Part 37 (1/2)
”And just in time, too,” Caaldra said. ”I was expecting you to come through a window into one of the meeting rooms, not right through the wall like you did. Looks like I've ruined a couple of carpets over there for nothing.”
”You're going to ruin a lot more than that if this stuff goes up,” Mara warned. ”What is it about you and fire, anyway? Were you burned as a kid or something?”
”Not at all,” he a.s.sured her. ”I've just learned over the years that fire and water are the two things even professionals usually aren't prepared for.”
”I'll have to remember that,” Mara promised.
”I'm sure you will,” Caaldra said. ”And if you were thinking about jumping me when I came in with my handy igniter, don't bother. The edge of the pool's already seeped out into the reception area, which means I can touch off your private lake of fire without even opening the door.”
Mara grimaced. That had been the direction she'd been thinking, actually.
Scratch that now. ”Of course, you could have done that anywhere along the line, without nearly so much talk,” she pointed out. ”From that I gather you want something.”
”Very perceptive,” Caaldra said approvingly. ”I want to make a deal.”
Mara c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. ”I'm listening. Obviously.”
”Basically, I just want out,” Caaldra said. ”Completely out. I leave Shelkonwa, you don't file charges, no one comes after me.”
”And in return I get to leave here uncrisped?” ”That, plus I give you all the records you need to nail Chief Administrator Disra to the wall.”
”So Disra is in this, too?” Mara asked, looking around the room. No windows, no other doors, and the pool of flammable liquid was nearly ankle-deep now.
But there was the hole she'd cut in the outer wall. And there were those three stacks of chairs.
”He's in it up to his neck,” Caaldra said contemptuously. ”Actually, I think he's been the head mover and shaker on this thing right from square one.”
”Really,” Mara said, stretching out with the Force to the topmost chair on the nearest stack. For a moment it stuck to the one beneath it, but then it came free. She floated it across the room and eased it to the floor about three meters from the end of her table cart in the direction of the hole. ”I'm surprised someone like Governor Ch.o.a.rd would let anyone else run his show for him.”
”Ch.o.a.rd's show?” Caaldra snorted. ”You must be kidding. That big stupid idiot doesn't know a thing about any of this.”
Mara smiled tightly. ”Nice try, Caaldra, but I know better. It takes a moff or full governor to order Imperial forces around. Not even a chief administrator can do that.”
”Who said he could?” Caaldra countered. ”We weren't going to order either of Shelsha's garrisons around-we were going for straight-out destruction.”
”Don't be dense,” Mara admonished as she moved a second chair into position, three meters past the first one. ”I'm talking about the Reprisal's attack on Gepparin*”
”The Reprisal!” Caaldra echoed. ”You are on the wrong file heading, aren't you? That didn't have anything to do with us-it was Captain Ozzel trying to cover his own sorry tail. Trying to make sure you never lived to tell anyone about his deserters.” Mara frowned. ”His what?”
”His deserters.” Caaldra barked a laugh. ”Oh, this is rare. Someone sets you up to get killed, and you don't even know why?”
”Skip the gloating and enlighten me,” Mara growled.
”To put it in a clig sh.e.l.l, five of the Reprisal's storm-troopers apparently killed an ISB major, stole one of their special s.h.i.+ps, and made a run for it.” Mara felt her breath freeze in her lungs. Five stormtroopers? ”You know anything else about them?” she asked carefully.
”Only that ever since they took off they've been wandering around Shelsha sector poking their fingers into our plans,” Caaldra said with a snort.
”First they spoiled a hijacking of some heavy blaster rifles we had our eyes on; then they knocked off a patroller chief we were positioning to lead the attack on an attack star-fighter plant.”
And with that, the strange comment Brock had made in the BloodScars'
command room suddenly, horribly, made sense. Did you already know about the deserters? Or is that what you were looking for in the Reprisal's computer?
Deserters. Stormtroopers. Five of them. The Hand of Judgment.
”It makes for an interesting story, anyway,” she said, trying to keep her voice casual. ”Where are these renegades now?”
”Probably off somewhere doing more good deeds,” Caaldra said. ”The point is that Ozzel hadn't reported their disappearance and figured his neck was for it after you interrogated his other stormtroopers or whatever it was you did while you were on his s.h.i.+p.”
”Actually, I tapped into his computer,' Mara murmured, a horrible thought digging into her like a knife blade. It was the Reprisal's attack on Gepparin, and only that attack, that had laid the burden of guilt squarely on Governor Ch.o.a.rd's shoulders. But if Caaldra was telling the truth, then Ch.o.a.rd could very well be a completely innocent man.
An innocent man whom she'd just sent five storm-trooper deserters to kill.
She clenched her teeth. She had to get out of here, and she had to get out now. Lifting another chair from the stack, she added it to the line.
One more, and she should have enough. ”So what exactly is it you want?”
she called, stalling for time.
”I already told you,” Caaldra said, a whisper of suspicion starting to creep into his voice. ”I want a free pa.s.s out of this. What are you doing in there?”
”Waiting for you to spell out the details,” Mara countered, silently cursing herself. Preoccupied with her escape plan and even more so with the miscarriage of justice she'd set into motion, she'd completely forgotten that Caaldra had already presented his request. ”I know people like you,” she improvised. ”You'll want everything done to your exact specifications.”
”Absolutely,” Caaldra said, the suspicion in his voice deepening. ”I'll be taking the Happer's Way-we'll need a quick repair job on the cargo bay first-and then you'll provide me safe pa.s.sage off Shelkonwa with enough fuel-”
”Wait a second,” Mara cut in as she set the final chair in line. Now all she had to do was figure out what she was going to do once she got outside. ”You don't really expect me to let you fly off with a s.h.i.+p full of military property, do you?”
”Consider it my reward for helping you break up a potentially disastrous political crisis,” Caaldra countered. ”Disra was all set to issue a declaration of independence and take Shelsha sector out of the Empire.”
”You must be joking,” Mara scoffed, moving another chair to the wall.
Unlike the others, she didn't set this one upright but laid it flat with its back sticking out through the opening. ”Or else Disra must be joking.
He'd have half the Fleet in orbit over his head inside of a week.”
”You really think Palpatine would take overt military action?” Caaldra asked. ”You don't think he'd cut a deal instead to keep it quiet?”
”Emperor Palpatine doesn't make deals like that,” Mara said, lifting two more chairs from their stack and moving them to the hole. Setting one of them down temporarily out of the way, she maneuvered the other onto the lying chair's legs, trying to hook them together so that the new chair would brace the one leaning outside.
”Not even if one of his own very special agents recommended it?”
Mara nodded grimly to herself as the reason for this conversation finally became clear. Caaldra wasn't interested in any deals. All he wanted was to sound her out, to try to gauge Imperial Center's reaction to their insane neo-Separatist scheme. ”Not even then,” she told him as she locked the last chair into position with the other two. ”But it's a moot point, because I'd never make such a recommendation in the first place. You're talking treason, and treason carries an automatic death penalty.”
Faintly through the door, she heard his sigh. ”Too bad,” he said. ”In that case you're not worth anything at all to me. Good-bye, agent.” There was the crack of a blaster shot- And suddenly a waist-high wall of flame erupted by the door and raced across the room toward her.
Mara reacted instantly, throwing herself off her unsteady perch atop the tables and leaping for the first of her line of chairs. She hit it and bounded off toward the second.
She was in midair on her way to the third chair when the wave front swept past, engulfing her legs in flame. Stretching out with the Force to suppress the pain, she kept going. Ahead, dimly visible through the roiling smoke and heat s.h.i.+mmer, she could see the hole. Landing on the final chair in line, she ducked her head and leapt through the opening onto the chair back sticking out over the yard.
The chair creaked ominously as her weight came down on it, but with the other two chairs providing a counterweight it held. The cool night air rushed over her, and she paused long enough to inhale a couple of breaths into her scorched lungs.