Star Wars - 214 - Jedi Prince 05 - Queen of the Empire by Paul Davids, Hollace Davids Read Free Book Online Page B

them with the force pikes. Tibor tumbled to the floor of the chamber, unconscious. He was quickly taken away to the prisoner bay area near the flight crew stations.
    Zorba’s stubby hands were chained together as his coughing fit continued. His yellow, reptilian eyes were unable to shed tears, but they became red, glassy, and moist. The stormtroopers forced Zorba to squirm his huge body down a ramp, prodded every wiggle of the way by force pikes.
    Grand Moff Thistleborn attached the chain connecting Zorba’s wrists to a hoist, while Grand Moff Muzzer, despite his wounded leg, managed to walk over to the lever used to raise the hoist high above the floor.
    "You grand moffs think you can break old Zorba!" the Hutt shouted. The chain then pulled his sluglike body up into the air by his wrists and let him dangle. "Curse you all!
    A-haw-haw-haw . . . !"
    Grand Moff Hissa maneuvered his hover-chair over to the Zorba Express. He set his chair down inside and glanced around. An irritating smell burned his nostrils. It wasn’t the coughing gas from the projectile launcher-it was the smell of frozen carbonite.
    "I want every inch of the Zorba Express searched from its Telgorn flight computers to its rear bulk storage compartments!" Hissa shouted.
    Several stormtroopers ran immediately up the ramp and entered the Zorba Express. They began their search at the front of the navigation room.
    Soon they located a storage door that was suspiciously disguised as part of the hull of the ship. Hissa’s strong metal hands pushed away the power coupler that was hiding the door’s latch. Inhaling sharply and then holding his breath, he pried with all his strength and pulled the door open.
    Behind the door, encased in frozen carbonite, was Trioculus. Hissa gasped.
    "Our Dark Lord!" Hissa exclaimed, his eyes bulging in disbelief. A series of images rushed through Hissa’s mind all at once-Trioculus as Supreme Slavelord of Kessel working thousands of slaves to death in the spice mines . . . Trioculus trying to electrocute Luke Skywalker inside the Whaladon hunting submarine . . . Trioculus scheming to bomb the Rebel Alliance Senate . . . and Trioculus burning the rain forests of Yavin as he searched for the Jedi Prince, Ken, whom he was determined to destroy at any cost.
    "But . . . how is it possible that Trioculus still exists?" Grand Moff Hissa wondered.
    "Kadann destroyed the carbonite block with fiery neutron beams." From outside the Zorba Express, Hissa could hear the Hutt’s laughter. "A-haw-haw-haw . . .
    !" Zorba taunted the grand moffs. "Did you really think I’d be stupid enough to put the real carbonite block that contained Trioculus on display in the Cloud City Museum? Kadann destroyed nothing but a statue of your so-called ’Dark Lord.’ I tricked him good-tricked you all!"
    "You continue searching the ship!" Grand Moff Hissa ordered several stormtroopers. To another group of stormtroopers he snapped, "Remove this block of carbonite and take it to the power modulator. Then send a low-level current from the modulator to the carbonite and melt it, setting Trioculus free!"
    The heavy carbonite block was carried from the Zorba Express and melted at once, thawing Trioculus from his state of suspended animation. Slowly Trioculus emerged from the carbonization in which he had been frozen, a mindless state in which his lifeless body remained more dead than alive.
    The three-eyed tyrant took one breath, then another, grimacing and gritting his teeth as though each inhalation wracked him with pain. As Hissa remained at his side, Trioculus’s breaths slowly began to flow more naturally, and the agony of his first moments of release from the carbonite faded.
    Trioculus blinked and cleared his three eyes of the last bits of carbonite. "Hisssssa?" he gasped, as he slowly regained his sight.
    "Yes, my Dark Lordship. It is I!"
    "What’s happened to you, Hissa?"
    "I lost my arms and legs in what you might call an industrial accident, your