THE BLACK FLEET CRISIS #3 - TYRANTS_TEST
Page 19
"Tarrick. What are you doing here?"
"There's someone here--back at the gate, actually-who I thought you
might want to see. He came to the office early this afternoon sounding
like a typical hem-tugger, and we sent him out on the usual off-list
runaround. He came back," said Tarrick. "But the second time, he got
to the point. We sent him down to see the moles. When Collomus and
his people were done talking to him, we all agreed you should hear what
he has to say."
Leia stood, brushing the dirt from her hands.
"Well--you have me curious. Bring him in."
The visitor was a Paqwe--a short yellow-green alien with a wide
carriage and a sway-backed, waddling gait. He was swathed in tattered
reception-hall finery and smelled strongly of bitter saks.
"Princess Leia! It is a great honor. I am Belezaboth Ourn,
extraordinary counsel of the Paqwepori." Behind him, Tarrick shook his
head in a slow, exaggerated fashion.
"I am grateful to you for taking the time to see me."
"Yes, yes," she said impatiently. "What do you want?"
"What I want--no, what I can offer. I think that we can help each
other, Princess," he said, taking another step forward. "You are
having difficult times with a certain party. It's said there'll be
war. I may have some information that could be of use to you."
"It's a little late for word games. Be specific--what information?"
"Not information, exactly," Ourn said. "More a thing. How you can use
it, what you can learn from it--that's for you to discover. But I can
put it in your hands and tell you everything I know."
"And this thing is--" Ourn produced a small black box from a concealed
pocket. "Is a way to send messages to N'zoth--to Nil Spaar.
Completely undetectable, untraceable. By what magic, my engineer could
not divine. But you have many scientists--they will find out for
you."
It was Leia's turn to take a step forward. "Where did you get this?"
"From the viceroy. His ship destroyed mine, you remember--at East
Port, the day he left. He promised me restitution, but it was an empty
promise--" "He gave this box to you before he left?"
"Well, yes, of course."
"And you've been in touch with him since he left?"
"Only to remind him of his promise--" Ourn stopped, realizing the
contradictions. "We had an understanding-he was unfaithful. I will
help you now."
"How did you help him? By spying for him?"
Ourn swallowed nervously and tried to smile.
"Now, Princess--how many secrets does someone like me know? Nothing.
Less than nothing. I pretended. I deceived him--" With a single quick
stride, Leia closed the distance between them. "You took my husband
away from me," she said, and dropped into a Jedi fighting stance.
"Princess, surely--" It took only one blow to silence him, one more to
bring him to his knees, and one last to send him sprawling,
unconscious. Releasing her breath in a satisfied sigh, Leia stood
straight and looked to a startled Tar-rick.
"Thank you for that," Leia said lightly, flexing her hands in front of
her. "I just might be able to sleep a little tonight."
Chapter 6
The spotlight of the next morning's staff strategy session was on the
two intelligence chiefs, each of whom had been rudely surprised--and
professionally embarrassed---by the previous day's events.
For Admiral Graf, head of Fleet Intelligence, the problem was
explaining how the Mallar recording and the holo stills of the
destruction at Polneye had escaped Fleet custody. Graf also had to
answer for a second, apparently separate, breach of security involving
classified data from the battle at Doornik 319.
"There are three authorized copies of the Mallar recording," Graf
said.
"One here, one in the Fleet system, and one in the hands of the Threat
Assessment Office--plus a locked copy in the Fleet archives. We also
found two unauthorized copies in private data spaces within the Fleet
system and are looking for others."
"Does that mean you have two suspects?" Leia asked.
"No," said Graf. "The thinking right now is that those look like
innocent violations. But we're continuing to backtrace the access logs
for all six copies. We've already interviewed everyone who had access
to the Palace copy--" "No, you haven't," Leia interrupted.
"Excuse me?"
"You haven't talked to me," she said.
"Well, of course, I presumed that any use you made of this item--" "How
do you know I didn't put a copy on my datapad and take it home? How do
you know I didn't make a copy and give it away?"
Graf frowned, flustered. "That seems a very um likely scenario--" "Did
you talk to Mole? Tarrick? No one can work in my office without
high-level clearances."
"We did not," he admitted. "Your office was exempted from the
interview list."
"Then let's look outside my office, at the people who just visit. The
first administrator?" she asked challengingly. "How about Admiral
Ackbar?"
"No."
Leia looked down the table to where Ackbar sat.
"Admiral?"
Ackbar placed both hands flat on the table. "It is true that I have
taken a special interest in Plat Mallar. I have made no secret of it,
except where it might allow Mallar to escape the taint of my
favoritism. It is also true, Admiral Graf, that I have in the past
urged the President to release the Mallar recording, and I am glad that
it has happened, by whatever means."
"No one could question--" Graf began.
"Wait." The admiral craned his neck until he could meet Leia's gaze.
"To answer your unspoken question, yes, I have a copy of the recording,
in a secure partition at my home. But I give you my word that neither
I nor that copy was the source of the leak. I do not know who was
responsible."
"I accept your assurances, Admiral," said Leia, turning to Graf. "I
don't accept yours. No one is to be exempt from your inquiry."
A chastised Graf said quietly, "Understood, Princess."
For General Carlist Rieekan, head of New Republic Intelligence, the
problem was to assess the damage
Ourn had done and prevent a recurrence. The first meant discovering
exactly what information he had provided to the Yevetha. The second
meant explaining how Ourn had escaped official attention until he
turned the black box over and turned himself in.
"Not that it's of any great consequence, Princess, but it looks as
though you decked the wrong spy," said Rieekan.
"Why is that?"
"I had seventy people up all night looking into this, and there's no
plausible link between Belezaboth Ourn and the interception of
Tampion," Rieekan said. "He's a nobody, with no connections--a
small-time parasitic little sneak all puffed up with air. He simply
didn't have an opportunity to acquire and deliver anything at the level
of sensitivity of General Solo's appointment or Tampion's flight
plan."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Very. Ourn fell a
part during the night, started telling the truth as
fast as he could blubber it out. He doesn't even know that the general
is missing."
"Then there's another Yevethan spy--more highly placed."
"At least one," said Rieekan.
"The viceroy's afternoon callers," said Graf. "Senators Marook,
Peramis, and Hodidiji."
"They are all getting a close look," said Rieekan.
"What about the black box?" asked Leia.
"Interesting device," said Rieekan. "Not quite entirely black, but
close. We took it into the cold room and opened it in the dark, under
vacuum. Good thing we did. The power supply is wired with an
oxidation fuse, set to go critical if the box is opened. The yield
would probably be about equal to a proton grenade. We took holos and
closed it up again, very carefully.
"Then we put it on a dummy transceiver rig, connected the way Ourn
showed us. The dummy rig looks like a real transceiver to the device
but has only one ten-millionth of the output power needed to actually
open a hypercomm channel--just enough for us to record the signal for
analysis.
"I just got an update on that before I came in," Rieekan said, looking
down at his datapad. "Apparently the box uses a burst-compression
algorithm that we haven't quite deciphered yet to hide the signal in
the noise. Very efficient." He looked up at Leia. "And distinctively
Imperial, according to my senior engineer.
Probably hatched right here on Coruscant, back in the days of Section
Nineteen and Warthan's wizards."
"Can you use what you've learned about this one to find the others?"
Leia asked.
"Possibly. We should be able to catch any new transmissions. We might
get lucky and find some old ones hiding in the archived traffic, now
that we know what we're looking for," said Rieekan. "But I'd like to
suggest another way we might use what we've learned."
"I'm listening."
"We have the tools for a small campaign of disinformation," he said.
"We have a working black box and a desperately willing turncoat who'll
do most anything we ask. What if we just let him keep talking to the
Yevetha?"
Leia nodded thoughtfully. "Do you have any ideas about what we might
want to have him say?"
"I have one," Nanaod Engh interjected, drawing attention to his end of
the table for the first time. "We don't really know for certain if the
Yevetha have General Solo, or--forgive me--if the general is alive.
Nil Spaar has ignored every message we've sent him. He hasn't even
tried to communicate with us since leaving Coruscant, except through
his deeds--Perhaps Ourn can get him to break his silence--" On his
return to Pride of Yevetha, Nil Spaar's first concern was to inspect
his new breederies. There were three of them, each with forty-eight
alcoves. Before the conversion, they had been detention blocks, and
they
still largely retained that character--the conversion had required
surprisingly little renovation.
Picking cells at random, Nil Spaar satisfied himself that each was well
suited for the hanging and nurturance of a birth-cask. The walls were
plain and clean, the plumbing suitable for feeding lines, and the
ventilation fully isolated from the systems for the rest of the ship.
There were even individual drains in each alcove for the sacrifices and
the rite of emergence.
The new breederies required a new crop of tenders, eighteen in all.
After inspecting the new facilities, Nil Spaar had the tenders called
together so that he could assess their fitness. Most were experienced
hands who had known many successful nestings, but only a few had been
neutered.
"Long before all these alcoves have been filled with ripening rnaranas,
you will begin to feel the power of the breeding magic," the viceroy
warned. "The cry of the ancient imperatives of flesh and joy will
become a distraction, then a compulsion. You must become immune to
this call, lest you betray your solemn duty as custodians of the
future."
Nil Spaar gave no thought to giving them the option of withdrawing from
his service. Service to the darama was an unequaled honor, and service
aboard the grand flagship an unprecedented honor. It was unimaginable
that any of the tenders Would refuse those honors merely to preserve
their own poor chance of parenthood. The breeding guildmaster of Giat
Nor had made the reco'mmendations and arranged for the affected
households to receive replacements--that was all the consideration
necessary.
After that, all that was left was to inspect the marasi who had been
brought aboard to help Nil Spaar fill the new breederies. Chosen from
the thousands who had offered themselves, the twenty young females
waiting in what had once been detention block IF were without exception
appealingly supple, pleasingly eager, and understandably anxious.
Nil Spaar found the combination energizing, and indulged himself,
selecting one of the marasi for a mating on the spot.
By the time they were finished, the rnarasi in the adjoining cells were
writhing with need in response to the. scents and sounds, and a
reinvigorated Nil Spaar took each of them in succession. When the
third act was breathlessly complete, he called to the narada-ti, who
had discreetly removed herself to a distance at which she could pretend
not to have heard the passion-cries.
"This one," he said, walking down the corridor, pointing into a cell at
one still untouched. "And this one. Bring them to me in my chambers
this evening, after the tolotan has been read."
"Yes, darama," she said, bowing with respect.
"When will the others be brought aboard?"
"The next group is expected in twenty days," she said.
"Are there nest-quarters free?"
"Yes, darama, both here and in block G."
"Then accelerate the selection," said the viceroy.
"Have the next group received as soon as it can be accomplished."
"Yes, darama. Only, your senior tender cautioned that the rnara-nas
should be hung at intervals, out of consideration for the timing of the
births and the demands on the breedery. Too many too close together--"
"That is not your problem," he said. "Fill the nestquarters with your
best, and keep them filled."
"Yes, darama."
Only then did Nil Spaar return to make himself available to Tal Fraan,
who had pestered Eri Palle with queries as to the viceroy's schedule
and pleas for an early audience. They met in the upper command lounge,
a large semicircular compartment high on the forward face of the
command tower. The command lounge's double-shielded viewpanes provided
a spectacular view of the Star Destroyer's broad eight-kilometer-long
spear-point hull.
"Is it not invigorating," Nil Spaar said as Tal Fraan was led in, "to
see how much power has passed into the
hands of the Blessed? Can any doubt that we are the children of the
All, the inheritors of the ancient glory?"
He turned away from the viewpanes and accepted Tal Fraan'
s surrender
with a touch. "How far shall that glory carry us, my young disciple?
How much shall we claim with our ambition?"
"We are truly the inheritors, darama," said Tal Fraan. "But even
within the boundaries of the All, our claims have been contested. It
would seem that ambition alone cannot measure our destiny."
"Nowhere is there a ship the equal of this one.
Nowhere is there blood as powerful as that of the Pure," said Nil
Spaar. "They will all yield to us, in time."
"I have come to speak with you of one who still resists," said Tal
Fraan. "I have had a new insight into the heart of the pale ones. We
must not send them the recording from the viewing hall. It will move
them to anger, not to surrender."
Nil Spaar flexed his large hands. "Does my memory deceive me, or was
it not you who counseled that we must show Leia our hostages?"
"I did so in error," Tal Fraan said bluntly. "Only fear will give us
the result we 'desire--fear for themselves, for their own safety. Fear