Дэйв Волвертон: Jedi Apprentice 1: The Rising Force

Suddenly, a great shadow blocked the light to the cave. A draigon shrieked, a cry so piercing tht the rock around qui-Gon trembled. He pressed himself against the side of the cave.

Outside the mouth of the fissure, the draigon clutched the rock with its wing talons. It let out the piercing cry again, and Qui-Gon knew it was no use.

He had been seen.

As draigon hurtled from the skies, Grelb slithered quietly away.

The huge hairy Whiphids danced among the rocks, shooting their blasters and bellowing war cries. They made quite a diversion.

Fortunately for Grelb, young Hutts — like certain kinds of worms and slugs — are adept at squeezing through tight holes and wedging themselves between rocks.

Thus Grelb moved quickly away from the huge Whiphids, and let them battle the draigons alone.

He was half-way down the mountain when he finally dared to stick his head up enough to gaze off toward the vast ocean. Even then, he held his heavy blaster rifle close to his chest. The tide had indeed risen and now lapped against the hull of the Monument. But it looked as if Jemba had fled the ship in vain. It would not be swamped today. Grelb felt relieved to know that he might still make it off this rock alive.

Behind him, on the mountain, the Whiphids were issuing fewer war cries, and had quit firing their blasters. Grelb should have shivered in terror to think what had happened to them.

The draigon’s shriek had alerted others from the flock. They vied for position as the first draigon wedged its long silver head into the cave opening. Lightning streaked through the sky behind it. Teeth longer than knives flashed near Qui-Gon’s face, and he could smell the scent of dead fish on the draigon’s breath.

Suddenly, in the middle of his desperation, Qui-Gon felt something odd — a faint ripple in the Force. As he concentrated, it grew stronger. Someone was calling him, a Jedi.

Obi-Wan needs me! He realized.

Astonished, he pressed himself farther back in the cave. He needed to be calm, to think. The boy shouldn’t have been able to call him. Obi-Wan was not his Padawan. They were not connected.

But he had no time to wonder about the call’s meaning. It was urgent and must be obeyed. Hearing movement, Qui-Gon quickly glanced toward the cave opening. For a moment the draigon beat its wings against the stones, blocking Qui-Gon’s escape. Then suddenly it dropped from its clumsy perch.

Long had Qui-Gon followed the ways of the Force. Now he felt it beckon him. Run, it commanded. Go to Obi-Wan.

Qui-Gon’s heart pounded. He ran three steps and leaped from the mouth of the cave, knowing that two hundred meters below, the sharp rocks stuck up like swords. Yet he trusted the Force.

He did not fall even a dozen meters. His leap carried him straight to a draigon!

He hit the beast’s neck with a thud. The creature was wet and slimy. Qui-Gon almost slipped off, but clung to its scaly hide with the tips of his fingers. The sore muscles in his shoulder throbbed and burned. He managed to swing his legs up and over, so that he was riding squarely on the draigon’s back.

The creature roared in terror. It had been flying up to eat the Jedi. Now it shook its neck, trying to throw him off. It shrieked again and again, then wheeled in panic and flapped its wings, dropping toward the sea.

Qui-Gon clutched his precious bag of dactyl in one hand and leaned close to the draigon’s neck. Using all og the power that he could muster, he whispered to the draigon.. “Friend help me. Take me to the caves. Hurry!”

The draigons that were hunting Whiphids heard the desperate shriek of Qui-Gon’s mount. They looked up and saw the man on its back. Now the draigons rose in a flock to give chase.

His mount flapped its wings and sped toward the caves. Qui-Gon wasn’t sure he could control the beast for long, for its small mind was cruel, and it was driven by ravenous hunger.

Grelb had been lamenting the death of his Whiphid henchmen when he glanced back toward the mountain. Draigons flocks there by the hundreds.

To his amazement, he saw Qui-Gon Jinn leap from his crevasse onto the back of a hunting draigon. The Jedi wheeled away, down toward the ship.

Grelb’s jaw dropped, and he dove for cover beneath a rock. There, he sat trembling. The Jedi was alive and heading back down the mountain. That meant only one thing.

Grelb was done for. Jemba would kill him with one blow as soon as he showed his face. Or perhaps he would kill him slowly as a lesson.

He had not clawed his way to a position of power, second only to Jemba, to let a Jedi defeat him. He had worked so hard! All that killing, all that torture of innocents, all that profit, it could not got to waste.

He would kill the Jedi himself, before Qui-Gon reached the caves and Jemba saw him.

As fast as he could, Grelb slithered among the rocks.

In the caves the Arconans were fading fast. Their bioluminescent eyes were growing dim, like fading embers from a fire.

Nearby, Clat’Ha and a couple of other Humans helped care of the failing Arconans. The usually fiery woman looked drained, worn out. There was really nothing they could do for the Arconans except make them comfortable.

Si Treemba hadn’t stirred in hours. He whispered to Obi-Wan that he was saving his strength. Yet Obi-Wan guessed his friend was really too weak to move.

Obi-Wan was desperate. He hated sitting by, unable to help, as his friend slowly died. A dozen times he had thought of running out to find Qui-Gon. But he resisted the urge. He had to stay by his friend’s side and protect him.

Obi-Wan rested his forehead on his knees in despair. He stared at the cave floor. What was the use of all his Jedi training? He had never felt so helpless. Nothing he had learned, nothing even Yoda had told him, could have prepared him for this moment. He had come to the end of everything — faith, hope, belief in himself. He had failed. All his life, he would remember this, his darkest moment.

Darkest moment…

A memory stirred in Obi-Wan. He remembered a twilight conference with Yoda. “What is my limit, and how will I know when I find it?” Obi-Wan had asked. “And if I am pushed to the last, where can I turn for help?”

That was when Yoda had told him that in moments of extreme danger, when he had done everything he could, he could use the Force to call another Jedi. “Close, you must be,” Yoda had said. “Connected.”

Qui-Gon may not have thought they had a connection. But Obi-Wan had to try.

In the dark cave, he reached out for the Force. He felt it pulse, and he drew in its energy. He reached out with his Jedi senses, tried to feel the Jedi Master’s presence. But Obi-Wan was a young man, and could not control the Force as he wanted. So silently, he simply called: Qui-Gon! Come back now! The Arconans will die without the dactyl.

From the mouth of the cavern, there was a great rumbling laugh. Obi-Wan looked up. He had called Qui-Gon with everything he had, but instead, he had roused Jemba the Hutt. So much for his abilities.

Jemba towered above them, his immense bulk filled the mouth of the cavern. “How are you all feeling? Well, I hope,” he taunted. “Well, in case you’re not, I have dactyl for sale! Dactyl for the needy. All it will cost is your lives! We have some here, and much more hidden elsewhere.”

All around the cave, Arconans began to moan. Some of them turned over and began to crawl painfully toward the Hutt with his offers of dactyl.

Disgust filled Obi-Wan. He leaped to his feet. “Stop this!” he shouted. Before he knew it, his lightsaber was out. He covered fifty meters of ground, leaping over dozens of poor Arconans, until he stood before the monstrous Hutt. He flashed the lightsaber overhead in a practice swing. The sluglike Hutt could be seen clearly in its light. A dozen other Hutts and Whiphids filled the tunnel behind him, but Jemba’s bulk would make it difficult for them to shoot.