Jedi Bounty

11

Tenel Ka watched one of the Gamorrean guards shove Raynar, who fell hard against the mine car that would take them deeper underground.

“I’m cooperating—there’s no need to get rough!” the young man objected.

He regained his balance and stumbled onto the personnel transport vehicle.

When the guard muttered something vaguely conciliatory, two other Gamorreans cuffed their apologetic companion.

In silence the young Jedi Knights climbed aboard the mine car and eased themselves onto the dirty metal seats. The guards held tight to handles beside their seats as the vehicle accelerated with a lurch.

The mine car picked up speed, carrying them farther from Nolaa Tarkona’s throne room, farther from their impounded ship … and farther from Lowie.

Staring out the open sides of the vehicle, Tenel Ka watched the walls blur by. She noticed places where chunks of rock had broken away, as well as scars and craters left by blaster fire that had ricocheted off the stone. Much of the fighting during Nolaa’s revolution must have taken place down here, when the old Twi’lek clans had fallen to the reactionary Diversity Alliance.

When the vehicle stopped, the companions were ordered to get off.

Though they all stood immediately, Hovrak grabbed Tenel Ka by the arm and yanked hard. “Stop gawking at the walls, human—you’ve got work to do.”

Tenel Ka’s poise was good, and she managed to keep her balance. Even so, Hovrak’s sharp claws scratched her unprotected skin. Warm blood flowed from a shallow wound on her upper arm, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of seeing her wince in pain.

“Hey, leave her alone?” Jacen said, trying to push his way forward.

Hovrak dismissed the tousle-haired young man with a snort, then looked pointedly at the stump of Tenel Ka’s other arm. “You are lucky the Esteemed Tarkona considers you too important to kill. You are sure to be a burden down in the spice mines. We won’t get much work out of a one-armed female. Worthless.”

Tenel Ka reacted with spring-loaded reflexes, whirling about to slam the flat of her hand full force against Hovrak’s snout. The impact made a sound like ripe fruit struck with a hammer.

Continuing her spin, Tenel Ka brought her booted foot up and kicked the wolfman unmercifully in the abdomen. Then she lashed out with her other foot to smash him sharply in the knee.

Hovrak fell.

It all happened in two seconds. The Adjutant Advisor yowled in unexpected pain even before the blood began to spurt from his smashed snout.

The other Jedi Knights could not leap to her aid before Hovrak’s guards dragged Tenel Ka away from him but she was finished.

One eyebrow arched, the warrior girl shot Hovrak a look of challenge.

“Perhaps a one-armed female is not quite as helpless as a complacent wolfman,” she said coldly.

Hovrak coughed blood and got back to his feet while the guards chuckled at her retort. They froze, looking sheepish, when Hovrak glared at them. Struggling to regain his dignity, he wiped a sleeve of his uniform across his snout. Blood smeared the meticulously clean cloth.

“Throw them in with the other mine slaves. And if this girl’s production is one gram less than the requirement … we shall see how well she can work with no arms.”

Many Twi’lek caves began as natural formations that were hollowed out over centuries of labor into a larger and larger underground labyrinth. As the civilization expanded and the population grew, they dug deeper into the mountain ranges.

By accident the Twi’lek people had discovered veins of the precious mineral ryll, a form that was sometimes called spice. Ryll had numerous uses—medicinal and otherwise—and the Twi’leks immediately became important suppliers, often working with smuggler lords and contraband shippers.

Small cracks and tunnels in the living rock had been expanded by slaves into echoing chambers until the mines grew huge and unsupported.

Finally the walls had collapsed—freeing new veins of ore at the expense of the poor, crushed workers. Their Twi’lek masters had not deemed this expense unreasonable.

As Tenel Ka and her friends were led into the mines, she let her gray eyes adjust to the harsh, uneven light. The majority of labor parties she saw around them consisted of human prisoners.

Apparently proud, Hovrak pointedly explained to his new workers, “Those slaves are pilots and smugglers that crossed Nolaa Tarkona, not to mention a few hapless captives taken from small craft we found in nearby systems. If anybody noticed their disappearance, it would have been dismissed as a mere space accident. Now, working for the Diversity Alliance gives meaning to their pitiful lives.”

A few of the downtrodden miners were Twi’leks who looked emaciated and beaten. Tenel Ka watched them with interest, recognizing that these must have been outcasts or survivors from the Twi’lek clans Nolaa had squashed during her takeover of the government. The lucky ones, it seemed, had died during the fighting.

To illuminate the ryll excavations, the slave masters had brought in wide glowpanels powered by self-contained generators. The portable units shed their garish light onto the main work areas. The stark contrast between this highpowered brilliance and the shadows in the walls, corners, and jagged ceiling hurt Tenel Ka’s eyes.

Clusters of strange, lumpy fungus grew from crevices in the walls like melted, foaming plastic.

The pale fungus oozed a sickly, sweetish odor that turned her stomach.

The ceiling itself was a festival of stalactites, with spiky banners unfurled and stabbing down toward the floor. Her sharp eyesight showed Tenel Ka that the stalactites were the same strange fungus. The white, foamy mounds seemed to grow and pulse in the bright illumination from the glowpanels.

Dust and sweat and fear mingled with the sickly aroma of fungus in the stuffy air. Water from distant springs trickled down in copper-colored rivulets to pool in salty, scummy puddles on the uneven floor.

“If you need refreshment, drink from there,” said one of the guards.

“Blaster bolts!” Jacen said in disgust. “You expect us to drink that?”

“Not necessarily,” said the guard. “But you’ll get nothing else from us, so you’d better consider it. If you’re hungry, eat fungus. It isn’t too poisonous.”

One of the mine bosses, a round-eyed Rodian, came up to inspect his new team. He spoke quickly through his tapirlike snout, as if racing to get through a boring memorized speech. “You’re here for one purpose: to break stones. You’ll never get anywhere close to pure ryll, since the low-grade ore is shipped off planet for chemical separation of the spice. Some of you will use hammers to chip away rock from the walls. It’s backbreaking work, and we enjoy watching you suffer.”

“What will the rest of us do?” Raynar asked, looking thoroughly intimidated at the prospect of such intense labor.

“That job will be … worse,” the Rodian said.

Reflected light gleamed off his huge metallic eyes. With sucker-tipped fingers, he pointed up to where a network of cables, scaffolding, and fibercords suspended groups of workers under the forest of fungus-covered stalactites. “The rest of you must harvest those rock spikes. Without failing.”

As if on cue, two dangling workers broke one of the large inverted pinnacles. The stalactite flew down through the air like a deadly spear to crash into a holding pit far below. Dust and debris billowed up.

Guards shouted at the other slaves to keep working.

“We have discovered a new technique,” the Rodian said with pride in his thin, warbling voice. “That special fungus you see leaches ryll through the rock and concentrates it in the stalactites. After you break the stone free for us, we can quickly collect the ore in its most valuable form. This helps the Diversity Alliance fund its important activities.”

The young Jedi Knights looked at each other, as disturbed at the thought of assisting Nolaa Tarkona’s insidious plan as they were to be slaves.

“You—one-armed girl.” The Rodian gestured toward Tenel Ka. “Adjutant Advisor Hovrak suggests that I give you the most difficult assignment. To the cables with you … and your friend here.”

The guards hustled her and Jacen off toward hanging fibercord harnesses, fumbling to fasten the frayed loops around their torsos. A Sullustan supplier handed them each a small vibrating rock hammer.

“What’s this,” Jacen asked, “a toy?”

“This is your assigned ryll excavating device,” the Sullustan said. “It is the most powerful tool you slaves are permitted to wield.”

Tenel Ka hefted the puny hammer in her grip, but could think of no way to use it as an effective weapon. None of the surly-looking captives in the mine met the companions’ eyes, feigning a lack of interest in the new prisoners.

Using a pulley arrangement, two slaves heaved Tenel Ka and Jacen up toward the jagged ceiling.

The floor disappeared beneath her booted feet, and the spiked stalactites rushed down to meet her.

Jaina and Raynar, pushed toward one of the expansive walls, were handed small power digging tools. Glowering armed guards told them to get to work. After a glance up at their companions suspended from the ceiling, the two began to chop halfheartedly at the rockface.

Next to Jaina, Raynar struggled against the unyielding stone. His hands quickly became bruised and bloody from clawing away the loose rock that Jaina broke free. As the son of a merchant lord, he had never worked so hard with his hands. Jaina’s hours spent tinkering with mechanical objects had given her just enough calluses to make her tough—but her hands still ached.

“Can’t just wait around to be rescued,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Nobody knows we’re on Ryloth. My parents can’t send in troops to get us out of here.” She heaved a noisy sigh. “That’s what we get for not telling anyone where we’re going.”

Raynar’s face was pale, and he looked sick with fear. “Well, Lusa knows. She’s our only hope.” He swallowed hard. “But she promised not to tell anyone. It may be a long time before she changes her mind.”

Jaina gave him a consoling pat on the arm. “We’re Jedi, Raynar. We’ve got the Force. Nothing is ever hopeless….”

Suspended above the grotto, dangling beside a sharp stalactite, Tenel Ka swung herself into position. She gripped the hard spongy fungus, swung herself like a pendulum, and smashed with her vibrating hammer at the end of each swing.

“I’d love to tell you a joke,” Jacen said, swinging himself alongside her so that they stayed close together, “but nothing really seems funny to me at the moment.”

They pummeled the same pinnacle of rock until the fungus-covered stalactite broke free and tumbled toward an empty crater in the floor.

The rock spike shattered into chunks of rich ore.

“Another one down,” Jacen said. “More credits for the Diversity Alliance.”

Tenel Ka fumed in silence. Then something caught her eye. With a gesture of her chin, she indicated the chocolate-furred Wookiee woman who had just appeared in an opening in the observation gallery.

Raaba stood tall and enigmatic and powerful.

She looked on with interest, turning her attention from one young Jedi Knight to another to another. She spoke with none of the guards, only watched.

Dangling in her harness, Tenel Ka glared in mute fury at this friend of Lowie’s who had betrayed them. Then she angrily set back to work, her thoughts as sharp as steel, and as hard.

Finally Raaba turned and stalked away.

Although Tenel Ka hoped to develop a plan, at the moment she had to admit that she could see no way for them to escape.