Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 05_ Darkest Knight - Kevin J. Anderson [47]
Just then, the rotting branch beneath her feet creaked and threatened to give way. In her haste, she had not bothered to check the branch before stepping on it. Chewbacca spun and reached out to pull her to safety on a thicker branch closer to the trunk. She scrambled for purchase.
But the whole side of the wroshyr tree must have been weakened by rot or disease, for at that moment the bough on which the large Wookiee stood gave way as well. Snapping and popping, the gnarled wood dropped out from beneath him.
Jaina watched, her mouth open in a silent scream, as Chewbacca plummeted, crashing into the darkness below.
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EXHAUSTED, ZEKK STOOD with the lightsaber still gripped in his sweaty hand. He found it hard to breathe the thick, cloying air of the underworld.
The smoking carcass of the dead slug beast, now sliced in pieces, lay draped across the overspreading branches. Burned slime bubbled with a noxious stench. Small fires crackled from stray blaster bolts that had ignited portions of the dense foliage. The surviving stormtroopers shouted to each other over helmet comlinks, completing their damage assessment.
Vonnda Ra stood trembling, jaw set, face drawn, as if the fury she had unleashed to fight the monster had drained her somehow.
The new Nightsisters were supposedly proof against the physically damaging effects of the evil powers they invoked, but the tremendous battle Vonnda Ra and Zekk and the stormtroopers had waged against the mindless slug had left her. looking shriveled.
Zekk slumped against an upright tree trunk, feeling the soft squish of blue moss mixed with ichor from the slug creature.
Only four stormtroopers remained with their party. The slug beast had crushed the others or flung them into the unseen depths below. Chunks of the dead thing sloughed off the main branches, oozing down to where rodents and scavengers rustled through the darkness in a feeding frenzy.
Zekk heard a crash and a crackle of snapping twigs far behind them.
Suddenly, with a tingle through his own Force senses, he knew that two others followed, attempting to catch them-and he identified one of the pursuers.
In astonishment, he blinked his green eyes into the forest shadows, reaching out with the focused power of his senses.
"It's Jaina Solo," he said to Vonnda Ra.
"Behind us. She's coming this way." He planted his black boots firmly on the branch. He had to choose, but he could not. With all of Brakiss's promises, he had never thought it would be so difficult.
Ahead Jacen, Lowbacca, Sirra, and Tenel Ka had succeeded in eluding Imperial pursuit so far-but Jaina, completely unaware, was heading straight toward them. He would have to confront her himself "We must split up," Zekk said. "I will go back alone and stop Jaina. The rest of you, continue after these others."
"Yes." Peering ahead into the forest maze, Vonnda Ra seethed. "I'll make them pay for what they've done to us!"
With a gesture of her clawed hand, the Nightsister and the remaining stormtroopers set off after the young Jedi Knights.
Though Jacen fought to stay within sight of his companions, this deep level of the forest had become so dark he felt as if he were swimming through a pool of ink. Finally, surprisingly, the depths began to shimmer with wonder. He noticed the cold illumination of phosphorescent organisms, glowing insects, pulsing fungi and lichens that threw heatless chemical light into the smothering darkness.
All around him in the branches and leaves he could see spangles like starlight, as ifinstead of being deep within a dense foresthe stood on a sprawling plain under a clear night sky. Jacen found it breathtaking, and nudged Tenel Ka's warm arm to get her attention. The immensity of it overwhelmed him. He had never thought he'd experience something so wonderful down here.
As he and Tenel Ka stared upward, wordlessly sharing the experience, an unexpected volley of blaster