Remnant: Force Heretic I (50 page)

Small reddish eyes, two thin arms tipped with three poisoned claws, two powerful legs designed for pouncing, mouths with jaws extendable enough to swallow a human head in one gulp …

The thought was a reminder for Luke that he should keep moving.

“Only ten of them,” Dr. Soron Hegerty said, the surprise evident beneath her own panting. She seemed to be finding the pace more difficult than the others, barely keeping up even with Jacen’s help. “There have—always been—eleven. I thought that—might have been—significant.”

A second later another Krizlaw leapt through the window, shattering what little remained of the already splintered ornate frame, then dashed for the mound also.

The xenobiologist shook her head, as if to suggest she was tired of being right all the time. “Eleven,” she confirmed.

“Come on, Doctor Hegerty,” Jacen said. Luke felt his young nephew subtly augmenting her stamina with the Force. “We have to keep moving!”

“Ritual hunting party, you think?” Lieutenant Stalgis asked. The stocky Imperial in light combat armor turned to snap a shot back at the seven coming up the mound. The blaster bolt took one on the shoulder, provoking an earsplitting squeal of pain, but didn’t slow the creature down.

“Something—like that,” Hegerty gasped.

Luke and Jacen exchanged worried looks. The xenobiologist was tiring fast, and the top of the mound was still some distance away. The structure consisted of soil packed tight around a central core of stone, creating a tall, conical pseudo-pyramid with a truncated, stone summit perfect for an impromptu landing field. The shuttle was waiting for them there, engines warmed up and ready to whisk them off to safety. The only problem was that at this rate, with the doctor’s endurance flagging, they weren’t going to make it.

The two Jedi turned simultaneously to see the Krizlaws making their way up the slope in assured and steady bounds, digging in with their claws and using their enormous thigh muscles to propel them forward. Seeing Luke and Jacen making a stand, the creatures hurried their ascent, their howls intensifying with each leap. Luke had seen the effects these ululations could have on lower life-forms when he’d witnessed the Krizlaws feeding. The intense vibrations of their howls stunned nerve centers, disoriented senses, and sent muscles into spasm. While their prey was thus incapacitated, the Krizlaws would eat them whole. Dr. Hegerty had said that the Krizlaws believed the still-beating heart to be essential for good digestion.

You won’t be digesting
this
Jedi
, Luke swore determinedly.
Whole or otherwise!

He sent his senses deep under the surface of the mound. Packed it might be, but the soil wasn’t bound like ferrocrete. There were fissures underneath the surface, numerous pressure points that, with one solid nudge, could be …

There
. Signaling Jacen, he mentally linked up with his nephew using the Force-meld technique perfected in recent months. Together their minds pushed at the pressure point he had found beneath the surface. Dirt erupted from the slope below as though a buried machine had suddenly come to life. The shower of dirt hid the shifting forces beneath as disturbed ground found itself falling, gathered momentum, disturbed more in turn, and became an avalanche that swept over the Krizlaws, driving them back down to the base of the mound.

Stalgis cocked an eyebrow. “Impressive,” he said approvingly, and with obvious relief. Slinging his blaster rifle over his shoulder, he headed back up the mound at a more leisurely pace.

“We’re not out of this yet,” Jacen said.

Luke silently agreed. Urging himself forward, he activated his comlink. “We’re on our way,” he reported. “Any sign of disturbances? ”

The pilot of the Imperial shuttle didn’t waste any words. “All clear. We’re ready for liftoff.”

Above them, he could hear the whine of engines. Relieved that they would soon be offplanet, Luke allowed himself a moment to puzzle at what had gone wrong. Everything had gone so well at first. Munlali Mafir was a planet that Hegerty had listed as one whose indigenous population told of a migratory world that had once appeared in their system, stayed briefly, and then vanished. It wasn’t necessarily Zonama Sekot, but everyone agreed that the lead was worth following up.

Upon arrival, however, it had been apparent that something had changed. The Jostran natives of Munlali Mafir were, according to Hegerty’s records, slow-moving centipedes barely larger than a human arm. What they’d found, though, was a colony of Krizlaws—listed as feral herd beasts with no more intelligence than a common nerf—and no sign of the Jostrans at all. Something appeared to have elevated the Krizlaws to full intelligence while at the same time wiping out the Jostrans. Either that or the Imperial probe records had simply been wrong. The language used by the Krizlaws was in fact the same as that recorded in Hegerty’s files, except that it was attributed to the Jostrans.

The Krizlaws were not a starfaring species, so the arrival of the Imperial shuttle had prompted an enthusiastic welcome. Luke, Jacen, Hegerty, and a small honor guard of stormtroopers had been invited to a ceremonial banquet at which the visitors had witnessed the grisly eating habits of the planet’s indigenous inhabitants. The local chief, who looked indistinguishable from the others except for a brightly colored belt wrapped around his smooth midriff, had freely passed on the legend about the “Star-World” that had appeared in the sky four decades earlier. Lacking telescopes or other optical instruments, their observations had been somewhat limited, but it seemed that this Star-World had appeared as a blue-green light in the skies of Munlali Mafir. It had stayed there for almost three of the planet’s months, then—as mysteriously as it had appeared—it disappeared again.

For the time that this Star-World held its place in the sky, Munlali Mafir had undergone a period of increased seismic activity. Numerous volcanoes around the planet erupted, and the lands making up the three continents had been rent by groundquakes, all of which resulted in the deaths of many of the natives. Although the locals at the time—whether Jostrans or Krizlaws, Luke had been unable to determine—had no geologic knowledge to speak of, or indeed any understanding of the gravitational effects that astral bodies could have upon each other, they had, nonetheless, associated the spate of disasters with the arrival of the new planet. To them, the Star-World was a harbinger of death and upheaval, and Luke made every effort to reassure the chief and his people that it was unlikely the Star-World would ever return.

It was then that the trouble had started.

A hush had descended on the gathering as Luke patiently explained that the visitation of the rogue planet had been nothing more than a chance event, and it was doubtful that such an occurrence would be repeated. He assumed that Zonama Sekot was simply looking for somewhere safe to hide, and had moved on once it had become clear that Munlali Mafir was inhabited. It was very possible, he had assured the chief, that the Star-World was in fact by now on the other side of the Unknown Regions. He explained that the terrible consequences of its visit—the ruin of most of the planet’s stone cities, the disruption to ocean currents, and the impact upon some vital environmental resources such as aquifers—were only temporary. These things, he promised, would soon return to normal.

Instead of being relieved by his reassurances, though, the locals had become agitated. The chief had signaled his guards, and the visitors—esteemed guests just moments earlier—had suddenly found themselves treated as captives. Luke had forbidden any form of resistance from his party, confident that he could talk their way out of a violent confrontation. It was only as he had tried to make contact with the chief through the Force, however, that he’d realized just how difficult this might prove.

These beings, it turned out, had two centers of consciousness. Where Luke might ordinarily have influenced any other creature’s thoughts and convinced it simply to let them go, there was no one place to apply pressure within the chief of the Krizlaws. One thought center was bright and alert, and easily deflected his probe; the other was dull and diffuse, as slippery as a nooroop egg. He couldn’t influence either as easily as he’d hoped, and the revelation threw him for a moment. He had never encountered this situation before.

During his confusion, one of their stormtrooper escorts had been forced onto the ground. A robed Krizlaw tipped the stormtrooper’s head back and, bizarrely, attempted to force some sort of wriggling grub down his throat. The man gagged and tried to spit it out, but the tiny creature went down anyway.

That was enough for Luke. Giving up on direct control, he had used the Force to thrust the robed Krizlaw away from the fallen stormtrooper. The man’s life-signature was still strong, despite his revulsion at the unexpected “meal.” Pushing his own guards away, he had helped the stormtrooper to his feet while Jacen quickly freed himself and the others. Within no time at all, they had broken free of the Krizlaws and were running for their lives.

As they fled, Luke had heard the distinctive sound of the chief screeching commands to those gathered around him. Soon a group of eleven “ritual hunters,” as Hegerty thought of them, had formed and given pursuit.

The chase through the decaying palace had been fast and furious, with two of the stormtroopers at the rear of the group being snatched up by the jaws and claws of their pursuers within seconds. The sound of their cries as the Krizlaws fell upon them was terrible to hear, but their deaths had given the others valuable seconds. When one of the Krizlaws was successful, all of the hunting party came to a halt to devour their prey. This was the first hint that Hegerty had received of the nature of the ritualistic hunting group comprised by the eleven Krizlaws. Maybe now, Luke hoped, with most of the eleven buried beneath the rubble, they would give up the chase.

It was a nice thought, but Luke still didn’t feel confident that they were out of trouble just yet. Even now, as they neared their objective at the top of the ceremonial mound, he didn’t allow himself to embrace the relief that he could sense emanating from Stalgis and Hegerty. Self-confidence had a way of making one lower one’s guard, and that could cost lives. He wasn’t about to assume they had escaped until they
had
escaped.

Finally, the slope eased and they staggered onto the mound’s wide, stone summit. The
Sentinel
-class landing shuttle rested on an eroded bas-relief depicting a mythical battle between two hideous-looking deities. At the top of the extended landing ramp stood a gray-uniformed Imperial pilot, waving for them to hurry.

“Gee, what’s the rush?” Stalgis said dryly, putting an arm under the shoulder of the only other surviving stormtrooper—the one who’d been force-fed the grub. “Can’t they allow us a few moments to admire the scenery?”

“Maybe that’s why,” Jacen said, pointing ahead and to his left.

Approaching with an ungainly but effective series of long-legged leaps were the three Krizlaws who had separated from the rest of the hunting party at the base of the mound. It was clear they were going to reach the shuttle first—which probably explained their triumphant howls and ululations.

Luke gathered the Force about himself and Jacen. By using it to increase their speed, the two of them could head off the three Krizlaws, giving the others opportunity to get to the shuttle. Three of these creatures would certainly be no match for the lightsabers of two trained Jedi.

Barely had he taken a step when matching howls sounded from off to the right. A quick glance told him that eight more of the Krizlaws had found them.

“Eleven again,” Hegerty said breathlessly. There was a hint of defeat in her tone.

“They can’t be the ones we buried,” Jacen said. “It’s not possible!”

“They aren’t,” Luke said. “They have different markings. These must be replacements.”

“How did they
know
?” Stalgis asked.

The question became moot as the eleven howling aliens converged on the escapees. Two Krizlaws separated from the rest and headed for the shuttle, giving the Imperial waiting at the top of the ramp good reason to hastily retreat inside. Seconds later, laser cannons issued from their retractable housing and began taking potshots. The Krizlaws were too fast, however, their long leaps taking the gunner by surprise.

Luke stopped running. There was no point wasting energy on a mad dash if there was no chance of making it. Sending for the shuttle speeder bike was also pointless, since that could save only two of them at the very most. A familiar meditation damped down feelings of frustration and anger; this was no time to give in to darker emotions, he told himself. There
had
to be another way to save the landing party from the approaching aliens.

Stalgis assumed a sharpshooter’s pose and snapped off a dozen rounds in quick succession. One of the Krizlaws stumbled and fell, missing one of its arms and geysering purplish blood. Luke watched in horror as the creature staggered back to its feet and continued on, limping. Stalgis’s jaw clenched as if biting down on frustration, but he kept on firing.

Luke and Jacen placed themselves at two points of a defensive triangle, with Stalgis and the other stormtrooper at the other corner and the exhausted Hegerty in the middle. The xenobiologist was only slightly older than Luke, but she had no battle skills. The type of expedition she was used to, Luke imagined, would have had little cause for running like this.

Krizlaws spread out in a circle around them. Luke used the Force to discourage those who came closest, but knew it was only a matter of time before he and the others were rushed. There was no way they could possibly repel all nine at once.

As he steeled himself in preparation for the inevitable attack, and possibly a fight to the death, his thoughts went out to his son safe in the heart of the Galactic Alliance, and he sent a wordless message of apology to Mara, waiting in orbit in
Jade Shadow
.

The
Millennium Falcon
’s exit from hyperspace was anything but graceful. Leia gripped the arms of her copilot’s chair, glad that Han had finally installed one that accommodated her slight build.