Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 10_ Jedi Bounty - Kevin J. Anderson [26]
That was time enough for Zekk to figure out some way to make Bornan Thul trust him. But he knew it might not be very 'easy. From what Thul had said, he trusted no one with the "information" he possessed.
Zekk shook his head in irritation. Didn't Thul realize that holding the information back, that trying to keep it a secret, was more dangerous than simply sharing what he knew with the New Republic?
But what could Thul possibly know that Nolaa Tarkona wanted so desperately? And what kind of knowledge would Bornan Thul hide from both the Diversity Alliance and the New Republic?
Zekk tried hard to piece together what he knew.
Clearly, this whole situation made sense to N0-laa Tarkona and to Bornan Thul. Unfortunately, neither of them had been generous enough to let Zekk in on the secret. Between what he had learned from Fonterrat's message cube, recorded just before the scavenger had died on the ill-fated colony Gammalin, and what Bornan Thul had let slip during Zekk's conversations with him, there had to be an answer.
As his ship slowly rotated in the emptiness, a bright streak curved across the unrelenting blackness of space, just a few hundred kilometers in front of the Lightning Rod. A comet, Zekk realized, its long ghostly tail evaporated by the distant warmth of the small sun.
Intrigued, he decided to follow the glowing ball of ice that trailed a ribbon of sparkling vapor behind it.
Zekk watched it for a moment, then set a course in his navicomputer so that the Lightning Rod would parallel the beautiful comet and keep pace with it on its long, slow journey around this solar system. He grimaced at the irony: despite the technology Zekk had at his disposal, the comet seemed to have a stronger sense of direction than he did.
The evaporating ice ball sailed confidently along on its course, needing no one to direct it, no navicomputer to guide it or make course corrections--only the pull of gravity.
A frown wrinkled Zekk's forehead as he tried to recall something that Fonterrat had mentioned about the navicomputer. Bornan Thul had claimed to have "information" that could put millions of lives at risk. Human lives.
Immediately after his secret meeting with Fonterrat on the isolated world of Kuar, Thul had decided to disappear.
Fonterrat had mentioned giving Thul a navicomputer module. And it seemed that the navicomputer was the one thing Nolaa Tarkona desperately wanted.
But what information could it hold? The location of something?
What had Nolaa lost... or what did she need to find?
Because Nolaa had loosed the plague on Gammalin, Fonterrat had expressed his hope that the Diversity Alliance would never find Bornan Thul and his cargo. Could there be a connection, then, between the navicomputer and the plague?
The plague had killed every human on the colony, but then it had died out. Surely Nolaa Tarkona could make no further use of it.
But if Nolaa ever found the original source of the plague, it was possible that nothing would ever stop the spread of the disease.
Zekk shifted uncomfortably at the thought.
Fonterrat had said something about giving Nolaa Tarkona two samples.
Surely one more vial could do no worse than the first had--though that was bad enough. But what if Nolaa decided to unleash the plague on Coruscant, for example? Or what if she found a way to replicate it, and infect all human worlds?
No. Fonterrat had seemed fairly certain that this was not possible; otherwise Bornan Thul could never have thwarted Nolaa Tarkona's plan just by hiding from her. What then, would the navicomputer tell her?
Something clicked in Zekk's head. It was