Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 06_ Balance Point - Kathy Tyers [49]
Randa sat up. Slowly blinking his huge eyes, he belched.
Jacen ignored him and strode to the comm tech. “I need Gateway. Intercolony assistance.”
The tech punched panels. To Jacen’s relief, a crisp voice came back instantly. “Gateway.”
“Gateway, this is Thirty-two. We’ve got a breach pending, a big one. We need the evacuation crawlers.”
“On their way. What kind of breach? Can it be mended?”
“I don’t know. We’ve got some kind of an infestation.”
“Copy that. We’ll have the crawlers to you in about …” Pause. “Twenty-six minutes. Meanwhile, keep your people calm. Get them in rebreathers and chem suits if you can, and aboard whatever crawlers you have on hand.”
“We have one small crawler, Gateway.” They used it to move ships off the landing crater and under shelter.
“Affirmative, one crawler. Load it.” Jacen faintly heard another voice, evidently someone else near the person who’d greeted him. “Thirty-two,” the voice came back, “what kind of infestation?”
Jacen hesitated. “We’re, ah, already suiting them up. Thanks, Gateway.”
“Thirty-two,” the voice repeated firmly. “Describe infestation.”
Jacen admitted, “Nothing I’ve seen before. I’ll save you a sample.”
A different voice spoke over the link. “Make sure it’s tightly contained, Thirty-two.”
“Will do.” Jacen turned around to see Randa rising on his long, strong tail.
“What is this?” the Hutt demanded.
“We’re evacuating the dome,” Jacen told him. “Those little worm creatures have metamorphosed into something like moths. They’re all over the dome’s underside, eating it.”
“Use the Force,” Randa demanded. “Crush them, choke them!”
Jacen tried to imagine seizing hundreds of tiny creatures, throttling the life out of them … “No,” he said. “Too many of them.”
“You haven’t tried.” Randa slithered forward.
“Listen, Randa.” Jacen didn’t need this. “You can get in the way or you can help. Get your breath mask and help keep order. We’re about to take twelve hundred scared people through one gate.”
“You ask me to direct traffic?” Randa puffed out his chest. “Me, Randa Besadii Diori, you ask—”
Jacen pushed past the Hutt toward the shed’s door. “All right, then. Just stay out of the way. Stay in here,” he added, turning around. “As soon as Gateway’s crawlers call in, ready to load, comlink me.”
This quarter of the dome teemed with refugees, some of them masked, a few chem-suited. A family of Vuvrians staggered past, bobbing their huge heads to point first one eye, then another, then another, up at the dome’s underside. Their faces reminded Jacen of deflated balloons, with perpetually puckered mouths and knobbed, drooping tentacles.
Right in front of him, a Ryn pointed a blaster at the dome. Jacen rushed forward, shouting, “Put that away!” He was about to stretch out with the Force when the Ryn fired a blue stun burst. The energy dissipated before it reached the growing moth colony.
“Good try,” Jacen said grimly, “but we’ve got a no-blaster policy.” He grabbed the Ryn’s weapon and tucked it into his belt.
Atop the other ERD-LL’s outstretched arms, two Ryn clung and swatted white-eyes with long-handled kitchen tools. A few mangled moths fell to the ground. Others fluttered around the Ryn. One Ryn dropped his spatula and got busy swatting moths off the other—and himself.
The winged Vors would’ve been incredibly helpful in a larger dome, but Thirty-two was too small for them to maneuver—and one whiff of Duro-stink might kill them. They shuffled along on the ground, huddled around their young.
Jacen comlinked Han. “Twenty-two minutes,” he said. “They want us in rebreathers and chem suits.”
“Tell Mezza and Romany. I’ve got a droid freezing up.”
Jacen spotted Randa, pushing out through the assembled crowd toward the hydroponics area.
He sprinted