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
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.
"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..."