Jedi Bounty

20

As the heat storm howled past the frozen cave opening, Jacen listened to the cracking, scalding wind. Suddenly superheated rock tumbled free outside and ice formations melted.

Clouds of mist roiled at the entrance like soup, making the air dense and impenetrable in Ryloth’s frozen night. A jet of steam shot into the cave, struck the wall, and froze instantly into a hard, glassy coating. Gusts of raw, hot air struck Jacen in the face, but his skin was so numb he could take no pleasure in it.

Behind him, Tenel Ka was more intent on the sound she had heard from deeper within the cave. “Who is there?” she said. “I sense you here with us.” She drew her lightsaber and switched on the humming beam as the storm continued to rage outside. Her turquoise blade cast a dim blue-green glow.

“So, someone has come to kill me at last,” a hoarse voice rasped. “I would have managed the job myself eventually … if you had given me a little more time.”

As the wind whipped the mountainside, Jacen heard a mechanical rattling from the windmills and turbines that stood sentry like robotic scarecrows outside. The inescapable force of the whirlwind spun gears and powered the generators.

Jury-rigged lights inside the cave flickered on to reveal an extensive network of living chambers.

Jacen stood next to Tenel Ka, ready to fight.

He drew his own lightsaber, planning to ignite the emerald blade, but he quickly saw they had nothing to fear.

Back in a cleared section of the cave huddled an old Twi’lek man. His face was gaunt, his skin bruised and grayish. He looked up at them, head-tails trembling as if from the cold. He blinked repeatedly. His once sharpened teeth were now dull and cracked.

The Twi’lek drew himself taller, gathering together his few ragged scraps of pride. “This is all that remains of me and my once great clan,” he wheezed. “I should have followed the others into the Bright Lands, but Nolaa Tarkona cruelly exiled me to the cold. I could not make the long journey across the shadows and into the purifying sun.”

“Who are you?” Jacen asked. “What’s your name?” Overhead, the wind turbines spun and vibrated, powering the haphazardly propped glowpanels.

The Twi’lek took a deep breath. “I am Kur…,” he said, then hesitated. “Just Kur. I have no clan name any longer. It has been stripped from me.”

“Nolaa Tarkona did that to you?” Jacen asked.

The Twi’lek turned his face away, as if unable to bear the truth.

Tenel Ka switched off her lightsaber and answered for him. “When a clan is defeated, the five clan leaders are exiled to the daylight side of Ryloth. In the Bright Lands, at the mercy of the heat, they soon succumb to death.”

“But Nolaa threw me to the cold wastes instead,” Kur said. “I have eked out a living, under these generator stations that provide power and air circulation for the caves below. But most of the large Twi’lek cities are far from here. Nolaa Tarkona selected an isolated area for her headquarters. From there, she keeps the rest of my people living in fear.”

Seeing no actual danger from Kur, Jacen and Tenel Ka crept deeper into the cave, seeking shelter from the crackling cold outside. To Jacen, the warrior girl’s skin appeared translucent and blue from the frigid temperatures … not to mention banged, bruised, and scraped from their rough fall across the rocky ice field.

He wasn’t much better off himself, but at least he’d had his comfortable coverall to give him some protection—much more than Tenel Ka’s reptile-skin body armor had offered.

The Twi’lek exile stood up. He reached back around some rocks near a flickering glowpanel and pulled out a tattered, worn strip of hide, a very meager blanket. “Here, girl, use this. It’s the best I can offer.”

Tenel Ka took the blanket, which Jacen helped her drape over her shoulders. She hunched down to conserve her body heat and Jacen huddled next to her, adding his warmth to hers.

“When I came here to this place, I found one weak and starving rylcrit,” Kur said. “Deep in the caverns of some of the larger Twi’lek cities, my people raise those hardy animals for meat. But this one had survived out here in the waste-lands. It died soon after I found this cave. I ate the rylcrit meat over the course of a month. I used its bones to make tools and its hide to make the blanket. May it warm you enough to survive for another day.”

Tenel Ka’s voice was gruff, almost defiant, despite the shivering she tried to control. “We must survive another day,” she said. “We must escape.”

Kur chuckled, a sound like crumbling dry leaves. At this, Jacen stiffened and took offense.

“We will get out of here,” he said. “We’ve got a ship coming.”

“So you expect to get off of Ryloth?” Kur said. “Then someone must have given you false hope.”

Jacen glared at the Twi’lek. “How did Nolaa manage to take over all your cities?” he asked, changing the subject. “She doesn’t seem to have many Twi’lek followers in her Diversity Alliance. In fact, considering the large populations in some of the cave cities, I’m surprised she has any control over them at all.”

“Nolaa Tarkona is an anomaly in many ways. Twi’lek culture has ancient traditions. Our power is distributed among the clans and cities. We maintain that power through cleverness, deceit, wily tricks … rather than through violence and force.

“But Nolaa Tarkona doesn’t play by our rules. She escaped from slavery, gathered her allies, and came to our tunnels with a small army. She attacked without warning and overthrew the clan leaders. Some she sent down into the ryll mines, others she killed outright. For me she reserved a special punishment. I was exiled here instead of being sent to the Bright Lands, where I should have gone to become part of the fire.”

Kur looked down at his clawed hands. His head-tails trembled as if he were experiencing some sort of seizure. “I always intended to make the journey, but I never quite … managed.”

“Then you can help us make it to the temperate zone?” Jacen asked. “We need to get out of here and up to where our friend can find us. We have lightsabers to signal with. We know he’s coming.”

“It is a long way,” Kur said. “And very cold.”

“It is cold here in this cave,” Tenel Ka pointed out. “If I must be cold, I would rather be moving toward a goal.”

Kur looked around his squalid chambers. His home in exile. The heat storm had passed now, and the creaking, spinning wind turbines began to slow. The lights in the chamber dimmed.

With a sigh, he pried up some loose chunks of rock, under which grew a spongy, feathery patch of lichen, veined with blue and red. “You must eat this,” he said, tearing off a scrap for himself. “It is the only food I have, and we will need all our strength to attempt this insane journey.”

Jacen took the tart, tough lichen and chewed on it. After the brackish water and the bitter fungus they had had in the spice mines, he had no complaints about anything that was meant to give him sustenance.

Tenel Ka ate her share without comment.

“If we are to make progress,” Kur said, “we should set out immediately, in the wake of the heat storm.” He stood, and his arms trembled weakly.

“We will probably freeze to death out there … but for a short while we will have a small amount of residual warmth to help us along.” Jacen steeled himself for their venture back out into the bitter cold and wind. He cleared his throat.

“Well,” he said bravely, “what are we waiting for?”

The landscape had changed dramatically in the aftermath of the capricious storm. The hot whirlwind from the day side of the planet had blasted across ice patches and glacier fields, leaving spearlike icicles flash-frozen to the rugged cliffsides. Evaporated water that had crystallized in the air now blew around them as dry, scouring snow.

Kur kept his head low; his head-tails twitched around his shoulders as he trudged along the stony slopes toward the faint glow several rugged kilometers in the distance.

The snow that swirled around them blinded Jacen. He took Tenel Ka’s arm so that they wouldn’t get separated. Once, when they became disoriented, he ignited his lightsaber and let the emerald green blaze like a torch. Snow sizzled as it struck the energy blade. The wind whistled and howled around irregularities in the cliff faces.

As they climbed higher, the breezes grew more severe, and the biting cold drained Jacen’s energy. Every step seemed nearly impossible. Slogging through a sea of weariness, he pushed himself to go farther and farther. In his mind, he cried out with the Force, “Lowie, we’re here … don’t give up looking for us!”

Tenel Ka stumbled, and Jacen helped her up, only to find that she had tripped over Kur, who huddled on the ground in despair, refusing to go on. Together they pulled the old Twi’lek to his feet.

“Can’t rest now,” Jacen said. “You won’t make it to the Bright Lands.”

Kur moaned. “Then I’ll just die here.”

“That is not an option,” Tenel Ka said.

The night sky cleared again, showing a spray of stars. All the snow created by the heat storm blew away, gathering in small mounds against the cliffs. Jacen was dismayed to see that their destination appeared no closer than it had seemed hours before.

Tenel Ka pulled in a deep breath. “Master Skywalker once described techniques a Jedi can use to endure cold or heat,” she said. “We must use these skills now.”

Jacen nodded jerkily. “Our friend here doesn’t have those abilities, though.”

“Then we must help him reach the temperate zone before it is too late.”

The slope grew steeper, rockier, but still they kept moving toward the line of distant twilight.

Tenel Ka once again had to use her fibercord to help them to climb between rocky pinnacles.

With his lightsaber, Jacen cut sturdy footholds into the caked ice inside shallow crevices.

The two companions pushed and dragged the old Twi’lek exile, urging him to climb higher.

“Just a little farther, Kur,” Jacen chanted in a voice that was barely more than a whisper. “Just a little farther.”

But when they finally reached the top of the ridge, Jacen’s heart dropped. A sheer gorge and a landscape of cracked hills blocked their path to where the twilight lands would offer them safety.

“We’ll never make it across that,” Jacen said in dismay.

“This is a fact,” Tenel Ka agreed. Her voice was flat, but Jacen heard her despair.

Where would they find the strength to go farther? They were exhausted, freezing. The Twi’lek had slumped into an unconscious stupor beside them. Jacen drew his lightsaber, switched it on, and let it blaze into the darkness. Tenel Ka raised hers as well.

Jacen hoped his sister was all right, wherever she was … that she had managed to escape somehow, that she had found safety with Lowie.

Lowie!

Jacen looked up into the starlit sky.

Tenel Ka straightened, suddenly alert again, and waved her lightsaber back and forth. “Do you sense it?” she asked.

“Yes,” Jacen said. “The Rock Dragon. It’s coming!”

It appeared at first as a shadow against the sky, droning as it cruised low over the mountains.

Soon a constellation of running lights twinkled their message of warmth, of encouragement.

The ship was searching for them.

Jacen jumped up and down, yelling, “Lowie, we’re here! We’re here!”

Tenel Ka stood tall beside him and whirled her turquoise blade overhead.

The Rock Dragon wavered for a moment, then altered its course and arrowed straight toward them. “He’s seen us!” Jacen exclaimed.

Tenel Ka shook the old Twi’lek exile. “Kur, we are saved. You must come with us.”

“No … take me to the Bright Lands,” he gasped.

The Rock Dragon hovered, seeking a place to land, but found no clear patch on the broken, rocky ridge.

“You can always choose the Bright Lands later,” Jacen said, hope lending strength to his voice. “But for now, why not help the Twi’lek people? Nolaa Tarkona has done terrible things to them. Maybe you could help set everything right again.”

As the Rock Dragon hovered in the air, buffeted by freezing winds, its ramp extended until it nearly touched the mountaintop. Kur didn’t struggle or argue as they lifted him onto the ramp and carried him through the hatch.

Inside the bright cockpit, Lowie and Sirra both howled a greeting.

Their fur bristled and their fangs flashed with exultation.

Jacen and Tenel Ka, still shivering, sank gratefully to the floor. The deck plates were so warm and welcoming that Jacen could think of no place he would rather have been.

He just wished his sister were there with him.