Invincible (36 page)

After taking a moment to compose himself—and to make certain his alarm wasn’t showing on his face—Caedus tucked his hand behind his back and nodded.

“An interesting thought,” he said. “Go on.”

Lecersen looked vaguely—but pleasantly—surprised. “You’re aware of how our nanokiller works?”

Caedus nodded, remembering the blood sample the Remnant medic had taken from Mirta Gev. “You can tailor it to attack specific targets, based on their genetic markers,” he said. “All you need is a sample of the target’s DNA.”

“Exactly,” Lecersen said. “But it doesn’t have to be
their
DNA. It can come from a close relative. We were able to develop a strain for Boba Fett using his granddaughter’s DNA, for example. And with Prince Isolder being held captive—”

“Of course,” Caedus said. He could see where this was going, and he didn’t like it—not with Allana aboard the
Dragon Queen.
But he couldn’t allow the Moffs to see his alarm. If they learned of his weakness, they would not hesitate to exploit it. “How
is
the Fett project going, by the way?”

Lecersen smirked. “It’s complete, my lord,” he said. “Admiral Atoko confirmed a successful delivery shortly before we left Nickel One.”

Caedus allowed his joy to show in his face. “So there’s a nanokiller waiting for Fett in Keldabe?”

“Not just Keldabe,” Lecersen corrected. “It was air-dispersed. By now it’s spread across half of Mandalore. Once Fett finally tires of playing starfighter ace and returns to the surface, it’s just a matter of time before he comes into contact with it.”

“What about the safe date?” Tahiri asked. “I thought you designed the nanokiller so that it stopped being a threat after a few days.”

“That’s for the weapons strains,” Lecersen explained. “The assassin strains—like the one we sent after Fett—can last forever. As long as they absorb a little light every three or four days, they never die.”

“Well done,” Caedus said. “Thank you.” He expanded his gaze to include the rest of the Moffs, too. “All of you.”

Lecersen clicked his heels and inclined his head. “A pleasure to be of service, my lord,” he said. “But it was for us, too—payback for that attack on Nickel One.”

“Even better,” Caedus said. “Fett should be taught that he’s the smallest rancor in the pit.”

“Quite,” Lecersen said. “Let’s hope the lesson kills him.”

“Let’s—but I don’t see how a nanokiller can help us now,” Caedus said, trying to dismiss the idea without seeming afraid of it. “The battle will be over by the time your strain is ready.”

“Not necessarily, my lord,” Lecersen said. “The difficulty in developing the strain comes in
excluding
genetic markers from the target pool. If that’s not a concern, the process can be accelerated. We could have a sample ready in as little as…”

Lecersen paused and looked to Moff Rezer for an answer.

“One hour,” Rezer said. Like Lecersen, he was a hard-eyed man with a grim mouth and a military bearing. “Two at the most.”

Caedus raised his brow. “That
might
be fast enough,” he admitted, growing more worried. “But deploying the weapon is still a problem. Even if we knew the
Dragon Queen
’s location, it would take the whole assault fleet to support a boarding action.”

“Actually, we have reports of the
Dragon Queen
standing off on the far edge of the battle,” Rezer reported. “So slipping a party of commandos aboard shouldn’t be a problem—especially if they look like the crew of a crippled missile boat.”

Tahiri nodded. “It just might work,” she said, turning to Caedus. “You know how Hapan royalty is. Half the officers aboard the
Dragon Queen
are probably related to Tenel Ka somehow.”

“It
is
an intriguing possibility,” Caedus said. He had never told Tahiri about Allana’s paternity, so it seemed likely that she was supporting the Moffs’ suggestion because she believed it was a good one—not because she wanted to punish Caedus for exploiting her obsession with Anakin. Still, it
did
mean he was going to have to dismiss the plan a little more forcefully. “But a nanokiller won’t be necessary. We’ve already won.”

“Forgive me, but it hardly
feels
like we’re winning,” Lecersen said, looking as surprised as he did doubtful. “And the few reports we
have
received from the field—”

“Moff Lecersen,” Caedus interrupted, “I see things ordinary beings cannot. Victory is ours already. There will be
no
nanoattack against the
Dragon Queen
or any other vessel. Is that clear?”

Lecersen’s jaw clenched, but he dipped his head in acknowledgment. “As you wish, Lord Caedus,” he said. “I was only trying to save lives—
Imperial
lives.”

“Then do exactly as I say,” Caedus replied. “You will save a lot of lives—
yours
among them.”

Lecersen’s eyes flashed at the threat, but he knew better than to test Caedus’s patience. “You have my complete faith,” he said. “I look forward to your victory.”

Caedus could feel that the Moff was lying, but it was impossible to tell about
what,
exactly. Did the fool think he could actually steal a sample of Isolder’s blood from beneath Caedus’s nose?

“
Our
victory, Moff Lecersen,” Caedus replied. An explosion rumbled down from somewhere above, and he glanced up. “We’re all in this together, wouldn’t you say?”

Lecersen’s smile was more of a sneer. “How kind of you to say so, my lord,” he said. “I was beginning to think you were more interested in our fleet than our advice.”

“Nothing could be farther from the truth,” Caedus said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must go find my sister—before she finds
us.
”

The blood drained from the faces of all the Moffs, and Lecersen said, “By all means, my lord. We’ll make the necessary preparations for transferring the flag to the
Megador.
”

“I’m afraid there won’t be time for that,” Caedus said. “The
Megador
will be busy saving your fleet.”

This drew a murmur of surprise from the Moffs, and Rezer said, “But that will leave the
Anakin Solo
exposed to another StealthX attack.”

“Which is why we’ll be following the
Megador
into battle,” Caedus said. “You can’t win wars without risking lives, gentlemen. This is where we risk
ours.
”

Caedus motioned Tahiri to follow, then inquired of the captain of the
Anakin Solo
about the Star Destroyer’s condition. After learning that the shields were the only critical system that would not be repaired within minutes, he congratulated the captain and the crew on their good work—then issued his commands. If the captain was alarmed by the prospect of following the
Megador
into battle without any shields, he had the good sense not to show it. He simply acknowledged his orders and turned to execute them.

Caedus nodded his approval, then started toward the door, speaking to Tahiri as he walked.

“The true Jedi base can’t be far from here,” he said. “I need you to take a StealthX and find the transports that just fled Uroro Station. They’ll show you the way.”

“And that will matter because…?” Tahiri asked.

“Because it won’t take long for the
Megador
to break the Hapan ambush,” Caedus explained. “And then we’ll be right behind you.”

“Okay,” Tahiri said. “But letting me believe we could bring Anakin back was a terrible way to use me. I still haven’t forgiven you.”

“And I doubt you ever will,” Caedus said. “That was kind of the point.”

They left the Auxiliary Command Center and came to the turbolift. Caedus motioned Tahiri in first.

“You go on up,” he said. Caedus thought about kissing her on her scarred forehead and wishing her good luck, and perhaps there had been a time when the gesture would have been welcome. But no longer; he had a taught her an important lesson about trust, one that he knew would stay with her forever. “I have something I need to take care of.”

“Isolder,” Tahiri said, nodding. “Too bad. I kind of liked him.”

“Me, too,” Caedus said. He could not help wondering if Tahiri knew about Allana’s paternity after all. Perhaps she had chanced on him whispering the name in his sleep, or overheard something while he had Allana aboard the
Anakin Solo.
“But I’m not going to take a chance—not with this.”

What do you call sleet storms on Hoth?
Summer!

—Jacen Solo, age 15

T
HE
A
NAKIN
S
OLO
’
S
P
RISON
H
OLD PROVED TO BE EVERYTHING
Jaina had imagined it would be. A cavernous vault of durasteel, it was filled with catwalks, checkpoints, and identity scanners. The detention cells were arrayed to the right side of the Primary Access Tunnel, stacked five-high in three long rows. There had to be a thousand units, and the volume of yellow light pouring through the transparisteel doors suggested that most were occupied. Locating Isolder’s cell was going to be a problem, and Jaina did not have time for problems. If she expected to have any chance of killing her brother, she had to find Caedus before he found her—and he had half the security teams on the
Anakin Solo
already searching for her.

The
clank-clank
of boot heels on deck steel echoed up the corridor. A pair of guards rounded a corner about twenty meters ahead, emerging from a short side hall labeled
INFIRMARY CHECKPOINT
. Jaina pulled her prisoner—a female security officer now wearing Jaina’s own StealthX flight suit—across to her side, opposite the guards.

“There’s no brave option here, CeeCee.” Jaina spoke in a low voice, addressing the woman by the first and middle initials on the GAG utilities that Jaina had taken from her. “If you even meet their eyes, I’ll kill you all, and
still
do what I came to do. Understand?”

“If I wanted to do something stupid, I would have done it in the processing center,” CeeCee replied. “I’d rather live.”

“Good,” Jaina said. “I’d rather let you.”

CeeCee was a couple of centimeters shorter than Jaina, and a little smaller, too. So Jaina’s flight suit was a tad baggy on her—but only an experienced pilot would notice the poor fit. CeeCee’s GAG uniform, on the other hand, was so tight on Jaina that it felt like something Alema Rar would have worn—a full size too small, and snug in all the wrong places for a woman trying to avoid attention.

As the guards drew nearer to Jaina and her prisoner, the stomach-dropping
thuboom
of a hull-hit reverberated through the ship. The lights flickered and blinked out, then blinked on again, out one more time, and finally returned to normal. The guards cast a nervous glance at the ceiling, then seemed to shiver off their anxiety and started down the corridor again. It would have been an exaggeration to say that the crew had become inured to the sound of turbolaser strikes impacting their Star Destroyer, but they were certainly growing accustomed to it. There had been a lull in the explosions for about half an hour after Jaina boarded, but then the
Anakin Solo
had followed the
Megador
forward and begun to take a steady trickle of hits. Whatever else he was, Caedus was certainly no coward.

When the distance had closed to within a couple of meters, the guards pulled their shoulders back and stopped. Jaina began to draw on the Force, using it to reinforce the impression in the two men’s minds that she was a familiar face—someone they ran into every now and again. It was a calculated trade-off. If her brother sensed her calling on the Force, it might give him a hint about her location. But if a suspicious guard reported a stranger wandering around the Prison Hold, it would bring him running—probably with an entire platoon of GAG troopers to back him up.

“Good day, Captain,” said the tallest guard, a sandy-haired man with a heavy, square jaw that reminded Jaina of Zekk’s strong features. “May we see the prisoner’s cell assignment chit?”

“If you
must,
” Jaina said, reinforcing her image as just another imperious GAG officer. She reached into a thigh pocket and produced the chit she had been given at the processing center a few minutes before. “Be fast about it. I don’t have much time.”

The guard glanced at the chit, then said, “In that case, you’re lucky you ran into us.” He pointed back down the corridor toward an intersection Jaina had just passed. “The women’s block is back there. We’ll escort you.”

“I don’t need an escort. I
know
where the women’s block is.” Jaina used a dismissing wave of her hand to draw the guard’s attention away from the suggestive tone of her voice. “I’m taking the prisoner to the infirmary first. She needs to be examined.”

The guard turned to his companion. “The prisoner needs to be examined first,” he said. “We’ll escort the captain to the infirmary.”