The Black Fleet Crisis_ Before The Storm Part 13

Glorious, the gunshipMarauder , and the pilotless ferret D-89 remained on the initial intercept heading, closing with the shadowing ferret so slowly that at times an impatient Lando thought they would never reach it.

"This Pakkpekatt is so cautious, he makes you look impetuous, Threepio, " Lando complained in the privacy ofLady Luck's main cabin.

"I agree with his tactics, " said Lobot.

"You would, " Lando said wryly.

"Is it not prudent to take all pains to avoid alarming one's prey? "

"We've gone far beyond prudent, " Lando grumbled. "I'm beginning to suspect the Hortek hunt by boring their prey to death. "

But finally the hour came when all ten ships were in position, and IX-44F and its three-man crew were relieved from their seventy-nine-day deployment.

"Captain, you are free to return to base, with our thanks, " Pakkpekatt signaled the ferret. "I'm afraid you will have to make a stealth withdrawal from the target zone, however. "

"Thank you, Colonel, " came the response. "A couple of days more or less in this closet don't mean much to us at this point. Good luck and good hunting. "

As IX-44F veered slowly off the intercept heading and fell behind, the cruiserGlorious took up its position.

"What do you think is inside, General Calrissian? " asked Pakkpekatt as they stood together at the main bridge viewport. "Why is it here? Where is it going? Tell me what you're thinking. "

"Wherever it's going, Colonel, it's not in a hurry, " Lando said easily. "Just like us, eh? Have you made a final decision on when to send in your ferret? "

"I intend to establish an observation baseline before making any approach, " Pakkpekatt said. "Have you and your staff made any progress on the signal fragment from the Hra.s.skis contact? "

"Colonel, you know our hands have been tied by your blackout orders. We've had hardly any bandwidth available to us on the HoloNet. Lady Luck doesn't have the kind of data capacity you have here onGlorious . We depend more heavily than you do on access to records located elsewhere. "

"I will take that as a report of 'No progress, ' " Pakkpekatt said. With a light touch on the main viewport's controls, he increased the gain on the photo-amplifiers until the outline of the vagabond sharpened and the body of the vessel brightened enough to show the gross detail.

"Look at it, General, " he went on. "For all we know, it may be five hundred years old, or fifty thousand. It may have been roaming s.p.a.ce since both our species were too young to raise our eyes to the stars. Perhaps the only reason we can get this close is that the work of some ancient engineer has at long last begun to decay and fail. "

"The odds favor a shorter history, " Lando said, surprised at the Hortek's sentimentality. "There are many dangers in s.p.a.ce. "

"Yes, " said Pakkpekatt, "and to the vagabond, we are one of them. Do you know, General, that no ship like this, no plan or design, appears in any registry of any New Republic world? No shipwright we've found will claim it as his handiwork, though all seem to admire the craft evident in it. If the vagabond was built by any species we know, no other like it was ever made. "

"Our catalog of everything that ever was is a long way from being complete, " said Lando. "The odds favor a less exotic history. "

"How can a gambler post the odds without knowing the game? " scoffed Pakkpekatt. "Perhaps this ship before us is home to a species which has no other home. Perhaps it's a new and curious visitor to this part of the universe, from places for which we have no names. Or perhaps it comes here from deep in the Core, where we have vanishingly few friends. All are possible-as are a universe of possibilities beyond our present imagining. "

"Yes, possible, " Lando admitted. "Not likely. "

"But reason enough to be cautious, wouldn't you agree? " Pakkpekatt said pointedly. "Reason enough for patience, even to the point of pain. Even to the point of boredom. We will watch them for a while, General. We'll let them watch us for a while as well. And I'll tell you when we're ready to do more. Can you live with that, General? "

Lando's skin p.r.i.c.kled to hear echoes of his private conversations in Pakkpekatt's words. It seemed more than a coincidence, and yet he had, on many occasions, seen charlatans perform even more convincing feats of mind reading through trickery.

"For now, Colonel, " Lando said. "I just hope whoever or whatever's inside that thing isn't busy making plans to destroy it to keep it out of our hands. That's part of your universe of possibilities, too. I hope you won't forget it. "

Pakkpekatt's expression was unreadable. "I will ask the communications officer to allot what slack time there may be in our HoloNet queue to your staff. Perhaps that will allow you to make faster progress. "

"Thank you, Colonel, " Lando said with courtly politeness. "That'd be a step in the right direction. "

"What a mess, " Lieutenant Norda Proi said, studying the high-resolution scan of s.p.a.ce directly ahead of theSteadfast . The three-D display showed more than twelve thousand objects, from hundreds no larger than a stormtrooper's combat boot to one that promised to be the aft third of an Imperial Star Destroyer.

"Must have been one wild party. "

Captain Oolas nodded. "We'll be here a month, at least. Where would you like to start, Lieutenant? "

"The big piece of cake, of course, " Proi said, pointing. "But we can launch droids on the way in, and let them start picking up the crumbs. "

For nearly a year the fleet haulerSteadfast had traced a solitary course through some of the most famous regions of what had once been Imperial s.p.a.ce.

Known in Fleet Office slang as a junker, Steadfast had served in the Battle of Endor, in the defense of Coruscant against Admiral Thrawn, and in the pursuit of the Knight Hammer.

But with the cessation of hostilities, the four oldest fleet haulers had been recalled-at the request of the Intelligence Section-from the combat groups they usually served. Equipped with dozens of specialized droids and with Intelligence officers supplementing the usual crew, the junkers were reborn as scavengers.

Their mission orders took them to the coordinates of major battles between the Empire and its enemies, where they searched through the wreckage for objects or information of potential value.

"Do you think we're the first ones here this time? " asked Captain Oolas.

Norda Proi studied the spectroscopic a.n.a.lysis of the objects being tracked. "Just possibly so, Captain. I don't want to get my hopes up, though. We'll know pretty quickly when we board the wreck if the mice have been here before us. "

Operation Flotsam had been launched when military artifacts, Rebel and Imperial, began showing up on the private collectors' market. When further investigation showed that the artifacts had not been stolen but had been salvaged from battle zones by smugglers and other entrepreneurs, the Senate acted with unusual speed and unanimity.

The Historic Battle Site Protection Act established more than two dozen restricted areas and claimed ownership of all combat debris everywhere in the name of the Alliance War Museum. But security, not history, was the prime concern. Many observers credited the explosion of a thermal detonator in a wealthy residential zone on Givin and a Rudrig crime ring's use of an Imperial interrogator droid on a kidnap victim with putting the fear into the Senate.

But a declaration of ownership by Coruscant only made the traffic in artifacts illegal-it didn't end it. That took gunship patrols through the restricted areas, the arrest of the notorious Huttese smuggler Uta, and the seizure of weapons and other exotic collectibles from the upper-cla.s.s customers of a well-known Imperial City art dealer. Even at that, the arrival ofSteadfast had twice sent would-be poachers running, and the debris fields it had surveyed so far had all seemed picked over.

"I have a positive identification on the wreck, Lieutenant, " a junior Intelligence officer called out. "It's the I-cla.s.s Star DestroyerGnisnal , our registry number SD-489. Reported destroyed by internal explosions during the Imperial evacuation of Narth and Ihopek. The report is from Alliance sources. "

"All right, " said Norda Proi, nodding. "Let's move in. "

First aboard the wreck were half a dozen scanning and monitoring droids, which jetted across to it on their own power while theSteadfast held station a safe distance away.

Working in pairs, so that anything that happened to one would be doc.u.mented by the other, the droids fanned out according to a search plan tailored to that cla.s.s of vessel. The priorities were live weapons, known b.o.o.by traps, and other possible hazards to the living, breathing search teams that were ready to follow.

The threats were not merely theoretical. The junkerSeloniahad been badly damaged when a poacher's bomb disguised as a datapad went off in its hold. A year earlier, the ironically named surveyorForesighthad been destroyed by autofiring laser cannon when search teams tripped an alarm inside an abandoned Imperial cruiser.

But one rule of thumb had never failed the scavengers--if the droids found bodies aboard, there would be no bombs. Imperial guile did not extend to using the bodies of their own as bait for their enemies, and poachers-out of superst.i.tion or respect-always cleared the corridors and compartments of corpses.

Still, Norda Proi found that it made him uncomfortable to be gladdened by the sight of bodies aboard theGnisnal .

"Did you hear about the fellow Republic Security arrested on Derra Four last month? " Proi asked, studying the images being relayed toSteadfast by SM-6. "He had eleven Imperial corpses in cryotanks in a hangar, all of them in full armor or deck uniform. Crazy. "

"I heard, " said Captain Oolas. "Crazy and sad. Apparently he was keeping them until his son was old enough to be told what happened to his mother during the occupation. Seems he planned to hand his son whatever weapon he wanted and let him take his revenge. "

"I'm glad I had a normal father, " Proi said, switching the display to the signal from SM-1.

Captain Oolas sat back and folded his hands on his lap. "I'm glad my homeworld was never occupied by the Empire. "

At that moment, SM-1 b.u.mped against a floating body, sending it slowly cartwheeling away. But for just a moment, the face of a dead Imperial petty officer-burned by fire or explosion and blistered by decompression-seemed to hover in front of the droid's optical scanner.

"You know, Lieutenant, " said Oolas, "even a just war doesn't look quite sogloriously heroic to those of us who have to pick up afterward. "

"I won't disagree, " said Proi. "I'm glad it's over. "

The droid team of SM-3 and SM-4 found what was left of the power and propulsion decks of theGnisnal , a jungle of scorched and twisted durasteel yawning open to s.p.a.ce.

"The explosion was internal, all right, " Norda Proi said after studying the side-by-side images sent back by the droids. "Looks like a failure of the primary transfer coupling for the solar ionization reactor. Which is about as foolproof a piece of equipment as there is aboard a Star Destroyer. "

"Sabotage? "

"Or plain bad luck, " said Proi. "Whatever happened, it dropped the hypers.p.a.ce motivator right down the pipe into the reactor core. The secondary explosion broke her back and carried away just about everything below the twenty-sixth deck. Poor sods wouldn't have had any warning at all. Concussion alone probably killed most everyone on the upper decks. "

Proi switched to the signal from SM-5 and SM-6, which were slowly making their way to the bridge.

"Ensign, what would the normal ship's complement be for the intact portion of theGnisnal ? "

"One moment, sir, " said the rating, leaning over his console. "At battle stations, approximately twelve thousand. At normal watch stations, approximately seven thousand, four hundred. "

"Too many to take home, " said Oolas.

Norda Proi shook his head. "Chances are half the crew or more was comprised of conscripts, most of them from what are now New Republic worlds, " he said. "I'll put in a request to have a fleet transport diverted here to take the overflow. "

The primary operator for SM-1 sat beside data a.n.a.lysis droid DA-1 at a console inSteadfast's forward hold. Together they monitored in real time the steady stream of images and sensor data from insideGnisnal .

A few steps away sat the operator for SM-2 and his a.n.a.lysis droid, performing the same tasks in parallel.

The primary task for the droids and their operators was to inventory the ship's hangars, which had been located forward of the reactor, and its gun batteries, which ordinarily bristled from every face of the wedge-shaped main hull. But enough of the ship was missing that that task was well ahead of schedule. Both droids were already well aft, in the sections below the Star Destroyer's superstructure.

Gnisnal'shull was intact there, and the droids moved through the outer corridors on the port side without difficulty or obstruction. But when they turned down an inner corridor leading to the aft emplacements, alarms began sounding at both consoles.

"Ambient light detected, " DA-1 announced. But it was obvious to both operators without interpretation-the corridor ahead was brightly lit by its own overhead lights.

Immediately, the operator paged theSteadfast's bridge. "Lieutenant Proi, this is Makki on Number One. Sir, the lights are on in Corridor R, Level Ninety. There's still power aboard. " The operator's voice was shadowed by concern.

"Interesting, " said Oolas, glancing at the range marker on the navigation display.

"Redundant systems, " Proi said, frowning, calling a three-view plan of the ship to his display. "That section is served by the Number Four power cell, backed up by the Number Eight. I guess one of them's still working. Give the Imps credit, they built those babies to last. "

"Should I have the helmsman put a little more distance between us and the wreck? " Oolas's upper tentacles wrapped themselves protectively around his thin neck as he spoke, showing his nervousness.

"No, " Proi said. He frowned, seemingly lost in thought. "That's combat lighting, not emergency lighting. You know-as quickly as this ship went bad, there's a chance they didn't have time to initiate a purge-Makki, you there? "

"Yes, sir. "

"Any signs of movement? Any vibration or hot spots in the bulkheads? "

"No, sir. "

"Then I want you to check something for me, " he said. "Send the droid up to Level Ninety-six, Corridor Q."

"What's there? " asked Oolas.

Norda Proi shook his head. "Wait. I'm superst.i.tious about wishing out loud. "

With its twin following, SM-1 entered a turbolift shaft and began rising toward Level Ninety-six. Oolas watched anxiously, while Proi watched with silent antic.i.p.ation.

When the first droid had cleared the shaft, they saw an abandoned guardpost by a set of open blast doors. Thousands of jagged, glittery fragments drifted in the air like snow.

"The viewports on this level must have imploded after the explosion, " said Oolas.

"No-too thin. Those are fragments from display screens, " Proi said.

"Which tells me we're in the right place. Makki, turn to starboard. Forward, now. Through the blast doors. Look for an access corridor on the right, about twenty meters ahead. "

The droid's maneuvering jets stirred the cloud of fragments into frantic motion as it made its way along, finding and turning down the access corridor. Before long, the corridor opened into a large, high-ceilinged room.

More than forty workstations, their displays all shattered, were arrayed in two half-circles. All faced the two-meter-tall metallic cylinder that stood like an unfinished sculpture on a platform against the far wall.

Hanging on the wall to either side of the cylinder were digital display panels as wide as blast doors. An ever changing array of multicolored messages in Basic and binary filled most of the face of the left panel.

"By my mother's jewels! " Proi said in awe.

"What is it? "

"Our express ticket back to Coruscant, " said Lieutenant Norda Proi. "An intact Imperial memory core. "

The Number 4 memory core from the Star DestroyerGnisnal stood in a Technical Section laboratory coupled to three heavy-duty power droids in a cascade chain. One droid was sufficient to keep the core's tiers and channels from collapsing; the others were insurance.

The contents of the memory core were too valuable to risk.

Accessing the contents, though, required knowing which of more than a hundred Imperial data sequencing algorithms had been used to write information to the core. And that knowledge was not stored anywhere in the core itself, but in the dual system controllers-which had not survived the destruction of the ship.

Only fourteen of those algorithms were known in detail to the experts of the Technical Section. In the first day theGnisnal core was in the laboratory, all fourteen were tried on it, without success. The contents of the core poured out as seemingly impenetrable gibberish.

Five different teams made up of crack information-science specialists aided by speedy a.n.a.lysis droids immediately set out to find the patterns in the gibberish.

Using files captured from other Imperial vessels as a guide, they searched through the digital jigsaw puzzle for pieces that went together. Even a few short strings could be enough to allow the droids to re-create the unknown algorithm, and unlock whatever secrets the memory core held.

Ja.r.s.e Motempe's Team 3 a.s.sembled the first fragmentary string, made up of the names and ranks of two ofGnisnal's command officers. Within a day Team 5 had found an even longer string containing a standard Imperial hypercomm message header.

The final breakthrough belonged to Motempe again-the complete fifteen-point standing maintenance order for a TIE bomber. Its more than fourteen hundred sequential data bits seemed to map every detail of the new algorithm. Confirmation came quickly. The first file reconstructed was the ship's duty roster.

The second was its daily communications log for the day it was destroyed.

After that, things moved very quickly. An interface droid was programmed with the new algorithm and linked to theGnisnal core, and this time tens of thousand of object and data files poured forth instead of gibberish. Each file was copied, tagged, cla.s.sified, and forwarded to the a.n.a.lysis Section for distribution.

One of them, given the ID number AK031995 and a priority code of Most Urgent, ended up in the hands of Ayddar Nylykerka.