by Kathy Tyers
“That should not affect the catchment function. Are you ready to try funneling this human’s energies into a battle droid?”
“I’ll try.” The next best thing to entechment might be granting that gift to someone else. Dev shut his eyes and reached down past the discomfort for his center of control. Deeply and humbly aware of his limitations, he flailed through the Force toward the other human presence. It seemed like forever before he touched and embraced it. Letting the catchment circuitry pull through him, he used the Force to suck its energy into himself. For an instant, he felt huge and heavy. Twice as much pain pulsated in his nerves. Then the extra weight vanished. Panting, he opened his eyes wide. The prisoner lay limp on the deck.
Admiral Ivpikkis stroked one foreclaw with the other. “Deck Sixteen?” he called.
From the bulkhead came the words Dev longed to hear. “It works.” Ssi-ruuk, P’w’ecks, and Dev cheered with equal enthusiasm.
“The next test,” Firwirrung sang softly, “is whether we can force Skywalker to do our will, not his own. He is a far stronger Force user than our Dev, if Dev is correct in his reckoning.”
“He’d better be.” Bluescale appeared to climb down the bulkhead/deck toward him. Dev’s right hand clenched involuntarily as the huge blue head bent close. The eye swirled. He fell in.
Then, to his surprise, Bluescale stepped back. “Try it,” he whistled.
Firwirrung climbed down the bulkhead and held out a three-pronged knife used to declaw the small meat lizards they called Fft. He pressed its handle into Dev’s free right hand.
“Yes?” Dev felt no fear, only curiosity.
“Stab it through your other palm.”
What could be more reasonable? He struggled to twist his body against the waist restraint, positioned the Fft knife, and drove it as deeply as he could. Bone crunched. Red human blood welled out along the blade. There was pain.
“Leave it there,” said Firwirrung.
Dev rolled back into the ready position and waited for his next command.
“Right arm.”
Dev snapped his free hand into place.
Firwirrung pulled the knife out of Dev’s palm, wiped it clean on Dev’s robe, then slapped a piece of synthflesh—probably from a captured Imperial medpack—against each side of Dev’s wounded hand. Then he swiveled his head back uphill to Admiral Ivpikkis. “Do you think it will work on Skywalker?” asked Ivpikkis.
“We have no reason to believe otherwise. The will for self-preservation is strong in all humans, and you saw how completely we overrode Dev’s. The final test and most vital, of course, is how long a subject can remain alive in this state. We have only time for a brief simulation, but several hours should be sufficient for any degradation of life signs to begin.”
Admiral Ivpikkis twitched his tail and peered across at the bulkhead panel, then down at Dev. Dev managed a smile. Bluescale followed the admiral out. Firwirrung ordered one P’w’eck to remove the human corpse and the other to remain with Dev. “Alert me if any numbers change.” He rapped the bulkhead panel with his curled foreclaw.
Then he swept out.
Several hours. Lying here, so close to genuine entechment.
So uncomfortable. His nose itched, and he couldn’t scratch it. No one had told him to. His hand throbbed hard enough to help him ignore the deep ache throughout his body. To pass time, he recited poetry he’d learned as a child. Mentally he translated it into Ssi-ruuvi, then pictured it in his special Ssi-ruuvi alphabet.
Too soon, he ran out of poetry. His eyes felt as if they would fall through his brain and his skull into the catchment circuitry. Poor Skywalker: doomed, like Dev, to survive without winning his own battle droid. Doomed by the same abilities.
Dev sighed and started counting pulse beats by the throbs in his left hand.
He lost track between four and five thousand. More time passed. The discomfort had long ago intensified to pain, and Firwirrung had not returned to check on him. Hurt and bewildered, he started counting again.
He still couldn’t scratch his nose. No one had told him to—
Do it yourself, bonehead! Now that he could try, the inability to reach it maddened him. Why hadn’t Firwirrung stayed? This was cruelty. Maybe if he held his breath long enough, he’d pass out and the dull-witted P’w’eck would notice a change in life signs. He inhaled until the waist restraint cut into him, then trickled it out. Empty, he closed his throat and held on.
An intense electric shock jabbed across the arc between left and right wristbinders. He inhaled involuntarily.
He’d suggested that mechanism. Irritated, he tried to pull his right hand free. He pressed his thumb against his smallest finger and wrenched his palm into the soft binder. Not far enough. He kept pulling. Three hundred heartbeats later, he gave up. He rested. He tried again.
The hatch whooshed. Startled, Dev thrust his wrist back through the three millimeters he’d managed. Firwirrung entered first. Without even glancing at Dev, he stalked past the P’w’eck guard toward the bulkhead panel. Bluescale led another P’w’eck, who dragged a second prisoner.
“Excellent.” Firwirrung turned around. “All life signs steady. Describe the sensation now, Dev.”
“I hurt,” he said thickly.
Bluescale blinked and stomped close enough that Dev smelled him. “Legs, too?”
He pulled his ankles deeper into their bonds. “They move again. But they hurt. They’re too heavy.”
“Ah.” Firwirrung examined a readout and hissed contentment. “Neuromuscular control returned in two and seven-twelfths hours, precisely on schedule. This is excellent.”
Dev swallowed hard. “It hurts,” he repeated in a cracking voice.
“That should not affect the catchment function. Entech this woman for us, Dev.”
“You’re not listening.” Dev compressed his lips. “It hurts.”
“Hurts?” mocked Bluescale. The alien turned slightly. Abruptly recognizing the posture, Dev winced and braced himself. A muscular tail slapped his legs so hard Dev saw stars. “Good,” Bluescale sang. “We need you unwilling, human.”
Firwirrung moved toward him, carrying an oddly shaped hypospray. “You’re right,” he sang back to Bluescale. “Surely the Jedi will not cooperate. Now that our war effort depends on fail-safes for controlling Skywalker, we’ll try this … instead of your talents. Then the victory of our people will not depend on the survival of any one of us.”
“It could kill him.” The tip of Bluescale’s tail twitched threateningly.
“It will either kill him or force him to obey. How much better to maintain professional objectivity on this less valuable subject.”
Less valuable? Master, what are you saying? Panic-stricken, Dev tried to writhe away from the hypospray. It burned his thigh for a moment. He waited. Then—
“Entech that woman,” ordered Firwirrung.
Dev blinked. What else were humans good for? He stretched out for her. As her essence plunged through him, there was more pain. He heard a scream. A male scream that hurt his throat. Then he opened his eyes again, awaiting orders.
Bluescale pulled the Fft knife from his shoulder pouch. Firwirrung honked. “Not necessary,” he said. “I’d like to leave him there for several days, to test the other life-support functions—”
“But you heard the admiral,” Bluescale sang wryly through his nose. “They want to begin on Skywalker immediately.”
Several days? Dev trembled and clenched his hands. The left one felt seared. He’d probably chipped bones and sliced tendons.
Firwirrung’s scent tongues flicked. “How they stink when they’re afraid.”
“They almost behave intelligently at times. Wouldn’t it be odd if they had souls, when our P’w’ecks do not?”
“Not a chance.” Firwirrung’s callousness appalled Dev. “Finish it.”
“Look at me,” ordered Bluescale. The eye was black and lovely and rounded, and it swirled.…
His hand ached unbelieva
bly. As his foggy brain recognized the sensations of a fresh but partial renewal, Master Firwirrung released the last wrist restraint on the shining new bed. Blinking, Dev tried to stand upright. He tottered between two P’w’ecks, fighting a strange inexplicable weakness. Something smelled bad. Human. He sniffed himself. Phew.
“Did it go well?” he asked Firwirrung. Talking hurt his throat. “Why … renewal, why now?”
“Ah, Dev.” Firwirrung stroked his arm with an open foreclaw. “It would make you too sad, to remember coming so close to entechment and being denied the joy.”
Their kindness and forethought overwhelmed him. “But it worked? Did I give him his battle droid?”
Firwirrung wrapped a foreclaw around Dev’s head and pulled it against his scaly chest. “It worked. Now we lack only one thing.”
“Skywalker,” Dev whispered.
Firwirrung shoved him away affectionately. “Please go bathe, human.”
CHAPTER
13
Governor Wilek Nereus marched into the operations room of his suite, firmly controlling a sense of anticipation. Ceiling, bare walls, flooring and furniture were black in the Ops Room for the easier viewing of projections. At the short black conference table, standing across from Commander Thanas and beside the fraudulent “General” Solo, he found Commander Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight, self-assured in his invulnerability.
“Is everything going well, gentlemen?” Nereus took the repulsor chair at the table’s head and waved his bodyguards back. The others sat down.
Commander Thanas looked appropriately serious for a man whose career rested on Nereus’s next biannual report. He was probably eager to redeem himself from the Alzoc blot on his record. “All fighters are repaired,” said Thanas. “The crews stand ready for our signal.”
That attack would not come, if the Ssi-ruuk kept their word—not that Nereus expected them to. If they took Skywalker and attacked anyway, he and Commander Thanas had brought onto line a new weapon that should take a heavy toll on battle droids. “What about that new ship-mounted, ah …”
“DEMP gun,” Thanas prompted him. Obviously caught unaware, Skywalker glanced over at Thanas and then down to his smuggler friend. “It disables droids at some distance using electromagnetic pulse,” Thanas explained. “We’ve installed two prototype super-DEMPs on system patrol craft, but they’re untested.”
Solo immediately requested DEMP guns for Rebel gunboats. Nereus stroked his chin and let Commander Thanas explain that no others existed. While they sparred, he slid a miniature medisensor out of his belt pocket, laid it on the glossy tabletop, and aimed it at Skywalker.
Concern, not remorse, made him frown. All readings indicated near-perfect health. The man had allegedly ingested a five-year-old egg pod without knowing it. Nereus needed to make certain the eggs had been viable, and quickly—but a complete medical scan would rouse Skywalker’s suspicion, and the Jedi’s ignorance was a critical factor to success.
A holographic projector whirred up to table level, creating an image midtable between Skywalker and Thanas. Surrounding a pale blue sphere, silver and gold ship dots mapped out Bakura’s defensive web. Farther out, the red Ssi-ruuk glimmered.
“You people use red for threat, too,” Solo observed.
“Probably standard wherever people bleed red,” Skywalker said softly.
Oh yes, they bleed red. Nereus smiled beneficence and leaned back, quietly touching keys on his recessed board and contacting his medical department.
Fifteen minutes later, the others were still talking strategy when his medtechs patched the complex medstation’s powerful main sensors to his handheld model, which still lay on the table. He used directional keys on his touchboard to focus a smaller zone between Skywalker’s belt and collarbone.…
Two minuscule fourteen-hour larvae squirmed in the left bronchial passage. Primitive circulatory systems pumped for dear life.
There’d been three eggs in the pod, but one Olabrian Trichoid larva was deadly. Any good alien parasitologist knew that.
Solo, who’d pitched insults at both sides for two hours, finally objected with a straight face. “Commander Thanas, there’s one thing about this I don’t like. Look.” He waved at the projected complete maneuver. “Go back three steps,” he ordered the programming circuit. Ship dots swirled backward. “There,” he said. “Stop. Do you see? You’ve—”
Nereus cleared his private screen. Solo paused. Skywalker nudged him to continue.
“You’ve got Alliance fighting pairs at every point of maximum risk,” Solo insisted. “Your projection isn’t showing losses by subgroup. If you fed those in, there’d be a lot less silver dots in the ‘completion’ frame. I don’t like that.”
Perhaps the smuggler had some grasp of tactics after all, Nereus observed. Commander Thanas, who’d been fidgeting with his souvenir pocket knife, dropped it into a breast pocket and said, “Commander Skywalker suggested I consider your forces my own. If those were my fighters, that’s how I’d deploy them to minimize overall losses.” He keyed his console. “Show phase four, with projected losses.” The pattern changed. “Now I’ll program a switch of squadrons to replace half of those key positions with regulars. Fair enough, General?”
Solo spread his hands.
“There.” Commander Thanas touched a key. “Phase four, projected losses, with squadrons switched.”
A significant number of specks extinguished, both Imperial and Alliance.
Skywalker exhaled easily. The cough would probably come in four to six hours, depending on his general physical condition—about two hours before massive thoracic hemorrhaging. “Convinced, General Solo?”
“I suppose.”
Skywalker folded his hands on the table. “I think we can confirm it. Alliance forces will spearhead each thrust. We’ll break the blockade and cut off that cruiser for you to en-globe. Destroy one cruiser and we might change their minds. Destroy two …” He trailed off. “Well, we’ll see what they actually throw at us.
“One more question.” Skywalker addressed Commander Thanas. “If the Ssi-ruuk go on waiting for us, how long do we keep them waiting?”
Nereus cleared his throat for attention. “Tomorrow evening,” he said. By then, young Jedi, you’ll be dead.
“I’d like to move sooner,” Thanas said carefully. “The element of surprise will work in favor of the attacking—”
“Tomorrow evening,” Nereus repeated. Commander Thanas would have to redeem himself according to Nereus’s plan, not his own wishes. The whole plan … or become a slave miner himself. Nereus would make that clear when they met privately tonight.
“Very well,” said Thanas. “Commander Skywalker. General Solo. Until tomorrow.”
Nereus shook hands all around, keeping his gloves on. Larvae weren’t transmissible at this stage, but the very idea nauseated him. Olabrian Trichoids used almost all higher animals as breeding hosts. He’d tried infecting the Ssi-ruuk already, but apparently they destroyed enteched prisoners’ bodies immediately. Skywalker, he guessed, might be kept around long enough to nurse a brood of the large, voracious adults—which emerged from a brief pupation already fertile. If the Ssi-ruuk didn’t take Skywalker offplanet, of course, he’d have to be destroyed tonight. He might even volunteer, to head off a planetwide infestation. Young idealism sacrificed itself so nobly.
But Skywalker would almost certainly pass through Pad 12 at least once in the next eight hours.
Luke felt Governor Nereus’s stare follow as he and Han strode out of the Ops Room. Nereus expected never to see him again.
Once they passed the first corner, Han muttered, “You have got to be kidding, trusting those people.”
Luke answered out one side of his mouth. “Reconsider Commander Thanas.”
“Oh?” Han raised one eyebrow, then turned his head aside to stare down a corridor.
Good. They’d both better stay jumpy. “Straightforward,” said Luke. “Wants to do a good job and is glad for help. He’s not
Nereus’s man.”
“Empire’s man.”
“Mm.”
“Do you like Thanas because he complimented you in there?” Han suggested.
Luke smiled. “No. But that was refreshing.”
“Compliments from an Imperial. Right.”
They slowed at the edge of a wide lobby. Luke reached out through the Force. No one waited there. Han kept one hand near his blaster as they hurried across.
Once they left the Imperial Offices corridor, Han frowned. “Is it my imagination,” he asked, “or are you being just a little more careful than yesterday?”
“I had word from an inside source that Governor Nereus plans to hand me to the Ssi-ruuk. Did you notice that he got a message or something during that session?”
“Yeah,” said Han. “Finally going to be careful, uh?”
“I’ve been careful.” Luke’s exasperation didn’t distract him from watching shadows. “And is it my imagination,” he came back, “or are you just a little more pleased with yourself?”
Han paused in midstep. “What is this? I suppose you’re going to ask my intentions toward your sister.”
Luke took a careful look around, then dropped his guard and smiled at Han. “I know what your intentions are, friend. She needs you. Just don’t let her down.”
Han’s crooked smile shone like an asteroid beacon. “Not on your life.”
Luke clapped his shoulder. All they’d been through had already bonded them like brothers. Now, this—
Following footsteps snapped him back to attention. He slipped behind a pillar and unhooked his saber. Han slid in beside him.
Three sets of footfalls approached. Luke stayed in his cover. Han raised an eyebrow. Luke shook his head. He moved around the pillar, staying behind it as the trio passed: Nereus, followed by a pair of stormtrooper bodyguards.
