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EXODUS - Chapter 2

All around me was the braying, stampeding wildlife not wise enough to have fled before the Droid army's morning commute. My arms swung limp at my sides as the rage in me seared my core. I thought I would throw up what little I had eaten today, but the nausea passed quickly. The stink of oil and sawdust filled the air as sunlight broke the razed canopy, bathing the rainforest in unnatural sunlight. That was about when I noticed two of the running figures didn't quite match up with the beasts scampering past. I didn't know where they had come from, nor was I aware of what they'd been doing in the upper atmosphere prior to our encounter, but somehow they appeared rather ignorant of the gnashing danger behind them.

My first impulse was to shout for them to get down, but all I got was a stupefied gawk as I gestured with my arms. Maybe their translator wasn't working,--off-worlders always got translators--or maybe it was the roaring metal monstrosity on its way to razor our upper torsos off that was the reason he couldn't understand me. It took me flinging myself bodily onto one of them--the one with the beard--to get them to drop to the mud where the twirling blades could pass more-or-less safely over us. We waiting several agonizing and awkward minutes until that gigantic mower passed overhead, during which I did not dare move an inch. A cloud of noxious black smoke huffed down onto us, making my eyes water even though I'd shut them, forcing me to hold my breath.

When we were finally clear to stand up again, I gasped for breath and choked on the poisonous fumes trailing from the giant mower. I hunched over, coughing out the bad air, until the three of us had mostly caught our breath again. Still my attention wandered to the sorry obliteration that had taken place here. Splintered trunks of savaged wood, bright and bleeding sap, carpeted the once-lush terrain. Sharp, jagged angles of bright tan bent outwards, and it was this aftermath that branded a scathing image of a mulched and mauled Naboo into my memory.

There was no way I was going to find my house in this mess. I took a few aimless steps forth, letting the devastation enter my soul, before rounding on the two men.

Still doubting the quality of their translators, I tried speaking very simply. "Me, Jar Jar Binks. Who. Are. You?"

The man with the beard had brown hair tied back in a long pony tail. He was wearing a brown hooded cloak and rather well-made robes, despite the mudstains now marring their surface. As he adjusted his cloak, my eyes caught a glimpse of the light saber hanging from his belt. I'd never seen one before and didn't know exactly what it was at the time, but I had a hunch it was some kind of weapon. Rather than reciprocate my introduction, the man instead asked me, "Are you brainless?"

Now, I don't know if he had a thing against non-Humans, or if I'd wronged him in a previous life or something. Confounded that he had not heeded my warning, I vented my frustration in a very sarcastic gesture. "I can speak, can't I?"

"The ability to speak does not make you intelligent."

I had to give him that one.

The woods may have been gone, but we weren't out of them yet. The departing machine ejected two metallic shapes from its backside, which fell to the ground. They popped open like kernals of corn to adopt a bipedal and, more importantly, weaponized posture. They wasted little time in marching forward, charging their blasters straight at us. I thought our number was up, when a searing buzz sliced through the air. The other Human slid in from the right, slashing his luminous weapon through the Droids. They fell apart rather pathetically, and the smell of frying ozone was left in their wake.

"Nice one," I remarked.

The younger man was dressed much like the first, but he was clean-shaven, with shorter hair, and probably looked a bit handsome by Human standards. He sheathed his weapon and more or less ignored me. "What's this?" he asked, speaking of me as if I was an object. I offered him my most sarcastic smile.

"A local."

"I'd invite you inside, but there is no more inside," I said.

"Let's get out of here before more Droids arrive," said the older man.

I was taken aback. "Sorry, 'more', you say? I don't suppose you two can tell me why there's a Droid army cutting across my yard."

"It's none of your concern," the younger man said. "We need to get to Theed as soon as possible. Unless you can point us the way, we must say good-bye."

I took a seat on a halved section of skywood. "Ah, well, good-bye then. It was a pleasure meeting you," I lied.

"Come, my young apprentice," the older man said, "You catch more flies with honey."

"Actually, you catch the most flies with manure," I interjected. I broke off a massive splinter of wood and restlessly tapped it against the air. Then an idea popped into my head. I leaned forward. "Oh, but I have just the place! The nearest city to here is Gunga City. It's a hidden city, but it's where I grew up. Home sweet bubble to us Gungans." Yeah, I thought. Let them be Boss Nass's problem.

Exasperated, the younger man asked, "Can you take us there?"

I feigned a change of heart. "Uh, you know, on second thought, no. Not really. No." Somewhere around here my breakfast was squashed. I stood and stretched. "You see, it's a little embarrassing, but I've kinda been banished. The bosses would do some pretty terrible things to me if I went back there. You'll have to find your own way."

The bearded man strode up to me, maybe but a couple of inches away from my face. "You hear that?" he asked me. "That is the sound of a thousand terrible things heading this way."

The younger human got in on the action as well. "If they find us, they will crush us, grind us into tiny pieces, and blast us into oblivion."

I could still hear that diminishing motor grumbling off into the distance, and the occasional scream of a saw shredding up bark. "Your point is well taken. Come along then! We've got a hike ahead of us." I took a leap over a bit of felled tree just to put some breathing room between us.

I knew it would be a day's walk to get to Gunga City. A day's walk and a deep dive. Given the time of year, we were due for an early sunset, so it would be dark by the time we hit the water where Gunga City lay hidden. I hadn't been to the place in years. Not after the incident. The last in a series of incidents. "By the by, I didn't catch your names. Gonna be hard to introduce you to the bosses as 'occupant and plus one'."

"It is customary to give your own name first," said the impetuous younger Human.

I'd already pitched mine, but I kept that to myself. You can strike up quite the advantage playing dumb. "Jar Jar Binks. But I'm not giving it to you; I need to use it."

"I am Qui-Gon Jinn, and this is my apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi," said the bearded man in his lofty manner. "We are members of the Jedi Order."

We didn't get much news about the Jedi down under the sea, and I got even less living on my own. The only whisperings were something about ancient wizards sitting atop their ivory tower and their magic. How quaint, I had thought then, to get to meet a pair of real magicians. Much is made about "The Force", and how it chooses individuals, seemingly with no rhyme nor reason, who then get certain gifts of moving objects with a thought, or preternatural persuasion. There are some sparse examples of individuals in Gungan society possibly possessing powers handed down by our gods, but it's more important to study the how and what in day to day living.

No, I had undergone a much more secular training in my career. I looked up at the hazy white-blue sky, pondering how many hours remained until the stars would start twinkling into view, one by one, and thought back to just this morning when I had watched them disappear like so many soldiers. They hardly mattered now, I thought, as my attention anchored itself to Naboo once more. I guided our footfalls over towards the trees that remained, doing my best to step carefully over splinters and trunks sick with the stench of sap and sawdust. The mower had taken a rather direct route through the jungle, clearing out a blatant stretch of destruction, possibly, I surmised, for creating some kind of landing strip for more weapons of mass menace.

We passed by a mournful-looking stub-tailed kaadu, a beast of burden often tamed for various uses by the Gungan people. I wondered what it was doing, perching atop a shorn length of bark like a lone sentinel, until I craned my neck. Its mate lay dead under a tree maybe twenty feet thick, having been too slow to escape. I averted my gaze and kept walking. Questions were beginning to weigh on my mind, but it wasn't until just past noon when I found the voice to speak them. I stopped us for a brief break to sip from my canteen and bite into the last remaining piece of snow carrot I had happened to stuff into my pocket rather than the basket. It didn't taste as sweet now, what with my olfactory senses being bludgeoned with the contents of a sawmill. I could still smell the smoke in the air. Lucky for us, the wood was too wet to burn.

"So tell me, what brings you two to Naboo? You picked a hell of a time to visit."

Qui-Gon suggested we keep walking, but he regaled me with the story of how his day had gone thus far. The Jedi Council had been called for representatives to negotiate with some trade embargo that the Droid army was helping to enforce around our planet. I could almost hear the white noise buzzing into my head again as my brain tried to save itself from the doldrums of economics and politics. I was never one for politics, but even still, I could sense something didn't add up.

"We're all the way out on the outer rims," I said. "What in the hell could we have that they want and can't get somewhere else?"

"Ostensibly Naboo houses numerous plasma mines," Qui-Gon said.

"Yeah, and a lotta good Gungans died in those plasma mines," I shot back. Then an idea gripped me. "Plasma mines. Plasma mines! We can shortcut through one of them!" I bounded off between the trees, got a couple of yards ahead before returning to tell them, "Uh, do follow me."

In little time flat, I found myself unearthing an old entrance hatch to one of the many abandoned plasma mines on Naboo. I had used this mining base numerous times for supplies, but the thought of using it for shelter was repugnant to me, given its history. Not to mention all the cold rust, lingering dust, crusty debris, and wandering predators didn't leave it too cozy a place to set your head down for the night. I had buried the stairwell hatch in what debris I could move, but now I was shifting it aside, quite possibly for the last time. "We can cut half a day off our trip cutting through here," I said.

The two Jedi had brought some light sources with them, one of which was oh-so generously offered to me so that I might lead them. Strictly speaking, I didn't absolutely need it, but it helped me see farther. We tapped down this metal staircase into an underground equipment room that had already been emptied of what useful materials it once held. Ahead of us was a wire security fence that had already been busted wide open, and from there, the only way down was a rickety metal service elevator. I nabbed one of the remaining batteries from the assorted storage compartments, and instructed them to board the lift.

"Is this thing capable of holding us?" Obi-Wan asked.

"This thing could hold eight Gungans, packed in like sardines," I told him. "It can carry us."

The three of us stood on that elevator as I reached up to hook the battery into the lift's motor bypass. With a bit of tweaking to its inner levers, I could command the lift from inside it, and down we went, descending into the inky rock cavern. The smell of iron and copper gave way to an overwhelming pungency of damp, salty earth. There was this godawful whining from the rusty metal as it rattled and wheezed its way lower. After a few dozen yards or so--I had forgotten to count--the lift emitted a loud "Chung!" sound as if it was taking a giant bite out of the rock wall.

I tried to be nonchalant. I forced a crooked smile and said, "That's not supposed to--"

And then we were plummeting.