[Galaxy Of Fear] - 12(6)

Zak tensed on seeing the Imperial uniform, but Deevee merely shuffled out of the turbolift, leaned forward, and spoke so that his voice would be picked up by a microphone on the Imperial’s desk. “Greetings, Deputy Strey. D-V9 requesting access to raw data files. I have three researchers from offplanet with me.”

The Imperial, Deputy Strey, glanced at a screen. “Voice authorization confirmed. Go ahead,” the Imperial said.

Deputy Strey didn’t even look at them again as they continued down a dimly lit hallway, past several unmarked doors. To Zak, all the doors looked alike. But Deevee knew where he was going. He opened one of the doors and stepped inside.

They were in a large room lined with rows of shelves. Each shelf was piled high with containers, and each container held hundreds of datadisks. In the corner was a computer terminal.

“This place is some thrill,” Zak said sarcastically.

“It may look boring to you, Zak,” said Hoole. “But every one of those disks contains the records of a team that discovered and explored an uncharted planet. Who knows what dangers they faced, or what treasures they discovered?”

“Well, no one knows,” Deevee answered. “These records have been sitting here for years.”

“Why?” Tash asked, staring wide-eyed at the galaxy of information around her. Tash was a reader, and the thought of all that knowledge made her head spin.

“Everything we record has to be approved by the Empire first,” the droid explained. “All these disks are just copies. The originals are on Coruscant, the Imperial capital. Once a file is approved, we can send it upstairs to the main library. Luckily for us, with nothing else to do, the Academy scholars have been copying and cross-referencing the files into this computer. Thus, we don’t need to search through the disks themselves.”

Zak looked at the stacks of datadisks that reached the ceiling. “Good. There are enough disks here to smother a bantha.”

As Deevee activated the computer terminal, Hoole, who had shifted back into his own shape, said, “Go back years, Deevee. Look for something that was discovered before the Empire took over.”

“Why?” Tash asked her uncle.

“If a planet was discovered under the Empire, it was probably discovered by Imperials. We do not want to go anywhere they have been. We want a place that was discovered a long time ago, and then forgotten.”

“I think I’ve found just the planet,” Deevee said, after a short search. “This planet was discovered by an exploration team almost forty years ago. It-“

The door hissed open behind them. Startled by the intrusion, they all whirled around to see Deputy Strey standing in the doorway. His pale face had gone even whiter. He looked like death itself.

Deputy Strey gagged, as if trying to speak. Then he fell face first into the room and did not move again.





CHAPTER 4


While Zak and the others were staring down at Strey, eight beings charged into the room, stepping over the Imperial’s body. The first was a woman with long, thick hair, a blaster in her hand. Behind her came a Twi’lek with two thick tentacles growing out of the back of his head. They were wrapped around his shoulders like a scarf. Four men followed, all dressed in sloppy flight uniforms, all heavily armed.

The woman glared at Hoole, Zak, and Tash. Then she pointed her blaster at them. “Who are you?” she demanded.

Hoole returned her gaze calmly. “We could ask you the same question. What have you done to that man?”

The Twi’lek looked at the woman and said, “We don’t have time for this, Platt.”

The woman, Platt, looked at the motionless Imperial and answered Hoole’s question. “He’ll live. He’s just stunned.” Platt raised an eyebrow. “Two human kids, a Shi’ido, and a droid. I’m just making a guess here-you aren’t the local stormtrooper patrol, are you?”

“We are not Imperials,” Hoole admitted. “You can put away your blaster. We are simply here to gather some information; then we will be on our way.”

“Us too,” Platt said. She holstered her blaster, and her companions put theirs away as well. “You, droid,” she said to Deevee. “You work here?”

Deevee said, “I am a research assistant to the-“

“Good. This is what we need,” Platt interrupted. “I’ve heard you’ve got billions of data bits of information on unregistered planets. We need one. Now.”

Hoole raised an eyebrow. “Curious. We are here for a similar reason.”

By this time Platt had already moved to the computer terminal. She scanned the information on the screen and muttered, “Yeah … yeah … this’ll do fine. This is perfect.”