Star Wars Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy A Fan Novelization

Chapter Nineteen - The Contractor, The Daimyo, and The Foundling

The rancor's claw missed Jaden by an inch. It collided with the wall instead, breaking large chunks off of it. How do I always get myself into these messes?

With Kyle out, and Jan to assist him, he said he would search for information regarding how Tavion came into possession of the scepter. And now that Jaden was a Jedi Knight, she was given what Kyle called "more challenging missions" and had been sent to search a small spaceport on Tanaab to investigate a cult sighting. When she got there, everything went smoothly, she connected with a pilot who pointed her toward a cargo hanger where he'd seen the cultists.

Everything went downhill from there.

She spotted a cultist and confronted him, but instead of fighting her, he ignored her and ran to a control panel next to a large containment cell usually reserved for storage. This was no normal cargo.

The door opened revealing a large, greenish-gray rancor, with tubes and metal stuck all over it. It was an experiment, she recognized. Something made or mutated in a lab. She'd done the smart thing and ran as soon as the rancor exited its cage, going even faster when the cultist cried out in pain when the creature, apparently having no sense of who was good or bad, snatched him up and swallowed him whole.

She jumped over cargo containers and other large objects, tried closing several doors to the room but had to reevaluate her plan when the rancor broke through the door and surrounding wall with no problem whatsoever. And to make matters worse, this mutant rancor breathed out toxic gas, a horror Jaden witnessed firsthand as the green fog claimed innocent spaceport workers that were trapped in the area and couldn't run fast enough to escape it.

Jaden had even crossed paths with a few members of the cult, but decided that not engaging them was a much better plan as the rancor continued to gain on her.

I have to keep it from leaving the spaceport! But how?

The rancor slowed a few times to reach out and gobbled up some poor worker or even an unfortunate cult member who was unlucky to not get out of its way fast enough.

Jaden ran into a seemingly dead end with a conveyor belt leading towards a blue forcefield. I can't stop it!

She looked left and right, above, for anything, anything at all that could help her. Spotting a crate above her, a light suddenly went off inside her head. Maybe I can trap it between the container and the door!

She ran to the conveyors control room and located the release switch for the box to drop it onto the belt. She spotted the rancor in the distance, it was distracted by a Reborn who tried zapping it with lightning in order to leave him alone, but this only served to make the monster even angrier and it smashed the Reborn underneath its giant hand.

She stepped out of the room, aimed and fired her blaster to get its attention. The creature's black, unfeeling eyes turned their attention to her and it let out a deafening roar and stomped towards her. She rushed back inside to the control panel.

"C'mon c'mon c'mon a little closer, just a little closer," Jaden muttered under her breath, her hand trembling on the switch.

The mutant rancor stepped onto the conveyor belt in front of the box and peered through the glass right at her, raising its paw to strike. Jaden threw the switch and the conveyor started moving. She increased the speed and the rancor couldn't move much as the gigantic crate and the walls on either side kept it trapped, the only way for it to move being towards the forcefield.

Jaden shut her eyes tightly against the sound of the rancor's painful, grating shriek when it was pressed against the laser shield, crushing it until it fell silent. The only sound that came after was that of the rancor's limp body falling forward onto the crate. Only then did Jaden open her eyes again.