The Lost Ones

2

As she tried to sleep, Jaina thought of how different Coruscant was from the thick jungles of Yavin 4. The planet-wide capital city bustled with an intensity and energy that filtered into every aspect of daily life. Unlike the tiny moon, which managed to still itself in the quiet hours before dawn, the New Republic’s central world stayed awake all the time.

Her brother Jacen blinked his bleary brown eyes as he joined her in the dining area the next morning. Tenel Ka and Lowbacca had risen early and, already at work on their morning meals, greeted the twins as they arrived. The golden protocol droid See-Threepio hurried about, making sure the guests had a fine eating experience.

Lowie ate steaming pieces of heated (but still raw) red meat from a gold-etched plate frilled with sculptured loops; Threepio had used the best diplomatic tableware and the choicest garnishes. The Wookiee youth, however, seemed to have trouble avoiding the decorative sprigs and delicate flowers that adorned the bloody meal. Tenel Ka, using a small dagger to poke at her plate, speared a piece of fruit.

“Ah, good morning, Mistress Jaina, Master Jacen,” Threepio said. “Such a pleasure to have you home with us again.”

Jaina glanced at the holographic window that stretched across the wall of the room—actually an image transmitted from one of the towers elsewhere in the great city. Because their mother was the important Chief of State, their family quarters were protected deep within the palace, without any real windows to the outside. Jaina knew that many other diplomats around the city were looking out their own false windows at the same projected image.

“Thanks, Threepio,” Jacen said. “We’ve been looking forward to this vacation. Uncle Luke has been teaching us some terrific Jedi skills, but it can be exhausting.”

The droid tapped his gold-plated hands together. “I am delighted to hear it, Master Jacen. Although I am naturally quite busy tutoring young Master Anakin, I have taken the liberty of setting up a fine curriculum of studies for you while you remain here on Coruscant. Your guests are more than welcome to attend classes as well. Oh, it will be just like old times!”

“Classes!” Jacen interrupted as he plopped down in a chair and began to shovel breakfast into his mouth. “You’re joking, right?”

“Oh, no, Master Jacen,” Threepio said sternly. “You mustn’t neglect your studies.”

“Sorry, Threepio,” Jaina said, “but we have other plans today.”

Before the droid could advance his argument any further, the twins’ mother came into the room. “Good morning, kids,” Leia said.

Jaina smiled at her mother. Princess Leia looked as beautiful as in the old picture Jaina had seen from the Rebellion. Since that time, Leia had taken on extremely heavy political duties and devoted most of her waking hours—along with quite a few of those she should have spent sleeping—to untangling knots in the threads of diplomacy.

“What are you doing today, Mom?” Jaina asked.

Leia sighed and rolled her dark brown eyes in an expression that Jaina often unconsciously imitated. “I have a meeting with the Howler Tree People of Bendone … they speak a very strange language and need a team of translators. It’ll take me all morning long just to hold a conversation.” She closed her eyes and rubbed her fingertips at her temples. “And their ultrasonic voices give me a headache!” Leia drew a deep breath and forced a smile. “But it’s part of the job. We have to keep the New Republic strong. There are always threats from the outside.”

“This is a fact,” Tenel Ka said gruffly. “We have seen the threat of the Shadow Academy and the Second Imperium firsthand.” Lowbacca growled, clearly remembering the dark and difficult time he and the twins had experienced aboard the cloaked Imperial training station.

“Hey, I’ve got something that’ll cheer you up, Mom,” Jacen said, reaching into his pocket. “A present I kept for you.”

He held out the glittering Corusca gem he had snagged while using Lando Calrissian’s gem-mining machinery deep in the stormy atmosphere of the gas-giant Yavin.

Leia looked down at it, blinking in amazement. “Jacen, that’s a Corusca gem! Is this the one you found at GemDiver Station?”

He shrugged and looked pleased. “Yeah—and I used it to cut my way free from my cell in the Shadow Academy. Would you like to have it?”

Leia’s expression showed how deeply moved she was, but she closed her son’s fingers around the valuable gem. “Just having you offer it to me is a very special gift,” she said. “But I don’t really need any more jewels or treasures. I’d like you to keep it—find a special use for it. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

Jacen flushed with embarrassment, then turned an even deeper red when she gave him a big hug.

Han Solo came into the cozy dining area from the family’s living quarters, freshly washed and wide awake. “So kids, what’s up for you today?”

Jaina ran to give her father a hug. “Hi, Dad! We’re going to spend some time catching up with our friend Zekk.”

“That scruffy-looking teenaged junk hunter?” Han asked with a faint smile.

“He’s not scruffy-looking!” Jaina said defensively.

“Hey, just kidding,” Han said.

“Just make sure you don’t get into trouble,” Leia said.

“Trouble?” Jacen said, blinking his eyes in feigned innocence. “Us?”

Leia nodded. “Keep in mind that we’re having a special diplomatic banquet tomorrow night. I don’t want to have you stuck with a medical droid because of a sprained ankle—or worse.”

Threepio interrupted as he tried to herd dark-haired Anakin off to a quiet room. “I do wish you’d let me keep them here to continue their studies, Mistress Leia. It would be ever so much safer.” Anakin looked dejected that he couldn’t go out on an adventure with his older brother and sister.

Em Teedee spoke up from Lowbacca’s waist. “Well, you need have no fear for their safety, my conscientious colleague. I shall personally see to it that they behave with the utmost caution. You can count on me.”

Lowbacca growled a comment, and Jaina didn’t think the Wookiee was agreeing with the little translator droid.

In the open air Jaina waited next to Lowbacca, Tenel Ka, and Jacen as they stood in one of Coruscant’s busy tourism information centers, a deck that jutted from the grandiose pyramid-shaped palace. Dignitaries and sightseers from across the galaxy came to the capital world to spend their credits visiting parks, museums, odd sculptures, and structures erected by ancient alien artisans.

A boxy brochure droid floated along on its repulsorlifts, babbling in an enthusiastic mechanical voice. It cheerfully listed the most wonderful sights to see, recommended eating establishments catering to various biochemistries, and gave instructions on how to arrange tours for all body types, atmosphere requirements, and languages.

Jaina fidgeted as she studied the bustling crowd—white-robed ambassadors, busy droids, and exotic creatures leashed to other strange creatures. She couldn’t tell which were the masters and which the pets.

“So where is he?” Jacen said, putting his hands on his hips. His hair was tousled and his face flushed as he scanned the crowd for a familiar face.

The four young Jedi Knights stood under a sculpture of a gargoyle that broadcast shuttle arrival times from a speaker mounted in its stone mouth. Gazing up at the cloud-frothed sky, Jaina watched the silvery shapes of shuttles descending from orbit. She tried to amuse herself by identifying the vehicle types as they passed, but all the while she wondered what had delayed their friend Zekk. She checked her chronometer again and saw he was only about two standard minutes late. She was just anxious to see him.

Suddenly, a figure dropped directly in front of her from the gargoyle statue overhead—a wiry youth with shoulder-length hair one shade lighter than black. He wore a broad grin on his narrow face, and his sparkling green eyes, wide with delight, showed a darker corona surrounding the emerald irises. “Hi, guys!”

Jaina gasped, but Tenel Ka reacted with dizzying speed. In the fraction of a second following Zekk’s landing, the warrior girl whipped out her fibercord rope and snapped a lasso around him, pulling the strand tight.

“Hey!” the boy cried. “Is this the way Jedi Knights greet people?”

Jacen laughed and slapped Tenel Ka on the back. “Good one!” he said. “Tenel Ka, meet our friend Zekk.”

Tenel Ka blinked once. “It is a pleasure.”

The wiry boy struggled against the restraining cords. “Likewise,” he said sheepishly. “Now, if you wouldn’t mind untying me?”

Tenel Ka flicked her wrist to release the fibercord.

While Zekk indignantly brushed himself off, Jaina introduced their Wookiee friend Lowbacca. Jaina grinned as she watched Zekk. Though the older boy had a slight build, he was tough as blaster-proof armor. Under the smudges of dirt and grime on his cheeks, she thought, he was probably rather nice-looking—but then, she wasn’t one to talk about smudges on the face, was she?

Recovering himself, Zekk raised his eyebrows and flashed a roguish smile. “I’ve been waiting for you guys,” he said. “We’ve got plenty of stuff to see and do … and I need your help to salvage something.”

“Where are we headed?” Jacen asked.

Zekk grinned. “Someplace we’re not supposed to go—of course.”

Jaina laughed. “Well then, what are we waiting for?”

Jacen looked out at the sprawling city and thought of all the places he had yet to explore.

Coruscant had been the government world not only of the New Republic, but also of the Empire, and of the Old Republic before that. Skyscrapers covered virtually every open space, built higher and higher as the centuries passed and new governments moved in. The tallest buildings were kilometers high. Many had been destroyed during the bloody battles of the Rebellion and had recently been rebuilt by huge construction droids. Other parts of the planet-wide city remained a jumble of decay and wreckage, their abandoned lower levels and piled garbage forgotten over the years.

The buildings were so high that the gaps between them formed sheer canyons that vanished to a point in the dark depths where sunlight never penetrated. Catwalks and pedestrian tubes linked the buildings, weaving them together into a giant maze. The lower forty or fifty floors were generally restricted from normal traffic; only refugees and daring big-game hunters in search of monstrous urban scavenger beasts were willing to risk venturing into the shadowy underworld.

Like a native guide, Zekk led the four friends down connecting elevators, slide tubes, and rusty metal stairs, and across the catwalks from one building to another. Jacen followed, exhilarated. He wasn’t sure he knew exactly where they were anymore, but he loved to explore new places, never knowing what sort of interesting plants or creatures he might find.

The skyscraper walls rose like glass-and-metal cliff faces, with only a narrow wedge of daylight shining from above. As Zekk took the companions farther down, the buildings seemed broader, the walls rougher. Mushy blobs of fungus grew from cracks in the massive construction blocks; fringed lichens, some glowing with phosphorescent light, caked the walls. Lowbacca looked decidedly uneasy, and Jacen remembered that the lanky Wookiee had grown up on Kashyyyk, where the deep forest underworld was an extremely dangerous place.

High overhead Jacen could hear the cries of sleek winged creatures—predatory hawk-bats that lived in the city on Coruscant. The breeze picked up, carrying with it heavy, warm scents of rotting garbage from far below. His stomach grew queasy, but he pressed on. Zekk didn’t seem to notice. Tenel Ka, Lowie, and Jaina hurried behind them.

They proceeded across a roofed-in walkway where many of the transparisteel ceiling panels had been smashed out, leaving only a wire reinforcement mesh that whistled in the breezes. Jacen noted etched symbols along the walls, all of them vaguely threatening. Some reminded Jacen of curved knives and fanged mouths, but the most common design showed a sharp triangle surrounding a targeting cross. It looked to Jacen like the tip of an arrow heading straight between his eyes.

“Hey, Zekk, what’s that design?” He pointed to the triangular symbol.

Frowning, Zekk glanced around them in all directions and then whispered, “It means we have to be very quiet down here and move as fast as we can. We don’t want to go into any of these buildings.”

“But why not?” Jacen asked.

“The Lost Ones,” Zekk said. “It’s a gang. They live down here—kids who ran away from home or were abandoned by their parents because they were so much trouble. Nasty types, mostly.”

“Let’s hope they stay lost,” Jaina said.

Zekk glanced up, his forehead creased with troubled thoughts. “The Lost Ones might even be looking at us right now, but they’ve never managed to catch me yet,” he said. “It’s like a game between us.”

“How have you managed to get away from them all the time?” Jaina whispered.

“I’m just good at it. Like I’m a good scavenger,” Zekk answered, sounding cocky. “I may not be in training as a Jedi Knight, but I make do with what skills I’ve got. Just streetwise, I guess. But,” he continued, “even though I have kind of an … understanding with them, I’d rather not push it. Especially not while I’m with the twin children of the Chief of State.”

“This is a fact,” Tenel Ka said grimly. She kept her hands close to her utility belt in case she needed to draw a weapon.

Zekk quickly ushered them through dilapidated corridors that were heavily decorated with the gang symbols. Jacen saw signs of recent habitation, wrappers from prepackaged food, bright metallic spots where salvaged equipment had been torn away from its housings.

At last they moved on to deeper levels. They all breathed more easily, although Zekk confessed even he had not fully explored this far down. “I think it’s a shortcut,” he said. “I need your help so I can recover something very valuable.” He raised his dark eyebrows. “I think you’ll like it—particularly you, Jacen.”

Zekk made his living by scavenging: salvaging lost equipment, removing scraps of precious metal from abandoned dwellings. He found lost treasures to sell to inventors, spare parts to repair obsolete machines, trinkets that could be turned into souvenirs. He seemed to have a real skill for finding items that other scavengers had missed over the centuries, somehow knowing where to look, sometimes in the unlikeliest of places.

They descended an outer staircase, slick with damp moss from moisture trickling down the walls. Jacen had to squint just to see the steps. As they turned the corner of the building, Zekk stopped in surprise. In the dim light reflected from far above, Jacen could see a strange jumble protruding from the side of the building—smashed construction bricks, naked durasteel girders … and a crashed transport shuttle. From the drooping algae and fungus growing on its outer hull, the damaged shuttle appeared to have been there a long time.

“Wow!” Zekk said. “I didn’t even know this was here.” He hurried forward, edging his way along the damaged walkway. “I don’t believe it. The salvage hasn’t even been picked over. See—I’m lucky again!”

“That’s an Old Republic craft,” Jaina said. “At least seventy years old. They haven’t used those in … I can’t even remember. What a find!”

Tenel Ka and Lowie held the creaking ship steady as Zekk scrambled inside to look around. He poked into storage compartments, looking for valuables. “Plenty of components are still intact. Engine still looks good,” he called. “Whoa, and here’s the driver. I guess his parking permit ran out.”

Jacen came up behind him to see a tattered skeleton strapped into the cockpit.

“Oh, do be careful,” Em Teedee said from Lowbacca’s waist. “Abandoned vehicles can be terribly dangerous—and you might get dirty as well.”

“Was this what you wished to show us, Zekk?” Tenel Ka said.

The older boy stood, bumping his head on a bent girder that ran along the shuttle’s ceiling. “No, no, this is a new discovery. I’ll have to spend a lot more time down here.” He grinned. Engine grease smudged his face, and his hands were grimy from digging through compartments. “I can get this stuff later. I need your help for something different. Let’s go.”

Zekk scrambled out of the shuttle wreckage and grasped the rusted handrail on the rickety walkway. He looked around to get his bearings, making certain he wouldn’t forget the location of this prize. The skull of the unlucky pilot stared out at them through empty eye sockets.

“Looks like you really do know this place like the back of your hand,” Jacen commented as Zekk led them elsewhere.

“I’ve had plenty of practice,” Zekk said. “Some of us don’t take regular trips off planet and go to diplomatic functions all the time. I have to amuse myself with what I can find.”

It was midmorning by the time they reached Zekk’s destination. The dark-haired boy rubbed his hands together in anticipation, and pointed far below. “Down there—can you see it?”

Jacen looked down, down over a ledge to see a rusted construction crawler latched to a wall about ten meters away … completely out of reach. The construction crawler was a crane-like mechanical apparatus that had once ridden tracks along the side of the building, scouring the walls clean, effecting repairs, applying duracrete sealant—but this contraption had frozen up and begun to decay at least a century ago. Its interlinked rusted braces were clogged with fuzzy growths of moss and fungus.

Jacen squinted again, wondering why the other boy meant to salvage parts from such an old machine—but then he saw the bushy mass, a tangle of uprooted wires and cables woven together, bristling with insulation material, torn strips of cloth, and plastic. It looked almost like a …

“It’s a hawk-bat’s nest,” Zekk said. “Four eggs inside. I can see them from here, but I can’t get down there by myself. If I can snatch even one of those eggs, I could sell it for enough credits to live on for a month.”

“And you want us to help you get it?” Jaina asked.

“That’s the idea,” Zekk said. “Your friend Tenel Ka there has a pretty strong rope—as I found out! And some of you look like good climbers, especially that Wookiee.”

Em Teedee shrilled, “Oh no, Lowbacca. You simply cannot climb down there! I absolutely forbid it.” Lowie hadn’t looked too eager at first, but the translating droid’s admonishment only served to convince him otherwise. The Wookiee growled an agreement to Zekk’s plan.

Tenel Ka attached her grappling hook to the side of the walkway. “I am a strong climber,” she said. “This is a fact.”

Zekk rubbed his hands together with delight. “Excellent.”

“Let me get the eggs,” Jacen said, eager to touch the smooth, warm shells, to study the nest configuration. “I’ve always wanted to see one up close.” This was such a rare opportunity. Hawk-bats were common in the deep alleyways of Coruscant, but they were horrendously difficult to capture alive.

Pulling the fibercord taut, Tenel Ka wrapped her hands around it and began lowering herself to the old construction crawler. Jacen had seen her descend the walls of the Great Temple on Yavin 4, but now he watched with renewed amazement as she walked backward down the side of the building, relying only on the strength of her supple arms and muscular legs.

Jacen admired the girl from Dathomir—but he wished he could make her laugh. He had been telling Tenel Ka his best jokes for as long as he had known her, but he still hadn’t managed to coax even the smallest smile from her. She seemed not to have a sense of humor, but he would keep trying.

Tenel Ka reached the construction crawler and anchored the fibercord, gesturing with her arm to summon him down. Jacen wrapped the cord around himself and started down the slick wall, trying to imitate Tenel Ka. He used the Force to keep his balance, nudging his feet when necessary, and soon found himself standing beside Tenel Ka on the teetering platform.

“Piece of cake,” he panted, brushing his hands together.

“No thank you,” Tenel Ka said. “I am not hungry.”

Jacen chuckled, but he knew the warrior girl didn’t even realize she had made a joke.

Lowie slid down the fibercord with ease, while Em Teedee wailed all the way. “Oh, I can’t watch! I’d rather switch off my optical sensors.”

When they all stood on the creaking platform, Jacen bent over, straining to reach the tangled nest just below. “I’m going to climb down there,” he said. “I’ll pass the eggs up.”

Before anyone could argue, he dropped between two thin girders, holding a crossbar to reach the piping brace that supported the odd nest. The eggs were brown, mottled with green, camouflaged as knobs of masonry covered with pale lichen. Each was about the size of Jacen’s outspread hand; when he touched the warm shells, the texture was hard and rough, like rock. With the Force, he could sense the growing baby creature inside. Perhaps he could use the Force to levitate the prize up to his friends.

He smiled, tingly with wonder as he hefted one of the eggs. It wasn’t heavy at all. As he touched a second egg, though, he heard a shrill shriek from above, coming closer.

Tenel Ka shouted a warning. “Look out, Jacen!”

Jacen looked up and saw the sleek form of the mother hawk-bat, swooping down at him and screaming in fury, metallic claws extended, wings studded with spikes. The hawk-bat’s wing-span was about two meters. Its head consisted mostly of a horny beak with sharp ivory teeth, ready to tear a victim to shreds.

“Uh-oh,” Jacen said.

Lowie bellowed in alarm. Tenel Ka grabbed for a throwing knife—but Jacen knew he couldn’t wait for help.

The creature dove toward him like a missile, and Jacen closed his eyes to reach out with the Force. His special talent had always been with animals. He could communicate with them, sense their feelings and express his own to them. “It’s all right,” he whispered. “I’m sorry we were invading your nest. Calm. It’s all right. Peace.”

The hawk-bat pulled up from her dive and clutched one of the corroded lower crossbars with durasteel-hard claws. Jacen could hear the squeaking sound as the claws scraped rust off the metal, but he maintained his calm.

“We didn’t mean to hurt your babies,” he said. “We won’t take them all. I need only one, and I promise you it’ll be delivered to a fine and safe place … a beautiful zoo where it will be raised and cared for and admired by millions of people from across the galaxy.”

The hawk-bat hissed and pushed her hard beak closer to Jacen, blowing foul breath from between sharp teeth. He knew the hawk-bat was extremely skeptical, but Jacen projected images of a bright aviary, a place where the young hawk-bat would be fed delicacies all its life, where it could fly freely, yet never need to fear other predators or starvation … or being shot at by gang members. Jacen snatched the last vision—blurred figures of young humans shooting as she hunted between tall buildings—from the mother’s mind.

This last fear convinced the mother, and she flapped her spiked leathery wings, backing away from the nest and leaving Jacen safe … for the moment. He grinned up at his friends.

Tenel Ka stood poised, dagger in hand, ready to jump down and fight. Jacen felt a pleasant warm glow to think that she was willing to defend him. He took the hawk-bat egg he was holding and used the Force to carefully levitate it into Jaina’s hands. She cradled it, then handed it to Zekk.

“What did you do?” Zekk called.

“I made a deal with the hawk-bat,” he said. “Let’s go.”

“But what about those other eggs?” Zekk said, holding his treasure with great amazement.

“You only get one,” Jacen answered. “That was the deal. Now we’d better get out of here—and hurry.” He scrambled up to join Lowie and Tenel Ka.

Lowie climbed the fibercord first, racing up the side of the building to the upper ledge. Jacen urged the others to greater speed, and finally, when they were all standing back on the walkway, Zekk said, “I thought you made a deal with the mother. Why do we have to hurry?”

Jacen continued to hustle them out of sight of the construction crawler. “Because hawk-bats have extremely short memories.”