Part 25 (1/2)

”Somewhere between a minute and never. Most likely the latter. ”

The s.h.i.+p creaked from nose to tail as though something had grabbed it at either end and twisted. Ula clutched the arms of his chair and closed his eyes. This wasn't what he had signed up for. Being an informer was supposed to be sitting in the shadows, stealing information, and plotting the odd a.s.sa.s.sination. It wasn't fighting killer droids, being tortured by Mandalorians, or diving headlong into a black hole. That's what Cipher Agents did.

A strong hand gripped his elbow. His eyes flickered open.

”Don't worry, ” said Larin. ”We'll make it. ”

He nodded and forced his hands to release their grip on the chair. Let her think he was rea.s.sured, when in fact he was the exact opposite. s.h.i.+gar's psychometric revelation had raised her faith in him to new heights, although there was a new tension between them now, as though their relations.h.i.+p had fundamentally s.h.i.+fted. That, Ula thought, might be the most galling thing about his situation.

Her hand slipped away. Her good hand. The one cut in half by the Sith was encased in a mechanical glove, a paddle-like mitten that enabled her to grip, little more. That was the full extent of the Auriga Fires prosthetic provisions.

The s.h.i.+p lurched again. Clunker came forward, swaying and rocking, and ran a cable from his midsection into the main console.

”What's he doing?” Ula asked.

”Syncing his mind to the s.h.i.+p's computer, ” said Jet past his droid's battered casing.

”You're letting him fly the s.h.i.+p?”

”He's got a good head on his shoulders, and his reaction time's much faster than mine. ”

As if to disprove let's a.s.sertion, the Auriga Fire tilted alarmingly to starboard, then whipped back to port. Ula was thrown about in his seat harness, but somehow Clunker managed to stay both upright and plugged in.

A moment later the s.h.i.+p's flight grew calm. The vibrations eased; the complaints from both hyperdrive and hull receded into the background. The knot of tension in Ula's stomach began to unwind.

”Okay, ” said let, punching b.u.t.tons. ”It's coming up now. Hold on!”

Ula stiffened again as the warped textures of hypers.p.a.ce receded. Normally, a speed-stretched vista of stars would take its place, but out here, on the very fringes of the galaxy, they were pointing out into the relative black. Only the faint light of distant stellar islands existed to be warped by the s.h.i.+p's motion.

With a gut-roiling wrench, the Auriga Fire returned to reals.p.a.ce, and the shaking resumed.

Jet shut down the hyperdrives and put the repulsors on full. Ula was pressed into his seat as the s.h.i.+p came about. Sensors swept the sky ahead, revealing vistas unseen by anyone apart from Lema Xandret and her companions in the history of the galaxy.

It was much lighter than Ula had expected. That was his first impression. As the s.h.i.+p hove about and the black hole came into view, he saw not a dark absence of light but two bright yellow jets squirting from either pole of the singularity. That was what remained of the hole's last meal-a dead star, perhaps, or a lonely gas giant that had been unfortunate enough to cross paths with this bottomless monster. As though someone had crammed too much food into their mouth at once, some of the meal squirted back into s.p.a.ce, blazing away like celestial torches against the backdrop of the galaxy.

The second thing Ula noticed was the galaxy itself. The s.h.i.+p and its pa.s.sengers were far enough away from the galaxy's inhabited disk that they could see it from the outside. A beautiful spiral with a fat central bulge, it occupied almost half of the sky. As it swung into view, Ula forgot his anxieties for a moment and experienced nothing but breathless awe. Every nebula, cl.u.s.ter, and gulf was revealed to him with more clarity and beauty than any map could show. It was hard to believe that something so sublime could be the locus of so much war and grief.

”There's the planet, ” said Jet, playing his instruments like a maestro.

”Sebaddon? Where?” s.h.i.+gar peered out at the spectacular vista.

”There. ” Jet indicated a display. Ula could see nothing more than a dot. ”It's farther out than I expected. We'll loop around the hole and catch it on the upswing. ”

”Is that safe?” Ula asked.

”Relatively. As long as we don't come too close. ”

Ula didn't want to ask: Relative to what?

s.h.i.+gar was watching the display. ”No sign of any other s.h.i.+ps, ” he said. ”There's a small moon. ”

”How could it have a moon?” asked Hetchkee from the seat behind Ula.

”How could it be here at all?” added Larin.

”A black hole will kill you if you come too close, ” said s.h.i.+gar, ”but not if you're at a safe distance. Things can easily orbit it. Sebaddon, any random piece of junk it's snapped up over the years, us. ”

The way the s.h.i.+p was rattling didn't make Ula feel remotely safe. ”What about heat?” he asked. ”Those jets are hot, but not that hot. ”

”As the planet orbits, the hole's gravity will stretch and squeeze it, stopping its core from solidifying. I bet we'll see volcanoes when we get closer. That must be what's bringing all the rare metals to the surface-and carbon dioxide, too, which would also help keep the atmosphere warm. ”

The jets were getting visibly larger ahead. Clunker remained plugged in. Sebaddon was still invisible to the naked eye, and Ula gave up looking for it.

An alarm sounded. ”s.h.i.+ps, ” said Jet, ”behind us, exactly where we came out. ”

”Who do they belong to?” asked Larin.

”Wait until we've gone around. Then I'll be able to tell you. ”

The display dissolved into static as they fell deeper into the black hole's frighteningly intense magnetic field. A smell of ozone filled the c.o.c.kpit. Anything containing iron began to vibrate at an annoyingly high pitch.

There was no sense of weight because they were free-foiling around the hole, using its gravitational pull to launch them out to where the planet was...o...b..ting. Still Ula felt as though he was being simultaneously stretched and squeezed, just like s.h.i.+gar had described when talking about the planet. Tidal effects, they were called. His lungs struggled to pull in enough air, and purple spots danced in front of his eyes.

Then they were past and the pressure began to ease. He sagged back into the chair, sweating heavily and thanking the Emperor he was still alive.

”Right, ” said Jet, ”that's the hard part over. Thanks, Clunker. Sebaddon coming up ahead. We'll make orbital insertion in about a minute. As for those s.h.i.+ps... ” He scanned the revived sensor displays. ”I count fifteen, with Republic transponder codes. Stantorrs must have moved Coruscant itself to get them here this fast. ”

s.h.i.+gar nodded. It was clear he, too, was impressed. ”No sign of Stryver?”

”That's what the scopes say. ”

”What about the Empire?” asked Ula.

”The only s.h.i.+ps here are those fifteen and us, ” said Jet.

”How would the Sith know where to come, anyway?” asked Larin. ”They didn't have the navicomp. ”

”They might have thought of something else, like we did, ” said Ula, trying to keep his hopes up even though he phrased it as a warning. ”Best not to underestimate them. ”

”Indeed, ” Larin said. ”There it is, ” she added, pointing through the forward ports.

Ula craned to see.

Sebaddon was a small world, scarred by tectonic activity, just as s.h.i.+gar had predicted. Its surface ranged from gray basalt to red-glowing mantle exposed to the atmosphere by constant plate motion. The atmosphere was dense enough to breathe and showed signs of both clouds and precipitation. There were no oceans, just the occasional s.h.i.+ning surfaces on the cooler parts of the planet that might have been lakes.

”If that's water, ” Larin said, ”the surface could actually be habitable. ”

Near one of the ”lakes” was a cl.u.s.ter of bright radiation sources, indicating a city of some kind. Elsewhere on the unfolding globe were other bright points, possibly mines or smaller settlements.

”Someone's been busy, ” said Jet. ”How long have they been here?”