Star Wars: Death Troopers (звездные войны)

by Джо Шрайбер

  Falling into single file, Kale and Trig slipped through an open gateway, striding along the damp prefab walls, down a flight of steps, deeper in the jaundiced subcutaneous bowels of Gen Pop. The air down here immediately became thicker, darker, and dramatically less breathable, on its way to an array of refurbished air scrubbers before circulating back through the barge.

  "Well, well," a voice said. "The Longo brothers ride again."

  Trig caught a quick breath, hoping it didn't sound like a gasp. In front of him, Kale froze, instinctively extending a hand behind him, and both of them peered into the open space that made up their immediate future. It took no extra time for Trig's vision to adjust. He could already make out the forms of several inmates, all members of the Delphanian Face Gang, and in front of them, Aur Myss.

  Whether Myss's nearly vertical sneer was a genetic accident or the result of one of his legendary knife fights was a matter of perpetual speculation among the other inmates. Below the flattened suede accordion of his nose, a row of mismatched tribal piercings dangled from the drooping lower lip, collected like trophies from all the other crew leaders while Myss and his boss, Sixtus Cleft, had slowly consolidated the Face Gang's position as the Purge's preeminent prison crew.

  "You're right on time," Myss said, piercings jingling as he spoke.

  Kale nodded. "We're always prompt."

  "An admirable trait for a prison rat."

  "That's why you chose to do business with us."

  "One of many reasons," Myss said, "I'm sure."

  Kale smiled. "Did you bring the payment?"

  "Oh yes." Myss produced a sibilant gurgle that might have been laughter, and extended one spade-claw hand, pointing down at the empty floor in front of him. "It's right there in front of you. Don't you see it?"

  Trig sensed, or perhaps only imagined, his older brother stiffening, preparing for trouble, and willed Kale to stay calm. It appeared to work. For the time being at least, Kale kept his posture erect and didn't look away, careful to keep his own voice steady and calm. "Is this some kind of a joke?"

  "Perhaps." Myss looked at the Delphanian foot soldiers standing on either side of him, grinning and sniggering. "Maybe you just don't share our sense of humor."

  "Our deal with Sixtus…"

  "Sixtus is dead."

  Kale stared at him. "What?"

  "A terrible tragedy." Myss was almost whispering and the mushy sibilance in between words, Trig realized, was definitely laughter this time, accompanied by the faint metallic jingle of his piercings. "ICO Wembly found him in his cell this morning with his throat slashed. I'm the new skipper now." He stopped, and then his voice abruptly frosted over. "And alas, the terms of our deal have changed."

  "You can't do that," Trig cut in, unable to hold back any longer. "Sixtus and our dad…"

  "No, it's all right," Kale said, still not taking his eyes off Myss, and when he spoke again he sounded absolutely calm. "I'm just sorry things worked out this way."

  Myss appeared genuinely curious. "Oh?"

  "None of this is necessary." Kale's voice was so casual it was almost like listening to their father talk, that same mellifluous we-can-work-this-out inflection that had gotten them out of so many dicey exchanges in the past. "We've built a mutually beneficial relationship here, and it's crazy to jeopardize it with rash decisions."

  "Rash decisions?"

  Kale waved a hand in the air. "Of course we'll be happy to tell you where the blasters and power packs are hidden, free of charge. Take them with my compliments. Consider it my gift to you as the new leader of the Face Gang. And everyone walks out of here to do business another day."

  "A generous proposal." Myss seemed to consider the idea for a long moment. "There's only one problem."

  "What's that?"

  Myss glanced at the Delphanian inmates slathering next to him on either side. "I already promised my men that they could kill you."

  "I see." Kale hove up a dramatic sigh. "In that case, I guess we don't have a deal, huh?"

  "No."

  "I suppose there's only one thing left to do."

  Aur Myss tilted his chin upward slightly. "And that would be?"

  At first none of them moved, and Trig had no idea what was going to happen. Then, before he realized it, Kale's hand blurred forward, moving faster than Trig could even see, his fingers hooking down to rip the piercings out of Myss's face.

  The Delphanian shrieked in surprise and pain and one of his hands flew up to cover his wounded, spurting lips and nose. Simultaneously the two inmates who had been flanking him burst forward in a rush, and Kale grabbed his brother's shoulder, spun him hard around, and thrust him back in the direction they'd come.

  "Run," Kale shouted, and they did, Trig first, Kale behind him, both of them flying back up the corridor they'd just come down. Behind them the Delphanians' boots clanged off the metal floor, and Trig could hear them shouting, coming closer. There was no way he and his brother could possibly outrun them. And even if by some quirk of fate they did escape, Aur Myss would be waiting for them tomorrow and the next day and-

  Rounding the bend, Trig almost collided with a guard standing directly in front of him. The ICO put up both hands in a reflexive warding-off gesture, and the sudden stop that kept Trig from slamming into him was followed an instant later by Kale hitting him from behind.

  "What's going on here?" the guard asked.

  "Nothing, sir, we just. " Trig started, and it occurred to him that there was no reason why the guards should be this far down the walkways to begin with.

  And then, between the pounding rhythm of his own heart, he realized something else.

  The Purge had fallen absolutely silent.

  The vibrations that had unsettled him, broadcasting their emanations up through the bones of his feet, ankles, and knees, had gone completely still.

  For the first time since he'd come aboard, the engines had stopped.

  Chapter 4.

  Medbay

  "Hey, waste," Zahara Cody said. "Are we there yet?"

  The 2-1B surgical droid looked up at her with a blank stare. It had been in the process of injecting a syringe of kolto into the left arm of the Dug inmate lying in the oversized medcenter bunk between them. Within seconds of receiving the injection, the Dug writhed and rolled up onto its back, twitching its lower legs beneath the sheet, then stiffened and lapsed into a very convincing state of rigor mortis.

  "Congratulations," Zahara said, "you killed him. Looks like you saved the Empire another four hundred credits." Reaching over, she tapped the surgical droid on the shoulder. "Job well done. Way to be a team player."

  The 2-1B looked at her in something like alarm. "But I didn't…"

  "Let me do a quick test, just to confirm time of death." Zahara reached down and rolled the Dug sideways, pushing it over until it fell out of bed with a thud. Seconds later, the inmate sat up with a squeal of displeasure, scuttling back up to its bunk where it glared at her balefully and muttered some black condemnatory oath under its breath.

  "Looks like another miracle recovery," Zahara said, and smiled. "Another one of your many skills, apparently."

  "A most irregular approach," Waste intoned, and something deep inside its torso cowling clicked and whirred. "Don't you think that given the patient's ongoing complaints we should run some additional tests?"

  "Unless I'm mistaken, this particular patient's main complaint is with the food." Zahara glanced at the Dug. "And maybe one of the several different prison gangs that want his scalp for overdue loan payments. That's about right, isn't it, Tugnut?"

  The Dug snarled and jerked one hand up in a gesture that transcended language barriers, then went back to faking its own death.

  "Scramble up an orderly droid," Zahara said, "have him taken back to his cell." She looked back at the 2-1B. "You're aware, Waste, that you still haven't answered my initial question?"

  "Excuse me?"

  "Are we there yet?"

  "Dr. Cody, if you're ref
erring to our ETA at Detention Moon Gradient Seven…"

  "The Purge is a prison barge, Waste. Where else would we be headed? Wild Space?" She waited patiently to see if the 2-1B was going to favor her with another of its flat, implacable glances. Throughout the last three months of working alongside the droid, Zahara Cody had come to think of herself as a connoisseur of such reactions, the way that some people collected rare pseudo-genetic polymorph species or trinkets from older, pre-Imperial cultures. "We've already dropped out of hyperspace. Our engines have been stopped for almost an hour now and we're just sitting here stock-still, so that can only mean one thing, right? We must be there."

  "Actually, Doctor, my uplink to the navicomputer indicates that…"

  "Hey, Doc," A blunt finger reached out from behind Zahara and prodded her somewhere in the vicinity of her lower spine. "We there yet?"

  Zahara looked over at the Devaronian inmate sprawled languorously on his side on the bed behind her, then turned back at her surgical droid. "See, Waste? It's the question on everyone's lips."

  "No, I'm serious, Doc," the Devaronian groaned, peering up at her from the depths of melancholy. His right horn had been snapped off midtrunk, giving his face a peculiarly lopsided look, and he poked himself in the abdomen and groaned. "One of my livers is going bad, I can feel it. Thinking maybe I caught something in the shower."

  "May I offer a more likely diagnosis?" The 2-1B scurried eagerly around Zahara, already exchanging tools in its servogrips as the internal components of its diagnostic computer flickered beneath its torso sheath. "Liver damage in your species is not uncommon. In many cases your silver-based blood results in depicted oxygen due to the low-level addiction to the recreational use of…"

  "Hey, interface." The Devaronian sat up, suddenly the robust picture of perfect health, and grabbed the 2-lB's pincer. "What are you saying about my species?"

  "Easy, Gat, he doesn't mean anything by it." Zahara placed a hand on the inmate's wrist until he released the droid. Then, turning to the 2-1B: "Waste, why don't you go check out what's happening with the Trandoshan in B-seventeen, huh? His temp's up again and I don't like the last white counts I saw this morning. I doubt he'll make it through today."

  "Oh, I concur." The droid brightened. "According to my programming at Rhinnal State Medical Academy…"

  "Right. So I'll meet you later for afternoon rounds, all right?"

  The 2-1B hesitated, seeming briefly to entertain the idea of objecting, then walked away clucking softly to itself in dismay. Zahara watched it go, its gangling legs and oversized feet passing between the rows of bunks that lined the infirmary on either side. Only half of those beds were full, but that was still more than she would have preferred. As chief medical officer on the Purge, she knew that at any given time a large percentage of her patients were dogging it, either prolonging their stay in medbay or faking it entirely to stay out of Gen Pop. But it had been a long trip and supplies were low. Even with the 2-1B, the prospect of a legitimate medical emergency-

  "You okay, Doc?"

  Looking down, she realized that the Devaronian was watching her from his bed, fidgeting nonchalantly with his broken horn.

  "Sorry?"

  "I said, you all right? You look a little, I dunno…"

  "I'm fine, Gat, thanks."

  "Hey." The inmate glanced off in the direction that the surgical droid had gone. "That bucket of bolts won't hold it against me, you think?"

  "Who, Waste?" She smiled. "Believe me, he's a paragon of scientific objectivity. Just throw some obscure symptoms at him and he'll be your best friend."

  "You really think we're almost there?"

  She shrugged. "I don't know. You know how it is. Nobody tells me anything."

  "Right," the Devish said, and shook his head with a chuckle. Aboard the barge, there were a few phrases that circulated among Gen Pop endlessly: Are we there yet? and They expect us to eat this stuff? were chief among them, but Nobody tells me anything was also a big favorite. Over months of service, Zahara had adopted these phrases as well, much to the chagrin of the warden and many of the ICOs, most of whom held themselves up as an example of superior species.

  Zahara knew what they said about her. Among the guards, no real effort was made to keep it subtle. Too much time spent down in the medbay with the scum and droids and the little rich girl had started to go native, preferring the company of inmates and synthetics to her own kind: corrections officers and stormtroopers. Most of the guards had stopped talking to her completely after the situation two weeks ago. She didn't suppose she blamed them. They were a notoriously tight-knit group and seemed to function with a groupthink that she found downright nauseating.

  Even the inmates-her regulars, the ones she saw on a daily basis- had noticed a change in the way she'd started spending extra time training Waste-preparing the 2-1B not as her assistant anymore, but as her replacement. And although there hadn't been any official response from the warden, she could only assume that he'd received her resignation.

  After all, she'd walked into his office and slammed it down on his desk.

  There was no way she could keep working here.

  Not after what happened with Von Longo.

  * * *

  Take a girl from a wealthy family of Corellian financiers and tell her she'll never have a care in the world. Ship her off to the best schools, tell her there's a spot waiting for her in the InterGalactic Banking Clan, all she has to do is not mess up. Keep her nose clean, uphold the highest standards of politics, culture, and good manners, and ignore the fact that compared with what she's used to, 99 percent of the galaxy is still hungry, sick, and uneducated. Embrace the Empire with its quaint lack of diplomatic subtlety and strive to overlook the increasingly uncomfortable squeeze of Lord Vader's ever-tightening fist.

  Flash to fifteen years later. The girl, now a woman, decides to go to Rhinnal to study, of all things, medicine-that dirtiest of sciences, better left to droids, full of blood and pus and contagion, hardly what her parents had hoped for. But the decision is made to indulge her, based on the hope that this is just an idealistic whim and soon enough little Zahara will be back to take her rightful position at the family table. After all, she's young, she has plenty of time.

  Except it doesn't play out that way. Two years into Rhinnal, Zahara meets a surgeon twice her age, a craggy veteran of hundreds of humanitarian missions beyond the Core Worlds, who opens her eyes to the true need of the galaxy around her. The mismatched love affair runs its course predictably enough but even after that part of it winds down, Zahara can't forget the picture he's painted for her, a mural of staggering need, beings whose desperation is utterly beyond her ken. He reminds her that the poor are out there in their countless millions, human and nonhuman alike, young ones dying of malnutrition and sickness, while the galaxy's upper echelons bask in self-induced oblivion. You can either live with something like that, the surgeon tells her, on what turns out to be one of their last nights together, or you can't.

  And it turns out she can't. After being universally rejected by various aid groups because of her lack of experience, Zahara makes the decision to go to work for the Empire, which her family reluctantly accepts-at least it's a known entity-but in a capacity that leaves her parents speechless, stupefied, and outraged. No daughter of theirs is going to work on an Imperial prison barge. The indignity of it is beyond all scale.

  Yet here I am, Zahara thought now, queen of her own miniature kingdom after all, duchess of the empty bunks and our lady of the perpetual stomachache. Involuntary lust-object of a hundred emotionally frustrated prison guards and deprived stormtroopers. Dispenser of medicine, charged with keeping the inmates of the Imperial Prison Barge Purge alive long enough to be permanently detained on some remote prison moon.

  The irony, of course, was that in a standard week's time, or whenever they finally arrived at their destination, she would be going back to her father and mother-if not exactly hat-in-hand, then close enough. Her mother would snif
f and scowl, her brother would jeer, but her father would throw his arms around his little girl and after the acceptable amount of time had passed, her penance would be complete and she would be welcomed back into the fold. And her time aboard the barge would become what they'd thought it would be all along, an adventure in her youth, a charming dinner anecdote for diplomats. You'll never believe how our little girl decided to spend her youth.

  Looking through the medbay again, Zahara felt a thin tremor of uncertainty steal over her and willed it away. But like most aspects of her personality, it didn't go without a fight.

  Instead, unbidden, the image of Von Longo floated back up into her memory, the man's bloody face trying to talk to her through the ventilator, clutching her hand in both of his, asking to see his boys one last time. Begging her to bring them to him so that he could speak to them in private. Moments later, the cloud of heavy menace emerged behind her back and she turned to sec Jareth Sartoris, close enough that she could actually smell his skin, speaking through thin lips that hardly seemed to move.

  Paying your respects, Doctor?

  Longo had died later that day, and Zahara Cody decided that she had flown her last voyage with the Purge and the Empire. The next step would be contacting her parents and letting them know she was coming home. Luxurious clothing and fine crystal had never been her first choice, but at least she'd be able to sleep at night. And in the evenings she would sit down to dinner with the wealthy and proud and forget about what had happened with Von Longo and Jareth Sartoris.

  Is this really what you want?

  Zahara shook it off. In any case, she'd always assumed she'd have lots of time to think about it before the barge got where it was going.

  Plenty of time to make up her mind.

  Except now the engines had stopped-had been stopped for over an hour.

  From across the infirmary, another voice, one of the other inmates, cried out, "Hey, Doc-are we there yet?"

  This time, Zahara didn't answer.