Star Wars - Gathering Shadows - The Origin of the Black Curs - Unpublished by Kathy Burdette Read Free Book Online

cell block, and free Dirk from his cell.”
    Dirk and Tru’eb looked at each other, and then back at her.
    “Of course that’s somewhat irrelevant now,” Tru’eb said tersely.
    “Yeah, see, that’s the hitch.”
    Harkness leaned his head against the door. He couldn’t hear anything going on inside, which made him feel worse. He should have known something like this would happen. It wasn’t like it was with Golthan’s people; pick a prisoner, teach him or her respect, and then forget about them. That was why Harkness’ eye couldn’t be replaced—the subsequent infection had destroyed the nerves. It wasn’t the pain of the torture that hurt the most to remember; it was the sense of being nothing, a brief amusement to be thrown into a cell like a heap of garbage and then forgotten for three months. Certainly he hadn’t been left in solitary, but his cellmates that time were Alliance intentions wimps, and not part of his team. They wouldn’t even help him make any escape attempts.
    The sound of Tru’eb’s voice brought him back to the present.
    “Oh, no. They’re here.”
    The four turbolifts on the opposite side of the mezzanine arrived almost simultaneously. One after the other, the doors opened, and Imperial troops and officers came pouring out, all of them armed, all of them running, all of them shouting. Within seconds, Dirk, Platt, and Tru’eb were surrounded.
    “Drop your weapons! Now!”
    They obliged.
    Harkness’ head started throbbing. This is not happening, not after all this, not after I made up my mind…
    “Stand down!” somebody shouted.
    A new voice. Everyone froze. Two figures were standing in the doorway to the command center.
    Harkness blinked a couple of times. He saw a female Imperial major with a red-spattered uniform; her face had flashed into his mind several times since his interrogation, but he hadn’t recognized it until now. Then he saw her.
    Jai was as bloody a mess as Harkness. Her eyes squinted in the combination of bright lights and, probably, a splitting post-interrogation headache. There was a thick, red seam across the bridge of her still-bleeding nose; an arm locked around the head of the barely-conscious major; and a heavy, Imperial-issue blaster aimed at the major’s right temple.

    “Stand down,” Jai said again. “I have a proposition.”
    A young, skinny lieutenant spoke. “Let her go, Rebel,” he said. “Drop your blaster, put your hands on your head.”
    “You can’t afford to waste time taking us back into custody,” Jai told him.
    “And why not?”
    “Because the Major and I made a little call to the planetary government.”
    The lieutenant blanched. A faint murmur started up amidst the troops.
    Jai went on, “Apparently they aren’t amused to find out what’s been lurking here in the Valley of Umbra. I think you’d best evacuate your troops before Governor Nul sends a full-blown air strike.”
    “Don’t you think that would be a little paranoid. Rebel?”
    Now Platt spoke. “Don’t you think the entire population on this planet is a little paranoid, buddy?”
    “Aside from all that, I’m giving you an order,” Jai said. “Because as of three minutes ago, Zelos II belongs to the New Republic. Isn’t that right. Major.”
    The major took a deep, rattling breath and nodded faintly.
    The lieutenant stared at Jai for a minute, his eyes darting from her to Harkness to the major. It was obvious the boy had never made an executive decision in his life.
    “Cut your losses, son,” Harkness told him. “Do what the nice lady says.”
    The lieutenant looked at the floor.
    Then he turned around and signaled the troops. “Initiate evacuation procedure. Come on, do it now! Let’s go!”
    Nobody seemed to object. Some of the grunts closer to the turbolifts had already put their blasters away when Jai had said “air strike.” Within seconds the troops had begun to disperse, some of them swearing, most of them trying to shove through the