Zak looked at his sister and knew what she was thinking. After all the times Hoole had saved them, how could they refuse him now? Zak said, “I-I think I can finish the ship pretty quickly. Especially if Captain Thrawn agrees to help.”
“I agree to nothing,” the Imperial retorted. “The entire venture still sounds foolish to me. If you are fortunate enough to calm this swarm down, I intend to return to my own ship and fix my comlink as quickly as possible.”
Hoole’s S’krrr wings fluttered irritably. “Very well. Let us begin.”
Sh’shak seated himself in a comfortable place and took in a deep breath. Then softly, his wings began to stir. At first they could hear nothing but the familiar skrrrr. But slowly, over the thuk! thuk! thuk! of swarming beetles outside, the sound of his vibrating wings rose higher, filling the room and filtering out of the workshop to the garden beyond.
Once Sh’shak’s wingsong had reached a steady pattern, Hoole joined in, imitating the S’krrr perfectly. The sound of their wings was now so loud that Zak wanted to cover his ears, but so beautiful that he wanted to listen.
Outside, the drone of the swarm grew quieter.
As the song continued, Hoole signaled to Zak.
Hoping that the song had worked, Zak took a deep breath and opened the door.
And instantly vanished behind a cloud of swarming beetles.
CHAPTER 18
Zak dared not open his mouth to call for help. If he had, he would have breathed in a lungful of insects. But just as he started to stagger away from the swarm, the cloud of beetles thinned and then vanished.
None of the beetles had bitten him, or even latched on to his clothes. They had all brushed quickly by him and settled onto every open space in the workshop. The entire room was carpeted with beetles. Swarms of them had even landed on Sh’shak and Hoole. They were so startled that they nearly stopped their wingsong, but managed to keep it up as even more insects covered them.
Not only were the beetles no longer biting, but their angry drone had changed to a soft, gentle whrrrr. They were responding to the wingsong.
But for how long?
“We’d better hurry,” Zak whispered to Tash.
It was weird, Zak thought, leaving Uncle Hook buried under a pile of insects. But he tried to keep his mind on the job ahead. As carefully as they could, he and Tash stepped out of the workshop…
… and into a writhing sea of insects.
There were beetles everywhere. Millions of them, wriggling in circles on the ground, spreading out as far as the eye could see.
“Ugh,” Tash said. “This is not going to be fun.”
Walking on tiptoes, the two Arrandas made their way down the path, or at least what they thought was the path. The path had been buried under the insects.
Wherever they could, they stepped onto rocks or patches of bare ground. But more often, they simply had to step on the carpet of beetles, sinking up to their ankles in writhing bodies as they crushed dozens underfoot. Soon their shoes were soaked in goo that Zak didn’t want to think about.
They hadn’t gone far when they heard Thrawn storming up behind them. He made no comment as he waded quickly through the beetlefield toward his nearby shuttle.
“You know what he’s going to do if he repairs his ship first,” Tash whispered.
Zak nodded. “Call down his soldiers, and run a security check on us. We’ve got to move it.”
They reached the halfway point between the workshop and their ship. They could see the garden arch just ahead, and beyond it lay the Shroud. Wingsong had drifted toward them all the time, keeping the beetles in a trance. But they could see that the effect of the wingsong was starting to wear off. The beetles had difficulty keeping still, and their herky-jerky movements made them bump into each other, causing a chain reaction.
Worse still, the farther Zak and Tash got from the workshop, the fainter the wingsong became. As they reached the garden arch, they could see small clouds of beetles rising into the air, then settling back down. The insects were growing restless.
The whirr of the swarm began to deepen into a threatening hum.
“We’re not going to make it,” Tash whispered fearfully.
“Run!” Zak urged.
The two Arrandas broke into a sprint, smashing through the beetles that still surrounded them. They sprang though the arch. There were fewer beetles outside the wall, and their footing was better.
Tash and Zak reached the ship and climbed aboard just in time. Behind them, the beetles rose up from the ground in one giant layer, like a huge cloak being lifted over the garden. The wingsong was losing its power over them.
Inside the Shroud, Zak and Tash sealed the door and ran back to the engine room. “We’re going to have the same problem we had on the Imperial shuttle,” Zak reminded his sister. “If those bugs decide they want in, they’ll come right through the vents.”