Something moved. Obi-Wan couldn’t see it, or hear it-hefelt it, a displacement of the air around them, a perturbation in the Force.

"I don’t think we’re alone, " he said.

Jesson reached for the three-sectioned staff slung across his back. The sections were of clear crystal or acrylic, connected by short lengths of chain. A club and a flail in one, Obi-Wan thought. He hoped the X’Ting used it superbly.

"That door, " Jesson said, indicating an opening on the far side of the room. This room, like the one above it, had a concave wall, but less sharply angled.

"Let us make our way there, " Obi-Wan said. "Swiftly. But I suspect that that is where our company awaits. "

Jesson’s lips pulled back from his teeth, displaying small, sharp, multiple rows. Obi-Wan would not care to have his arm caught in those jaws. "Let them come, " the X’Ting said.

Step by step they progressed across the floor. They were almost to the doorway when the air’s scent changed. Just a bit, a nose-wrinkling aroma drifting to them on the weakest of breezes. Something that dried tongue and throat, an acid tang reminiscent of stomach gases. Before he could consciously identify the smell, the first glowing eyes appeared.

Glittering. Faceted, blinking at them from the darkness.

Then they were under attack.

Jesson dropped his lamp almost at once, and although it didn’t extinguish on hitting the ground, the light it gave was slanted and partial. The sparkle of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber was more brilliant, increasing with the hum and flash when he met an opponent’s weapon or body.

These were X’Ting-the Jedi was sure of that-but X’Ting of a different variety than those he had seen until now. These were not specialized for combat: they were diggers, workers.

The oversize jaws implied that they might have been the ones who produced the chewed substance that characterized the hive.

Most of them carried hefty metal pry bars. Weapons? Tools? For whatever purpose they had originally been intended, the bars would crack any bone they struck.

There was no more time for thought. The song of Obi-Wan’s lightsaber was long and sour.

X’Ting diggers fell before him like scythed grain. They hissed and came on, howling.

Obi-Wan measured his response, allowing them to come to him, then taking the aggressive posture when advantageous. Ferociously fast, the cannibal X’Ting attacked in a frightening wave, simply wading in swinging their metal bars, trusting in numbers to carry the day.

Against a Jedi, that was not enough.