The Emperor's Plague

23

Bornan Thul stood outside the central storage chamber, cold with anger and sick with despair. Nolaa Tarkona had found the human-killing plague at last, and now she had in her grasp the means to destroy everyone. And it was his own fault for not taking care of it sooner. Bornan knew what he had to do. Hunkered next to Zekk and Raynar, he took a deep breath. He reached out to squeeze his son’s shoulder.

“Lowbacca isn’t in there—or if he is, Nolaa Tarkona’s already dispatched him. I have to go in and finish setting the explosives myself.” Raynar looked at him with wide eyes. His moon-round face flushed with astonishment.

“But you can’t! It’s dangerous in there. All that plague—”

“I know, and we can’t risk letting it get out. I have to stop Nolaa Tarkona.”

“We’ll go with you,” Zekk said. “The three of us can fight her together.”

Bornan Thul stared at the hardened, dark-haired young man. “That would risk all of us, and it’s not worth the cost.” He stopped to look at Raynar. “I’ve already put the galaxy in danger. I can’t do even worse by getting you killed.” He gave his son a quick hug, and Raynar clutched him tightly.

“But I just found you again, Father. Don’t go in and get yourself killed.”

“I don’t intend to,” he said. “I sincerely hope I come out alive, but I have to seal the door behind me. I can’t let any of that plague get loose.”

Sweat beading on his forehead, Bornan Thul gripped the blaster pistol with which he had killed the Gamorrean guard. He slid along the wall, keeping low so that he couldn’t be seen through the observation windows. Then he ducked over to the heavy door, flashing one last glance at the mournful face of his son before he slipped inside the deadly chamber. He clutched the blaster, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t have to fire it. Any stray bolt could easily shatter one of the plague canisters.

Thul reached up and worked the controls until the heavy airtight door hummed and moved sideways. With a hiss it slid shut, then compressed against its contamination-free doorjamb. He knew he couldn’t remain hidden after all that noise, so he dashed into the forest of plague cylinders, taking shelter between the canisters.

Nolaa Tarkona cried out. “So the vermin are here at last—hoping to save themselves from the fate they deserve. Rullak, see that they don’t escape!”

Bornan Thul slipped between the nearest bubbling cylinders, seeking shelter. He heard the pounding feet of guards, and he shrank into the shadows. As he peered around the curve of the transparisteel cylinder, he saw Raynar’s look of horror through the window above. The boy stared in at his father and the armed guards lunging toward him. Thul crouched low and scuttled between a pair of bubbling cylinders, skirted a scarlet-filled sphere, and ran down the next aisle of liquid-filled tubes. Guards charged after him.

He caught only a glimpse of burly alien forms as he wove in and out. He stopped, breathless and panting, beside a coolant station whose coils hummed with high-power efficiency. Other noisy generators pumped aeration and support systems, keeping the biological contamination viable after all these years. A blaster shot ricocheted off the floor near Thul’s foot, and he realized that he was partially visible. So he got up and ran again, ducking past the edge of a huge recirculation fan that blasted sterile air in all directions, stirring the enclosed atmosphere. Its noise would cover any movement he made.

The guards were shouting now, and he heard Nolaa Tarkona also screeching orders. She was his target, Thul knew … if he could get one clean shot. He held the blaster, always ready, in his hand. Just one clean shot, and he could remove the leader of the Diversity Alliance. No one else had Nolaa’s charisma, her power. No one else could hold the disparate alien bands together, with or without the terrible plague. Taking a deep breath to marshal his courage, Bornan Thul dashed toward her voice. That was the most important thing—to stop Nolaa Tarkona.

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.