Planet of Twilight by Barbara Hambly

Author:Barbara Hambly [Hambly, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
Tags: Fiction, SciFi, Star Wars, New Republic
ISBN: 9780553575170
Publisher: Del-Rey

Chapter Eleven

Under pouring rain, the port of Bagsho on Nim Drovis crawled with troops.

Han had alerted the Med Center from orbit that he had fifteen critical cases of radiation sickness on board. Ism Oolos, the Ho’Din physician he’d talked to over subspace, awaited him in the docking bay with an emergency team, surrounded by a squad of uniformed Drovians who seized Han’s arms the minute he came down the Falcon’s ramp, shoved him up against the nearest wall, and searched him none too gently.

“Is this really necessary?” demanded Dr. Oolos indignantly; Han also expressed himself to the head of the Drovian squad along the same lines but with considerably greater emphasis.

“Doc, if you’d seen some of the armaments coming in for the Gopso’o tribes, you wouldn’t be asking that.” The Drovian sergeant pulled out its esophageal plug to make the remark, and shoved it back in with a squish. Since the onset of high-tech civilization in the wake of Old Republic military bases, most Drovians—who had been a pastoral network of tribes when contacted—had acquired the habit of sucking zwil—a cake-flavoring agent common to Algarine cuisine—through the mucous membranes of their breathing tubes via fist-size spongy plugs saturated with the stuff. Four-fifths of the soldiers wore plugs of various sizes and the air was thick with the dreamy, cinnamon-vanilla scent, where it wasn’t heavy with the odors of wet vegetation, mildews inadvertently imported from every corner of the galaxy, and the oily smoke of burning.

“You must excuse us.” Dr. Oolos ducked his bright-tentacled head as he accompanied Han, the sergeant, two troopers, and the med team back up the ramp. “The Gopso’o have been restless for months—ancestral enemies of the Drovians…” He lowered his soft voice and his twenty-five-meter height to speak without the sergeant hearing. “Not a particle of difference between them, you understand, except that they have been at blood feud for, literally, centuries. I have heard the original issue was whether the root word for truth is in the singular case or the plural, but so many atrocities were committed on both sides that, of course, it barely matters now. The Drovians were the ones who made interstellar contact first, so, of course, they’re the dominant tribe, but…”

“They’re killing each other over a festering grammatical construction?”

Han couldn’t keep his voice down. Dr. Oolos winced and gestured him quiet, but it was too late. The Drovian sergeant grabbed Han’s arm in a viselike pincer: “I’m killin’ those moldspawns because they killed my family, see? Because they disemboweled Garnu Hral Eschen, because they tore the flesh off the bones of the children of Ethras, because they…”

“All right,” said Han hastily, as the sergeant was dragging him closer and closer to the muzzle of its gun. “Uh—Chewie…” He turned just in time to make it appear to the Wookiee, emerging from the door of the bridge, that he was in no actual danger and manufactured a cheerful grin. “Chewie, this is Sergeant…”

“Sergeant Knezex Hral Piksoar.” The sergeant shoved its plug

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