Star Wars_ X-Wing 08_ Isard's Revenge - Michael A. Stackpole [12]
“We’re all so different, but united because of our experiences in the squadron. That we were able to come together gives me some hope for the New Republic.”
“Yes, I have hope in that, too.” Ooryl slurped another uumlourti. “It is good to see all of our friends here.”
“True. I’d forgotten we had so many.” Corran smiled and nodded at a tall, bearded man who worked his way through the crowd toward him. Corran knew he had met the man in the past, but he couldn’t place him. Then the man raised his right hand in an abortive wave and Corran saw he was missing the last two fingers of his right hand. “Sithspawn!”
Ooryl looked over at Corran. “What?”
“That man, coming toward us, he was a prisoner on the Lusankya with me. He’s one of the men who was missing.” Corran started forward, opening his arms. Complete disbelief slacked his jaw. “Emperor’s Black Bones, what are you doing here?”
The man stopped and hesitated, the recognition and confidence gone from his eyes and expression. “I have a message for you, Corran Horn.” He raised his hands to his temples and winced. “I’m sorry. I know I know you, but …” Anguish entered his voice. “I don’t know who I am.”
Corran pulled up short of the man and let his hands drop by his sides. “You were on the Lusankya with me, you served as General Jan Dodonna’s aide. Your name is Urlor Sette.”
“Yes, Urlor Sette.” For the barest of seconds Corran saw relief in the man’s brown eyes and felt it roll off him in one strong pulse. Then those brown eyes rolled up into his head, and blood began to stream from his eyes and nose. The man screamed once, sharply, spraying a bloody mist from his mouth. His back bowed and his bones cracked, then he pitched over backward and lay in a slowly expanding pool of blood as the crowd retreated from him.
Corran knelt by his side and reached out to feel his throat for a pulse, but stopped because he could see he wouldn’t find one. Though he had never spent much time working with the latent Jedi abilities to which he was heir, he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt the man was dead.
Wedge crouched across the body from him. “What happened?”
Corran shivered. “Urlor Sette was on the Lusankya. He said he had a message for me.” Corran reached up and closed the man’s eyes. “I got it, and given the method of its delivery, there’s only one person who could have sent it.”
4
Prince-Admiral Delak Krennel strode silently through the darkened hallways of his palace on Ciutric. Though tall and possessed of a solid build with broad shoulders and narrow waist and hips, Krennel had always prided himself on his ability to move quickly and quietly. In his days at the Imperial Academy at Prefsbelt IV he had been an intramural unarmed-combat champion and was pleased that over the years he’d kept himself in fighting trim. I am yet every gram the fighter I was in those days.
He glanced down at the naked metal construct that replaced his right hand and forearm. The fingers flexed and collapsed into a fist noiselessly, with only a hint of a reddish glow from deep inside to define the metal plates and pins that made up the artificial limb. Actually, I am even more a fighter than I was, but this is good. Today I must be.
He stalked toward his office, his close-cropped hair having been raked into a rough semblance of order with his fingers. His white tunic with red trim still gaped open and he would have been concerned about his appearance save