The Threat Within

  The chairman nodded. He seemed relieved to have an assignment, and

  Qui-Gon hoped that simple tasks would calm the other Vorzydiaks as well.

  But he had no time to wait and see.

  Confused laborers flooded the turbolift. Several of them were rocking

  back and forth. Others were holding their ears. Rather than force his way

  through the bewildered crowd, Qui-Gon headed for the stairs and started

  down.

  By the time he got to the twenty-third floor Qui-Gon understood why

  so many of the Vorzydiaks were trying to block out the noise. The computers

  on the twenty-third floor were emitting high-pitched whines as they turned

  themselves on and off. He imagined that the sound was much worse for the

  Vorzydiaks, who had sensitive ears. To him the sound was irritating and

  chaotic. But he listened carefully long enough to realize that it was not

  random.

  The chaos grew worse the farther Qui-Gon descended. On Assembly eight

  the machines on the line were also turning on and off and emitting high-

  pitched tones. The laborers were completely unable to cope. They stood

  against the walls, twitching, while gooey food product oozed onto the

  conveyor and then the floor.

  Receiving four was no better. Huge vats that needed to be positioned

  under the receiving pipes had stalled. Grain was spilling out, making small

  mountains all over the wing, as well as a slippery hazard for the baffled

  Vorzydiaks. Several fallen laborers flailed on the floor while others

  watched in horror, too confused to offer help.

  Qui-Gon shook his head. The Vorzydiaks' helplessness when things did

  not go as planned was extreme. He could not remember when he had last seen

  such rigid thinking. In the life of a Jedi, things seldom went according to

  plan. Thinking on your feet was a Jedi necessity.

  At last Qui-Gon reached the sub-basement. There were fewer Vorzydiaks

  on this floor, so Qui-Gon could make out more clearly the intonations of

  the machines - the tones and rhythms. Stopping for a moment to listen, Qui-

  Gon almost laughed out loud. He stopped himself when he heard a cry. For

  the Vorzydiaks this was no laughing matter.

  Qui-Gon ran down the duracrete passage to find a female Vorzydiak

  standing in a large room filled with circuits. Some of them were shorting

  out, and the poor worker gazed at them in horror, her arms moving jerkily

  up and down. She clearly did not know what to do.

  Qui-Gon would have liked to have calmed the poor woman, but he knew

  he would be the most help if he could get to central operations. Turning on

  his heel, he made his way back down the passage.

  The tech at the large terminal was madly pushing buttons, but the

  readout continued to flash. He jumped when he saw Qui-Gon, though it was

  clear he had been expecting him.

  "Nothing is broken," he squealed. "There is no electrical or

  mechanical failure. It is not logical."

  "It is not mechanical failure," Qui-Gon agreed. "But there is a logic

  to it. Your computer is playing music. It is conducting the machines in

  this building to play a specific tune."

  "A what?" The tech stopped pushing buttons long enough to stare at

  Qui-Gon.

  "Someone has been playing with your system," Qui-Gon explained. "Your

  computer is making music."

  The tech looked disgusted. "That is just like Vorzyd 5. They like

  playing games. That is all they do," he snarled. "Playing prevents

  productivity."

  Qui-Gon was silent as he helped the tech find and remove the

  erroneous command. Once they knew what they were looking for, it did not

  take long. And once the command was removed, the resonant tones in the

  building stopped.

  There was near silence in the sub-basement when Qui-Gon heard a

  familiar scream. Leaving the tech, he ran down the hall. The Vorzydiak

  woman he'd seen earlier was still shrieking, but her arms and feelers were

  still. She appeared to be paralyzed with fear.

  Qui-Gon had thought that the circuits were tied into the computer

  system. He'd assumed that when the computer problem was resolved, the

  circuits would stop shorting.

  He had been wrong.

  Looking closer, Qui-Gon saw that he was standing in front of the

  circuits for the entire city workspace. This was the grid Port had been

  talking about. The circuit on the grid that marked this office building was

  okay. But there had been a chain reaction, and circuits all over the

  workspace were blowing out in waves. The woman next to him pointed at the

  next hex of the grid set to go.

  "This is the children's hospital," she whimpered. "It cannot lose

  power."

  With nothing to go on but instinct, Qui-Gon raced back to the central

  operations computer. If he could override the network shutdown and flush

  the system, he might be able to stop the chain reaction. If he couldn't,

  this prank would result in more than chaos.

  It would result in death.

  CHAPTER 10

  Obi-Wan jogged a few steps behind Grath and the rest of the kids. He

  was certain that one of the girls, Pel, was the one who had caught him in

  his "bathrobe" the night before. Fortunately she didn't appear to be

  suspicious of him now.

  The other girl, Nania, had a familiar-sounding voice. She must have

  been driving the shuttle Obi-Wan had hitched a ride on. But so far nobody

  had openly recognized him.

  Obi-Wan kept waiting for one of them to ask him who he was and why he

  was following them. But they never did. Grath's initial acceptance of him

  seemed to be all that was needed. Either that, or the Freelies were such a

  big group that they were used to not knowing one another.

  It didn't matter as long as the students continued to let Obi-Wan tag

  along. The more time he spent with them, the easier it would be to gain

  their trust. And the easier it would be to eventually convince them to do

  the right thing.

  Though he longed to know where they were going, Obi-Wan didn't want

  to risk blowing his cover by asking any questions. It would be better to

  listen. Unfortunately, nobody was saying much.

  About a kilometer away from the school, the small band of Freelies

  turned in to a refuse facility. Flip and Nania began pulling scrap off a

  huge pile and tossing it aside. Obi-Wan wasn't sure what to do.

  Wondering if the next prank involved garbage, he reached over to grab

  a piece of trash himself. Then Nania pulled a large piece of wreckage off

  the pile and Obi-Wan spotted something familiar underneath. It was the back

  of the shuttle he'd ridden last night. Apparently the Freelies kept it

  stashed here.

  "Hop in," Flip said, gesturing to the panel door. The kids piled in.

  Nania took the pilot's seat and the repulsorlifts roared to life,

  dislodging debris from the viewscreen.

  "Hold on," Nania said over her shoulder. With a lurch and a shudder

  the small craft broke free of the garbage pile and zoomed out of the

  facility.

  Flip, who obviously hadn't been holding on tight enough, landed in

  Grath's lap.

  "So what do you think they'
re doing in the Multycorp offices right

  now?" he asked, grinning at the older boy.

  Grath pushed Flip off him with a laugh. "I don't know," he said

  slyly. "Dancing?"

  Obi-Wan didn't get the joke, but he laughed along with the rest of

  the kids. When the laughter had faded Grath spoke again.

  "But they won't be dancing tomorrow. Tomorrow they'll be walking."

  Grath sounded serious, and the mood in the shuttle changed. The group

  was clearly ready to get to the business at hand. Whatever that business

  was.

  There was not much light in the back of the craft, and Obi-Wan had to

  hang on to keep from being hurled about by Nania's erratic driving. As he

  braced himself for the next turn he suddenly noticed something he'd missed

  before. The shuttle's entire hull was lined with small, homemade

  explosives.

  With a final gut-wrenching turn, Nania brought the maintenance

  shuttle to a stop inside a transport shuttle bay. Grath, Flip, Pel, and

  Nania grabbed armloads of the explosives and piled out of the maintenance

  craft. Despite his misgivings, Obi-Wan picked up several explosives and

  followed.

  "Pel, Nania, you two cover the east wing. We'll do the west," Grath

  directed.

  Obi-Wan watched uneasily as Grath crawled underneath one of the

  shuttles with the explosives. He needed to find out what they were doing

  and he needed to do it now. It looked like Grath and Flip were attaching

  the explosives to the undersides of the passenger compartments. Were they

  planning to blow up the crafts with passengers inside?

  "So, I forget, when do we trigger these?" Obi-Wan tried to sound

  casual as he climbed under the shuttle next to Grath and began to fiddle

  with one of the devices.

  Grath gave Obi-Wan a strange look. "Don't worry. Nobody will be hurt.

  That's one of our rules, remember? We're hiding the explosives so nobody

  sees them during the evening ride. Then tonight, when the shuttles are back

  in the bay, we'll trigger them by remote. So tomorrow, when everyone is

  ready to go to work, well... they won't have their usual transportation,

  will they?" A smile spread across Grath's face, but Obi-Wan was too

  concerned with all that could go wrong to smile back. This plan was

  dangerous, far more dangerous than changing numbers on a datascreen or

  giving computer systems false commands.

  Grath noticed that Obi-Wan wasn't smiling. "Don't worry," he said

  again more quietly. "We really aren't going to kill anybody. We just want

  to wake them up."

  Obi-Wan forced a smile and a nod. "To work then?" he asked.

  "Not tomorrow!" Grath laughed.

  CHAPTER 11

  Qui-Gon took a deep breath and flipped a switch. The screen in front

  of him went blank, then blinked back on. Down the hall the shrieking

  finally stopped. The break had been successful. The circuits stopped

  shorting, and the children's hospital was safe. But it had been close - too

  close.

  Qui-Gon sighed. He knew the next thing he had to do was to tell

  Chairman Port about the near disaster, a prospect he did not relish.

  Perhaps he had been wrong to give Obi-Wan three days. After this latest

  Freelie prank it was going to be harder than ever to stall the nervous

  Vorzydiak.

  Maybe even impossible, he thought as he made his way back up to the

  twenty-fourth floor. He was not prepared for what he saw when he walked

  into the meeting room.

  Chairman Port stood before a large projection of a regal-looking

  Vorzydiak wearing a turban. It was Felana, the leader of Vorzyd 5.

  "What is the meaning of this?" Felana demanded. "You dare to accuse

  Vorzyd 5 of sabotage after you have already insulted us by banishing our

  ambassadors? I do not understand you, Chairman Port."

  "Here is the J-J-Jedi," Chairman Port stammered. He motioned Qui-Gon

  to join him in front of the holoprojector. "He knows the truth. He will

  tell you."

  Felana looked even more aghast. "You have called in outside counsel?

  Do you think this will make your baseless accusations stronger?"

  For a moment Qui-Gon was not sure what to do. This was certainly not

  the way mediation was supposed to work. Chairman Port had put him in an

  awkward position, and now it would be impossible to establish himself as a

  neutral party. All he could do, he realized, was try to keep the damage to

  a minimum.

  "Tell her," Chairman Port screeched at the Jedi. "Tell her what she

  has done to our planet!"

  "That is enough!" Felana seethed. "We have been under your thumb for

  a long time, Chairman. And now you accuse us wrongly. We will not tolerate

  your accusations."

  Qui-Gon put a hand on Chairman Port's shoulder. Using the Force, he

  calmed the distraught Vorzydiak enough to prevent him from saying anything

  else he would regret. Then he turned to the image of Felana.

  "Please accept the chairman's apologies," Qui-Gon bowed. "Vorzyd 4

  has been experiencing some terrorist activity and he meant only to alert

  you to that fact so that you may be on the lookout for similar activity on

  your planet."

  Qui-Gon could tell by the look on her face that Felana did not

  believe him. But she was not going to contradict him, either.

  "Please tell the chairman that I appreciate his concern and assure

  him that Vorzyd 5 is prepared to fight," Felana replied in a cool tone.

  "Vorzyd 5 will not be humiliated. We are not the weak planet in the system

  any longer. We need only the opportunity to show our strength."

  Qui-Gon thanked Felana and ended the transmission. He recognized her

  last statement for exactly what it was: a threat.

  If Vorzyd 4 persisted in accusing Vorzyd 5 of illegal activity, the

  likely result would be devastating.

  War.

  Qui-Gon paced the long hall of the retirement home while he waited

  for his Padawan. He realized that he could simply summon Obi-Wan on his

  comlink, but he did not want to destroy the young Jedi's cover or put him

  in danger. Besides, he needed some time to think about what he was going to

  say when Obi-Wan did appear.

  Qui-Gon reached the end of the hall and turned on his heel. If he did

  not give Obi-Wan the three days he'd promised, the boy would lose

  confidence. But things were getting out of hand. If Qui-Gon kept silent...

  Suddenly Qui-Gon's thoughts were interrupted by a timid woman's

  voice. "Excuse me," she said.

  With his long strides Qui-Gon had covered the distance of the hallway

  nearly a dozen times without giving any notice to the one open door. Now he

  stopped in front of it and gazed at the elderly Vorzydiak woman who

  beckoned him.

  "I am sorry," she said, looking nervously up at Qui-Gon's imposing

  figure. "You are not a laborer are you? I thought maybe you were a laborer

  coming to visit. The laborers seem to think life ends when the work is

  finished. They are too busy to visit. But I heard someone out here and I

  thought - "

  "I would be happy to visit with you," Qui-Gon said gently. Even in

  his distracted state, his heart went out to this woman.
r />   "Oh, would you? I do not get many visitors. And do not get me wrong -

  I do not blame them. It is the Vorzyd way."

  Qui-Gon followed the woman into her small room and sat across from

  her on a chair. She did not ask him who he was, but continued to talk,

  simply enjoying the fact that there was someone there to listen.

  "We live to work, you know. Nobody realizes that there is life beyond

  the work. Nobody knows. Sometimes I wish there was not. The life, I mean. I

  wish I could die like the others. But there is Tray. Tray still comes. She

  says things will change. That everything will be different. I want to

  believe her, but they are just children..."