Ella continued to climb. The numbness in her arm had left her immediately after her immersion in the cold waters of the sea. Her will to survive had given her new strength. She heaved herself hand over hand, finding footholds in the narrowest of fissures in the Marl tree's bark, up and up and up, putting as much distance as she could from the Farsalt ground at night.
For she knew she wouldn't be alone for long.
She had climbed a third of the way up, using the ladder-like vines to help her, and now she heaved herself onto the first of the Marl's great branches. She rolled onto her back and exhaled, her ribs and shoulders burning from the pain of the climb and from the strains of the day. Her breathing slowed. She could allow herself a little time to relax. Yes. She had time.
Probably.
She turned her head onto its side and gazed up at the mountain, some miles distant and through the fires that blazed between them amongst the Marl. What had happened up there? Had Tayre been hurt by her fall? Why had a single TIE attacked them like that? Nothing about it made any sense to her, least of all Colonel Arnaud's insistence that she, more than Tayre, be kept safe.
Unable to resist the weariness, her eyes fell shut, and she slept. She dreamed of a million worlds. It was unlike any dream she had experienced before. Each heartbeat offered grand vistas of planets, the details acute, even the smells and the feel of the ground beneath her feet or the wind on her face. Ocean worlds, desert worlds, worlds covered in trees and gas giants with hurricanes blowing continuously since before the founding of the Republic, a galaxy screaming with life, calling to her, warning her. Welcoming her too.
She woke in an instant, refreshed and renewed, the tiredness gone from her limbs and her mind clear, aware that she was in some sort of danger.
The fires were too far away to threaten her, and the wind coming in off the sea was blowing the flames away from her. No, it wasn't that.
But she felt it.
Ella peered over the branch and down the trunk.
It was moving. In the darkness, she could make out lumpen forms climbing toward her that made her shiver.
Desiccation slugs!
There were few more vile animals on Farsalt. Their slime would cause a near total paralysis in any human it came into contact with, and afterward they would suck all the moisture from your body over several days, keeping you alive throughout that time, using your own circulation to get the best meal they could make of you, forcing your heart to beat faster by injecting you with an agonising toxin from the razor sharp needles that lined their underbelly.
It was a hideous way to die.
She dropped her hand to her holster, to check the state of her blaster.
It was gone. She couldn't remember losing it, if it had fallen from her in the water or if had been ripped from her by a branch on her desperate flight from the TIE.
Ella realised she was in serious danger. No one knew where she was. She had no communicator after leaping from her speeder. She couldn't climb down, for the tree would be coated in the slime from the slugs. And there was no tree within reach that she could jump to.
Climb!
She had no choice. She stood immediately and heaved herself up, hoping that the slugs might not follow her if she got high enough, hoping that she could hold them off until daylight and attract attention from the top of the Marl.
She felt her way upward in the darkness. Several times her foot slipped from the bark and her leg was burned against the tree as she struggled to keep herself from falling.
Bleeding, Ella climbed toward the smaller branches that marked the crown of the tree. Happy with her progress, and finding a wide branch to stand upon, she cast a look below her.
The slugs were still climbing too. But in the smaller branches, they would not be so quick. She took a deep breath and reached up, eager to gain the height. Her hand closed around the branch, but a warm dampness greeted her skin as she made contact.
"Urgh!"
She withdrew her hand and wiped it clean on her leggings, smelling it as she did so.
Ella froze. She had thought it was sap. But it wasn't. It didn't smell like any sap from a Marl tree.
It was slime.
And if it was above her, then that meant–
The slug dropped from the darkness, its long shape curling in preparation to strike her. Ella turned her back toward it, to offer her cloak to its rows of tiny sharp teeth rather than try to block it with her bare hands.
It hit her with a surprising force, its metre long body clinging to the cloak in the small of her back. She felt its undulating strength as it started to climb toward her face.
Ella tore at her collar and undid the clasp around her throat. The cloak dropped, given weight by the slug.
With a grimace, she kicked it off the branch and into the nearest of the slugs below her. Several where knocked from the tree by the falling garment, but there were still dozens more.
Ella looked up. The branch above was dripping with slime. She couldn't climb that way.
That left only one alternative. She would have to jump across and grab another branch, some distance away.
She took deep breaths and stretched her limbs, concentrating on the limb she needed to reach.
Doubt assailed her. She made to jump, only to stop at the last moment, nearly unbalancing herself from her hesitancy.
The first of the slugs crawled off the trunk and onto her branch. Ella lashed out at it with her foot, but the rubbery body of the thing shielded it from her blows. Behind it, more were following.
There was no more putting it off now.
She would have to jump.
With an angry scream she tensed her muscles and leapt, her hands outstretched above her.
Rough bark greeted her palms as she made the leap, but she knew she couldn't hesitate again. She kicked out at the trunk and heaved herself up at the same time, allowing her to loop her boot around the branch above.
Her jump had confused the slugs. She watched as they searched the branch and seemed to sniff at the air. She hoped she had broken her trail.
Now she just had to make the most of it. She started to climb once more, ignoring the pain in her hands and the bruising agonies on her legs.
She had gained several metres when a loud slap sounded below her. Glancing down, she saw the trunk below her covered with slime.
On the branches farther down, she saw the slugs. One of them reared up and made a sudden jerk forward.
A spit of slime flew across the distance between them. It hit the trunk directly below her with a similar slapping sound.
Another slug reared up, in preparation to spit.
Ella climbed, frantically, desperate to make herself as small a target as possible for the paralysing ooze, aware that even the highest branch in the tree might offer her no protection from the slugs projectile spit.
But there was nowhere else to go.
She gained the top of the marl tree and stood atop the tallest branch. Below her, through the purple canopy, she could make out the vague shadows as the slugs continued to pursue her.
And the spitting was increasing too. And gradually, she noticed, it was getting ever closer.
For a minute she stood in silence, her legs wrapped around the branch, but as the spit from the slugs neared, she wavered.
Ella cried. She had done all she could but the galaxy had condemned her to a hideous death. She had tried to fight, tried to save her friends, stood up for what she believed was right.
And this was her reward.
"It's not fair!" she shrieked suddenly. "It's not!"
Her tirade drew the aim of the slugs. Three spits streaked toward her, only narrowly missing.
She wept. She had run out of time. Soon, one of the streaks would hit her and she would slowly succumb to paralysis. Perhaps she would fall out of the tree to her death? Perhaps the slugs would manage to climb up and consume her?
But there was no escape.
She closed her eyes and let the tears fall.
A damp wisp drifted over her cheek. It wasn't how she imagined the slime would feel, but she no longer cared.
A second tendril teased her ear, prompting Ella to open her eyes and to look.
Old Moss drifted directly above her. She felt his gaze upon her.
In an instant, her despair at the galaxy surged to hope.
"Old Moss!" she cried in jubilation.
Old Moss came closer. The giant floating herbivore was only several metres above her now, and the algae that grew upon his face draped all around her.
She decided to act. Quickly, she seized the thickest of the plant tendrils and climbed, securing herself with her feet to prevent herself from slipping back. If Old Moss was discomforted by her presence, he showed no outward sign of it, and very slowly he gained height. Finally, when she reached his clifflike lip and lay flat on her back next to his nose, she dared to look down once more.
The marl tree was three hundred metres below her, and the slugs were lost in the darkness of the Farsalt night.
Ella touched his nose and put her forehead against his thick skin.
"Thank you, Old Moss. You have saved me. Thank you."
With that, she lay flat on her back, closed her eyes, and slept.
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More horrible creatures of the Star Wars universe - the dessication slugs are pretty foul things indeed. Ella breaks down in this chapter, faced with a hideous death and the loss of her friends she finds it all too much and gives in to despair. In the circumstances this might not be unexpected: she's utterly exhausted, cold and hungry, and is being hunted by poisonous animals. Things probably appear on the grim side. Indeed, good characters have to be forced to breaking point, morally, intellectually, and physically: and it's how they come through it that makes good drama - do they get beaten and make the moral compromise, or somehow renew their beliefs and crack on with more determination than before?