One of the things from the Destroyer"s hangar was standing in the cabin. It had removed its broken stormtrooper helmet to eat. How it had managed to get inside the shuttle before takeoff, Han didn"t know, and it didn"t matter-its mouth was buried in Pauling"s throat and it was busily slurping his blood, ripping off huge gobbets of his flesh. Han looked down and saw its white-booted foot planted on the chest of the other Imperial soldier, Tanner, or what was left of him- not much more than a heap of b.l.o.o.d.y refuse, a black uniform packed with seeping meat, one eye rolled completely backward.
Han"s gaze swept the cabin. On the other side he saw Chewbacca and Trig crouched at the end of the row of seats, staring back at him. Han mimed the word blaster, and both of them shook their heads.
What am I supposed to do here? he wondered. I"m not the hero. How many more miracles do these people expect from me anyw- He stopped.
The trooper-thing was looking up at him.
And grinning.
Strands of Pauling"s flesh were dangling from its teeth. It lurched for him, arms outstretched, howling loud enough that, inside the confines of the cabin, it made Han"s ears ring.
He tried to dodge backward into the cabin, but his foot caught on something-Pauling"s severed arm. As his legs went out from under him and he fell, the last thing he saw was the thing in the stormtrooper uniform dropping on him with his frill weight.
And then only darkness.
Chapter 44.
Freebird Trig heard the blaster go off before he saw it. Hunched next to Chewie, he"d been looking around the cabin for anything he could use as a weapon when the air suddenly came alive with a now familiar jolt. When he swung his head up, the thing in the stormtrooper uniform was already flailing sideways, away from Han.
Chewbacca was on his feet, running toward the thing, picking it up-smoke still pouring from the hole blasted in its back-and smashing it down into the cabin floor.
Trig looked back in the direction where the shooting had come from. What he saw was enough of a shock to render him momentarily speechless.
"Dr. Cody?"
Zahara leaned in the rear of the cabin with Han"s blaster in both hands, upraised and ready. Her voice was low, not much more than a whisper. "Careful, Chewbacca. I think I"d better hit him again. Just to be sure."
Han-still on his hands and knees-scrambled backward, searching himself frantically for signs of bites or infection. When he saw Zahara standing there he gaped at her. "Where did you come from?"
She didn"t respond, just kept her attention fixed on the thing in the trooper armor. It was seizing now, arms and legs flailing, head flung backward as sluggish grayish fluid pulsed up from its lips to pool behind its head. As they stared at it, more of the fluid started leaking from its nose and ears and finally from the corners of its eyes like sticky infected tears running down either side of its face.
"They never did that before," Han said.
"They"ve never been this far from the source before."
Han looked at her, bewildered.
"There"s probably a heavy contamination residual spread throughout the Destroyer from all those tanks. Maybe it"s what helped sustain them-slows down the decay process and keeps the muscle receptors firing."
"How do you know all this?"
Zahara gave him a sidelong glance. "I get my information from a droid, remember?"
"Hey, I didn"t mean..."
"It"s all right," she said. "Look." She pointed out the gla.s.s at the other ships that had left the Destroyer ahead of them. At first Han couldn"t see what she was trying to show him, but after a moment he realized what was happening. The escaped ships had stopped moving-they were drifting aimlessly into the depths of s.p.a.ce. As he watched, one of the TIE fighters listed drunkenly sideways, swiveling directly into the path of another TIE, and they slammed into each other, exploding on impact.
"That was Blackwing"s flaw," Zahara said. "It"s going to keep them from spreading it any farther than this."
"Blackwing?"
"That gray liquid in those tanks was a highly refined version of the virus. The whole operation was set up to create an unlimited supply of it, probably so that the Empire could manipulate its behavior wherever they wanted."
"So all those zombies down there," Han said, "they were just the middlemen? Like a means to an end?"
Zahara nodded. "I think so. Their resurrected bodies were probably intended to be the suppliers and distributors. But without constant and direct exposure to the virus, they can"t function."
Han scratched his chin. "I still don"t get how you"re here. We saw your body up in the main hangar control."
"That was White," Zahara said. "He picked up my distress call. He came out looking for me-got me out of there. But he wasn"t fast enough to get out himself."
"Some random stranger sacrificed himself to save you?" Han asked. "No offense, that doesn"t make a whole lot of sense."
Zahara"s smile was a pale, wan line.
"He said a stranger did the same thing for him."
They traveled for a long time without talking. Chewie helped Han fly for a while and then went back into the cabin to nap, leaving Han alone. Sometimes he thought the galaxy was better observed that way, in silence, when you could sit and look at it and wait for things to make sense-not that they always did.
After a while the kid came into the c.o.c.kpit and sat down where Chewie had been. Han didn"t say anything, giving him time until he was ready to talk.
"Where are we headed?" Trig asked finally.
Han shrugged. "A better place."
"So there"s no plan?"
"There"s always a plan. Sometimes it just takes a while to see what it is."
Trig looked at him.
"What?" Han asked.
"Nothing. That sounds like something my dad used to say, that"s all."
"Your old man, huh?"
"You would"ve liked him." Trig sat back, gazing far out into the depths of s.p.a.ce at all those stars. "Were you ever scared back there?"
"Me? Pfft." Han c.o.c.ked an eyebrow. "Not that I"m looking for an excuse to go back, mind you."
"How do you like the shuttle?"
"This thing? It"s okay. I mean, if you want to see fast, you should see mine-or should"ve, before the Imperials impounded it, that is. Not much to look at, but..." He was aware of the kid staring at the instrumentation panel and navicomputer feeding itself coordinates in a steady chain of silent dialogue. "You want to give it a try?"
"You serious?"
"You flew that hover like a champ. Seems to me like you"re ready for something bigger."
"I couldn"t."
"Sure you could." Han handed him a headset. "Here, put these on. I"ll show you how this works."
Trig blinked at him, a hesitant smile finding its way around the corners of his mouth.
"You know, Dr. Cody said before that guy White died, he told her about the shuttle."
Han nodded. "Right."
"White said his guys had a name for it."
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah," Trig said. "Freebird." He glanced at Han tentatively. "I like that."
"Freebird, huh?" Han considered. "I guess that sounds about right." Han pushed back from the controls so Trig could get a closer look. "Come on over, I"ll show you how it"s done."
Two days later they sold the transport to a group of Black Hammer pirates on Galantos, in a city called Gal"fian"deprisi.
"The sooner I get out of here," Han groaned, "the less I"ll have to try to say the name."
They were sitting in a tapcaf outside the starport, Trig looking up from his side of the table, Han and Chewie on one side, he and Zahara on the other. "Where are you headed?"
"With our half of what we got for that transport?" Han grinned. "Buy my ship back."
"I thought you said it was confiscated by the Imperials."
"Are you kidding? As corrupt as those local bureaucrats are, they probably had the Falcon at auction before we were even loaded on that prison barge. It"s just a matter of tracking her down."
"You"re not sticking around?"
"Nah." Han stood up and extended a hand across the table. "Be seeing you, Doc." He glanced at Trig. "Kid, take care, huh?"
"You, too."
"What about you guys, anyway? You got big plans?"
Zahara thought for a moment and nodded.
"Unfinished business."
Epilogue.
Everyone in Hanna City a.s.sumed the teenage boy and the woman were brother and sister. Although she was significantly older, they both carried themselves with the same hard-won grace, as if they"d both come through the same fire together. Something in their manner was humble, almost common, and when they traveled, as they did endlessly now, they had little trouble avoiding any difficulties with the Imperials.
The morning that they arrived on Chandrila, they spent hours walking through the planet"s rolling hills, along the sh.o.r.e of Lake Sah"ot. The air here was cool and almost supernaturally clear, crisp enough that they could smell the lush green land far in the distance. It was the kind of place that Trig Longo could imagine settling down in someday, and when he said that to Zahara Cody, she just smiled.
Along the eastern sh.o.r.e they came across a small community of local people, fishermen and farmers. They knew of the family that Zahara asked about, and it wasn"t hard to find the small ranch a kilometer away, perched at the edge of a pasture overlooking the water. When they got there, she approached the door and knocked.
The woman who answered was darkly beautiful, haunted and haunting at the same time, her eyes deeper than s.p.a.ce. At her feet, three young children clung to the hem of her frock, gazing fearfully at the two strangers on her doorstep.
"Yes?" she said. "May I help you?"
"Are you Kai?" Zahara asked.
"Yes, that"s right."
"My name"s Zahara Cody. I worked with your husband aboard the Prison Barge Purge.""
"I"m sorry, I don"t understand." The woman stared at them nervously. "I already spoke to the Empire about this."
"We"re not here as representatives of the Empire," Trig said.
The woman didn"t say anything, but her look of wariness grew deeper.
"Your husband had something he meant to pa.s.s on to you," Zahara said. "I just wanted to make sure that you got it." Reaching into her pocket, she handed the woman a single tattered sheet of flimsi.
The children all gathered closer, craning their necks to watch as Kai opened it up. The smallest of them, too young to read, looked at up his mother. "What is it, Mommy?"
The woman didn"t answer for a long time. Her eyes moved back and forth across the page, and Trig saw tears glimmering there, rising up and spilling over. Then she looked back up at Zahara.
"Thank you."
Zahara and Trig waited while she read it silently to herself a second time. By the time she finished, the tears were running down her checks. She didn"t bother wiping them away, and the oldest child had slipped his arm around her, as if he could somehow protect her from her own sadness.
"Thank you for this," she said. "Would you . . . would you like to come inside? I was just making some tea."
"That sounds good," Zahara said, and she and Trig stepped inside to the clamor of children and the smell of tea.