Star Wars_ MedStar 02_ Jedi Healer - Michael Reaves [90]
The admiral’s ship was berthed away from the other shuttles and transports, which wasn’t surprising. One had to approach it down a long and private corridor.
There wasn’t a guard posted at the bay, because there was no perceived need for one: without the codes, you couldn’t get into the ship, or operate it, or bypass Flight Control, or get past the picket ships, and the only people who had the codes were the official pilots, so—why worry?
Kaird moved slowly, with the preoccupation of someone meditating constantly on weighty matters. He knew that there was a dead zone ahead, right where the corridor turned—he’d found it while studying the MedStar’s plans, for which he had paid dearly—and there were no cams covering the spot. It was a small area, only a few meters by a few meters, but that was all he needed.
When Kaird reached the spot, he looked around, didn’t see anyone, and quickly shucked his robe. Underneath, he wore one of Bogan’s uniforms and a simple human skin mask. The mask was generic—it looked like a human, and wouldn’t fool anybody up close into thinking he was the real Bogan, but it should if viewed by a surveillance cam at a distance. The only thing that might be remarked on was the filtration mask he had to wear, which had been hollowed to accommodate his beaklike mouth. His other human disguise had been fleshy enough to disguise its three-centimeter jut; Bogan, however, was an exomorph, and so Kaird had had to be a bit more creative. Still, such masks were common sights aboard MedStar, especially in the wake of the explosion, since trace amounts of dust and possibly toxic particles lingered in the ship’s atmosphere.
The last hundred meters was the most dangerous part of his trip. If anybody happened to pass him in the final steps, he would have to kill them fast and run for it. He didn’t expect to meet anybody, however, and as he reached the ship’s lock, he began a sigh of relief.
“Hey, is that you, Bogan?” somebody yelled from behind.
An icy shard of fear stabbed Kaird, killing the relief stillborn. He took a quick breath, and turned just enough to allow a glimpse of the mask. He waved at the speaker, who was thirty meters away. Then he quickly entered the access code on the keypad.
“Don’t hit the walls on your way out!” the speaker called, ending in a laugh.
Kaird made a hand gesture of questionable taste, and the voice laughed again, louder.
The hatch unsealed and opened. Kaird moved hurriedly up the steps. Once inside the ship, he dropped the case of bota and hurried to the cockpit area. He punched in the security codes, powered up the mains, and began the launch sequence checks.
Flight Control came on the comm: “A-one, this is Flight Control; we show you powering up. That you, Lieutenant Bogan?”
Here was another tricky part, but one that Kaird had planned no less carefully than the rest. He could imitate Bogan’s voice—humans were easy, with their limited vocal cord system—but doing a mask good enough to fool somebody looking at you on a ship’s holocam was problematic at best. On Coruscant, with a face-mold and a good skin artist to do the hair and coloring—and a few hours of makeup time—it would be no problem, but here in the wilds Kaird didn’t have that option, and they would want to see his face. Bogan’s face, rather.
He quickly loaded a chip and tapped a control. The image of the human pilot, wearing the air mask, appeared on the comm’s monitor, fuzzing in and out.
“Yeah, it’s me,” Kaird said in Bogan’s voice. “I—kark! The cam’s messing up.” With that, he cut the transmitter off. It had only been on a couple of seconds, just long enough so Flight Control could glimpse a human