Star Wars_ Planet of Twilight - Barbara Hambly [98]
At no point in his letter did Ashgad mention the Death Seed plague of centuries ago. “The plague vectors do not appear on any sensor, since within the body they mimic exactly human electrochemical fields and tissue composition,” he said—which explained why they needed the quasi-living flesh of the synthdroids. “Once the illness has taken hold, even regenerative therapy has no effect. However, be assured that it is in my power to completely control the outbreak and spread of this malady, and I offer you my personal guarantees that it will not affect anyone other than those on the Republic ships and bases.”
And bases! thought Leia, breathless as if she had run for miles and hot with anger to the core of her being. Idiot! Idiot! “It is in my power to completely control the outbreak,” my grandmother’s left hind leg! Don’t you have any idea, any concept, of what will happen if there’s an accident? A miscalculation? Something you hadn’t thought of, Master Know-All Ashgad?
She was almost trembling with rage. Accounts were scanty of the original Death Seed, but huge segments of the population of dozens of spacegoing civilizations had perished before it had burned itself out. In places it had been combated, but she wasn’t sure how, or how effective those remedies had been. As far as she had experienced, Dzym, and Dzym alone, seemed to have any control over it.
She thought about Ezrakh, and Marcopius, and her eyes grew hot with tears. I will kill them. Rage made her tremble, made her wonder how quickly she could master the Force, how quickly she could build strength to wreak wholesale vengeance for the innocent. I will gather the Force together in my hands and I will bring it down on their heads like a thunderstorm.
Vader had done that.
And Anakin, in her dream.
She wrapped her arms around herself, fighting not to weep. It was better, she thought, not to know that you had the potential for that kind of power. Better not to know that you really could do that, if you wanted to turn your heart and your life over to your rage.
Han would be looking for her. Han would be with the fleet. It will not affect any but those on the Republic ships.
The Republic was in chaos. They’d dared poison poor Rieekan, for no better purpose than to cause trouble …
And for what?
Hands shaking, she shuffled through the flimsiplast pages.
There it was. Loronar Corporation’s plan to build a new facility on Antemeridias, for the manufacture of both synthdroids and something called Needles: controlled by the same CCIR crystals, programmable, long-distance miniweapons with infinite range and hyperspace rendezvous capability.
And the source of the crystals was Nam Chorios.
CCIR technology. Deep-space Needles, carving up the fleet like the Quamilla of the Kidron system carving up sodbeasts. And with Nam Chorios firmly in their sphere of influence, they’d have as many of those programmable crystals as they cared to use.
The Reliant. Paperwork was complete on that, too. A modified 1-7 Howlrunner hull, with extra capacity. Loronar Corporation had been making drops of components and materials for months. Ashgad’s requests and specs were very precise—Leia recalled her father saying that the man had been a ship designer himself—and his communications indicated where and when his Rationalist friends had picked them up. There were occasional indents for second and third drops where the gun stations had blown the incoming cargoes out of the sky. Liegeus Sarpaetius Vorn was mentioned as the vessel’s A.I. designer and programmer, but his chief value lay in expert holo faking. There were requests for specific digitalized scrap of her and of her flagship and escort, to be mocked up into transmissions describing the safe conclusion of the conference between Ashgad and herself, and the two vessels’ departure from the rendezvous point and entry into hyperspace.
Her stomach twisted with sick betrayal. He couldn’t not know