Jacen swung a leg up and slipped into the Flier’s hold. The acrid smell grew stronger. It was more than just ash, it was carbonized synthplas and iron slag and charred fibercrete. He slid down the hull, calling on the Force to hold himself against the wall and slow his descent. About two-thirds of the way to the bottom, he came to the jumble of decks and stopped, then used a Dathomiri Force spell to kindle a sphere of bright light.
A chorus of sharp clacks sounded above, and Jacen looked up to see a carpet of insects large and small crawling down the hull behind him, their feathery antennae sweeping the surrounding durasteel. Worried his invasion of a sacred site might be considered an outrage, Jacen touched them through the Force. He felt astonishment, curiosity, a little wariness, but no anger or indignation.
“Be careful,” Jacen called, a little puzzled by their willingness to follow him into the vessel. “It might not take much to shift the debris down here.”
The insects answered with the full range of thrums, chirps, and thuds.
Jacen used the Force to slide several tons of cargo deck into a secure position, then walked over to the edge and discovered the reason for the insects’ earlier reluctance to enter the wreck. Several large exoskeletons lay crushed beneath a twisted cross-brace. Though the rest of the jumble was every bit as tangled as it had appeared from above, Jacen could now see that many decks had fallen against each other, creating a tent effect that might have protected the bridge from being crushed-at least from above.
Jacen turned to the insects. “I’d appreciate it if everyone stayed here for now.”
The insects gave a confirming clack. Floating his sphere of Force light behind him, Jacen threaded his way down to what had been the underside of the bridge, where the metal was buckled and discolored from a conflagration below.
Jacen began to fear the worst.
Seeing no convenient hatch in the vicinity, he ignited his lightsaber… and was startled by the sudden clicking of mandibles behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and found a long ribbon of golden eyes reflecting the glow of his Force light and green lightsaber.
“I asked you to wait,” Jacen said.
“Uu rrrruub.” The thrum set up a sympathetic vibration in the jumble above, inducing a long metallic scream as a deck edge slid down an underbrace. “Brrr brru!”
“I am being careful.” Jacen used the Force to stabilize the twisted metal above their heads. “Just be quiet.”
The swarm rustled its agreement-then clicked madly as he plunged his lightsaber blade into the floor of the bridge.
“I’m sorry to disrespect the Crash,” he said. “But my friend may be down there.”
“Bru bur, ruu,” a ghostly pale insect informed him.
“Obviously.” Jacen continued to cut. “I still need to find him.”
This occasioned a flurry of thrumming and clicking among the other insects.
“No.” Jacen began to feel sick, though it was impossible to say whether this was from the smell of melting metal, the stale stench rising from below, or the insects’ question. “I’m not going to eat his remains.”
The insects continued to clack and drum. They seemed to be debating whether he should be allowed to continue if he wasn’t going to return his friend to the Song. But Jacen was inferring as much as translating, and there was so much he did not know about the Colony that it was equally possible they were talking about eating him. He shut the words out and tried to hear through the Force, as the Theran Listeners had taught him, and was relieved to sense that they were arguing over whether they should eat the dead.
Jacen finished cutting, then used the Force to lift two disks of metal out of the hole he had cut in the double-floored deck. The smell of ash grew overwhelming, and rustling filled the air as the insects eased forward behind him. Jacen lowered his light through the hole and felt his heart sink.
The cabin below had been so incinerated that only the twisted remains of a row of double bunks, hanging upside down on the far wall, identified it as the crew’s quarters. What had once been the ceiling lay barely two meters below, blackened, crumpled, and strewn with ash and twisted metal. The remains of several mattresses lay in the corner beneath the bunks, half burned and covered in black mold.
Being careful to avoid touching the white-hot edges, Jacen dropped through the hole and found several shattered tranqarest vials under one of the half-burned mattresses. Under another, he found a melted lump of casing and circuitry that might once have been Lowbacca’s translation droid, Em Teedee. He tried to pick it up and discovered it had been fused to the floor.
Under a third mattress, he found the singed remains of one of the molytex jumpsuits the strike team had worn on their mission to Myrkr. There were four slashes across the chest, where Raynar had been wounded before being put aboard the Flier.