Star Wars, page 8
“Whoa, there,” said Rooper, affecting her best calming tone. She held out her hands, palms turned up. “I come in peace.”
The man looked at her for a moment, as if trying to process her sudden, unexpected appearance, and then finally seemed to relax. “I’m sorry,” he said, gesturing in a conciliatory fashion. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”
Rooper smiled. “It wasn’t me who was scared.”
The man laughed nervously. “No. It wasn’t, was it. I’ll start again: I’m sorry for my reaction. You startled me.”
“I didn’t mean to,” said Rooper. She stuck out her hand in greeting. “I’m Rooper. This is Peethree.”
“The pious know each other by the peace they wear upon their faces,” said P3-7A, by way of greeting.
The man gave the droid a confused glance and then took Rooper’s hand and shook it gently. His fingers were hard and calloused from labor, rough against her palm. “I didn’t see you coming. I was lost in my own world. I’m Jerlyn.” He looked her up and down. “Judging by the robes, I’m guessing you’re from the temple? Have you come to help?”
Rooper frowned. “Help?”
Jerlyn looked confused. “You haven’t, then?”
“Well, if you need help, then yes, of course,” said Rooper.
“But that’s not why you came?” Something wasn’t right. She could sense the uncertainty radiating off Jerlyn. He was desperately anxious about something, but he was trying his best not to show it. Off on the other side of the plaza, the small group of beings—four of them—were noisily unloading blasters from a storage crate. Rooper gave them a sidelong glance. Something was definitely going on.
“It’s. . .well, it’s complicated,” she said. A thought occurred to her. “You were expecting someone, then? From the temple? A Jedi.”
Jerlyn nodded.
Rooper felt a sudden flood of excitement. This had to be it. This had to be part of the test. “You’d better tell me what’s been going on.”
Jerlyn’s shoulders sagged as he let out a long, deep breath. “It’s my droid,” he said.
“What about your droid?” She placed a gentle hand on his arm.
“Well, it’s not my droid, as such. It’s my family’s droid. Dee-Twelve. He helps out on the farm. I’m not sure what we’ll do without him, to be honest.”
“Something’s happened to him?”
Jerlyn ground his teeth. “You could say that.”
“Tell me,” said Rooper.
“He’s been taken by the salmaca.”
Rooper stared at Jerlyn, her brow furrowed. “A salmaca? But they’re creatures from fairy tales.” She’d heard stories about salmacas before—tall tales of enormous, beaked, lizard-like creatures that lived in caves and laid waste to surrounding settlements, stealing the locals’ valuables to line their nests. In the tales, the creatures had an insatiable desire for anything that glittered and would slither out at night in search of new prizes to satiate their desires, claiming them at any cost. But they were just children’s stories. Surely?
Jerlyn shook his head. “No, they’re real enough. Rare, but real. There’s one living nearby, in the cave system in the rocks beyond those trees.” He gestured at the base of the outcropping on which Rooper had previously stood.
“You’re sure?” pressed Rooper, fighting her disbelief. “A salmaca?”
Jerlyn smiled despite himself, and Rooper liked the way it made his whole face light up. “I promise. I’ve seen it myself. A great, hulking thing. It’s been terrorizing the village for weeks, thundering in at night, raiding people’s homes, making off with their valuables. And when old Tuntis tried to fight it off, it killed him. Ripped his arm clean off in its beak and left him bleeding on the floor of his ruined home.”
Rooper grimaced. She could tell that Jerlyn was telling the truth, as unbelievable as it all sounded. At the very least, he believed it, and she had no reason to doubt him. She could sense his distress was very real. Even if it wasn’t a salmaca from legend, something was plaguing the village. “And now it’s taken your droid?”
Jerlyn fidgeted with his hands. “It’s my fault. I was supposed to lock up last night on the farm. But I forgot. I was so tired. I fell asleep and. . .Well, Dee-Twelve stayed out late, plowing the far field ready for planting this morning. It must have taken him. It’s the only explanation.”
“Can you be certain?”
Jerlyn shook his head. “No. But there were prints in the dirt. Big prints. It had to be the salmaca.” He stared at his boots in the waning light. “I have to get Dee-Twelve back, Rooper. We can’t afford a new droid, and the farm will be ruined without him. And besides. . .he’s . . .”
“Part of the family,” said Rooper, shooting a glance at P3-7A. “I get it.” She straightened her robes. “Now tell me about the Jedi. Someone came here, didn’t they? A tall woman, with a shield.”
Jerlyn nodded. “Last night. Pieto told her all about it. She examined the creature’s tracks. Then she said she had to go back to the temple, but that someone would be along today to help. When I saw your robes, I assumed. . . .”
Rooper grinned. So she’d been right. This was about protecting people, about being the shield. This was what Silandra wanted her to do: To protect the people of Peka from the salmaca. To stop it before any more harm was done, any more people were hurt or killed. “Don’t worry,” she said emphatically. “I’m going to help. But this Jedi. . .she didn’t happen to leave her shield anywhere around here, by any chance?”
Jerlyn glanced up at the tree branches above his head. “She did. Up there. In the crook of those branches. She said you’d know what to do with it.”
“She did!” Rooper followed his gaze, her heart thudding. But there was no sign of the shield in the tree. Her brow creased. “Where is it now? Did someone take it down for safekeeping?”
Jerlyn looked uncomfortable. “No. The Jedi—she told us to leave it there.”
“Then . . . ?” Rooper couldn’t fight off the sudden sinking feeling that accompanied Jerlyn’s distraught expression.
“The salmaca must have taken it, too.”
Inwardly, Rooper groaned.
Of course it did.
“You’ll still help us though, won’t you?” said Jerlyn.
“Of course. But now it’s not just your droid we need to get back from this creature.” Rooper looked back the way she’d come. “Can you point me toward the entrance to this cave system you talked about?”
“No need,” came a grizzled voice behind her. Rooper turned to see that the small party of villagers who’d been unloading the blasters had gathered on the edge of the plaza. An elderly Weequay was smiling at her from under the brim of his hat, his blaster held across his chest. “We’re heading there now. We can show you the way.”
“How do I get myself into these situations, Peethree?” whispered Rooper as she crept along the pitch-dark tunnel that led into the cave system where the salmaca had supposedly made its home.
“Those who stray from the path should not complain when they stumble and fall,” replied P3-7A, in his own best approximation of a whisper.
“It was meant to be a rhetorical question,” she said, shaking her head. The last time she’d found herself exploring tunnels like this had been several years earlier, on a distant planet called Gloam. And there’d been monsters inside those tunnels, too.
Still, everything about this felt right. Not the danger—she’d stopped chasing excitement like that years ago—but doing what was necessary to help someone.
This was what it meant to be a Jedi. It didn’t matter if she was a Padawan, a Knight, or a Master. Her own ambitions were as nothing compared with this simple task: to be there for those who needed her. And right now, that was Jerlyn and the villagers from Peka.
She’d left them outside, guarding the entrance. They’d taken some convincing. Especially the Weequay, an old-timer named Kaxx, a friend of the man named Tuntis who’d been killed in one of the creature’s recent raids. Kaxx was looking for revenge—Rooper could sense his deep, burning anger—but she knew that she couldn’t allow him to face the salmaca like that. He’d be a danger to himself and others. And to kill a living thing in revenge was to give in to something dark, to allow yourself to venture to a place where it was almost impossible to return from. Protecting people meant saving them from themselves, sometimes, too.
So there she was, creeping through the tunnels into the creature’s nest. What she was going to do when she found the thing, she still hadn’t quite worked out. Something would come to her—it usually did. She just hoped it hadn’t destroyed Jerlyn’s droid. Or Silandra’s shield.
Jerlyn had given her a brief description of the droid—gold and black, similar in size and shape to the GT models used by the Pathfinder teams, but a little more battered and with a few handy modifications to help it interact with the farming equipment. With any luck, she’d be able to spot it right away among the salmaca’s stolen valuables.
She could still hardly believe the thing was real. But she’d sensed no deception from Jerlyn or the others, and judging by the fetid stink emerging from the other end of the tunnel, something big was living down there.
Ahead of Rooper, the tunnel mouth widened, opening out into an immense black space. Despite the weak glow of P3-7A’s lamp, the shadows seemed to crowd her from every direction.
She stepped carefully out into the cavern, feeling the temperature of the air dip, cold and clammy against her exposed skin. Her boot scraped on something metallic underfoot, and she froze, peering down to see a trail of small metal cogs and levers. They gleamed in the low light of the lamp, like a cascade of tiny spilled stars.
Holding her breath, hoping the sound wouldn’t disturb the sleeping creature—she could sense its presence, huge and close by, its thudding heart sending ripples through the Force—Rooper reached for one of her lightsabers, slipped it out of its holster, and ignited it with a vrooosh.
Soft blue light flooded the immense chamber, or at least the area immediately around Rooper and P3-7A—the cavern was so large that even the glow of her lightsaber failed to reach the outer edges.
She stood for a moment, taking in the scene, her heart in her mouth.
The creature was massive, at least three times the size of a dewback, with leathery gray scales and a row of sharp, bony spines protruding from its back. Its head was conical and ended in a hooked beak, like that of a massive bird. And it was fast asleep on a huge heap of mechanical junk, including what appeared to be the wreckage of a small shuttle, scattered hunks of old plows, a broken communications buoy, and other unrecognizable piles of scrap.
Rooper made a low whistling sound under her breath. “It seems salmacas are real after all, Peethree,” she murmured. The creature emitted a wet snort and shifted slightly, starting a noisy cascade of trash tumbling down toward Rooper’s boots. She took a step back as the lighting rig from an old landspeeder crunched to a stop amid what appeared to be the crumpled shell of a rusty water vat. “Can’t say it’s got the most discerning taste, mind you.” These were far from the treasures she’d been led to believe the creature had stolen from the villagers. Perhaps it simply couldn’t tell the difference between a piece of old wreckage that still glittered and something precious like a droid.
She scanned the edges of the chamber as her eyes slowly began to adjust to the low light. Hanging from a web of threadbare rope were the carcasses of several enormous gant spiders—deadly, poisonous arachnids that lived in the canopies of the trees in certain regions of Batuu. She had no idea that a colony had established itself so close to Peka. Left to breed, the creatures would have posed a terrifying threat to the villagers, far worse than any danger the salmaca represented. But these gant spiders appeared to be stored in a sort of makeshift larder. They must be the main source of the creature’s food. Perhaps it was the spiders, as much as the glittering treasure, that had attracted it there in the first place.
She looked at the creature, sleeping peacefully, its tongue lolling from its beak. She could sense its mind through the Force, could feel its peace, its contentment.
What if the villagers were wrong? What if the salmaca wasn’t as dangerous as they thought? It had killed Tuntis, yes—but only when he provoked it by attacking first. What if the creature had actually saved the villagers by feasting on the gant spiders, keeping the arachnids’ population low so they hadn’t infested the village?
It occurred to Rooper that there was more to this trial than she’d assumed. Silandra had known the salmaca would take the shield. She’d left it as an offering, an attempt to send a message to Rooper, to lead her to the creature’s lair. Maybe Rooper was there not just to protect the villagers from the salmaca but to protect the salmaca from the villagers, too.
To save them from each other.
That was surely the lesson: That everyone—everything—deserved to be protected. That it was wrong to leap to conclusions, to assume a position until you had all the facts. That a Jedi’s role was to enter any and all situations with an open mind and seek the truth before acting.
Rooper’s mind whirled. There was a way to resolve this. She could see it. If only she could get Jerlyn’s droid back first.
Slowly, treading lightly so as not to disturb any further piles of junk, Rooper edged around the mound of accumulated trash, holding her lightsaber aloft.
And there, in the dim blue light from her saber, she saw it: the droid, half-buried in a landslide of electrical components, its gold-and-black head poking out like a swimmer breaking the surface tension of a lake. Perhaps she could extract it without waking the beast.
There was only one problem.
The salmaca’s taloned paw was resting on it.
“Dee-Twelve? Can you hear me?” whispered Rooper.
The droid gave a tremulous beep and shuddered, dislodging a metal spur with a loud clang. The salmaca groaned and shifted its head, nestling deeper into the mound.
“Stay still. We’re coming for you.”
Beckoning to P3-7A, Rooper took a cautious step onto the heap of trash. It shifted beneath her feet. She winced, then took another step, and another, seeking balance with every movement, just as she’d been trained in the practice rooms at the temple. She steadied her breathing.
In and out.
In and out.
This time—for the first time that day—she felt the Force responding as it always had before, rushing through and around her, filling the world with vibrant color. She could feel the path ahead of her, knew instinctively where to place her feet. She felt this with a surety driven not by arrogance but by peace.
She was doing what she was supposed to do.
Lightly, Rooper skipped over the hunks of broken machinery and nests of wires, the fragments of hull plating and damaged silo pumps. P3-7A drifted along quietly beside her, and the hiss of his thrusters was the only sound in the cavern, save for the satisfied snorting of the sleeping beast.
Moments later, she stood before the terrified farm droid. She touched her finger to her lips, urging it to remain silent. Then, reaching out through the Force, she felt for the salmaca’s sleeping mind, sending peaceful, calming thoughts.
The enormous creature sighed contentedly and rolled onto its side, causing another avalanche of trash to tumble away into the shadows. Its paw lifted, hung in the air for a moment, and then draped across its flank, hanging limp.
Smiling, Rooper used the Force to nudge the droid free of the tangle in which it had been caught. She guided it carefully down the slope of the mound, setting it on the cavern floor with a soft clunk. Its head whirled around to look at her, and a series of diodes on its casing winked in an elaborate pattern that she took to be excitement, or thanks.
“Peethree,” she whispered, her voice barely audible over the whistling breath of the sleeping beast, “show Dee-Twelve the way out. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Such is the duty of those who guide others towards the light,” said P3-7A, jetting away on his thrusters.
Satisfied, Rooper turned to leave, and as she did so, her eyes caught on a round, gleaming shape jutting from the heap of trash a little farther down the slope. It had been revealed by the landslide when the salmaca had shifted position.
Silandra’s shield.
Rooper’s heart skipped a beat.
There, of all places, hidden in the den of a creature she’d always assumed to exist only in folklore. Amid a generation’s worth of trash.
She took a step toward the shield. The salmaca stirred, opening its beak to reveal more of its fat, writhing pink tongue.
The hairs on the nape of Rooper’s neck prickled. Something was wrong. The beast knew it, too, instinctively, and was rousing.
And then a streak of blaster fire burst from the cavern entrance, stark and shocking in the low light. It struck the salmaca’s flank, searing the leathery scales of its flesh and causing it to rear up on its hind legs and emit a piercing shriek that forced Rooper to stagger back.
“Kill it! Shoot it! Now!”
The barked command had originated from the mouth of the cavern, where the silhouettes of four people stood, each of them leveling a blaster at the beast.
Kaxx and the other villagers.
Rooper watched in what felt like slow motion as, in unison, their fingers depressed the triggers. “No!” Her voice bellowed throughout the cavern.
Four streaks of blaster fire tore through the air.
Rooper threw out her hand, fingers splayed, calling on the Force with everything she had.
The shield sprang from where it was jutting out of the mound of junk, spinning through the air to intercept the four shots. It danced in concentric circles as it whipped and ducked into the path of each burning blast, deflecting them all toward the cavern roof, where they fizzed and crackled as they struck the damp stone.
“What the—”
The rest of Kaxx’s words were drowned out by the screech of the salmaca as it charged down the heap of junk toward its attackers, beak gnashing. One of the men in the party screamed.
