by John Whitman
rang, filling the hallways with ear-piercing shrieks. All three humans clamped
their hands over their ears, but the sound reached right through and stabbed
into their brains.
Louder even than the alarm bells, a computerized voice boomed over the
ship's loudspeakers:
"Evacuate ship! This is not a drill. Evacuate ship!"
CHAPTER 5
"Engine reactor malfunction," the voice continued. "Critical meltdown in
fifteen minutes! Evacuate ship!"
All the doors lining the hallway suddenly flew open. Species of all
shapes and sizes came pouring out of their cabins and into the halls, turning
the corridor into a sea of thrashing arms and legs.
In the confusion, Zak barely had time to grab Tash's hand. Dash Rendar
was swept away by the stampeding crowd. The two Arrandas felt themselves
pushed along by the hundreds of beings storming toward the turbolifts. A long-
snouted Kubaz tried to shove between them. Zak held so tightly to Tash's arm
that he felt his fingernails dig into her skin.
"What do we do?" he shouted over the screaming alarms and the screaming
passengers.
"Come with me."
Hoole suddenly appeared next to them. He hadn't been there a moment ago.
Somehow he had worked his way through the crowd. As a shape-changing Shi'ido,
he could have shifted into the form of a crystal snake or a ranat and dashed
easily through the crowd of legs and feet.
Quickly but calmly, Hoole took each of them by the hand and started
through the crowd. Keeping his cool, the Shi'ido looked for any opening in the
frantic wall of passengers and slowly advanced until he reached the
turbolifts, where dozens of beings from almost as many species were pounding
on the door.
The loudspeaker blared again. "Critical meltdown in twelve minutes!"
"Critical meltdown?" Tash asked. "What happens then?"
"The ship explodes," Hoole replied. He opened a door near the turbolifts.
"But Uncle Hoole, the lifts are over there," Zak said, pointing to the
thickest part of the crowd.
"Never take turbolifts during an emergency, Zak," Hoole instructed.
As the door slid open, Zak saw a maintenance tube with a ladder. The tube
rose high above them, probably all the way to the top of the ship, and just as
far below them.
"Tash first, then Zak," the Shi'ido said. His face was stony and stern as
ever. "Four levels down to the docking bay. We'll take the Shroud out of here.
"
Zak waited for Tash to grab the ladder and start down. He swung onto the
ladder a few rungs behind her, with Hoole following.
At first Zak thought Hoole had let Tash and him go first simply to get
them down the ladder faster. But he soon realized that Hoole had another
reason. As soon as the panicked mob at the turbolifts saw the open maintenance
tube, they swarmed into it like a bunch of voor beetles. Zak could see a large
human jump onto the ladder and start down, with a fat, furry Bothan close
behind. Not caring who they trampled, the two passengers pressed down on
Hoole's head. "Hurry up! Move!" they screamed.
Hoole ignored them, moving at his own pace, bearing the brunt of their
weight on his shoulders, letting Zak and Tash concentrate on climbing down the
four levels to the docking bay.
They reached it and opened the door to find that panic had arrived before
them.
The corridor was packed with passengers. Some were empty-handed, but most
had grabbed whatever belongings they could. A Twi'lek shoved his way past
them, the two tentacles growing out of his skull tossed hastily over one
shoulder.
"Critical meltdown in ten minutes. Abandon ship!"
"We'll never get through this crowd," Zak shouted over the noise.
"And even if we do, the docking bay's going to be just as jammed!" Tash
added.
Hoole agreed. His steady gaze swept over the mob filling the passageway.
Nearby, the human and the Bothan who had followed them down the tube had
gotten into an argument. The Bothan's fur bristled and it shoved the human,
sending him backward into a crowd. A dozen people fell to the floor, adding to
the confusion.
"The life pods," Hoole decided. "It's our only hope."
Once again gripping Zak and Tash in his firm grasp, the tall Shi'ido
plunged into the mob. Zak felt himself pulled through a forest of arms, legs,
tentacles, and fins as Hoole advanced.
The mob moved like a slow river that emptied, finally, into a wide
observation deck filled with banks of life-pod doors. Each door led to an
escape pod that could be launched away from the cruiser. The life pods were
used to evacuate passengers from a ship and were designed to keep the
survivors alive for days, until help arrived.
Zak saw people pouring into the open life pods. Most were already full,
but frightened passengers continued to fight their way in, while those inside
fought to keep them out. Cries of "Too full! Too full!" mixed with shouts of
"Let me on!" Panicked travelers screamed in a hundred different languages.
The loudspeaker announced: "Critical meltdown in eight minutes."
Hoole's voice took on a sharp edge. "I've had enough of this."
Zak saw Hoole's skin start to crawl across his bones and knew what would
happen next.
Hoole changed.
Suddenly, he was no longer a gray-skinned Shi'ido. He was an enormous
slug-like Hutt, with a wide, round body, thick tail, and enormous head and
mouth. Roaring, he shoved forward. The crowd parted like curtains being pulled
back.
"Order! Order!" the Hutt boomed in a voice so loud it could be heard over
the screaming passengers, the alarm bells, and the loudspeaker. "Form lines.
We will all get out together if we work together!"
A panicked passenger-a Rodian, Zak guessed, by its green skin and short
snout-tried to shove Hoole away, but in his Hutt shape, Hoole was just too
big.
Intimidated by his size, the passengers fell into line. Zak and Tash had
followed their uncle as he cut a pathway through the crowd, and now they found
themselves right next to one of the life-pod doors.
"Inside," the Hutt-shaped Hoole ordered, shoving the two Arrandas into
the escape craft.
"Critical meltdown in five minutes," the loudspeaker announced. "Evacuate
ship immediately!"
The fear and tension were thick enough to cut with a vibroblade. Five
minutes until the ship exploded. Anxious passengers crowded forward as more
people arrived at the rear, pushing and shoving together. The lines started to
break up.
Someone screamed. Zak almost missed it over the shouts of other
passengers and the shrieking alarms, but he followed the sound until he saw a
woman at the back of the room. She was screaming, "My baby! My baby!" and
trying to force her way through the crowd.
"Over there!" said Tash, who'd also heard the woman. Zak followed her
pointing finger. On the opposite side of the observation deck, a two-year-old
girl sat huddled in a corner, crying.
"They must have gotten separated by the crowd," Tash guessed.
"She ca
n't see her daughter from where she's standing," Zak said. "Come
on!"
Together, Zak and Tash dashed back out of the life pod. Immediately, two
passengers jumped in to take their places.
The two Arrandas wormed their way back through the crowd. Tash ran for
the little girl, while Zak headed for the mother, ducking and dodging,
sometimes dropping down to his hands and knees and crawling between legs. A
large, hairy-footed Talz stepped on his fingers and a big-eared Chadra-Fan
almost tripped him, but he struggled on.
Once he was in the crowd, he could no longer see the woman, but he could
still follow the sound of her cries. He reached her in less than a minute.
"Come with me," he said, grabbing her hand.
Dumbstruck, the woman followed as Zak headed in the direction of Tash and
the little girl. Halfway through the crowd, he bumped into someone for
probably the hundredth time in the last sixty seconds-but this someone was
Tash, and she was holding the little girl.
"My baby!" the woman cried.
"Get on a life pod, and hurry!" Zak said.
The woman flashed them a nervous, thankful smile, then disappeared into
the crowd.
Zak and Tash tried to force their way back toward the front of the
observation deck, but a big, bald human with a wicked scar on his cheek
stopped them as they tried to pass. "Where do you think you're going?"
"We already have seats in that life pod," Zak replied.
"Sure," the human sneered, "your seat is right behind mine. Now wait your
turn."
"You don't understand," Tash added, "we were just helping someone!"
The bald man snarled, "Good for you. Now let me help you. Right into the
storage closet!"
The man grabbed them each by the arm. Turning angrily, he strode to an
open storage room at the back end of the observation deck and dumped them
inside. Then he hit the control switch, closing the door.
As they picked themselves up, Zak and Tash heard the loudspeaker
announce, "Critical meltdown in three minutes. Explosion imminent."
"That was rude!" Zak said.
"Just get the door open!" Tash replied.
There was a control panel on the inside of the storage room, too. Zak
touched the Open button.
Nothing happened.
He touched it again.
Nothing.
"Could he have locked it?" Tash asked.
Zak studied the control panel. "There aren't any locks on this door. It's
just stuck!"
Outside, the loudspeaker boomed, "Critical meltdown in two minutes.
Prepare to jettison life pods."
"Use this!" Tash said, holding up a piece of metal pipe. It looked like a
spare part for a maintenance droid. Together, Zak and Tash jammed the bar into
the door and started to pry it open.
"It won't budge," Zak grunted.
"If we don't hurry, all the life pods will be gone," his sister warned.
They kept at it. It seemed to take forever, but finally metal creaked
against metal, something in the door frame gave way, and the door slid slowly
open.
"We did it!" Zak cried. He jumped out of the storage closet...
... and into an empty room.
Uncle Hoole, the crowds, and the life pods were all gone.
CHAPTER 6
"Critical meltdown in two minutes!" the computerized voice announced.
"They left us," Tash whispered. "They left us."
Thanks to Hoole's organization, all the passengers had managed to crowd
onto the life pods, and all the pods had been released.
Zak shook his head. "Uncle Hoole never would have left the ship without
us."
"He must have thought we were still on board the life pod!" Tash replied.
"Maybe there's another life pod somewhere!" said Zak hopefully. "Come on!
"
They dashed from the observation deck and down a hallway, looking for
another escape pod. Now and then they came across one of the round doorways
that indicated a life pod, but all of the pods had been ejected.
"Critical meltdown in one minute!"
"The docking bay!" Zak shouted. He could see the huge doors of that led
to the ship landing area. "We can still make it!"
They sprinted for the doors, but when they reached them, the doors
wouldn't budge. Zak punched a command into the door's control panel.
A small screen lit up and words flashed on the screen:
EXPLOSION IMMINENT. ALL SAFETY DOORS HAVE BEEP SEALED.
"No!" Zak banged his fist against the door. He turned to look at Tash,
but she had no more ideas.
"I think-" he started to say.
"This is it," she finished for him. Zak knew what it meant. They were
going to die.
They sat down on the cold durasteel floor with their backs to the
docking-bay doors. The ship was going to explode. There was nowhere to run.
The computerized warning boomed, "Critical meltdown in thirty seconds!"
Zak looked at his sister. "Tash, I... I..." He stopped. "Thanks for being
my sister."
Tash put her arm around him. "Thanks for being my brother."
They sat and listened as the computer voice came back on. "Critical
meltdown in ten seconds... nine... eight..."
Zak's heart pounded against his ribs. He suddenly wondered if his parents
had had any advance warning before their homeworld had been destroyed. What
had they felt in their final moments, before their whole planet had been
blasted to pieces?
He realized that he was about to find out.
The computer continued its countdown. "... six. five..."
Zak felt his mouth go dry.
... three... two..."
He closed his eyes tight.
"... one."
Darkness.
Silence.
Is this what it's like to be dead? Zak thought. The explosion must have
been incredibly quick. He hadn't felt any pain. He hadn't felt anything.
Then someone shook his shoulder and Zak nearly jumped. That's when he
realized that his eyes were still closed. He opened them, and the darkness was
replaced by the soft white light of the Star of Empire's glowpanels.
The silence surprised him. The ship's emergency alarms had been clanging
for so long he'd almost gotten used to them.
"Zak," Tash said, breaking the silence. "We're still here."
Zak nodded, hardly believing it. He looked around.
Except for the fact that there was no one in sight, the Star of Empire
looked absolutely normal. The alarm bells had shut down, the computer voice
had turned itself off. They could hear nothing.
"The ship didn't explode!" Zak cried. He jumped up and grabbed his sister
in a big hug. They both laughed. "We're alive!"
"It must have been a false alarm," Tash guessed.
Zak nodded, getting a sudden idea. "Yeah, or maybe SIM fixed it at the
last minute."
"SIM?"
"Yeah-I was telling you about SIM when the meltdown warning alarm went
off. SIM stands for Systems Integration Manager. It's the artificial
intelligence that runs the entire ship. It could have found a way to stop the
engines from melting down."
"Well, maybe it can tell us how to call for help," Tash replied. "Because
we're going to need it. We
may be the only ones left on board." She looked
around until she spotted a computer terminal partway down the corridor. "Can
we contact this SIM?"
Zak hurried over to the terminal. It was a public service terminal.
Passengers could use it to locate the many restaurants and game rooms on the
cruise ship, or find out when meals and activities had been scheduled.
"You can send messages from here," Zak noticed, touching a button near
the screen. "There's a function that lets people send messages over the
HoloNet. But it's not going to do us any good. It looks like communications
are down. I guess there was some damage to the ship after all."
Tash looked around nervously. The ship was designed to hold thousands of
people. Empty, it was full of strange sounds and felt downright creepy. They
could hear their own voices echoing a dozen times down the long halls. "Can't