Chapter 21

As from a far distance, Darsha heard the sounds of a struggle. It seemed to rise and fall, the sounds breaking over her like oceanic waves as her mind struggled to find its way back to consciousness. She wished dimly that whatever was going on would stop, so that she could slip back down into the depths of the black well out of which she was reluctantly rising. She had been through a lot of pain and fear lately, and she felt she deserved a rest.

But the altercation didn't subside; instead it grew louder. Now she recognized one of the voices: it was Lorn Pavan's. The other voices seemed to be nonhuman‑ mostly grunts and guttural bellows.

It was obvious that he was in some kind of trouble. In her semiconscious state Darsha didn't see any real reason why she should come to his aid. She didn't like him, and he'd made it perfectly clear that he wasn't overly fond of her. There didn't seem to be any personal animosity involved on his part; he just despised Jedi in general. In a way, that was even more insulting. Darsha would rather someone base their dislike on her personality, not on an abstract that she represented. She could deal with enmity easier than bigotry.

It was becoming painfully obvious, however, that the struggle she was hearing wouldn't resolve itself anytime soon. And suddenly, in a rush of returning wakefulness, Darsha remembered what had happened: the attack by unseen foes in the tunnels, the electroshock net that had trapped them. She had been knocked out by the net's power field. Wherever she was now, it couldn't be any place healthy.

Darsha opened her eyes and managed to raise her head enough to see what was going on, even though doing so sent a stab of pain like a blaster bolt through her skull. What she saw kicked her adrenal glands into overdrive. Pavan was struggling with several creatures‑ hard to tell in the dim light exactly what they were, other than bipedal and definitely subhuman. He had apparently managed to knock one of them unconscious; the limp form lay on the mossy stone floor next to the droid, who seemed to be out of commission, as well.

Darsha pushed herself up to a kneeling position. The movement attracted the attention of several of the creatures who were circling Pavan, looking for an opening. They turned and shambled toward her, their snarling mouths stretched wide. She saw the undulating skin that covered their eye sockets, and the horror of the sight caused her heart to stutter.

Darsha gathered the Force to her. Still on her knees, she thrust out both arms, fingers splayed wide, hurling twin waves of invisible power toward them. The unexpected surges struck them, causing them to stagger back. They howled in mingled fear and anger, an eerie ululation that reverberated in the chamber.

Darsha took advantage of the momentary respite to stagger to her feet. She reached instinctively for her lightsaber, and wasn't really surprised to find it missing from its belt clip. She had no time to look for it, because now several more of the subhumans were lumbering her way. Though they moved slowly, it was hard to avoid them, given how many there were in the relatively small chamber.

Pavan, who had two of them hanging on to each arm, saw she was awake. " Cthons! " he shouted to her. " They're cannibals! "

His words sent a chill of fear and repugnance down Darsha's spine. Like most people who lived on Coruscant, she had heard the legends of the sightless sub‑ humans, but had never considered them based in reality. Fear gave her new strength and focus, and once again she drove them back by throwing Force waves at them. But they were stronger than they looked, and extremely tenacious; though battered off their feet by her power, they picked themselves up and came back for more, moaning and howling.

Pavan was doing worse than she was, having only his fists and feet to fight with. The Cthons were dragging him toward one of the darker recesses of the chamber.

" I‑ Five's been deactivated! " he called to her. " He can help us! "

Yes, of course! Darsha thought. She'd had firsthand experience of how strong the droid was when he'd carried both her and Pavan to safety after the skycar's crash. She looked at I‑ Five and could just see in the dim light that the master switch on the back of his head was in the off position.

Could she reactivate him? She wasn't sure. There was no way she could reach him physically, and she wasn't at all confident in her control of the Force, particularly under these circumstances. It was one thing to use it like a bludgeon against an enemy, but quite another to flip a small switch several meters away.

She pushed the doubts away. She had to do it‑ or she and Pavan were quite literally dead meat.

She focused her mind on the droid, felt the tenuous, intangible connection between her thoughts and the cool metal of the control switch. She pushed against it with her mind, feeling the resistance.

A Cthon grabbed her from behind.

Darsha bit back a cry of shock and surprise. She felt her attenuated mental grip on the tiny nub of durasteel almost slip free, and with all the power of her will she thrust the Force tendril against it. Then the Cthon yanked her backwards, and she felt its clammy fingers, like the hands of a corpse, reach up and close about her neck.

A shrill screech, unlike anything she had ever heard before, suddenly filled the air. It was more than just unpleasant; it was actively painful. It drilled into both ears and expanded in the center of Darsha's head like something alive and voracious. The Cthon released her and she staggered forward, clapping her hands over her ears. That helped somewhat, but not nearly enough.

But it was obvious that the stridency was causing the Cthons far more pain than she was feeling. Which made sense, certainly; here in the eternal darkness the creatures would have grown over generations to depend on their ears far more than their vestigial eyes. Their shrieks and moans of agony were barely audible above the continuing screech, which Darsha now realized was coming from I‑ Five.

The reactivated droid was standing. He moved quickly, pushing through the dazed group of sub‑ humans toward Lorn Pavan while the earsplitting sound continued to emanate from his vocabulator. The Cthons who had been dragging Pavan away were writhing in pain like their comrades, leaving him free.

Darsha followed in the droid's wake. I‑ Five grabbed Pavan and headed for the dark aperture of a tunnel in the chamber's far wall. No matter where it led, it had to be someplace better than where they were now.

But the chances of their reaching it were not looking good. Though obviously still in pain, the Cthons were starting to rally, no doubt motivated by the sight of their dinner making an escape. Darsha hurled more invisible blows to either side, clearing a path for the three of them. But a large group was gathering ahead to block their escape.

Darsha looked about desperately for something to use as a weapon‑ and saw her lightsaber lying perhaps five meters away on a mound of mingled offal and techno‑ trash. With a gasp of surprise and gratitude, she reached out for it with her hand and her mind. The device flew from its position across the intervening space. A Cthon somehow sensed it sailing through the air and made a clumsy leap that almost intercepted it. He sprawled on the ground at her feet, and Darsha felt the lightsaber smack into her hand. She thumbed the activator button and heard the satisfying thrum as the yellow blade boiled out to its full length.

She gripped the weapon in both hands, weaving it in a figure‑ eight defensive pattern. It was hard to concentrate, as I‑ Five was still emitting his painful siren cry and her head was feeling like it would come apart at any minute. She hoped that some of the Cthons would at least get hit by the shrapnel.

Against the combined threats of her lightsaber and the droid's howl, the subhumans had no choice but to fall back. The three entered the tunnel at a dead run, I‑ Five in the lead and Darsha bringing up the rear. Their former captors' enraged cries followed them, but that was all.

The phosphorescent lichen that covered the chamber's walls continued only a short way into the underground passage and then died out, save for sporadic patches that did little or nothing to relieve the darkness. I‑ Five illuminated his photoreceptors, revealing a brick‑ lined tunnel barely high enough for Lorn to stand upright. It did not run in a straight line, but instead meandered gently, first left, then right.

I‑ Five shut off the screeching sound once they were out of sight of the Cthons' chamber. They dropped from a run to a fast walk. Darsha had to hustle to keep up with the long‑ legged strides of the other two, and each time her boots contacted the hard pavestones she felt a new spear of pain go through her head. She wished devoutly that one of the Force's attributes was an ability to cure headaches.

As if reading her mind, the droid began making another sound: a low trilling that was as unlike the discordant noise of before as it was possible to be. It seemed to somehow penetrate her bones and muscles‑ indeed, her very cells‑ and subtly vibrate them, flushing away the toxins and pains that had filled them. After a few minutes the sound ceased, leaving her feeling, if not in top shape, at least markedly better.

After walking for another few minutes, I‑ Five stopped. Pavan and Darsha stopped, as well, the latter deactivating her lightsaber as she did so.

" My sensors indicate no one is following us, " the droid said.

" Let's keep moving anyway, " Pavan replied. " You were wrong before, remember? "

" Don't be so hard on him, " Darsha said. " After all, he just saved our lives again. "

" Much as I crave validation, I feel constrained to point out that you saved us this time, " said I‑ Five. *I couldn't have done anything if you hadn't reactivated me. " Though the droid was speaking to Darsha, he was looking at Lorn Pavan.

Pavan hesitated a moment, scowling. Then he looked at Darsha and said, " He's right. Thanks. "

It obviously had taken a herd of wild banthas to drag the words out of him. Why did he hate Jedi so much? Darsha wondered. Aloud, she said, " No problem. You saved my life back in the skycar. Now we're even. "

Pavan gave her a look that seemed equal parts gratitude and resentment. He said to I‑ Five, " Let's find the fastest route back to the surface. Even the Raptors look friendly compared to what lives down here. "

The droid nodded and started walking again. The two humans followed. Neither of her companions spoke further, which suited Darsha just fine. She strode along behind Lorn Pavan, wondering once again what caused his intense antipathy toward her and her order.

She could simply ask him, of course. The only reason she hadn't done so yet was because there hadn't been any time to; they'd been on the run from the moment they'd met. But her instincts told her that now would not be a good time to bring it up, so she kept quiet. Maybe after they emerged from these labyrinthine catacombs‑ if they ever did‑ she would broach the subject. For now it seemed best to just let it lie.

" I'm surprised the Cthons gave up so easily, " Pavan said abruptly to the droid. " They didn't even follow us into this tunnel. "

" I've been wondering about that, as well, " I‑ Five said. " Two possibilities come to mind‑ neither of them particularly pleasant to contemplate. The first is that they may be planning another trap of some sort. "

" That's what I was thinking, " Pavan replied. " What's your second scenario? "

" That there may be something up ahead that even the Cthons fear. "

Pavan did not reply. They trudged on through the bowels of the planetary city, and Darsha mulled over the droid's words. They certainly didn't paint a cheerful picture of the immediate future. Something even worse than the Cthons?