Part 20 (2/2)

She glanced back at all the different vessels in the hangar, thinking again about the distribution algorithm, a coordinated means by which the Empire could spread the virus everywhere it wanted across the entire galaxy. Distractedly, she watched a group of the things lined up alongside an X-wing, working together to turn it around, pointing it up toward where she was standing.

Her mind went back to what Waste had told her about quorum sensing, the way the disease worked.

They don't do anything until they can all do it together -when it's too late for the host organism to fight it-but why?

Then it hit her, and she spoke aloud without realizing it.

”They're leaving.”

Down below, the X-wing was aimed straight up at her. What had that other 2-1B said about being exposed up here?

A blinding column of flame tore across the hangar, hurtling straight for her.

Chapter 42.

River The kid stood no chance.

Even from here, Han could sec how it was going to play out, and if he and Chewie went out on the catwalk to try to help him, it would just mean all three of them would die together. It was a miserable thing to realize, yet there it was-a rock-solid certainty.

Chewie gave a long, mournful howl.

”Yeah, I know,” Han shot back, hating himself all the more for having to say it out loud. ”You got any better suggestions?”

Out on the catwalk, the kid was slipping off, the thing dangling stubbornly from his ankle, dragging him down. He might be able to hang on for another five seconds, certainly no more. In an act of pure desperation, Han leveled his blaster, knowing he had no shot-he could just as easily hit Trig from this distance, or miss altogether. But what else was he supposed to do?

Are you really going to sit this one out? Cash it in, go down without a fight?

Chewbacca was looking at him, awaiting the decision. At last Han nodded and lowered the blaster.

”Okay,” he muttered, ”on my signal, we go out, just try to grab him...”

Chewie gave another howl, this one more startled, and Han saw what he was looking at.

It was too late.

The kid had let go.

The kid was falling.

From the moment his fingers finally slipped off, some part of Trig felt nothing but pure weightless relief: after everything that had happened, just to give up and surrender himself to gravity and the void. As he fell, Myss still clinging to his legs, he looked down into the screaming faces coming closer and felt the full intensity of their wrath swallowing him up. He remembered hoping that he'd be dead by the time he hit, and guessed that probably wouldn't happen either, unless- Something swooped underneath him, and he smashed into it, connecting with his right hip and shoulder and rolling backward, arms and legs flopping with the leftover momentum. A heartbeat later and his forehead ricocheted off the smoothness of cold prefabricated resin. He propped himself up, felt the speed acc.u.mulating around his face, pus.h.i.+ng forward. He wasn't falling anymore- But he was moving.

He realized that he'd landed inside some kind of hovercraft, a utility lifter, shooting across the empty s.p.a.ce above the main engine turbine, still twenty meters above the deathscape of screaming faces.

Trig turned his head and glanced forward. There was a figure perched up at the steering console. He couldn't see who it was- Except that the man seemed to be wearing an Imperial prison guard uniform.

The lifter tilted, arcing sideways over the abyss, and when the driver shot a glance back around, Trig got a look at his face. Not that it made any sense, but after two and a half months aboard the prison barge, he would have recognized Jareth Sartoris anywhere.

Sartoris banked hard and swung the lifter around toward the far side of the catwalk where Han and Chewie stood staring at it with a look of disbelief that matched Trig's own. The guard's voice was a hoa.r.s.e croak above the screams and blasterfire.

”You coming?”

Han and Chewie dived in without a word. The lifter sank under the new weight, and Sartoris rammed the stick forward and up. Watching him wrestle with it, Trig noticed the deep bite on his forearm, the way the underlying tissue had already started to bulge and pucker from some gray squirming necrosis deep inside.

Sartoris was fighting more than just the throttle, he realized.

The lifter rocked sideways, straining to hold them above the mob below, faces lit up by steady, strafing blasterfire. Han and Chewie had already taken their positions over either side, shooting back.

”You're that pilot, right?” Sartoris shouted, not looking over. ”Can you fly this?”

Han blinked at him. ”You're gonna let me...”

”See this?” Sartoris held up his bitten arm, the exposed tissue squirming visibly now as though it had a series of small, electrically charged serpents writhing just below the flesh, trying to find a way out. ”I don't have much time.”

”Yeah, well...” Han leaned over and squeezed off another round of fire into the ma.s.ses. ”Chewie and I are a little busy right now.”

Sartoris looked over his opposite shoulder. ”What about you?”

”Me?” Trig squeaked.

”We're overloaded.” Sartoris gestured over at the pitch and yaw alarms that had already started flas.h.i.+ng faster on the main console, and Trig realized with horror that they were still going down, descending slowly but steadily into the shrieking mora.s.s below. Within seconds they'd be feeling the clutching hands thumping the underside of the lifter, yanking themselves...o...b..ard. ”The hover won't take the weight.”

”I don't think I can...”

”Time to learn.” Sartoris took hold of the boy's arm and steered him forward past Han, planting him in front of the console. ”Got it?”

”Where are we going?”

”There's an Imperial shuttle down in the hangar with some soldiers aboard. Look for a kid named White.” Trig realized the captain of the guards was holding on to his shoulder, looking at him; the man's eyes burned through clear and bright. ”You understand what I'm telling you?”

”But...”

Sartoris squinted, the vertical lines deepening on either side of his mouth, furrows that you could fall through if you weren't careful. ”There's something you should know about your father.”

”You knew him?”

”He was a good man,” Sartoris said. ”Unlike me.”

Trig stared at him.

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