Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Dark Tide 02_ Ruin - Michael A. Stackpole [99]
Corran felt extremely uncomfortable in the environment suit. He was sweating, but wasn’t hot, since the suit’s cold temperature had him shivering. The way the growths on the shuttle changed its outline, the way scales trailed along edges, then blossomed into a gush of gray-brown mineral crusts just had his flesh crawling.
He glanced over at Wedge. “You don’t need to be here, Wedge. If anything happened to you, Iella and the kids would never forgive me.”
“Oh, sure, and you think Mirax would forgive me if anything happened to you?” Wedge laughed easily. “You and me, just like that trench run on Borleias, ’cept this time you go first.”
“Didn’t I get ordered out on that run?”
“Yeah, you did. You going to pull rank on me here, Colonel?”
“You’d listen to that order as well as I did.” Corran shook his head. “And you’re not feebleminded enough for some of the Jedi things to work. Okay, glad you’re on my wing.”
The two men approached the shuttle and walked to the area of the landing ramp. Techs had pulled up a wheeled set of steps that would allow one of them to climb up and touch the underside of the hull. A huge growth, looking to Corran a lot like a giant scab—complete with that dark-brown-tinged-with-dried-blood-purple color—covered the whole landing ramp. The growth changed color over by the access panel, becoming lighter in color and a lot spikier.
“What do you think, Wedge?”
“Well, your lightsaber ought to be able to core through the hull, but you never know what you’re going to be cutting above.” He folded his arms across his chest. “Since this is being presented to you with the Yuuzhan Vong commander’s compliments, I’m not inclined to think he wants you carving up his handiwork.”
“You’re right there.” Corran mounted the steps and took a close look at the growth covering the remote access panel. “This growth is a lot sharper than the others, with some of the edges looking serrated. And there are spines, almost like needles.”
He raised a gloved hand toward the growth, and one of the spines shifted to orient toward it. In an eye blink a slender needle shot out, but failed to penetrate the glove. Still, it hit with enough impact to knock Corran’s hand back a couple of centimeters. Corran aided and abetted it by leaping backwards and found himself on the deck, with Wedge steadying him.
“You okay?”
Corran nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He sighed. “If you were to send someone a token of your esteem, you’d want to make sure he got it, right? You’d lock it up and give him some sort of combination or code to open it, wouldn’t you?”
“Makes sense.”
“I was afraid of that.” Corran freed his lightsaber from his belt with his right hand and ignited it, letting the silver blade splash cold highlights over the shuttle. He extended his left hand to Wedge. “Take my glove off. I’m going to touch it with my bare hand. Something weird happens, the hand goes.”
Wedge frowned. “Are you sure this is wise?”
“Of course not, but I don’t think I’ve got much choice.” The green-eyed Jedi smiled. “I left enough blood on Bimmiel that the Vong have easily got samples. I’m betting that thing there is keyed to open when it gets another taste of me.”
The older man stripped the Jedi’s left glove off. “Wouldn’t bleeding into a cup and offering that make more sense?”
“Um, sure, in a non-Corellian sort of way.” Corran shrugged and climbed back up and raised his left hand toward the shuttle’s belly. One of the spines shifted over and flicked a needle into his palm. It pulled back fast enough, and Corran stared at the bead of blood rising from the little wound. “Guess we should have thought about venom, shouldn’t we?”
Before Wedge could answer, the edges of the scab cracked, with little brittle pieces of it falling to the deck to shatter like ice. Thick, glistening lines of mucus flowed from around the edges, linking the hull to