Star Wars - New Jedi Order - Force Heretic II - Refugee - Book 18

by Sean Williams

  Leia practically had to drag her husband from the office. They were both clearly unsatisfied by the audience with the Prime Minister, but even Tahiri, watching from afar, could see that they could do little about it just then.

  As the door shut behind them, Cundertol sat back down. For a long moment he was completely stillas though gathering his thoughts in meditation.

  "Leia mentioned you," Tahiri said to Goure. "You're the who contacted us, who sent Jaina into the penitentiary. She probably thinks you're involved in whatever trouble Jaina's in."

  "Which is all the more reason to find out what happened to her. Let's see if we can pick up something in'

  "Wait; look!" The door to Cundertol's office had opened again. Four dull-scaled P'w'eck guards walked in, dressed in elaborate leather harnesses and wearing paddle beamers at their sides. They spread out on either side of the desk and gazed suspiciously around the room. Lwothin then lumbered in, and behind him, walking serenely and with consummate grace, came a figure that, broadly speaking, resembled a P'w'eck, but was in almost every detail something quite different.

  The Keeramak, Tahiri thought. She couldn't help but admire the creature's beautifully swirled, multicolored scales. The pattern they made shimmered with rainbow hues under the bright lights of the office. Every movement sent new sparkles dancing. The Ssi-ruuvi physique was that of a refined hunter, honed by thousands of years of dominance over the stunted, nervous-looking P'w'ecks. The Keeramak's posture was straighter and its poise more balanced; its limbs were longer, its muscles sleeker, and its eyes glinted with an intelligence and cunning that made Advance Leader Lwothin look about as threatening as an Ewok.

  Two more P'w'eck guards followed. The doors shut firmly behind them. The Keeramak strode right up to Cundertol's desk and stood there, its thick tail swishing.

  Cundertol rose and bowed formally.

  The Keeramak said something in the powerful, deep fluting of the Ssi-ruuvi tongue. Tahiri listened for a translation, but none came. Cundertol had an earplug, she assumed, feeding the Keeramak's words in Basic directly to him. That was unfortunate, but not a disaster.

  At least we can still hear his reply, Tahiri thought.

  But what happened next took her completely by surprise. When the Keeramak had finished speaking, Prime Minister Cundertol opened his mouth and replied to the alien in fluent Ssi-ruuvia language that no human could possibly dream of pronouncing.

  Tahiri stared at the screen, watching Cundertol's larynx bob up and down in a highly unusual fashion as a rapid series of flutes issued from his mouth.

  "This isn't possible," she said, stunned.

  Cundertol's speech was interrupted by a loud interjection from the Keeramak. A clawed hand grasped air between the two of them. Cundertol protested at something, but the Keeramak cut him off again. Finally, with a sour expression, he nodded and sat back in his seat, folding his arms across his chest.

  He spoke again in the alien language, to which the Keeramak responded with a snort that might have been Ssi-ruuvi laughter. Lwothin tried to lean into the conversation, but the Keeramak batted him roughly aside. Cundertol smiled at this.

  "I don't like the look of this," Tahiri said.

  "Me neither," Goure replied. "If only there was some

  way I could record thisor at least patch it into a translator. But I can't do either without alerting security."

  "Then maybe that's what we need to do," Tahiri said. "I mean, someone needs to know about this!"

  The words had barely left her lips when the exchange between Cundertol and the Keeramak ended. The Prime Minister stood and offered another slight bow. Lwothin and his Ssi-ruuvi leader left the room, flanked by their armed bodyguard.

  When he was alone again, Cundertol fell heavily into his seat once more, this time with a relieved expression on his face.

  "I've no idea what just happened," Goure said, "but you're right we have to tell someone about it."

  "Tell them what, though?" Tahiri asked. The incident was only seconds in the past, and already she was finding it difficult to creditso how were others going to believe them without proof? "Do we just come out and say that the Prime Minister might be some sort of human/Ssi-ruu hybrid? They're never going to believe us!"

  "There is someone who might," Goure said thoughtfully.

  "Who?"

  "This kind of thing would undoubtedly end Cunder-tol's careerregardless of what his intentions might be. Who do you think would stand to gain the most from that?"

  Tahiri nodded. "The Deputy Prime Minister."

  "Exactly. He has a motive for doing something, as well as the power to make it happen quickly. If we can just get to him"

  "before the ceremony!" she finished for him. "If the Keeramak is planning to double-cross Bakura, then we'll need to act before then. The only thing stopping them from attacking openly is fear for their souls. Once Bakura is consecrated, there'll be no stopping them."

  "Agreed. And that doesn't leave us much time." The image of Prime Minister Cundertol winked out and was replaced by a flowchart of the complex's communications network. "Now, where exactly is Harris at the moment?"

  Before he could pinpoint the Deputy Prime Minister, a blaring voice rang out through the empty command hub.

  "Attention, cleaning crew. On whose instructions are you acting?"

  Goure activated an external comlink, his voice erupting uncomfortably close to Tahiri's right ear. "Supervisor Jakaitis, sir."

  "Supervisor Jakaitis denies requesting a crew in that location," came the instant reply. "Your presence is not authorized."

  "I'm sure if you were to ask him again"

  "You are in violation of Sections Four through Sixteen of the Secrecy Act. Remain where you are until a squad arrives. You will be escorted to a holding area where you will be formally processed."

  The feed from the command hub ceased.

  Tahiri cursed under her breath and, despite the air-conditioning unit of her suit, started to sweat again. They'd been paying too much attention to Cundertol, and not enough on maintaining the pretence of manual labor.

  Now that they'd been sprung, security would almost certainly be listening in on them. Goure butted the helmet of his HE-suit against Tahiri's to ensure they could speak without being overheard. At least their identities hadn't been revealed.

  "There goes that plan," he said.

  "We have to get out of here." An uneasy feeling was growing inside her. She couldn't sense anyone nearby, but the security squad might just as easily consist of droids.

  "Don't worry," he said. "We will. Follow me and do exactly as I do."

  "What about Harris?"

  "I found him before they cut us off," Goure said. "All we have to do is get to him."

  "And Arrizza?"

  "He can look after himself. Come on!"

  Before she could ask anything else, he'd pulled away and was powering his suit toward the exit. Although bulky and not designed exclusively for speed, the massive constructs could move quickly when they had to. She followed, the pounding of her heavy feet vibrating up through her metal legs and jarring into her body. The sound of hydros straining was loud in her ears.

  Goure led her back to the first turbolift they'd taken. Knowing that security would be watching them, he didn't even consider taking it. Instead, he took Tahiri along another series of corridors to a spiraling stairwell. The stairs shook precariously under their combined weight, but it was better than being trapped in a lift, waiting to be arrested.

  They climbed ten floors without interruption. Concern about the stability of the stairs became a worry of a very different kind when two black spheres dropped from above, wailing and flashing warning lights.

  "Security droids!" Goure yelled, his voice echoing from his speakers through the stairwell.

  Tahiri looked up. Restricted to the stairs, the droids had dropped down the center of the stairwell shaft. Thankfully there were only two, but she had no doubt that others would soon follow. Their stun p
rods would be harmless against the HE-suits' armor, but they had more powerful weapons at their disposal.

  "You are under arrest!" they announced. "You are under arrest! Drop your weapons and cease all movement!" Not likely, Tahiri thought, opening a metal hatch on the outside of the suit and reaching inside. Before climbing into the suit, she had hidden her lightsaber among the

  cleaning tools in case of an emergency such as this. It felt tiny in her giant metal fist, and she would have to concentrate twice as hard to fight the natural clumsiness of the suit, but she instantly felt better for having it in her hand.

  "No!" Goure shouted, seeing what she was doing. "If you activate it then they'll know who you are!"

  What difference will that make? she wanted to shout back. If they didn't already know , they would as soon as she was arrested and forced to step out of the suit.

  But an instinct told her to trust Goure. He didn't seem to be running without purpose. Wherever he was taking her, he obviously thought they could get away. And there were ways to fight that didn't involve using a lightsaber.

  She sent a psychokinetic pulse to knock out the nearest droid. It spun out of control, showering sparks as it rolled crazily around the stone wall before plummeting to the bottom of the stairwell. The second backed away a meter or so, its weapon arms rising threateningly. She sent a power surge through its repulsorlift circuits, sending it upward to a fate similar to the first. Its screams of protest faded rapidly as it disappeared into the shadows above.

  "Good work," Goure said, reaching up to smash a nearby security cam. "Now, through here."

  They left the stairwell thirteen floors above the level of the secret command hub. The area they entered wasn't designed for heavy maintenance, and Tahiri had to stoop to fit into the corridor. Goure didn't bother. The top of his metal head scraped against the ceiling, lifting tiles and smashing light fittings, leaving a trail of wreckage behind him. Whenever he passed a security cam, he didn't pause. He just reached out and crushed it without so much as breaking step.

  "I take it you know where you're going?" Tahiri asked. Her previous confidence in him was starting to wane. She couldn't help wonder whether he really did have a plan or whether he was just intent on causing as much damage as possible.

  "If my memory serves me correctly, there should be a maintenance shaft somewhere..."

  Ahead of them was a two-meter-wide, cylindrical column running from floor to ceiling. Goure stepped up to it and used his suit's strength to tear through the column's side. Within, Tahiri saw numerous coiled cables and pipes. Clearly, the column stretched many floors above and below them, delivering essential services to the areas around it.

  Goure spent a moment searching for the cable he needed. Frustration soon took hold and he started pulling out handfuls at random.

  "Come on," Tahiri muttered, glancing around nervously, checking for signs of the other security droids. They couldn't be far behind.

  Sparks and steam hissed and spat from the column as the powerful hands of Goure's HE-suit tore through wires and conduits. When he was up to his elbows in bubbling fluid and smoking insulator, he clutched both hands around something he'd found deep inside and gave a mighty wrench.

  Instantly the lights went out around them and the entire floor was plunged into darkness.

  "Okay," she heard him say somewhat breathlessly. Tahiri switched to infrared to see him step back from the column, then move over to a ventilation shaft and pull it open. "We haven't got much time. This isn't going to hold them for long."

  There was a hiss as his HE-suit cracked down the back. His head emerged from the seam, followed by his arms. Tahiri reached around to give him a hand. Her HE-suit lifted him as though he were a doll, his tail lashing in obvious relief at being freed from its confinement.

  "Slave your control circuits to mine before you come out," he instructed her. She did so, and then clicked the FAST-RELEASE button. She inhaled deeply, appreciating the fresh, cool air that immediately swept across her body.

  "Now what?" she asked, retrieving her lightsaber from the suit's unresisting fist.

  Goure pointed at the open shaft. "We climb. But first..." He reached under his suit's armpit and flicked a switch. Both suits whirred shut and turned to stride quickly away, each leaving a trail of destruction as they walked through the low-ceilinged corridors.

  "Now that's a trail no one could miss," he said, his face briefly lit by sparks as the suits marched away into the darkness. "I've programmed them to run free, heading up whenever they can. If they reach the stairwell, things could get interesting. If notwell, they'll gain us a minute or two, at least."

  He helped her into the shaft, then followed, replacing the cover behind him.

  "There should be a central air shaft not far from here," he explained. "When we find it, we go up. Once we reach the surface, we can look for somewhere to come out of the shaft. From there we're free."

  "Hopefully," Tahiri added.

  Goure nodded grimly. "Hopefully."

  "And what about the Deputy Prime Minister?"

  "As long as Harris doesn't go too far, we should be able to find him in time. But we've only got an hour before the ceremony starts, and we have seventeen floors to climb."

  "Then we'd better get moving, wouldn't you say?"

  Outside the shaft, emergency lighting flickered into life. In the distance, they could hear the pounding of the suits' feet and the crackle of blasterfire.

  In the shadowy and reddish darkness, Goure nodded again, and without another word the two of them began to crawl.

  "What do you mean, you prefer to leave the fighting to your sister?" Wyn Antilles stared at Jacen as though he'd gone mad. With her severe black uniform and blond hair pulled back, she looked like a schoolgirl trying to impersonate a Grand Moff; she might have known the rules, but she didn't have the maturity to pull it off.

  "Where I come from," Jacen responded good-naturedly, "we don't have customs prohibiting women from fighting in battle. In fact, I didn't think you had here, either."

  "We don't," she said. "That would just be stupid-wouldn't it, Commander Irolia?" The Chiss officer nodded stiffly from the far side of the table, where she was watching Jacen input data from the library search into data-pads for further analysis. Wyn had joined Jacen and Danni as they reviewed their data electronically, while the other members of the group had continued to talk with the girl's parents. Initially, Wyn had been very excited at meeting Jacen, and was keen to talk to him about the search for Zonama Sekot. But when this conversation ebbed, the girl had obviously decided it might be fun to lock horns with Jacen, determinedly teasing out his place in the mission and the universe in general. He couldn't figure out if she was genuinely interested in what he had to say or if she was deliberately antagonizing him, trying to see how far she could actually push a Jedi before his patience cracked . . .

  "All I meant was that you should fight when you have to. Your preferences don't come into it. Your enemy won't stand down just because you don't want to fight. You either rise to the occasion or you die."

  Harsh words, Jacen thought, coming from one so young. But with her pedigree, he reminded himself, and the culture and times in which she'd been educated, perhaps it wasn't so surprising.

  "I guess what I should have said was that I prefer to put myself in situations where skills other than those involving combat will save the day." He tried to put his feelings into words with consummate precision, not wanting to give her the chance to leap on another ambiguity. Fatigue wasn't making it easy, though. "Not every conflict can be solved with violence, Wyn. Some become exponentially more difficult to solve once violence has entered the equation. The Force may need both sides of lifebirth and deathin order to be balanced, but that doesn't meant we can't look for peaceful solutions. It's the same if violence seems to be the onlyor indeed the easiestoption."

  To his relief, Wyn acknowledged his point with a thoughtful nod. "Okay, I can understand that. But what about your sister
? How does she feel about you letting her risk her life exercising the 'easy' option?"

  "I don't think it's a case of me letting her do anything," he said. "She's simply better at following that path when the need for it arises. While I spend half my life philosophically pondering the way of things, she focuses her energies on the exterior, on what she can change. But as far as I'm concerned, deep down we're still addressing the same problemjust from different angles."

  "You carry a lightsaber," Wyn pointed out.

  He shrugged. "It's a symbol of a Jedijust like the insignia on Commander Irolia's uniform."

  "Nevertheless, the weapon at your side seems out of place on a man who says he dislikes violence."

  How do I answer that? he wondered. If I say that I don't hate violence, I undermine everything I've told her. If I confirm that I do, I make a mockery of my own convictions. Is this the corner I've backed myself into?

  "Haven't we drifted off the topic a little here?" Danni said, stretching tiredly. "We were looking for Zonama Sekot, remember?"

  Jacen nodded. It had been an exhausting session, and one that had only been partially successful. The number of "hits"systems where stories of a wandering planet had been recordedwas reaching a plateau; they quickly ran out of the ones that were easiest to find. So far they had sixty confirmed or suspected appearances in a forty-year period spanning from shortly before the formation of the Empire to some years after. Wherever it was that Zonama Sekot had settled down, it seemed to have done so about twenty years before the arrival of the Yuu-zhan Vong.

  "But you said before that you were probably looking in the wrong place," Wyn said.

  Danni sighed, and when she spoke there was no mistaking the frustration in her tone. "We're looking primarily through sociological records," she said. "Astronomical data would be our best bet. We need to look specifically for systems that have adopted a new planet in their habitable zones, whether those zones are inhabited or not." "But there are hundreds of thousands of stars in and around Chiss space," Wyn said. "Plus about the same number again of orphan worlds drifting in interstellar space. There must be planets captured and lost all the time."