Black Hearts | Kylo Ren [1]

IV. "trust me."

"ENOUGH OF THIS," Bala-Tik snarled. He looked back at his men. "Kill them and take the droid!"

Weapons came up. Han and Chewbacca looked around wildly, but in the smooth-sided corridor there was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. Han closed his eyes.

Which was when something monstrous appeared behind the Guavians. It was so large it could barely fit in the cargo corridor. Tentacles whipped out to snatch up two of the gang, who screamed as their torsos were crushed. Whirling, howling, those who were still able to do so unleashed wild bursts of fire in the direction of the rathtar. Those that struck the rathtar barely caused it to flinch. Bala-Tik and the survivors scattered.

Han opened one eye. Turning, he expected the burst of Guavian fire that had failed to reach him to be replaced by a similar barrage from the Kanjiklub members. Except that another rathtar had appeared behind them and, roaring deafeningly, was busily taking the aliens apart. Chewbacca let out a series of short, clipped moans.

"No kidding!" Han yelled. "Come on!" Together, they raced for a side corridor.

As misdirected blasts smashed into the crawl space around them, tearing streaks in the metal and threatening to make it impossible to move across the overheating floor, Letha, Roman, Finn and Rey found themselves crawling for their lives.

"That was a mistake!" Finn howled, ignoring the pain in his hands and knees.

"Huge!" Letha agreed.

Above, Han nearly ran into one of the Guavians. Fleeing from the rathtar behind him while shooting at the monster, the Guavian never saw Han and Chewie—though he did make the acquaintance of Han's fist. He tried to bring his gun to bear on the new threat, only to be sent flying toward the rathtar by the strong arms of the Wookiee. One tentacle caught the unlucky gang member before he could hit the ground.

"Other direction," Han blurted. Chewie moaned while BB-8 beeped frantically. Finding instant agreement in three different languages, they took an accessway that was, for the moment at least, devoid of Guavians, Kanjis, and rathtars.

A tentative Roman flipped open a hatch and looked down the brightly lit corridor. Nothing. Turning, he looked in the other direction. Nothing. No evilly chattering Kanjiklub members, no heavily armed Guavians, and most important, no slobbering multi-limbed rathtars. He climbed out, giving Letha a hand up, and pointed.

"Falcon's this way!"

She hesitated. "You sure?"

"No! But we can't stay here and wait for Kanjiklubbers and Guavians. We've got to try something."

"Rey! Finn!" Letha called her new friends but they were far away from them, unable to hear her.

He was thankful but hardly surprised to see how easily she kept up with him as they raced for a far corner.

"These rathtars?" Letha was asking him. "What do they look like? I don't think I've ever seen one."

Rounding the corner, they were brought up short by the sight of surviving gang members doing battle with the subject of her query. It was enormous and round, covered in orange orbs, and composed mostly of tentacles and teeth. Raising one hand to her mouth, Letha caught her breath, horrified by the sight.

"They look like that." Roman reached over and took her arm. Back the way they had come, around another corner—only this time they didn't stop fast enough.

One tentacle whipped around Roman's waist, and moving with incredible speed for something so massive, the rathtar rushed off with the screaming trooper in its grasp.