The Ruins of Dantooine (9 page)

Dusque sensed he was finished for the moment and wouldn’t tell her what to do. He had been clear enough that the choice belonged to the individual. As she started to toss dirt on the fire to smother the flames, she silently berated herself for how servile in her thinking she had become. Of course, she trusted Tendau, but did she really want him to tell her what to do? Or had she simply become so used to taking orders from her male colleagues that she was afraid to stand alone? She shook her head.

She started to put her backpack on, when she felt the Ithorian, unasked, help her with it. She smiled
despite her mental debate. “Thank you,” she told him and held his gaze for a long moment. “For everything.”

“Child, when the time comes, you will see your path like a beacon before your eyes. Trust me,” he finished.

“I do,” she finally admitted.

“Now that that is settled, let’s see about those bats,” he said. And they headed farther into the trees.

Initially, finding paths through the trees had been simple. However, that did not last for very long. As they struggled with vines and branches, it became necessary to bushwhack their way through the increasingly dense jungle. The gray sky was blotted out by the thick canopy of trees, and Dusque felt claustrophobic. Almost no light was able to break through, and they had a hard time keeping each other in sight. By default, Dusque took the lead to clear a path for Tendau to follow. She could feel herself become winded, and the moisture-laden air was difficult to breathe. Each breath was an effort, and both were soon taxed. To make matters more challenging, their coordinates took them straight to a bog.

Seeing no way around it, they had no choice but to wade through it. Dusque went in first and held her arms above the waterline. Tendau followed, but seemed less uncomfortable than she.

“I hate getting wet,” she mumbled.

The sun set, although it made little difference
where they were. Then Dusque noticed little points of light that appeared to be dancing above the water, and she smiled despite her misery. The lights turned out to be a kind of glow bug. There must have been a hundred or so, and they bobbed and fluttered just above the boggy water. She was so entranced, she forgot where she was. When she realized Tendau hadn’t commented on them, she turned around to see why not. That was the moment she realized he was nowhere to be seen.

“Tendau,” she called again and turned sluggishly around, tangled in the tall reeds. She drew her Twi’lek dagger and slashed at the plants, her heart pounding. She struggled forward, her splashing sending the glow bugs into a frenzy of buzzing. A cloud of them dissipated in her wake.

“Tendau,” she called again, fearing the worst.

“Here!” The faint reply seemed to come from somewhere off to her left.

She slogged her way toward a clump of knotted trees, grateful to find more solid purchase. As she grabbed some of the heavy roots to hoist herself out, a strong hand grabbed her wrist and yanked her free of the murky water.

“I think I found their lair,” he whispered. “At least, it looks like what the Zabrak trainer mentioned last night.” And he motioned for her to follow.

Above the bank, nestled in a hillside, was what appeared to be a cave. Dusque shook her head,
impressed that her colleague had spotted the lair with its natural camouflage and in the poor light.

“Good eyes,” she told him. “I was so busy watching glow bugs, I didn’t even notice I had lost track of you. Sorry,” she apologized sheepishly.

“Don’t worry,” he replied. “I know if I had been in any real trouble, you would have found me.”

Dusque pulled out a small halo lamp and switched it on. Its beam illuminated a small circle of dirt in front of her. She nodded to Tendau, and they approached the cave opening.

The entrance was large enough to house several packs of creatures. A quick perusal revealed nothing, although Dusque did stop to do a brief survey of the sopping grounds around the cave opening just in case. With a quick nod to Tendau, she entered the lair. He followed directly behind.

The first section of the den was cavernous, with a vaulted ceiling from which hung a few stalactites. Dusque crossed her arms reflexively as a cold breeze assaulted her. In the distance, she could hear the faint sound of water dripping intermittently. That and the few echoes of rockfalls were all she heard at first. There was no sign of anything living. Her faint light revealed several tunnels, each winding in a different direction. She turned her face from one side to the other until she could feel on her skin where the breeze was coming from. She motioned to Tendau with one of the hand signals they had developed since first working together, and they started their descent into the darkness.

Given the cave’s acoustics, it was a challenge not to reveal their location to anything that might have been nesting in there. Fortunately Dusque’s boots, made from the softest hides with soles sturdy enough for the most rugged terrain, were as quiet as though she were barefoot. And the Ithorian, although it was extremely challenging to match Dusque’s abilities, was as silent as she. It was so dark within the cave that even with her light, Dusque was forced to run her hand against the side of the tunnel to keep from becoming disoriented. The rocks that formed the cave walls and ceiling were so unremarkable and so dark, it was difficult to visually tell which way was up at times. She found the effect almost nauseating.

As they descended, Dusque started to become discouraged. There was little sign of anything other than more rocks and tunnels. She was about to motion to Tendau that they should turn around when she heard an odd sound down farther to their left. She held up her hand and signaled to the Ithorian to hold up and listen. She saw him cock his head at an angle, and after a moment’s deliberation, he nodded. He raised his hand and waved his fingers briefly: their sign for wings.

Dusque slid slowly around the corner, Tendau directly behind her. By her weak light, she saw a creature hovering over something about ten meters away. She couldn’t make out much, but she was able to observe that whatever it was had a wingspan about as long as she was tall and what looked like a
wicked beak of sorts. It was hovering over a small mound. Both she and Tendau held their ground and watched as the creature dipped down over the mound, settled on it for a moment, and then took to the air again. The creature repeated the process a few more times before flying deeper into the tunnels. Certain that it wasn’t going to return in the near future, Dusque and Tendau cautiously approached the unattended mound.

Dusque dropped to her knees and saw that the mound was the remains of a squall. Not indigenous to Rori, it was a small, fur-covered mammal with long ears and a distinctive, hopping gait. And the one on the tunnel floor was a very dead specimen, mostly likely the recent meal of a borgle bat. As Dusque ran her hand over the corpse, she felt something wet and slick near the squall’s throat. She pulled her hand away and held it in the circle of light from her halo lamp. Her hand gleamed back a rich crimson in the dim light: blood. That was interesting: blood on the neck, but not much on the ground around the corpse. That would suggest that the borgle that had killed the squall was not just an ordinary carnivore, but a bloodsucker. Dusque flashed her stained hand in warning to the Ithorian. She rose to her knees and moved down the tunnel.

Winding her way to the right, Dusque heard the sounds of flapping grow. She reached a bend in the tunnel and, using it for cover, carefully peered around the corner. Several creatures were flapping around in a cluster. None of them was as large as
the first one she had seen above, near the corpse of the squall. But she was able to get a better look at these specimens.

They were definitely bats, with leathery wings and fur-covered bodies. Their faces were elongated, and they had very pointed ears. From where she stood it was hard to tell if they had any type of claws on their feet, but Dusque assumed they probably did. The fact that they were blood drinkers was most likely the reason they were untamable. Any creatures this aggressive would have to be taken when they were extremely young, if one were to have any hope of training them to respond. One of the group suddenly emitted a high-pitched sound and flew off into the depths. The others followed, and Dusque seized the opportunity.

Shrugging off Tendau’s warning grip, she slowly crawled over to where the young borgles had been fluttering. There she discovered the remains of what must have been a nest. She grew excited when she saw that while there were no juveniles present, there were tufts of downy fur caught in the nest itself. She deftly pulled out her sample containers and collected all the bits she could find. She gave Tendau the sign for success and was sliding back toward him when an odd reflection caught her attention.

There was something glinting in her light off in a far recess of the tunnel. As Dusque moved closer to it, she could see that yet another opening appeared to descend even farther down. What had caught
Dusque’s attention was a bone, picked clean. And she saw that there were more reflections down the partially concealed tunnel. Since neither she nor Tendau had spotted any other living thing in the caverns besides the bats, including the smallest insect, Dusque’s curiosity was piqued. Those bats’ feeding habits were blood drinking. This was most likely the work of something else. She wondered what other creatures might be living in down among the bats. She couldn’t resist a quick reconnaissance. Tendau shook his head, but Dusque held up one finger and disappeared into the gaping maw.

She felt more cold air brush against her skin and realized that this was the source of the chill that she had felt when they entered the cave system above. Her lamp revealed almost nothing. The darkness seemed to swallow it up and was absolute. Dusque felt a stab of dread, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She was starting to reconsider her plan when something bumped into her from behind.

Stifling a scream, she turned and realized the Ithorian had followed her. She smiled, although she knew he couldn’t see it, and continued into the darkness. With him near her, Dusque was more sure of herself. However, as she came across more and more bones, each one a different size, her certainty began to falter. With no definite way to tell how big the cavern was, she was starting to understand that it was littered with bone cairns in every niche. She wished that she had thought to mask her and the
Ithorian’s scents before they had begun their exploration. And then she heard a flapping in the dark. They both froze in their tracks.

Unlike the sound the other bats had made, this was slow and deliberate and powerful. Dusque knew it was near and was torn between her desire to see it and her growing fright. She shook her head and told herself that this was exactly the reason she had become a bioengineer: to discover new things and to understand them. She knew there was no turning back. So she steeled herself and continued deeper into the black cavern. Feeling her way against the wall, she knew Tendau was still behind her. And as she felt the wall curve, she came around to an eerie sight.

By her weak light, Dusque saw a mound of bones as tall as she was and nearly eight meters long. And atop that skeletal throne was a monstrous borgle. Heart pounding, mind racing, Dusque estimated the beast was at least five meters long. While it resembled the others in almost every other detail besides its size, there was one other striking feature: the bat had glowing, hateful, yellow eyes. In fact, they were almost hypnotic in their power. In the pit of her stomach, Dusque suddenly understood why the fingerless trainer had said they were evil incarnate. She reached back and squeezed the Ithorian’s hand so hard that she nearly broke his fingers. She found herself frozen in her tracks and hazily wondered if it was the borgle’s doing.

As Tendau started to tug her back, the mutant
bat let out a shrill screech, and from somewhere below, Dusque heard the fluttering of hundreds of wings. The Ithorian pulled harder, and she suddenly felt freed. The two turned and started to run at a breakneck speed. Tendau’s small pistol and her dagger would be of no use against the sheer number of bats.

As they stumbled through the tunnels, it was Dusque’s turn to grab her friend and pull him along. She could feel the breath burn in her lungs, but her fright had galvanized her into action and given her a burst of energy. Just as she thought she felt claws grab at her hair, she saw the weak light of day ahead. With the entrance to the cave in sight, they both increased their speed and tumbled, rolling out of the cave and partway down the slight hill. They lay in a heap, gasping for air, weapons drawn and at the ready. But nothing followed them out.

Dusque rolled onto her back and let a sigh of relief escape. After she had a moment to collect herself, she started to giggle. Her giggles grew into full-fledged laughter and then Tendau joined in. They laughed until they were breathless again, and then Dusque pushed herself on one elbow to regard her friend.

“Did you see the size of that thing?” she asked, amazed.

“It would have been hard to miss it,” Tendau quipped, “seeing how it filled the whole vault.”

Dusque smiled but found herself sobering up. No longer giddy, she said seriously, “Aside from its obvious
size, that thing was wrong … somehow.” She found she didn’t have the words to describe how she felt about its overpowering malevolence.

“Yes,” Tendau agreed. “There’s no denying that that creature was a mutant—an abomination of evil. Sometimes it is easy to pick that out, isn’t it?” He gave her a pointed stare.

“Yes,” she agreed, his real meaning perfectly clear to her. “Sometimes it’s easy to tell something is wrong. But sometimes it isn’t,” she argued.

With that, she knelt and rummaged through her pack, checking to make sure her samples had survived their hasty departure. The containers were unbroken, and she was glad the trip hadn’t been wasted after all.

“If only we could’ve sampled that thing,” she murmured.

“You amaze me, child,” Tendau admitted. “You really do at times. We’re lucky the thing didn’t sample
us.
” He stood and straightened his tunic. “Now let’s return before you get us into real trouble.”