The Old Republic Series

by Sean Williams

  “Idiot,” Teff’ith said with a shake of her head, turning away from him and heading toward the shuttle.

  “One more step and I ventilate your pretty little skull, Sunshine.”

  She turned around slowly to see Gorvich had drawn his blaster and was pointing it right at her.

  “Saved your life on Nar Shaddaa,” she hissed.

  “That’s why I didn’t shoot you in the back,” he admitted. “But I don’t like being played. So stop holding out and tell me what’s really going on.”

  Teff’ith bit her lip, trying to find a way to talk herself out of this without having to cut Gorvich in on her side deal. In the end, she couldn’t do it.

  “Theron offered ten thousand credits to deliver message to Coruscant. Gotta take fancy shuttle to get there in time.”

  “Ten thousand credits, huh?” Gorvich lowered his blaster, though he didn’t put it away.

  “Cut you in for three,” Teff’ith said.

  “Hold on a second, Sunshine,” he said, holding up his free hand. “You really believe you’re going to get ten thousand credits just to deliver a message to Coruscant? You’re dreaming.”

  “Deal’s good,” she insisted, not wanting to get into the details.

  “You don’t think Coruscant customs has access to the Prosperity’s records? They’ll toss you in jail for theft the second you touch down.”

  Teff’ith hadn’t considered that. Hopefully she’d be able to convince the authorities that she really did have an urgent message for Grand Master Satele Shan.

  “Hah, didn’t think of that, did you?” Gorvich gloated, recognizing the reason for her silence. “See, that’s why you need me around watching out for you.”

  “Worth the risk,” Teff’ith argued. “Ten thousand credits too good to pass up.”

  “If he pays you. He already owes us another twenty on credit. And remember how he renegotiated the original deal? He says ten now, but when it comes time to pay who knows how much he’ll actually be willing to fork over. Maybe zero.”

  “Won’t be zero,” Teff’ith grumbled.

  “Even if he comes through with the ten he promised and the twenty he already owes us, I’ve got a better deal for you,” Gorvich said. “Forget about the message. We sell the Prosperity and split the profit. We both come out way ahead in that game.”

  Teff’ith wasn’t surprised by Gorvich’s plan; he was a despicable man with no honor. But he knew how to turn a profit. And everything he’d said about Theron was true—Theron had reneged on the original deal. And even if she delivered the message and he didn’t double-cross her, there was a good chance whatever crazy plan he was trying to pull off wouldn’t work. If he was killed or captured by the Sith, she could kiss her credits good-bye.

  “Well, Sunshine, what’s it going to be?”

  “How much we get for the shuttle?”

  “Fifty thousand, easy. Plus I’ve still got your cut of the thirty I stashed away.”

  If she tried to help Theron, Gorvich might just shoot her where she stood. Even if she tricked or overpowered him, her days with the Old Tion Brotherhood would be over. And there was a good chance she might not get paid anyway.

  Or she could abandon Theron, keep working with Gorvich, and continue climbing the ranks of the Brotherhood while making an easy forty thousand credits.

  “Good money, Sunshine,” Gorvich prodded. “Enough to ease any guilt about betraying a friend.”

  And how long till you betray us?

  Teff’ith sprang into action, hoping to catch Gorvich off guard as he waited for her answer. He was standing three steps away from her, his gun still pointed casually at the ground. Her first step was free. On her second his eyes went wide with the realization of what was happening. On the third he was bringing the gun up, but he only got it halfway before she knocked it out of his hand with a spinning back kick. She followed it up with a jumping front kick, swinging her foot as hard as she could and catching him right between the legs. Gorvich collapsed on the ground, curled up in the fetal position, groaning softly.

  Teff’ith scooped up his fallen pistol, pointed it at him, then decided not to pull the trigger. Instead, she tucked it into her belt and raced over to the shuttle. She punched in the access code and the Prosperity’s boarding ramp descended with a soft hiss from the pressurized cabin. She ran up it, turning to glance back at Gorvich.

  He was still on the floor, but he was crawling toward the ship. He met her eye with a hate-filled gaze. Something in that look made Teff’ith realize he wasn’t done yet. Reacting on pure instinct, she threw herself back and to the side, grabbing one of the boarding ramp’s struts to keep from falling off. At the same time, Gorvich’s hand flickered, dropping to the sharpened blade he kept strapped to his thigh and hurling it in her direction with a single, well-practiced motion almost too quick for the eye to follow.

  The blade buried itself deep in Teff’ith’s shoulder, almost knocking her off the boarding ramp. Using the strut for leverage, she hauled herself into the ship and hit the button to close the boarding ramp behind her, acutely aware that if she hadn’t tried to get out of the way the blade now protruding from her shoulder would have buried itself deep in her back. Ignoring her injury, she rushed to the cockpit, fired up the engine, sent the signal to open the hangar doors, and took to the air.

  Back on the ground Gorvich crawled over to the control panel and hauled himself up, slamming the button to close the hangar doors with his fist.

  Teff’ith saw the hangar doors stop at halfway open, then slowly start to close again. She gritted her teeth, yanked back hard on the control stick to send the ship hurtling forward, and braced for impact.

  The Prosperity’s hull, like everything else about the vessel, was top-of-the-line. The multiple layers of durasteel plating and the reinforced frame struck the hangar’s doors and wrenched them off their hinges, sending them flying as the thrusters powered the ship on through and up into the sky.

  Climbing toward the upper atmosphere, Teff’ith felt a subtle shimmy in the shuttle’s formerly velvet-smooth ride, but checking the ship’s instrument panel showed no significant damage. A few minutes later she was far enough away from the planet’s gravitational field to engage the hyperspace drive and activate the advanced autopilot to take her to Coruscant.

  Only then did she tend to her wounded shoulder, digging out the medkit from beneath the pilot’s seat. She inspected the blade, making sure she wouldn’t bleed out if she pulled it free. Fortunately it had struck muscle and bone rather than a major artery, and she was able to remove it without any real difficulty … though doing so made her tilt her head back and scream.

  Blocking out the pain, she treated and dressed the wound with the efficiency of one all too familiar with administering back-alley medicine. She inspected her work one final time before taking a pair of kolto-filled hypodermics and jabbing them into her thigh.

  The pain disappeared almost instantly, and she felt a pleasant warmth spreading through her. She shifted in her seat and the chair responded by automatically adjusting itself to her new position, enveloping her in luxurious comfort.

  She turned her head to the side and saw Ngani Zho once again sitting in the seat beside her.

  “I’m proud of you, my girl. For sparing Gorvich, and for making the right choice.”

  “Now maybe stupid Jedi leave us alone,” she murmured, her words trailing off into a soft snore.

  “I have the latest casualty estimates for tomorrow’s attack on Duro,” the Director said.

  “Do you really think I want to see them?” Jace asked. The Supreme Commander was slumped in the chair behind his desk, his hand clutching an empty glass. He leaned forward and grabbed the long neck of the half-full bottle in front of him and refilled his drink for what Marcus guessed wasn’t the first time this evening.

  “The extra patrols you’re sending help. Not much, but a little.”

  “We save a few hundred,” Jace grunted bitterly. “But we still sacri
fice thousands.”

  “We could try to come up with an excuse to have an actual fleet orbiting the planet,” the Director suggested. “Make up some honor to give to one of Duro’s citizens. Have the ships there as part of the celebration.”

  “Imagine you’re the Imperial Minister of Logistics,” Jace said, his words clear despite the alcohol he’d consumed. “What would you think if you found a ceremonial fleet stationed at Duro when you launched your surprise attack? Would you believe it was just coincidence?”

  The Director sighed. “No. I’d think the cipher codes had been compromised.”

  Jace raised his drink in a silent toast to his honesty, then downed it in a single gulp.

  “Grab yourself a glass,” he said, nodding over to the bar in the corner as he refilled his own.

  The Director did just that before sitting in one of the chairs on the opposite side of the Supreme Commander’s desk. Jace held the bottle up and Marcus extended his glass.

  “You think Theron’s going to follow through on the mission?” Jace asked as he poured.

  Marcus drained half his drink before answering, “He’s my best agent.”

  “You used to say he was ‘one of the best,’ ” Jace noted.

  “I upgraded him after he brought back the black cipher.”

  “What about Gnost-Dural? He’s a Jedi.” Jace emptied his glass again. “They’re not always great at following orders that don’t fit their understanding of the universe.”

  “I think he’s smart enough to understand why we had to do this. And aborting the mission doesn’t help Duro.”

  “So you think they’ll go forward?”

  “I think so. They both care too much about the Republic to let this go off the rails.”

  “And after this is over—after we bring down the Spear and finally put an end to this blasted war—you think Theron will ever forgive me?”

  The Director didn’t answer; instead he just drained what was left of his drink.

  “Do you support my decision?” Jace wanted to know.

  “I do,” Marcus said. “It’s the right call. Don’t know if I could have made it, though. And I don’t know how either of us is supposed to live with it.”

  Jace grabbed the bottle and refilled their glasses.

  “Making a decision like this is brutal,” the Supreme Commander agreed. “But living with it is worse.”

  CHAPTER 26

  HUNCHED OVER ONE OF THE MANY computer relay panels in the Ascendant Spear’s engine room, Theron wiped the sweat away from his brow before it ran down and stung his eyes. With the help of his slicer spike, he tapped into the panel and ran a diagnostic search to map out the various systems it was connected to.

  Theron had been hiding in the engine room ever since the Spear left Reaver Station. He had no way to get off the vessel until it docked again short of stealing an escape pod, which would trigger an emergency alarm and get him blasted out of existence. Fortunately, the hours he’d been stuck on the narrow walkway in the sweltering, reeking engine room had actually proved beneficial. Realizing he wasn’t going anywhere soon, Theron had spent his time trying to get a better understanding of the vessel’s inner workings.

  Mapping each relay individually was a simple but time-consuming process—one he’d already repeated over a dozen times. But the grueling work was the key to piecing together a complete picture of the Spear’s control systems. There was no single central network connecting everything; each system was controlled independently, linked to several different relays that could allow functionality to be rerouted through multiple pathways if something went wrong.

  His exploration of the engine room was proving to be simultaneously exhausting, fascinating, and disheartening. The complexity of the ship was mind boggling. It was the crowning achievement of Darth Mekhis’s experimental weapons program. SIS had long suspected that there was some kind of link between the vessel itself and whoever was in command; Mekhis had specialized in combining biology and cybernetics. But the full scope of the symbiotic relationship went far beyond anything they had theorized.

  Whenever Theron sliced into a computer terminal, his cybernetic implants allowed him to interface directly with the network. But there was still a wall of separation, a clear distinction between user and device. Mekhis had found a way to tear down that wall; when Karrid was in command of the Spear the ship became part of her … or maybe she became part of the ship. They were inseparable. The connection gave her the ability to read and react almost instantly during a battle, the Spear’s sensors relaying information directly into her awareness, then responding immediately to her commands.

  It also gave her a heightened awareness of everything that was happening with the vessel’s systems while she was linked to the ship. Theron would have to be extremely cautious with anything he did, taking extra care to use a light touch so Karrid wouldn’t sense his presence. And he realized the original plan of planting a dormant virus probably wouldn’t work.

  Even if Karrid didn’t notice the intrusion, the Spear had multiple layers of safeguards and redundancies that would quickly isolate and disable the virus, the relays cutting off the malware as they rerouted the damaged functions through a new path.

  The only hope of effectively sabotaging the vessel was for Theron to be actively slicing the system while the Spear was in battle, shifting and switching his electronic attacks to stay a step ahead of the vessel’s security protocols. The dilemma of how he was supposed to actually get off the ship if he was actively sabotaging it in the middle of a battle was something he tried not to worry about for the moment.

  On the plus side, the Spear’s unique design allowed Theron’s own cybernetic implants to operate at peak efficiency while he was plugged into the ship, giving him a level of access unlike anything he’d experienced before. He’d already managed to patch into the ship’s internal communications, allowing the implant in his ear to receive all their transmissions.

  “Red Patrol checking in,” a voice chimed in his ear. “E Deck is clear. Proceeding to F Deck.”

  Theron sighed and disconnected his slicer spike from the panel. He stood up straight, stretching to ease a crick in his back.

  Tapping into the comm systems had allowed him to follow the progress of the security patrols Karrid had dispatched once she realized the Republic fleet hadn’t really existed. Theron had been tracking them closely as they systematically worked their way through each level of the vessel wing by wing. He hated to interrupt his work, but it was time to move if he didn’t want to be discovered.

  He went to the durasteel maintenance hatch and slowly turned the wheel to open it. There was a sharp clink as the hatch popped free, and a soft squeak from the hinges as it swung open. Theron poked his head out into the corridor, not expecting to see anyone but also not willing to take any chances. His only weapon was the blaster he had tucked in the holster of his uniform, but he had no intention of firing it after bending the barrel prying open the engine room’s security hatch.

  Fortunately the hall was deserted, so he climbed out and closed the hatch behind him, trying not to make any noise. He worked his way down the hall, listening intently for the footsteps of anyone approaching. It wasn’t likely he would run into anybody; G Deck consisted primarily of the engine room and, way on the opposite end, the Spear’s private command chamber. Apart from the security sweep, nobody had any reason to be on the level. Even Karrid wouldn’t venture down unless the Spear was about to go into battle.

  Two turbolifts—one near the engine room at the stern, the other near the command chamber at the bow—were the only ways to access the lowest level of the ship. Theron knew the security patrols worked from stern to bow, so he carefully made his way toward the stern, away from the lift he had taken when he first boarded the vessel.

  Because of the size and irregular shape of the ion and hypermatter drives, the two sides of G Deck weren’t connected by a single straight corridor. The hall twisted and turned. At each bend, Theron p
aused and peeked around the corner, knowing if he was discovered he would have a hard time explaining his presence. After several minutes of careful skulking, he finally reached the turbolift near the front of the vessel. The hall continued another thirty meters before finally terminating in a large, sealed door.

  Theron knew the Spear’s command chamber lay beyond, but he resisted the urge to go investigate. The engine room was where he could do the most damage; no point in risking exposure by snooping around just to satisfy his curiosity. He hit the panel on the turbolift, contemplating his next move as he waited for it to arrive. In his ear he could hear the progress of the security team as they reported back each time they cleared another section of the deck above him.

  Theron considered heading up to the crew quarters on C Deck. He could look for an untended cabin where he could switch his grubby uniform for fresh clothes, leaving him less likely to draw attention if he needed to move around the ship. He might even get a chance to swap his blaster for one that worked. But whoever’s uniform and weapon he borrowed was likely to notice if one or the other was missing, and that could reinforce suspicions about a stowaway on board. The last thing he needed to worry about was another round of security sweeps.

  When the turbolift arrived, he realized he’d have more luck going to the laundry on E Deck. He could also try to sneak something to eat from the nearby food prep areas in the galley kitchens, and his sweaty, shoddy appearance was less likely to draw attention among crew who spent their days working around steam-belching laundry machines, smoking ovens, and splattering pots and cauldrons. Hitting the button, he took several deep breaths to get into character, mentally throwing together a number of potential excuses and explanations in case anyone caught him helping himself to a uniform or stealing some extra food.