Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance (16 page)

The
bodyguard twitched and opened his eyes in alarm. There was a tearing
sound as all the spines on his scalp shot out. The cushion absorbed
them all.

"I'm
sorry to startle you, " Shigar said in calm voice. "You've
been drugged. My name is Shigar Konshi. This is Larin Moxla. Grand
Master Satele Shan sent us to aid you. " That wasn't entirely
true, but as an explanation it would do.

The
man pushed him away and sat up. He ran his hand across his scalp and
cleared his throat.

"My
apologies for attacking you. I am Sergeant Potannin. Where is Envoy
Vii?"

"We
don't know, " said Larin. "We were hoping you could tell
us. "

Potannin
shook his head. "We must have been ambushed. Envoy Vii was
talking to a man who works for the Hutts. His name is Jet Nebula. And
there was someone else-a Mandalorian. "

"What
Mandalorian?" Larin asked, leaning close. "Do you have a
name?"

"I
don't remember. " He looked at Larin and Shigar in appeal. "We
have to find the envoy. "

Shigar
nodded. An active Dao Stryver on Hutta would be an unexpected
complication, but it wasn't necessarily a disaster. The primary
mission could still continue.

"All
right, " he said. "You and Larin look for the envoy. If the
Twi'lek is telling the truth, the Hutts will help you. "

"And
you?" asked Larin.

"I'm
going to check out that vault. What you can't learn from the envoy,
I'll find out there. Sergeant Potannin, will you give me directions?"

Potannin
provided a comprehensive description of the route from the luxury
suite to the vault, via a security air lock. Shigar committed it to
memory.

"Did
you see what was in there?"

"There's
the Cinzia's navicomp and an artifact Envoy Vii couldn't identify.
Made of some weird metal. " Potannin looked apologetic. "I'm
sorry, but that's all I know. "

"No
matter. " Shigar wished Potannin had learned more. Ancient Sith
and Jedi relics could sometimes be identified by their markings.
"I'll take a look myself and see if I can figure it out. "

"Are
you sure you want to do this alone?" asked Larin before he set
out.

"I
have my comlink, " he said. I'll call you if I get into trouble.
"

"You'd
better. " She touched his arm briefly, and then pulled away.
"See you later, either way. "

Shigar
left her and Sergeant Potannin to wake the others. With lightsaber at
the ready, he eased back into the ebbs and flows of Tassaa Bareesh's
palace and counted off the intersections, one at a time.

CHAPTER
11

Darth
Chratis's voice carried faintly across the thousands of kilometers
separating him from his apprentice.

"Did
you see any Jedi in the Republic envoy's party?"

"None
at all, Master. " Ax could hear the disappointment in her own
voice. She'd been looking forward to fighting something more
challenging than the inept palace guards. "If they're here,
they're maintaining a very low profile. "

"It's
clear, then, that they plan to steal the artifact before us.
Otherwise they would be visible. Your orders are unchanged. You must
move quickly to ensure you get there first. "

"It
will be difficult, Master. The doors are massive, and there are bound
to be alarms..."

"That's
for you to worry about. Fail me and you will report to the Council
yourself. "

The
line clicked shut, and Ax smiled in the darkness. Darth Chratis was
as transparent as glass. If she succeeded, he planned to take the
credit; if she tailed, the blame would be hers. But some of the
tarnish would inevitably rub off on him if she did fail, halting his
plans for advancement. It was amusing, therefore, to keep him
nervous. That made him predictable.

Barely
three minutes had passed since she had set the charges. They were
old, leftovers from a mining expedition that had abandoned its gear
in one of the palace's three warehouses, but she had taken enough of
them to knock a small chunk out of a hill. If the timers worked
properly, Tassaa Bareesh's guards would soon have something to occupy
their attention.

Meanwhile,
she had crawling to do. Plans of the vaults sliced from the palace's
mainframe showed that they were freestanding structures with their
own power and air supplies. Surrounding all of the broad durasteel
boxes was a meter of clear space, filled with laser trip wires. If
anything got past the trip wires and simultaneously touched both box
and wall, a circuit would trip, sounding an alarm loud enough to wake
the Emperor himself on Dromund Kaas.

The
plans also showed that the vault was held in place by a series of
repulsors, powered by induction coils at the base of a ferrocrete
cradle. Ferrocrete was relatively easy to cut through with a
lightsaber. Ax wormed her way through tiny crawl spaces to a position
directly under one corner of the vault containing the remains of the
Citizia. Wiring schematics showed no cables at that point. All she
would have to do was wait for the distraction, cut her way upward,
disable the trip wires, and leap across the gap. Within the hour, she
hoped to be touching the outside of the vault with her bare
fingertips. From there, she would play it by ear.

She
slithered like a rat through spaces that were barely large enough for
her to breathe, angling awkwardly around sharp corners and edging
with her toes and fingertips. She held her lightsaber ahead of her,
ready to cut through any serious obstacles. The air was thick with
dust and smoke. She blinked frequently to clear her eyes.

A
subsonic boom came through masonry surrounding her, followed quickly
by another. She held her breath as the palace shook, and pressed
outward with the Force, just in case something heavy shifted into
her. A series of smaller booms reverberated when the charges
triggered a chain reaction in the palace's primary reactor, as she'd
hoped they might. She imagined the Hutts and their slaves scurrying
to find out what had happened. Whether they did or not didn't matter
to her. Neither did she care if the secondary reactor restored power
immediately. The vault was self-contained. Keeping her hosts
distracted was her primary objective.

Another
minute's crawling brought her to the place she needed to be. The
crawl space was broad enough for her to squat, and she did so,
holding her lightsaber pommel before her. Closing her eyes, she
ignited it and raised the blade slowly into the ceiling above her.
Ferrocrete bubbled and hissed; stinging flecks struck her skin. When
the hilt was flush with the ceiling itself, she stopped and closed
her eyes.

The
power of the dark side flowed through her, raising the temperature of
the ferrocrete to scalding. She breathed lightly through her nose,
not caring if she was scalded. A red glow surrounded her, radiating
from the surface above. She maintained her concentration, forming a
self-protective bubble about her as the ferrocrete became molten and
began to drip.

The
bubble rose gently through the lava, delivering her without further
effort to the space under the base of the vault. When the bubble
broached the top of the molten ferrocrete, she lowered her lightsaber
and opened her eyes. By the red glow she made out the durasteel vault
through the top of the bubble and a tangle of cables that was part of
the ferrocrete structure around her. They remained entangled as the
lava cooled. Not one of the cables had been cut, so in theory no
alarms should have sounded.

Almost
there.

Only
the trip wires remained. She raised her head carefully out of the
cooling bubble, but didn't see any sign of lasers anywhere. They
should have been clearly visible in all the smoke, but not one
glowing line broke the view.

Intrigued,
she placed her gloved hands on the still-warm lip of the bubble and
raised herself bodily into view.

No
alarms. None other than those caused by her explosions, anyway.
Against all expectations, the vault's external security system
appeared to be disabled.

Could
the Jedi possibly have beaten her to the prize?

She
crouched in the space under the vault, next to one of the repulsors
holding the massive structure above her head, and reactivated her
lightsaber. By its ruddy glow, she made out the lenses of the laser
system staring blindly at her. They hadn't been physically interfered
with, at least. She reached up and touched the base of the vault. No
footsteps or other obvious movements from within. That was another
positive sign.

An
unexpected detail gave her further reason to be cautious. The
midsection of the vault had been physically connected to the cradle
beneath by a series of silver wires. She approached them, careful not
to snap them. Their purpose was unknown, as was the way they had
prevented the second alarm system from going off. As soon as the
vault was penetrated, all of Tassaa Bareesh's palace should have
known.

Something
unexpected was going on, and she didn't like it.

Ax
deactivated her lightsaber and sat cross-legged on the hot
ferrocrete. If someone deactivated the repulsors, she would be
squished like a bug. Quashing that thought as best she could, she
cast her feelings out into the space around her, searching for signs
of anything out of place.

The
vault, first of all, was uninhabited, apart from the faintest glimmer
of biological activity inside the anomalous artifact recovered from
the Cinzia. She took the opportunity to examine it this way, and felt
a rare shiver race down her spine. What was in there? The tiny life
signs were clustered in four groups, but they didn't feel like minds,
exactly. And something about them made her instincts recoil.

My
mother made this, she couldn't help but think. My mother, who should
be dead.

Putting
all speculation on that front firmly from her mind, Ax examined the
antechamber and the other three vaults, next. It was possible, albeit
exceedingly unlikely, that an entirely independent thief had targeted
something in one of the other vaults, shutting down hers in the
process. A quick scan proved that theory false. There was no one out
there at all.

Almost
she gave up there, chiding herself for overreacting. The distraction
she had created wouldn't last forever. And she didn't want Master
Chratis to worry too long. Part of the point of telling him that the
mission would be difficult was to surprise him when she pulled it off
quickly. The thought filled her with anticipatory satisfaction.

Before
rising, she cast a quick mental look through the circular security
air lock outside the antechamber.

Her
face twisted into an immediate scowl. Jedi! She would recognize that
humorless and inhibited mental stench anywhere. A single specimen had
bypassed the alarms and burned through the locks on the outer door.
That was impressive work, but he wasn't moving fast enough. She could
cut her way under the vault and up into the antechamber long before
he had the inner door open. And then, when he did, he would get a
whole lot more than he bargained for.

Grinning,
she moved from cross-legged to a crouch, and began melting her way
through the last barrier standing between her and her enemy.

CHAPTER
12

Dao
Stryver used a dense, adhesive web extruded from a nozzle on his left
cuff to lash Ula and Jet into their seats. The dining room he had led
them to was empty, containing nothing but chairs and a table, but as
befit the palace of Tassaa Bareesh these were fine examples of
precious materials and design, and therefore too sturdy for the
prisoners to break.

Ula's
head was pounding with the aftereffects of the Reactor Core, but he
noticed the gleam of metal revealed when Stryver welded the door
shut. Durasteel, most likely, also befitting the palace of a Hutt.
All manner of safety-conscious criminal celebrities might have eaten
in this room. And died here, possibly.

Ula
tested the bonds and found them to be immovable. His fingers were
already going numb.

"You
know my name, " said the Mandalorian, standing over him. "How?"

Trying
and foiling to suppress a stammer, Ula described the report received
by Supreme Commander Stantorrs from Grand Master Satele Shan. That
was where the Mandalorian had first been identified to him. He had no
compunctions about revealing the extent of the Republic's knowledge,
since it would assure Stryver that little else had been uncovered
about him or Lema Xandret.