Rattled, he switched off the terminal, then the overhead light, and returned to bed.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
He switched the light back on. This time, the noise had come from the bulkhead beside his bed.
He took a close look at the wall. Were there any gaps in the bulkhead, any apertures through which a medium-sized insect could enter?
Yes. Power access ports. Slight gaps in durasteel panel welds. Above, poor fits around lighting fixtures. Night Caller was not a new ship; there would inevitably be ways for the thing to get in.
Ton Phanan answered on Grinder's third knock, sliding open the panel to his quarters and glaring with his one eye. "What?"
"Do you still have that spray sealant from Storinal?" Grinder asked.
"I see you remembered to wrap a towel around yourself this time."
"Never mind that. Do you?"
"Yes."
"Can I have it?"
"You have a middle-of-the-night plastic sealant emergency?"
"That's right."
Phanan sighed. "All right. Hold on." He returned to the door a minute later with the spray bottle.
"Thanks, Ton. I owe you."
"You owe me about an hour's sleep."
"I'll stand a watch for you sometime."
Grinder returned to his room and spent the next hour methodically plugging every gap, no matter how tiny, in his ceiling, walls, and floor—except for the air vent. He ran a power cable to the vent so that any creature touching it would be electrocuted. He heard no scratching in the meantime. Perhaps the creature had wandered off.
He switched off his lights.
This time there was no noise.
It took him another hour, but finally he dropped off to sleep.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
For a moment he was too groggy to understand his own sense of alarm—too groggy, really, to remember his own name. Then he remembered both.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
The noise was louder this time. Unmuffled. As if— As if the creature was within his room.
Cold fear gripped him. While he was out getting the sea ant from Ton Phanan, the Crystal Deceiver had slipped into his room.
Now it was trapped here, with him. It couldn't escape if it wanted to.
And it wouldn't want to. It would crawl on him and bite him and make a meal of his paralyzed body— With a moan, he reached out to turn on his side-table lamp.
It clicked, but didn't come on.
He peered around the room, but there wasn't even the faint green glow from his terminal power key.
Power was out to his quarters. Had the creature chewed through power cables to get in at him? No—it would have been electrocuted.
Was it smart enough to— No. Couldn't be.
Maybe it was a dream.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
The creature was under his bed.
He shrieked and leaped up. He charged blindly across his quarters, slammed into the door before he realized he was upon it, and slapped the door switch.
Nothing.
He grabbed the door where it slid into the wall. He tugged at it, trying to accomplish with friction and finger pressure what it normally took servomotors to accomplish, and dragged it open—a fraction of an inch. Beyond was empty corridor.
Scritch, scritch, scritch. Behind him. Still under the bed? Or coming for him, tottering on its glassy legs, with jaws distended?
He got his fingers into the door gap and heaved, slamming the doorway fully open.
A glassy chittering mass swung into his face from ahead and above.
He screamed and fell backward. He felt himself hit the hard floor of his quarters.
Then darkness claimed him.
26
"He suffered some sort of fit, I think. Tests may tell us more; It was Ton Phanan's voice, and Grinder could see light through his closed eyelids. Cautiously, he opened them.
A ceiling, like the one in his quarters, but this was Night Caller's sick bay. He turned his head to see Phanan, standing by the door, talking to Wedge and Face, who were just inside the door, and Kell and Janson, who were just outside. All looked concerned.
Kell reacted to Grinder's motion and the others looked. "Ah," said Phanan. "He's awake. I won't have to amputate."
Grinder half rose in alarm. "Amputate what?"
"Well, it's your head that seems to be malfunctioning."
Grinder cautiously felt his face to make sure there was nothing remaining of the insect. "Don't joke. I was attacked."
Wedge asked, "By what?"
"A Storini Crystal Deceiver. It's an insect. Something like a Glass Prowler, but a lot deadlier."
The other pilots looked at one another dubiously. Grinder felt irritation rise within him. "You can look it up on the ship's computer. And unless I killed the thing, it's somewhere in the ship. Maybe behind the bulkheads."
Phanan moved to the terminal and tapped his way through a series of menus. "I don't find anything about a Crystal Deceiver."
"It's a link from the entry for the Glass Prowler." "I don't find an entry for the Glass Prowler." Grinder stood unsteadily and stared over the doctor's shoulder.
Phanan was right; there was no entry in the ship's encyclopedia for any life-form from Storinal.
"I suggest," Phanan said, "that it was a dream. Something stress-induced, perhaps. But I think I'd like to keep you under observation tonight."
"I'm fine," Grinder snapped.
"Do as he says," Wedge said. "Grinder, your scream woke up half the ship. You cooperate with Phanan or I'll have him certify you unfit to fly until you do."
"Sir, that bug is a killer. It bites you and paralyzes you and you lie there while it eats you. If you don't hunt it down and kill it right now, it'll make Night Caller its own banquet hall."
Wedge glanced at Phanan, who shook his head. "You have your orders," Wedge said. "Get some sleep." He gestured for the other pilots to accompany him, and left.
Janson followed, but Face lingered and shut the door.
"Face, I've got to make you believe me—"
"Sit."
Grinder flopped down on his sick-bay cot. "Please—"
"Let me show you something." From his jumpsuit pocket, Face pulled a crude assembly of small mechanical parts. Grinder recognized a standard speaker from New Republic-issue datapads, a tiny battery, trailing wires.
Face touched the bare ends of two wires together.
The speaker said, "Scritch, scritch, scritch."
Grinder was suddenly standing. He didn't remember rising, but now he was advancing on Face. "You—"
Phanan seized his shoulders, dragged him back down onto the cot. Grinder struggled and glared up at Phanan. "What the hell is going on?"
"Payback," Face said. "Do you deny that you put that bug in my cockpit?"
"I— What? What bug? I don't know—" Grinder saw the implacable expression Face wore and gave up the pretense. "All right. I did. So what?"
"So you also did all that other stuff. The dummy in Falynn's closet. The leaping tubes and wires in Kell's locker. Plenty of other tricks. All the while sneering at the idea of pranks."
"I did not."
"No one else could have done it without leaving a trace on the ship's computer. You cracked passwords right and left to do it."
Grinder set his jaw and didn't answer. Face shrugged. "So, payback. My way of saying I don't appreciate it. My way of saying stop. Because this is about the lowest setting of payback I know." "How'd you do it?" Grinder asked. "Which part?" "All of it."
Face finally grinned. "To start with, when that Glass Prowler crawled out from under my seat and onto me—" "Right, why didn't you react?" "Well, I thought it was Phanan's." Grinder turned to the doctor.
Phanan shrugged. "You remember when we were sneak-ing back out of the Scohar Xenohealth Institute? We passed by a pallet full of little boxes holding these things. The sheeting covering the pile was ripped, so I just took one
of the boxes. I've always been intrigued by insects, ever since, as a boy, I learned they can make some girls jump. I kept the little thing in a cage in my room. Face, since he's my wingman, comes in from time to time. He's familiar with the thing." Face said, "Like I told you, I thought it was Phanan's. I turned my comm transmissions way down and told him. We smuggled it back to his quarters so Wedge wouldn't see. And we found his bug still in its cage, so we knew it was another prank. And how had the prankster gotten my cockpit open without leaving a trace? It was someone who knew the pass code . . . and after I cleared Cubber and Kell, that left only someone with the skills of a code-slicer."
Grinder grimaced. "A case of being too perfect. What about the scratching noise?"
Face tapped the pocket where he'd put away the speaker. "Kell worked the little gadgets up. He was tired of the pranks, too. He put some in your room. He also got up into the ductwork and lowered a couple with comlink controls down into the gaps between bulkheads. We could have made it sound like the creature was crawling all around outside or inside your room if we'd wanted. Kell also built the sensor that told us when you switched your lights on and the little mechanism that swung down into your face when you came out of your room, and he killed the power to your quarters. Which he restored right after you screamed, by the way.
"The encyclopedia entry was something I did, just entering it with my comm center access. If you'd sliced into the entry records, you'd have seen those items were recent additions to the encyclopedia. I got the real data off the datapad that came with Phanan's creature. Phanan did a medical scan on his insect for the graphic. We made up all the text on the Crystal Deceiver; there is no such thing."
Grinder sighed. "Well, maybe that does make us even." He glared at Phanan. "But that doesn't mean you can drug me, knock me out. That goes over the line."
The doctor smiled. It was a sinister expression. "I didn't."
"Who did?"
"No one. Or, in a sense, you did. Grinder—you fainted."
"No."
Phanan nodded. "Brave Wraith Squadron pilot fainted dead away. Now, can we consider your career as a prankster at an end ... or shall we tell everyone how you faint when bugs come at you? That'll be an interesting topic of discussion among Bothan females in the New Republic armed forces, I bet."
"You—you—"
"You bet? You have a deal? Just what are you trying to say?"
Grinder slumped, defeated. "You have a deal."
"Well, then. I imagine that when you wake up in the morning I'll be able to certify you fit to fly." The doctor rose and stretched. "In the meantime, I'm going to get some sleep in the hours we have remaining."
"Mynock."
"Stop muttering, Grinder. It's bad for your mental health." Grinning in a fashion Grinder found completely irritating, Phanan led Face from the sick bay and switched out the lights.
Scritch, scritch, scritch.
"Face! Come back here and pick up your little toy!"
It was the most elaborate deception they'd attempted to date.
Captain Hrakness was in the command seat of Night Caller's bridge, but he was dressed in one of Darillian's uniforms, his hair dyed to match Darillian's. This was so that if one of the other ships in Admiral Trigit's fleet pointed a visual sensor at Night Caller's bridge, it would see something matching Darillian's description—something matching the hologram the ship broadcast whenever in communication with the others.
Face was on station in the comm center, acting out Darillian's part whenever communication was necessary. His broadcast was replayed on the bridge's main monitor, and the increasingly irritable Captain Hrakness tried, whenever possible, to ape Face's motions.
At ten minutes until departure from hyperspace, the pilots were in their cockpits, going through start-up checklists. Wedge, Falynn, Janson, and Atril were in the TIE fighters, with the rest in the X-wings.
They emerged from hyperspace a hundred light-years from the Morobe system, into a system with a white dwarf for a sun.
Night Caller was the last ship on station. Already in formation were the Imperial Star Destroyer Implacable, the Im- perial escort frigate Provocateur, and the Corellian corvette Constrictor. Provocateur was stationed well ahead of the Star Destroyer; Constrictor was some distance to the port of and slightly behind Provocateur. Without waiting for confirmation from Admiral Trigit, Captain Hrakness headed to the mirroring position starboard and behind Provocateur.
Admiral Trigit's hologram sprang into life before Face a minute later. "Captain Darillian! Your profile has changed since the last time we met face-to-face, so to speak."
Face turned his head to display his profile. "I think it's the same. Regal, yet unbearably handsome. Or perhaps you mean Night Caller's profile?"
"That is what I meant. You've picked up a shuttle and made some other modifications, I see."
Face turned forward again and gave the admiral a conspiratorial smile. "The shuttle we took from a pirate. And the outer escape pods on either side are actually my TIE fighters, Admiral. A notion of mine. Instead of taking a minute to deploy all four, it now takes me one second. If you like, I'll have my mechanics dig up the modification specifications. I can transmit them to you and Constrictor."
"Please do."
"Speaking of modifications, have there been any made to our mission profile?"
"No. We can jump as soon as you're in position."
"Which will be in one and a half minutes. We'll be awaiting your signal."
Trigit disappeared.
The New Republic forces could have attacked Trigit's fleet here, in this unnamed system . . . but since, in theory, only the ship's captains knew where they were making rendezvous, that would have been a giveaway that one of them was a traitor. This would not matter if Trigit's fleet were entirely wiped out or captured, but would have cost the Wraiths their false identity if one or more of the ships got away. By attacking in the Morobe system, they could blame all "treachery" on the "Rebels" should they need to.
Face's comlink cracked. "Coming on station." It was Hrakness.
He sighed. He wanted desperately to be in the cockpit of his X-wing, but he had to play out his role if Trigit communicated again. For once he regretted his theatrical skill.
Face saw elements of the comm board light up as Night Caller received a data transmission from Implacable. Moments later the corvette's engine pitch changed. All four ships would be matching speeds and courses.
A minute later they were in hyperspace.
Five minutes from Implacable's arrival in the Morobe system, Lieutenant Gara Petothel presented herself to the admiral-unusual, since protocol called for her to speak to him from her console in the crew pit below or to use the intercom. "We have a problem, sir."
"Something we need to deal with before this assault?"
"If I'm right, this assault will destroy us."
He blinked. "Make it fast."
"I've been running the data from the Morrt Project. The data that told us that Talasea, in the Morobe system, was the probable site of the Folor relocation."
"And?"
"Nobody had correlated the data of systems being pro-filed with the parasite units providing the data. Sir, eighty percent of the statistical hits pointing to Talasea come from the same twenty-two units. For this to happen, those units would have to be attached to ships that jumped back and forth between Talasea and neighboring systems. And when the units changed ships, they would have to have changed to ships doing exactly the same thing."
Trigit kept his features still but felt cold run through him. "The Morrt Project has reached the end of its useful life span," he said.
"I'm afraid so, sir."
The admiral turned to Implacable's commander. "Captain! Drop us out of hyperspace immediately."
The captain, a dull-looking fellow from Coruscant whose appearance belied his reliability and intelligence, didn't ask any stupid questions. He looked up, gauged the seriousness of the admiral's expression, and nodded to
his chief pilot.
A moment later the view in the forward window of hyperspace turned into the end-of-jump vista of stars stretching to infinity. Those stars snapped from lines into sharp, unblinking points, with Implacable still light-years from the Morobe system.
The captain cleared his throat. "What about our fleet, sir?"
"Have Communications prepare an alert. It should tell them that Talasea is a trap; their orders are to exit the system immediately and signal us when they're sure they have eluded pursuit. Begin broadcasting that over the HoloNet now and continue for twenty minutes."
"Yes, sir."
Trigit settled back into his seat. "Good work, Petothel. You've probably saved us a considerable pounding."
The lieutenant gave him a cool smile and returned to her station.
He followed her with his gaze. He'd decided that she was very nearly the perfect woman. Intelligent, talented, and beautiful . . . and somewhat distant, the way he preferred things. Perhaps she'd be amenable to a liaison. If she was, he doubted she'd be the sort to become too attached, too intertwined in his life. An ideal package.
He'd think about it.
The other three ships of the fleet arrived from hyperspace within a second of one another. The planet of Talasea was close before them; they'd used its mass shadow, rather than a timer, to drag them out of hyperspace. Instantly, all three vessels launched their TIE fighters: Night Caller's four from her former escape pod ports, Constrictor's four from her bow hold, and Provocateur's two dozen from her hangar bays.
Implacable failed to appear behind them.
Face saw the HoloNet indicator light up, but allowed the ship's communications officer to handle initial reception; Face might foul up the process. A moment later Captain Hrakness's voice came across the ship's intercom. "Attention, all crew. Implacable has figured out the trap and held back. The other ships are turning to escape Talasea's mass shadow. We'll fire on them as we maneuver. All bow guns, prepare to fire on Provocateur's engines and communications gear. Turret cannons, prepare to fire on Constrictor's engines. We've got to hold them here for the Alliance forces. Do not, repeat, do not target until I give the command; we can't have them bringing their shields up." Face could feel the faintest lateral movement as the captain spoke.
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