But no attack came. The ravine widened, narrowed, then widened again, at one point changing from a canyon into the open side of a cliff where the left wall had crumbled down into a wide, forested valley beyond. The breath of open air was only a brief one; a moment later the wall rose again on her left and she was again flying through a ravine. As if inspired by its view of the forest, the vegetation was now becoming thicker and more varied, with the bushes and vines often completely covering the rocky walls.
And there was something else new, as well. “I’m seeing holes in the sides of the ravine now,” she reported, trying to look into some of them as she passed. But she was going too fast to see more than that they were too deep for the sunlight to penetrate all the way to their backs. “Offhand, I’d say they don’t look particularly natural,” she continued. “It could be a colony of avians or vine-crawlers, or it could be part of a sensor array. Suggest the next person in bring a better sensor package to-wait a second.”
She eased off on the throttle, frowning ahead. The ravine was widening again; and up there to her right&mdash
“I think I may have found the front door,” she told the recorder tightly. “Looks like a cave entrance up ahead on the right, just this side of a slight right-handed angling. Good-sized opening-a little maneuvering and the ships we saw could make it inside.” She pursed her lips. “And I’ve now got a decision to make: take the Defender, or head in on foot.”
The Defender was slowing to a halt now, and she shifted to full repulsorlifts as she tried to think. The obvious decision, of course, would be to take the Defender in. But in this case, obvious didn’t necessarily mean smart. So far there’d been no response from their quarry, which meant they either hadn’t noticed her yet or else didn’t consider her a threat.
And either way, a lone person on foot would probably get farther before sparking a reaction than a New Republic starfighter roaring in with laser cannons charged and ready. “I’m going in on foot,” she told the recorder, easing the Defender down to the ground beside a clump of bushes and keying for a bioscan of the air outside. “There’ve been no hostile acts toward me yet, and it would be nice if I could keep it that way.”
Reaching down to the small weapons locker beside her right knee, she opened the panel. “But just in case I can’t, I’m taking my BlasTech, sleeve gun, and lightsaber,” she added. “That should give me a head start on whatever happens.”
She slid the BlasTech blaster into the holster on her hip and secured the smaller weapon in the forearm holster hidden beneath her left sleeve. She picked up the lightsaber . And paused, gazing at the weapon, feeling the cool metal against her skin. It had been Luke Skywalker’s lightsaber once, made by his father and passed down to him on Tatooine by Obi-Wan Kenobi. Luke had given it in turn to her after the Empire’s massive counteroffensive under Grand Admiral Thrawn had finally been stopped.
Then, she and Luke had been allies. Now …
With a grimace, she hooked the lightsaber onto her belt. Now, she wasn’t sure what they were.
Or rather, she wasn’t sure what he was.
The bioscan beeped: the air was breathable, with no toxins or dangerous microorganisms that should be able to get through her broad-scale immunization. “Looks okay out there,” she said, dragging her thoughts away from Skywalker and back to the immediate business at hand. Shutting down the repulsorlifts, she shifted the Defender’s systems to standby and double-checked that the recorder was set to pulse-transmit back to the Starry Ice. “I’ll take my comlink, keyed to the recorder.”
She clipped her comlink to a hands-free position on her collar, then popped the canopy. Nirauan’s air rushed in, cool and crisp, with the subtle yet exotic odors of a new world. Unstrapping, she stood up, pulling the Defender’s survival pack from its storage locker and hooking its straps over one shoulder as she climbed down the side to the ground. Settling the pack securely onto her shoulders, taking one last look around, she closed and locked the canopy and set off toward the cave.
The grasslike vegetation underfoot was short and broadbladed, with a tendency to cling to her boots, but otherwise it didn’t impede her movements. She listened as she walked, but there was only the rustling of the vegetation and the quiet whisper of the breezes through the ravine. No animal or avian sounds at all.
But they were there, she knew, glancing up at the small holes that dotted the ravine’s sides. The animals were there. In the holes, or nesting in the bushes, or lurking under the rock-climbing vines. She could feel their presence.