The access codes to the escape pods.

Maintaining the pods had been one of the duties of ICO Vesek, and Sartoris knew that Vesek had the launch codes to activate the pods. And so he had sat next to Vesek's bunk in the quarantine bubble, staring down into Vesek's hallucinating expression, those disoriented rolling eyes, asking him over and over for the launch codes. But Vesek had been less than forthcoming. Eventually Sartoris had lost patience with the guard-he could be forgiven for that, couldn't he? Wouldn't it make sense that eventually he'd need to apply a bit more pressure, to help Vesek focus on what he was asking?

He hadn't meant to pinch Vesek's nose shut for as long as he had. If Vesek had cooperated, simply snapped out of it for a moment and given him the codes, none of that would have been necessary. All Sartoris had needed was information, the same way he'd wanted information from that old inmate Longo, but the old man hadn't been very forthcoming, either, and this was a prison barge, after all, wasn't it?

Accidents happened.

But Vesek wasn't an inmate, a voice inside Sartoris's head whispered. Vesek was one of your own men, and you - "He was on his way out anyway," Sartoris muttered, and turned his attention back to the task at hand. Warden Kloth was in there, and he needed to talk to him more urgently than ever. Sartoris was going to convince Kloth that they needed to get off the barge now if there was any chance of staying alive. There was plenty of room in the escape pod for both of them-or just himself, if Kloth didn't see things his way.

"Warden?" Sartoris shouted.

Still nothing from the other side of the door. Sartoris glanced down at the blasters in his hands, and back at the door. It was probably blast-proof, and shooting his way in would only start a volley of ricocheting bolts that might end up killing him. But he needed to get the access codes, sooner rather than later, if- Then the door slid open, all by itself.

At this point, Sartoris hadn't been expecting it, and he actually hesitated for a moment, peering inside the chamber. Kloth's office appeared empty-the holomural desert scene, an abandoned console, the view outside un.o.bstructed.

Sartoris stepped inside, and the smell hit him hard. It was the same ammoniac odor that had acc.u.mulated in the corridors outside, only a more concentrated version, and he cupped his hand over his nose and mouth, laboring to suppress his gag reflex.

"Captain," something gargled from the other side of the console. "How nice to see you."

Sartoris took another step and looked forward, then down. Warden Kloth was lying on the floor below his console, curled on his side in the fetal position, in a pool of something grayish red. When he saw Sartoris standing over him, he lifted himself up on both elbows and took a raspy, shaking breath. Webs of sticky fluid dribbled from his nose and chin. The sickness had stripped away any remaining affectation of toughness and cruelty, leaving only the trembling, skinned thing that Sartoris had known was inside him all along.

"I've been watching the monitors," he said. "This infection from the Star Destroyer..." He coughed again. "It's spreading too quickly to stop. Would you agree?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then we're left with only one choice ..." Kloth sucked in another labored, snorkeling breath. "We have to abandon ship."

"My thoughts exactly."

"You'll help me to the escape pod," he said between hacking coughs. "That's SOP. I'll make . . . my full report from there. Imperial . . . Corrections won't question my decision-they can access all the data from the infirmary afterward-they'll see I had no choice..."

Sartoris had to smile. Even in extremis, the man was still thinking about how to cover himself in front of his superiors.

"You have the access codes for launch?" he asked.

Kloth coughed and nodded, and coughed harder, the force of it making veins bulge like twisted blue worms in his temples.

"I think," Sartoris said, "that you should tell me now."

The warden stopped coughing. His eyes narrowed, then widened. Sartoris was pointing both of the E-11s at Kloth's face, close enough that he knew Kloth would be able to smell the tinge of ozone that still clung to their barrels, and see that Sartoris had switched them back to kill.

"You're an animal," Kloth said. "I should have relieved you from duty when I had the chance."

"It's not too late," Sartoris said, holding the blasters steady. "You could make it your last official act as warden."

"Put those down. You'll need both hands to help me to the pod."

"I think I can manage," Sartoris said. "After you give me the codes."

"I don't have much choice, do I?"

Sartoris regarded him blandly. "I suppose you could try lying to me. But I deal with liars and con artists every day, so under the circ.u.mstances I wouldn't recommend it."

"The codes are already imprinted here. I couldn't alter them if I tried." Kloth handed him a datacard, his hand trembling only slightly, and held Sartoris's gaze steadily as he did so. "Captain?"

"Yes?"

"There's a subsection of the Imperial Corrections Psychological Profile Exam known as the Veq-Headley Battery. It's specifically skewed to indicate any underlying psychopathological att.i.tudes in the applicant. . . with the understanding that such things might come in handy in service to the Empire." His tongue came out and moistened his upper lip. "Would you like to know how you scored on your VHB, Captain Sartoris?"

"I think we both already know the answer to that, sir," Sartoris said, and squeezed both triggers.

The effect at close range was nothing short of spectacular. Warden Kloth's entire cranial vault sheared away in a dense cloud of scarlet, gristle, and bone. His neck and shoulders flopped sideways, torqued on some invisible axis with the leftover momentum of the energy blast, and then landed with a wet splat, skidding backward in the spattered reservoir of blood.

Sartoris pocketed the datacard and turned to face the still-open door. That was when he saw the young guard in the isolation suit standing out in the corridor, staring at him slack-jawed, his fever-blotched face gone abruptly pale so the blisters stood out like stars. When the guard realized that Sartoris was looking at him, he jerked both hands up and backed into the hallway behind him, his chin going up and down trying to yammer out words.

"Captain? You j-just shot Warden Kloth."

"Did him a favor," Sartoris said, taking note of the guard's runny nose and the fever sores cl.u.s.tering around his lips. "You want one?"

The guard looked as if he'd just lost control of his bladder and bowels simultaneously.

"Get out of here." Pointing with one of the blasters: "Go that way."

The guard nodded, turned, and fled, boots clattering, rasping audibly for breath. Sartoris wished him well. He went the other direction, and started making his way to the escape pod.

Chapter 16.

In the Cage Although there was no longer anyone alive to monitor it, the surveillance system of Imperial Prison Barge Purge did an excellent job relaying the conversation between Trig and Kale Longo in their cell in Detention Level Five. The screens, now playing to a retinue of Imperial guard corpses in the barge's main surveillance suite, showed the brothers' faces peering from between the bars. And although the audio systems were perfectly calibrated to capture the slightest conspiratorial whisper, there was very little sound coming through the speakers. In fact, all throughout the detention level, it was quiet. The last of the screaming and coughing noises had already stopped, leaving only a vacant, sucked-out silence that went on and on.

Then, softly, the audio sensors picked up Trig's voice: "They're all dead. Aren't they?"

And Kale, falteringly: "I don't know."

"Whoever's left alive, they're already gone, they just left us here. We're going to die in here, too."

"You need to stop talking like that," Kale said. "Right now. You understand?"

Trig didn't reply. Not long ago, he had watched the Rodians die in the cell across from them. In the end, they'd coughed themselves to death, hacking and choking up pieces of their strange gray organs until they'd finally just writhed silently on the floor of their cell, twitching and whining and-after what felt like an eternity-falling still. Now the bodies had started to smell. Of course there was no way the surveillance system could capture that, just as there was no way for anyone who was actually in the area to avoid it.

Trig told himself the decay process shouldn't be happening so quickly, but the smell was there just the same. Maybe it was how the sickness interacted with the individual alien chemistry. It was everywhere, creeping up and down the corridors, trickling through the bars. He imagined rows of cells filled with corpses, dead inmates slumped on their bunks and sprawled on the floor, limp arms hanging through the bars, hundreds of them, gray and seeping, up and down the corridors of the different sublevels. The barge had turned into an immense floating crypt.

So why weren't he and Kale dead ... or even sick? Trig wondered if they were destined to survive through some rare quirk of genetic immunity, only to die of starvation or dehydration like neglected animals, here in the cage. He thought of something his father had always said: The universe has a sense of humor, just not a nice one.

"What happens next?" he asked.

Kale went to the bars, cupped both hands around his mouth. "Hey!" he shouted. "Is there anybody out there?" His voice was surprisingly loud, ringing through the emptiness. "h.e.l.lo! We're alive in here! Hey!" He took in a deep breath. "We're alive in here! We're..."

There was a loud clank, and the cell doors up and down the corridor all began to rattle open at once. Kale turned and glanced back at his brother.

"Somebody heard us."

"Who?"

"Doesn't matter," Kale said. "Right now we have to..." He stopped.

Trig watched him. "What is it?"

Kale held up one hand, inclining his head to listen. Whether or not Trig actually heard a noise from the cell next to theirs, he couldn't be sure-his imagination, always active, was now working overtime to pluck something of substance from the void. "Stay there," Kale whispered, leaning out of the cell and looking around. Then he gestured Trig forward.

They went out together, Trig just half a pace behind Kale, and then he remembered- "Wait!"

It was too late. The figure in the next cell burst out at him, scrambling forward with a snarling howl of rage. Trig saw Aur Myss fall on top of his older brother and drive him into the opposite wall, limbs flailing, hands slashing, already going for Kale's eyes.

Kale collapsed, caught completely off-guard, and for an instant Myss's body covered his entirely, his entire torso struggling spastically for air. The Delphanian seemed to be laboring equally hard to rip Kale's face apart and draw in another breath.

He's sick. The thought flashed through Trig's mind almost taster than he could recognize it. Now's your chance. Maybe your only one.

Hardly thinking, he swung down and grabbed Myss's throat from the back, laced his fingers over the doughy wads of flesh surrounding his neck, and squeezed. Please, please, let me do this.

But the attack brought a surge of strength through the Delphanian's body. Twisting around, Myss slashed free, the ragged up-and-down fissure of his mouth constricting into a grin. "Boy, you've overstepped your boundaries for the last time."

He grabbed Trig's face, clamping it between scaly hands, the pressure excruciating. Trig could feel blackness swarming in, eclipsing all reason. He wanted to scream but he couldn't open his mouth.

Suddenly the hands fell slack.

Trig's vision cleared, and he saw Myss still staring at him. But shock had taken the place of rage. Through the thing's open mouth, a glint of steel shone like a sharp metallic tongue. Then Myss toppled forward, and Trig saw the handle of the blade that his brother had shoved through the back of the Delphanian's skull.

"He came at me with it," Kale said shakily.

Trig found he couldn't speak.

"Come on, let's go."

They walked quickly down the long hallway toward the main exit, pa.s.sing cell after cell of dead bodies. Kale said nothing. As much as Trig wanted to talk about what his brother had done-to thank him, to say something about it, to at least acknowledge the fact that it had happened-he didn't know where to start. So he, too, remained silent.

Up at the end of the corridor, Trig saw another figure hunched in the control booth, this one wearing an orange isolation suit.

"Wembly," Kale said.

The guard was hunched forward next to the release switch for the cells, the control he'd engaged to open up the wing. Kale reached into the booth and touched his shoulder.

"Hey, Wembly, thanks for . . ."

Wembly's corpse slouched forward and sideways out of the booth, his forehead striking the floor with a hollow thud. His sagging lips hung open, encrusted with dried blood and mucus, and his upturned eyes were vacant. Staring at him, Trig thought he saw a tremor, one last spasm pa.s.sing through the shoulders and gut, but that, too, was probably just his imagination.

"He let us out. Probably the last thing he did."

"It was," a voice said.

They looked around to see Wembly's BLX unit standing in the corner of the booth. The droid stood awkwardly with its arms at its sides, looking utterly lost without its master.

"Come on," Trig said. "You can come with us."

The BLX seemed to consider the offer, but only for a moment. "No, thank you. I belong here. When we're rescued . . ." He allowed the thought to trail off, perhaps unable to convince itself of that eventuality.

"You're sure?"

"Forget it," Kale said. "Let's get out of here."

Trig cleared his throat. "Where are we going?"

"There's got to be an escape pod somewhere up above-maybe on the administrative level."

"You don't think somebody already took it? The warden, or the guards?"

Kale faced him, gripped Trig's shoulders in his hands, and held on firmly, even a little painfully. "We need a plan, and right now that's as good as any. So unless you've got a better idea, you can help me find a way up there."

Trig bit his lip. Nodded. Made himself say, "Okay."

It took a long time to find the turbolifts up from Main Detention. Most of the bodies they ran across were like the inmates on his level, corpses in bunks, corpses on floors, corpses curled up in corners, arms already stiffening around their folded knees as if somehow balling themselves up could stave off the eventuality of death. There were suicides-one inmate had hung himself from the bars, another had wrapped a bag around his head. Dead guards and stormtroopers lay on the floor, while puzzled-looking maintenance droids hovered over them, trying to make sense of the ma.s.s carnage, picking them up and putting them down again. Kale collected blasters from two of the bodies, but Trig could tell just by the way he carried them that he wasn't entirely comfortable with the weapons, although he tried to act casual about it.

They saw other things as well.

Outside one cell, a dead guard lay with his back against the bars. Trig saw that he'd been tied by the wrists and around the neck by the two dead inmates inside the cell. The inmates had since died of the disease, but that hadn't been what killed the guard. The cons had somehow lured him close enough to bind him there and then tortured him to death, stabbing, slashing, and mutilating him with the crude, sharpened instruments that were still clutched in their dead hands.

They saw an inmate, an alien species that Trig didn't recognize, comprising two conjoined bodies, one twice the size of the other. The smaller body had already died and fallen limp, while the larger one cradled it weakly like its own child, weeping and trying to breathe. It didn't even look up at them as they walked by.

They saw a maintenance droid carrying on a cheerful, one-sided conversation with a dead stormtrooper.

They saw two Imperial guards slumped dead over a dejarik holo-chess table while the figures on the table lumbered aimlessly around the board awaiting instruction.

Finally they found a turbolift and waited for the hatchway to slide open. There was a pair of dead guards inside, both of them armed, slouched in opposite corners, their torsos torn apart and scorched by blaster bolts, as if, in the final throes of delirium, they'd turned against each other. Kale hoisted them by their biohazard suits and dragged them out of the lift, and Trig was glad his brother didn't ask him to help. Looking at the bodies was one thing but touching them, lifting them up . . . hoisting their deadweight . . . that wasn't something he felt prepared for.

What if one of their cold dead hands was to reach up and grab hold of him?

Would he even be able to scream?

There was a clicking sound behind them, and Trig glanced back over his shoulder. He thought about Myss in the cell next to theirs, the cell that had been empty when he'd looked. Myss must have run out immediately after Wembly had sprung open the doors for them. Did that mean Myss was immune, too? Trig wondered if he was following them. Just because he didn't see anything didn't mean it wasn't there.