by Karen Miller
“Wait, wait,” said Durd, eager as a child at a naming day celebration. “I want to see everything. Wait till I find the perfect position.”
Dr. Fhernan did as she was told, her face expressionless, as Durd fussed around and around the bench. At last he stopped, satisfied. Fortunately—or perhaps unfortunately—where he’d chosen to stand didn’t impede the view from the air vent.
Obi-Wan wiped his damp palms on his shirt. Bad didn’t come close to the feeling he had about this. A warm hand on his ankle. He looked back at Anakin, whose shadowed eyes reflected the same roiling unease.
“Are you ready, General?” Dr. Fhernan asked. Her voice sounded dead. She’d managed to tamp down her feelings. Achieve a level of scientific detachment. Warned by the Force, Obi-Wan felt his belly churn and fingers clench.
This is going to be unspeakable.
“Oh yes, quite ready,” said the Neimoidian. He was almost wriggling with glee. “Hurry up, hurry up! I declare the suspense is almost killing me. My very first demonstration.” He pouted. “Until now you’ve always managed to time your experiments whenever I’m called away to Count Dooku.”
“And again, General, you have my sincere apologies for that,” said Dr. Fhernan, toneless. “It was never intentional. The work dictates its own timetable. As a—as a fellow scientist, I’m sure you understand.”
“Yes, well,” said Durd, still pouting. “I think for your sake—and not only yours—it’s a good thing that this time our timetables are compatible.”
Dr. Fhernan nearly dropped the silver implement.
“Oh do come along, Doctor,” Durd implored. “You’ve kept me waiting long enough!”
She bowed her head, as though in prayer or some other kind of profound thought. Then she looked up, her expression bleak, pointed the implement at the rodent’s cage, and activated it. There was a hum, barely audible at first, then rising in pitch. Higher. Higher. The nervous rodent jumped, banging against the small cage’s clear wall. It jumped again and again. Started leaping in a frenzy. The sealed test tube began to vibrate, rolling back and forth on the cage’s floor. Lok Durd leaned forward, basted in pleasure, as though he could not get enough of the helpless animal’s terror. And Dr. Fhernan, his accomplice, stared, too. But whatever she felt, still she kept it in chains.
With a loud splintering crack the test tube exploded. Its agitated contents, now a greenish black mist, curled and spread through the entire sealed cage. The rodent let out one shrill, agonized shriek then dropped to the cage floor and began convulsing. Hair and skin frothed and bubbled pinkly, obscenely, as the toxic vapor melted living flesh. Bone dissolved. The small animal was reduced to a soggy pile of slush.
Obi-Wan closed his eyes. Dimly he could feel his own disgust echoing in Anakin as the rodent’s hideous death throes reverberated through the Force.
General Lok Durd was clapping his hands in delight. “Oh, how wonderful. How wonderful. My dear Doctor Fhernan, it’s true! You are a genius!”
The scientist fell to her hands and knees and vomited bile onto the laboratory floor.
“I knew it,” said Durd, ignoring her. Pacing again as though his excitement were too great to be contained. “I knew that rondium would do the trick.” He whirled. “Naughty, naughty Doctor Fhernan. You tried to dissuade me. You tried to tell me rondium would have no effect on the damotite. I think you were playing a game with me, my dear.”
Still on her hands and knees, Dr. Fhernan smeared a sleeve across her mouth. She didn’t look up.
“Is that so, Doctor Fhernan?” Durd demanded. “Is that so?” Suddenly angry, pouncing on the woman, he hauled her roughly to her feet. Fisted his pudgy fingers in the lapels of her lab coat and violently twisted. “Were you playing a game with me? Were you lying to me? Were you by any chance trying to ruin my plans? See me disgraced again before Count Dooku?”
Dr. Fhernan stood handspans shorter than the looming Neimoidian. Her breath strangled, she made no attempt to prise herself free of his clutching fingers.
“No, General,” she croaked. “I would never do that. Why would I lie to you when I know what will happen?”
Durd thrust his moist, flat face into hers. “Perhaps you lied when you said you care! Perhaps their lives mean nothing to you!”
“No! I care!” The woman’s words were a broken whisper. “I didn’t lie, General. I have never lied to you. But I was wrong, I was mistaken and I’m so very, very sorry. I should’ve known you were right about the rondium. I thought it wouldn’t be stable enough. I thought I knew better than you.”
“But you didn’t, did you!” Durd spat. “The great Doctor Bant’ena Fhernan, with degrees from the three most distinguished universities in the Republic. You didn’t know better than General Lok Durd!”
Worked into a passion now, the Neimoidian was dangerously close to losing control. Dr. Fhernan’s sallow face was dusky crimson, the air whistling in her throat.
“Obi-Wan!” hissed Anakin. “He’s going to kill her! Come on—we can’t sit here and watch!”
He shook his head, vehement. Yes, they could stop Durd’s brutal assault—but only at the risk of betraying their presence and placing the entire mission in jeopardy. It was the scientist’s life—or the lives of millions.
“No, Anakin,” he hissed back. “Wait. Wait.”
“Do I need you?” Durd was ranting. “Do I need you, my dear Doctor? Do I? Do I?”
“Yes!” the woman croaked, desperate. “The refined formula’s encrypted and I’m the only one with the key!”
Panting, Durd threw her to the floor. “Is that so? And were you by any chance thinking to keep that key to yourself, my dear? To alter our arrangement? Were you by any chance thinking to hold me hostage for a while?”
Dr. Fhernan groped her unsteady way back onto her feet, fear stark in her blanched face. “No.”
“No?” Lurching to the cluttered lab bench, Durd snatched up the mini holoprojector. He turned and brandished it in front of her. “Are you sure? Are you quite sure? Because if you’re lying now, Doctor—if you’re lying to me—”
She dropped to her knees. “I’m not lying, General. I swear it. I’ll give you the formula. I’ll show you how to make it. I’ll show anyone you like. Or I’ll make it myself. As much as you want. I’ll do anything you ask of me. Just don’t hurt them. Please.”
Durd hurled the projector. It struck the doctor on the forehead, opening up a deep cut, then clattered to the floor. Blood sprang free of her body, pumped by her frantic heart. It slicked her open eyes, her hollowed cheeks, her parted lips.
“Please,” she whispered, tears muddling with the blood. “I am begging you. Please, General Durd. Have mercy.”
The Neimoidian’s desire to hurt her shuddered him head-to-toe. His lips peeled back and his fists came up, desperate to strike.
“Do not test me again!” he snarled, reddish orange eyes glowing. “Do not be so foolish, my dear! Decrypt the formula, now. Make me a data crystal copy. I wish to inform Count Dooku of my success.”
Shaking, the scientist did as she was told. Gave the data crystal to her tormentor and stepped back, out of his reach.
Durd tucked the formula into a pocket. “Very wise, my dear,” he said softly, his voice ripe with menace. “I’ll spare your loved ones—this time. But defy me again and there will be a consequence.”
In a swirl of lush robes, he stalked out of the lab.
Dr. Bant’ena Fhernan stared after him, then covered her face with her hands and wept.
Every feeling conquered, Obi-Wan looked at Anakin. “Now,” he said quietly.
They kicked the grilles off the vent and launched themselves into the room below.
Chapter Fifteen
Stunned breathless, Bant’ena stared at the two ragged men standing in front of her. Who’d appeared, it seemed, out of nowhere. Like magic. Which was entirely impossible. So was this all a dream, then? Had she dreamed that moment when theory became fact and her reworked formula proved itself s
table? Dreamed poisoning the Lanteeban rat? Was the pain in her throat where Durd had almost throttled her, was that—was all of it—a figment of her tormented imagination? Perhaps it was. Because this couldn’t be happening.
“Doctor Fhernan, I know this is a shock, but you must pull yourself together and listen to me,” said the older of the two men. His short hair and well-trimmed beard were clotted with dirt. Soot or charcoal smeared his face, his hands, and plastered the fabric of his plain, working clothes. He looked like a laborer on the run—and sounded like one of her biology professors. “Doctor, please. We might not have much time. Is this facility monitored? Are there security recording devices in your laboratory?”
She nodded, mute. Glanced at the man’s younger, taller companion. He looked just as disreputable—but his eyes were unexpectedly kind.
“Are the recordings themselves monitored?” the older man demanded. His eyes weren’t unkind. Just terribly intense. “We passed a comm center on our way here—is that the only monitoring station for this facility?”
Another mute nod. She wondered when she was going to wake up.
“Good. And the recordings, Doctor? Are they assessed in real time? Or are they checked later, on some kind of roster?”
With an effort, she moistened her lips. I might as well say something. It’s a dream, after all. And Durd can’t punish me for what I say in my sleep. “I don’t know.” Her voice came out scratchy. Uncertain. “I don’t think it’s in real time.”
The bearded man’s brows pinched in a frown. “You don’t think so? Doctor, I’m sorry, but I need more assurance than that.”
Shaking, she pressed her hands to her face. “I don’t—I’m not—” She let her hands fall. “Am I asleep or aren’t I?”
“You’re awake,” said the younger man. “Don’t be frightened. We’re here to help you.”
“Help me?” She tried to laugh, but it sounded like a sob. Turning away, she looked at the wall where the air vent’s grilles had been kicked out. “If you were up there, watching, then you saw what I did.” On a deep, painful breath she made herself face the specimen cage, and the appalling thing in it. “What I am. You know as well as I do—there’s no helping me.”
The younger man took a step toward her. “Durd is a monster.” His voice was low and shaky. “None of this is your fault.”
The older man started to say something, but his young companion raised a sharp hand.
Hope was a dangerous shudder inside her. “You can help me?”
“Not if we’re discovered,” said the older man. “Doctor, are you and Durd the only residents here?”
“At the moment,” she said, dazed. “If you don’t count the droids. A new military liaison officer arrives in the morning. I’m sorry—but who are you?”
“Friends,” said the younger man.
“Who need your help if we’re going to get out of here in one piece,” his companion added, his voice snapping with authority. “So pay attention.”
She jumped. This was no ordinary, downtrodden Lanteeban. Her fuddled mind cleared a little, and she looked at him more closely. Beneath all that dirt—was there something familiar about him? She didn’t know him, had never met him… and yet she had the strangest feeling she’d seen him before. Had seen both of them, and not so long ago.
Memory stirred, reality shifted, and she wasn’t in this terrible place, she was at home, on Corellia, cooking dinner and catching up with the HoloNet news…
“Sweetness and light,” she whispered. “Are you—you’re Kenobi.” She turned. “And you’re Anakin Skywalker. You’re Jedi.”
Anakin Skywalker, hero of the Republic, pulled a face. “Okay, so now we really have to take care of the security recordings.”
Kenobi nodded. “Agreed. Doctor Fhernan—”
She couldn’t believe it. The Jedi had come to rescue her. They’d save her family, her friends. The nightmare was over and everything was going to be all right.
“Doctor!”
“I’m sorry—what—”
“Obi-Wan,” said Anakin. “Take it easy. She’s doing her best.”
Obi-Wan Kenobi, the other hero of the Republic, flicked his friend a warning look. “We’ve no time for easy. Doctor, is there somewhere safe we can retreat to for a short while? Somewhere Durd or those patrolling droids aren’t likely to find us?”
With an effort she gathered her scattered wits. Kenobi was right—and she was carrying on like a silly teenager instead of a trained scientist. “I have rooms here. No one ever disturbs me—but they’re monitored.”
“That won’t be a problem. Anakin, go with Doctor Fhernan. Lay low. I’ll deal with the security recordings and find you afterward.”
“Okay,” said Anakin. “Need a hand tidying up?”
Shockingly, she caught a flash of wry, dry humor in Kenobi’s intense blue eyes. “If it’s not too much trouble.”
Anakin’s face lit in a cheeky smile. “Of course it is. But for you I’ll make an exception.”
Bemused, Bant’ena watched Kenobi line himself up with the nearest open wall vent, high under the ceiling. Gasped when he leapt to it, easily, and maneuvered himself inside the cramped space. After a few moments, his face appeared. “All right.”
Anakin tossed Kenobi the kicked-out grille, and he tugged it back into position. Soon after he appeared in the other open vent. When that grille was replaced, too, the younger Jedi turned to her.
“Let’s go.”
Her life was ridiculous. When had that happened? How had that happened? Murder and kidnap and blackmail and now Jedi?
“Doctor Fhernan,” said Anakin impatiently, sounding uncannily like Kenobi. “We have to go.”
“What? Oh—yes—only—wait—just—just wait—” She crossed to the lab bench and started scrabbling through its scattered mess. “A few things,” she muttered. “I just need a few things.” Data crystals. Notes. She grabbed her satchel from the floor beneath the bench and shoved everything into it, then looked at the young Jedi. “All right, we—no. No, wait.” The holoprojector, she couldn’t leave without the—where was it—where was it—
“Looking for this?”
Turning, she saw that Anakin was holding the projector. “Where did you—how did you—”
“Um—” He was giving her the oddest look. “Doctor, that slime Durd threw it at you. Don’t you remember?”
“What?” Her fingers strayed to her forehead and touched the wound there. Her drying blood drew her attention to the dull, throbbing pain. Of course. Of course she remembered. Oh, he must think I’m deranged. She held out her hand. “Yes. Thank you.”
Anakin gave her the holoprojector. “Doctor, please, we really have to—”
“I know,” she said, shoving it into her satchel. “I’m ready.”
He nodded, so reassuring, then crossed to the closed lab door. Rested his palm against it, fingers splayed, and let his eyelids lower. “Durd,” he murmured. “He doesn’t live in this building, right?”
“That’s right. He has a private suite elsewhere in the compound. He says he can’t sleep with the stink of human in his nostrils.”
“And the rest of us won’t sleep while he’s breathing free air.” Anakin’s face twisted. “Or at all.”
There was something in the way he said it. The way he’d called the Neimoidian a monster. “You know General Durd.”
“Yeah. We’ve met.” He dropped his hand from the door. “Okay. I think the coast is clear.”
Shaken, she stared at him. “You think? Don’t you—”
“Sorry. We can’t sense droids.” He gave her that charming, cheeky smile again. “But I’ve got very good hearing. Let’s go.”
They slipped out of the lab and down the long empty hallway to her room—her prison cell—which had been two adjoining offices before the Separatists took over. A dividing wall had been ripped out and the resulting space turned into a cramped, basic apartment that held a curtained-off bed, a tiny refresher, some shelves,
and a makeshift kitchen. The leftover space had been turned into a living room—someone’s crude attempt at interior decorating.
“Please,” she said, closing the door then gesturing at the scattering of furniture—a sofa, a chair, a rickety table. “Make yourself comfortable. Can I offer you something to eat or drink?” And then she felt foolish. This wasn’t a social occasion. Their lives were in deadly peril. If Anakin’s Jedi friend Kenobi somehow got himself caught…
Idiot. Don’t even think it. He won’t get caught. They don’t call him a hero of the Republic for nothing.
Anakin was looking relieved. “Water would be greatly appreciated, thank you. Food, too, but I’ll wait for Obi-Wan to come back before I eat.”
She crossed to the small kitchen table, put down the precious holoprojector, then nodded at the commercial-sized conservator her keepers had so kindly given her.
“It’s entirely up to you. The water’s in there. Help yourself to as much as you like.”
He drank three full bottles, hardly taking a breath. Noticing her surprise, he shrugged. “Sorry. My manners aren’t usually that bad. It’s just—it’s been a long, hard day.”
“I can tell,” she said, disposing of the emptied bottles down her makeshift kitchen’s waste chute. “You should sit down. If you don’t mind me saying so, you look tired.”
He considered his filthy clothes. “Are you sure? I don’t want to dirty the furniture.”
“Why should I care?” she said, shrugging. “It’s not my furniture. By all means, feel free to ruin it. Who knows? I might even help.”
He almost laughed. “Yeah. Okay. In a minute. But first, do you have a medkit?”
“Why? Are you hurt?” she said anxiously. “Where? How badly? Yes, I’ve got a medkit, I’ll go and—”
“Doctor Fhernan, I’m fine.” His expression was a mingling of caution and pity. “You’re the one who’s hurt.”
