The Emperor's Plague

4

Even though he recognized the Lightning Rod as the ship flown by ambitious young bounty hunter Zekk, Bornan Thul decided he couldn’t be choosy—not anymore. With both Boba Fett and the other bounty hunter Shakra firing on him, he either had to trust Zekk or sacrifice himself and blow up his ship. But Bornan wasn’t ready to self-destruct. Though it would obliterate the deadly knowledge he carried, the plague storehouse itself still existed; Nolaa Tarkona would keep searching for it. For him, the deciding factor was hearing his son’s voice. Raynar was traveling with Zekk!

He toggled the comm system to SEND. “I’ll come over in the escape pod, Raynar. But I can’t leave anything behind here. Just give me a minute … and stay clear of my ship.” Bornan swallowed hard and, with trembling fingers, engaged the destruction subroutines he had hoped he would never need. Cutting the time as close to the edge as he dared, he set the countdown.

Inside the claustrophobic ship, he could hear his damaged engines whining as they looped energy overloads back into themselves. The cockpit temperature gauges crept into the red with astonishing speed. Without wasting a second, Bornan Thul grabbed the precious navicomputer Fonterrat had given him and ran for his ship’s single escape pod. The module that had caused so much distress contained the coordinates for the Emperor’s munitions storehouse, the laboratory asteroid where Evir Derricote had developed plague organisms specific to races the Emperor had found troublesome. Derricote had created many diseases—including the one that would kill only humans. But even the Emperor had not dared to release the horrific scourge. Palpatine wanted to destroy only troublesome groups of humans, such as the Rebels—not the entire race.

Nevertheless, the Emperor had left an immense storehouse filled with plague canisters. This navicomputer module held those coordinates, and Nolaa Tarkona desperately wanted that knowledge. Bornan Thul had vowed to die before letting such a terrible weapon fall into the hands of the Diversity Alliance. He had flown to the abandoned storehouse himself and seen that it was indeed as terrible as he had imagined. More terrible, in fact. He hadn’t found a way to destroy the place single-handed, and he couldn’t risk approaching the New Republic.

Nolaa Tarkona had too many converts, too many spies, among the alien members. It would take only one stolen vial of the plague released into a major spaceport … and the New Republic would be lost. No, Bornan Thul knew that until the entire storehouse was destroyed, he had to keep the location of the biological weapons depot a secret from everyone. And so he had taken the navicomputer module—and vanished. It had worked … until now. Red lights flashed in the cockpit, and klaxons squawked.

He cradled the module, knowing that everything else would become space dust in a few minutes, including his ship’s own computer. As he clambered into the escape pod, Bornan Thul glanced over his shoulder for one last look around the little ship that had served him so well during his months on the run. But he was startled to see activity lights flashing on his systems console—more than just the self-destruct sequence. His ship’s memory banks were being split open remotely. Someone was slicing into his computer! Thul paused in dismay. Certain illegal technology allowed illicit users to rip data directly from other computers.

He had intended to destroy his vessel before anyone could get close to it—but it might already be too late. Too late.

“I hope you’re ready for me, Zekk,” he muttered. His escape pod should take him to safety before Boba Fett or the other bounty hunter could latch onto him. He sealed the hatch and hit the launch button. Acceleration threw him back against the small padded seat, and Bornan Thul held on while the lifepod ejected. As the predatory bounty hunters moved into position, he looked out the small round porthole, hoping the right ship would retrieve him first.

While Boba Fett’s Slave IV raced after the dwindling escape pod, the bounty hunter Shakra sat in her bare cockpit considering another alternative, another way to achieve her goal. Her reptilian frill plumped with excitement and her large slitted eyes narrowed as she made her choice. She accelerated toward Bornan Thul’s newly abandoned ship. She would get aboard and tear out his computer banks with her own sharp-knuckled hands. Most of all, Shakra hoped to find something Boba Fett might have neglected. The bounty and the fame she’d receive from Nolaa Tarkona were the incentive that drove her ambition—but the reward of knowing she had outsmarted Boba Fett would be nearly as sweet.

She docked her little craft against Bornan Thul’s empty vessel and used robotic grapplers, magnetic sealers, and powerful blasters to rip her way into the abandoned ship. She didn’t care about. causing damage. All that mattered to her was the information she might find inside. Shakra came aboard like a predator stalking a wounded creature. She looked from side to side, scanning the decks, observing the cockpit, tasting the air with her forked tongue. Through the front windowports she watched Fett’s ship closing in on the escape pod, while the newly arrived Lightning Rod raced to intercept. They had left Shakra alone with this craft, and she hoped to make a killing.

Alarms flashed in the cockpit. The engines groaned, rumbled, and whined as power built up. Her hard lips expressed her distaste in a scaly frown. Her slender black tongue flicked out. The air tasted hot, angry. Apparently, this craft had sustained more damage during the attack than she had expected. But anything that remained was now hers. She let out a long hissing laugh, and her slit pupils widened as she contemplated which files to steal first. Abruptly her attention fixed on the engine diagnostics, the power levels, the heat exchangers that blazed a silent warning: a countdown. Her frill shot up in astonishment and alarm.

Thul had set his ship to self-destruct! She whirled about, her fanged jaws wide open as she gasped in the hot recycled air. The timer showed only seconds remaining. Crying out like a coward, Shakra fled toward her ship, glad that none of her brood-mates could see her reaction. If only she could get far enough away from the blast zone! Her clawed feet scrabbled on the deckplates. Through the hole in the hull up ahead she saw her own ship, her escape…

Just as she reached the opening, Bornan Thul’s craft exploded like a supernova, obliterating Shakra, her ship, and itself, along with any residual information its computers might have carried….

As Zekk jockeyed into position to cut off Boba Fett’s ship, he looked grimly at the Lightning Rod’s weapons systems. He had shot at and chased the masked bounty hunter before, but in each case Zekk had had the element of surprise, and he had fled before the firefight could get too intense. Fett outgunned him by a significant margin.

“Get the tractor beam on that escape pod,” he said to Raynar. “We don’t have much time.”

“Which is the tractor beam?” Raynar said, looking frantically at the control panels. “We haven’t covered that one yet.”

Zekk dodged and rolled the Lightning Rod, skimming past a volley of laser fire from Boba Fett.

“That one!” he said, jabbing quickly at a control panel in front of the copilot’s chair. He fought his impatience with Raynar’s lack of training. The blond-haired young man was just as interested in rescuing his father as Zekk was in surviving this encounter. Slave IV came in shooting. Bornan Thul’s voice came over the comm system.

“If you’re going to rescue me, you’d better do it quickly.”

“I got him!” Raynar yelled as he successfully locked on the tractor beam. Boba Fett cruised toward them, ready to snatch the escape pod directly from their grip. At that moment, without warning, Bornan Thul’s ship exploded in a nightmare of blinding white that washed across space in an expanding sphere.

“Hang on!” Zekk swung the Lightning Rod around to shield the escape pod just as the shock wave struck. Fett’s ship was knocked into a dizzying spiral. Zekk barely held position, nudging his thrusters to keep the Lightning Rod balanced.

“We’re still here. We’re still intact,” he said.

“So am I,” Bornan Thul shouted over the comm system. “But I won’t be for long unless you get me aboard.”

Fett recovered quickly and came after them again, angry now. Zekk fired, but his weapons were much weaker than the bounty hunter’s. He fed all available power to his shields but still felt the pounding of Boba Fett’s blasts. He checked to see if Raynar had drawn the escape pod into the cargo bay yet.

“What’s this alarm light mean?” Raynar asked.

“It means our shields are failing!” Zekk said. Suddenly, another ship soared out of hyperspace, emerging from the glare of Bornan Thul’s self-destructed vessel. Without pausing to take aim, the new ship fired immediately upon Boba Fett. Bright streaks of fire sprayed space and struck Slave IV.

“Yee-ha!” Jaina Solo’s voice crowed over the comet system. “Take that, Boba Fett—and don’t mess with our friends!”

Zekk fired his own weapons again in tandem with the Rock Dragon’s second full-powered volley. Fett, seeing himself clearly at a tactical disadvantage and not knowing if other ships might soon arrive, broke off his attack. He sent one brief comm burst as he wheeled about.

“I have what I need.” Then he vanished into hyperspace.

“Nice turnabout, Jaina,” Zekk said, with a tense smile. “About time you came to rescue me for a change!”

The Rock Dragon pulled alongside, and Jaina’s chuckle came through the comm system.

“Kind of a family tradition. Dad did the same thing for Uncle Luke at the Death Star, you know. Anyway, couldn’t let you keep thinking you’re the only one who can pull off a surprise rescue.”

Raynar was relieved, nervous, and exhilarated all at the same time. At the moment, nothing was more important to him than getting down to the cargo hold, where the retrieved lifepod rested. He ran to be reunited—at last—with his father.