Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [7]
It would have been natural to assume that the fungus—prized for its medicinal as well as nutritional value—was somehow concocted from manax foliage gathered by the harvesters. But in fact the leaves and branches provided little more than a growth medium. Enzymes produced by the beetles, coupled with the dank conditions within the burrows and grottoes of the nest mounds, encouraged the rapid growth of a product that required only a modicum of refinement to become palatable.
Elsewhere during the sieges of Deko and Koru Neimoidia, Obi-Wan had never visited a fungus farm, but no sooner had he and Anakin dashed through the cavelike opening to the nest than the briefings he had received more than ten standard years earlier came back to him in a flash.
Here were the partly masticated leaves, carefully arranged in layers; the clumps of branches and other impurities; the laborer beetles; the droid overseers; the conveyors and similar contraptions devoted to sorting and transport … Not a Neimoidian in sight, but that was consistent with their doctrine that exertion of any sort was anathema. In the deep recesses of the mound, untouched by sunlight, the starter fungi—molds, mildews, and sickly-white mushrooms—would be undergoing treatments with natural and synthetic growth-acceleration agents. And higher up, in what constituted the basement of the citadel, the matured end product was probably being consumed by grubs, or packed and readied for shipment.
Cody ordered the squad to secure the area. Those in the rear were still taking sporadic fire from STAPs, but the droid pilots couldn’t get close to the entrance because of the bodies of dead beetles piled outside.
Squad Seven’s medspec hurried over to Obi-Wan and Anakin.
“Sirs, I recommend you keep your rebreathers close at hand. Odds are we won’t have to penetrate any deeper into the nest, but there’s always a chance of encountering free-floating spores in other areas.”
Obi-Wan quirked his brows together. “Toxic, Sergeant?”
“No, sir. But the spores have been known to have an adverse effect on humans.”
“Adverse how?” Anakin asked.
“The effect is most often described as ‘dislocating,’ sir.”
Obi-Wan glanced at Anakin. “Then I suggest we do as he says.”
The fingers of his left hand were prizing the small, twintanked rebreather from its pouch on his utility belt when a volley of blaster bolts streaked into the grotto. Caught in their upper chests, two troopers were knocked off their feet.
The source of the sudden fire was the mouth of a narrow side tunnel that could be sealed by an overhead door. Anakin was already racing for the tunnel, lightsaber gripped in both hands, deflecting most of the bolts back through the entrance.
Obi-Wan leapt to one side, raising his blade to deal with two bolts that got past Anakin. The first he returned toward its source; the second, he parried at a deliberately downward angle. Striking the grotto’s hard-packed floor, the deflected bolt ricocheted to one wall, then to the ceiling, to the other wall, and back to the floor, from which it caromed squarely into the control panel that operated the tunnel door.
Showering sparks, the device shorted out, and a slab of thick alloy dropped from its pocket in the wall, sealing the tunnel with a loud thud!
Switching off his lightsaber, Anakin cast a complimentary glance over his shoulder.
“Nicely done, Master.”
“The beauty of Form Three,” Obi-Wan said with theatrical nonchalance. “You should try it sometime.”
“You’ve always been better at evasion than I have,” Anakin said. “I prefer more