Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 07_ Conviction - Aaron Allston [11]
Kyp knew which Grand Master Raynar meant. “Jade Shadow went into hyperspace hours ago. While we’ve been mopping things up here, there’s been no further word from Master Skywalker. And there’ve been no instructions from the Temple.” He slapped his gloves against his thigh, a show of irritation or impatience not characteristic of most Masters.
Another StealthX rose into the bay, a ferocious shower of sparks spewing from its starboard thrusters. Its pilot maneuvered it skillfully enough, landing it well away from other fighters to keep its fiery exhaust from damaging them.
Kyp watched it for a moment, then sighed. “We don’t know what to do. Until we know where Abeloth went, where the Sith are going, how the situation on Coruscant is shaking out …”
“Understood.”
“Have Calrissian arrange a conference room for us. Ask Masters Ramis and Katarn to meet me there in half an hour. We need to make some contingency plans.”
“Will do, Master.”
“I’m going to see if I can sanisteam the stink of this battle off my skin.” Kyp managed a little smile. “Let me know when everything’s set up.” His step jaunty, or perhaps just plausibly jaunty, he headed off to the temporary pilots’ quarters.
ARMAND ISARD MAXIMUM SECURITY
CORRECTIONAL FACILITY, CORUSCANT
THE GUARD-DROID, BULKY AND INTIMIDATING, ITS SMOOTH, BLACK surface offering no place for an attacker to grip, came to a halt at the end of the industrial-green corridor. The blast doors slid aside ahead of it, and it gestured for Tahiri Veila to continue alone.
Tahiri, clad in the strident yellow jumpsuit intended to alert the public that its wearer was a dangerous prisoner, walked through and down the ramp into the exercise yard.
Of course, it wasn’t a yard at all. Yards had access to the sky. This large chamber, buried deep within the prison, afforded those in it no opportunity to scale a wall or receive aid from an ally on a speeder bike. Its walls and ceiling were disingenuously painted sky blue, and large monitors on the walls displayed soothing nature scenes. Air blowers set in the high ceilings provided intermittent breezes carrying simulated forest scents. A sophisticated sound system provided background noise, bird calls and other animal sounds, that one might find in nature. Altogether, they provided an atmosphere that was only slightly less claustrophobic than that of an ordinary large subterranean chamber—and was no doubt intended to lull prisoners into passivity.
At the bottom of the ramp, as the blast doors closed behind her, Tahiri took a look around. The chamber had perhaps a hundred inmates in it, all of them clad in yellow jumpsuits. Some ran along the oval track laid out just inside the wall. There was a ball game going on in a wire mesh-enclosed court. Most of the pieces of exercise equipment, especially weight machines, were occupied.
And except for Tahiri, every prisoner present was male.
Tahiri frowned. This prison had inmates of both sexes—all sexes, actually, when certain nonhuman species were factored in—but as a practical consideration the genders were kept separated except in circumstances where there were few prisoners and many guards, such as group emotion therapy sessions and some work environments. But in this chamber there was no guard in sight, either flesh or droid. Of course, the exercise yard would be under constant holocam surveillance, but clearly something was not right.
“Look at this.” The words were spoken in the gravel-toned voice of a Mon Calamari male. The salmon-pink skin of his head and hands was thickly decorated with crude black tattoos, many of them gang markings or kill silhouettes Tahiri recognized. The Mon Cal stood in a group of other inmates, perhaps a dozen; they had been doing calisthenics when Tahiri arrived.
She felt her heart sink. She knew this Mon Cal. But she kept her dismay from showing. “Hello, Furan. It