Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy_ Champions of the Force - Kevin J. Anderson [73]
But the tall stack stood half-collapsed. Black blaster scorches mottled its pale exterior. The baked, dry ground—already lifeless except for a few tufts of extremely hardy vegetation—had been torn up by TIE bombers and space-based turbolaser strikes.
“Over half of the atmosphere factories are out of commission,” Mara explained. “Admiral Daala did a lot of damage. Seems she thought this was a Rebel base, so she struck at anything that showed up on her targeting screens.”
Lando had a sinking feeling deep in his chest. “This is going to take more work than I had anticipated,” he said. But he consoled himself by calculating the unclaimed wealth within the tunnels below and thinking of how he could get teams of droids, Sullustans, and other races to work for shares in the profits. It might take a little longer to earn back his investment, but the demand for pure glitterstim was so high that he could raise his prices—at least until he turned a profit.
“I’m heading toward the prison,” Lando said. “That fortress should have withstood the attack from space. I think I’ll use that as my base of operations. It’ll take some conversion, but we should be able to adapt it into the control center for our new manufacturing complex.”
The speed of the Lady Luck rapidly ate the kilometers across the empty landscape until a towering trapezoid stood like a great monument on the barren surface.
The old Imperial prison was made of synthetic rock, flat, unappealing tan veined with other colors. An outcropping of crystal windows jutted from the slanted smooth front. Tubed elevator shafts rode along the angled comers. The place was streaked with burn marks, but appeared undamaged.
Lando heaved a sigh of relief. “At least the building looks intact,” he said. “Something’s going right for a change. This’ll be a great place to start.” He smiled at Mara. “You and I should christen our new headquarters!”
Mara Jade frowned and kept looking out the front viewport. “Ah … there is one problem, Calrissian.”
Lando and Han turned to look at her. The prison loomed higher as the Lady Luck continued to approach.
Mara continued. “Well, you see, Moruth Doole has holed himself up inside the prison building. He’s scared to death, doesn’t know what to do. All of his cohorts have fled or been killed, and now he’s using the sophisticated prison-defense systems to keep everyone else out.”
The fortress looked impenetrable, a huge hulking mass of stone armor. Lando had no desire whatsoever to see Moruth Doole again, and neither, he knew, did Han.
“I wish you had mentioned that detail a little sooner,” Lando said with a grimace as he brought the Lady Luck in for a landing.
25
Inside the rigid cleanness of the medical chambers in the old Imperial Palace, Terpfen stood silent and patient. He waited and watched the massaging bubbles in the bacta tank working on Mon Mothma’s ailing body.
The medical chambers glowed with sterile whiteness. The tiles on the floor and walls had been acid scoured; utensils and surgical equipment gleamed silver and chrome. Wall monitors blinked with a steady, throbbing rhythm, proclaiming the declining state of Mon Mothma’s health.
Outside the chamber doors two New Republic guards stood watch, making certain no one could intrude.
Sound-absorption panels in the ceiling deadened the mechanical whispers in the large chamber. Two bullet-headed medical droids hovered on either side of the tank, tending Mon Mothma and paying no attention to Terpfen.
Beside him Ackbar stood tall and strong. “She’ll be finished soon,” he said. Terpfen nodded, not eager to speak to Mon Mothma—but resigned to the necessity of it.
In these chambers the Emperor had himself undergone rigorous treatments as dark-side workings rotted his physical body. Perhaps the same facilities could remove the scourge within Mon Mothma’s body. Terpfen had little hope of that, though,