by Greg Keyes
to stop it. We might not be able to as it is, but if we spend another hour
looking for Leaft, that's an hour less we have to do what we can. You want
Leaft's death to have meaning? Then quit moping and get us moving.''
'To where?''
'Thyferra. They've found a way to destroy bacta-and worse.''
Uldir stiffened. 'Right,'' he said, wearily. 'Let's go. But when this is
over-''
'Save that for when it is over, Boss,'' Vega said.
'Sure.'' He glanced back at the stellar panorama, where their rota-tion was
bringing the black hole back into view.
'I hope it hurt,'' he whispered.
'What?''
'He didn't like the thought of going out without feeling it''
She nodded. 'That's Leaft.''
He turned to go, and noticed that Vega's eyes were catching the light from
the control panel. They glistened.
Relieved to be back aboard the_No Luck Required,_ Uldirfound Bey and Klin-Fa
hunched over something that looked like a sphere with short, stumpy
tentacles. The tentacles writhed, slightly. On the sur-face of the sphere
itself, odd symbols formed and dissipated.
Klin-Fa looked up. 'Hi,'' she said, softly. 'Are you okay?''
'I'm fine,'' Uldir brusquely replied. 'I've laid in a course for Thyferra.
Now tell me why exactly.''
'The slave ship?''
'Vook's flying it. He had the same problem Leaft must have had, but he
figured out how to correct for it. When we finally raise someone, we'll have
them taken off our hands. Now, what have you got there?''
Bey spoke up. 'What the Yuuzhan Vong found on Wayland was a biochemical
sequencing of Bacta. At some point the Emperor must have been considering
neutralizing it, but his sci-entists never got that far. The Yuuzhan Vong
did.'' He pointed to the screen. 'They've developed an agent, something like
a virus. It attacks the alazhi plant bacta is made from.''
'It kills it?''
'No, something much more subtle. The virus mimics the active chemicals and
bacteria in alazhi and then goes quiescent. Absolutely undetectable, unless
you know exactly what to look for. It stays there when it's brewed with
kavam to produce bacta. But when the bacta is introduced into a living
subject, it activates at a low level. It's a sort of time bomb. A few weeks
after bacta treatment, the subject drops dead in a few hours. They've tested
it on a wide sampling of species already. There's no cure, and no reversing
the process. Once infected, the alazhi plants will pass the virus on
genetically. You see what this means?''
Uldir nodded. 'Everyone uses Bacta. We've been using it so long, it's
replaced most conventional medicine.''
'Exactly. If they had gotten away with this without anyone know-ing, imagine
the number of injured who would have been infected.'' 'Millions, maybe, if
there's a new Yuuzhan Vong offensive,'' Uldir said. 'Which the evidence
points to,'' Vega added.
'Yeah, this isn't good,'' Uldir allowed. 'How is this virus being
delivered?''
'That's a little fuzzy,'' Klin-Fa admitted. 'But from what we've got here,
my best guess would be an operative. The virus spreads very quickly. If it
was introduced to one of the major alazhi plantations, it would infect the
whole planet in days.''
'They might have already done it,'' Vega observed.
'They might have,'' Klin-Fa conceded, 'but I don't think so. There's s
timetable here. It looks like we have about forty hours.''
'We can make Thyferra in thirty,'' Uldir said. 'But then we still have o
find the agent carrying the virus. Considering the Yuuzhan Vong ability to
disguise themselves-it sounds impossible.''
'We start with the largest, most centrally located plantations,'' Bey said.
'The only good thing about not being able to sense the Yuuzhan Vong in the
Force is that it makes it easier to pick them out when they're disguised.
It's like they're not there.''
'It's worth a try*,''*Uldir said. 'Meanwhile, we get the word out. If we I,
at least they'll know not to use bacta from now on.''
'The loss of bacta is going to be a hard blow to recover from, especially in
wartime,'' Vega observed.
'True,'' Uldir said. 'So we don't let it happen. We stop them. Keep on the
hyperwave and HoloNet. Let somebody know what's going on. We need help on
this, and if something happens to us, this secret can't die with us.''
'Will do, Boss,'' Vega replied.
'Are you busy?''
Uldir turned from the controls and saw Klin-Fa standing in the entrance to
the bridge. She was just brushing her dark bangs from her eyes, and
something went odd in his chest.
'Where's your friend?'' He asked.
'Sleeping. He's still not in very good shape:''
'What happened to him?''
'He's not sure. Something that hurt a lot, that's all he remembers.''
'Well, those are the Yuuzhan Vong we all know and love. `Life is pain.`
Sometimes I think they're right.''
'Life is a lot of things,'' Klin-Fa said. 'Pain is certainly one of them,
but it's not the sum of it.'' Her voice lowered. 'I'm sorry about the Dug.''
'His name was Leaft,'' Uldir said, more harshly than he meant to. 'And yeah,
so am I:''
'It wasn't for nothing.''
'Thanks, but that doesn't really help.''
'I know. I lost a friend, too.'' she paused. 'There were three of us,
originally. Bey, me, and Yabaley.''
'I heard you say that name back on Bonadan. When you killed the Yuuzhan Vong
warrior.''
'Yes.''
'You were angry.''
'He was my friend. He...'' Her gaze flicked off, as if seeking advice from
someone in the corner. 'He was more than a friend, really. The Yuuzhan Vong
killed him not long after we were captured. They tor-tured him to death. I
felt him die.''
Uldir felt his cheeks grow warm with shame. 'I'm sorry. I knew
something...''
'I know what you think. Back on Wayland, you made it clear you thought I had
gone over to the dark side.''
Uldir nodded. He had studied at Master Skywalker's Jedi academy but had
shown no real talent for the Force. Still, he sometimes ha some sensitivity
to the Force, and he had an odd sort of luck it was difficult to put down to
mere chance.
'I sensed something dark on Wayland,'' he said. 'And on Bonadan. I thought
it was you.''
'Wayland's seen a lot of the dark side. I felt shadows there too.
Bonadan-well, I think I came close, Uldir. I felt it-the power of the dark
side, the attraction of it. I wanted to kill them all. But I stepped away
from it. '
'I'm glad to hear that.''
'You helped.''
'I don't see how.''
'You're a decent guy. You may not be strong in the Force, but there are more
important things than that. You've got a lot of them. I was starting to go a
little crazy. Everywhere I went, everyone I turner ended up being stupid or
corrupt or an enemy. You didn't. I-ah-I guess you renewed my faith, or
something.''
'I wish that had translated into trust a little earlier on,'' Uldir said.
'I'm tryin
g to thank you.''
'I know. I appreciate that. I just-'' he pursed his lips angrily. 'Why did
you kiss me?''
Her eyes widened, and then she chuckled. 'That sure came from a hidden
vector.'' She folded her arms across her chest. 'I kissed you because I
wanted to.''
'Because I'm a decent guy.''
'Sure.''
He stood up and took a step toward her. She seemed to hug herself harder.
'And what if I kissed you?''
She looked away. 'That's not such a good idea, right now. Bey-''
'Right,'' Uldir murmured, turning away.
'If you'll let me explain-''
'We're reverting to realspace,'' Uldir said. 'It'll have to wait. And you
don't owe me any explanations anyway.''
She was starting to say something else when the stars came back--the stars
and more.
'Sithspit!'' Klin-Fa gasped.
Uldir didn't say anything-he just punched the ion drive to maxi-mum and put
the ship into a spin to avoid the Yuuzhan Vong frigate he was about to smash
into. He managed it, barely, but space was thick with ships, laser fire, and
plasma trails.
'What's going on?'' Vega came rushing in from the back.
'We dropped into the middle of a battle, looks like,'' Uldir grunted,
unnecessarily.
'Where are we?''
'The Yag'Dhul system,'' he replied, as the ship shuddered under the impact
of a plasma projectile. 'I was staging our last jump from here. Looks like
the ceasefire has been broken. We're at war with the Vong again.''
'I'd say so,'' Vega said, dryly. She shot Klin-Fa a nasty look. 'Move over,
sweetness. I need the copilot's seat.''
Klin-Fa moved silently away.
'Work out the last jump, before we get fried,'' Uldir said.
'I'm working,'' Vega said. 'Yag'Dhul is a complex system. All those moons.
At least we don't have the transport to worry about any more.''
'True.'' They'd left the transport and the refugees on it in what Uldir
hoped was neutral space, fearing they might run into a situation like this.
Well, not like_this._ What he'd feared was an interdictor or something, not
a whole vaping fleet.
Uldir opened up with the forward guns and keyed on the intercom.
'Leaft-''then he stopped cold.
'It's okay boss,'' Vega said, without looking up. 'I was wondering why he
wasn't in the turret too.''
But then the turret did begin firing. Not with Leaft's dead-sure accuracy,
but a coralskipper exploded in incandescence.
'Who's down there?'' Uldir asked.
'That would be me,'' Klin-Fa's voice came back.
'Good going. Keep it up. Uvee, how are things?''
_Systems deteriorating,_the astromech droid's translator screen read.
'Well, what else is new?'' Uldir muttered, just as a Yuuzhan Vong ship swung
into view.Upwards of fifty coralskippers detached and started their way.
'Vega?''
'Almost there,'' she said, distractedly.
The skips fell into several wedges. Uldir began to wonder who the Yuuzhan
Vong were fighting exactly-at the moment he didn't see any ships that
weren't enemies.
The skips approached firing range.
'Got it, boss. Go.''
He went.
Their next reversion was entirely uneventful. They appeared a few hundred
thousand clicks from Thyferra-right on the dot in galactic terms.
'There's still no word from Skywalker or anyone else,'' Vega told him.
'Small wonder. There's a war going on.''
Vega shook her head. 'It's more than that. I did manage to get a news
summary from the HoloNet. Master Skywalker was ordered arrested. He fled
Coruscant and went into hiding.''
Uldir whistled. 'I knew Borsk Fey'lya was stupid, but that's really stupid.
How does he think the New Republic can possibly win this war without the
Jedi?''
'The Yuuzhan Vong promised that if all of the Jedi were delivered to them
the war would end, remember?''
'Yeah, right. That's why they're taking Yag'Dhul even as we speak.''
A light blipped on the console. 'The Thyferrans are asking what our business
in their system is:'
Uldir sighed. 'Tell them. Give them our highest priority clearance code. If
that doesn't work, we go in without them. There's no time to lose. The
operative is probably already here.''
An hour later they were planetside, in an old building that recalled
Imperial architecture. The office they stood in had been opened to the air
on two sides, furnished with potted plants and trailing vines and wickerwork
furniture not designed for humanoid frames, but the harsh, industrial lines
of the structure still peeked through.
'It's quite impossible,'' Xeshen Kra was saying, clicking the three fingers
of one hand and touching Uldir's shoulder with another. His skin had changed
from a light gray to mauve since Uldir's arrival, and while he remembered
that signified a shift in emotion, he had no idea what particular emotion
mauve signified.
'Our intelligence was stolen directly from the Yuuzhan Vong,'' Klin-Fa
pointed out. 'They plan to destroy bacta-all of it-and they will if you
don't take us seriously.''
The Xeshen Kra didn't blink-he couldn't, for there were no lids on his
bulbous black eyes-but Uldir got that impression, nevertheless.
'And yet how could this scheme be carried out?'' Kra asked,mildly. 'We
screen off-worlders carefully, and I do not think a Yuuzhan Vong could
masquerade as one of us, no matter how clever the disguise.''
'True,'' Uldir agreed. Their host was a Vratix. His body washook-shaped, his
insect-like head set on a long slender neck on the long end of the hook He
looked down at Uldir from a height of nearly two meters. His two back limbs
were enormously muscular and bent the wrong way-twice. The spiked forelimbs
were also twice jointed. 'But Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology-''
_'Might_be able to produce our form, though that is highly doubtful. But we
also communicate by scent and touch, and by the mind-to-mind. Could all of
this be convincingly duplicated? We would know. Our bacta production is not
without security precautions. Saboteurs have come here before.''
'They might be using a Vratix,'' Vega pointed out. 'They could have captured
one of your people and brainwashed him.''
'Even less likely that we would not notice such a thing. His intentwould be
known by the mind-to-mind.''
'But you do have humanoid employees, don't you?'' Uldir persisted.
'Not many. Since we expelled the off-world cartels many yearsago, we have
employed mostly our own people.''
'That might actually make it easier,'' Bey put in. 'You're right, theYuuzhan
Vong agent is almost certainly disguised as a humanoid. If there aren't many
humanoids working in Bacta production, it makes our job of checking them
much simpler.''
The Vratix considered that for a moment, continuing to paw Uldir's arm.
'Very well,'' he said at last. 'I still doubt this threat, but it will do
little harm to do as you propose.''
'Good,'' Uldir said. 'Where should we start?''
Xeshen Kra turned to her assistant, who had a portable database.
'We should check the most recent arrivals first,'' Vega said. 'Anyone who
was just hired or has recently returned from off-planet.''
The assistant consulted the pad for a moment, then looked up.
'The alazhi fields at Vrelnid are nearby. They are vast, and there are a
number of humanoid technicians there. Two have begun work there in the past
week.'' He released Uldir's arm. 'We can take my flier,'' he added. During
the flight, Uldir distractedly watched the alternation of jungle and field.
Vega moved near. 'What's wrong?'' She asked.
'I don't know. Something seems wrong about this.'' 'Such as?''
'If our hypothetical saboteur is already here, his work is already done-the
bacta is infected.''
'Right, but maybe not all of it. They can burn the infected fields.'' 'True.
It's just ...'' He shrugged. 'Just a feeling.''
