The redness grew and filled the room, driving out the green fog. Goldie scampered out the door, and Chewie reached for Mayv to pull her out if necessary.
Then the red light shrank and lit only the book. The writing flared and flickered for just an instant.
And in that instant, the impossible words were clear to Mayv. Words she couldn’t read but suddenly understood. They spoke of power and pain and hate, but mostly of fear. Not the feeling of fear but the wielding of fear as a weapon.
Mayv gasped and dropped the book. Chewie reached for it, then jerked his hand back as if he’d been burned.
They were in the presence of such evil, such darkness that they simply could not touch it. They could not complete the mission. They were paralyzed by the horror.
“So this is it then?” asked K-2, bending to pick it up. The compartment where he’d kept his blaster opened, and he stuffed the roll inside. “We should go.”
Mayv and Chewie looked at each other. They both felt ill. Repulsed by that one quick glance at the book.
“URRURRURR!” groaned Chewie, shaking his head as if he could shake off the memory of the evil they had seen.
“I don’t even know what to do,” said Mayv. “I mean, is it even right to—”
“You two may stay here if you wish,” said K-2. He turned abruptly and ran through the doorway. “I am getting out of here.”
“MRRRRRAK!” barked Chewie.
“Wait!” yelled Mayv. “You’re the one who knows how to get back out!”
“Then I suggest you do not fall behind.”
Mayv and Chewie had no choice but to race after him. Goldie ran ahead, but soon she came sprinting back and leapt onto Chewie’s shoulder, hissing and fussing.
K-2 had almost reached the tunnel that would lead them out of the temple when he stopped. His head turned toward the far end of the hall, where a dark hole led to an area he hadn’t mapped.
“Something big is coming.”
“What is it?” asked Mayv, but a snarl answered her question. “Oktar fresskit…another snarler!”
But it wasn’t just another snarler. As it stepped into the hallway, they saw that it was nearly twice as big as the others. Its neck tentacles even longer. Its fangs more numerous. And unlike the other snarlers, this one had sinister bony spikes starting on its head and running down its spine.
This was the queen snarler.
She wasn’t the mother of the smaller snarlers; she was their predator. She didn’t lower herself by chasing fallen glorbs around the forest like the other snarlers. She actually ate the other snarlers. That kept the pack strong and mean, and she was the strongest and meanest.
Not long before, some weird lizard men (the Trandoshans) had appeared and annoyed her and even hurt her with blasts of fire. They had been tasty. She looked down the tunnel. Would these new creatures taste as good? Not the tall thin one. That one looked like nothing but black bones. But the others looked delicious.
She snarled, and it was a snarl of sweet anticipation. Slobber was already running down her chin. She trotted forward, watching to see which creature would run first.
It was Chewbacca. But he wasn’t running away. He was running toward the queen!
“MYARRRRGHHRRRAARRR!” he yelled, warning his friends that they had to hurry before the queen came between them and the tunnel that was their only exit.
They understood. Not the words but the concept. They raced after Chewie and turned to scramble up the steep tunnel while he stayed behind to block the queen snarler.
The queen was surprised by his actions, but instead of pausing to reconsider, she lunged for a quick kill.
Claws out! Tentacles flailing! Fangs bared!
Chewie waited until the last possible moment, then flung himself into the tunnel. The queen got one claw into him, ripping a terrible gash in his leg, but she had failed to capture him.
Her great weight carried her past the tunnel entrance, and her claws scratched the stone floor as she fought to turn herself around.
Chewie and Goldie didn’t wait to watch. They were already racing up the tunnel.
But they ran right into Mayv and K-2 coming back down.
“I saw a worm with hook hands,” K-2 said, missing his beloved blaster more than ever.
“Sniffer! Blocking the tunnel! Go back!” Mayv was yelling.
“NYARRGA RRHHANK!” Chewie yelled back.
If Mayv didn’t understand that, she definitely understood the angry snarl coming from behind him.
There was no going forward and no going back. They were trapped.
Like all the other sniffers, this sniffer was just a brainless tongue of the great creature. It had no particular ill will toward our heroes. It just followed the smell of food all the way down into the maze.
It sensed that the source of the smell was very close, and it sped up—extending its horrible rubbery bulk in a hungry rush.
The queen snarler, however, paused.
Her prey was in easy lunging distance, but there was a sniffer on the other side. You don’t get to be queen snarler without learning to avoid a sniffer like Ewoks avoid Gorax. She had no idea it was part of a larger creature, but she knew all about the hook hands and exactly how far they could reach.
So she hunkered into a crouch, ready to spring but content for the moment to wait. Better to share the feast with the sniffer than to risk getting caught.
Our heroes had no time to wait. They needed to act. But what could they do?
K-2 knew what he should do. He should wait, too.
He should let the various living creatures fight things out and try not to get damaged in the fracas. Then when things were finished and the sniffer and snarler had gone off to digest, he could simply walk out of the temple with his mission accomplished.
That’s what he knew he should do.
Instead, what he did was rush at the queen snarler with the only weapon he had: the crate.
Shoving the open end over the queen’s snout, he grabbed on to the tentacles on each side of her head and used his body to hold the crate in place.
The queen had never felt anything like the metal muzzle, and she hated it. She whipped her head from side to side as if snapping the spine of a glorb. K-2 was shaken violently and slammed repeatedly against the tunnel wall.
“Congratulations,” he said flatly. “I have saved your lives again.”
And he had. Seconds before the hook hands would have ensnared them, Chewie and Mayv were able to flatten themselves against the wall and squeeze past K-2 and the queen. They got smooshed painfully by the flailing snarler a few times, but its attention was on K-2 and the crate.
“Now push the beast toward the other beast,” K-2 instructed.
That was a job for a Wookiee! Chewie put his shoulder against the queen’s rump and shoved.
“What about you, Kay-Tu?” shouted Mayv. “You’ll be trapped!”
But K-2 was already escaping as only a droid could. Just before the writhing sniffer’s hook hands reached him, he let go of the crate and dropped to the ground, where he lay flat and motionless. The queen, propelled from behind by Chewie, stomped all over him as she tried to stop herself from getting too close to the sniffer.
She had her massive body half twisted and was on the verge of escaping when the hook hands got her.
SNARLLLLL!
Instantly, she turned all her ferocity on the sniffer, clawing, biting, kicking, scratching. The spikes on her spine ripped horrid gashes in the sniffer, which never felt them. It just wrapped its hook hands around the spikes, the claws, whatever it could grab.
At last, the queen couldn’t move at all. By that time, the sniffer was already dragging her up the tunnel and back to its mouth.
For the first time in its life, the snarler didn’t snarl. It whimpered.
“Oktar mishut!” gushed Mayv at K-2. “You really aren’t an ordinary cargo droid after all!”
“MRWRRRWON GRUUNK,” added Chewie, which was high praise indeed.
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“You’re welcome,” said K-2. “I am sorry that I lost the crate.”
“Well,” said Mayv, “I’m glad you got it this far or we’d be getting dragged out of here right now by that…Wait a minute! We should be following it! It may take us to an easier way out!”
“MRUP MRUP MRUP,” chortled Chewie.
“Yes,” said K-2 flatly, “the irony of the situation amuses me also.”
The heroes began to chase the sniffer, which retracted briskly through the tunnels. There was a difficult spot where it crossed a large gap in the floor, but it was nothing a Wookiee, a tall droid, and a rogue librarian couldn’t handle.
At last their chase took them to a low tunnel with a large crack in the roof. Through the crack they could see the bluish gloaming of the fungus trees, which was a welcome sight.
They scrambled up through the crack in time to see the sniffer retreating through the woods with the queen snarler still squirming in its grasp.
“BRRRAPPP RRRRUNGRMMM!” said Chewbacca…and he meant it!
“Where are we?” asked Mayv.
“My sensors indicate that we are not far from the ship. Less than a klick.”
“What do your sensors say about more snarlers?” asked Mayv.
“I’m not picking up any nearby.”
“Good, because I have got to rest a minute!” She started to sit on the ground, then thought better of it. She leaned against a tree instead and instantly felt more positive. Exhausted but positive.
The droid and the Wookiee seemed to have limitless strength, but hers was tapped out. She considered repainting her triangles in the symbol for energy but realized she was still waiting for the wisdom to kick in. She wasn’t sure what to do about the book.
The one thing she knew was that she couldn’t stay where she was.
“All right, I’m ready. Should we climb through the trees again?”
“YEEEEGARRRGH,” said Chewie, rubbing his arm. He had used the medkit only long enough to stop the bleeding and somewhat numb the pain. It was too sore to be much use climbing trees.
“Yeah, I feel the same way,” said Mayv, relieved. “Plus we lost our cable and my exo-glove, so Kay-Tu and I would have trouble getting up there anyway. So…should we just run for it and take our chances with the snarlers?”
“Based on my sensor readings,” said K-2, “there’s an eighty-four percent chance we can make it the first hundred meters without encountering a large life-form.”
“Good enough,” said Mayv.
K-2 was right. They didn’t run into any large life-forms, but—just before they reached the clearing—they ran into some small ones: the rest of the pack of tooka cats.
It was Goldie who spotted them, and her happy yawping alerted the others. Craning their necks they could just see the tookas perched high on a branch bridge, happily chowing down on fresh glorbs.
“Myowr!” Goldie gave Chewie a final nuzzle and an instant later was scrambling up the tree to join the other tookas.
“MWRRRRRUUGH?” asked Chewie, but there was no answer. “WHHHHUG,” he moaned, apparently completely forgetting how much he had grumbled about pet sitting when the whole thing had started.
“I think they’ll be happier here,” said Mayv. “This place must seem like heaven compared to Coruscant. As long as they can dodge the sniffers, they should have a pretty nice life up in the trees.”
Mayv stopped to put her hand on a tree.
“I’m going to miss the trees, myself,” she said. “But not the rest of this crazy place!”
“MRRRRRRREGYUPPP GLRRRRGHH MRRRGYUP,” said Chewie, leaning against a tree and wondering how long it would be before he saw the forests of Kashyyyk or, indeed, any other trees again. “RHHHOOOONGR.”
So it was with a certain wistful feeling that they at last emerged into the clearing to find…a rebel gunship.
Captain Cassian Andor had arrived.
Chewie and Mayv froze and ducked behind a tree.
But K-2 kept running.
The boarding ramp swung open as the droid approached, and a man with a large blaster ran down the ramp to meet him.
“Kay-Tu! You got it?” the scruffy man called in a thick accent.
“Yes, Captain. We have successfully retrieved the data. It is recorded on this.”
As he spoke, the door in his torso whirred open. He pulled out the folded book and handed it to his captain, Cassian Andor, who looked at it doubtfully.
Mayv peeked around the tree just in time to see the scruffy man shove the book inside his scruffy jacket.
“What in Oktar’s name are you doing?” cried Mayv in disbelief.
“MRRRRAWGGGG!” yelled Chewie, charging forward.
Cassian rather casually swung his blaster rifle around and fired a warning shot that was honestly much closer than a warning shot needed to be.
“No closer,” he said.
But Chewie didn’t stop.
Cassian was in the very act of squeezing the trigger for another shot when K-2 stepped forward to intercept the angry Wookiee. Cassian stopped pulling the trigger but did not take his finger off. With his other hand, he made a signal to the ship’s pilot.
In his still infuriatingly calm voice, K-2 told Chewie, “If you attack, there is an eighty percent chance that Captain Andor will kill you. And if he doesn’t, there’s a one hundred percent chance that the ship’s turret guns will.”
Chewie saw the ship’s guns turning on him and realized the droid was right. Chewie hadn’t lived as long as he had without learning to control his Wookiee rage when necessary.
He stopped, raised his arms in the air, and let out a long, frustrated howling curse, which I won’t repeat here.
“That’s better,” said Cassian. “Don’t make me kill you before I decide if I should kill you or not.”
“Kay-Tu, why are you doing this?” said Mayv, stepping forward cautiously with her hands raised. “After everything we did to get that book? You’re just giving it away?”
“It is important that I give it to Captain Andor,” said K-2.
“Why? Why is it more important than my reason for taking it back to Alinka? Or Chewie’s reason?”
“I do not know,” said K-2. “Captain Andor, why is it important?”
“That’s classified information, and these are the Emperor’s errand boys,” said Cassian. “I think I’ll keep that to myself.”
“First of all, I’m a girl. Second of all, I don’t work for the Emperor!”
“First of all,” mocked Cassian, “I don’t care, and second of all, yes, you do. And I really can’t have you run back to your boss and give him whatever information you did get out of all this.”
“Wait, Captain,” said K-2. “I’ve calculated a sixty-four percent chance that these two will be valuable to the Rebellion one day.”
“What?” snorted Cassian. “They work for the Empire!”
“Not willingly,” insisted Mayv. “We’re only doing this because—”
“I don’t care,” interrupted Cassian, waving her away with a waggle of his blaster. “Kay-Tu, that still leaves a good chance that they’ll continue working for the Empire. I can’t take that risk.”
“Actually,” said K-2, “I calculate zero chance that they will work for the Empire again. The remaining thirty-six percent is the likelihood that they will be killed before they can be useful to the Rebellion.”
“Okay, fine,” sighed Cassian. “I’ll let them live, but I’m not giving them a free ride. You’re on your own, kid…and, uh, Wookiee person.”
He backed up the ramp, keeping his blaster trained on Chewie.
K-2 turned to look at Mayv.
“Moving away from the ship in a hurry will increase your survival chances considerably.” Then he turned and followed his captain.
Mayv and Chewie looked at each other in disbelief as a blast door slammed shut behind K-2. How could they possibly get the book back?
Then, suddenly, Mayv understood what K-2’s final words m
eant.
“Run!” she yelled as the rebel ship’s engines roared to life. She and Chewie got clear just before blue plasma shot out of the thrusters, scorching the ground and lifting the gunship into the air.
“MYURRGGGGHHHH NYARGGGGGG RRRRRRRRRUGRUG!” Chewie yelled at the ship as it disappeared.
He had a lot more to say on the subject, but Mayv had to interrupt him.
“Look, more snarlers!” she yelled, pointing across the clearing where three of the brutes had emerged from the trees, sniffing and snarling.
“MAHRRRR YARRRRRRGH!” Chewie roared. In his rage he was ready to take them on barehanded.
“No, Chewie! We can make it back to our ship!”
“NYURF!” he reluctantly agreed, and followed as Mayv sprinted toward their little cargo ship.
But as they reached the ship’s hatch, her steps faltered.
“Oh, no! I forgot….The ship’s full of snarlers! That droid locked them in….”
Even through the thick hull of the ship, they could hear the snarlers inside clawing wildly at the walls, desperate to escape.
And then came a snarling behind them. Those snarlers were desperate to eat.
“Oktar Jarvunk! What are we going to—”
“MGHHROWRRR!”
Chewie was already climbing up the side of the ship. She couldn’t understand that he was telling her about another way in, but by then she trusted him completely.
Turning her back on the approaching snarlers, she followed him up.
By the time she reached the top of the ship, the snarlers were leaping up to snap at her legs. With huge relief, she saw that Chewie was holding a cockpit access hatch open for her.
She slipped through, Chewie slammed the hatch shut, and the outside snarlers were no longer a problem.
Unfortunately, every other problem was still a problem.
The cargo hold was full of snarlers and the prize that would have freed Han and secured the Mola Oktaro was gone.