these threshold obstacles, and thus standard luggage wheels were of a
flexible compound that would roll over the pressure door lips with ease.
Not so the wheels of the fake case. Kaird didn't know where his former
partners in crime had found these wheels, but they were definitely made of
harder stuff, for when he hit the first threshold, the case stopped with a
jolt, and one of the wheels broke.
Kaird shook his head. He'd have to carry it after all.
He lifted the case-and both the wheel and its axle fell off, taking
with them a fist-sized chunk of carbonite that dropped onto the deck with a
clunk!
Something metallic glinted from the edge of the broken case.
Kaird stared at it. A sudden jolt of hormones raced through his system,
erecting his featherettes in atavistic fear, fluffing them to make him look
larger to any predator that might be considering him prey. The fact that
there was nothing even remotely resembling a predator within the several
thousand cubic kilometers of empty space surrounding him did nothing to
allay his instinctive fear.
There was not supposed to be any metal inside the carbonite.
Bota was fragile. Even when packed into compressed bricks, it would rot
eventually, which was of course why the contraband was transported in
carbonite-the carbon-freezing process suspended nearly all organic molecular
action. Bota did not become really stable until further processing made it
into an injectable or tablet form. In the compressed-brick form normally
used for shipping, anything packed along with it might cause unwanted
chemical reactions. Great pains were taken at this stage to make sure the
product was shipped as pure as possible, and he had insisted similar care be
taken by the black marketeers.
So why was he staring at something made of metal within the carbonite
block?
His featherettes began to smooth as Kaird took several deep, calming
breaths, making sure his exhalations were a second or two longer than the
inhalations, so as to flush carbon dioxide from his system. It worked; he
felt his pulse rate starting to slow as his anxiety level dropped.
He considered the possibilities. First possibility: something was
inside the carbonite with the bota.
Second: something was inside the carbonite instead of the bota . . .
The assault ship had an onboard medical unit, and it included a
diagnoster. Kaird carefully lifted the case in both arms and made his way to
the autodoc. In the course of his profession, he had, on occasion, needed to
use such devices to attend to injuries, either his or those of his comrades.
He was no expert, but the machines had been designed to be used by those
with minimal medical training, and they came equipped with simple
instructions.
This model had an axial image resonator built into it.
Kaird carefully put the case onto the diagnoster's table. He called up
the instructions for the device on the computer, scanned them, and found the
maximum settings. He touched the proper controls.
A clear, hoop-shaped transparisteel radiation shield lowered over the
case. There came a power hum. It was but the work of a moment for the
medical device to produce an image of what was within, and what the scanner
showed was not bricks of compressed bota.
What it showed was a bomb.
Kaird studied the image that floated in the air over the computer with
a practiced eye. He saw four thermal detonators linked in series with a
timer-more than enough to vaporize the carbonite and everything between them
and the ship's hull if they went off together. Maybe even powerful enough to
blow the ship itself apart. It was the corner of one of the detonators that
had showed where the carbonite had chipped away next to the wheel and axle.
Since carbonite did little to suspend electronic or mechanical processes,
there was every reason to expect that it would go off as planned.
Thula and Squa Tront had betrayed him. They had taken the bota for
themselves and given him a death sentence instead. And he had paid them well
to do it!
Luck was a funny thing. Had he chosen to carry the case instead of
rolling it-and had it not been for that poorly made wheel, and the hatch lip
that broke it, then the bomb would almost certainly have been sitting right
next to him in the control cabin when it went off.
It had been a bold move. Had it worked, the pair would have been very
rich, and nobody anywhere would be the wiser.
It might still work, if you just keep standing there staring at it like
a sunstruck fledgling-/
Kaird lifted the case and headed briskly for the nearest airlock. He
did not know when the timer was set to detonate the device. He could feel
himself beginning to sweat as he deposited the case in the lock, stepped
back to the other side of the hatch, turned off the A-Grav in the airlock
and slapped the cycle button.
The winds were at Kaird's back this time. The rush of air from the
depressurized lock carried the bomb away from the ship, into vacuum. He
returned to the cabin, and in a few seconds he had accelerated enough to
leave the case safely behind. It might not go off for hours, days even-
The soundless flare was picked up by his rear array less than two
minutes after jettisoning the bomb. The readout showed a yield of half a
kiloton. The bomb would have turned him and the ship into a cloud of
incandescent plasma.
Kaird leaned back in the seat. He had made a mistake, a large one, and
it could easily have cost him his life. He had succumbed to hubris. He had
assumed that Thula and Squa Tront were smart enough to realize that crossing
him would be foolish; that he would hunt them down and make them pay in
blood, no matter how long it took, no matter how far they fled. Black Sun
had eyes and ears everywhere, and sooner or later, he would find them.
What he hadn't counted on was the pair having the nerve to attempt to
assassinate an assassin. They were low-rent, small-time criminals, with no
history of violence. He hadn't guessed that they'd had it in them, and that
had very nearly been a fatal mistake. It was always better to overestimate a
potential enemy's strength than to underestimate it. If one was prepared for
the worst, the least was easy to manage.
What really stuck in his craw was that he had very nearly proven them
right in their estimation of him. He had been lucky, and as everyone knew,
there were times when luck was better than skill. He accepted this.
The loss of the bota was not in itself a fatal error, since Ms vigo
would never know it had been on the table. Kaird could twirl it so that the
story would not reflect too badly upon him: yes, he had discovered that the
plant had mutated, but, unfortunately, by the time he'd found that out, the
military had clamped down hard, and there was no way to collect any. The
vigos would be disappointed, but it was part of the business, and in the end
Kaird was too valuable a tool to punish for a misfortune not of his causing.
There was always another way to make money.
&
nbsp; Nobody would ever know that he had erred, save Kaird himself and two
others.
What it meant, he realized grimly, was that he was still in thrall to
Black Sun. Being given leave to retire by a grateful and enriched master was
also no longer on the table, and one did not just walk away from Kaird's
kind of work without permission.
There was nothing to be done about that part.
Kaird clenched a fist, looked at it as if it already held the two
scoundrels1 fates. He hoped Thula and Squa Tront enjoyed their riches fully,
for whatever time was left to them. That time would not be nearly as long as
they thought, and their end would be most unpleasant.
Most unpleasant.
Kaird fed the coordinates into the nav computer, then activated the
hyperdrive. The ship lurched as its gravity field flickered, the starfield
in the forward viewport blue-shifted into long spectral streaks, the engines
screamed, and he was gone.
37
Colonel D'Arc Vaetes, as head of Rimsoo Seven, was the highest-ran king
military officer close to hand. Barriss went to see him during a lull in the
surgeries. It had been suprisingly quiet the last day or two. Was it, she
wondered, the calm before a storm?
She could have, even as a Padawan, asked for and probably gotten an
audience with the new admiral on Med-Star, but there was a long-standing
protocol when dealing with the armed services, and Barriss had seen how it
worked often enough to know it was smarter to try the chain of command
first. The Republic military was many things, but flexible was not the first
word that came to mind when one thought of dealing with the army or navy.
There was the right way, the wrong way, and the military way . . .
"What can I do for you, Padawan Of fee?"
"This base is in danger, Colonel," she said.
The colonel smiled. "Really? A Rimsoo in an active theater of war in
danger? Imagine that."
"No, sir. I mean it is in more danger than usual- whatever level
'usual' might be."
Vaetes was a first-class surgeon, a career officer, and nobody's fool.
His smile vanished, and he turned his full attention to her. "Please
explain."
"I believe that the person responsible for the explosion of the bota
shuttle some time back is the same person responsible for the attack on
MedStar, and that this person is about to become instrumental in an action
that will put everybody here at risk. And not just this Rimsoo."
"The shuttle investigation was closed some time ago," Vaetes said. "It
was determined that Filba the Hutt was a spy, and the one responsible for
the sabotage. That was the conclusion of Colonel Doir, the officer in charge
of the investigation."
"I don't believe that's so. Or, at least, it's not the whole story."
"All right. Then who is responsible? And what is he or she about to do
that puts us at risk?"
Barriss sighed. "I don't know exactly who yet. Nor exactly how it will
happen."
Vaetes looked at her. "How do you know what you do know, then?
Intuition?"
"I learned it through the Force. It's hard to explain to someone who
has not felt it, but it is far more than intuition."
She could hardly tell him that her connection with the Force had been
augmented by using a drug-and one that she wasn't supposed to have access
to, at that. Any credibility she might have would evaporate fast if she went
down that path. Vaetes was a military man, pragmatic in the extreme, and a
surgeon. It had been her experience with most surgeons that, as far as they
were concerned, if a problem couldn't be excised with a scalpel, it didn't
exist.
Vaetes said, "Padawan Offee, I know that the Force is a big part of
your organization's . . . operational method, but ..." He shrugged. "What am
I going to tell the admiral to justify any action? And given the, uh, lack
of specific information, even if he agreed to trust you on this, what
exactly are we supposed to do?"
Barriss felt a sense of frustration envelop her. What could she say? He
was right. And if she couldn't convince Vaetes-a man who knew her and, she
felt, liked her- what were her chances of convincing somebody who didn't
know her at all? It did sound all too vague.
"Colonel, would it be possible for you to contact Cor-uscant? My comm
unit can't seem to hold a sustainable connection."
He shook his head. "It's supposed to be a military secret, Padawan
Offee, but at the moment, we can't call home, either. Some kind of
subetheric disturbance, jamming long-range communications. Our comm-techs
can't seem to get a grip on it."
Barriss nodded. She had hoped that if the military could talk to the
Jedi Council, they might vouch for her, at least enough to justify an alert.
But that apparently wasn't going to happen.
"Listen," he said, "I tell you what-I'll talk to the commander of the
troop unit attached here, tell him we heard something from an enemy patient
who died that something is up, and that he should ramp up his patrols. I'm
afraid that's the best I can do unless you can give us something solid we
can check out."
Something was better than nothing. "Thank you, sir."
As she left his office, she saw Jos Vandar walking away from the
landing pad. It was cloudy, probably going to rain again soon, but Jos's
aura was lighter, his energy higher, than she'd felt it in a long time.
Certainly lighter than her own at the moment.
She moved to intersect his path.
"Jos. How are you?"
He grinned at her. "Better than I've been in a while, I think. I hope,
anyway. I'll find out soon enough."
"I'm glad to hear that."
He looked at her. "What's bothering you?"
She was surprised at his question. "What makes you think something is
bothering me?"
"You do-your body language, facial expression, general demeanor, all
tell me you're distressed. What's up?"
It wouldn't hurt to tell him, and he already knew about her having
access to the bota. Maybe another mind working on the problem would help. At
this point, any help she could get, she would take.
She explained as they walked, telling him about her Force experience,
the bota, and her certainty about the approaching danger. Almost without
realizing it, by the time she finished, they were at his kiosk.
"That's the story," she said.
"Sweet Sookie's maiden aunt," he said. "That's pretty amazing."
"Yes. I feel like the mythological seer Daranas, from Alderaan-I can
see the future, but no one will believe my warnings."
Jos said, "Well, you've told Vaetes, and he's passing it along to the
guys on the ground. If there is going to be a threat, that's probably where
it'll come from. At least they have a heads-up."
She nodded.
"And you really think the bota is augmenting and focusing your
connection with the Force?"
"Absolutely," she said. "I know that it offers great power. I believe
that with that connection, I can somehow stop the danger. I might even be
able to stop the w
ar on this world completely."
He didn't say anything, but she could feel his doubt through the Force.
"You think it's some kind of hallucination, don't you?"
"I didn't say that."
"But you believe it."
He rubbed at his face. "Barriss, you're a doctor. You know that
medicine does different things to different people. Giving a Devaronian two
cc's of plethyl nitrate will cure a lobar pneumonia and open up his
congested lungs with virtually no side effects. Give that same dose to a
human and it'll drop his blood pressure into the syncope zone. Give it to a
Bothan-"
"And he'll be dead before he hits the floor," she finished. "Your
point?"
"Bota is the wonder drug of our age-every time we turn around, we
wonder at some new effect it has on some species that's never tried it
before. Maybe it does connect you to the Force in some mysterious and
powerful way. Or maybe you imagined it. A scientist would have to run an
experiment with objective protocols to be sure which it was. We've both
worked with patients in the throes of psychedelic delusion. They believe
what they see and hear and feel, too."
She nodded. "Yes. But the Force is not something that easily pinned to
an experimenter's board and dissected. I know that what I experienced was
real."
"But you're the only one who does."
"Master Unduli said that several Council members felt the ripples of
it."
"I hate to play Sith's advocate, but if I'm correctly understanding
what you're telling me, there's no way to prove that what they felt was an
echo of your experience. It's all just too subjective. Still, let's assume,
for argument's sake, that it is all true-what are the risks of you having
that much power? What might you do by accident?"
Barriss nodded. Yes. He'd put his finger squarely on the crux of the
problem. Who was she to wield a weapon that was, perhaps, tantamount to a
lightsaber that could shear through a planet? What might she do by accident?
There was no telling. Even the wisest Jedi Master would have to approach
such power with great caution and a lifetime of experience. And she was but
a Padawan, lacking any great skill or wisdom.
So, the choice: take up the flaming torch offered her by the Force, use
it to keep the pack of dire cats from her door-and, in doing so, run the
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