again.

Then the two of them, along with Jaina, finally scrambled to the sturdy rooftop, where it was safe … almost.

The final combat arachnid, seeing its prey about to escape, increased its speed.

It hissed and scrabbled along the chain, climbing like a deadly acrobat.

Lowie bounded ahead, ignoring the gusts of wind, planting his feet firmly from one link to the next. The last combat arachnid dosed the gap, its jaws clacking. Lowie could not look behind him to fight. His best chance was to reach the rooftop before the creature could grab hold of him.

The wound in his side was bleeding profusely now, but the young Wookiee didn’t seem to notice.

“Come on, Lowie!” Jacen cried. “You can make it!”

With a final burst of speed, Lowbacca leaped the final several meters to the rooftop.

The last combat arachnid charged forward like a landspeeder out of control, but Tenel Ka thought quickly, efficiently.

In a flash of blazing turquoise, she swept her lightsaber downward to sever the ancient metal links that anchored the chain to the rooftop.

Just as the combat arachnid reached out to grab for the companions, the chain broke free and fell away with the monster still clinging to it. The heavy links of corroded durasteel plummeted, carrying the unwilling passenger down, down, until it struck the far side of the amphitheater wall with enough force to squash the multi-legged creature.

His heart pounding, Jacen was relieved to see how isolated they were on this skyscraper, away from the walls of the great crater.

Lowie slumped to the rooftop, shaking and exhausted. Raaba came over, put her arm around his shoulder, and gave him a powerful hug.

She touched the wound on his side with a groan of concern, then went to her ship to rummage for a medikit.

Lowie looked up at her, his eyes filled with a thousand questions.

“My, that was exciting, wasn’t it?” Em Teedee said.