Planet Plague Read online

  Star Wars - Galaxy Of Fear 3 - Planet Plague

  By John Whitman

  PROLOGUE

  With a crackle of energy the image solidified before the scientist's eyes. It was only a hologram, but it was a hologram of the most powerful being the galaxy had ever known. It was the Emperor himself. Although the scientist was seated at his control module, at the center of his own network of power, he trembled. He could order the deaths of hundreds if he wished. With his terrible knowledge he could engineer nightmares. But as powerful as the scientist was, the Emperor could snuff him out with little more than a thought. "What is thy bidding, my lord?" the scientist asked in a trembling voice. "Your enemies have gained a distinct advantage." Beneath the hood of his plain black robe, the Emperor's ancient face looked wrinkled and frail. But his voice, even though it was beamed from a thousand light-years away, still had evil power. "Failure has become a possibility." The scientist shuddered. As always the Emperor seemed to learn of events almost before they occurred. He already knew that an intruder named Hoole, along with his droid and two young humans, had ruined the scientist's experiment on D'vouran, the living planet. They had also destroyed his work with the undead on Necropolis. "M-My lord," the scientist said as confidently as he could manage. "I assure you these incidents have not delayed my work. Hoole is only an overly curious anthropologist, and the two humans are only children. They cannot possibly know our intentions." "Do not underestimate the resourcefulness of your enemies." The Emperor's eyes darkened. "That was Grand Moff Tarkin's mistake when he built the Death Star." The scientist bowed. The Death Star a battle station equipped with a planet-destroying laser was supposed to have been the cornerstone of the Empire's Doctrine of Fear. But the Rebels had managed to destroy it. The scientist would not make the same mistakes as the Death Star's creator. "My lord, I swear, the next phase of Project Star- scream will be delivered on schedule." The Emperor gave a slight nod. "See to it. Personally." The ruler's image vanished. The scientist stood up and regained his composure. He dared not disappoint the Emperor. He would handle the next phase of Project Starscream personally. And if Hoole somehow interfered, the scientist would deal with him personally, too. The scientist smiled. He knew that Hoole would never suspect that he was the enemy.

  Someone was pounding on the door. "Tash, open up!" It was the voice of her brother, Zak. "Go away," she warned. "Come on, it can't be that bad," he argued. "You think?" Tash yelled through the wall of the room. "Wait until you start getting them." She heard Zak sigh and walk away. Tash stared at her reflection in the small mirror and groaned. Tash was thirteen years old. She'd always thought it wouldn't happen to her until she turned fifteen or sixteen. "There you go," she muttered, "before your time as usual." She stared at the four red splotches on her face as if glaring would scare them away. But they weren't going here. They sat in the middle of her face, framed by her blonde hair. They were as noticeable as orbital beacons. To Tash, it was amazing that the intelligent species of the galaxy had learned to travel from one end of the stars to the other, create droids that were as intelligent as humans or any other organic creature, but still no one had come up with a cure for every teenage human's night- mare. Zits. She was in the main refresher on board the ship Shroud, on which she traveled with her brother, Zak, 'their uncle Hoole, and his assistant droid DV-9, or Deevee for short. The main 'fresher had the best lighting, and Tash wanted to see just how big her pimples had grown. Someone pounded on the door again. "Tash!" Zak was back. "Come on, I'm not feeling well. I need the medkit." "All right!" she said. She opened the door and stared, daring Zak to say something about her face. But Zak hardly noticed. He went right to the medkit, opened it, and took out two pain relievers, which he quickly swallowed. "Did Uncle Hoole say you could have those?" she asked. "Yeah." Zak nodded. "I asked him." She noticed that her brother's face looked flushed, and

  he seemed a little sluggish. Zak was a year younger than she was. Normally he was chaotic, unpredictable, and fun- loving. Not sluggish. "Are you getting sick?" "No way," he responded. "Just a headache from listening to Deevee's lessons. I'm going back to the cockpit. By the way," he added as he went into the hall, "that pimple on your chin is about to go nova!" Tash grimaced. So much for sympathizing with him. If he was feeling good enough to insult her, he was feeling good enough, period. Tash went to her cabin and shut the door. The best thing to do about pimples was to wait them out. She had some important work to do in her cabin anyway. She sat at her small desk, skimming the galactic communications network called the HoloNet on the computer terminal. It was sometimes hard to get a connection in deep space, but Tash had spent hours Net-skimming, and she'd found a way to bounce a computer link off of a deep-space station thirty light-years away, then to planetary antennae in the Corellian system, and finally into the Deep Core Worlds, where the central HoloNet was established. Tash typed her code name into a message: SEARCHER CALLING FORCEFLOW.

  Forceflow was another HoloNet explorer whom Tash had met over a year ago. Forceflow had introduced Tash to Forceflow was often hard to reach, and always very secretive legends of the Jedi Knights, who had been the protectors of the galaxy before the rise of the Empire. She didn't know Forceflow's real name, but she did know that he or she had access to a lot of information. Tash wasn't looking for information on the Jedi today. She had decided to ask about something more personal. She was going to ask Forceflow about her uncle. In the six months that she and Zak had lived with him, Hoole had refused to tell them anything about himself or his work. But over the past few weeks several people had hinted that Hoole was involved in the Empire's shadow world of criminals and assassins. Contacting Forceflow was a long shot, but people in strange places seemed to know their uncle, and Tash's curiosity had gotten the better of her. After a moment, a line of text appeared on her computer screen.

  FORCEFLOW HERE.

  HI, she typed. I HAVE A QUESTION FOR YOU. IT S PRIVATE.

  A line appeared in response.

  WAIT. I AM CODING OUR TRANSMISSION. There was a pause.

  When the text continued, it was highlighted in blue, indicating that the HoloNet link had changed. IMPERIAL WATCH-

  DOGS ON MY TAIL. CAN T TAKE ANY CHANCES.

  Tash knew that Forceflow often posted information on the HoloNet that the Empire considered illegal. Even the Jedi lore that she had first discovered was outlawed, but Forceflow had uploaded it anyway. For that reason

  tive. Tash typed back, IS IT SAFE FOR US TO TALK?

  FOR NOW. NO ONE CAN BREAK MY CODES. GREAT. I WANT TO ASK YOU ABOUT

  But Tash was unable to continue. She nearly fell off her chair as the Shroud lurched crazily in space.

  For a split second the power was cut off and lights

  went out, plunging as in 1 ' T h into darkness. A moment later the

  lights came ac on, u t her delicate HoloNet connection

  had been lost. "Oh, laser burn," she muttered under her breath. "Zak, you're going to get it for this." Zak had no interest in piloting, but he was a born tinkerer. Tash would have bet a year's worth of Octavian fruit pudding that he was up in the cockpit right now, taking the console apart. The ship shook again, and Tash jumped up from her desk, slipping out the automatic door as soon as it opened and hurrying toward the cockpit. "What's going on up here?" she demanded as she entered the control room. She half-expected to see the navicomputer spread out in pieces on the floor. Instead she saw Zak slumped over the controls. His head was buried in his folded arms, his face hidden behind his uncontrollable mop of brown hair. "Zak!" she yelled. At the sound of her voice, Zak slowly lifted his head and blinked. "Hey, Tash," he said drowsily. "I must have dozed off" "By the look of things, I would say you fainted," said a low voice behind Tash. Uncle Hoole had come up behind her without maki
ng a sound. Hoole was a member of the Shi'ido species. They were tall, gray humanoids, and stealth was the least of their gifts. The Shi'ido were shape-shifters. The Shi'ido studied Zak with his dark eyes, and his narrow gray face wrinkled into a frown. "Are you feeling all right?" Zak sat up straight. His eyelids drooped, and there was a sheen of sweat on his forehead. He still managed a smile. "Me? Sure. I'm prime." The Shroud's engines let out a groan of distress. Hoole slipped past Tash and examined the readouts quickly. "You laid your head down on the reverse-power coupling controls," Hoole said. "You are flooding too much fuel into ~he hyperdrive system." Hoole flipped a few switches, and the Shroud settled into a smooth flight pattern.

  Zak opened his eyes and tried to shake his head clear "Wow, talk about an afternoon nap." "Try midmorning nap," Tash replied, pointing at the chronometer. Although they were in deep space, the ship's chronometer kept GST, or Galactic Standard Time. Zak shrugged. "I haven't been this tired since we hiked to the top of the Triplehorn mountains back on Alderaan." Tash and Uncle Hoole exchanged concerned glances. Zak had been through a lot recently. On their last planetary stop, he had been kidnapped by a wanted criminal named Evazan who was working on some bizarre experiments to bring the dead back to life. Eventually Tash and Hoole had been able to save Zak and to defeat Evazan with the help of the bounty hunter Boba Fett. In fact, they had gotten away in the criminal's own ship, the Shroud, in which they now flew. Despite the terror he'd witnessed, Zak seemed to come out of that frightening experience without any serious harm. Now, however, he looked terrible. "No way," Zak said, -when Tash suggested that what he'd been through might be making him sick. "I'm telling you, I'm as shipshape as an Imperial cruiser." He jumped up and spun unsteadily around on one foot, turning back to face his sister. "I just needed a little sleep, that's all." As if to prove it, Zak wriggled his way past Tash and Hoole and bounded down the corridor to the Shroud's main lounge.

  Hoole stared after him. "I'm afraid I have not been around humans long enough to understand your physiology," he said to Tash. "Is this common?" "I don't know," Tash said. "Back on Alderaan, Mom always seemed to know if we were sick or not." Tash felt a twinge in her heart when she mentioned her mother. Her parents were dead, thanks to the Empire. They had been on the planet Alderaan when it was blasted into rubble by the Death Star six months ago. Tash tried to swallow a sudden lump in her throat. "I think... I think if she were here she'd say Zak was coming down with the Ru or something." "Let us hope it is nothing worse than that," Hoole said. "Zak was in Evazan's hands for some time before we reached him." "Do you think Evazan might have done something to Zak that we don't know about?" "I'm not sure," the Shi'ido said, almost to himself. "Let us go see what DV-9 has found in Evazan's computer files." Evazan was also known as Dr. Death, and his mark was everywhere on the ship he had once owned. The corridors were dark and gloomy. The simple couches in the main lounge were torn and gouged. Beyond the lounge lay a small science laboratory. Hoole and his assistant droid, DV-9, had thrown away specimen jars full of strange matter and cleaned up as much of the lab as they could, but

  the walls an countertops were still stained with things

  Tash did not want to think about. Mechanically, however, the Shroud was a first-rate ship, with a high-powered computer system and memory banks filled to capacity with information. Entering the lab, Tash and Hoole found Deevee at work on the computers, with Zak hovering behind him. "Zak, you should be in bed," Tash said. "But look what Deevee's found," he replied. Deevee had been designed to imitate human functions. He cocked his silver-plated head to one side. "Indeed, this is extremely curious." "Have you been able to access the files?" Hoole asked. "In a manner of speaking," Deevee replied. "The files were protected by a security password. My complex logic circuits were a bit rusty from lack of use." The droid glanced disapprovingly at Tash and Zak. Deevee had served as Hoole's research assistant for years. But the day Hoole had volunteered to be guardian of his niece and nephew, Deevee had been assigned as their caretaker, a job he didn't enjoy much. He jumped at any chance to perform the real scientific research he was programmed to do. "But I managed to get some real work done." The droid straightened with pride. "It was an extremely complex and difficult password to decipher, but, as you know..." Here it comes, Tash thought. "... my computer brain is extremely adaptable to

  real work such as this, and I was able to decode the pass- word." "It's something called Project Starscream," Zak said. "Then we can read the files?" Tash asked. Deevee looked suddenly deflated. "Well, no. This Evazan must have been quite paranoid. Not only did he install a password, he wrote all the files in code." Tash peeked around Hoole's shoulder as he studied the computer screen. Lines of gibberish and strings of numbers ran from left to right continuously. "Can you break this code?" Hoole asked. "I'm uncertain," the droid confessed. "What?" Tash couldn't resist joking. "Even with your supercomputer brain?" Deevee sniffed. "Not even a protocol droid could trans- late this language. It's far beyond my capacity. I'm afraid I couldn't get any further than the words Project Star- scream." ' "What do you suppose Project Starscream is?" Tash asked. "Probably none of our concern, I'm sure," Hoole said. "I bet I could break the code," Zak bragged. "No problem." "You can barely stand up," Tash said. "Tash is right," Hoole said. "Zak, I suggest you go to your room and lie down. A real rest may do you good." To Tash's surprise, Zak didn't argue. He just nodded and left the lounge. As soon as Zak was gone, Tash turned to Hoole. "If Zak is really sick, the cure might be in the files." She didn't mention her other reason for wanting to de- code the files: Zak had learned that Evazan was con- ducting his terrible experiments for someone in the Empire. It had occurred to her that the files might contain information about Imperial activities, information she could use for revenge. Revenge was not something Tash had ever thought about before. At home on Alderaan, she had never had any enemies, and she always tried to forgive friends who acci- dentally hurt or upset her. But that had been before the Empire ruined her life. In one merciless moment, the Emperor's Death Star had wiped out her friends, her family, her entire world. As the shock of the tragedy wore oA; Tash's grief had started to turn to anger. Lately she had begun to think about ways of getting back at the Empire. For some time now she had been dreaming of becoming a Jedi Knight and waging a war to defeat the Empire. But the Jedi were extinct. They had been hunted down and destroyed by the Empire. Tash knew she would have to find a different.way to battle the Imperials, and she thought the files might give her a weapon. If she could decode the documents, then give them to the Rebel Alli- ance, she could strike a blow against the murderers who had destroyed her homeworld.

  "You are right about Zak, of course," Hoole replied. "But I'm not sure how we will break this code." "I know someone who can do it," Tash said. "Forceflow." Hoole's face grew sterner than usual. "Tash, I know the HoloNet can be a source of entertainment and education, but I can't say I approve of the friendships you acquire. You never know whom you may be talking to. This ForceQow may be a prankster or a troublemaker." "No, he's not!" Tash said. She stopped herself. She knew Forceflow was honest, but she also knew that Uncle Hoole would only tolerate so much arguing. "He does know a lot about codes. It can't hurt to try," she told him. "Very well," Hoole said with a sigh. "But I insist that you immediately come to me with whatever information he gives you." He gave Tash a datadisk filled with the coded files. Returning to her cabin, Tash sat down at her computer screen. Punching in commands, Tash tried to regain her con- nection to the HoloNet. She typed in her HoloNet code name, and then typed a message:

  TO FORCEFLOW. I NEED YOUR HELP.

  If anyone could help her, ForceAow could. He or she often broadcast information about illegal Imperial activities and other political messages. Forceflow was the

  kind ind of person Tash would have ignored six months ago.

  But six months ago her parents were alive.

  ace, an e was drenched in

  Tash was sure that Forceflow was a Rebel on the run from the Empire. r.a
zEmxos, sEARc~ER. The message flashed across the

  screen. GLAD YOU RE BACK. Tash typed quickly. NEED FILES DECODED. ALSO NEED INFOR- MATION ON PROJECT STARSCREAM. MAY BE IMPERIAL DOCU- MENTS.

  There was a pause. Then a return message Aashed: NOT

  sweat. blood had drained from his face and h

  SURE IT S SAFE. IMPERIALS MAY BE MONITORING MY FREQUENCIES.

  Tash was in a hurry to learn who was behind the experiments, and she wanted to know if Zak was in serious

  danger. She typed, THIS IS URGENT.

  UPLOAD NOW. BUT IF I M DETECTED, I LL HAVE TO CUT OFF.

  Tash inserted a datadisk into her computer and punched a key. Instantly, a data signal was beamed across the gal- axy. Somewhere, on one of a hundred thousand worlds, the mysterious Forceflow was receiving her data. Suddenly her computer emitted an electronic scream. Her'screen went dark. When it came back on, the words seemed to shake on the screen.

  I M BEING SCANNED! RECEIVED PART OF YOUR FILES. WILL GET

  BACK TO YOU!

  The message ended there. Tash wanted to send another message. What if ForceAow needed help? If he was caught, it would be her fault. But before she could type in another word, the door to her cabin slid open. Zak stood in the doorway. All the

  "I think...

  ,*' he said weakly. "I think I'm not feeling well." Then he collapsed.

  Less than an our a er h h later Tash sat at her brother's bedside,

  watching him toss an d turn in his sleep. She had cried out

  when he fell, which brought Hoole and Deevee running. They had quickly carried Zak to his bed. "Isn't there anything we can do?" she asked.

  Deevee rep ie, "There are many medical devices on

  board this ship, but considering the fact that Evazan was called Dr. Death, I don't think we should use them on Zak."

  "What about you, Deevee? Don t you have a medical

  program?" The droid shook his silver-domed head. "I have data files on the medical practices of thousands of worlds, but my own skills are limited to the first aid I learned when Master Hoole adopted you."