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Ganner nodded sagely. “The Imperial survey never saw the slashrats since they were not in the survey area.”

“True. They postulated the existence of such creatures, but didn’t have enough time here to confirm that theory.” Trista pointed toward the tarps. “What we have back there is the essence of rendered slashrats. That’s what they smell like after being several days dead. The slashrats move through the sand, tracing the scent that shwpi leave behind as they move through or over the sand. The death scent keeps slashrats back; most creatures consider the rotting scent of their own kind to be a sign of danger. We’re safe enough in here because they can’t come up through the bedrock that makes up these caves.”

Corran slipped his goggles up on his forehead and let his rebreather hang at his throat. “I’m glad to know you’re safe, but you didn’t bring us in here for a lesson in Bimmiellian ecology, Dr. Pace. You reacted to the fact that the raiders weren’t human.”

“Perhaps you’re not a total fool, Jedi.” Dr. Pace waved Corran deeper into the cave. Ganner started to follow, but she held a hand up. “No, you wait here. Him, I trust. You, I’m not sure.”

Ganner snorted, but said nothing.

Corran tossed him a wink, then headed deeper into the cave. The passage began to shrink, so Corran stooped as he descended into the planet’s flesh. The passageway also began to narrow, then broadened out abruptly and provided access to a large, round chamber. Lights had been set up in it, and a half-dozen students were working with brushes and small trowels to shift sand around. Two other students were at a table running a digitizer over artifacts and monitoring the data coming up on their datapads.

Dr. Pace stopped beside Corran. “Until the storm trapped us in these caverns, we’d not looked much into them. We cleared sand from the passage and discovered this chamber. The sand in here was washed in with the rains, so it was laid down in even layers over the years at a fairly constant rate. We don’t have a solid chronology, but as we began poking around we discovered something that we think has been here for forty years, maybe fifty.”

She led him over to the computer table. “Jens, call up scan AR-312.”

As the young woman punched up a request for that data, Dr. Pace faced Corran. “We’ve recovered a body, the mummified remains of some creature. As nearly as we can make out, it retreated here and was felled by slashrats. The teeth marks on the long bones and ragged edges of dried flesh were consistent with . . .”

Corran stopped listening as the holographic image of a skull appeared above a holoprojector plate. It had a low cranial ridge, but was longer than a human skull. The features appeared sharper, and the computer enhanced the fracture lines and deformities on the face. The cheekbones had been broken and set oddly, so the face had a slope from right to left, and the nose bones had clearly been shattered.

“Emperor’s black bones!”

Dr. Pace nodded. “Not very pretty. Bony, with hooks and claws on the hands, elbows, shoulders, toes, heels, and knees. It killed at least two slashrats. It also had some artifacts that we recovered—armor, some weapons. It’s a major find. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“That’s the problem, Doc, I have.” Corran shuddered, remembering the images of the Yuuzhan Vong corpses he’d seen in Luke Skywalker’s report. “I think you’ve got one of the raiders there, and if they’ve been here once, there’s little reason to think they won’t be back.”

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A quick examination of the ExGal facility proved the efficacy of the Yuuzhan Vong warning at the door. Luke found no signs of life in there, but there was a lot of evidence of the sheer virulence with which the Yuuzhan Vong hated technology. Machinery had been smashed into bits, and enough dark fluid formed footprints or was sprayed over the walls to suggest that the Yuuzhan Vong had been heedless of personal injuries during their orgy of destruction.

That realization, which crystallized itself in his mind as he bent to trace a bloody footprint with