Star Wars_ Young Jedi Knights 11_ The Emperor's Plague - Kevin J. Anderson [43]
Lowie threw himself at the assassin droid, but IG-88 simply batted him away with such a blow that the young Wookiee crashed into the wall.
Raynar was too focused on his father's plight to notice.
Zekk shouted, "No! You'll flood all the corridors with the plague!"
But IG-88 paid no heed. He hammered on the wall, and bright polished dents began to appear. He would crack open the chamber in less than a minute.
RAYNAR PRESSED HIS face against the transparent barrier that separated him from his dying father. He pounded his fists against it in rage. As if imitating him, IG-88 continued pounding his powerful fists against the airtight door. The plague organism was free inside the vault - the plague that his father had hoped to destroy before it could ever be turned loose against human beings. Raynar wished he'd gone inside with his father. He might have been able to do something, use the Force to stop Rullak or Nolaa Tarkona. Or if not, at least he would be inside with his father to comfort him now in his last moments.
Raynar pressed his hands against the transparisteel, harder, harder, as if he might reach through it to his father if only he exerted enough force. At the edge of his awareness Raynar heard Zekk yell, "No, IG-88!
If you open that door you'll kill us."
Lowie roared, but the assassin droid knocked the Wookiee aside again.
Inside, Boman Thul stumbled toward the upper observation window that separated him from Raynar. His skin had a grayish cast now, and Raynar could see how labored his breathing had become. Blotches of green and blue appeared on his skin. He crawled toward the controls of the two-way intercom system in the wall. Unable to tear his eyes away from his father's agony, Raynar felt an imaginary band of durasteel clamping around his own heart, tighter, tighter, until it seemed impossible that it could go on beating.
"Go," his father rasped into the speakers. "It is too late for me."
IG-88 continued to batter at the door to the room. Lowie roared again, to no effect.
"I can't!" Raynar cried in anguish. "Not now. I just found you again."
"Never forget... how proud I am of you. My work... unfinished, though,"
Boman Thul gasped. "I leave it to you... to destroy this place-stop Nolaa." Raynar briefly shifted his attention to the Twi' lek leader of the Diversity Alliance. She stood toward the back of the vault, vainly attempting to stamp some order into the chaos inside the trashed chamber.
Rullak writhed on the floor in his death throes, succumbing to one of the deadly plagues his own blaster fire had released. Raynar knew his father was right. He could not simply give up now because of his grief. Millions of lives were at stake if Nolaa Tarkona put her plan into action.
Raynar's mother and uncle would die, and Master Skywalker, Jacen and Jaina, and everyone else he cared about. His mind railed against the injustice. It wasn't fair. His vision grew blurred and distorted, as if he was looking at his father through a current of water. Something hot and wet burned its way down Raynar's cheeks, and his throat constricted so tightly he could hardly breathe.
Suddenly Zekk was beside him yelling something to Boman Thul.
"The assassin droid IG-88 is programmed to protect you-to bring you back alive. You're the only one who can stop him from breaking down that door and releasing the plague right now! Tell him to stay away!"
Suddenly Raynar's vision cleared and he focused on his father, who drew a shuddering breath.
"Stop," Boman Thul croaked. Though his voice came out as no more than a hoarse whisper, the powerful droid paused to listen. "IG-88, I order you to save the only part of me that can still be saved: my son. I am beyond help."
With that, he fell against