He caught up with her in the monks’ tunnels.
“Hey,” he said.
“Hey,” she replied.
“I thought you’d be with Grimpen,” he said, trying not to sound annoyed.
She shrugged. “I can’t find him. I guess he’s off meditating somewhere.”
Zak took a deep breath. “Look, Tash. I want to apologize for getting on your nerves. I know you want to do other things, without me. It’s just hard. You’ve always been my best friend-even if you are my sister.”
They both laughed.
“Anyway,” he continued, “it’s kind of hard for me to sit back and watch you go off somewhere else. But if it’s what you want, I can get used to it, I guess.”
Tash nodded. “I’m sorry for calling you names before.” Then she smiled. “You know, I should be mad at you.”
“Why’?” Zak asked.
“Because here I am trying to be so mature, and you come along acting more like a grown-up than me!”
Now they really laughed-the way neither of them had laughed in many months.
When he caught his breath, Zak said, “Just promise me that no matter how old we get, we’ll still be friends.”
“You bet,” his sister answered. “We’re family, Zak. We can get through anything.”
Together, they turned to go.
Together, they froze in sheer terror.
Together, they realized that they were surrounded by brain spiders.
CHAPTER 12
A dozen brain spiders shuffled forward, crowding the hallway. Their metal forelegs rose up, waving in the air, snatching at Zak and Tash.
The two Arrandas leaped backward, and the brain spiders charged.
“I think we can outrun them!” Zak said.
“Why should we run?” Tash asked. “They’re just B’omarr monks. I mean, the brains of B’omarr monks. They’re enlightened, remember? They’re not going to hurt us. They’re friendly. Watch.”
She started in the direction of Grimpen’s cell. But a brain spider leaped into her path, its front legs slashing. Zak grabbed his sister’s shirt and pulled her back just in time.
“If that’s friendly,” Zak said, “I’d hate to see them get upset.”
Tash cast a confused look at the brain spiders. “I don’t get it,” she said to the brain inside the mechanical creature. “I thought you were supposed to be - Hey!”
The spider had slashed at her again, nearly slicing a gash in the front of her shirt. “Zak, maybe you’re right.”
“Come on!” he replied. He and Tash turned and sprinted down the hallway, hoping to put distance between themselves and the mechanical monsters.
Ahead, three shapes with spindly legs scuttled from around a corner.
More brain spiders.
“This way!” Tash suggested, turning down another corridor.
“Do you know where you’re going?” Zak gasped between breaths.
“No,” Tash panted in reply, “but I’ll take any place where those things aren’t!”
But the brain spiders seemed to be everywhere. They scurried on their giant legs to cut off every exit. They scuttled down hallways, trying to trap the two Arrandas. The spiders had spent far more time in the tunnels than Zak and Tash. They knew every inch of the underground complex.
There was no escape.
Twice, Zak and Tash passed small groups of B’omarr monks. Each time, Zak and Tash begged them for help, pleading for them to make the brain spiders stop.
The monks ignored them.
“They won’t act,” Tash gasped. “Grimpen told me that they just don’t care about the everyday world. It’s like we don’t exist to them.”
The monks even ignored the brain spiders that scurried into their midst, forcing Zak and Tash to run once more. No escape.
The Arrandas managed to evade the mechanical spiders for a few more minutes, but finally, they made a wrong turn. They faced a stone wall.
“Dead end,” Zak groaned.
“Let’s go back,” Tash urged.
They turned, but it was too late.
The hallway behind them was filled with brain spiders. Clickclick-click!
A dozen sets of metal legs scraped the tile as they charged forward. Zak and Tash tensed, expecting to be torn to ribbons.
At the last moment, a blur of grayish brown appeared in the corridor. Whatever it was, it moved fast, and it was so tall its head nearly scraped the ceiling of the tunnel. When it finally slowed enough to be seen clearly, Zak and Tash were staring at the last thing they expected to see in the tunnels beneath the desert planet. It was a tauntaun-a giant snow lizard, a creature that could not have survived for more than few minutes on the surface of Tatooine.
The tauntaun crashed into the brain spiders, knocking the legs out from under them with huge swipes of its powerful tail. When the brain spiders continued to press in, the tauntaun suddenly shape-shifted into a thick, muscled humanoid called a Gank. The broad-shouldered Gank lifted the spiders and tossed them against the walls.