The Knight, Death, and the Devil

Chapter 16: Green With Envy

Never before had Torin seen a planet that looked poisonous. Tendrils of yellow and orange ran across Quesh's brown surface; he could practically smell the sulfur hanging in the air, taste the heavy metals leached into the few toxic bodies of water mottling the surface.

"Do we really have to land on the planet itself?" He said to his Master, who stood near the back of the bridge putting on a gray flight suit covered in hoses and monitoring equipment. She thrust her hands into a pair of bulky gloves and wriggled her fingers, then picked up a visored helmet from the floor and held it under her arm.

"It can't be helped," she said. "Concocting a plausible reason to dock aboard Lord Andar's vessel is out of the question; our only hope is to slip aboard with the reinforcements cycling in from Quesh's surface."

"Can we get off his ship before the troop change is finished?" He asked her.

"We'll have to," she said. "Which is why we're not going to poke around to see if the man himself is there. Gaining access to the holocron room will be difficult enough."

Maliss had explained to them how she'd planted electronic surveillance aboard the Sith's ship, and Torin still had trouble reconciling the Mandalorian's ingenuity with her crass attitude. She had constructed a fake holocron around a wireless systems scanner, then slipped it in among relics being taken aboard the ship on one of its stops. Imperial military vessels were regularly swept for bugs, but even intelligence operatives were wary around Sith artifacts, partly out of superstition and partly from fear their tampering would offend the objects' owners. They avoided the room they were stored in completely, leaving Maliss' bug to do its work unmolested.

"Then let me go aboard," Maliss said from the pilot's chair. She wore a nondescript shirt and jacket, the uniform of any freelance transport pilot the galaxy over. "I know the ship like the back of my hand."

Vathamma put on her flight helmet. "As much as I dislike the idea of leaving you and the slave to your own devices, I want you on the ground in case we find ourselves in need of a... diversion."

Their ship entered the atmosphere, a light sprinkle of acid rain splattering the windows as they descended. On the surface ahead of them was a small military complex, little more than a starport and an Imperial garrison. A single vertical structure was ringed with forcefield-shielded docking bays; transports entered and exited as their interceptor approached, like insects leaving a hive. Quesh had no settlements beyond those temporary ones set up to harvest the raw materials used in adrenal production. The Empire and Republic had both set up operations on the planet for such a purpose, and were engaged in an uneasy planetary ceasefire mediated by the Hutts, who profited from supplying both sides. Off in the distance Torin could see one such Hutt-owned production complex seated amongst the gently rolling hills, pumping out smog and ash into an already polluted atmosphere.

They passed through a shimmering blue forcefield and into a small bay hardly any larger than their ship, one of the few left empty with the rest occupied by the transports ferrying personnel and supplies between the base and Lord Andar's flagship waiting in orbit above them. The four left the ship and assuaged the approaching customs official with a wave of the hand and a few Force-laden words of persuasion, then entered the starport proper. The circular hallway they were in ran around the entire structure, one of seven floors encircling an open space at the center of the building. The entire port hummed with activity; maintenance crews hauled cargo, clerks checked and double checked ship manifests, and exhausted-looking troops sat against walls as they waited for their assigned transports to arrive.

"I need to find someone in charge," the Sith whispered to her apprentice. "Slipping aboard will be simpler if we're added to the crew manifest for Andar's ship."