“And now we’ve got to protect him,” Zekk said, looking down at the navicomputer. “Here we are.”
He nodded to Raynar when the Lightning Rod dropped out of hyperspace. Raynar’s breathing sped up, and his heartbeat pounded in his ears. After a long, long search, he was finally going to see his father again.
“Uh-oh,” Zekk said as normal space resolved into clear focus around them. “Looks like your father’s not just taking a break—he’s got uninvited guests.”
Raynar swallowed hard as he surveyed the scene before him. His father’s ship was here, all right. But so were two other ships: Boba Fett’s vessel Slave IV and another craft he didn’t recognize. He flicked on the comm system.
“Dad, it’s me, Raynar. Zekk and I are here to rescue you.” A split second later, both bounty hunter ships fired on Bornan Thul.
4
Even though he recognized the Lightning Rod as the ship flown by ambitious young bounty hunter Zekk, Bornan Thul decided he couldn’t be choosy—not anymore. With both Boba Fett and the other bounty hunter Shakra firing on him, he either had to trust Zekk or sacrifice himself and blow up his ship. But Bornan wasn’t ready to self-destruct. Though it would obliterate the deadly knowledge he carried, the plague storehouse itself still existed; Nolaa Tarkona would keep searching for it. For him, the deciding factor was hearing his son’s voice. Raynar was traveling with Zekk!
He toggled the comm system to SEND. “I’ll come over in the escape pod, Raynar. But I can’t leave anything behind here. Just give me a minute … and stay clear of my ship.” Bornan swallowed hard and, with trembling fingers, engaged the destruction subroutines he had hoped he would never need. Cutting the time as close to the edge as he dared, he set the countdown.
Inside the claustrophobic ship, he could hear his damaged engines whining as they looped energy overloads back into themselves. The cockpit temperature gauges crept into the red with astonishing speed. Without wasting a second, Bornan Thul grabbed the precious navicomputer Fonterrat had given him and ran for his ship’s single escape pod. The module that had caused so much distress contained the coordinates for the Emperor’s munitions storehouse, the laboratory asteroid where Evir Derricote had developed plague organisms specific to races the Emperor had found troublesome. Derricote had created many diseases—including the one that would kill only humans. But even the Emperor had not dared to release the horrific scourge. Palpatine wanted to destroy only troublesome groups of humans, such as the Rebels—not the entire race.
Nevertheless, the Emperor had left an immense storehouse filled with plague canisters. This navicomputer module held those coordinates, and Nolaa Tarkona desperately wanted that knowledge. Bornan Thul had vowed to die before letting such a terrible weapon fall into the hands of the Diversity Alliance. He had flown to the abandoned storehouse himself and seen that it was indeed as terrible as he had imagined. More terrible, in fact. He hadn’t found a way to destroy the place single-handed, and he couldn’t risk approaching the New Republic.
Nolaa Tarkona had too many converts, too many spies, among the alien members. It would take only one stolen vial of the plague released into a major spaceport … and the New Republic would be lost. No, Bornan Thul knew that until the entire storehouse was destroyed, he had to keep the location of the biological weapons depot a secret from everyone. And so he had taken the navicomputer module—and vanished. It had worked … until now. Red lights flashed in the cockpit, and klaxons squawked.
He cradled the module, knowing that everything else would become space dust in a few minutes, including his ship’s own computer. As he clambered into the escape pod, Bornan Thul glanced over his shoulder for one last look around the little ship that had served him so well during his months on the run. But he was startled to see activity lights flashing on his systems console—more than just the self-destruct sequence. His ship’s memory banks were being split open remotely. Someone was slicing into his computer! Thul paused in dismay. Certain illegal technology allowed illicit users to rip data directly from other computers.
He had intended to destroy his vessel before anyone could get close to it—but it might already be too late. Too late.
“I hope you’re ready for me, Zekk,” he muttered. His escape pod should take him to safety before Boba Fett or the other bounty hunter could latch onto him. He sealed the hatch and hit the launch button. Acceleration threw him back against the small padded seat, and Bornan Thul held on while the lifepod ejected. As the predatory bounty hunters moved into position, he looked out the small round porthole, hoping the right ship would retrieve him first.
While Boba Fett’s Slave IV raced after the dwindling escape pod, the bounty hunter Shakra sat in her bare cockpit considering another alternative, another way to achieve her goal. Her reptilian frill plumped with excitement and her large slitted eyes narrowed as she made her choice. She accelerated toward Bornan Thul’s newly abandoned ship. She would get aboard and tear out his computer banks with her own sharp-knuckled hands. Most of all, Shakra hoped to find something Boba Fett might have neglected. The bounty and the fame she’d receive from Nolaa Tarkona were the incentive that drove her ambition—but the reward of knowing she had outsmarted Boba Fett would be nearly as sweet.
She docked her little craft against Bornan Thul’s empty vessel and used robotic grapplers, magnetic sealers, and powerful blasters to rip her way into the abandoned ship. She didn’t care about. causing damage. All that mattered to her was the information she might find inside. Shakra came aboard like a predator stalking a wounded creature. She looked from side to side, scanning the decks, observing the cockpit, tasting the air with her forked tongue. Through the front windowports she watched Fett’s ship closing in on the escape pod, while the newly arrived Lightning Rod raced to intercept. They had left Shakra alone with this craft, and she hoped to make a killing.
Alarms flashed in the cockpit. The engines groaned, rumbled, and whined as power built up. Her hard lips expressed her distaste in a scaly frown. Her slender black tongue flicked out. The air tasted hot, angry. Apparently, this craft had sustained more damage during the attack than she had expected. But anything that remained was now hers. She let out a long hissing laugh, and her slit pupils widened as she contemplated which files to steal first. Abruptly her attention fixed on the engine diagnostics, the power levels, the heat exchangers that blazed a silent warning: a countdown. Her frill shot up in astonishment and alarm.
Thul had set his ship to self-destruct! She whirled about, her fanged jaws wide open as she gasped in the hot recycled air. The timer showed only seconds remaining. Crying out like a coward, Shakra fled toward her ship, glad that none of her brood-mates could see her reaction. If only she could get far enough away from the blast zone! Her clawed feet scrabbled on the deckplates. Through the hole in the hull up ahead she saw her own ship, her escape…
Just as she reached the opening, Bornan Thul’s craft exploded like a supernova, obliterating Shakra, her ship, and itself, along with any residual information its computers might have carried….