Raaba pondered for a moment. No, she admitted that other species had also mistreated one another. The Diversity Alliance abhorred any abuse of alien species—even by each other.
Lowie rumbled thoughtfully, then asked if the Diversity Alliance also abhorred the mistreatment of humans by other species.
Raaba looked uncomfortable at the turnabout. For now, the Diversity Alliance did not have the resources to concern itself with the treatment humans received. The subject simply did not come up. Raaba shrugged. Besides, such situations were anomalies, a minor swing of the pendulum. It was the alien species who needed protection from abuse: humans could take care of themselves. With the Diversity Alliance, Nolaa Tarkona was searching for the answer to all of their problems, and as soon as they found the long-awaited solution, the galaxy would be free again.
In a consoling tone, Raaba asked Lowie not to make up his mind in advance. She wanted him to meet her friends and listen to what they had to say. The Diversity Alliance was a place where she felt she belonged. If Lowie kept an open mind, he might find that he belonged there, too. It would be so nice to have him with her.
The Diversity Alliance could very much use the help of someone special like a Force-talented Wookiee. Perhaps his sister Sirra would want to join, as well. Even if Sirra wasn’t interested, though, Raaba asked Lowie to think about how much time the two of them could spend together if they were both part of the Diversity Alliance….
Lowie thought about it. A lot.
9
“Yes, I do have a plan,” Nolaa Tarkona said. “And I don’t think the humans will enjoy it very much.” When she smiled, her sharply filed teeth glinted like daggers in the dim light.
“All the better then,” remarked Adjutant Advisor Hovrak, a bristly faced wolfman who growled under his breath. He used a long claw to pick shreds of meat from along his gumline. A few fresh blood spatters on his otherwise neat uniform indicated that Hovrak must have eaten recently.
Nolaa glided past the long black table in her private chambers. “Are the other representatives here in the caves? The three Diversity Alliance soldiers who have recruited the greatest number of new members?”
“Yes, they just arrived on Ryloth.” The wolfman shuffled his feet, uncertain. “I agree they deserve induction into our inner circle as a reward for their efforts. But are you sure that it’s wise to use our last sample of the plague for so small a demonstration?”
“It isn’t a small demonstration, Adjutant Advisor,” she said. Her remaining head-tail twitched with agitation, making her tattoos ripple. From the folds of her black robes she withdrew a vial that contained the deadly solution. “This spark will ignite the fire of utter loyalty we require.”
Two decades earlier a rebellious nonhuman group, the Alien Combine, had attempted to accomplish goals similar to Nolaa Tarkona’s. But the Alien Combine had been unwilling to take sufficiently extreme actions. Nolaa knew how to learn from mistakes, though, and she vowed that her Diversity Alliance would succeed … no matter what it took.
With the wolfman beside her, she walked into the echoing main grotto to receive her newly promoted followers. The chamber was cool and dim, just the way she liked it. The light was a deep red, as if filtered through panes of bloodstained glass.
Three important Diversity Alliance soldiers stood waiting for her, puffed with pride. Out of all the thousands of members in her political movement, Nolaa had chosen them for this private meeting.
She studied Rullak first, a tentacle-faced Quarren from the ocean world of Calamari. Decades ago, the amphibious Quarren species had collaborated with the Empire to protect their underwater cities, while the more peaceful Mon Calamari were enslaved, their floating cities blasted to ruins. Now, Rullak stood basking in the shadows, rubbing his clammy hands together to distribute the bodily excretions that prevented his skin from drying out.
In the middle, a reptilian Trandoshan named Corrsk loomed silent and ominous, sluggish but powerful. His breath came out in a rasping gargle. The Trandoshans had a long-standing blood feud against Wookiees, and their bounty hunters made a habit of collecting Wookiee pelts. But in uniting alien species to fight the common enemy— humans—Nolaa had managed to secure concessions even from the vicious reptiles. Corrsk had sworn to ignore his natural bloodlust for any Wookiee who adopted the cause of the Diversity Alliance. All others were, of course, fair game.
Finally, on the right stood a wily Devaronian female, Kambrea, whose curving horns, hooded eyes, and pointed fangs gave her narrow face the appearance of a she-devil.
“You three have heard me speak before great crowds, but this demonstration is for your eyes alone,” Nolaa said, and sat down easily in the massive stone chair. On a low pedestal at her left she kept a rough file for sharpening her teeth during idle moments. She toyed with the tool now, running its pointed end under her fingernails.
“This is a private ceremony—a reward for your unwavering service.” Her breath came out in a hiss of anticipation. “What I am about to show you will convince you more than any words I can say.”
“You don’t need to convince us, Esteemed Tarkona,” said Kambrea. The Devaronian female’s bright eyes darted from side to side, as if probing for assassins in the shadows. “We know our cause is just. The weight of human domination has crushed the galaxy for too long. We will follow you wherever the fight may take us.”
“Kill humans!” said Corrsk in a rough voice. Even with this brief statement, the towering reptilian seemed to feel he had said too much.
“I wish to see this demonstration,” the Quarren countered, the tentacles around his mouth quivering. Rullak’s voice bubbled up like words spoken through a drinking tube into polluted water. “I harbor no doubts, Honored Tarkona … but I am certain it will be entertaining.”
Nolaa laughed. “Yes, it will be very entertaining.” She held up the glimmering vial so that reddish light twinkled from its crystal sides. “This vial contains more destructive power than the Death Star—than even the Sun Crusher. Selective destruction.”
The Quarren and the Devaronian sat in anticipation. Nolaa did not know how to interpret Corrsk’s breathy snort.
“You see, the Emperor did more than just create weapons of mass destruction. He had an entire cadre of his finest scientists—humans, but talented nonetheless—working on more insidious schemes. The great biological engineer Evir Derricote created numerous diseases that spread like wildfire through some species, particular species. Recall how non-human peoples suffered during the unleashing of the Krytos plague on Coruscant during the Rebel takeover.”
The three representatives all nodded gravely, remembering the death and terror shortly after the fall of the Emperor.
“I have learned that Derricote also developed an organism more deadly than Krytos, perhaps even as bad as the Death Seed plague. A virus so horrible that Emperor Palpatine himself feared to use it.” She held the vial out toward them. “This contains a sample of that plague.”
The three Diversity Alliance soldiers shifted uneasily and took an instinctive step backward.
Nolaa restrained her smile of self-satisfaction. Good, she had impressed them—but not nearly enough. Her slick robes draped themselves regally around her as she stood, then she took two steps down to the floor of the grotto. The three representatives flicked nervous glances at each other.