Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 03_ Tyrant's Test - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [115]
“And this helps us how?”
“I’m still missing something, too,” said Taisden. “From what you’ve said, it seems to me that it’s that much more important to send out the entire database.”
Eckels’s disappointment in their response to his revelations was evident on his face. He had proudly brought them a treasure, but they were too uncultured to appreciate its beauty.
“The database has three components,” Eckels said with impatient annoyance. “The somatic cells, the lesser Eicroth bodies, and the greater Eicroth bodies. The match for every Qella artifact we recovered can be found in the lesser bodies. Then there’s your piece of the puzzle—your dialog with the vagabond. You have two interrogatives and one successful reply.”
“They appear in the greater Eicroth bodies,” said Pakkpekatt.
“Yes,” Eckels said, looking hopefully at the Hortek as he would at a student teetering on the verge of insight.
“That is what the greater bodies are,” said Pakkpekatt. “They are the instructions for building a starship from that which is more than inanimate and less than alive. The ship we are chasing was not designed or invented—it was remembered.”
“Yes,” Eckels said, relaxing into his chair and showing a relieved smile. “Yes, Colonel. However you came to it, at least you understand.”
“Do you think that somewhere in those sequences is a code that will call the vagabond back to Qella?” asked Taisden.
“Do you want an expert opinion or a personal one?”
“I’ll take two for the price of one, if I have a choice.”
“The expert declines to opine, due to lack of supporting evidence,” Eckels said. “But personally—since it has not gone somewhere else in all this time—I suspect that it was intended to come back here.”
“What are the chances that what we propose to do will just confuse it—like throwing all the switches at once?”
Eckels shook his head. “You are asking for reassurances quite beyond my ability to offer—”
At that moment, shrill alarms began to sound both in the suite and the corridor beyond. Taisden was the first out of the lounge by two steps and the first to the bridge by five.
“Meeting’s over,” he called back to the others as he slipped into the number two seat. “You’d better get back to Penga Rift right away, Doctor. Colonel, mayhaps we should have been talking more about what to do after the quarry puts a leg in our snare.”
“What are you talking about?” Eckels demanded. “Colonel, what’s happening?”
Taisden sent the long-range image to the primary sensor display, then shook his head in amazement as he glanced up at it. “See for yourself,” he said. “The vagabond’s just jumped into the system—and she’s headed this way.”
Chapter 9
The director of Alpha Blue was nodding off in his chair, his office lit only by the bluish glow of the primary status display. With his shoes off and the top two fasteners of his civilian blouse unbuttoned, he looked like an old bachelor who had fallen asleep in front of the holo.
“Admiral Drayson?”
Drayson’s eyes snapped open and found the face of Major Aama, one of his senior facilitators. “Yes?”
“Admiral, you said you wanted to be notified immediately,” she said. “We have a tracking update on Millennium Falcon.”
“Go.”
“She’s reached the N’zoth system,” Aama said, turning and pointing a controller at the display. “She’s standing off at twelve hundred radii below the plane—the best guess is that they’re scanning the system before jumping in.”
“They’d have to, if they’re going to try a close-intercept jump,” said Drayson, leaning forward and rubbing his eyes. “Is Pride of Yevetha still in-system?”
“Still in-system and still in orbit around N’zoth. It’s getting a bit crowded in that neighborhood, though—four more Imperial types have shown up, and