Granta and Mellora did not attempt to lose the Jedi. No doubt they knew they could not. The Jedi gained on them, but Mellora and Omega managed to reach their SoroSuub at the foot of the volcano. Omega activated the landing ramp and they flew inside.
“We can make it!” Obi-Wan shouted as the landing ramp began to close.
Anakin zoomed alongside his Master. They angled their swoops as the ramp slid closed. They slid inside, feeling the whoosh of air as the ramp slid into place.
The cockpit of the ship was empty.
Obi-Wan leaped off the swoop and activated his lightsaber in one motion. He ran through the SoroSuub. It took only a few seconds to discover what had happened.
“They flew out the cargo door as we came in through the landing ramp,” Obi-Wan said, disgusted. “He planned it.”
He ran to the cockpit controls. He stabbed at the activation key for the landing ramp, then the cargo doors.
“He’s locked them.” He tried the engines. Nothing happened. “The ship is in complete lockdown.”
Obi-Wan’s face was dark with anger. Anakin watched, fascinated, as his Master absorbed his anger and then released it.
“So here we are,” Obi-Wan said in a measured tone. “Locked in.” He crossed to the cockpit windscreen. Granta Omega and Mellora were nowhere in sight. But the mountain was. It filled their vision as it belched rocks and steam.
As they watched, the ship suddenly shook with the tremor of a huge groundquake. The scene in front of them vibrated. Anakin couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The peak was now disintegrating. Huge chunks of the mountain were falling away. The entire side of the volcano was collapsing in a tremendous landside.
And they were in its path.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Obi-Wan tried the engines again. “I don’t know how to override this.”
“Let me try.” There was nothing Anakin couldn’t do with engines. He slid open the panel to the engine and slithered inside. “This will take me about twenty minutes.”
“We don’t have twenty,” Obi-Wan said. He had already calculated the speed of the landslide. “We have maybe five before the lava pours out. If we’re lucky. We’ll have to cut our way out.”
Anakin scrambled out and followed Obi-Wan to the opening to the ramp. Obi-Wan began to try to cut the durasteel away.
“Something’s wrong,” he muttered as Anakin joined him. “The ship’s hull should be thin here. We should be able to cut through in minutes.”
“It’s going to take us longer than that,” Anakin said.
The minutes ticked by as they worked at the metal. Obi-Wan looked out the windscreen to check the progress of the eruption. The noise was now like the roar of a fleet of engines. “We’re not going to make it.”
They looked at each other. They hadn’t given up hope. There was a way out. There always was.
They just didn’t have much time to figure it out.
Lava was now spewing out of the top of the mountain. Whole kilometers of dirt and rocks mixed with hot lava would soon be barreling down the steep slope.
Obi-Wan pushed his lightsaber through the door. He began to move it downward, straining with the effort. Anakin joined him, the sweat rolling down his face.
Suddenly and violently, molten lava poured out of the volcano at frightening speed. The avalanche of rock and lava smashed against the ship. The jolt threw them across the cockpit and slammed them against the opposite wall. The craft tilted onto one side, sending them crashing onto the floor. The ship jolted downhill at incredible speed, carried by the force of the landslide.
Anakin hung on to the wall. Looking straight up, he could see through the cockpit windscreen. All he saw was rocks and lava obscuring his view of the sky. He knew where they were being carried. The rock slide would drop them into the sea. They would sink. Or else they would be caught in the giant tidal wave that was forming even now.
His head slammed against the side of the ship. He held on as his teeth rattled. Death was near. Anakin could feel it. Now he understood why he had felt so uneasy on this planet. Here death had waited for him.
Obi-Wan suddenly pounded against the ship’s wall with his lightsaber hilt as they bounced down the mountain, swept along by the lava flow. Anakin had never seen his Master give way to his anger before.
“That’s it,” Obi-Wan shouted over the awful roaring noise. “It’s a ship within a ship. That’s why the walls are so thick. Anakin, help me find it.”
“Find what?” he shouted.
“The cockpit. The real cockpit!” Obi-Wan scrambled along the wall, knocking on it with the hilt of his lightsaber. “Listen for something hollow.”