Balance Point (15 page)

This matched what he’d heard from Nom Anor and other agents. The young one had allegedly abandoned his comrades in arms. Tsavong Lah could hardly imagine such treachery. Though such an individual did not deserve the dignity of having his name reported, he might prove useful if dissected.

“Have you learned anything else you should report?”

The villip remained silent for several seconds. Eventually,
she said, “I dislike delivering individuals, but as I told your agent Pedric Cuf, I am a businesswoman.”

That was not additional information. Tsavong Lah laid a hand over his villip, silencing it.

Jacen woke up clenching his hands so tightly they hurt.

He rolled away from the sleeping hut’s wall and peered toward his dad’s comm unit, on a stack of mud blocks at the foot of his cot. Something had been flung over the chrono, and he could see only a pale-red glow.

The night felt old, though. Old and deadly.

He sat upright, shut his eyes, and tried measuring the feeling. Under his uncle’s tutelage, he’d worked on developing his danger sense. It had saved him in several tight situations. If those had been flickers, this was a full-fledged conflagration. It occurred to him that he didn’t hesitate to use the Force this way, not in the least.

I’m just listening. There’s nothing aggressive about it
. He threw on the nearest clothes and slipped outside. Along the dusty lane, he eyed the next hut for those mysterious worms. Several days earlier, the youngsters had stopped bringing them in. They couldn’t find any more. At least that was one less thing to worry about.

He found Jaina several huts down. Nothing was obviously threatening her, so he scratched that danger off his mental list. Silently, he opened her door and peered in.

The grizzled Ryn woman’s snore had a high whine, like the
Falcon
halfway through its warm-up. Jaina slept on her back—normal sleep, not a healing trance. He could barely see her by the dim light of outdoor security
lamps. Her hair had just enough curl to stick straight up in the front, like his often did when he woke up.

He tiptoed over to her cot and dropped his hand onto her shoulder. “Jaina,” he whispered.

Her eyes fluttered open, and she turned her head. “Jace? What is it?”

“Sorry to wake you,” he whispered. “Come outside so we can talk.”

He led the way into the lane between huts. The big overhead lights gleamed faintly, giving the illusion of a necklace of moons under the gray dome. He caught the faint odor of Ryn and a whiff of phraig-bedjie stew.

Jaina stood beside him. In the dimness, her vision mask looked like a military night-sight.

“You don’t have to tell me,” she said brusquely. “Something’s wrong.”

“You feel it, too?” He glanced around. Blue-roofed huts, hydroponics tanks … the control shed’s inner corner, jutting into the dome. Nothing looked amiss.

She nodded. “Danger. To the whole colony.” Jaina shut her eyes and leaned against the hut’s exterior, frowning hard.

Look at her
, Jacen’s inner voice taunted.
You’ll rely on somebody else’s casual Force use. What kind of hypocrite are you?

I just don’t dare to stumble
, he answered the voice.
I’m the one who was warned, not Jaina
.

She shook her head and tucked a strand of hair back up under her mask. “I can’t find anything wrong,” she said. “Sithspawn, I hope we don’t have Vong on the way.”

“One way to find out.” He led toward the control shed.

Randa lay wedged along the back wall, snoring softly. Jaina told the night tech about their sensation. “We
don’t know what it is,” she said, “but we’re both getting it. Keep a tight watch.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The young human tossed off a casual salute.

Back outside, Jaina paused at an intersection of two lanes. “Okay, brother. You’re the one with the functioning eyesight. Get a good look.” She reached toward an illumination control.

Jacen almost stopped her. If she turned on the daylamps, she’d wake up the whole colony, maybe for nothing.

This didn’t feel like nothing, though. He ducked back into the shed and seized a pair of macrobinoculars off the supply wall. Clutching them against his chest, he climbed a set of rungs up the shed’s exterior wall as the big lights came on. Then he peered out over the colony.

Nothing, nothing, and nothing. No skulkers, no lurkers. No obvious breaches or …

Wait.

A flock of large moths, or maybe small birds, gathered around one of the daylamps. Adjusting the macrobinocs’ resolution control, he got a closer look. More moth than bird, he decided, though the black wings didn’t divide quite right. They had horns instead of antennae, and large, white imitation eyespots on their black backs.

He zoomed out again, swept the binocs back and forth, and spotted a larger group of them, seemingly plastered against the dome’s underside, up near the top.

“What is it?” Jaina called up at him.

“I’m not sure. Looks like—huh. Almost looks like young mynocks, or …”

Spotting movement at the corner of his peripheral vision, he sighted the binocs down and left. Close at hand, one of the creatures fluttered up from under a hut’s blue eaves.

He clambered down. Telling Jaina, “I’ll be right back,” he sprinted up the lane to the hut where the creature had taken flight. He looked up and down and around and … there. Under the eaves, something papery dangled from the synthplas roof panel. He flicked it free, then examined it on his hand.

“What?” Jaina’s voice demanded behind him.

His mind flashed back to Yavin 4, a menagerie he’d kept in his room—and a collection of pupa cases, where his peggelars had overwintered, to emerge in the spring as exquisite rosewings.

His insides congealed. “Wake Dad up,” he said. “Fast. I’ll activate the ERD-LL droids.”

The infestation had vanished because the worms had pupated. Now they were emerging as airborne adults. Whatever
they
ate, Jacen was willing to bet that up out of everyone’s reach, they were laying eggs for a second cycle of destruction. Settlement Thirty-two might have a few weeks to find and destroy the eggs, but his danger sense said otherwise. They were feeding
now
, in numbers that all the dome’s emergency repair droids wouldn’t be able to stop.

He armed the ERD-LLs—hybridized binary loadlifters with long, telescoping waists—with the only tools he could find, batter beaters from the open-air kitchen booth. Two sleepy Ryn staggered out of the nearest shelter, leaning against each other. One squinted while the other pointed at the near ERD-LL. It swung a batter beater, knocking loose a flurry of the seemingly white-eyed creatures. Fluttering along behind its swath, the white-eyes settled back against the dome’s underside.

Jacen switched on his comlink and pressed in an ID sequence.

“Yo,” a Ryn voice growled. “Did somebody lose track of the day cycle?”

“Romany,” Jacen said. “I need you. Emergency.”

Jaina came back at a quick walk. “Dad’s coming.”

“Good. Go wake up the Vors and get a rebreather count.” For the Vors, a breach could be deadly. That winged race was superbly adapted for its own atmosphere, but off Vortex, Vors’ lungs were notoriously twitchy.

Jaina headed up the lane.

Next he called Mezza. He met her and Romany, who brought his lieutenant R’vanna, at the open area at the center of the Ryn group’s wedge of huts. By this time, Han had arrived.

“Quietly,” Han said, “without panicking anybody, get your people suiting up. Just in case.”

Jacen broke in. “At the moment I’m more afraid of a stampede than a breach, but we haven’t done a breach drill in too long. Call it a drill, if anyone will believe you.”

Mezza honked scornfully and jogged away. Romany slipped into the nearest hut.

“Okay, kid. This way.” Han led Jacen to the dome’s center, where he pulled out a large blue tank with hose and nozzle. “I told SELCORE this was useless, that we wouldn’t be cleaning the ceiling. Guess I was wrong.”

Jacen helped him haul the tank to the hydroponics area, where one of the ERD-LL droids was uselessly brushing white-eyes aside.

“Down,” Han barked. “Retract.”

The droid telescoped downward. Han secured the tank on one metal arm, then grabbed the droid’s other hand. “Gimme a boost,” he grunted.

Jacen was reaching forward when a large furry object catapulted between himself and his father.

“I can do that,” Droma announced. He clambered up nimbly.

“About time you got here, wire-hair.” Han brushed dust off his sleeves. “Think you can figure out—”

“Up,” Droma honked. The ERD-LL elevated again. The nimble Ryn gripped a metal loop on the droid’s large flat hand, locking his feet, ankles, and prehensile tail around a rigid extension arm.

“What’s in the tank?” Jacen demanded. It was about to come showering down on everyone’s heads.

“Don’t know,” Han admitted. “Supposed to be non-toxic, even to Vors.”

Six minutes later, they knew it wouldn’t harm the white-eyes, either. They kept fluttering up from under eaves. Ryn roamed the settlement, crushing intact pupae, but for every white-eye they found, ten more flew up to the dome and started chowing down.

Jaina sprinted back. “The Vors need thirty-eight more rebreathers, Dad.”

Han fixed Jacen with a stare. “Think you can talk thirty-eight Ryn or humans out of their breath masks?”

Jacen gulped. “I guess—”

“Look at this,” Droma shouted. He slid down the ERD-LL’s midsection, holding something in one hand.

Jacen, Han, and Jaina circled him. Droma held up a clear spray-nozzle. Trapped inside, a white-eye attacked the synthplas nozzle with relish. Viewed from below, its mouthparts looked like twin rasps. They ground against the clear surface and then rotated inward, swallowing the dust.

“Worse than mynocks,” Han grunted. “That’s it. Jacen, get on the horn to Gateway. I’ll get a few Vors into landspeeders. We’re getting out.”

Jacen sprinted back to the control shed, counting days in his mind. Gateway should’ve had a comm-line crew out late yesterday, if they were on schedule. If the lines were down, though, Thirty-two’s only hope was to load
up the caravan ships and hunker, praying their air scrubbers functioned long enough for rescue to arrive—or else to lift off on repulsors and head for another settlement. Some of those ships barely had made it here—and some refugees were dropped by ships that traveled on.

Randa sat up. Slowly blinking his huge eyes, he belched.

Jacen ignored him and strode to the comm tech. “I need Gateway. Intercolony assistance.”

The tech punched panels. To Jacen’s relief, a crisp voice came back instantly. “Gateway.”

“Gateway, this is Thirty-two. We’ve got a breach pending, a big one. We need the evacuation crawlers.”

“On their way. What kind of breach? Can it be mended?”

“I don’t know. We’ve got some kind of an infestation.”

“Copy that. We’ll have the crawlers to you in about …” Pause. “Twenty-six minutes. Meanwhile, keep your people calm. Get them in rebreathers and chem suits if you can, and aboard whatever crawlers you have on hand.”

“We have one small crawler, Gateway.” They used it to move ships off the landing crater and under shelter.

“Affirmative, one crawler. Load it.” Jacen faintly heard another voice, evidently someone else near the person who’d greeted him. “Thirty-two,” the voice came back, “what kind of infestation?”

Jacen hesitated. “We’re, ah, already suiting them up. Thanks, Gateway.”

“Thirty-two,” the voice repeated firmly. “Describe infestation.”

Jacen admitted, “Nothing I’ve seen before. I’ll save you a sample.”

A different voice spoke over the link. “Make sure it’s tightly contained, Thirty-two.”

“Will do.” Jacen turned around to see Randa rising on his long, strong tail.

“What is this?” the Hutt demanded.

“We’re evacuating the dome,” Jacen told him. “Those little worm creatures have metamorphosed into something like moths. They’re all over the dome’s underside, eating it.”

“Use the Force,” Randa demanded. “Crush them, choke them!”

Jacen tried to imagine seizing hundreds of tiny creatures, throttling the life out of them … “No,” he said. “Too many of them.”

“You haven’t tried.” Randa slithered forward.

“Listen, Randa.” Jacen didn’t need this. “You can get in the way or you can help. Get your breath mask and help keep order. We’re about to take twelve hundred scared people through one gate.”

“You ask me to direct traffic?” Randa puffed out his chest. “Me, Randa Besadii Diori, you ask—”

Jacen pushed past the Hutt toward the shed’s door. “All right, then. Just stay out of the way. Stay in here,” he added, turning around. “As soon as Gateway’s crawlers call in, ready to load, comlink me.”

This quarter of the dome teemed with refugees, some of them masked, a few chem-suited. A family of Vuvrians staggered past, bobbing their huge heads to point first one eye, then another, then another, up at the dome’s underside. Their faces reminded Jacen of deflated balloons, with perpetually puckered mouths and knobbed, drooping tentacles.

Right in front of him, a Ryn pointed a blaster at the dome. Jacen rushed forward, shouting, “Put that away!” He was about to stretch out with the Force when the Ryn fired a blue stun burst. The energy dissipated before it reached the growing moth colony.

“Good try,” Jacen said grimly, “but we’ve got a no-blaster policy.” He grabbed the Ryn’s weapon and tucked it into his belt.

Atop the other ERD-LL’s outstretched arms, two Ryn clung and swatted white-eyes with long-handled kitchen tools. A few mangled moths fell to the ground. Others fluttered around the Ryn. One Ryn dropped his spatula and got busy swatting moths off the other—and himself.

The winged Vors would’ve been incredibly helpful in a larger dome, but Thirty-two was too small for them to maneuver—and one whiff of Duro-stink might kill them. They shuffled along on the ground, huddled around their young.

Jacen comlinked Han. “Twenty-two minutes,” he said. “They want us in rebreathers and chem suits.”

“Tell Mezza and Romany. I’ve got a droid freezing up.”