As soon as he emerged from between two large cylinders filled with burbling solution, he suddenly came upon the tentacle-faced form of Rullak, the Quarren. The amphibious creature’s mouth feelers quivered, and he thrust his blaster forward.
“Shall I kill you now, or let Nolaa Tarkona do the job?”
Thul didn’t pause, though. He charged forward, smashing into the Quarren, who was too startled at this reaction to fire. Rullak struggled and knocked the blaster pistol out of Thul’s hand. Thul let the weapon drop, shouldered the Quarren aside, and fled as Rullak gave a phlegmy howl of anger. Thul ducked between two more cylinders. Finally, on the far side, he could see Nolaa Tarkona, fuming as she listened to the scuffle. Grim, he paused to decide how best to attack her. Then Rullak began firing at him. The angered amphibian shot indiscriminately. Blasts ricocheted off the ceiling, striking the plague cylinders and spheres all around them.
The transparisteel containers cracked. Some of the smaller cylinders shattered entirely. Deadly microbial solutions sprayed into the air.
Bornan Thul ducked, but the canister to his left split open with the flash of a blaster bolt. Plague solution sprayed toward him. He rolled and missed most of it, but still the droplets spattered over his body. Rullak seemed to be laughing as he shot, but Nolaa Tarkona’s bellow was horrible to hear.
“Stop firing, you idiot!” As the blaster fire continued, she raised her voice so loud it must have scraped her vocal cords raw. “Stop! There are other kinds of plague here! Plagues that could kill all of us!”
Finally the blasts ceased, and Thul pushed himself forward, panting. His breath rasped hot in his lungs. He saw Nolaa Tarkona ahead of him, and he could think only of staggering toward her. He didn’t care about the other guards anymore, didn’t care about Rullak or the Gamorreans or anyone else trapped in the chamber with him. He only wanted Nolaa. But as he approached her, he realized that he no longer had his blaster.
Nolaa’s rose-quartz eyes blazed; her head-tail thrashed. When her lips opened in a terrible, deadly smile of pointed teeth, Thul knew he was defeated. He took deep, hitching breaths, and felt dizzy. His lungs seemed to be choked with something that kept him from drawing in enough air. His head throbbed. With each step he knew with utter certainty that he had been exposed to the plague. He turned, grasping one of the intact transparisteel cylinders for support, an irony not lost on him.
He gripped the bars on its outer casing and turned to look back at the observation window where he had just left his son and Zekk. To his dismay, Bornan Thul saw Raynar’s face looking back at him, stricken with absolute despair.
IG-88 marched toward the central chamber with pounding metal footsteps that hammered the floor-plates like a mallet striking a bell. Lowie followed him closely, guiding the assassin droid whenever it hesitated at an intersection. IG-88 ripped aside one more sealed blockade before they reached the central chamber, arriving just in time to hear the sound of blaster fire, a vigorous battle. The huge droid picked up speed, and Lowie groaned uneasily as he raced after the metallic hulk.
“Dear me, I do hope it’s nothing serious,” Em Teedee said. When they reached the observation windows, Lowie took in the situation at a glance. He saw Zekk, crouching and itching to fight. Raynar pressed his face against the observation window, not caring if he was seen. His face was filled with utter anguish. Lowie roared as he looked into the chamber, whose door was now sealed again.
Nolaa Tarkona stood surrounded by several broken cylinders. Multicolored plague liquids streamed from the containers, spilling everywhere, splashing, evaporating to suspend billions of disease organisms in the air. Worst of all, he saw Bornan Thul stagger away from the cylinders, disoriented, already exposed to the deadly plague. Bornan stumbled forward, trying to reach Nolaa ... but what the human merchant lord would do once he reached his nemesis, Lowie could not guess.
IG-88 had been commanded to assist Bornan Thul, to help him or save him—and seeing the man next to Nolaa Tarkona struggling with the onset of the disease, IG-88 charged implacably toward the wall. The droid knew his programming exactly. He raised his durasteel fists. Lowie realized what the assassin droid could do. IG-88 would batter his way in, tear down the walls, breach the isolation chamber, and expose them all to the plague-filled air.
Lowie threw himself at the assassin droid, but IG-88 simply batted him away with such a blow that the young Wookiee crashed into the wall. Raynar was too focused on his father’s plight to notice.
Zekk shouted, “No! You’ll flood all the corridors with the plague!”
But IG-88 paid no heed. He hammered on the wall, and bright polished dents began to appear. He would crack open the chamber in less than a minute.
24
Raynar pressed his face against the transparent barrier that separated him from his dying father. He pounded his fists against it in rage. As if imitating him, IG-88 continued pounding his powerful fists against the airtight door. The plague organism was free inside the vault—the plague that his father had hoped to destroy before it could ever be turned loose against human beings. Raynar wished he’d gone inside with his father. He might have been able to do something, use the Force to stop Rullak or Nolaa Tarkona. Or if not, at least he would be inside with his father to comfort him now in his last moments.
Raynar pressed his hands against the transparisteel, harder, harder, as if he might reach through it to his father if only he exerted enough force. At the edge of his awareness Raynar heard Zekk yell, “No, IG-88! If you open that door you’ll kill us.”
Lowie roared, but the assassin droid knocked the Wookiee aside again. Inside, Bornan Thul stumbled toward the upper observation window that separated him from Raynar. His skin had a grayish cast now, and Raynar could see how labored his breathing had become. Blotches of green and blue appeared on his skin. He crawled toward the controls of the two-way intercom system in the wall. Unable to tear his eyes away from his father’s agony, Raynar felt an imaginary band of durasteel clamping around his own heart, tighter, tighter, until it seemed impossible that it could go on beating.
“Go,” his father rasped into the speakers. “It is too late for me.”
IG-88 continued to batter at the door to the room. Lowie roared again, to no effect.
“I can’t!” Raynar cried in anguish. “Not now. I just found you again.”
“Never forget … how proud I am of you. My work … unfinished, though,” Bornan Thul gasped. “I leave it to you … to destroy this place—stop Nolaa.” Raynar briefly shifted his attention to the Twi’lek leader of the Diversity Alliance. She stood toward the back of the vault, vainly attempting to stamp some order into the chaos inside the trashed chamber. Rullak writhed on the floor in his death throes, succumbing to one of the deadly plagues his own blaster fire had released. Raynar knew his father was right. He could not simply give up now because of his grief. Millions of lives were at stake if Nolaa Tarkona put her plan into action. Raynar’s mother and uncle would die, and Master Skywalker, Jacen and Jaina, and everyone else he cared about. His mind railed against the injustice. It wasn’t fair. His vision grew blurred and distorted, as if he was looking at his father through a current of water. Something hot and wet burned its way down Raynar’s cheeks, and his throat constricted so tightly he could hardly breathe.
Suddenly Zekk was beside him yelling something to Bornan Thul.
“The assassin droid IG-88 is programmed to protect you—to bring you back alive. You’re the only one who can stop him from breaking down that door and releasing the plague right now! Tell him to stay away!”
Suddenly Raynar’s vision cleared and he focused on his father, who drew a shuddering breath.