know more. I can't rush in blindly, and besides, I'm--"
Shimmering air brightened and rushed inward, stirring faint air currents
as the image vanished.
Luke groaned. Somehow he'd have to persuade the medical committee to
release him, and then convince Admiral Ackbar to give him the assignment. He
would promise to rest and heal himself in hyperspace, if he could figure out
how. Suddenly the notion of battle no longer excited him at all.
He shut his eyes and sighed. Master Yoda would be pleased.
"Artoo," he said, "call Admiral Ackbar."
Artoo burbled.
"I know it's late. Apologize for waking him. Tell him..." He glanced
around. "Tell him if he doesn't care to come to the clinic lounge, we can set
something up in the war room."
"So, you see..." Luke glanced up. The clinic lounge's door slid open. Han
and Leia paused in the hatchway, then squeezed in between General Madine--who
stood nearby--and Mon Mothma, seated on a stasis unit.
his'Scuse us," Han grunted. Too-Onebee had approved the conference,
provided Luke didn't leave the medical suite. This crowded little lounge,
spotless white like the rest of the suite, doubled as interim storage for cold
stasis units. Mon Mothma's "seat" held a mortally wounded Ewok, who rested in
suspended animation until the Alliance transported him to a fully equipped
medical facility.
Han backed up against the bulkhead. Leia sat down beside Mon Mothma.
"Go on." Admiral Ackbar's projected image (in miniature) shone on the
floor beside Artoo, who stood at attention maintaining the projection.
"General Obi-wan Kenobi has given you orders?"
"That's it, sir." Luke wished Leia and Han hadn't interrupted his
explanation right at the most impressive moment.
Admiral Ackbar flicked chin tendrils with a webbed hand. "I have studied
the Kenobi offensive. It was masterful. I have little faith in apparitions,
but General Kenobi was one of the more powerful Jedi Knights, and Commander
Skywalker's ^w is generally reliable."
General Madine frowned. "Captain Wedge Antilles should be fully recovered
by the time any battle group could reach Bakura. I'd thought to put him in
charge of the group--no offense, General," he added, smiling faintly at Han.
"None taken," Han drawled. "Separate me from the Ambassador there, and
I'll resign my commission."
Luke covered a smile with one hand. Mon Mothma had already assigned Leia
to represent the Alliance on Bakura, and to the Imperial presence there, and
even requested that she attempt to contact the aliens. Imagine how solidly the
Alliance could challenge the Empire, if our ranks were swelled by that alien
military force, Mon Mothma had said cautiously.
"But Commander Skywalker is in considerably more serious condition,"
Ackbar declared.
"I won't be, by the time we can reach Bakura."
"We must plan for every contingency." Ackbar's ruddy head bobbed. "We
must defend Endor now, and we've promised General Calrissian assistance with
liberating Cloud City--"
"I talked to Lando on the comlink," Han cut in. "He says he's got ideas
of his own, and thanks anyway." Imperial forces had taken over Cloud City when
Lando Calrissian--xs baron-administrator--fled with Leia and Chewie, chasing
the bounty hunter who'd flown off with Han as his carbon-frozen prisoner.
Lando had had to forget Cloud City while he led the attack on Endor. They had
indeed promised him all the fighters they could spare.
But Lando had always been a gambler.
"Then we shall send Bakura a small but strong strike force," Ackbar
declared, "to support Princess Leia in her role as chief negotiator. Most of
your fighting will probably be in space, not groundside. Five Corellian
Gunships and a Corvette will escort our smallest cruiser-carrier. Commander
Skywalker, will that be enough?"
Luke started. "You're giving me command, sir?"
"I don't see that we have any choice," Mon Mothma said quietly. "General
Kenobi has spoken to you. Your record in battle is unmatched. Assist Bakura
for us and then rejoin the Fleet immediately."
Elated by the honor, Luke saluted her.
Early the following day, Luke examined the status boards of the newly
commissioned Rebel carrier Flurry. "She's ready to jump," he observed.
"Ready and eager, Commander." Captain Tessa Manchisco nudged his elbow.
Fresh from the Virgillian Civil War, Captain Manchisco wore her black hair
hanging in six thick braids down the back of her cream-colored uniform. She'd
accepted the Bakura assignment with relish. Her Flurry, a small,
unconventional cruiser-carrier retrofitted with all the stolen Imperial
components that opportunistic Virgillians could cram on board, carried a
Virgillian bridge crew besides Manchisco, three humans and a noseless, red-
eyed Duro navigator. Inside the Flurry's hangar bays, Admiral Ackbar's crews
had packed twenty X-wing fighters, three A-wings, and four cruiser-assault B-
wing fighters, as many as the Alliance could spare.
Peering out the Flurry's triangular viewport, Luke spotted two of his
Corellian Gunships. Riding shotgun above the carrier--even in zero gravity
they habitually established a "bottom" to every formation--drifted the hottest
souped-up freighter in this quadrant of the galaxy, the Millennium Falcon.
Han, Chewbacca, Leia, and See-Threepio had boarded the Falcon less t han an
hour ago.
Luke's initial elation over being given command had already faded. It was
one thing to fly a fighter under someone else's orders, with the Force as his
ally. Strategy was something else. He carried responsibility for every life
and every ship.
Still, he'd been studying strategic and tactical texts. And now--well, to
tell the truth, he was almost looking forward to it....
Whoops. Abruptly his knuckles stung. He heard or remembered Yoda's soft
laughter.
Frowning, he shut his eyes and relaxed. Everything still hurt, but he'd
promised Too-Onebee that he'd rest and self-heal. He wished he felt better.
"Hyperdrive stations," called Manchisco. "Commander, you might want to
strap down."
Luke glanced around the spartan hexagonal bridge three stations besides
his command seat, an array of battle boards now darkened for transit, and a
single R2 droid socket occupied by the Virgillians' own unit. He buckled in,
wondering what "disaster" waited at Bakura unless he dealt with it personally.
On an outer deck of a vast battle cruiser called the Shriwirr, Dev
Sibwarra rested his slim brown hand on a prisoner's left shoulder. "It'll be
all right," he said softly. The other human's fear beat at his mind like a
three-tailed lash. "There's no pain. You have a wonderful surprise ahead of
you." Wonderful indeed, a life without hunger, cold, or selfish desire.
The prisoner, an Imperial of much lighter complexion than Dev, slumped in
the entechment chair. He'd given up protesting, and his breath came in gasps.
Pliable bands secured his forelimbs, neck, and knees--but only for balance.
With his nervous system deionized at the shoulders, he couldn't struggle. A
slender intravenous tube dripped pale blue magnetizing solution into each of
his carotid arteries while tiny servopumps hummed. It only took a few mils of
magsol to attune the tiny, fluctuating electromagnetic fields of human brain
waves to the Ssi-ruuvi entechment apparatus.
Behind Dev, Master Firwirrung trilled a question in Ssi-ruuvi. "Is it
calmed yet?"
Dev sketched a bow to his master and switched from human speech to Ssi-
ruuvi. "Calm enough," he sang back. "He's almost ready."
Sleek, russet scales protected Firwirrung's two-meter length from beaked
muzzle to muscular tail tip, and a prominent black V crest marked his
forehead. Not large for a Ssi-ruu, he was still growing, with only a few age-
scores where scales had begun to separate on his handsome chest. Firwirrung
swung a broad, glowing white metal catchment arc down to cover the prisoner
from midchest to nose. Dev could just peer over it and watch the man's pupils
dilate. At any moment...
"Now," Dev announced.
Firwirrung touched a control. His muscular tail twitched with pleasure.
The fleet's capture had been good today. Alongside his master, Dev would work
far into the night. Before entechment, prisoners were noisy and dangerous.
Afterward, their life energies powered droids of Ssi-ruuvi choosing.
The catchment arc hummed up to pitch. Dev backed away. Inside that round
human skull, a magsol-drugged brain was losing control. Though Master
Firwirrung assured him that the transfer of incorporeal energy was painless,
every prisoner screamed.
As did this one, when Firwirrung threw the catchment arc switch. The arc
boomed out a sympathetic vibration, as brain energy leaped to an electromagnet
perfectly attuned to magsol. Through the Force rippled an ululation of
indescribable anguish.
Dev staggered and clung to the knowledge his masters had given him The
prisoners only thought they felt pain. He only thought he sensed their pain.
By the time the body screamed, all of a subject's energies had jumped to the
catchment arc. The screaming body already was dead.
"Transferred." Firwirrung's fluting whistle carried an amused
undercurrent. Such a paternal attitude made Dev feel awkward. He was inferior.
Human. Soft and vulnerable, like a wriggling white larva before metamorphosis.
He longed to sit for entechment, and transfer his life energy to a powerful
battle droid. Quietly he cursed the talents that sentenced him to go on
waiting.
The catchment arc hummed louder, fully charged, more "alive" now than the
limp body on the chair. Firwirrung faced a bulkhead stippled with hexagonal
metal scales. "Ready down there?" His question came out as a rising labial
whistle, ending with a snap of the toothed beak, then two sibilant whistles
falling to throat-stop. It had taken Dev years to master Ssi-ruuvi, and
countless sessions of hypnotic conditioning that also left him yearning to
please Firwirrung, head of entechment.
Entechment work never ended. Life energy, like any other, could be stored
in the right kind of battery. But brain wavelength electrical activity, which
accompanied life energy into the droid charges, eventually set up destructive
harmonics. The droids' vital control circuits "died" of fatal psychosis.
Still, human energies lasted longer than any other species in entechment,
whether slaved to shipboard circuits or motivating battle droids.
Deck 16 of the huge battle cruiser finally whistled an answer. Firwirrung
pressed his three-fingered foreclaw against a button. The catchment arc fell
silent. The lucky human's life energy was even now sparking in a reservoir
coil behind one small pyramidal battle droid's sensor clusters. Now he'd be
able to see at additional wavelengths and in all directions. He would never
again need oxygen or temperature control, nourishment or sleep. Free from the
awkward necessity of will, of ever making his own decisions, his new housing
would respond to all Ssi-ruuvi orders.
Perfect obedience. Dev bowed his head, wishing it were him. Droid ships
suffered no sadness or pain. A glorious metamorphosis, until one day enemy
laser fire destroyed the coil... or those destructive psychotic harmonics
unlinked it from control circuits.
Firwirrung retracted catchment arc, IV'S, and restraints. Dev pulled the
body husk off the chair and slid it into a hexagonal deck chute. It thumped
away into blackness.
Tail-down relaxed, Firwirrung swept away from the table. He poured a cup
of red ksaa while Dev brought down a nozzle arm and sprayed the chair several
times. Biological byproducts flushed harmlessly through drains in the center
of the seat.
Dev raised the spray arm, locked it at standby, then waved at a switch
for the chair to warm itself dry. "Ready," he whistled. Eagerly he turned to
the hatchway.
Two small, young P'w'ecks brought in the next prisoner, a wrinkled human
with eight closely spaced red and blue rectangles on the breast of his green-
gray Imperial tunic, and a disarrayed shock of white hair. He struggled to
wrench his arms out of his guards' foreclaws. The tunic provided pitifully
little protection. Red human blood welled through his skin and torn sleeves.
If only he knew how unnec all this resistance was. Dev stepped forward.
that could double as a safe shipboard weapon--in the blue-and-green side
stripes of his long tunic. "It's not what you think, not at all."
The man's eyes opened so wide that obscene white sclerae showed all
around the irises. "What do I think?" the man demanded, his feelings a Force-
swirl of panic. "Who are you? What are you doing here? Wait--y're the one..."
"I'm your friend." Keeping his own eyes half closed to hide the sclerae
(he had only two eyelids, unlike his masters' three), Dev rested his right
hand on the man's shoulder. "And I'm here to help you. Don't be afraid."
Please, he added silently. It hurts when you fear me. And you're so lucky.
We'll be quick. He pressed his beamer to the back of the prisoner's neck.
Still gripping the activator, he ran it swiftly down the man's spine.
The Imperial officer's muscles loosened. His servant-race guards let him
fall to the tiled gray deck. "Clumsy!" Firwirrung sprang forward on massive
hind legs, tail stiff as he railed at the smaller P'w'ecks. Other than size
and drabness, they looked almost like the masterly Ssi-ruuk... from a
distance. "Respect the prisoners," Firwirrung sang. He might be young for
command rank duty, but he demanded deference.
Dev helped the three lift and position the smelly, perspiring human.
Fully conscious--the catchment arc would not operate otherwise--the man
wobbled off the chair. Dev caught him by both shoulders, wrenching his own
back. "Relax," Dev murmured. "It's all right."
"Don't do this!" the prisoner cried. "I have powerful friends. They'll
pay well for my release."
"We would love to meet them. But we won't deny you this joy." Dev let his
spirit center float over the stranger's fear, then pressed it down like a
comforting blanket. Once the P'w'ecks had securely anchored the restraint
bands, Dev relaxed his grip and rubbed his back. Firwirrung's right foreclaw
jabbed upward, placing one IV. He had not sterilized the needles. It was
unnec.
At last, the prisoner sat helpless and ready. Clear liquid dripped out of
one eye and a corner of his mouth. The servopump sent magnetizing fluid up the
IV'S.
Another liberated soul, another droid ship ready to help take the human
Empire.
Trying to ignore the prisoner's wet face and enervating terror, Dev
rested a slim brown hand on his left shoulder. "It'll be all right," he said
softly. "There's no pain. You have a wonderful surprise ahead of you."
At last all the day's prisoners were safely enteched--except one female,
who slipped free of the servant P'w'ecks and dashed her head against a
bulkhead before Dev could catch her. After several minutes' effort at revival,
Master Firwirrung's head and tail drooped. "No use," he whistled regretfully.
"Sad waste. Recycle it."
Dev cleaned up. Entechment was noble work, and he keenly felt the honor
of involvement, even if his role was merely that of a servant who could Force
calm the subjects. He slipped his paddle-shaped beamer into the underside of
an overhead storage shelf, with its flattened topside up, then pressed its
pointed projection end into the sheath notch until it clicked. The knurled
handle, specially made for his five-fingered hand, dangled beneath the flat
paddle and behind its rounded handguard.
Firwirrung led Dev back up spacious corridors to their quarters and
poured soothing ksaa for both of them. Dev drank gratefully, seated in the
circular cabin's only chair. Ssi-ruuk needed no furniture. Hissing
contentment, Firwirrung settled his broad tail and hindquarters comfortably
onto the warm gray deck. "Are you happy, Dev?" he asked. Liquid black eyes
blinked over the ksaa mug and reflected the bitter red tonic.
It was an offer of solace. Whenever life saddened Dev, whenever he missed
the sense of wholeness he'd had when his mother Force linked with him,
Firwirrung took him to blue-scaled Elder Sh'tk'ith for renewal therapy.
"Very happy," Dev answered truthfully. "A good day's work. Much kindness.
"