“It depends on what they want,” Leia was saying. “One group seems in favor of an alliance with the P’w’eck as opposed to an alliance with us. Another wants nothing to do with the P’w’eck.” She shrugged. “If our being here exposes the cracks in the underground, then that might be a good thing. Instead of one concentrated assault on the local government, their objectives may fragment, resulting in a number of small and relatively ineffectual attacks.”
“Scattershot might be inaccurate,” Han said, absently playing with Leia’s fingers in his hand, “but it usually hits something. Personally, I’d rather be on the receiving end of a single sniper than a dozen people spraying wildly. At least with a sniper you know when the threat is—”
He stopped midsentence, his attention also caught by Tahiri’s unusual behavior. Now she was inspecting the underside of an antique drink cabinet.
“Tahiri?” Leia said. “What are you—?”
“A-ha!” Tahiri stood bolt upright, brandishing a small object in her outstretched hand. “This is it!”
Jaina and her parents exchanged confused looks.
“This is what?” Jaina asked.
Tahiri brought the thing closer for the others to see. Jaina leaned in to examine the object and found it to be a metallic capsule no larger than a baby’s tooth.
“The Ryn said we’d find what we needed here,” Tahiri said. “This has to be it.”
“The Ryn?” Leia repeated.
Han quickly outlined what he had learned about Tahiri’s encounter with the Ryn on the landing field.
“Did he say anything else?” Leia asked Tahiri.
“Only that he thought you should be careful,” Tahiri told her. “But he couldn’t talk properly there, so he said he’d contact us later. Perhaps that’s what this is: a note of some kind.”
She fiddled with the capsule, turning it over in her hands and picking at a seam around its middle. Nothing happened until she squeezed it between two fingers; then one end clicked and there was a brief but intense flash of light.
Jaina blinked in surprise, waiting for something else to happen. But nothing did. The capsule was inert again, and no matter how much Tahiri poked at the thing, she couldn’t get it to repeat the flash of light.
“That can’t be right,” the young Jedi muttered. “You’d think he’d make sure it worked before leaving it for us.”
“Excuse me, Mistress Leia,” C-3PO said, “but—”
Han raised a hand to motion him to be quiet. “Hang on, Goldenrod. We’re busy right now trying to figure out how this thing works.”
“But, sir,” the droid said. “I already know how it works.”
All four stopped what they were doing and turned to C-3PO.
“Well?” Han asked after almost fifteen seconds. “Come on!”
“It would seem, sir,” C-3PO said, “that the flash of light contained a compressed message—a holographic page of writing, to be precise. My photoreceptors were able to collect the data and store it in my memory banks.”
“A note?” Tahiri asked excitedly. “What does it say?”
“It appears to be written in an obscure Givin code.”
“But can you translate it?”
The droid bristled at the very idea he might not be able to. “Of course. The message reads: ‘Malinza Thanas has information you will need. She is being held in Cell Twelve-Seventeen of the Salis D’aar Penitentiary. You can gain access through Rear Entrance Twenty-three at midnight tonight. The code word is fringe dweller. I will try to contact you properly tomorrow.’ ”
Jaina committed the details to memory. “Is that all?”
“I’m afraid so, Mistress Jaina.”
“It’s not much, is it?” Tahiri put in, disappointed.
“It’s enough for now,” Leia said. “I’ll go and find out what Malinza has to say as soon as the time is right.”
Jaina shook her head. “Let me go,” she said. “You’ll be missed. They’ll expect you to stay to investigate the situation with the P’w’eck. If you send me or Dad in your place, they’ll wonder why.”
“Will Malinza listen to you, though?” Leia asked. “Right now she has no more reason to trust you than we have to trust her.”
“I’ll just have to use my winning ways, I guess. Besides, it’s not as if she’s going to find many willing ears in prison. This could be the last chance she gets.”
“Okay.” Leia stood and put a hand on her daughter’s shoulder. “But be careful, won’t you?”
Jaina smiled, then brushed off her mother’s concern—sweet though it was—and went to her room to prepare.
“Halt!” The image of a guard appeared in the stolen villip. Nom Anor watched as the Shamed One carrying the villip—cunningly concealed in a dead and hollowed k’snell vase—unhesitatingly obeyed the warrior’s command—as would be expected of a member of the lowest social class who had just wandered into Lord Shimrra’s antechambers.
The guard advanced slowly upon the Shamed One, his face set in a sneer. “In your haste to rejoin Yun-Shuno, you have forgotten that no one enters these chambers without permission from the Supreme Overlord himself.” He stopped a couple of paces from the Shamed One, his grotesque visage thrust into close focus. “Explain why it is that your vile presence now dirties these floors.”
“I-I was sent by High Priest Jakan,” stammered Nom Anor’s spy. She had practiced the excuse many times before leaving on her mission, but it had never before sounded so unconvincing. “He or-ordered me to present this offering—”
“Lies!” The warrior’s amphistaff uncurled from around his uniformed waist, snapping into an attack position. “You will tell me what it is you are doing here, and then, for your transgressions, you will feel the wrath of Lord Shimrra’s palace guard.”
As the warrior took another step closer, the Shamed One dropped to her knees, clutching the k’snell vase and the villip within to her chest. “Please—” Nom Anor couldn’t see her face, but he could imagine her fear.
“Your begging is an affront to all Yuuzhan Vong!” the warrior growled as he raised his amphistaff. “Prepare to die!”
“Jeedai!” the Shamed One screeched suddenly, her tone no longer obsequious and sniveling. As was planned, she triggered the patch at the base of the k’snell with the palm of her hand. “Ganner!”
The image died with the villip and the Shamed One a split second before the amphistaff came crashing down. The last thing Nom Anor saw of the antechamber was the twisted and hateful snarl of the warrior.
“She wasn’t supposed to say anything about the Jedi,” he said, using the infidel pronunciation he had become accustomed to during years of undercover work. A rising tide of anger was hard to contain. They had been so close!
“At’raoth was devoted to the cause,” Shoon-mi said. He stood to one side of Nom Anor’s new throne, situated in a hiding place that was far removed from the last one. The former Shamed One was clearly uneasy in the aftermath of their failed attempt to infiltrate Shimrra’s chambers. “She went willingly, knowing that she might die.”
“But whether she died the right way remains to be seen,” Kunra said. “Will she be captured and tortured? Will they learn about us?”
“No!” Shoon-mi seemed shocked by the suggestion. “She will have taken the appropriate precautions.”
Nom Anor was certain his highest acolyte was correct. “The appropriate precautions” meant, in this case, breaking the false tooth at the back of her mouth and swallowing the irksh poison they had provided her with. It would have killed her instantly. Her fanatical loyalty to the cause guaranteed that she would have obeyed that last command.
But even suicide might not be sufficient to avoid disaster,
Nom Anor thought. The spy had openly declared her allegiance to the Jedi heresy, so Shimrra would certainly be alerted now to attempts to infiltrate his walls. It would be even harder to get in next time—and riskier.
That didn’t mean he’d give up trying, though. He did
n’t care how many acolytes died in the attempt. Information on his enemy’s activities was vital. Any campaign, covert or overt, depended on intelligence, which meant he needed to get someone on the inside of those walls—and soon. If he couldn’t, then he wouldn’t know what measures were being taken against him, and that left him unacceptably vulnerable.
“We did well just to get this far,” Kunra said. It was a desperate attempt to make good out of a bad situation, but there was no hiding his weariness. “At’raoth made it farther than any of the others.”
“I believe I even heard voices,” Shoon-mi said.
Nom Anor nodded. He had heard voices, too, from within the chamber on the far side of the threshold the spy had attempted to cross. He was sure that those voices had belonged to High Prefect Drathul, High Priest Jakan, and Lord Shimrra’s abominable puppet Onimi. Someone had been arguing with them—one of the warriors, perhaps. The argument had been too faint to discern any actual words, but it had been close. Had At’raoth made it just a few steps closer …
He growled an ancient oath under his breath. Mistakes risked the ruin of everything he was trying to achieve. The heretical movement was still too weak to survive a concerted purge.
“We have to try again,” he said shortly. “We need access to those chambers.” Frustration boiled inside him like a magnetic storm. He missed his old networks, his chain of informers, the many spies who had fed him information. Bloated on data, he had not known how fortunate he’d been before his fall. Starved, weakened by ignorance, he longed for a return to those glory days. “If we can’t get a villip inside, then we will need an informer.”
“But who?” Shoon-mi asked. “And how?”
“Our numbers are increasing,” Kunra said by way of reply. “Word is rising up the ranks. It’s only a matter of time before we infiltrate the upper echelons.”
“I cannot wait that long!” Nom Anor snapped. “The closer we get to the top, the riskier it becomes for us. Without knowing what Shimrra knows, we are like one of his sacrifices: on our knees with a coufee at our throats, waiting for the killing blow to finish us off.” He shrugged under his robes. Lately in his dreams he found himself fleeing a band of warriors bent on his destruction. He never saw them, but he could always sense them close behind, and could always hear them. In his dreams, he was nothing more than an animal being hunted.
He shook his head; the waking hours were no time to waste on nightmares.
“I will not die down here,” he said. “I will not become like the corridor ghouls: blind and vulnerable to anyone with light.”
“It will not happen, Master,” Shoon-mi said lamely. “We would let no such thing happen to you.”
Shoon-mi’s attempts to reassure him were like those he would use on a child, and Nom Anor brushed them aside with the contempt they deserved.
“Enough!” He stalked back to the throne and collapsed into it. “Find me another volunteer. We will try again; we will keep trying until we have achieved our goal! We must crack Shimrra’s security before he cracks ours. It’s either that, or perish.”
Shoon-mi swallowed and backed away, bowing. He didn’t know anything about the spy they’d captured at their last headquarters, but he understood the reality of their situation. They were heretics, anathema to Shimrra and the priests, a contamination to be purged. A rust, Nom Anor thought, remembering his musing on the rotting of iron he had observed in the belly of Yuuzhan’tar before adopting the mantle of Prophet.
“It will be done, Master.”
“Make certain of it,” Nom Anor said. His glare fell upon Kunra, also. “Both of you.”
Kunra nodded grimly, not needing to say that there were only so many volunteers left to be wasted on such hopeless missions. The more that failed, the fewer there were to choose from next time. Sacrifice needed a point to be noble.
But he, too, understood the harsh reality of the situation. It was either kill or be killed. If the most the Shamed Ones could gain was to choose the manner of their passing, then that, at least, was something. It was certainly more than Shimrra had ever offered them.
Jaina crouched behind a stone balustrade on the roof of a warehouse across the road from the penitentiary. She kept herself low to avoid being spotted by the powerful floodlights sweeping the area. Regular patrols around the perimeter of the prison she had expected, but the Ryn hadn’t warned them about the swarm of G-2RD sentry droids that accompanied them, and she hadn’t anticipated them. The Bakurans’ usual dislike of droids had obviously been overcome by pragmatism in this case. Surveillance of the area was frequent and random, making it difficult to predict when sweeps would next take place. Worst of all, she had tripped some sort of concealed alarm when she’d dared make her first dash for the rear entrance. The entire compound was now on full alert, ready and waiting for someone to break in.
Half an hour’s careful observation convinced her that it was unlikely she could sneak in unobserved. And if the security on the inside was as stringent as that on the outside, then she wasn’t going to last a minute in there—let alone reach the cell she needed. No, she was going to have to try another way …
Slipping out from her hiding space, she crossed the roof of the warehouse and descended a narrow ladder fixed to the far wall. The laneway at its base was cluttered with rubbish, suggesting it was rarely used. Following it to its end, she allowed a trio of deep and calming breaths to fill her with a sense of control and authority.
I am not a covert agent, she told herself. I am the representative of visiting dignitaries, and the people here are our allies.
With a brisk, measured pace, she walked around the corner and into full view of the security droids. A spotlight instantly hit her full in the face, but she didn’t break step—the slightest hesitation could destroy the illusion she was trying to create.
Two G-2RD droids swooped from emplacements in the high ferrocrete wall that was the rear of the prison. Floating spheres equipped with several means to inflict discomfort, they converged on her, buzzing furiously like agitated insects.
“Halt!” exclaimed one. She couldn’t tell which.
She stopped within three meters of the rear entrance, radiating patient obedience.
“State your name and purpose here,” ordered the other, its voice a nasal whine probably designed to irritate.
“My name is Jaina Solo,” she replied easily. “I’m here to speak with Malinza Thanas.”
Both droids buzzed as they performed a quick check on her clearance. After a couple of seconds, one of the droids advanced with its stun prod crackling. “No such visitation has been authorized.”
“Please don’t threaten me,” she said, sending the small droid into a spin with a push from the Force. “I really don’t take too kindly to things like that.”
The second droid emitted a piercing wail that Jaina was quick to cut short. She reached deep into the droid’s circuitry with the Force and fused its vocabulator.
More droids and spotlights converged on her. She couldn’t have drawn more attention to herself if she’d wanted to. Nevertheless, she maintained her calm exterior and kept her hands well away from her lightsaber.
“I am here to speak with Malinza Thanas,” she repeated, patiently and firmly. “Please let me through.”
The first droid recovered from its spin and faced her again, this time speaking with a different voice, that of a guard from within the compound, obviously watching through the droid’s sensors.
“I’m sorry, but we cannot allow visitors without authorization.”
She folded her arms in front of her. “Then I suggest you get it, because I’m not going anywhere until I’ve seen Malinza. And I have no intention of leaving quietly. I’ll give you one minute to comply.”
The droid buzzed, bobbing up and down as though itching to be given the okay to attack her. She watched it warily while counting from one to sixty in her head.
At the end of the minute, she heard hurried footsteps coming toward her from arou
nd the nearest corner.
“I can’t wait all night, you know,” she said, brushing the droids easily aside and taking three more paces toward the rear door that the Ryn had specified in his message. There she spoke the code word she’d been given.
“Fringe dweller.”
The door instantly hissed open, lifting sharply up into the ceiling. She strode through into a glowing white corridor that led as straight as a beam of light into the heart of the building.
A chorus of buzzing from the droids followed her. A new voice issued from the nearest droid’s casing.
“This is a flagrant disregard for regulations!” There was no disguising the guard’s annoyance. “Whoever you are, I must insist that—”
“As I have already explained,” she said, “my name is Jaina Solo, and I’d appreciate it if you could make up your minds as to whether you intend to assist me or arrest me. I really have no desire to fight you, but if you force my hand then I—”
“You can’t expect to just walk in here and see any prisoner you like! Ever heard of protocol?”
“You ever heard of a diplomatic incident?” she shot back. “Because that’s what you’re going to get if I don’t get to see Malinza Thanas.”
The pause was longer this time, and she sensed the droids backing off slightly. A squad of guards had appeared behind them, and waited uncertainly to see what she would do next.
“Well?” she prompted after a while. “What’s it to be?”
“Please wait where you are.” The voice seemed more cowed than it had been a moment before, and Jaina suspected the guards had been instructed by their superiors to let her through. “An escort will arrive shortly.”
No sooner had this been said than four Bakuran security guards came hurrying around the corner—their weapons, she noted, carefully holstered.
“Come with us,” ordered the one nearest to her. He spoke firmly, gruffly, but there was no escaping the fact that he was a little uneasy. Jaina allowed herself a slight smile at this; they weren’t as good at hiding their nervousness as she was.
She didn’t move. “Not until I know where you’re taking me.”
Refugee: Force Heretic II Page 12
