Saba shut down her lightsaber and bounded after him, her heart pounding in anticipation of the final kill. She reached the cavern wall three steps behind him… and hissed in surprise as something landed on her back and pierced her neck scales with a sturdy proboscis.
She reached over her shoulder and felt a creature about the size of her head. Cursing her fading senses, she pulled it off and found herself looking into the dark eyes of a small blue-black Killik.
It spread its mandibles, and a stream of brown fluid shot from its tiny mouth. Saba barely turned away in time to protect her eyes. The slime instantly began to eat away at her cheek scales.
Acid.
Saba felt her dorsal spines rise and knew another attack was coming. She dropped into a crouch, and a small boulder slammed into the slope above. She jumped out of the way as it rolled back toward her, then, holding the Killik at arm’s length, glanced up to see Welk glaring down at her in disbelief. Saba jammed her lightsaber against the Killik’s abdomen and activated the blade.
The discharge that followed was not quite an explosion. She lost only two fingertips instead of an entire hand. The fireball did little more than scorch her scales and bedazzle her eyes, but… exploding Killiks?
When Saba looked up again, Welk had started climbing for an exit crevice. She sprang after him and collapsed to her knees two steps later, feeling weak and nauseous. She touched the bite on her neck and found it already swollen and oozing.
Venom?
What kind of bugs were these? Saba should have stopped and gone into a healing trance. But her prey was wounded and escaping, and if she let him go, he would only be that much harder to track and capture next time. She continued her pursuit.
Her muscles obeyed reluctantly, stiffly, as though she were dropping into a hibernation-without the sleep. She drew the Force into her, calling on it to strengthen her, to burn the poison from her body, and staggered after her quarry.
Saba was only three meters behind when a second proboscis pierced her leg. She glanced down and found another small Killik latched onto her calf. She plucked it off and, holding it so it could not release its corrosive bile in her direction, tossed it high into the air.
The insect extended two pairs of wings, then spread its mandibles and came diving back at her, weaving and dodging past her flashing lightsaber to alight on her chest. Before Saba could grab it, the Killik’s head dipped, and its proboscis pierced her scales. She plucked it off and held it away from her, trying to decide how to kill it without losing any more fingers.
Saba sensed another boulder flying in her direction. Still holding the insect at arm’s length, she pivoted around and reached for the stone in the Force, redirecting it up the hill toward her prey. Her effort was rewarded with a dull thud and a cry that seemed equal parts surprise and pain.
The little Killik drummed its chest, then began to squirm and flap its wings, trying to escape. Saba caught a handful of wing and tore it off, then tossed the insect into the air.
Her reflexes were so slowed by the paralyzing poison that, by the time she ignited her lightsaber, the insect had already hit the ground. It took three strikes before she finally detonated it.
Saba turned instantly upslope, but her prey had already vanished into his exit crevice. Feeling half dead from poison already and not wanting to take yet another shot of venom, Saba remained motionless for a long time, trying to listen through her deafhess, trying to taste the air with her dead tongue, trying to see outside her narrow cone of vision. She felt nothing, only the dark loneliness of the underworld.
Recalling that there had been three cells and only two Killik attacks, Saba went to the escape crevice and peered inside.
Nothing.
Her prey was gone, and so was the third Killik.
Every Barabel instinct urged her to continue the pursuit, to follow the quarry’s blood trail until she ran it to ground. But the rational part of her mind knew better. A hunter needed a quick wit and sharp senses, and Saba’s injuries had taken a toll on both. She was slow and beginning to tremble, and soon she might not be able to move at all.
Besides, Saba had a sinking feeling that the third Killik had left the nest early, and she could think of only one reason it would have done so: the departure of Jade Shadow.
EIGHTEEN
“Ben!”
Mara’s voice came over the Shadow’s intercom so sharp and loud that Luke nearly dropped the micropoint he was holding in R2-D2’s deep-reserve data compartment.
“Ben, come to the galley this instant!”
“Uh, that might not be such a good idea,” Luke said into the intercom. He flipped up his magnispecs and looked across the utility deck to where Ben sat, surrounded by crate covers and spacing rods, covered head-to-toe in servomotor lubricant. “At least not until he’s had a good saniscrubbing. He’s on the utility deck with me.”