Tales from the New Republic (12 page)

“Perhaps it was a krizar which was still immature,” the Bith spoke up, holding a hand up protectively between Mara and the guard. “Its grip was weak and not completely firm.”

“Then where is it now?” the second guard put in. “It was attached to her—I saw it.”

“If it’s not in the corridor, it must still be in the growth room,” the Bith said reasonably. “Perhaps it fell off again into the nutrient pits.”

The guards continued to glare, and Mara held her breath. If either of them had actually looked at the pupa after they left the room…

But apparently neither of them had. “Yeah,” the guard said with ill grace. “Maybe.”

The Bith glanced at a wall chrono. “At any rate, the work shift is over,” he said. “Why not escort her back to the communal, and then you can search the walkways in the growth room.”

“Don’t tell us our job, Bith,” the other guard growled, baring his teeth as he grabbed Mara’s arm in a none-too-gentle grip. “Come on, human. Time for your slops.”

The mass sleeping/eating/cleanup room Sansia had spoken about was directly across the corridor from the slime pits. It was also fully as disgusting as her tone had led Mara to expect. About half of the woman had finished their cleaning by the time Mara arrived, leaving the liquid in the long troughs looking more like a runnier version of the slime than anything resembling water. Mara joined the crowd of women waiting their turn, and under cover of the bodies pressing around her, she worked the vials out of her jumpsuit and confirmed that they did indeed contain the chemicals she wanted. Once again, the comprehensive saboteur training the Emperor had given her so long ago was going to come in handy.

“I thought you were kidding about going to pick up some things.” Sansia’s voice came softly from behind her shoulder, too low for any of the other women around them to hear. “Where did you get those?”

“Medic supply cabinet,” Mara told her, concentrating on the task of pouring the first vial into one of the squeeze bottles, keeping them both at waist height where the activity would be shielded from prying eyes.

Sansia made a sound in the back of her throat. “I suppose it’s too late to mention this, but the med facility probably has surveillance cams, too.”

“I know,” Mara said. “Don’t worry, I took care of it. Here, hold these.”

She passed over the empty vial and full squeeze bottle, giving Sansia a quick once-over as she did. Despite the other woman’s efforts to clean up, her hair and clothing were still badly streaked and stained with the slime she’d spent the day in. Whatever Praysh’s reasons for hating human females, Mara decided darkly, he’d honed his campaign of degradation to a fine edge.

“I didn’t think you were going to come back,” Sansia said, her voice sounding a little odd as Mara began filling the second squeeze bottle from one of her other vials. “I’m glad I was wrong.”

“I’m used to being underestimated,” Mara assured her. “You think you can find your way to where your ship’s being kept?”

“As I would the road back home from an execution ground,” Sansia said feelingly.

“Good. Describe the route for me.”

Even without looking she could sense the sudden tension in Sansia’s mind and body. “Why do you need to know?” the other woman asked cautiously. “We’re going to be together, right?”

“We could get separated,” Mara pointed out patiently. “Or you could be hurt or otherwise incapacitated. I don’t want to have to lug you around and look for the way out at the same time.”

There was a short pause. “I suppose that makes sense,” Sansia conceded reluctantly at last. “Okay. You head out the door over there and turn right…”

She went through the whole route, describing each turn and intersection in precise terms. Clearly, the woman had an eye for detail. By the time she finished, the second squeeze bottle was full.

And they were ready. “Okay,” Mara said, handing Sansia the second empty vial and taking the full squeeze bottle back from her. “Ditch those empties somewhere out of sight and then move over toward the door. You ever have fire drills in here?”

Sansia blinked. “Not since I arrived, no.”

“Well, you’re going to have one now,” Mara said. “When the Drach’nam come barging in, make sure you don’t get run over. Other than that, just wait near the door until I come for you.”

“Understood.” Sansia took a deep breath. “Good luck.”

She moved away from Mara, easing gingerly through the press of still slime-covered women. Mara stayed with the crowd, moving slowly forward as places at the trough opened up, running through a slow mental countdown and wondering if she could risk cleaning up a bit herself before they made their break. Probably shouldn’t take the time, she reluctantly decided. The Bith would notice the missing vials the first time he looked into the supply cabinet, and he’d probably be as quick to report the loss as he’d been to scrape the slime off the surveillance cam.

The last woman in front of her moved away, and Mara was finally in position. Palming her last full vial, she stepped to the trough, and, with a smooth wave of her arm, she poured its contents into the filthy water.

And with an angry hiss, the trough abruptly erupted with a sizzle of flame and a cloud of yellow smoke.

There were a half-dozen piercing screams as women whose minds had been systematically reduced to near-catatonia woke up enough to claw their way back from this sudden and inexplicable danger. The smoke continued to billow up and out, and within seconds the room was impossible to see across. There were more screams and shouts, the thudding of feet and colliding bodies, as a sudden panic gripped women who had nearly lost the ability to feel emotion of any sort. There was no place to go, no place to hide, and they all knew it.

Praysh’s guards were faster on the uptake than Mara had expected them to be. She was barely halfway to the door, pushing her way through the chaos, when the heavy panel slammed in and a dozen of the Drach’nam thundered into the room. Mara caught a glimpse of heavy extinguisher canisters as they passed her on their way to the smoking trough—

And then she’d made it to the door, and Sansia was at her side. “What did you do?” the other woman hissed.

“Just a little chemical diversion,” Mara said, peering through the smoke at the doorway. Not all the guards had charged to the rescue of Praysh’s precious slave laborers: two of them were blocking the corridor just outside the room, neuronic whips held ready for any attempt by the slaves to take advantage of the confusion. “Stay behind me,” she added, getting one of her squeeze bottles in each hand and stepping out the door.

One of the guards snorted at this slim human female apparently challenging them. “Where do you think
you’re—
?”

He never got to finish his question. Raising her hands, Mara squeezed a shot of liquid from one of her bottles into each of the guards’ faces. They sputtered, lunging forward even as they tried to turn away from the stream of spattering fluid. Crossing her wrists, Mara switched aim and gave each guard’s face a dose from the other bottle—

And with howls that shook the corridor, both Drach’nam dropped their whips and staggered back away from the women, hands clutching at their faces.

“Come on,” Mara snapped to Sansia. Ducking between the Drach’nam, she snatched up one of the fallen whips and headed at a dead run down the corridor.

She reached a cross corridor just as another pair of Drach’nam came around it. Gaping, they grabbed for their whips, but before they could get them into position, Mara’s lash snaked out, wrapping around both of their necks. They bellowed almost as loudly as the last pair had as they fell into a tangle of arms and legs onto the stone floor. Mara plucked a replacement whip from one of their hands, and continued past.

“This way,” Sansia called, in the lead now. “At the next corridor we turn right up the stairs—”

“Stop them!” a voice bellowed from behind them. Mara glanced back over her shoulder, her senses tingling with sudden danger—

And ahead of her, Sansia screamed.

Mara twisted back around, her whip already in motion. Two Drach’nam had appeared from ambush out of doors on opposite sides of the corridor, both their whips now wrapped around a violently twitching Sansia.

Mara snapped her whip at the attacker on the left, catching him a glancing blow across shoulder and back as he ducked away. He snarled something vicious as the current shot briefly through him, but he managed to keep his grip on his own whip. Mara brought the lash back over her shoulder and sent it toward the other Drach’nam—

And then, without warning, the weapon abruptly seemed to catch in midair, the sudden loss of momentum nearly yanking it out of her hand. A movement above her caught her eye, and she looked up.

To see that the rocky ceiling overhead had vanished, replaced by a forest of thick, multi-barbed spines pointing down toward her. Her lash had hung up on them, hopelessly entangled among the barbs.

“Foolish human,” Praysh’s voice purred from some hidden speaker amid the thicket. “You didn’t really think I would rely solely on neuronic whips and Drach’nam muscle to keep my slaves in line, did you?”

Mara ignored him, heading toward the two guards still pinioning Sansia in place between them. With their whips locked around her, they had only their knives left in reserve…

“Stop,” Praysh ordered, all the levity gone from his voice. “I don’t particularly want to kill you, human, but I will if you force my hand.”

Mara kept going. Both guards had their knives out now, and had half turned to point them at the suicidal human charging toward her death. Mara stretched out toward the blades with the Force, preparing to twist them aside at just the right moment—

And then, behind her two opponents, the corridor was suddenly filling with Drach’nam.

Mara came to a reluctant stop, the sour taste of defeat in her mouth. Force skills or not, Imperial combat training or not, there was no way she could take on the entire garrison by herself. Not here, not now. “I’m willing to make a deal,” she called toward the ceiling.

“I’m sure you are,” Praysh said, purring again. “Guards: release the second woman and bring them both to my audience chamber. I have some questions I want to ask our scrappy little fighter.”

With Sansia still suffering from the partial muscular paralysis brought on by the neuronic whip, their progress up the stairway and along the stony corridors was decidedly slow. Mara supported the other woman as they walked, the guards glowering around them the whole way. Several times Mara asked for their help in carrying the injured woman, requests that went ignored.

Which was, of course, precisely the response—or lack of it—that she’d hoped for. With the task of supporting Sansia falling totally on her, she was able to adjust the timing and stall off their arrival at Praysh’s audience chamber until Sansia was mostly recovered from her ordeal. Any fresh escape attempt they were able to make, after all, would be considerably simplified if they were each able to do their own running.

It was quickly clear, though, that Praysh had no intention of making any such attempts easy for them. From the number of Drach’nam lined up against the walls or standing in a protective ring around Praysh’s throne, it looked like His First Greatness had half his garrison in here. “Looks like you’re having a party,” Mara commented as she and Sansia were led to within a couple of meters of the inner guard ring. “Are you that afraid of us?”

“Oh, the guards are merely here in hopes you’ll give them an excuse to avenge what you did to Brok and Czic outside the slave quarters,” Praysh said offhandedly. “I’m curious: where did you obtain the acid you sprayed into their faces?”

“I borrowed the ingredients from your dispensary,” Mara told him. There was no point in deflecting the question; if they hadn’t noticed the thefts yet, they would soon enough. “It’s just a matter of knowing which chemicals to mix.”

“Interesting,” Praysh said, leaning back in his throne and regarding Mara with a mixture of curiosity and suspicion. “Hardly the sort of knowledge a slave sent by the Mrahash of Kvabja should be expected to have.”

He shrugged elaborately. “But of course, that’s an irrelevant comment, isn’t it? Given that you weren’t sent by the Mrahash of Kvabja.”

Mara felt her throat tighten. Bardrin had assured her that the Mrahash was currently out of the sector, and that there was no way Praysh could check out her cover story. “Of course he sent me,” she said, stretching out to the alien’s mind, trying to figure out if this was some kind of trick.

“Spare me your lies,” Praysh said, his voice suddenly harsh. And no, there was no trickery in his thoughts. “I have a communication from the Mrahash himself, saying he’s never heard of you. In fact, I was just about to send for you when you made your pitiful escape effort.”

“I told you Daddy would try to force you to leave without me,” Sansia murmured.

A whip cracked from the side, and Sansia jerked, inhaling sharply in pain. Mara glanced at her, saw the bright streak of blood across her cheek. “If you have something to say, you will say it to me,” Praysh said coldly. “And you will start by telling me who you are and exactly why you’re here.”

“And if I don’t?” Mara asked.

Praysh’s gaze shifted to Sansia. “We’ll start the persuasion with your friend here. I don’t think you want to hear the details.”

Mara looked around the room, searching for a chink—any chink—in Praysh’s defenses. But there wasn’t one. About all she could do now was refuse to talk and hope there would be fewer guards to deal with in whatever torture chamber they took her and Sansia to.

Unless they didn’t plan to let her watch. Or, worse, let her watch on a monitor from a different location entirely. That would mean letting them put Sansia under a knife…

A quarter of the way across the room, one of the guards at the chamber’s main entrance door abruptly stepped forward, a comlink in his hand. “Your First Greatness, a word if I may,” he called toward the throne. “I’ve just received word that there is new evidence of who this spy is.”

“Excellent,” Praysh said, swiveling his throne around to face that direction. “Bring it to me.”

The guard spoke into the comlink, and the door opened to reveal two more Drach’nam and H’sishi, the Togorian scavenger Mara had met briefly outside the palace wall. Clutched in H’sishi’s hands was a section of the packing cylinder Bardrin’s floater globe had been in.

The section that had had Mara’s lightsaber concealed in it.

Mara clenched her hands tightly as the trio marched through the assembled guards toward the throne. Any chance she and Sansia might have of escaping was going to depend heavily on the fact that Praysh didn’t know about her Force abilities. If H’sishi showed the lightsaber to him, that advantage would vanish in that same heartbeat. She had to make her move before that happened.

But there was still no chance. A Drach’nam on either side of her, more of them crowding the room, the packing cylinder section too far away for her to rip out the inner lining and get the lightsaber out…

“Who is this?” Praysh demanded.

“A scavenger from the street,” one of the guards said. “This is a section of the packing cylinder which the human brought your gift in.” He reached over to take the cylinder section from H’sishi—