Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 11_ The Emperor's Plague - Kevin J. Anderson [41]
"Lowbacca isn't in there-or if he is, Nolaa Tarkona's already dispatched him. I have to go in and finish setting the explosives myself." Raynar looked at him with wide eyes. His moon-round face flushed with astonishment.
"But you can't! It's dangerous in there. All that plague-"
"I know, and we can't risk letting it get out. I have to stop Nolaa Tarkona."
"We'll go with you," Zekk said. "The three of us can fight her together."
Bornan Thul stared at the hardened, dark-haired young man.
"That would risk all of us, and it's not worth the cost." He stopped to look at Raynar. "I've already put the galaxy in danger. I can't do even worse by getting you killed." He gave his son a quick hug, and Raynar clutched him tightly.
"But I just found you again, Father. Don't go in and get yourself killed.
"
"I don't intend to," he said. "I sincerely hope I come out alive, but I have to seal the door behind me. I can't let any of that plague get loose."
Sweat beading on his forehead, Bornan Thul gripped the blaster pistol with which he had killed the Gamorrean guard. He slid along the wall, keeping low so that he couldn't be seen through the observation windows.
Then he ducked over to the heavy door, flashing one last glance at the mournful face of his son before he slipped inside the deadly chamber. He clutched the blaster, hoping against hope that he wouldn't have to fire it. Any stray bolt could easily shatter one of the plague canisters.
Thul reached up and worked the controls until the heavy airtight door hummed and moved sideways. With a hiss it slid shut, then compressed against its contamination-free doorjamb. He knew he couldn't remain hidden after all that noise, so he dashed into the forest of plague cylinders, taking shelter between the canisters.
Nolaa Tarkona cried out. "So the vermin are here at last-hoping to save themselves from the fate they deserve. Rullak, see that they don't escape!"
Boman Thul slipped between the nearest bubbling cylinders, seeking shelter. He heard the pounding feet of guards, and he shrank into the shadows. As he peered around the curve of the transparisteel cylinder, he saw Raynar's look of horror through the window above. The boy stared in at his father and the armed guards lunging toward him. Thul crouched low and scuttled between a pair of bubbling cylinders, skirted a scarlet-filled sphere, and ran down the next aisle of liquid-filled tubes. Guards charged after him.
He caught only a glimpse of burly alien forms as he wove in and out. He stopped, breathless and panting, beside a coolant station whose coils hummed with high-power efficiency. Other noisy generators pumped aeration and support systems, keeping the biological contamination viable after all these years. A blaster shot ricocheted off the floor near Thul's foot, and he realized that he was partially visible. So he got up and ran again, ducking past the edge of a huge recirculation fan that blasted sterile air in all directions, stirring the enclosed atmosphere. Its noise would cover any movement he made.
The guards were shouting now, and he heard Nolaa Tarkona also screeching orders. She was his target, Thul knew... if he could get one clean shot.
He held the blaster, always ready, in his hand. Just one clean shot, and he could remove the leader of the Diversity Alliance. No one else had Nolaa's charisma, her power. No one else could hold the disparate alien bands together, with or without the terrible plague. Taking a deep breath to marshal his courage, Boman Thul dashed toward her voice. That was the most important thing-to stop Nolaa Tarkona.
As soon as he emerged from between two large cylinders filled with burbling solution, he suddenly came