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"It was made only to kill," Tenel Ka said. "To kill anyone. Not specifically an enemy, or a friend... anyone."

"This is a different kind of war than anything we've seen so far, Jaina said, her expression grim. "With no objective in mind, no military targets. The factions just want to destroy everything."

"You see how horrible the miners are?" one villager said. "They plant burrowing detonators in our cropland, and look what they've done in this forest, where we have to hunt! I can't believe your father wants us to talk peace with them."

"Let's just get to the mountains and take it from there," Jacen said.

"I'm sure Anja will put in a good word for us."

After encountering these two deadly traps, they proceeded with the utmost caution, and continued on for hours without further incident.

"Not finding any booby traps is even more nerve-racking than stumbling upon one," Jacen muttered.

Finally, after what seemed an interminable time, they paused for a rest.

A few villagers had found edible fruit on a tree, which they passed around to their exhausted and hungry companions. They had been through a terrible ordeal, but over the years of civil war they had become inured to such circumstances. They walked with numb shock, fearing another trap.

Jaina and Tenel Ka suggested that Em Teedee scan the fruit for implanted poisons, but the little droid happily pronounced each one of the red scaly clusters to be clean of contamination.

Lowie looked up at a tall, silver-trunked tree and chuffed a suggestion.

"Master Lowbacca wishes to climb up to the canopy and take a look around," Em Teedee said. "He believes it might be useful in making certain we're close to the mountain village."

"I agree," Jaina said. "Go take a look around, Lowie."

With his lanky arms and legs, the Wookiee scrambled from one branch to another, in no time disappearing into the mass of silvery-blue leaves.

Lowbacca loved to climb tall trees and sit in solitude. The Wookiee probably wanted to rest up there, but they couldn't sit back and wait.

With a crashing of small branches, Lowie bounded down, leaping from branch to bough, enjoying the freedom. He landed on both feet in the middle of the clearing, and gave his quick report with barks and growls.

"We are very close to the edge of the forest," Em Teedee said. "I am so pleased to be nearly out of this dismal place."

"Then let's get moving," Jacen said. "I'm anxious to have our whole group back together."

With a collective groan of weariness, the villagers struggled into motion again. The man who had been injured from the laser blast was carried along by two of his companions. They moved slowly, with exquisite care, and Jacen was very proud that they had not lost any of their party through the various traps planted among the trees.

One of the villagers called for them to move left in order to avoid a flower-filled meadow. Jacen saw nothing suspicious, though he did feel a tingling through the Force, warning him of danger. With a wan grin, the young man slipped over to another tree trunk and pushed a hidden button, switching off a tiny holographic generator. Part of the placid meadow disappeared, revealing a jagged-edged hole filled with durasteel spikers that gleamed in the forest light.

"The mountain miners aren't the only ones who can plant traps," he said proudly.

Jacen felt sickened. "That's no way to end a war," he muttered, thinking that Anja's villagers might have fallen into that deadly trap.

"You've seen what the miners have done to us," one farmer said.

"How can you fault our people for defending ourselves?"

"This is no defense," Tenel Ka said.

Soon they could see daylight and cliffs through the tattered edge of the forest. The mountain and its steep pathway lay ahead.

As they were about to emerge from the forest, though, just when Jacen thought they had passed through without incident, one member of the group close to Lowbacca stepped on a flat stone, which triggered a detonator that blew up beneath one of the