"We've come to a fork in the tunnels, General. Shall we go left or right?,"

"It makes no difference. Use this radio again, and I'll do more than choke you. I'll kill you,"

The Clone looked to his alarmed brother and shrugged.

"He doesn't want us to use the radio," Jac said mildly "so, which tunnel do you like better?,"

"I don't like either of them," the other clone replied, shaking his head "either way could be a dead end,"

The double meaning was not lost on Jac. The Jedi said it made no difference, but it made a big difference to the clones. The choice was left to them, it was their responsibility if things went badly in their chosen direction. Rtj-lyr did not forgive mistakes.

The dejected scouts stood looking first at each other, then at the fork in the tunnels. They had to make a decision somehow. Jac started down the left tunnel, went for a few feet, and examined it. He wasn't sure what he was looking for. The roof and walls seemed solid enough, the floor unmarred. But it was all solid rock, so how could you tell if something dangerous lay ahead?.

He turned around and took a look at the other tunnel. There, he found his difference. When his light hit the tunnel, a number Astro droid-sized insects scattered. In their panic, a number of them fled the light, and ran right past the clones. The scuffling and scurrying was loud, but harmless.

"Animals this way," Jac observed "they must go to the surface sometime,"

"What makes you think that?,"

"Something I heard once. At any rate, it seems as good a guess as any, right?,"

"I suppose so. I'll mark the tunnel, so they know which way we went,"

"Nah, you better go back and tell them. I expect they'll want to wait here while we check on ahead," Jac told him "I'll wait for you to get back,"

"You sure you don't want to tell them,"

"Don't be a coward. Jedi don't shoot the messenger, and you're not bringing bad news anyway,"

"But you told me-,"

"Move!,"

"Okay, okay, I'm going,"

Jac shook his head. Rookies were like sponges, absorbing everything that happened to them, committing it to memory, dwelling on it. What happened right out of the gate stayed with a clone forever. Later on, experience would tell him what was worth remembering and what wasn't. Most things weren't worth recalling, and were best left forgotten.

Jac took a moment to inspect the cave life. A sort of moss had grown on the damp walls, the large insects seemed to be eating the moss. Having recovered from their alarm, they were now busily grazing, their feathery feelers waving in the air like flags, giving them early warning of anything which was rushing towards them.

"At least you guys aren't carnivorous," Jac observed aloud.

This brought an uneasy thought to his mind. Where there were herbivores, there were usually carnivores. And when it came to insect life, the predators were usually larger than their prey. Jac went to the tunnel wall, and examined it more closely. Now he was looking for something specific, and he sure found it. No underground river had made these, nor any machinery. Something alive had dug these tunnels. Something decidedly big.

That's not good, Jac thought.

As though its arrival was brought on by Jac's thoughts, a massive shape appeared around the corner of the tunnel. Jac turned his light on it, and immediately regretted it. He got little more than an impression. A huge, multi-legged monstrosity, covered in black bristles and equipped with a number of glowing red eyes. It emitted a sound not unlike that of a piece of metal being torn in two, and then sprang into the tunnel. Its bulk filled the space, and it shuffled towards The Clone with remarkable speed for its apparent awkwardness, moving to close the gap between them in seconds.

Jac opened fire on the beast, doing his best to aim for the eyes. At the same time, he fell back, giving ground in order to keep distance between himself and the enraged behemoth. He kept thinking he had a clear shot at the monster's eyes, but each time he fired, there would suddenly be a leg in his way, or the creature rocked itself forward and the shot bounced off its tough hide.

It made the metal-tearing sound again as it advanced, clearly seeing The Clone as an intruder rather than a meal, though it was big enough to swallow him whole, if it wanted to. By now he could see its arachnid mandibles, which clacked together eagerly, reaching out for him even as he fought to maintain some kind of distance from the monster.

The back of his mind was absurdly glad he'd made the rookie report back. Clones weren't naturally inclined towards retreat. Every fiber of their being was dead-set against it. A less experienced clone might have tried to stand his ground, even once he realized this was futile. But Jac knew better. It wouldn't do anyone any good if he died here, and he wasn't making a dent with his shots. He wasn't even slowing the thing down.

He had two choices. One, he could get back to the others, try and warn them. Two, he could take the other fork and try to lead the monster away from his comrades. The latter choice appealed to him, but he knew that it was unwise. If he died somewhere in the other tunnel, the others would know nothing of the danger they were in. They would know only that he had disappeared.

It didn't occur to him to use the radio. The Jedi had forbidden its use, and there was nothing that could make the clone employ something he had been ordered by a Jedi not to use. To him, the radio had basically ceased to exist. In his mind, it would be as nothing until he was given permission to use it.

With every part of him screaming in protest, Jac turned and ran. He was faster than the bug, something he had realized as he was backing away. If he could maintain a distance running backward, he could increase the distance by turning and doing it right.

It wasn't long before he found the rest of the group. He at once performed an about face and dropped to one knee, a silent but effective warning to all the others that trouble was following at his heels. The clones all assumed defensive positions, as the Jedi asked what the trouble was.

"Don't know for sure, Sir. A large predator, arachnid, and very angry," Jac replied.

"And you brought it here!," Rtj-lyr hissed.

"Didn't have much choice," Jac said quietly "my shots had no effect. You told me not to use the radio, so this was the only way I could warn you,"

"I'll deal with you later," the words hung ominously in the air as the creature rounded a bend in the tunnel and came into full view, screeching and lumbering towards them at a high rate of speed.

"Open fire!," The Jedi commanded.

The troopers obeyed. At first, nothing seemed to be making any kind of impression on the creature, then one clone got a lucky hit near the beast's eyes and it screamed, rearing back on its four rear legs. The upper part of its body smashed into the roof, and the tunnel itself seemed to tremble as huge boulders fell from the ceiling and shattered on the floor. Clones staggered as the floor heaved, and ducked as debris was hurled at them like missiles. As soon as they regained their feet and a more secure position, they resumed fire. The creature reared again, its forelegs striking at the walls, bringing more rocks tumbling down.

"General, it's going to bring this whole place down on our heads!," The Captain shouted "we need a plan. What are your orders?. Sir!. What do you want us to do?!,"

The Jedi stood at the center of it all, yet was not a part of it, somehow far away and long beyond the reaches of the creature, even as it stood mere feet from him. Then, suddenly, a terrible look came into his eyes, a look which could have frightened even another Jedi. He threw both arms up, palms out. He closed his hands, and brought his arms straight down.

The result was total ceiling collapse. Cries of pain and alarm filled the air, the creature's roar louder than any of the others. Darkness enveloped the tunnel as lights were smashed or knocked out by impact. All the world seemed to be a giant avalanche of rock and dust, chaos above it all. And then everything was still. Silence reclaimed its sovereignty over the caves.

The Captain was the first clone to dig himself out from where he'd been buried. Battered and bloodied, but still in one piece, he sat coughing and choking, looking about him, eyes searching for Rtj-lyr, secretly hoping to find that the Jedi had somehow died.

But such was not the case. Rtj-lyr stood, unharmed, at the center of the disaster area, looking down on the mess which he had created, and the creature he had slain. Then he looked past the dead beast, and a look of anger crossed his face. The tunnel had been blocked. They would have to backtrack, and try a different route. But to the Captain, that was much less frightening than the fact that the Jedi was angry. The Captain knew very little about Jedi, but he knew enough to realize that you did not want to be anywhere near one when they were angry.

The march back to the main part of the cave had been a slow, depressing one. Even though the creature which had attacked them was dead, the clones couldn't help but feel they had somehow been defeated. The beast might be dead, but it had still managed to drive them back, to force them to find another way around. The beast had won, even though it had paid with its life.

When they settled in for the night, the other clones purposely avoided bedding down anywhere near Jac or the other scout. The Jedi was angry with those two, and the clones now shunned them because they knew of nothing else to do. To associate with them would be to bring the Jedi's wrath down on their own heads, something which they could not face.

"Looks like we're pariahs now," the rookie said.

"You can be a pariah," Jac mumbled, already half-asleep "I'm just another clone,"