A Forest Apart Read online

  [I’ve got a better idea.]

  [No!]

  Chewbacca and Malla roared the word in the same instant, and they both rushed back into the closet.

  Lumpy was already pulling himself into the service run. [I’m the only one small enough to fit.] He grabbed a pair of pipes and slid out of sight. [Meet me at the bottom! I’ll wait for you there, okay?]

  [It is not okay!] Malla raced to the hole and stuck her head inside. [Lumpy—]

  Chewbacca caught her from behind and clamped a hand over her mouth.

  [Don’t yell.] He pulled her away gently, already thinking about whom he would have to call to find out where the service run came out. [Lumpy will be safer if the spy doesn’t know he is being followed.]

  Malla whirled on him. [You want him to go?]

  Chewbacca shook his head. [It is dangerous, and he is not ready.] He was not quite able to restrain a smile. [But it was brave. Our son is finding his rrakktorr early.]

  Malla rolled her eyes and started for the door. [That is not rrakktorr, my mate. It is Galactic Rebels.]

  Chapter Two

  The Level 2012 Physical Plant was a realm of droids and machinery, saturated with the harsh smell of solvents and dimly lit because it was so seldom seen by sentient eyes. Chewbacca consulted the tower schematic on his datapad and, leaving his glow rod off to avoid alerting the thief to their presence, led the way into the cavernous room. The air was warm with mechanical heat, and the durasteel floor trembled with the constant growl of equipment. The silhouettes of oddly shaped droids floated, walked, and rolled past in the darkness, sometimes close enough to reveal a bloated slime bladder or a set of dangling utility tentacles.

  Chewbacca circled around a two-story recirculation pump that was the heart of the building’s self-contained plumbing system, then came to an expanse of dark open floor. Off to the right, toward the building’s interior, he could just make out the giant gyre-filters that converted sewage back into pure water. He studied the schematic a moment, then pointed up into the murk on the left.

  [The outer service grid hangs there, along the ceiling,] Chewbacca said. [Lumpy should be waiting fifty meters along the east wall, about fifteen meters in.]

  [You mean where those sparks are?] Malla asked.

  [Sparks?] Chewbacca looked in the direction she was pointing and saw a tiny umbrella of blue flickers. He exchanged the datapad for the repeating blaster hanging from his bandolier utility clip. [What are they welding? I told building security to clear this area.]

  [And they told you to let them handle it.] Malla’s voice had gone reedy with concern—perhaps even fear. [Every forest has its oryyka howlers. They cannot keep you out of their tree, so they ruin your hunt.]

  [They won’t ruin this hunt,] Chewbacca assured her. [There’s nothing to worry about—everything is under control.]

  [Everything is not under control,] Malla retorted. [If everything were under control, an eleven-year-old cub would not be chasing spies—and no one would be over there welding.]

  Chewbacca sighed. [It will be under control soon,] he said. [Trust me.]

  Vowing to rip the arms off the day-shift security captain, Chewbacca raced across the floor. To download an unabridged schematic and arrange access to the physical plant, he had been forced to comm Han—who was now racing back to the building—and have him threaten to make a public stink about lax security. The security captain had obviously found another way to slow things down until he could gather his squad and take control of the situation. Chewbacca should have expected it. The fellow was, after all, a Sullustan.

  As Chewbacca and Malla drew closer to the sparks, they began to make out the shape of a six-armed repair droid. It was standing on its hydraulic stilts five meters off the floor, welding a new durasteel grate over the base of a service run. The air stank too much of melted metal to smell any trace of Lumpy or the thief—or Leia’s spilled perfume—but in the flickering light, he could just make out a set of laser-stenciled characters identifying this as the service run Lumpy had entered.

  [Stop!] Malla ordered. [Let my son out of there!]

  When the droid continued to work, Chewbacca roared in anger and slammed the butt of his blaster rifle into a stilt.

  The droid finally stopped and, still holding the grate up, tipped its head down at Chewbacca. Where its photoreceptors should have been, it had a TrangTwo Lowlight Optical Band—a common modification designed to reduce lighting expenses in automated plant areas.

  “I am not programmed in that language,” the droid said. “Please restate in Basic or binary flash code.”

  Chewbacca, whose Wookiee throat could not form Basic words, growled and pointed the barrel of his blaster at the droid, motioning it away from the grate.

  “I am sorry we cannot communicate.” The droid returned its attention to the grate and reignited its welding torch. “For your own protection, please—”

  Chewbacca shot the droid in the primary powerfeed, and its six arms dropped to its sides, the still-burning torch nearly slicing his arm off as it hissed past. The security grate followed an instant later, clanging off the droid and almost knocking Chewbacca over. Malla pulled him out of the way of the returning torch.

  [You couldn’t use the circuit breaker?]

  [This was faster.] Chewbacca shut off the welding torch, then slung his blaster over a shoulder and climbed the droid up to the pitch darkness of the service run. [Lumpy?]

  When no answer came, Chewbacca activated his glow rod and found several tufts of soft adolescent fur hanging on the durasteel stubs where the old grate had been cut free—presumably by the thief. The casing of a large power conduit was smeared with blood, but not enough to suggest a fight. Probably, Lumpy or the thief had cut himself on the way down.

  [He’s gone.] Chewbacca dropped back to the floor, his pride in his son’s courage slowly changing to concern. [He did not wait.]

  [That surprises you?] Malla activated her own glow rod and began to sweep it across the floor. [You haven’t been listening.]

  [He did not honor his word,] Chewbacca insisted, now growing angry. [That is forbidden. And it is dangerous down here. How could he be so foolish?]

  Malla sighed. [Would you have waited?]

  [What does that have to do with anything?] Chewbacca’s scowl slowly faded as he realized what she was saying: that Lumpy was only doing what he thought his father would. [And this is different.]

  [Not to him,] Malla said.

  She crouched on the floor and shined her glow rod on a dark puddle smeared by the imprint of a small Wookiee foot. She rubbed her fingertips in the stain—it was already as thick as honey—and brought them to her nose.

  [Blood,] she said.

  [There was some in the service run, too.] Chewbacca started across the floor and quickly found another track. [Lumpy didn’t even think about waiting. When we get him home, I will have a long talk with him about the boundaries of his rebellion.]

  Malla fell in beside him. [It is not rebellion,] she said. [He is doing this because he thinks it is something you would do—not because he wants to assert himself.]

  [That will change after I am through with him.]

  Malla was silent for a moment, then she said, [Let’s just get him home, Chewbacca.]

  [We will,] Chewbacca assured her. [And after we do, I will be firm.]

  Malla said nothing, leaving Chewbacca to wonder whether she doubted him or was just worried. Though he hated to admit it, he had his own reservations. It seemed to him he should have known instinctively what to say, how a good father would handle the situation. But the truth was that Lumpy seemed more a stranger every time Chewbacca saw him. One time he was a ball of fur chortling in his mother’s arms, and the next time he was already swinging from the rafters.

  With no choice except to use a glow rod to follow the tracks, Chewbacca instructed Malla to hold hers low and away from her body while he covered them with his repeating blaster. The tracks led across the floor, growing fainter, until they
found another print in a small puddle of blood. Chewbacca thought for a moment that his son was just being careless about where he stepped, but then he noticed how Lumpy had twisted his foot to soak up more.

  [He is deliberately leaving us a trail,] Chewbacca observed. [Perhaps I am being too hard on him.]

  [Leaving a trail is not waiting.] Malla followed his tracks down the narrow passage between a pair of huge chiller tanks. [What is taking those security guards so long?]

  [That would take a week to explain,] Chewbacca answered. The Sullustan captain was a thorough planner and a meticulous organizer—and by the time he finished sealing his perimeters and gathering his intelligence, the thief would be gone and Lumpy would be lying unconscious or dead somewhere. [And we are better off without them. Their procedures would only slow us down.]

  As they neared the far end of the chiller tanks, Malla pulled up short and cried out in dismay. [No!]

  Imagining the worst, Chewbacca pulled her out of the way and stepped forward, one hand curled into a fist and the other bringing up the repeating blaster. Coming toward them he found only the domed box of a floor-cleaning droid, its purple sterilight focused on the blood trail they had been following. When its guidance sensors detected Chewbacca and Malla standing in its path, it politely retreated out of the way and swung aside to let them pass.

  Chewbacca had Malla shine her glow rod on the floor behind it. The only sign of the trail that Lumpy had so carefully left for them was a two-meter stripe of rapidly drying durasteel. He knelt down and, laying his blaster aside, grabbed the cleaning droid by the sides of its plastoid box.

  [Where did the tracks lead?]

  The function indicators on its front panel twinkled through a test cycle, then it said, “I beg your pardon.”

  Chewbacca growled in frustration and spun the droid around to face the opposite direction. [Retrace your path.]

  The droid whirled back around and shined a spotlight on Chewbacca’s foot. “Please excuse me while I tidy up.”

  [Tidy up?] Chewbacca snatched the droid off the floor and hefted it over his head. [Where is my son?]

  “I didn’t mean to disturb you.” The droid continued to speak in its normal polite tone. “I’ll be out of your way in a moment.”

  [I don’t think it understands Shyriiwook.]

  Chewbacca hurled the droid away in disgust. It crashed down five meters away, then began to request assistance righting itself.

  [Father!] Lumpy’s voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the drone of the giant circulation fans off to the right. [Over here!]

  Chewbacca snatched his weapon and glow rod off the floor and charged toward the voice. [Lumpy! Are you hurt?]

  [No!] he cried. [But hurry—I can’t hold them much longer!]

  [Them?] Malla cried.

  They rounded a bank of gurgling bubble filters, and Malla’s glow rod found their son perched atop a row of meter-high overpressure pipes. He was on the third one in, squatting on his haunches and struggling to keep hold of a pair of ankles kicking up from an open clean-out panel. The feet above both ankles wore left boots.

  Chewbacca started for the pipes at a sprint, more astonished than he was proud. He began to shout instructions, not all of them compatible. [Be careful! Brace your feet! Shake them up!]

  [Chewbacca!] Malla yelled, racing after him. [Don’t encourage this!]

  [Don’t worry.] Lumpy began to work his arms back and forth, and a muffled thumping arose inside the pipes. [They’re not real spies, just—]

  Whatever they were, their blasters were real enough to send a spray of blue bolts slashing through the clean-out door. The angle was poor, and all the attacks slanted away from Lumpy. But he was so startled that he let go and fell off the overpressure pipe, disappearing over the other side.

  Chewbacca reached the pipes and bounded onto the third one in a single leap. He dropped to his knees, stuck the repeating blaster through the clean-out door, and began firing blindly down the pipe.

  [I had them, Dad!] Lumpy scrambled up opposite Chewbacca, directly in the thieves’ line of fire, should they try to counterattack. [Did you see?]

  [I saw.] Still shooting down the pipe, Chewbacca reached across the clean-out panel and gently pushed Lumpy back where he had been. [But you said you would wait at the service run.]

  [I couldn’t!] Lumpy said. [Not after what I heard!]

  [What you heard doesn’t matter,] Malla said, arriving on Chewbacca’s other side. [I didn’t give you permission to go down the service run in the first place.]

  [You didn’t,] Lumpy retorted. [But you’re not the only—]

  [I didn’t either.] Chewbacca stopped firing and, secretly pleased by the note of rebellion in Lumpy’s voice, turned to face his son. [And after you disobeyed us, you broke your word.]

  At the first hint of his father’s disapproval, Lumpy’s shoulders sagged and his eyes filled with disappointment. Still, he did not look away from Chewbacca’s gaze, and when he spoke, it was in a measured tone.

  [I guess I shouldn’t have done that,] he said. [But wait till you hear what I found out!]

  Unsure whether Lumpy was agreeing with him or arguing, Chewbacca cast a furtive glance at Malla—who only shrugged and spread her hands. She didn’t know what to make of it, either.

  Chewbacca turned back to Lumpy. [Don’t think this will change your punishment. We are in Coruscant’s Shadow Forest down here, and you must learn not to enter such places alone.]

  [I know—but you’ll be glad I did.] Again, Lumpy seemed neither resentful nor frightened of his punishment, merely accepting. [These guys aren’t real spies—]

  A soft hiss sounded from the clean-out panel, and Chewbacca barely managed to pull his blaster out of the opening before the metal door slid closed. He motioned Lumpy to remain silent and had Malla run the light of her glow rod up the pipe to the valve station, where the birdlike form of a small, armless droid was hopping out of view behind the control board.

  Chewbacca glared after it for a moment, then turned back to Lumpy. [Go on.]

  [When I got to the bottom of the service run, there were two more little white humans, like the thief,] Lumpy said. [And they were all arguing, saying how ‘It’ was going to be real angry because the robbery didn’t look right anymore.]

  [It?] Chewbacca echoed. Now that his son was safe, he was again growing concerned about the thief. [Who will be angry?]

  [It,] Lumpy repeated. [I think that’s their boss. Anyway, Rath—he’s guy I caught in the Solos’—started yelling about how at least he had the datapad, and then some more of them came and said they had to hurry the pad down to the DC because they didn’t have much time to slice it and they had to be set in ten hours.]

  [Set where?] Chewbacca asked. The intruder and his companions were sounding less like spies and more like saboteurs. [Did they say what was happening in ten hours?]

  Lumpy shrugged. [That’s all I heard before they left.] He squared his shoulders. [But I thought you’d want to know. That’s why I followed them here and tried to catch prisoners.]

  The clean-out door in the pipe behind Lumpy suddenly slid open. Chewbacca pulled the cub away and, swinging the repeating blaster around, sprang over to have a look.

  The door closed as he landed.

  Malla shined her glow rod toward the valve station, where the birdlike droid was again hopping out of sight.

  [I don’t like this.] Chewbacca motioned Lumpy toward his mother. [When building security arrives, they’ll keep you safe until Han catches up with a military detail. Tell them everything you told me—and anything else you can remember.]

  Lumpy paused on his way over the overpressure pipe. [Where will you be?]

  [Trying to catch your thieves.] Chewbacca unclipped his datapad and, cradling his blaster in the crook of his arm, brought up the tower schematic again. [The wall safe in Princess Leia’s office was open. If the datapad came from there—]

  [It could have New Republic secrets on it!] Lumpy said.
r />   Chewbacca glanced up to find Lumpy standing atop the overpressure pipe, his hands braced on his hips.

  [I’m going with you,] he declared. [I’m the one who caught them.]

  [You are eleven years old.] Chewbacca was careful to keep an even tone; with Lumpy, he was beginning to see, it was all too easy to extinguish the tiny spark of rebellion that would grow, in time, into the true rrakktorr of the Wookiee warrior. [You have made me proud already. We should not press our luck.]

  Lumpy puffed out his chest. [But you said it is dangerous down here alone.]

  [Not for your father.] Malla reached for Lumpy’s hand.

  [No!] Lumpy pulled away and, angling past Chewbacca, leapt onto the adjacent pipe. [He needs me to—]

  The clean-out door slid open, and four pale hands shot out to grab Lumpy by the ankles. Malla screamed. Chewbacca tossed his datapad to her and fumbled the blaster into his hands. Lumpy slammed face-first onto the pipe. His eyes bulged in fear. He stretched a hand toward Chewbacca, then slipped through the opening and disappeared.

  Chapter Three

  The overpressure pipe—barely large enough to hold Chewbacca even on his hands and knees—opened into the shadowed chasm of a midlevel skylane, where a stream of haulage traffic was drifting slowly along, back-lit by the neon displays of a tapcaf gallery hanging off the massive Wauth Complex opposite. Below the gallery, the trunk of the building descended into the black depths of the city, its facade broken at random intervals by evermore-squalid balconies and mezzanines, the lights in its windows growing increasingly dim and infrequent. Chewbacca saw no sign of Lumpy, but that hardly meant the cub was gone.

  Chewbacca pushed his blaster barrel, crushed when he’d used it to prevent the clean-out panel from closing, through the mouth of the pipe to make sure the shock field was off. When there were no sparks or crackles, he cautiously stuck his head outside to inspect the surrounding area. Pitted as they were by centuries of acid rain and foul air—especially this far down—the walls were eminently climbable.