Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance (54 page)

Ax
pressed forward, telling herself there was nothing to fear. She
agreed with Stryver. Lema Xandret is already dead. She has been for
some time. There was no life in here. The colony had survived long
enough to build the hexes, but then it had failed. Either the hexes
had killed them, recognizing that the humans had outlived their
usefulness, or they had killed themselves. All the evidence Ax
expected to find of them was their bodies.

She
wasn't prepared, therefore, for the intimately decorated quarters
they had left behind: the pictures, journals, clothes, mobiles,
meals, and more that lay scattered throughout the winding corridors
of the colony, perfectly preserved in the cool, dry air, as though
they had been put aside only an hour ago. There had been children
living here. There were memorials to the dead, and to those left
behind. Likenesses of the colonists stared out at her from every
angle. She recognized her mother's face in some of the pictures. Lema
Xandret had grown older here. Her face was lined, and her hair had
turned gray. Her stare was sharp.

"You
were right, " said Master Satele with something like admiration
in her voice. Concern, too, if Ax's ears didn't deceive her.

She
hurried on in determined silence. The empty colony was testimony to
many things: hopes and fears, bravery and cowardice, the everyday and
the profound. Ax wasn't interested in any of that. She hadn't come to
Sebaddon in search of a museum. She had come because the Dark Council
ordered her to, because fate demanded it, and because of Dao Stryver.
Maudlin sentimentality was irrelevant to her.

Still,
Ax's pace increased until she was almost running from room to room,
seeking something she couldn't put a name to. Master Satele followed,
moving lightly and silently in her wake. The corridors wound deeper
and deeper, connecting to larger spaces and more business-like
structures, including air and water purifiers and power plants. The
pressure steadily increased around them. In several places they saw
slow leaks, dripping red into growing puddles.

They
came at last to a large, square room that looked more like a
warehouse than a laboratory, although clearly it had once been the
latter. Droid parts lay scattered in various states of repair
alongside tools of all shapes and sizes and arcane instruments of
measurement. Holo- projectors displayed rotating designs, revealing
several hex variants that Ax hadn't seen before: versions with ten
legs or more, multiple bodies, specialist limbs, and agglomerated
into larger machines capable of space travel or mass destruction.
Some of them changed as she walked toward them, indicating that the
evolutionary algorithms responsible for them were still running.
Thick cables ran everywhere through a centimeters-deep layer of red.
Some of them led to a tubular glass tank, five times larger than a
bacta tank, which stood in one corner of the room. It was full of
opaque red fluid, apparently identical to the stuff outside.

Master
Satele approached the tank, but Ax hung back. She sensed that this
was what had drawn her here, but now that she was standing in front
of it, she was nervous. Did she really want to know what her mother's
fate had been?

"It's
warm, " said Master Satele. She had taken off a glove and
pressed it against the glass. "Body temperature, or thereabouts.
"

"That
red stuff, " said Ax. "It's in all the hexes. It looks like
lava, but it's not. It's the biological component the Hutts detected.
"

"Is
it blood?"

"I
don't know. " She shuddered. "I hope not. "

The
Grand Master was still standing with her hand touching the glass. She
watched Ax closely. "This is what I tap into when I subdue the
hexes. It's alive, but at the same time not alive. It's incomplete,
like a body without a mind. "

"Could
the CI be its mind?"

"It
could be, but we've seen no sign of the CI so far. If it's in this
section of the planet, it's keeping a very low profile. "

The
fluid in the tank stirred, and Master Satele pulled sharply away.

"There's
something else in there, " she said. "I felt it. "

Ax
hugged herself without realizing. She wanted to run but couldn't
move. Her feet were frozen to the floor. Her eyes couldn't look away.

Inside
the tank, something white swept against the glass. It vanished almost
instantly, back into the red murk, but then returned a moment later,
pressing hard.

Ax
gasped. It was a human hand. Another appeared beside it, with fingers
splayed out wide. The red fluid stirred as the body the hands were
attached to steadied itself in the fluid.

Something
whirred in the laboratory. A cam turned to stare at Master Satele,
then tracked to take in Ax.

"I
recognize you. "

The
voice came from all around them. Female, breathless, surprised.

"I
know you. "

A
face loomed closer to the glass wall of the tank, coming slowly into
view.

"I
am you. "

Ax
felt her insides turn to water. The face was her own.

CHAPTER
41

Ula
watched the repulsor platform rising from the planet's south pole
with something approaching awe. The skyhook was huge and well
defended, and the hexes had built it in almost no time at all. If
Stryver still needed to convince anyone of the reality of his
geometric growth theory, the proof was right there in front of him.

"What's
a skyhook doing at the pole?" Jet asked. "It'd be useless,
floating there. "

"Why?"

"Because
the best place to get to higher orbits is at the equator, and that's
what they'll be wanting to do. Isn't it?"

Ula
just shrugged. Skyhooks had many uses, not just as a staging point to
orbit, as they were usually employed, hanging motionlessly over
points on a planet's surface. They could provide defense or act as
displays of wealth. Who knew what the hexes wanted? He was still
learning what they could do.

"Target
that thing, " he ordered the combined fleet, just to be sure.
"Bring it down!"

The
Paramount sent a halfhearted salvo in the skyhook's direction, but it
was clear Kalisch was keeping significant firepower in reserve. The
Commenor sent nothing at all.

"Didn't
you hear me. Captain Pipalidi? We need to stop that thing from
reaching the upper atmosphere. "

"And
I need to ensure the security of what ships we have left, " said
the leader of the Republic contingent. "If the Paramount turns
its weapons on us while we're looking elsewhere, we'll be
defenseless. "

"If
the hexes escape, we all lose. "

"On
Kalisch's head be it. "

He
punched the instrument panel in frustration.

Jet
looked at him in reproach. "Hey, take it easy. "

"It's
just so-so pointless! What's the point of fighting each other? All
they have to do is cooperate a little longer and we stand a chance. "

"They're
too alike. That's the problem. You see that in primitive cultures
when schisms divide religions into similar but not identical sects.
They hate each other more than the enemy. "

"What
are you talking about? The Empire isn't a primitive culture. "

"No,
but the principle still holds. Similar hierarchies, with a dominant
high priest caste; similar beliefs but different practices; competing
over the same territory..."

"Stop
it, " said Ula. "You're not helping. "

"Just
trying to point out why it was never going to work. "

"So
we shouldn't even have tried?"

"Everything's
worth trying once. And I have been known to be wrong on occasions.
Unfortunately, this isn't turning out to be one of them. "

"So
how do we turn it around? What can we do to stop the hexes from
getting out?"

"There's
always Plan B. "

"Which
is?"

"I
was hoping you might have one. "

Stryver
was heading north, away from the south pole. Ula projected the
Mandalorian's progress across a map of the planet's surface and found
the likely CI location at the end of it. That portion of the map was
a mess of activity. Ula used satellite and tighter data to zoom in
closer.

Something
was rising up from a lake of lava, tilling the crater where the
landing site had been.

"Another
skyhook?" he said, pointing at the image.

"It's
in the right spot, " said Jet, "but I don't think so. The
design isn't right, and it doesn't appear to have the repulsorlift
capacity it would need to get off the ground. "

A
circular hatch irised open on the top of the thing, like an enormous
iris. Another space opened up among the hexes directly above.

Ula
waited, but nothing emerged from the hatch.

"This
doesn't make any sense, " he said.

"There's
Stryver again, " Jet said, pointing at a solitary blip circling
the new arrival.

"I
guess he's chasing those subspace foci, " Ula said. "That
one must be a biggie. "

"Like
the skyhook's. " Jet pointed at the south of the planet. "Which
is moving, by the way. "

He
was right. The skyhook had drifted away from the pole and was
accelerating ponderously northward.

Ula
thought fast. If the skyhook kept accelerating at that rate and
stayed on that heading...

"They're
two halves of one thing, " he cried. "The skyhook was at
the pole because that's where the master factory built it. Now it's
coming to pick up the CI and take it offworld. I bet the drives are
being built on the moon, as we speak. They're getting ready to break
free. We have to stop them!"

"I
think you're right, " said Jet, "and I agree that this is
serious. Try Kalisch and Pipalidi one more time. Maybe they'll change
their minds. "

Ula
knew it was pointless. The fleet was breaking up. Shots were being
fired by fighters passing perilously close to the opposite side's
capital vessels. It was clear that lines were being drawn and beads
taken. All it would take was one mistake for open warfare to erupt.

"If
there was only some way to make them do what's needed, " he
said.

"I
knew you had the makings of an emperor. "

"How
can you joke at a time like this?"

"Who's
joking?" Jet turned in his seat and said to Clunker, "Time
for Plan B. "

The
droid inclined its battered head. A series of new screens flickered
in and out of the main holoprojector as the droid sent a series of
commands through the Auriga Fire's main computers.

"Don't
tell me, " said Ula. "You cracked the hex code but have
been sitting on it, waiting for the rest of us to figure it out for
ourselves. "

"Believe
me, I wouldn't have waited. Also, there's nothing to be gained in
doing that. Once the code is cracked, the hexes are dead, and I'm out
of pocket. "

"So
what are you going to do?"

"Something
noble and probably quite stupid. In return, I need you to do
something for me. "

"Just
ask. "

"I
need you to pretend it never happened. "

Ula
stared at him.

"Watch
the screens, " Jet said.

The
combined fleet was breaking up, but not down faction lines. The
Paramount was leading one mixed contingent down to a lower orbit,
there to target the CI with greater precision. The Commenor was
heading for the moon with a smaller retinue and two squadrons of
fighters. All internecine squabbling had abruptly ceased.

Comms
weren't down, but they were suspiciously quiet. No one was giving
orders to coordinate the fleet's movements. It was just happening.

"You're
doing this, " Ula said, appalled.

"Clunker
is. He's got a very good head on his shoulders. "

"You
used me to infiltrate the Imperial and Republic networks. You cracked
their codes. Now you've taken over!"