Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [102]
“Oh.” Han sounded appreciative. “That should come in handy. Where did you patch it in?”
Chewie reappeared in the corridor, rolled his eyes at the overhead panels, then answered.
“You sliced out what?”
“Now what?” Leia asked.
“Ah, he got a Bakuran tech to give us more power to energy shields, but that increased the hyperdrive multiplier. As soon as we’re out of here,” he insisted, leveling a finger at Chewie, “that goes back to specs. My specs.”
All Leia wanted now was speed insystem. “Falcon’s coming up,” she snapped. “Let’s move it.”
CHAPTER
17
Now the left leg.”
Obediently Gaeriel wiggled her toes.
The Imperial medic frowned, pressed Gaeri’s head back with inexorable professional gentleness, and reexamined the faint burn across the hollow of her throat. “Some kind of nervous-system ionization, I suppose. That’s what I’ll put on the report.”
She coughed. “May I go now?”
“I’m sorry. We’ve been asked to keep you here a little longer, under observation.”
“What’s going on? I heard a siren.”
“They’ve struck at the orbital station.”
Then it had begun. She gazed around the bare room. Four white walls and a distant ceiling, no windows, one door. The emergency patrol had brought her back to the complex on a repulsor stretcher. Before that, her most vivid memory was of Luke advancing toward four armored stormtroopers. Then the civil defense alarm. Then the droid dragged her outdoors to safety, and she’d lain alone for a long, long time, until the emergency patrol reached the cantina. By then, Skywalker and the Ssi-ruuk had vanished in the Imperial shuttle … and she could almost move again.
But it was over, humankind doomed. They’d taken Luke. She couldn’t imagine even a Jedi with enough power to singlehandedly resist … whatever they hoped to do with him. Would they try to make him a superdroid? Maybe they would fail.
But even if they didn’t, she’d rather die here on Bakura than a Ssi-ruuvi prisoner. Her depression hardened to resolve. Nothing and no one could threaten her now.
The medic slipped out. Gaeri slid down from the bed and limped to the door. All her muscles seemed functional again, but her movements lagged behind her intentions. She touched the door’s sensor panel.
Locked.
They couldn’t mean to hold her here long. The room didn’t even have … Now that she’d thought about comfort facilities, she wished she hadn’t. She considered Eppie, running a revolt from a keyboard in a shabby apartment. Would she have time? The Bakur complex sprawled across the heart of Salis D’aar, with dozens of entrances: How did she mean to get control of it—or did she? She only needed control of Wilek Nereus. Commander Thanas and the space forces were already offplanet, defending Bakura—
Her thoughts spun to a dejected halt. There’d be no defense against the Ssi-ruuk now.
The door opened. Two naval troopers stepped through. “Come,” ordered one.
Gaeriel followed him past a medical station and up a hallway. Soon she realized where they were taking her, and she resisted the temptation to bolt. She’d always managed to avoid Governor Nereus’s private office. She’d heard disturbing rumors. And then there were Nereus’s subtle attentions.…
The lead trooper opened the governor’s door and motioned her inside. She walked in calmly. Better to die on Bakura, but die fighting.
Governor Nereus sat at a desk with a polished, off-white surface. Faint brownish veins on it made concentric circles, like tree rings, but it didn’t look like wood. He silently motioned her to a chair and watched the troopers leave.
A framed tri-D on the nearest wall caught her attention first: a huge, snarling carnivore. Its four long white fangs looked eerily substantial.
“The Ketrann,” said Nereus. “Of Alk’lellish III.”
“The teeth. Are they … real?”
“Yes. Look around you.”
Above and beyond the tri-D hung others like it, with here and there a simply arrayed full set of teeth. “This is your collection, then?”
“Predator species. I have seventeen worlds, including the Bakuran Cratsch.” He tapped a clear cube at one