[Hand Of Thrawn] - 01(103)

And at least some of them were watching her… “I could have been wrong about this,” she said into the comlink, drawing her blaster. “That could just be a cave up there. I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

Cautiously, she worked her way to the cave. Just as cautiously, she eased an eye around the edge.

It was a cave, all right. A dirty, musty, rough-walled cave, stretching back blackly into the distance, with a thick matting of dead leaves on the ground at the entrance, cobwebs of some sort wafting randomly in the breeze, and a lingering hint of dankness from distant standing water.

She lowered her blaster, feeling both anticlimactic and a little bit foolish. “I’m here,” she said to her comlink. “And if this is a disguised landing bay, they’ve done a terrific job of it.”

She stepped back from the cave’s mouth, shading her eyes as she peered up the side of the cliff. Nothing but cliff that she could see. Just beyond the cave, as she’d already noted, the ravine veered slightly to the right. More from curiosity than any expectation of seeing anything interesting, she walked to the far side of the cave and looked around the bend.

And caught her breath. Straight ahead, perhaps ten kilometers farther along, the ravine came to an abrupt end at the base of a massive bluff. And sitting atop the bluff, black against the pale sky, was a building.

No, not just a building. A fortress.

Mara took a deep breath. “I’ve found them,” she said, fighting to keep her voice steady as she pulled a set of macrobinoculars from their pouch in the side of her survival pack. There was something about the sight of that structure that was sending an unpleasant tingle through her. “There’s some kind of fortress sitting on a bluff at the far end of the ravine.”

She activated the macrobinoculars and focused on the fortress. “Seems to be built of black stone,” she reported, zooming in the view. “Reminds me of that old abandoned fortress on Hijarna we sometimes used as a rendezvous point. I can see-looks like two, maybe three towers from this angle, plus something that might have been one more broken off near the base. In fact …

She lowered her view down the bluff to where the ravine began, the tingling sensation growing even more unpleasant. “In fact, if you set up the angles right,” she said slowly, “you could make a case that whatever the shot was that took out that tower was the same blast that gouged out this ravine.”

And if so, that would have been one impressive blast. The Death Star could have done it, but not much else in either the Imperial or New Republic arsenals. “Regardless, I guess that’s my next stop,” she decided, sliding the macrobinoculars back into their pouch. Taking one last look at the fortress, she turned and headed back toward the Defender. She glanced inside the cave, crossed to the other side&mdash

And froze, pressing her shoulder against the cool rock beside the cave opening. Something had suddenly set off her danger sense … and as she waited, she heard it again.

The soft, distant whine of an air vehicle.

“I think I’m about to have some company,” she muttered into her comlink, giving the sky a quick scan. Nothing was visible yet, but the sound was definitely coming closer. Carefully, still watching the sky, she took a few steps back into the shadows of the cave.

Abruptly her danger sense flared; but even as she spun around she knew it was too late; From deep in the cave to her right something dark shot past, flapping a puff of dank air into her face as it swooped past her head and darted back into the darkness. She dropped into a crouch, blaster tracking toward the flying shadow, but it was already out of sight. She fired once into the ceiling, the blast of light giving her a brief glimpse of rough walls and hanging spikes of rock. She spotted the flying shado w, shifted her aim warningly toward it&mdash

She had only a glimpse of the second shadow as it dropped from somewhere above her and deftly snatched the blaster from her hand. Stifling a curse, she yanked her lightsaber off her belt with her left hand, igniting it and in the same motion tossing it to her right hand.

And suddenly the whole cave seemed to come to a screeching halt.

It was, Mara realized, a bizarre characterization of what had just happened. But the impression nevertheless remained. Whatever the flapping creatures were, they were suddenly watching with new eyes.

And speaking with a new voice.

A new voice? Mara frowned, listening hard. No mistake: there were indeed new sounds murmuring through the cave.

Through the cave … or through her mind.

Backing into a slight depression in the wall, she stretched out as hard as she could with the Force. The almost-voices seemed to sharpen, but they remained right on the tantalizing edge of comprehension. “Terrific,” she muttered to herself. An alien and possibly hostile aircraft on its way, and here she was, pinned down by equally alien creatures who were smart enough to grab her blaster away. Creatures she could almost, but not quite, communicate with. “Where are Skywalker and his bag of tricks when you need them?”