Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 05_ Darkest Knight - Kevin J. Anderson [45]
Within moments, three flashing lightsabers sliced away the clinging tentacles and left only twitching stumps at the end of the voracious vine creature.
"We've escaped!" Em Teedee said. "Oh, how wonderful!"
"This is a fact," Tenel Ka agreed. She examined the red welts and oozing scratches she had received during the battle, then looked up toward the next level of branches.
"But our lightsabers have attracted the enemy."
The others turned to follow her gaze. On the branches above them, completely surrounding the group, stood a contingent of fully armed stormtroopers, their blasters pointed down at the young Jedi Knights.
Jacen shut off the emerald beam of his lightsaber and squatted on the branch, breathing hard as he surveyed the encircling stormtroopers. In other circumstances, he would have found the underworld of Kashyyyk fascinating, filled as it was with insects and trees, fems, vines, flowers, lizardsa million new pets for him to inspect, then set free. He found many of the life-forms to be incomprehensible, unlike anything he had 'ever experienced. Even now, with stormtroopers like pale statues above, blasters at the ready and aimed at him, Jacen could sense the hidden creatures around them.
Near one of the stormtroopers who stood on a decaying branch, Jacen noticed that a broad patch of bark lay wet and damp, like a mottled tongue wrapped around the tree. It was slick, glistening, moving on a cellular level.
Two more dark figures joined the gathered stormtroopers. The ominous Nightsister Vonnda Ra, with her hard muscles, broad shoulders, and glittering black body armor, stood next to Zekk, his dark hair neatly tied back with a thong at the nape of his neck, his swirling scarlet-lined cape undamaged by leaves or twigs. The stormtroopers shone glowrods down on the scene.
"You are trapped, Jedi brats," Vonnda Ra said. "It could be amusing to watch you grovel for your lives-but I can assure you it would do you no good."
"We do not intend to grovel," Tenel Ka said, and the Nightsister glared at the young warrior girl from Dathomir.
Jacen focused his concentration on the wide, mysterious slick patch wrapped around the branch. It seemed like a river of damp leather, and as he concentrated, he felt a dim awareness, a rudimentary brain that was more a cluster of reflexes. But reflexes were all Jacen needed right now.
"I'm sorry it has come to this," Zekk said, "but I owe my allegiance to the Second Imperium now, and you are my sworn enemies. I can no longer deny it. That was my choice."
Despite his words, the expression on Zekk's high-cheekboned face and the disturbed look in his green eyes showed Jacen how troubled he truly was.
One of the stormtroopers moved sideways to get a clearer shot at them.
Jacen watched. Just a little more, just a little more...
Perhaps he sent out the thought with the Force, because the stormtrooper did indeed take one more step. His heavy, booted foot planted itself squarely on the wide wet patch.
Without warning, the creature reacted.
A slithering flap of wet, slimy meat in the form of a monstrous slughke beast raised itself from its sleeping position. The motion knocked the stormtrooper completely off the branch, and he tumbled screaming into the depths of the forest.
With a thick slurping sound the enormous slug creature reared up and up and up, thrashing from side to side, knocking two other stormtroopers from their positions. The Imperial soldiers were thrown into pandemonium, shouting and shooting.
Jacen did his best to send a thought to the thing, identifying the white-armored guards as the enemy and planting the idea that Jacen, the two Wookiees, and Tenel Ka were the slow-witted creature's friends.
Stormtroopers opened fire on the monster, but the blasters did little more than annoy it.
Branches crashed and snapped. Energy bolts ricocheted around in the forest as the slug creature continued its reflexive