Star Wars - The Monster - Star Wars Gamer #2 Read online

  "The Monster"

  Daniels Wallace

  Star Wars Gamer #2

  The monster was about to uncover a secret, but it did not know it.

  The monster hung suspended in space, blue-black infinity in every direction. But it was not in space. The monster swept its fleshy tail and tucked its legs against its body as it rose through the water column.

  The monster was huge. Despite the absence of a backdrop to give comparative cues, immense power was evident in the span of its shoulders and the clamp of its overbiting jaw. The monster had the supple body of a tusk-cat and the snaky neck of an eel. Its great size made it appear even more a creature of the vacuum, for it seemed impossible that Naboo's oceans could harbor such a leviathan.

  It had lived for centuries, ruling the kingdoms of the deep with the lazy disdain of absolute power. The reverent whisperers of the surface - mere dirt-dwellers - called it a sando aqua monster.

  But even the mightiest fortifications ultimately crumble. Upon closer examination it was clear that the monster's pupils were milky with age. Its limbs twitched with involuntarily tics. Its gills were frayed like tattered lace.

  The monster was dying.

  A pair of opee sea killers, all eyes and teeth, swam up from the blue. Seduced by the stink of death, the two crablike fish jetted forward, mouths wide and bristling. The two opees ripped bits of flesh from the monster's flank as the predator suddenly became the prey.

  Too weary to fight back against these nimble enemies, the monster pumped its massive tail. It quickly rose up and away. The dogged opees clung to the trail, their noses sampling the ribbon of blood leaking from the monster's flank.

  The monster was higher now. Fingers of white light stabbed down from above. A thick school of daggert broke apart in the monster's bow wave like wind-scattered steam.

  One opee swam close and spat out its sticky capture-tongue. An instant later, the monster's tail swept back in mid-stroke, bashing the smaller fish on the side of the head. The dead opee sank bellyup into the dark waters below.

  The second opee stuck to the hunt, drafting in the monster's wake. They swam above a row of rocky columns that guarded an underwater landscape of peaks and pits. Drifting curtains of green glie caught the light from above and sparkled as if they had been knitted from emeralds.

  The opee swam high then jetted down like a dive-bombing bird, tearing loose a piece of the monster's back. The monster's booming cry would echo halfway across the ocean before it dissipated. Blinded with rage and pain, the monster thrashed upwards with delirious effort.

  It was quite surprised when it breached the surface.

  The monster sailed through the air, wet skin glistening. Falling was a rare sensation for it. Landing hard on a solid plane was an utterly novel one.

  Eighteen hundred tons of flesh hit the beach with a brain-splitting thud. Bones snapped like twigs under a soggy blanket. Stunned, the monster sucked unfamiliar air deep into its compound lungs. It pawed at the sand with its front claws, but could not move itself.

  The monster had always been a creature of mystery and menace. Now it was helpless.

  Yet something else was visible where the monster had scraped away the sand. Deep in the ground, bright against the black bedrock, the silver of scratched durasteel glinted in the morning sun.

  The creature of myth had revealed a lair of shadows. Neither one had ever been seen by outsiders.

  Before the day was done, that would change.

  ***

  "Panaka! I see him!"

  The call broadcast tinnily in Lieutenant Panaka's ear through his helmet-mounted comlink. Heavy running steps thudded on the floor above Panaka's head, accompanied by the unmistakable brapp brapp of a blaster pistol. Panaka swore silently. They were supposed to capture the suspect, not kill him. Bialy knew her training better than that.

  Panaka eased farther down the rickety wooden staircase, struggling to see in the darkness ofthe perfume cellar. Now that the situation had degenerated into a firefight, he regretted not being upstairs to act as Bialy's backup. But it had been his decision to split up and herd the target into an ambush. The tactic had been drilled into him at the Tracker's Guild on Tolan by a disciplined Zabrak he still remembered with respect. Panaka hated to think the tactic might be flawed. No, he thought, the tactic is sound. If it fails, it is only because I have erred in applying it.

  Panaka's boots touched softly on the staircase. The leather of his Royal Security Force uniform creaked as he brought his S-5 blaster pistol up under his right ear. Upstairs, things had had gone eerily silent. He considered comlinking Bialy but didn't want to disrupt whatever advantage the silence might afford.

  From above came a crash, a thump, a panicked com link call - "Panaka, he's coming, he's coming" - and heavy slapping footfalls on the floorboards. Panaka brought his blaster to bear on the cellar door at the top of the stairs. His index finger hovered over the trigger for the anaesthetic dart shooter.

  The sheer violence of the impact amazed him. With a terrific smash the door flew off its hinges. Panaka dropped face down on the stairs and brought his arm up over his head just as the door fell on top of him. The crushing weight of a body landed atop the door, then suddenly sprang off. Panaka grunted in pain at the squeeze, then shoved the door off the side of the stairs. He pulled himself into a crouch, gun in hand. The door hit the cellar floor with a clatter.

  There was no sign of the suspect. The cellar of the Port Landien Perfumery was dark, with many concealed corners among the head-high bottle racks. But like all perfumeries, this basement was equipped with a drainage trough - it was how Panaka had entered the room in the first place to set up his ambush. If he didn't reach the trough before his quarry, the runner was as good as gone.

  Panaka jumped off the side ofthe staircase. Holding his blaster in both hands he advanced quickly through the racks of ripening fragrances.

  He was halfway to the drainage trough when the attack came. As he passed an alcove formed by three intersecting racks, what could have been mistaken for a pile of rags on the stone floor suddenly grew long arms with crooked fingers. Springing from its fetal crouch, a Gungan launched itself at his chest.

  Panaka swung his pistol around, but the Gungan took hold of Panaka's wrists before he could bring his weapon to bear. Panaka fell backward, relaxing his body in mid-fall. He hoped to pull the Gungan into a flip, but unexpectedly crashed against a perfume rack. Broken glass and pungent liquid rained on him as he slid to the floor.

  The Gungan, striking brown-and-yellow stripes defining his wiry physique, smashed Panaka's wrists against the cold floor. The S-5 skidded out of reach. The two opponents grappled in a floor tangle, muscles straining for leverage. Panaka suddenly pulled his left hand in and threw his weight over to the same side, triggering a roll that left him on top and the Gungan underneath. Despite the advantage he still could not free his arms from his attacker's vice-like clamp.

  Panaka knew Gungans were strong. This one was apparently stronger than most. His wrists popped as the radius and ulna ground together. Panaka's face was a misshapen mask of strain and suffering. The Gungan grimaced right back at him. Their faces were mere centimeters apart.

  With a wet crack, the Gungan's prehensile tongue exploded outwards. It smacked Panaka's nose with an agonizing snap and briskly withdrew. A second lightning jab swatted the soft flesh beneath Panaka's left eye, taking a piece of skin with it.

  The third tongue-jab hit Panaka's left eyeball and struck there. The Gungan, seeing the adhesive had set, began to suck its tongue back into its mouth.

  Panaka did the only thing he could, hurling his head forward with all h
is strength, slamming it straight into the Gungan's snout. The force of the headbutt squashed the Gungan's elastic facial cartilage, forcing the top teeth against the bottom row with a loud snap. The tongue was caught in the middle. The Gungan howled in pain. panaka slammed his head forward a second time, knocking his attacker right between the eyestalks. The Gungan relaxed his grip as his body went limp.

  Holding one hand over his throbbing eye, Panaka slowly sat up. Behind him came the racket of Bialy descending the stairs.

  Bits of broken transparisteel lay strewn across the floor like a minefield of ice. A lake of perfume pooled around his knees. Panaka wrinkled his nose at the smell, and was rewarded with a fresh trickle of blood from his nostrils.

  They'd nabbed their target, but for now all Panaka could think about was a bandage and a shower.

  ***

  Sergeant Bialy loaded the groggy Gungan into the back of the Flash speeder and secured him with restraint webbing. Electronic shackles hobbled the suspect at his ankles and wrists.

  Panaka had hoped the freshness of day would cheer him up, but the morning sun only irritated his swelling eye while the heat brought out the stink of perfume in waves that made him lightheaded. The scents he was wearing on his Royal Security Force uniform would have cost a monarch's riches if purchased individually, for the people of Naboo coveted perfumes in the manner with which other cultures valued fine wines. But the perfumery's carefully-crafted aromas of musk and millaflower were now dried in a single sticky mix across Panaka's leather jerkin, exuding an unidentifiable but definitely unpleasant scent.

  Bialy pulled off her helmet and wiped one hand over her forehead as she walked over to Panaka. "Think we should get back to Theed? We're starting to attract an audience."

  Panaka glanced up. The Port Landien Perfumery was located in the town's sparsely populated outskirts, but a farmer was leading a small boy by the hand over the nearest hill, undoubtedly to catch a glimpse of this unusual criminal. Panaka frowned. He was a Royal Security Force officer, not a carnival barker. Panaka climbed behind the steering yoke of the speeder and fired up the engines. The moment Bialy joined him in the shotgun seat, he jammed the accelerator and bounced onto the dirt road with a puff of dust.

  The wind oftheir passage helped strip away the reeking bouquet that clung to him. Panaka looked back. Their prisoner was glumly surveying the scenery. "You think he had an accomplice?" he asked Bialy.

  "Panaka, I already told you. I don't know." Bialy held out both hands, palms up. "I never fired. Somebody took two shots at me. lf it was the Gungan, somehow he made the weapon vanish. And if it was an accomplice, the guy is nowhere to be found."

  Panaka grunted. He hated to leave the matter unresolved, but the instructions from the Royal Security Force office in Theed had been clear - Captain Magneta wanted the suspect in custody at once.

  A half-kilometer ahead, the tiny figure of a shaak tender came into sight, standing in the middle of the road and waving at them to stop. Panaka scanned the green hills, wary of an ambush. He pulled the speeder to within twenty meters of the tender's flock and slowed to a barely perceptible crawl, ready to gun the engine at any sign of trouble. Giving the shaak tender the "go ahead" sign, Panaka watched the herdsman's balloon-bodied animals shuffle one-by-one across the roadway in front of him.

  "Don't even think about it, Gungan," he called into the back seat. The Gungan didn't answer. Panaka wondered if the injury to his tongue had impaired his speech.

  The shaak, shaggy with midsummer wool, ambled across the roadway. The shaak tender raised his hand in thanks as Panaka throttled back up to cruising speed. Bialy turned in her seat and returned the shaak tender's wave.

  "So how about it, Gungan?" Panaka called. "You have a friend back there at the Port?"

  The Gungan kept his voice low. "Mesa sayen nutten."

  "You have a friend with a blaster?" Panaka flexed his hands on the steering yoke. "Trying to kill a Royal Security Officer is light years removed from vandalism and theft, friend. We can charge you with attempted murder of a royal protector. To a Naboo judge, that's one step removed from regicide."

  The Gungan looked to Bialy, then to Panaka. "My no haven a blaster. Mesa doen nutten."

  We've got witnesses who reported a Gungan sneaking around their town," Panaka shot back. "Crimes were committed during the same period. Most people would peg you as the likely suspect"

  The Gungan laughed. "To dem, mesa only crime tis bein a Gungan."

  Panaka shook his head. Typical.

  The cynical cheer drained from the Gungan's face. He spat out some blood. "Yousa no know what yousa doen," he said sadly.

  Bialy turned in her seat. "What do you mean?"

  "Yousa tink yousa doen right. Boot what yousa doen tis terribad."

  "Care to elaborate?" Panaka offered.

  "Not to yousa. No can trust yousa."

  "Suit yourself."

  The Gungan slumped down in the rear seat and heaved a sigh.

  "Berry bombad for yousa world. Berry bombad for yousa."

  Panaka scowled. "Is that a threat?"

  "No no, tis no threat. Tis truth. Nutten yousa can do to change dat." He looked down at the binders that held his wrists. "Un now, nutten mesa can do neither."

  ***

  Scrip scrip scrip

  Panaka held the pick between his thumb and forefinger, twisting it to reach the inside of the liquid-cable cylinder. The little cartridge normally held compressed spraymist which hardened into a continuous spool of rope when fired. Unfortunately, the cartridge gummed up easily.

  Scrip scrip scrip

  The sound seemed quite loud,

  here in the empty confines of the Royal Naboo Security Force's dispatch office. Panaka sat on the bench in front of his locker, last week's assignment board propped on his knees as a makeshift table. Sundry components of his S-5 blaster pistol lay scattered across the board's surface.

  In fact, Panaka did not know which seemed louder - the scrape of the pick or the whine as he exhaled through the bacta sheath on his broken nose. A smaller bacta patch covered the angry blotch beneath his left eye. The Palace healer who had treated him had ordered Panaka to take the rest of the day off. But Panaka had nothing he wanted to get home to. He sat alone in the room, content for the moment with the straightforward challenge of ungumming a gadget. Light spilled into the room from a row of open windows, looking out onto a narrow avenue and a boathouse on the shore of the river Solleu.

  Panaka placed the cylinder between his palms and rubbed them rapidly back and forth. Heating the cartridge often loosened the dried goo inside. He lifted the pick again and resumed the scrip scrip scrip of cleaning.

  With a careful scrape Panaka pulled a curlicue of dried spraymist out of the barrel's inner workings. The cleansing complete, he began reassembling the puzzle pieces of his S-5. The blaster pistol was already a heavy weapon, burdened with two oversized scopes and an anaesthetic dart cartridge. if Panaka's prototype liquid-cable shooter were to ever become standard equipment it would have to be small enough not to interfere with the aiming and firing of the S-5. And it would have to stop gumming up.

  Panaka was determined to make it work. A grappling hook on a liquid cable line would allow officers to rappel down buildings and evacuate the King in emergencies. His anti-terrorism classes had taught him that the difference between life and death was often a matter of seconds.

  The door to the dispatch office shot up into the ceiling. DuKane, a rangy mustachioed officer with dark soulful eyes, walked through the entrance wearing a smile. His face lit up when he saw Panaka. "I just saw your Gungan, Panaka, so of course I had to come and see you." DuKane whooped with laughter. "And it's true! You look worse than he does!"

  Panaka flashed a quick smile, tight and false. He said nothing.

  DuKane pulled his helmet from his locker. "The perfume was a nice touch. I can still smell it from here. Reminds me of my grandmother."

  "That perfumery lost dozens of bottles of Monti
cano-era stock." Panaka slid the S-5's auxiliary targeting scope into its holding bracket. "It's hard on the owners."

  "Yeah, well stay out of trouble, Panaka." DuKane headed for the door. "King Veruna's hosting a visitor from Coruscant. The off-worlder is in with the captain right now. And they seemed to be real interested in your Gungan." Reading Panaka's skepticism, he added, "No joke this time. Keep on your toes." The door sealed behind him, leaving the room quiet once more. Panaka's shoulders visibly relaxed.

  By their nature, security officers were a tight-knit crew. Forced to uphold a professional image among the citizens of Naboo, officers gathered together in the off-hours to blow off steam with ribald banter and wild practical jokes. This was the unseen culture of the stationhouse. It was a culture Panaka found completely alien.

  It wasn't that he hadn't tried. But while Bialy fired off playful insults with ease, Panaka came across as stiff and counterfeit when discussing anything not directly related to his job. Panaka's fellow officers frustrated him in a way no enemy ever could. No matter how hard he studied, he would never be their after-hours buddy. No matter how long he trained, he could never regale them with farfetched yarns over drinks in a tapcaf.

  If he could not win their friendship then he would earn their respect. Panaka had had years of elite offworld education. Most of them had never left Naboo. Through the sheer weight of his competence he would command their admiration, and he would reinforce it every day by never, ever deviating from a sterling example. He was a lieutenant now, but he would not be for long. And Captain Magneta, skilled as she was, could not be the head of Security Forces forever.

  Panaka aligned the magnetic bolt of the liquid-cable cartridge and snapped it into place. The prototype chamber sprouted from the S-5 like an outrigger pontoon, just above the barrel and slightly offset so it wouldn't block the scope. Panaka hefted the assembled weapon and sighted down its length, taking note of the added weight.

  His comlink crackled. "Panaka here," he announced, holstering the S-5.