[Galaxy Of Fear] - 03

CHAPTER 1


Someone was pounding on the door.

“Tash, open up!” It was the voice of her brother, Zak.

“Go away,” she warned.

“Come on, it can’t be that bad,” he argued.

“You think?” Tash yelled through the wall of the room. “Wait until you start getting them.” She heard Zak sigh and walk away.

Tash stared at her reflection in the small mirror and groaned.

Tash was thirteen years old. She’d always thought it wouldn’t happen to her until she turned fifteen or sixteen.

“There you go,” she muttered, “before your time as usual.”

She stared at the four red splotches on her face as if glaring would scare them away. But they weren’t going anywhere. They sat in the middle of her face, framed by her blonde hair. They were as noticeable as orbital beacons.

To Tash, it was amazing that the intelligent species of the galaxy had learned to travel from one end of the stars to the other, create droids that were as intelligent as humans or any other organic creature, but still no one had come up with a cure for every teenage human’s nightmare.

Zits.

She was in the main refresher on board the ship Shroud, on which she traveled with her brother, Zak, their uncle Hoole, and his assistant droid DV-9, or Deevee for short. The main ‘fresher had the best lighting, and Tash wanted to see just how big her pimples had grown.

Someone pounded on the door again. “Tash!” Zak was back. “Come on, I’m not feeling well. I need the medkit.”

“All right!” she said. She opened the door and stared, daring Zak to say something about her face.

But Zak hardly noticed. He went right to the medkit, opened it, and took out two pain relievers, which he quickly swallowed.

“Did Uncle Hoole say you could have those?” she asked.

“Yeah.” Zak nodded. “I asked him.”

She noticed that her brother’s face looked flushed, and he seemed a little sluggish. Zak was a year younger than she was. Normally he was chaotic, unpredictable, and fun-loving. Not sluggish.

“Are you getting sick?”

“No way,” he responded. “Just a headache from listening to Deevee’s lessons. I’m going back to the cockpit. By the way,” he added as he went into the hall, “that pimple on your chin is about to go nova!”

Tash grimaced. So much for sympathizing with him. If he was feeling good enough to insult her, he was feeling good enough, period.

Tash went to her cabin and shut the door. The best thing to do about pimples was to wait them out. She had some important work to do in her cabin anyway.

She sat at her small desk, skimming the galactic communications network called the HoloNet on the computer terminal. It was sometimes hard to get a connection in deep space, but Tash had spent hours Net-skimming, and she’d found a way to bounce a computer link off of a deep-space station thirty light-years away, then to planetary antennae in the Corellian system, and finally into the Deep Core Worlds, where the central HoloNet was established.

Tash typed her code name into a message: SEARCHER CALLING FORCEFLOW.

ForceFlow was another HoloNet explorer whom Tash had met over a year ago. ForceFlow had introduced Tash to the legends of the Jedi Knights, who had been the protectors of the galaxy before the rise of the Empire. She didn’t know ForceFlow’s real name, but she did know that he or she had access to a lot of information.

Tash wasn’t looking for information on the Jedi today. She had decided to ask about something more personal.

She was going to ask ForceFlow about her uncle.

In the six months that she and Zak had lived with him, Hoole had refused to tell them anything about himself or his work. But over the past few weeks several people had hinted that Hoole was involved in the Empire’s shadow world of criminals and assassins. Contacting ForceFlow was a long shot, but people in strange places seemed to know their uncle, and Tash’s curiosity had gotten the better of her.

After a moment, a line of text appeared on her computer screen.

FORCEFLOW HERE.

HI, she typed. I HAVE A QUESTION FOR YOU. IT’S PRIVATE.

A line appeared in response.

WAIT. I AM CODING OUR TRANSMISSION. There was a pause.

When the text continued, it was highlighted in blue, indicating that the HoloNet link had changed. IMPERIAL WATCH

DOGS ON MY TAIL. CAN’T TAKE ANY CHANCES.

Tash knew that ForceFlow often posted information on the HoloNet that the Empire considered illegal. Even the Jedi lore that she had first discovered was outlawed, but ForceFlow had uploaded it anyway. For that reason ForceFlow was often hard to reach, and always very secretive. Tash typed back, IS IT SAFE FOR US TO TALK?

FOR NOW. NO ONE CAN BREAK MY CODES.