Vision of the future

Ghent stepped into the doorway, throwing Hestiv a sideways glance as he passed. Admiral Pellaeon had vouched for him, he knew. But the man was still an Imperial officer, and Ghent was from the New Republic. If this Moff Disra person wanted to do away with him, this would be a perfect place to do it.

And then he got his first glimpse of the room itself...

'This is your new temporary home,' Hestiv said from behind him. 'What do you think?' Ghent hardly heard him. Could hardly believe his eyes, for that matter, as he looked around the tiny room. Crammed into it were an Everest 448 DataSifter, a pair of Fedukowski D/Square decrypt/decipherers, five Wickstrom K220 heavy-duty peripheral processors, a Merilang-1221

full-spectrum numerical analyzer—

'The equipment's probably nothing like what you're used to,' Hestiv said apologetically. 'But hopefully it'll do.'

—and there as a centerpiece, nothing less than a brand-new Rikhous Masterline-70 OcTerminal. A Masterline-70! 'No, not really,' Ghent managed, still staring goggle-eyed at the shining array. And they were going to let him have this whole room? All to himself? 'But it'll do just fine.'

'Good,' Hestiv said, crossing the room in front of him and keying open another door Ghent hadn't yet noticed. 'Your living quarters are in here, so you won't have to leave this section at all. In fact, you might want to change the coding on the door lock after I leave so that no one can even accidentally walk in on you.'

'Sure,' Ghent said, his nervousness about this place already forgotten. 'I can seal it up real tight. Okay if I get started?'

'Whenever you're ready,' Hestiv said. Dimly, Ghent was aware the other was staring at him oddly. 'You know how to get hold of me if you need anything. Good luck.'

'Sure,' Ghent said as Hestiv stepped back through the doorway. There was another puff of air, and Ghent was alone.

Dropping his carrypack to the floor, he shoved it with his foot in the general direction of the living area. Imperial Moffs, lurking danger, and even imminent civil wars all but forgotten, he pulled out the chair in front of the Masterline-70 and sat down.

This was going to be fun.

* * *

It took an entire hour of scans and examinations under the watchful eyes and ungentle hands of what seemed to Navett to be half of Drev'starn's contingent of Bothawui Security. But at last, with the obvious reluctance of a being who heartily dislikes a situation but has no better alternatives available, Field Controller Tri'byia finally led him and Klif down into the lower levels of the shield generator building.

Into the very center of the Drev'starn defense system.

'Impressive stuff,' Navett commented to his glowering guards as he glanced casually around the room. 'I can see why you wanna get rid of 'em fast.'

He hoisted the tank of CorTrehan a little higher on his shoulder. 'Okay,' he said, waggling his slender sprayer loosely in his hand. 'First thing is for you to show me anything really delicate or critical you don't want 'em getting into.'

'We don't want them getting into any of it,' Tri'byia snapped, his fur rippling.

'Yeah, sure, sure,' Navett soothed. 'I just meant where do you want us to start spraying? We should do the most delicate stuff first.'

Tri'byia's fur rippled again. 'I suppose that seems reasonable,' he said unhappily. Clearly, the last thing he wanted to do was point out the most important parts of their precious shield generator to a couple of humans. 'This way.'

Not that it mattered, of course. Navett knew perfectly well what everything in this complex was, and neither he nor Klif needed the Bothans to point out the kill-points to them. But it was something an earnest but stupid pet shop owner might be expected to ask. Besides, he was curious to see how honest the Bothans might get in the middle of a crisis like this.

'You may start there,' Tri'byia said, stopping and pointing to a completely nonvital backup comm console.

'Okay,' Navett said. Apparently, not very.

They'd been spraying for fifteen minutes, laying out the elaborate curlicue chemical trails that were the only way to effectively kill metalmites, when things finally began to get interesting. 'This one next,' Tri'byia said, laying a hand protectively on the edge of one of the consoles responsible for maintaining the power-frequency coupling between