Heirs of the Force

11

When the Imperial TIE pilot turned his eyes from her for a split second, Tenel Ka reacted with lightning speed, just as she had been taught by the warrior women on Dathomir.

“Run!” she shouted to the others, knowing exactly what to do. She turned and bolted for the nearest tangled undergrowth, dodging expected blaster fire.

Tenel Ka reacted so quickly and so smoothly that even her most rigid battle trainers would have been proud of her. Their tactics had been drilled into her:

Confuse the enemy.

Do the unexpected.

Take your opponent by surprise.

Don’t waste time hesitating.

Tenel Ka tore through the tangled thorns and blueleaf shrubs, clawing with her hands to clear a path that closed behind her as she moved through the thicket. She gasped and panted, bolting ahead, ignoring the scratches and stinging pain of the thorns against her bare arms and legs. The scaled armor protected her vital parts, but her red-gold hair flew around her, snagging loose leaves and twigs. Branches caught at her braids and yanked strands of her hair out by the roots. She hissed with pain, but clamped her teeth together, plunging ahead.

Why couldn’t she hear the others running?

“Get help!” It was Jacen shouting behind her, still in the clearing. Why didn’t they run?

Then an explosion of flames ripped into the underbrush just to her left. The TIE pilot was firing his blaster at her! The smell of singed leaves and burnt sap stung her nostrils. Tenel Ka dove to the ground, rolled sideways, then ran at full speed in a different direction. If she gave up now, he would kill her. She had no doubt of that—not anymore.

Intent only on distancing herself from the TIE pilot, she fled, changing directions at random to confuse the enemy. Branches cracked underfoot, and Tenel Ka paid no attention whatsoever to where she ran… deeper into the densest jungle of Yavin 4.

Lowbacca hesitated only a fraction of a second longer.

Tenel Ka seemed to evaporate as she shouted “Run!” and ducked into the thick forest.

The TIE pilot whirled and pointed his blaster at the place where Tenel Ka had disappeared, and Lowbacca used the instant of distraction. The young Wookiee let out a bellow of surprise and anger, then instinctively surged up the ancient bole of the nearest Massassi tree, climbing higher, up, where it was safe.

He grabbed branches and vines, hauling himself up toward the thick, spicy-smelling canopy. Behind him, the Imperial fighter began shooting wildly. Explosions and bright flames from burning foliage ballooned out from where the blaster bolts struck the branches under Lowie’s feet. He smelled the ozone of energy discharge, the steam of disintegrated vegetation.

With Wookiee strength, Lowbacca climbed higher and higher, finally reaching thick, flat branches that allowed him to make his way across the treetops toward where he had landed the T-23.

He had to get help. He had to rescue his friends. Tenel Ka had gotten to safety—or so he hoped—but Jacen and Jaina had not been able to react as quickly or move with such practiced wilderness skills.

“Oh my!” Em Teedee wailed from the clip on his waist, “Where are we going? That person was trying to kill us! Can you imagine that?”

Lowie continued to scramble across the thick branches, loping with great agility, moving farther away from the still-firing pilot.

“Master Lowbacca, answer me!” Em Teedee said, his tinny voice echoing from the speaker-patch. “You can’t simply leave me hanging here doing nothing at all, you know.”

Lowbacca grunted a reply and kept moving.

“But surely, that’s beside the point,” Em Teedee quibbled, “since I’m doing everything I can. Just because I have no functional arms or legs doesn’t mean I don’t want to assist you.”

The sounds of blaster fire from the clearing below had ceased, and Lowbacca feared that meant Jacen and Jaina were captured—or worse. His thoughts churned it in panic and turmoil. He knew he had to rescue them. But how? He had never done anything like this before. He didn’t think Tenel Ka could do it alone, so he had to offer whatever help he could manage.

The branches thinned up ahead, spreading out around the clearing where Lowbacca had settled the T-23. The small ship sat where he had landed it, and he scrambled back down the thick branches, clinging to vines until he reached ground level again. The T-23 was his best chance.

Lowbacca had been so proud of the small craft when his uncle Chewie had given it to him, but now it seemed so small and battered, all but useless against an armed Imperial pilot. He trudged across the weed-covered ground over to the little skyhopper. He would have to use it to make the rescue. He had no better options.

The low, simmering music of insects and jungle creatures filled the air. He could hear no sound of blaster fire, no shouts of chal lenge or pain. It was quiet. Too quiet. Lowbacca hurried.

“Oh, excellent idea!” Em Teedee said as they approached the T-23. “We’re going back to the Jedi academy to get reinforcements, aren’t we. That’s by far the wisest thing to do, I’m sure.”

But Lowie knew it would be too late for the twins by then. He had to do something now. He told Em Teedee what he intended to do, and the miniature translating droid squawked in dismay.

“But, Master Lowbacca! The T-23 has no weapons. How can you fly it against that Imperial pilot? He is a professional fighter—and he’s desperate!”

Lowie had the same fears as he powered up the T-23’s repulsorlift engines. He made an optimistic comment to the translating droid.

“Tricks? What tricks do you have up your sleeve?” Em Teedee said. “Besides, you don’t even have sleeves.”

The craft sounded strong and powerful, thrumming and roaring in the jungle stillness. Lowie smelled the acrid exhaust, and snuffled. His black pilot seat vibrated as the ship prepared to take off.

He would need to do some fancy flying to get the craft through the trees to the crash site—but he had to save his friends, offer whatever help he could. Perhaps his noisy approach would startle the TIE pilot enough to make him flee for cover. And then the twins could jump aboard and make their escape.

Lowbacca nudged the throttles forward and lifted the T-23 off its resting place in the trampled undergrowth. The ion afterburners roared as the small ship arrowed through the forest, dodging branches and hanging moss, heading toward his friends—directly into the path of danger.

Back in the clearing, Jacen and Jaina froze for only a moment, then turned and ran, trying to escape—but the bulk of the almost-repaired TIE fighter got in their way. Jaina grabbed Jacen’s arm, and the two of them ran together, frightened but knowing they needed to move, move.

The Imperial pilot fired his blaster, shooting twice into the thicket where Tenel Ka had vanished. Burning brush and splintered twigs flew into the air in a cloud. For an instant Jaina thought their young friend from Dathomir had been killed—but then she heard more leaves rustling and branches snapping as Tenel Ka continued her desperate flight.

The TIE pilot fired into the trees next, blasting the lower branches—but Lowbacca had gotten away. The twins ran around the end of the wrecked fighter, and suddenly Jacen stumbled over a rectangular box of hydrospanners, cyberfuses, and other tools they had gathered for the repair of the crashed ship—and fell headlong.

Jaina grabbed her brother’s arm, trying to yank him to his feet to run again. The ground screeched with an explosion of blaster fire. Three high-energy bolts ricocheted from the age-stained hull of the crashed ship.

Jaina froze, raising her hands in surrender. They couldn’t possibly hide fast enough. Jacen climbed to his feet and stood next to his sister, brushing himself off. The TIE pilot took two steps toward them, encased in battered armor and wearing an expression of icy anger.

“Don’t move,” he said, “or you will die, Rebel scum.”

His black pilot armor was scuffed and worn from his long exile in the jungles. The Imperial’s crippled left arm was stiff like a droid’s, encased in an armored gauntlet of black leather. He had been severely hurt, but it appeared to be an old injury that had long ago healed, though improperly. The pilot was a hard-bitten old warrior. His eyes were haunted as he stared at Jaina.

“You are my prisoners.” He motioned with the old-model blaster pistol that was gripped in his twisted, gloved hand.

“Put down the blaster,” Jaina said quietly, soothingly, using everything she knew of Jedi persuasion techniques. “You don’t need it.” Her uncle Luke had told them how Obi-Wan Kenobi had used Jedi mind tricks to scramble the thoughts of weak-minded Imperials.

“Put down the blaster,” she said again in a rich, gentle voice.

Jacen knew exactly what his sister was doing. “Put down the blaster,” he repeated.

The two of them said it one more time in an echoing, overlapping voice. They tried to send peaceful thoughts, soothing thoughts into the TIE pilot’s mind… just as Jacen had done to calm his crystal snake.

The TIE pilot shook his grizzled head and narrowed his haunted eyes. The blaster wavered just a little, dropping down only a notch.

Why isn’t it working? Jaina thought desperately. “Put down the blaster,” she said again, more insistently. But inside the Imperial fighter’s mind she ran up against a wall of thoughts so rigid, so black-and-white, so clear-cut, that it seemed like droid programming.

Suddenly the pilot straightened and glared at them through those bleak, haunted eyes. “Surrender is betrayal,” he said, like a memorized lesson.

Jacen, seeing their chance slipping away, reached out with his mind and yanked at the weapon with mental brute force.

“Get the blaster!” he whispered. Jaina helped him tug with the Force, reaching for the old weapon in the pilot’s grip. But the armored glove was wrapped so tightly around it that the black gauntlet seemed fastened to the blaster handle. The handgrip of the obsolete weapon caught on the glove, and the TIE pilot grabbed it with his other hand, pointing the barrel directly at the twins.

“Stop with your Jedi tricks,” he said coldly. “If you continue to resist I will execute you both.”

Knowing that the pilot needed only to depress the firing stud—much more quickly than they could ever mind-wrestle the blaster away from him—Jacen and Jaina let their hands fall to their sides, relaxing and ceasing their struggles.

Just then a buzzing, roaring sound crashed through the canopy above—a wound-up engine noise, growing louder.

“It’s Lowie!” Jacen cried.

The T-23 plunged through the branches overhead in a crackling explosion of shattered twigs, plowing toward the crash site at full speed, like a charging bantha.

“What’s he trying to do?” Jacen asked, quietly. “He doesn’t have any weapons on board!”

“He might distract the pilot,” Jaina said. “Give us a chance to escape.”

But the armored Imperial soldier stood his ground at the center of the clearing, spreading his legs for balance and assuming a practiced firing stance. He pointed his blaster at the oncoming air speeder, unflinching.

Jaina knew that if the blaster bolt breached the small repulsorlift reactor, the entire vehicle would explode-killing Lowbacca, and perhaps all of them.

Lowbacca brought the T-23 forward as if he meant to ram the TIE pilot. The desperate Imperial soldier aimed at the T-23’s engine core and squeezed the firing stud.

“No!” Jaina cried, and nudged with her mind at the last instant. Using the Force, she shoved the TIE pilot’s arm and knocked his aim off by just a fraction of a degree. The bright blaster bolt screeched out and danced along the metal hull of the repulsorlift pods. The engine casings melted at the side, spilling coolant and fuel. Gray-blue smoke boiled up. The sound of the T-23 became stuttered and sick as its engines faltered.

Lowie pulled up in the pilot’s seat, swerving to keep from crashing into the Massassi trees. He could barely fly the badly damaged craft.

“Go, Lowie!” Jacen whispered. “Get out while you can.”

“Eject! Before it blows!” Jaina cried.

But Lowbacca somehow managed to gain altitude, spinning around the huge trees and climbing toward the canopy again. His engines smoked, trailing a stream of foul-smelling exhaust that curled the jungle leaves and turned them brown.

“He won’t get far,” the Imperial pilot said in a raw monotone. “He is as good as dead.”

Although the T-23 was out of sight now, far above them in the jungle treetops, Jaina could still hear the engine coughing, failing, and then picking up again as the battered craft limped away. The sounds carried well in the jungle silence. The repulsorlift engine faded in the distance, its ion afterburners popping and sputtering—until finally, there was silence again.

The TIE pilot, his expression still stony, gestured with the blaster pistol. “Come with me, prisoners. If you resist this time, you will die.”