Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 03_ Tyrant's Test - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [79]
COLONEL PAKKPEKATT
ACTIVATION OF FAIR LADY’S P’W’ECK COMPLEMENT RECORDED HERE. SINCERELY HOPE THIS PRESAGES RESTORATION OF PEACEABLE RELATIONS WITH HOST WORLD AND DIPLOMATIC RECOVERY OF EXPEDITION. PENDING DISPATCH CONTAINS LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION, RECENTLY ACQUIRED AT GREAT EXPENSE. TRUST THEY WILL OPEN DOORS FOR YOU.
It bore an apparently authentic Fleet Intelligence watermark and seal but was unsigned.
General Calrissian’s friends, Pakkpekatt thought. They should not know that I am in this ship, but they do, and they are still looking after him.
He drummed his thumb-claws on his temples as he considered his response. ‘Letters of introduction’ can only mean the Qella genetic code—assistance that I requested through proper channels, which was denied when the task force was recalled.
There was no real choice before him. With a few light touches on the display, Pakkpekatt entered his send authorization and returned a clear-to-transmit message to his unknown benefactor, noting the ship time as he did. At their present distance, the transit lag for a round-trip to Coruscant should be something more than forty minutes. If the reply came back too soon or too late, he would know what meaning to give it.
“Colonel Hammax, are you ready?” Pakkpekatt called over the comm system.
“Going through my weapons check now, Colonel.”
“Very well. Agent Taisden, please return to the bridge. Agent Pleck, please assist Colonel Hammax at the airlock. Colonel, during the flyaround, did you identify where you would like to make your entry?”
“Those open ports on the far side looked to be as good a place as any,” Hammax said. “I’m going to use a ring charge to cut in, and I can put some hull between myself and the blowback.”
“Very well,” Pakkpekatt said, taking the yacht’s maneuvering yoke in hand. “I’ll notify you when we are in position.”
Colonel Hammax did not stay aboard the hulk of the cruiser for long. A mere fifteen minutes after he disappeared into the maw of launching port eight, he reappeared at the opening of launching port four. Raising his right hand in a wave, Hammax squeezed the thruster controls with his left and started across the hundred meters separating Gorath and Lady Luck as they drifted together through space.
Though Hammax’s foray suit had voice, holo, and biomedical comm systems in both open and conductive modes, Pakkpekatt had directed him to observe strict comm silence unless confronted by a threat, and Hammax had done so. So his early return was the object of sudden and intense curiosity. Pleck and Pakkpekatt watched from the flight deck and Taisden from the observation deck as Hammax jetted toward the yacht, knowing only that it was impossible under any conditions to thoroughly search a 450-meter-long warship so quickly.
“He looks okay,” said Taisden. “Maybe he had some equipment problem. Or maybe he got lucky and found what he was looking for right off.”
“If Colonel Hammax had found what he was looking for, he would be returning with two body bags,” Pakkpekatt said, tracking the spacesuited figure with the laser cannon.
“You’re going to make him nervous, doing that,” Taisden observed.
“Good. That will help him understand that I am,” said Pakkpekatt. “Go back to the airlock and hold Colonel Hammax there with the overrides until I have satisfied myself.”
As soon as the outer lock closed, Hammax broke his silence, using his suit’s conductive transmitter. “Colonel, she’s well gutted. Definitely Prakith, though.”
Taisden startled at that. “A long way out for a Prakith ship—a long way out. Are you sure?”
“I could still read the blazons on bulkheads here and there. Colonel, it’s a derelict. Nothing’s functional, and there are no signs of life—a lot of bodies, but none of ’em are going to get any more use.”
“Was there any sign of Calrissian?”
“No,” said Hammax. “I checked both brigs—there were five bodies between them, none of them human. I also checked the bridge