“We must talk together,” Kur said. “Only that way can we find peace.”
Luke looked at the exiled refugee. Though Nolaa Tarkona wasn’t there, and Kambrea had already been killed, he sensed that the Twi’leks had found a powerful new leader.
22
In orbit around the insignificant-looking asteroid, the Diversity Alliance armada and the New Republic fleet battled for the right to continued existence. Violent explosions from blasted warships punctuated the blackness all around, made all the more eerie because of the silence of vacuum. Raaba might have been watching a hologram of an event that had occurred long ago. No smells of flaming gases or singed flesh reached her nostrils. No expanding ball of heat threw her backward or scorched her chocolate-brown fur. No thunderous detonations burst painfully upon her eardrums. Yet to Raaba, who had never witnessed such death and destruction of those she knew, space itself seemed to shudder at the savagery—and that shudder she felt all the way to her bones.
The Ugnaught gunner on her bridge crew clipped a New Republic X-wing with a lucky shot. Raaba’s crew cheered as the little ship blossomed into an expanding cloud of hot gas and debris on the front viewscreen.
The cheers died to grim murmurs when a few seconds later one of their own midsize transports disintegrated in slow motion before their eyes. Raaba paced the deck behind her tactical officer. She continued to issue orders, forcing a calm and steady tone into her voice that she did not completely feel. She couldn’t allow herself to panic. If she lost control, even more lives could be lost. Raaba ordered her comm officer to contact Nolaa Tarkona on the asteroid and inform her that the entire armada was now under attack. Raaba had hoped not to bother her leader again, especially not with bad news, but the senseless losses being suffered by the Diversity Alliance left her little choice.
Most of the pilots in the Alliance armada already wanted to retreat. Raaba could smell the terror that a dose of true combat had injected into the veins of her crew.
“I’m sorry, Captain, there’s no response from the Esteemed Tarkona,” the comm officer told Raaba. “We picked up a couple of explosions on the surface just before that Hapan ship took off. We have not been able to reach her since then.”
Another New Republic fighter exploded and vanished into insignificance in the vastness of space while Raaba looked on. A growl of rage and protest built in her throat. What did this fighting gain them? One moment a human enemy died, the next it was one of her compatriots. Talz, Bith, Ithorian, Sullustan, Ugnaught, Rodian, Kushiban, human—what did it matter? People were dying! Raaba could not let this go on much longer. Facing the tactical officer in charge of the armada, she gave him simple, strict orders: he was to draw the New Republic fleet away from the asteroid but engage them as little as possible, keep losses to a minimum. Raaba herself would go down to the weapons depot to fetch Nolaa Tarkona. If their leader was alive, Raaba would bring her back within the hour, triumphant.
If Raaba had not returned by then, the tactical officer must retreat to Ryloth and await further orders. The tactical officer, a short, fearless Sullustan named Ma’thu, started to object, but Raaba growled that her orders could be countermanded by no one but Nolaa Tarkona herself. With that, the chocolate-furred Wookiee sprinted off the bridge toward the docking bay, where her skimmer Rising Star awaited. If luck was with her, she could make it to the asteroid in less than five standard minutes. After today’s events, however, she could no longer be certain that luck was with her.
23
Bornan Thul stood outside the central storage chamber, cold with anger and sick with despair. Nolaa Tarkona had found the human-killing plague at last, and now she had in her grasp the means to destroy everyone. And it was his own fault for not taking care of it sooner. Bornan knew what he had to do. Hunkered next to Zekk and Raynar, he took a deep breath. He reached out to squeeze his son’s shoulder.
“Lowbacca isn’t in there—or if he is, Nolaa Tarkona’s already dispatched him. I have to go in and finish setting the explosives myself.” Raynar looked at him with wide eyes. His moon-round face flushed with astonishment.
“But you can’t! It’s dangerous in there. All that plague—”
“I know, and we can’t risk letting it get out. I have to stop Nolaa Tarkona.”
“We’ll go with you,” Zekk said. “The three of us can fight her together.”
Bornan Thul stared at the hardened, dark-haired young man. “That would risk all of us, and it’s not worth the cost.” He stopped to look at Raynar. “I’ve already put the galaxy in danger. I can’t do even worse by getting you killed.” He gave his son a quick hug, and Raynar clutched him tightly.
“But I just found you again, Father. Don’t go in and get yourself killed.”
“I don’t intend to,” he said. “I sincerely hope I come out alive, but I have to seal the door behind me. I can’t let any of that plague get loose.”
Sweat beading on his forehead, Bornan Thul gripped the blaster pistol with which he had killed the Gamorrean guard. He slid along the wall, keeping low so that he couldn’t be seen through the observation windows. Then he ducked over to the heavy door, flashing one last glance at the mournful face of his son before he slipped inside the deadly chamber. He clutched the blaster, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t have to fire it. Any stray bolt could easily shatter one of the plague canisters.
Thul reached up and worked the controls until the heavy airtight door hummed and moved sideways. With a hiss it slid shut, then compressed against its contamination-free doorjamb. He knew he couldn’t remain hidden after all that noise, so he dashed into the forest of plague cylinders, taking shelter between the canisters.
Nolaa Tarkona cried out. “So the vermin are here at last—hoping to save themselves from the fate they deserve. Rullak, see that they don’t escape!”
Bornan Thul slipped between the nearest bubbling cylinders, seeking shelter. He heard the pounding feet of guards, and he shrank into the shadows. As he peered around the curve of the transparisteel cylinder, he saw Raynar’s look of horror through the window above. The boy stared in at his father and the armed guards lunging toward him. Thul crouched low and scuttled between a pair of bubbling cylinders, skirted a scarlet-filled sphere, and ran down the next aisle of liquid-filled tubes. Guards charged after him.
He caught only a glimpse of burly alien forms as he wove in and out. He stopped, breathless and panting, beside a coolant station whose coils hummed with high-power efficiency. Other noisy generators pumped aeration and support systems, keeping the biological contamination viable after all these years. A blaster shot ricocheted off the floor near Thul’s foot, and he realized that he was partially visible. So he got up and ran again, ducking past the edge of a huge recirculation fan that blasted sterile air in all directions, stirring the enclosed atmosphere. Its noise would cover any movement he made.
The guards were shouting now, and he heard Nolaa Tarkona also screeching orders. She was his target, Thul knew … if he could get one clean shot. He held the blaster, always ready, in his hand. Just one clean shot, and he could remove the leader of the Diversity Alliance. No one else had Nolaa’s charisma, her power. No one else could hold the disparate alien bands together, with or without the terrible plague. Taking a deep breath to marshal his courage, Bornan Thul dashed toward her voice. That was the most important thing—to stop Nolaa Tarkona.