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They were approaching the Rock Worker settlement when Yanci signaled them. She turned the swoop away and led them toward a split in a sheer wall. Eritha's landspeeder cleared the opening with just centimeters to spare.
"They won't find her here," Yanci said. "I doubt they'd be looking for strays. We think their object was to steal our most advanced explosives."
"I will contact you when the situation is safe," Obi-Wan told Eritha.
She looked reluctant, but she nodded.
Suddenly, he felt a surge in the Force. He whipped his head around and saw nothing.
Yanci zoomed out of the crack in the canyon wall, and he followed. He quickly sca
Obi-Wan signaled to Yanci, then headed out to meet Qui-Gon. When he caught up to the landspeeder, he hovered by Qui-Gon's side.
Qui-Gon looked at him directly. His face showed the signs of a great internal struggle. "I was wrong, Padawan. Thank you for pointing it out to me. My duty lies here. No matter," he said with difficulty, "what it may cost."
Obi-Wan nodded. "I'm glad you came back."
Gu
"I'm taking you around a back way," she told them. "When I left, we had managed to hold our position surrounding the unit where we keep the supplies and explosives."
They didn't need the caution. They took a roundabout way, skirting the settlement. Yanci slowed her speeder as they approached a road cut through a narrow canyon.
Obi-Wan listened for the sounds of battle, but heard nothing except the wind. The quiet was eerie. He glanced over at Qui-Gon and saw his Master frown.
Something lay in the road ahead. Obi-Wan didn't need to come closer to know what it was. The deep disturbance in the Force told him everything.
Yanci slowed to a crawl, almost stalling her swoop. "It's a body,"
she said shakily.
Suddenly, she gu
Yanci was off her swoop before it had stopped. It kept going and crashed, but she didn't react. She raced toward the body in the road. Her cry was terrible.
"Kevta!" She bent over the body. With tears streaming down her face, she checked for his vital signs. She placed her hands on his chest. "Kevta!
" Her cry turned to a moan, and she collapsed, cradling his head.
Qui-Gon's face went pale. Obi-Wan saw that his Master could not tear his gaze away from the sight.
"Master," he said. "We need to go on, find out what happened…"
Qui-Gon's nod seemed to take forever. "One moment." His voice was hoarse.
He got off the landspeeder and walked to Yanci's side. He crouched by her and put a hand on her shoulder. He did not speak a word. He let his presence balance her grief until she was able to lift her head.
"I left him," she said, her voice broken. "He made me go. I am the best on a swoop, he said. I am the one who knows the quarries best. I was the one who could catch the Jedi. I left him!"
"You left in order to save your people," Qui-Gon said.
"And I failed them. If Kevta is dead, I don't want to see the rest of the camp." Yanci gently laid her head on Kevta's chest. "I will stay here.
I can't leave him."
Qui-Gon squeezed her shoulder. Then he stood. Wordlessly, he nodded at Obi-Wan. The two Jedi knew what they were about to find. Death lay ahead of them.
They walked farther into the camp. Some of the dwellings were still smoking from fires the Absolutes had set. Bodies lay alongside the road.
The Rock Workers still clutched the tools they had used as weapons.
Obi-Wan saw Bini on the ground. Her sightless eyes stared up at the sky. He knelt beside her and gently closed her eyelids. "Sleep well," he murmured.
Qui-Gon entered the school. Several long moments passed before he exited. "It is better for you not to go in," he told Obi-Wan. "The Rock Workers tried to hide the children there. The Absolutes left no one alive."
Obi-Wan turned away. Qui-Gon was right. He did not need to see it.
The sound of a speeder rose above the eerie quiet. Eritha rode slowly toward them, her head turning to take in the devastation. She stopped the speeder and got out shakily.
"This is what they are capable of," she said, her face ashen. "I didn't know. Alani can't be part of this. She must not know the things that they are willing to do."
They continued their grim tour, looking for survivors. The death toll was complete. There was not a living being in the camp.
As they started back, they saw Yanci walking toward them. Her legs moved, but she did not seem to be powering them herself. She moved like a droid, with jerky, articulated motion.
"Everyone is gone," she said. "It was a massacre. There is nothing I can do. I can't find Bini — "
"I'm sorry," Obi-Wan said gently. "I found her."
Yanci bowed her head. "I was jealous of Bini. She was close to Kevta.
It was stupid of me. I can never tell her that." She wandered away and sat on the ground, her head in her hands.
"Yanci," Qui-Gon called. "Can you tell us what the Absolutes took this time?"
She lifted her head. "Everything," she said numbly. "All our blasting equipment is gone."
Qui-Gon nodded. It was what he had expected. "Let's look for clues,"
he said in a low tone to Obi-Wan.
They started with the target of the Absolutes — the sheds where the blasting equipment was stored. Here the fiercest fighting had taken place.
Obi-Wan pushed down the revulsion he felt rise in his throat at the desperate postures of the dead. They lay as they had died, fighting to the last.
He concentrated on the task, picking over the ground carefully, then moving into the shed.
Qui-Gon stooped and sifted something through his fingers. When he held up his hand to Obi-Wan, his fingers were stained red.
"This soil is not from this area," he said. "The Absolutes tracked it in. Look at the boot marks. They aren't the same patterns as the Rock Workers'."
Obi-Wan bent and took a small sample of soil. He tapped it into a specimen container from his utility belt. "Let's ask Yanci. She said she knew the quarries better than anyone."