Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 06_ Vortex - Denning Troy [139]
“Droids won’t do this work,” Zekk joked. He glanced past Han’s shoulder, then added, “Now you’ve done it. The boss lady is headed our way.”
Han glanced up to see Taryn Zel zipping toward them on her little boss-floater. Like everyone else on the rescue team, she was dressed in a white jumpsuit bearing the logo RUNKIL REMEDIATION on the breast pocket. Instead of the hard hat and other protective gear, she wore a white supervisor’s cap with a bright red bill that clashed badly with her auburn hair.
“Sick again, old man?” she called. “Maybe you should stop going out on work nights.”
Han shot her a watery-eyed glower that was only half acting. Taryn was the only member of the rescue team whose face was unlikely to be in the GAS recognition files, so she had been the natural choice to enter the reception area and present a forged work order to the desk guards. Of course, that also meant she got to play the extermination crew’s boss and take the easy job flitting around barking orders while everyone else scraped silica-eating parasites off the exterior of Detention Center 81.
“Going out the night before isn’t my problem, boss,” Han replied loudly. “It’s listening to you harp all day that turns my stomach.”
It was impossible to say whether the flash that came to Taryn’s eyes was one of anger or amusement. But as she swung her boss-floater around next to Han and Zekk’s hoverscaf, she was careful to position it so that her body was between them and the nearest cam bubble.
“I don’t know why corporate makes me keep you on, you old fog-head,” Taryn said loudly. “The foam crew is about to catch you.”
She pointed ten meters up the wall, where Leia and Jaina were also disguised as Runkil exterminators. They were moving their hoverscaf across the building, coating the duracrete in a thin blanket of foam that, when it evaporated, would leave behind a residual layer of parasite-killing poison. In the meantime, however, the foam was obscuring the cam bubbles that dotted the building and making it impossible for the guards inside to keep tabs on the extermination crew on the exterior.
“It’s not my fault they’re skipping windowsills,” Han groused.
He glanced down and saw that Natua Wan and Seff Hellin were already hovering in front of their go-point on level 1910. Their foam crew, consisting of Yaqeel Saav’etu and Kunor Bann, was just coating the last cam bubble between the two levels where the rescue team would enter the building. All four were formerly psychotic Jedi Knights whom Daala had wanted to freeze in carbonite along with the Horn kids, and Han delighted in knowing that Daala would recognize that the Council had chosen the rescue team to send a message: the Jedi were through being pushed around.
“Your foam crew isn’t skipping anything, old man,” Taryn said. As she spoke, Leia and Jaina descended behind her and coated the last cam bubble in foam. For the next hour, the guards in the detention center control room would be blind to what the extermination crew was doing. Whether the cam bubbles also had audio capabilities was anybody’s guess, so the rescue team had to stay in character—at least until they started blowing things up. “If you can’t keep up—”
“I can keep up.” Han pointed at the cam bubble behind Taryn and nodded. Once the bubbles were obscured, the plan called for the rescue team to enter in two squads, Squad Saav’etu on level 1910 where Jysella’s tracking bug had gone silent, and Squad Solo on level 1913 where Valin’s had gone silent. “Don’t you worry about that.”
Leia’s foam nozzle began to sputter, and Jaina brought their hoverscaf down behind Taryn.
“Hey, boss,” Leia said. “I’m out of foam.”
Taryn smiled and winked at Zekk, then turned