Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 12_ Return to Ord Mantell - Kevin J. Anderson [54]
"It's kind of odd, don't you think?" Han Solo said. "That Lilmit is selling weapons to both sides, I mean. If you buy more, then the other side will buy more. Pretty soon you won't be able to count all the victims."
")"at?" Elis said, astonished. "Lilmit? Impossible. He wants to help us win."
"No," Anja croaked, her voice rough and weak. "We intercepted him on his way here and confiseatedhis cargo. He had weapons for our miners, all right. But he also had sonic punchers and other equipment the farmers use against us. "
"They're selling to both sides?" Elis said in horror.
Just then, the guards dragged in an indignant and weary-looking Ynos.
His mechanical droid leg scraped along the stone floors. He had heard the last of the exchange. Standing, he shook off the grasp of the guards.
"You buy weapons from Lilmit as well?" he growled.
Elis looked at him, and the expression on his face rippled with pure rage. "They're playing both sides for fools-supplying all of us, while we continue to fight and harm each other all for nothing!"
"I wouldn't be so sure." Zekk crossed his anus over his chest.
"They may have been keeping this little war going for as long as possible, just because business is so good."
Ynos and Elis glared daggers at each other.
"I understand your little brother was trying to destroy our village, and had a little accident," the one-legged man taunted.
With a roar, Elis charged toward the farming leader, but Jacen and Jaina moved with their father and friends to block his way.
"Protas shouldn't have gone to the village last night. Anja was there with him," Jaina said. "Ynos had nothing to do with it."
"It's my fault," Anja said. "I planted that burrowing detonator to destroy Ynos's home. It went off... too soon, and the explosion killed your brother."
"My home is gone?" Ynos said. "Our village is ruined, as well."
He hung his shaggy head. He turned his eyes toward Anja. "And who would have died if the detonator hadn't gone off 'too soon'?"
Anja did not meet his eyes.
"Someone must pay," Elis insisted. "You farmers have much to atone for-all of the sonic punchers you have planted, the tunnels you have collapsed, the miners you have killed with your cowardly hidden weapons."
Ynos drew himself up. "And who will pay for all of my people who died while trying to plant crops for our very survival?
What of the victims of your burrowing detonators, your monofilament nets in the forest?"
"Nothing you do can bring those people back," Jacen said.
"Blaster bolts! If you keep trying to take revenge for what the other side does, this war will never end."
"Your people have demonstrated that over the last twenty years," Anakin pointed out.
"But we can't just forget and put it all behind us," Elis said with a scowl. "Too much blood has been shed, and too many traps remain.
People will continue to die for years as they stumble upon leftover sonic punchers buried by these... renegades in our precious mines."
"And how are we to farm?" Ynos cried. "All of our most fertile land is still full of deadly explosives. We can't even plow the fields, much less plant our seeds."
"Then maybe all of you should work together to clear out those traps and explosives," Jacen said, "instead of wasting all your time rigging more murder weapons to strike back at each other."
"Why spend your efforts on causing more damage instead of on healing your world?" Tenel Ka asked.
Anja looked up at them, her eyes weary. She heaved a huge sigh.
"You ask the impossible."
Jacen and Jaina looked at each other, recalling their uncle Luke's story of his Jedi training with Yoda. Luke had thought Yoda asked the impossible.
"Believing that peace is impossible-that you can't change-is what keeps your war going,"