Book 08 - Against the Empire by Jude Watson

Author:Jude Watson [Watson, Jude]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Star Wars, Fiction
ISBN: 9780756983116
Publisher: Scholastic
Published: 2007-10-01T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Ferus filed in with the rest of the workers on the late shift. He wore the white med tunic with his ID tags around his neck. No one gave him a second glance. Following Malory's description he made his way through the hallways to the door marked INFORMATION CENTER. He swept his card through the sensor and heard the click with relief. Malory had promised she could enable him to enter, and she'd come through.

He had received at last the all-clear code from Wil on Bellassa. Amie was safe. He only hoped there wouldn't be a massive retaliation from the Imperial governor.

Here on the night shift there wasn't much to do for the info tech workers, so it was lightly staffed. A doctor or med trainee might call on them to enter a patient, but EmPal no longer had an emergency unit that took in all Coruscant citizens in need of care. Instead, patients were Emitted by physicians. The high costs limited those admissions to Senators and the rich corporate people who now clogged Imperial City.

A plump young man sat at the console, crunching his way through a meal of root chips and a pressed protein slider. "Hey, new guy," he said as Ferus walked in.

Ferus sat at the other chair. "Ty Ambler," he said, giving the name on his ID tag.

"Jakohaul Lessor," he replied. "Just call me Jako. You just lucked into the sweetest job at EmPal, buddy. Not much doing here."

"Suits me fine," Ferus said. "I'm allergic to hard work."

Jako chuckled. "Second that." He pushed the greasy plate toward Ferus. "Want a root chip?"

"No thanks. I need to familiarize myself with the system."

"Just don't go crazy. We like to take it easy in this department."

Ferus began to call up the database and flipped through it in a seemingly casual way. He zeroed in on records from the end of the Clone Wars, near the time that Darth Vader had first surfaced.

While Jako crunched beside him and called up a Podrace on his vidscreen, Ferus searched through the material. Nothing popped out at him. EmPal had been changing over from its old role as a medical center open to all to an exclusive med facility and biomechani-cal reconstruction center. He could find no record of extraordinary procedures or evidence of a cover-up. Then again, he hadn't expected this to be easy.

Jako finished his meal and pushed back his rolling chair to rest his feet on the console. He crossed his arms on his chest. Ferus hoped he would go to sleep. The next step was to go deeper into the system, looking for security codes he could break. But the system might send up alarms or flashes that Jako could see from his position.

"Listen, new guy, I'm going to take a snooze," Jako said. "Don't wake me up if work calls. And don't be scared of the ghost!" he chortled.

Ferus was relieved as Jako's eyes closed.

The ghost. Malory had mentioned it, too.

"What ghost?" he asked.

Jako's eyes flew open, but he didn't seem annoyed at being disturbed.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.