• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The Imperial ship circled again over the wreckage, as if looking for survivors. Tenel Ka hoped the pilot wouldn't blast the alreadydowned craft into a smoldering lump of slag and debris. After a tense moment, the enemy ship roared away in search of new prey.

She and Lowbacca pressed on through the trees toward where the battle platform waited.

It seemed like no time at all before Em Teedee said, "Unless my senses have become completely uncalibrated by the crash, we should be directly below the leading edge of the battle platform right now."

Lowbacca held out a hand, motioning for Tenel Ka to wait, and scrambled up a few branches to check their location. At his low bark of triumph, she climbed after him and pushed her head above the leafy canopy.

There, hovering ten meters over the treetops, was the underside of the giant battle platform, massive and threatening, armored for assault, bristling with weapons.

"It should be a simple enough task to destroy it," Tenel Ka said.

The sounds of shouted orders and clomping booted feet carried down to them. Lowbacca pointed upward and then shrugged as if to say, What next?

The platform was too high above the trees to make a jump, and they had no repulsorpacks of their own.

Tenel Ka reached for the grappling hook and fibercord she kept at her belt.

"We'll have to climb for it," she said.

The platform hovered higher than Tenel Ka was accustomed to aiming, but the grappling hook caught firmly on the armored edge on her second throw.

Tenel Ka tested her weight on the fibercord. The grappling hook did not budge. Then, wrapping her arm and her legs around the cord, she began to climb, using the Force to help levitate her when her single arm couldn't provide enough support.

Above on the platform waited Imperial stormtroopers, heavy armaments, and a Nightsister from Dathomir.

Tenel Ka swallowed hard. She knew that although the Force was with them, the odds definitely were not.

THE GREEN-BROWN RIVER that flowed sluggishly through the primeval forest was broad and powerful, yet outwardly calm. The current showed not the least bit of disturbance from the titanic struggle of good and evil taking place on Yavin 4.

The river hosted numerous life-forms: invisible plankton and carnivorous protozoans, water plants, trees that dangled sharp roots into the flow, and camouflaged predators that disguised themselves as innocuous parts of the landscape.

But as blaster shots rang out and the buzz of lightsabers droned through the jungle, other creatures moved in the thick branches over the river and in the water itself... creatures trained in using the Force.

Rounded reptilian snouts broke the surface of the murky river. Breathing slits rose up, nostrils flaring to draw in welcome oxygen. The three scaly creatures moved slowly enough that only slight ripples whispered across the water. Settling into position deep in the mud, they sniffed and lay in wait near the path at the river's edge.

Their enemies would come soon.

Moving stealthily yet radiating a Supremely confident power, three of the Dark Jedi trainees from the Shadow Academy strode through the underbrush, hacking away the dense vines and branches with their lightsaber blades.

They reached the riverbank and paused to consult with each other, still searching for their opponents' "Skywalker's Jedi trainees are cowards,"

one said. "Why don't they come out and fight? They all hide in the jungle like terrified rodents." 'How can they not be afraid of us?" another one said. "They know the power of the dark side."

Consulting silently, with only a faint stream of bubble for communication, three of Luke Skywalker's reptilian Cha'a trainees lunged out of the river, spewing a stream of water at their enemies. They used the Force to summon a hammering flow of the river, a colunm of drenching wetness that reared up like a snake, then splashed down. The Dark Jedi lightsaber blades sizzled and steamed.

The three Cha'a hissed and chattered with laughter as they summoned