Death Troopers: Star Wars Legends (Star Wars - Legends) by Joe Schreiber

Author:Joe Schreiber [Schreiber, Joe]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Random House Worlds
Published: 2011-06-28T00:00:00+00:00

24 / FUTUREPROOF

When Kale came back, Trig was gone.

The hatch to the escape pod stood open, and he crouched down and crawled inside, the green display lights glowing across his face.

“Trig?”

His brother wasn’t in there, either, but the gassy, festering smell was bad enough that Kale didn’t linger for a closer look. It reminded him of some kind of predator’s den, the kind you might find littered with the picked-clean bones of its last meal. He supposed he’d have to put up with it if the pod was their only means of getting out of here, but for now he had to find his brother.

Stepping back out, he bumped his foot against a small flat object. It let out a little electronic gurgle. He looked down and saw that it was the comlink Zahara had given Trig. Kale frowned. It wasn’t like Trig to leave something like that, any more than it was like him to wander off for no reason.

He picked up the comlink and switched it on. “Dr. Cody? This is Kale.”

“I hear you, Kale,” she said.

“Listen, something happened to my brother.”

“Say again?”

“An alarm went off and I went to go check it. When I came back, he was gone. The pod hatch is open, but he’s nowhere in sight.”

“Just a second, Kale. Let me check something.”

Kale waited, and looked back down at the inner wall of the escape pod door. It was scored with dozens of scratches, some of them deep enough to gouge into the metal itself. He reached down to touch it and discovered it was wet. When he drew back his fingers, they were dripping with blood and something sticky and warm. He wiped it off on his pant leg with a shudder of revulsion.

“Kale, the scanner’s showing a life-form about fifteen meters up the corridor to your immediate right. Do you see it?”

He turned around but there was nothing but the same dirty familiar walls, dim lights, and low cramped ceiling, yellowing and dingy, as if stained by the doomed and hopeless breaths exhaled by thousands of inmates over the years. “No,” he said, “there’s nothing here.”

“You’re positive? The signal’s strong.”

“No, it’s just an empty hallway, I—hold it.”

He put the comlink down and raised the blaster, walking over to the wall for a closer look. In front of him, at shoulder level, he saw a separate wall panel and the words:

MAINTENANCE ACCESS SHAFT 223

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