Force Heretic_ Refugee Part 18

"But how would word get out? If communications are down like they are now, I can't see how that could be possible."

"Well, the first thing we do when we arrive at our posts is set up plans to cover such emergencies. Those of my family don't use the Force; nor do we rely on conventional communications. That, you see, is our strength. We get into places we're not supposed to simply because we are ignored, not by virtue of arcane technology or powers, which people are always looking for. In the same way, who notices a note or two slipped into a cargo manifest? A whisper from a dock handler to a droid? Or a story innocently exchanged in a tavern? Even during communications embargoes, Bakura receives its fair share of freighters and traders.

Everyone needs repulsors. I use the simplest and most universal techniques of spreading my word via those travelers. It may be slow at times, but it is effective." Tahiri fumbled with the concept. "Are you telling me you're sort of a pan-galactic gossipmonger?"

"You make it sound like a bad thing. It's actually very effective.

If one of my regular messages fails to arrive at a certain place at a certain time every day, then a message will be sent to the next Ryn along the chain, who will request a replacement."

"Who from?" Tahiri was unable to suppress her curiosity about the Ryn network. Their existence had been completely unsuspected until Galantos, but their influence seemed to be as insidious as the Peace Brigaders had been.

Goure chuckled softly. "I can't tell you too much, Tahiri. A secret organization can only operate efficiently if its workings remain secret.

Since you already know we exist, I can tell you that we Ryn don't have a strictly hier-archal system like the Jedi. We do have, however, a leader who ultimately receives the information each of us supplies. It is he who makes all the major decisions."

"Does your leader have a name?"

"Of course. But to reveal it would compromise his safety. Toward this end not even we know his real ident.i.ty. We know that someone perceived the need for such a network of information seekers; it was that same someone who trained me-and many others like me-in the art of infiltration and sent us to our posts. Mark my words: a time will come when there will be songs sung about him, if they aren't already." Goure stopped as they reached the second turbolift. It was as battered and well used as everything else on this level. With a deep groan it slid open; when they were inside it lurched upward. Tahiri found her hands reaching for the sides to steady herself; every muscle tensed uneasily. She distracted herself with another question.

"How can songs be sung about someone who has no name?" A noise like wheezing issued from Goure's HE-suit speakers that, while it might not have particularly sounded like it, Tahiri knew nonetheless to be a laugh.

"You're so practical, aren't you?" Before he could answer her question, however, Arrizza had raised a hand and waved the two of them to silence.

"We're almost there," he said. "Remember the arrangement." Tahiri nodded inside her all-encompa.s.sing helmet. From now on, they were to address each other only as Yon, Gaitzi, and Scod, members of an underground cleaning gang nicknamed the Tripod.

The lift platform grated to a halt a second later, and the ma.s.sive doors slid open again, revealing another service corridor that seemed little different from the one they'd left below-except this one terminated in a set of thick blast doors after only a few meters. Tahiri followed Arrizza as he approached it, imitating the heavy lope of his HE-suit in the hope of radiating the impression that she was as comfortable in the bulky outfit as she would have been in normal clothing.

"Identify," a voice blared from the other side of the door. Laser beams tracked the suits, reading ident codes painted in various reflective paints.

"Tripod duty," Arrizza said in a bored tone. After only a few seconds' waiting, he added gruffly, "Come on, Schifil! Let us in, will you? I haven't got all day."

"And so much important work to do, eh?" The double door slid open with a hydraulic hiss. "There's a block in Compactor J earmarked for your attention, Yon. You must've been a bad boy last night." Arrizza just grunted as he led them past the security checkpoint. Two guards in an open booth watched them pa.s.s, weapons slung across their laps and smirks on their faces. The HE-suits could have crushed them like bugs, but physical strength was no match for superior social status.

Tahiri filed subserviently past, putting a hunched sway to her heavy lurch that she thought suitable for a low-grade worker. So focused was she on her performance that it took her a moment to realize that one of the guards was talking to her.

She stopped, turning slowly, using the seconds to reach into the guard's mind to discover that he thought he was talking to the cleaner called Gaitzi.

"Got a kiss for me today, Gaitzi?" the guard asked, puckering grotesquely while his partner laughed.

Tahiri improvised a suitably moist smacking sound with her lips before turning away and moving on.

"Delightful," Goure muttered once they had cleared the checkpoint and were safely following Arrizza into the underbelly of the Bakuran Senate Complex. "It never ceases to amaze me what happens to the males of most species when you give them a gun and put them in a uniform."

"I suppose the male Ryn are above all that, are they?" Tahiri said dryly.

"Actually, we are!" he defended indignantly. "That's why we work in secrecy, with no fancy t.i.tles or privileges. We exist to oppose such self-aggrandizing methods used by groups like the Peace Brigade. In fact, rumor has it that our founder was inspired by the Great River-the network of safe houses and escape routes founded by Master Skywalker in order to save the Jedi from betrayal."

"Is that why the Ryn helped us back on Galantos?"

"News of what happened there has yet to filter down to me," he said. " But yes, if the Peace Brigade were there then we would have done what we could to resist them. Look on it as our contribution to the war effort. We can't take on the Yuuzhan Vong directly-not even we could infiltrate their society-so we aim lower, at those who rot the Galactic Alliance from within."

"A second line of defense," Tahiri suggested.

"We like to think of it as the first line," he countered. "There's no point defeating the Yuuzhan Vong if we defeat ourselves in the process." As cryptic as that sounded, it echoed Jacen's philosophical uncertainties regarding the consequences of winning the war by violence alone. It also hit a little close to where her own problems lived.

"We're not really going to have to unclog that garbage compactor, are we? " she asked by way of changing the subject, thinking not just of the mounds of steaming refuse but the closing walls as well.

"No," Arrizza said. "You just go about your business. I'll make sure the ch.o.r.es get done."

"We have signals we can send each other if we're needed at either end," Goure explained.

"If you're bothered by anyone," the Kurtzen added, "or you split up, just tell security that your localizers have been scrambled and you're looking for Sector C. I'll find you there." Tahiri nodded.

They reached a T-junction and split up without another word: Arrizza heading off to the right to perform the functions of the cleanup crew, Tahiri and Goure stomping down the left corridor to begin their reconnaissance. From that moment on, Tahiri knew, the risk multiplied.

She didn't know how closely the cleaning crews were monitored, or how deeply they could move through the complex before someone noticed that they weren't following the usual routine; all she could do was work quickly, and hope that they were given enough time to do what they'd come to do.

Goure led her on a long and winding route through the sub-bas.e.m.e.nt levels, occasionally taking turbolifts up or down floors, or detouring through warehouses full of sealed containers.

"There's more to the complex than meets the eye," she commented after pa.s.sing through an enormous underground bunker packed to the ceiling with food rations.

"After the war with the Ssi-ruuk, it was redesigned as a shelter,"

Goure explained. "The Senate and a large proportion of the population of Salis D'aar could survive down here a considerable length of time-as long as the barriers to the surface weren't breached, of course."

"And if they were?"

"There's a weapons cache, too," the Ryn replied. "Enough for a small army. Believe me: they wouldn't go down without a fight." Given the horrors of entechment, Tahiri could understand the lengths the Senate had gone to avoid them. With the specter of enslavement and death hanging over them for decades, fear of a return invasion must have been deeply entrenched. No wonder, then, that some people were reluctant to have anything to do with the P'w'eck, whether they were former slaves themselves or not.

So why the sudden turnaround? she wondered. Princess Leia had commented that Prime Minister Cundertol had been anti-alien when serving on the New Republic Senate, so why had that changed now?

She forced herself to put the matter aside and concentrate on the issue at hand. " If they put food and weapons down here," she said, "there must be some sort of command hub as well."

"Exactly," Goure replied. "And that's where we're headed." They took a small detour to gather a floating floor-polis.h.i.+ng machine, then continued on their way. They pa.s.sed through an empty security checkpoint and went down one more turbolift. Tahiri constantly checked the s.p.a.ces around them for any sign of habitation, but the sub-bas.e.m.e.nt was uniformly empty. They could have been wandering the well-preserved ruins of an ancient, abandoned city, for all she could tell.

But there were still security cams at every corner. All it would take was for one person to become suspicious...

Two large, molded doors slid aside to reveal the unused command hub. Tahiri and Goure strode confidently inside, as though they visited there every day. Rather than crane her hydraulic neck, she sent her HE-suit sensors sweeping across the empty workstations and dormant holoprojectors. There was room for fifty or more people to work around a raised circular dais where, she presumed, the Prime Minister and his chief officers would conduct business in times of war. Although it had clearly been empty for many years, there was an air of preparedness to the place-a hint of antic.i.p.ation in the dusty durasteel-as though it was waiting for its moment to come.

It might yet, she thought cynically, if the Keeramak's intentions are not what they seem.

Goure came to a halt in the middle of the vast room and activated the cleaning machine. Swinging it back and forth, he spoke over its patient whine: " Look like you're cleaning. I'll slice into the systems and see if I can find Jaina. Switch your monitors to channel seventeen so that you can monitor my progress."

"Won't someone notice what we're doing?"

"Not if I'm good enough." He smiled at her through his faceplate.

"And I am good enough." More seriously he added, "Although we need to be in the hub to access its networks, we don't want to do anything obvious like switch on the displays. The HE-suits can do the job for us." Again the heavy shoulders of his suit flexed. "I suspect we're only going to get one shot at this, so we have to make it count." Tahiri acknowledged the instruction and did as he told her, making a big show of using her suit's strength and flexibility for the sake of anyone that might be watching. All the time she was working, she kept one eye on Goure's progress, using the upper half of her helmet's interior as a crude VR hood. At first, she saw nothing but line after line of complex machine code as he used a number of simple techniques to infiltrate the complex's low-security networks. From there the job became much tougher, and it took him a while to break into the next layer. There he gained access to administrative data, such as arrests and releases, but there was no mention of Jaina.

Another twenty minutes' code work took Goure right into the heart of the Bakuran bureaucracy, where he said the true secrets were stored.

At first Tahiri was amazed at his ability, until she remembered that the Ryn had a reputation for being capable slicers. Not only that, but Bakura, a system on the isolated edge of the Rim worlds, probably didn't possess the sophisticated software required to guarantee silence-the kind she took for granted back on Mon Cal. Nevertheless, peeling back the system's strongest defenses in under an hour and a half was still impressive.

"Interesting," he muttered at one point.

"You found something?" Tahiri was immediately interested. She was growing tired of polis.h.i.+ng and dusting.

"Not about Jaina, I'm afraid. I've managed to access hidden holocams in rooms that aren't supposed to have them." The view through the top half of her hood changed to a video feed, and she saw a wide, circular bed surrounded by lush drapes.

"Looks like someone has been doing a little spying," Tahiri said.

"I doubt it. Probably just an overzealous security chief. You see this kind of thing wherever you go. It's a case of the left hand not trusting the right." He scanned through more hidden cams, glancing at more supposedly secure rooms. The picture quality varied from full 3-D to grainy black-and-white 2-D. Mostly the footage was of empty offices or of Senators going about early-morning preparations for the consecration ceremony. Nothing terribly exciting.

After flitting through numerous cam points of view, Tahiri was starting to wonder whether they were ever going to find anything useful.

Then - "Wait!" she called out. "Go back!" But Goure was already onto it, recalling the image of Han and Leia and manipulating it to bring it into focus. They were standing in a plushly appointed office opposite Prime Minister Cundertol's broad, polished desk. Leia's expression was carefully composed, as always, but there was no mistaking Han's frustration.

Tahiri was about to ask if there was any sound when Goure provided it.

"-understand your concern," Cundertol was saying, "but at this stage there really is nothing I can do-especially when it appears that she might have been com-plicit in the escape of a dangerous criminal."

Han bristled. "If she helped Malinza escape, then it had to be for a good reason."

"Be that as it may, Captain Solo, the fact remains that she broke the law. If your daughter believed in Malinza's innocence, then there are legal avenues she could have pursued. However, as things stand, you have to see that my hands are tied. From a legal point of view, it is hard to deny that she is guilty."

"Of helping an innocent woman escape!" Han said.

"Malinza Thanas is hardly an innocent," the Prime Minister said gravely. "She and her band of insurrectionists have done more than enough damage to the peace of Bakura to warrant her outlaw status. It was time she was put away."

"But you yourself thought she was innocent!" Han bl.u.s.tered, incredulous.

Cundertol's expression was one of mystified puzzlement. "Whatever gave you that idea?" Leia broke in calmly, averting an explosion of Corel-lian proportions. "Prime Minister, it's my suspicion that Jaina has been set up. We were contacted by someone claiming to have information for us. Acting on that information, Jaina went to visit Malinza Thanas-but only to speak with the girl. She certainly never went there to help Malinza escape. If she did partic.i.p.ate, it would only have been under coercion."

"So why hasn't she come forward to explain herself?" Cundertol asked. "The footage clearly shows her leading Thanas out of the penitentiary of her own free will. There was no coercion."

"Then she was tricked into it," Leia said.

"Why?"

"If we knew that," Han snarled, "then we wouldn't be wasting our time with you, would we? We'd fix the problem ourselves." Leia put a hand on her husband's shoulder. "We don't mean to criticize," she said. "We are simply concerned about the well-being of our daughter."

"And what about your other companion? The other Jedi? Has she returned yet?" Han's scowl deepened, but Leia's expression remained calm and sober. "Unfortunately, no. And I'm becoming concerned about her safety, too."

"So that makes two Jedi Knights roaming Salis D'aar unchecked. I'm sure you'll forgive me for suggesting that anything underhanded is going on, but the timing is uncanny. One day before Bakura is due to cement a lasting peace with its old enemy, the Galactic Alliance turns up and throws everything into disorder. I can't help but wonder whether you want us to sever ties with the rest of the galaxy. Or perhaps there is something you still need from us that you fear we will no longer give you..."

"I don't think you believe that, Prime Minister," Leia said, unruffled by the accusations. "You know us, and you know that we only act in the interest of peace."

"I'm afraid I have yet to see any evidence whatsoever to support this, Princess." At that moment, a high-pitched buzzing sound issued from the Prime Minister's desk. In one smooth movement, Cundertol stood and smoothed back his hair. The change in his behavior was striking. As unperturbed as he had been by Han's threatening manner, a tinny alarm seemed to leave him quite fl.u.s.tered.

"I'm sorry, but you really must excuse me; that will be my next appointment. You can rest a.s.sured, though, that we will be doing everything in our power to find the missing Jedi Knights-along with Malinza Thanas." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "I trust we will see you both at the consecration ceremony. It's only a short time away now, and I do not wish you to feel that because of the recent developments, we would be so churlish as to rescind our invitation to you. Princess Leia, Captain Solo: you remain our honored guests until such time as we have cause to think otherwise." 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 still-as 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 s.h.i.+mmered 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 swis.h.i.+ng.

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 a.s.sumed, 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-ruuvi-a language that no human could possibly dream of p.r.o.nouncing.

Tahiri stared at the screen, watching Cundertol's larynx bob up and down in a highly unusual fas.h.i.+on 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 this-or 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 credit-so 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?"