Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 06_ Balance Point - Kathy Tyers [58]
They’d cleared several huts when Jacen’s comlink squealed. “Solo,” Mezza’s voice barked. “Get over here!”
He sprinted back up the lane, searching the Ryn section. Finally, he spotted a tethered repulsor cart. He shifted direction and headed toward it, gripping his lightsaber with his right hand so it wouldn’t bounce against his hipbone.
He plunged into the shelter. Two orange-suited forms had backed against its inside wall. Closer to Jacen was an insect he’d seen only in holos and nightmares. Fefze beetles, loosed on the planet’s surface during the Duros’ early days of space travel, had the odd quirk of both internal and external skeletons, so the mutant strain had been able to grow to enormous size. This one was well over a meter long, with segmented antennae waving toward him, sniffing through the Duro-stench. Evidently it had taken this hut as a nest, because the crumpled wings of hundreds of white-eyes lay along one half-eaten cot. Under iridescent wing covers, the beetle’s soft abdomen was grossly distended. It had evidently gorged on white-eyes and the Ryn’s pitiful possessions. It was getting ready to lay eggs.
Unfortunately, Mezza and her partner had gotten past it before spotting it. They crouched against an interior wall, brandishing a cast-off shirt and a pair of leggings. Whenever the beetle’s antennae twitched, they flapped the clothing.
Jacen drew and ignited his lightsaber. The beetle turned, working the air with two of its armored, pincer-footed legs. Green, blue, and purple light reflected off the iridescent grooves of its body, and its mouthparts—easily wide enough to grip a Ryn leg—clicked ominously.
“Load your pile and get out,” Jacen said.
“Kill it!” Mezza’s voice hooted out of the nearer, bulkier chem suit.
Jacen didn’t turn his head. “Why? There are thousands of them, all over the surface—”
“Kill it,” she shrieked. “One beetle dead is a hundred less next season. It’s going to lay eggs.”
Jacen saw the sense in that, but the creature had no evil intent. It had found an excellent nesting spot, complete with food source, and he didn’t want to kill needlessly.
“Just load up the cart and move on,” he told Mezza. “I don’t think she’ll come after you.”
“She?” Mezza demanded. “So now it’s a she?”
“Do males lay eggs?”
“Solo!” the comlink in his pocket shrieked. “We have trouble!”
He fingered it on as he raised it. “On my way,” he said. Then, to Mezza, “Get your things and get out.”
He positioned himself between Mezza and the clicking beetle until she’d cleared the hut, then he backed out after her. The beetle didn’t follow.
Standing well out into the lane, he closed down his lightsaber and touched the comlink again. The cry, almost avian, had sounded like a Vor—or was that just the distortion of breath masks and fluctuating reception? “Where are you?”
“Over here. On a roof!” Grunting and whacking noises sounded over the link.
He scrambled up a nearby shelter and balanced on top.
About twenty meters away, two pudgy-armed orange figures—definitely Vors—stood on another blue roof, menaced from below by five iridescent beetles. Side by side, the orange figures flung someone else’s heirlooms at the creatures. The huge insects ducked, then came on again, scrabbling against the rough wall, mouthparts clicking and sliding against each other like hand-length saws.
Jacen leapt down, not liking to think what would happen if the beetles climbed up and holed the Vors’ chem suits. This time, he did have to kill. These creatures were attacking prey, not defending a nest.
Half stepping back into a fighting stance, he lit his lightsaber again. He’d never tried lightsaber fighting without using the Force. But how hard could it be? he asked himself, and he waded in Force-blind.