by Star Wars
“Maybe this individual—whoever it is—opened the walls for us. Maybe because they want a certain situation taken care of.”
“You got a plan?”
“I’ve got a weapon.” Strabo nodded at the open hatchway from which he and the others had just emerged. “What if we follow the passageway? See where it takes us.”
“Yeah?”
“There’s worse ways to spend a few hours,” Strabo said, and, reaching out, he tossed a sharpened femur bone to Nailhead, who plucked it handily from the air, though he still had no idea what was going on. “So what do you say? Care for a walkabout?”
“Yeah.” Standing up, placing his hands on his hips, and stretching his back, Nailhead grinned back at him. “I guess maybe I do.”
Side by side, the two gang leaders headed back through the hatchway with the others following behind them, into the walls of the prison.
35
READY ROOM
The fat CO’s name was Hootkins, and Smight could already smell him starting to sweat.
“Well?” he asked. “What’s the deal?”
Hootkins didn’t say anything, just slammed the half-liter tumbler of Rancor Aid that he’d been nursing and pressed one meaty hand to the wall behind him. Smight felt himself twitching with impatience. It was getting unpleasantly hot in the ready room among all these bodies pressed in around him—and what had the warden summoned them all together for, anyway?
He waited, bouncing on his heels, as Hootkins glanced at the guard standing to his right, a pumped-up glandular catastrophe named Logovik. Smight knew almost all the names of the guys on his shift, Stubens, Merrill, Glant, but he was still learning the rest of the roster. Not that it mattered much—none of these old-timers would give him the time of day.
Not yet.
When the warden had summoned them all to the ready room on short notice, no uniforms or weapons necessary, Smight had snorted another half gram of glitterstim from his private stash before hitting the deck. He’d already discovered that the stim gave him confidence and a telepathic boost that made everything feel heightened and somehow more vibrant at the same time, as if—zing!—an invisible saber had been drawn from its scabbard, straight up his nose. Not to mention the courage that it gave him for certain unauthorized aspects of the job—going face-to-face with that red-skinned inmate, 11240, in his cell, for example, or the mission they’d just undertaken down on the factory floor. It had made him feel like the king of the galaxy.
The truth was, Smight loved the spice. Smuggling his stash into Cog Hive Seven had been a lot easier than he’d expected, and he’d even managed to sell a little to a couple of the other COs. Making friends had always come easy to him that way. Too bad he hadn’t had a chance to offer some to Hootkins. Who knew, he thought—maybe the porky loser could use some as a diet aid.
“So,” Smight asked, drumming his fingertips against the table in front of him, “what’s the problem?” One of the side effects of the stim was that it made you restless, ready to move ahead while everything else dragged behind. “You guys don’t actually think—”
“Shut up,” Hootkins snapped without bothering to glance at him. Now the fat man had one ear pressed to the wall of the ready room. Listening for a long moment, he turned back to Logovik. “Yeah,” he said, “it’s on. It’s not big, but it’s happening.”
“What’s on?” Smight asked. “What’s happening?”
“Warden’s reconfiguring.”
“What, now?” Smight checked his chrono. “But we don’t have another fight scheduled till—”
The main hatchway of the ready room whirred open and Warden Blirr stepped inside, followed in short order by her administrative droid. She stopped there, looked coolly across their faces, and smiled.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I want to thank you for coming on such short notice.”
The guards straightened up. Logovik muttered a grunt of acknowledgment, and a few others offered unenthusiastic greetings in response. Among the men, Sadiki Blirr wasn’t particularly popular. Apparently some of the guys actually found her attractive, but Smight was indifferent to that aspect of her. Fact was, the spice had more or less switched off that part of his mind, at least for the moment, and he was grateful. In a place like this, he decided, the fewer the distractions, the better.
“I’m sure you’re all wondering why you’re here,” Sadiki said, “so I won’t waste your time.” She turned and faced the droid. “ThreeDee, is my call patched through?”
“Yes, Warden.”
“Okay, go ahead.” She gestured to the group of guards gathered on the far side of the room. “If you men wouldn’t mind stepping to either side, I have a feeling that we’re going to need all the space we can get.”
As they shuffled out of the way, leaving an entire corner clear, the droid’s holoprojector flickered to life.
For a moment Smight wasn’t sure whether what he was seeing was real or a side effect of the stim. Eight meters in front of him, the mountainous shape of his employer had already come into focus to fill the entire corner of the ready room. Smight gaped as Jabba Desilijic Tiure shifted his enormous tail, gazing out at the audience that awaited him.
“Hello, Jabba,” Sadiki said. “I appreciate you making time in your busy schedule for me.”
“Sadiki Blirr.” The crime lord’s mouth opened just enough for him to run his tongue along his upper lip with a lascivious sneer. “You know, if you ever get tired of running that prison, I would be happy to make you one of my slave girls.”
“Such a generous offer.” She remained absolutely composed, even congenial, before him. “Unfortunately, I’ll have to decline for now.”
“To what do I owe the honor?”
“Ah, well.” Sadiki gestured at the guards who had come to abrupt attention behind her, including Smight himself. “I believe I have some of your people here.”
36
WHAT THE FEVER SAID
Eogan had been doing pull-ups on the uppermost bar of his cell when the walls began to move. His initial, panicked thought was that he was about to be matched, that death had come for him even sooner than he’d feared.
Please, no. I’m not ready. Not yet. Not ever.
When the reconfiguration stopped and nothing happened, Eogan felt a wild surge of relief, followed immediately by a sense of shame so overpowering that it drove him to the floor of the cell, where he lay motionless, hating himself for his cowardice. What would his father have thought of him, head down, praying to whatever gods might be listening that he would not have to fight, not now, not ever?
“Eogan?”
He jerked his head up at the sound of the haggard voice and looked around to see Jagannath standing there. The Zabrak was holding something in his arms like a bundle of laundry. It took a moment for Eogan to realize that the bundle was a man and that the man was, in fact, his father.
“Father?” His gaze flew up to the Zabrak, hot and accusatory. “What did you do to him?”
“I did nothing, boy,” Jagannath said. “I found him like this.”
“Eogan.” Artagan Truax gazed at his son through dazed and bleary eyes. His skin had gone the color of old flimsiplast, the flesh so pale so that the blue tracery of his veins was clearly visible in his cheeks and on the bridge of his nose. Eogan regarded the swollen stump where the old man’s leg had been, sensed the fever radiating out of his father’s face and the foul smell of infected tissue, and knew what it all meant before the Zabrak could say the words.
“He’s dying.”
Jagannath nodded. “He contracted blood poisoning from the wound.” Lowering Artagan Truax to the bunk, he said, “He won’t talk to me. You need to question him. About Iram Radique and the Bando Gora.”
Eogan shook his head. “I don’t know what that—”
“Listen to me, boy. There’s no time for excuses. I saw Iram Radique. I need to know anything else your father can tell us about Radique’s relationship with the Bando Gora. They are the
ones who are going to take possession of Radique’s most destructive weapon, a proscribed nuclear device. This is my mission.”
“But I’ve never heard of the Bando—”
“It’s a death cult. Your father told me that he used to fight alongside them, that they tried to kill Iram Radique and he saved Radique’s life.”
“My father would never join a cult,” Eogan said. “He doesn’t know what he’s—”
“Gora!” the old man shrieked, his face twisting into a mask of terror. His hands flew up to hook and claw the air. “All hail the skull beneath the hood! Flay the skin and drink the blood!”
Eogan took a startled step back. “I’ve never heard him talk like this before.”
“I need to know what he knows,” Jagannath said. “I have urgent business to transact between them and Iram Radique. If he can tell you anything about how to contact them—”
“No!” All at once the old man lunged upright, seizing his son by the shoulder and pulling him close. Sudden clarity had descended over his face, and his pupils sharpened, fixating on Eogan. “Iram Radique will never do business with the Gora. Never.”
“Ask him how to reach the Gora,” the Zabrak said to Eogan. “Ask him how we can contact them. Get him to talk.”
“I—I’ll do what I can,” Eogan said. “But there’s another match coming. What if I have to fight?”
The Zabrak glared at him. “You’ll die.”
Eogan opened his mouth and closed it again. There seemed to be no reasonable response to the words, and he didn’t attempt one.
“Everything here,” the Zabrak said, “everything you see around you, is a test. Make no mistake. If you lack the strength or ability to survive, the Hive will break you.” He stepped closer to Eogan. “At his core, your father was strong enough to survive and protect you, but you don’t have his heart. Even the way he is now, in this wasted state, you’ll never be half the man that he is.” He jerked his head at the old man groaning and muttering to himself on the bunk. “Now make yourself useful and get him to talk.”
Eogan said nothing. His jaw trembled. “Father, it’s me. It’s Eogan.” Glancing back up at the Zabrak, he said gently, “We need to know about Iram Radique.”
The old man’s eyes fluttered and closed. All strength fled from him and his mouth fell open, his face going slack. For a terrible instant Eogan thought he’d died. Then he saw the chest rise and fall, a shallow and halting breath, but a breath just the same, followed by a few brief, barely coherent words.
“What was that?” Jagannath stared at Eogan. “What did he say?”
“He said ‘Zero.’ ”
“Zero? What about him?”
Eogan frowned up at the Zabrak.
“He said …” The boy glanced down at his father, then back up at Jagannath, blinking in confusion. “He answers to another name.”
37
BESTIARY
Smight began to inch backward and realized that he was already pressed up against a wall. He wasn’t sure exactly when his heart had started pounding, but now it felt ready to explode. Rivulets of sweat trickled from between his shoulder blades and crept down the center of his spine, plastering his damp shirt against his skin, and he forced himself to take a low, shuddering breath.
Stay cool. They won’t see anything that you don’t show them. Hoping to disappear between the guards on either side of him, he realized there was nowhere else to go. Just breathe.
“So, Jabba,” Sadiki was saying from the front of the group, “I keep hearing rumors of you sending foot soldiers into my prison to work as guards. I’m hoping you can clear that up for me.” Waving her hand toward the nine guards in the ready room, she said, “Do any of these men look familiar?”
Smight didn’t breathe. None of the guards around him moved. On the holovid, the Hutt reclined, his slitted eyes moving languidly back and forth, taking in the room. At length he let out a slow, guttural laugh, the mocking ho-ho-ho that Smight had come to identify with a particularly unpleasant frozen sensation through his bowels. He had only heard that laugh once before, and it had been one time too many.
“You are wasting my time, Warden,” Jabba said, answering in the guttural Huttese that Smight’s ear translated effortlessly into Basic. “I recognize none of these swine.”
“Are you certain?” Sadiki asked. “Because I’ll be happy to return any of your own men to you unharmed in the spirit of maintaining peace with the Desilijic Clan.” A slight frown line formed over her forehead. “The ones that you don’t claim, well …” She glanced at ThreeDee. “Let’s just say they’re slightly more disposable.”
“Kill them all and toss their carcasses to swamp slugs,” Jabba said. “It is all the same to me.”
“I see. Well, perhaps I should ask the men.”
She pushed a button on the wall. Smight heard a faint whirring sound to his right and glanced over his shoulder. Across the ready room, directly opposite the holoprojection of Jabba, an oblong panel slid open to expose a recessed area that had not been there just a moment before—a result, he guessed, of this last reconfiguration. From this angle, Smight could not see inside it, but he had the sudden realization that whatever was back there had already started to move out.
“Gentlemen,” Sadiki said, “I’m sure you all know Mr. Nailhead and Mr. Strabo.”
A thin blade of silence sliced through the ready room. Then Nailhead and Strabo stepped into view, and Smight heard the other guards drawing back with sharp curses and sounds of disbelief, cramming into whatever space they could find, reaching instinctively for weapons and dropboxes that weren’t there.
“Wait a second,” Hootkins called out, somewhere off to Smight’s left, the fat guard’s suety voice now high-pitched with fear and panic. “Warden, what is this? What are you doing?”
Smight, for his part, could not move. He felt his whole body go strangely weightless. All at once his legs seemed to have disappeared; the same paralysis seized his chest, and he realized that he was physically incapable of drawing breath.
Sadiki just smiled. “It’s a simple question,” she said, stepping forward to fill the space between the Bone Kings and the guards. “Any of you working for Desilijic Clan please step forward.” She gazed at the guards. “No one? Are you sure?”
“Me!” Lodovik shouted from off to Smight’s left, and jumped forward, practically knocking down the men on either side of him. “Jabba sent us here to track down Iram Radique!”
“Ah,” Sadiki said. “And what were your orders exactly?”
“Jabba told us to find out everything we could. To ferret him out and drive him into the open.”
“Is there anyone else in this room that you would care to identify?”
“Crete! He’s part of it!” Logovik shouted, pointing at a tall, gray-haired guard on the other side of the room. All at once he couldn’t seem to get the names out fast enough. “And Galway! Tyson! Olyphant! McCane! Over there, Webberly! And”—his hand swung toward Smight—“that new guy, the rookie, I don’t know his name, Jabba sent him in, too. He forged the background check for all of us and told us we had to—”
“Scum.” From the holo, Jabba’s lazy smile had disappeared, overwhelmed by a vicious sneer of disgust. “You just signed your death warrant.”
If Logovik even heard the Hutt, he ignored him. His eyes flashed desperately from the Bone Kings back to Sadiki. “That’s it, that’s all of us! Can I go now?”
Sadiki gazed at him pityingly. “I’m sorry, Officer … Logovik, is it?” She gave a slow, sad shake of her head. “But I’m afraid your employer is right about one thing. I couldn’t possibly let you go now. And gentlemen …” She glanced back at Strabo, Nailhead, and the amalgamation of gang members, Bone Kings and Massives alike, that they’d led here. “Whatever happens next, you and your gang would do well to remember that the only dropbox in the room is strapped to my hip.”
“Wait!” Logovik managed. All the remaining color had drained out of his face, leaving it
sickly and pale. “But—”
“Best of luck, gentlemen. And I thank you for your candor.”
Sadiki stepped back, clearing the way for the Bone Kings.
For an instant there was silence, and within that split second, Smight heard it: a low, snarling chuckle.
It was Nailhead.
Then it happened.
It might’ve been the glitterstim, but Smight experienced the events of the next few seconds in what felt like sickening slow motion.
As one, the gang members burst forward across the ready room with a deafening howl, overturning chairs and leaping across the table, attacking the guards in a solid wave. Smight was knocked to the side and the table landed on top of him, temporarily blocking him from view, although he could still catch a glimpse over the top of it with agonizing clarity.
In the space between seconds, the entire room had already exploded in a mass of activity, swinging bones, flashing teeth, and crashing fists. All around him, the guards tried to scatter, but there was nowhere to go. The gang members’ angle of attack had blocked the only possible path to the chamber’s main entryway, and they piled on top of the guards, overwhelming them easily.
Pressed between the overturned table and the wall, Smight dropped to his knees and then to his stomach, as if there might be some way that he could crawl across the floor and find his way out without being detected. He already felt his grasp on reality skidding, slipping perilously away. All around him, guys he’d come to know on a first-name basis were screaming, squirming in every direction, scrambling for a way out.
From this angle, he could see Hootkins trying to jump over him, the fat man shoving belly first, fighting desperately to plow a path between two of the Bone Kings, making a last-ditch run for the exit. His face was a blur of terror. After two steps, Hootkins stumbled and lost his balance, and two of the Kings grabbed him and slammed him to the floor, impaling him with sharpened ribs that they’d lashed to their wrists like claws and ripping him to pieces.
