Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance (34 page)

"I've
cracked the code, my lord, " said the specialist.

Ax
hurried to peer over her shoulder. Scrolling through a holopad was a
list of symbols-the blocks from which the hex's mind and all its
actions were built. None of the commands, language rules, and
algorithms, however, looked remotely familiar to Ax.

"These
controlled the hex? The droid, I mean. "

"Yes.
"

"Could
we use them to control others?"

"I
fear not. These particular commands are generated within the device
itself-a unique and purely internal system for coordinating its many
parts. Each droid would have a different system, so what we've gained
is merely the language for this droid, which is now dead. "

"All
right, but you have translated it, in this case?"

"Yes.
"

"So
find me what I'm looking for. Time is short. " I have a
Mandalorian to heat, she said silently to herself, and if I lose, you
are going to pay dearly.

The
specialist bent low over the section of the hex she had exposed,
remotely operating manipulators capable of tinier measurements than
any human could make. Data scrolled dizzyingly in all directions
through the holopad, too fast for Ax to follow. Her head soon ached
from concentrating too hard on something she didn't really
understand.

"You
have one minute, " she told the specialist.

"My
lord, I've found it, " Pedisic said. "Name, hyperspace
coordinates..."

"Give
them to me. " A sudden upwelling of excitement filled her.
"Now!"

Where
are you, Mother?

Specialist
Pedisic rattled off a long string of numbers. Ax closed her eyes,
visualizing roughly where the location fit into the galactic disk.

It
didn't. It was well above the Mid Rim, in the middle of nowhere.

Ax
opened her eyes. "Are you sure that's what's in its head?"

"Positive,
sir. Although it doesn't make sense, does it? There's nothing out
there. Nothing at all. "

Well,
Ax told herself, that wasn't entirely true. There were cold dwarfs
and orphaned gas giants and all manner of strange stellar beasts. And
it was an undiscovered world, after all, fit for traitorous droid
makers on the run from the Sith. It wasn't unreasonable that people
desperate to keep their location a secret might have traveled parsecs
out of their way to obscure any chance of pursuit.

But
what had led Lema Xandret to that isolated haven in the first place?
What had encouraged her to look in that direction? The odds of her
taking a ship on a long jump to nowhere and just happening to arrive
at a habitable world were minute.

"Run
the coordinates through Imperial records, " she told the
specialist. "I'm guessing we'll find something in there. "

The
request went to the ship's data banks. Ax tapped her finger on the
dissection table as she waited for the response. It took longer than
expected, and she had time enough to observe just how much the baked
organic residue looked like dried blood...

With
a chime, the holopad produced a single line of information.

"Now,
that really is impossible, " said the specialist.

"Try
again. "

The
specialist repeated the procedure from scratch, extracting the
embedded data and feeding it into the records.

The
same result came back.

"It
must be a bluff, " the specialist said. "A false location
to throw us off the scent. "

"I
don't think so, " said Ax. "Everything about it looks
wrong, but that tells me we must be right. I told you we'd find
something, didn't I?"

"But
it's a black hole, " said the specialist.

"I
know. I can read it with my own eyes. "

Ax
felt as though that distant, dead star had reached out and clutched
her with its irresistible gravity. She was absolutely certain that
this was where she would find Lema Xandret, builder of droids who
spoke with her own voice.

"I
think you'd better give me the name, now, " she said. "We'll
be leaving as soon as the course is plotted. "

PART
FOUR

SEBADDON

CHAPTER
27

It
was an unassuming name. Ula thought as the Auriga Fire shook around
him, for a colony that shouldn't exist.

Sebaddon.

"You
know we're insane, don't you?" Jet said over the sound of the
ship's straining hyperdrives. "If the black hole's mass shadow
doesn't tear us to pieces, its gravity will suck us in when we
arrive. "

"We
plotted the course to account for either possibility, " said
Shigar. "We'll be okay. Probably. "

"I'll
try not to think about it "said Ula through ground teeth.

"I'm
just trying not to throw up, " said Larin.

Ula
twisted in his seat to look back at her. She winked.

"How
much longer?" Shigar asked.

His
calm confidence was infuriating. Ula didn't know how Jet put up with
it.

"Somewhere
between a minute and never. Most likely the latter. "

The
ship creaked from nose to tail as though something had grabbed it at
either end and twisted. Ula clutched the arms of his chair and closed
his eyes. This wasn't what he had signed up for. Being an informer
was supposed to be sitting in the shadows, stealing information, and
plotting the odd assassination. It wasn't fighting killer droids,
being tortured by Mandalorians, or diving headlong into a black hole.
That's what Cipher Agents did.

A
strong hand gripped his elbow. His eyes flickered open.

"Don't
worry, " said Larin. "We'll make it. "

He
nodded and forced his hands to release their grip on the chair. Let
her think he was reassured, when in fact he was the exact opposite.
Shigar's psychometric revelation had raised her faith in him to new
heights, although there was a new tension between them now, as though
their relationship had fundamentally shifted. That, Ula thought,
might be the most galling thing about his situation.

Her
hand slipped away. Her good hand. The one cut in half by the Sith was
encased in a mechanical glove, a paddle-like mitten that enabled her
to grip, little more. That was the full extent of the Auriga Fires
prosthetic provisions.

The
ship lurched again. Clunker came forward, swaying and rocking, and
ran a cable from his midsection into the main console.

"What's
he doing?" Ula asked.

"Syncing
his mind to the ship's computer, " said Jet past his droid's
battered casing.

"You're
letting him fly the ship?"

"He's
got a good head on his shoulders, and his reaction time's much faster
than mine. "

As
if to disprove let's assertion, the Auriga Fire tilted alarmingly to
starboard, then whipped back to port. Ula was thrown about in his
seat harness, but somehow Clunker managed to stay both upright and
plugged in.

A
moment later the ship's flight grew calm. The vibrations eased; the
complaints from both hyperdrive and hull receded into the background.
The knot of tension in Ula's stomach began to unwind.

"Okay,
" said let, punching buttons. "It's coming up now. Hold
on!"

Ula
stiffened again as the warped textures of hyperspace receded.
Normally, a speed-stretched vista of stars would take its place, but
out here, on the very fringes of the galaxy, they were pointing out
into the relative black. Only the faint light of distant stellar
islands existed to be warped by the ship's motion.

With
a gut-roiling wrench, the Auriga Fire returned to realspace, and the
shaking resumed.

Jet
shut down the hyperdrives and put the repulsors on full. Ula was
pressed into his seat as the ship came about. Sensors swept the sky
ahead, revealing vistas unseen by anyone apart from Lema Xandret and
her companions in the history of the galaxy.

It
was much lighter than Ula had expected. That was his first
impression. As the ship hove about and the black hole came into view,
he saw not a dark absence of light but two bright yellow jets
squirting from either pole of the singularity. That was what remained
of the hole's last meal-a dead star, perhaps, or a lonely gas giant
that had been unfortunate enough to cross paths with this bottomless
monster. As though someone had crammed too much food into their mouth
at once, some of the meal squirted back into space, blazing away like
celestial torches against the backdrop of the galaxy.

The
second thing Ula noticed was the galaxy itself. The ship and its
passengers were far enough away from the galaxy's inhabited disk that
they could see it from the outside. A beautiful spiral with a fat
central bulge, it occupied almost half of the sky. As it swung into
view, Ula forgot his anxieties for a moment and experienced nothing
but breathless awe. Every nebula, cluster, and gulf was revealed to
him with more clarity and beauty than any map could show. It was hard
to believe that something so sublime could be the locus of so much
war and grief.

"There's
the planet, " said Jet, playing his instruments like a maestro.

"Sebaddon?
Where?" Shigar peered out at the spectacular vista.

"There.
" Jet indicated a display. Ula could see nothing more than a
dot. "It's farther out than I expected. We'll loop around the
hole and catch it on the upswing. "

"Is
that safe?" Ula asked.

"Relatively.
As long as we don't come too close. "

Ula
didn't want to ask: Relative to what?

Shigar
was watching the display. "No sign of any other ships, " he
said. "There's a small moon. "

"How
could it have a moon?" asked Hetchkee from the seat behind Ula.

"How
could it be here at all?" added Larin.

"A
black hole will kill you if you come too close, " said Shigar,
"but not if you're at a safe distance. Things can easily orbit
it. Sebaddon, any random piece of junk it's snapped up over the
years, us. "

The
way the ship was rattling didn't make Ula feel remotely safe. "What
about heat?" he asked. "Those jets are hot, but not that
hot. "

"As
the planet orbits, the hole's gravity will stretch and squeeze it,
stopping its core from solidifying. I bet we'll see volcanoes when we
get closer. That must be what's bringing all the rare metals to the
surface-and carbon dioxide, too, which would also help keep the
atmosphere warm. "

The
jets were getting visibly larger ahead. Clunker remained plugged in.
Sebaddon was still invisible to the naked eye, and Ula gave up
looking for it.

An
alarm sounded. "Ships, " said Jet, "behind us, exactly
where we came out. "

"Who
do they belong to?" asked Larin.

"Wait
until we've gone around. Then I'll be able to tell you. "

The
display dissolved into static as they fell deeper into the black
hole's frighteningly intense magnetic field. A smell of ozone filled
the cockpit. Anything containing iron began to vibrate at an
annoyingly high pitch.

There
was no sense of weight because they were free-foiling around the
hole, using its gravitational pull to launch them out to where the
planet was orbiting. Still Ula felt as though he was being
simultaneously stretched and squeezed, just like Shigar had described
when talking about the planet. Tidal effects, they were called. His
lungs struggled to pull in enough air, and purple spots danced in
front of his eyes.

Then
they were past and the pressure began to ease. He sagged back into
the chair, sweating heavily and thanking the Emperor he was still
alive.

"Right,
" said Jet, "that's the hard part over. Thanks, Clunker.
Sebaddon coming up ahead. We'll make orbital insertion in about a
minute. As for those ships... " He scanned the revived sensor
displays. "I count fifteen, with Republic transponder codes.
Stantorrs must have moved Coruscant itself to get them here this
fast. "