Heir to the Jedi by Kevin Hearne Page B

pinpoints again and we were in the Sha Qarot system, a red sun and a black planet crisscrossed with a web of crazed orange faults. Fex appeared from orbit to be a serene contrast to the angry planet, a cool soft plum scoop of ice cream. The whole system was beautiful from orbit, and since we were in the Deep Core the sky was thick with stars. I reminded Artoo to take holos for the benefit of the Alliance, even though we wouldn’t use Fex as a base. Maybe the orbit itself would be useful. I wanted to remember it regardless; we were among the first ever to see Sha Qarot and Fex in person.
    Nakari sent the signal to activate the
Harvester
’s beacon, and we set a course for it as soon as our sensors picked it up. While the
Jewel
took us in on autopilot, we climbed into our bulky armor but decided to leave the helmets until it was time to open the air lock.
    We followed the beacon signal down to a plain of lavendergrasses on the edge of a forest, a canopy of leaves like purple cotton perched on toothpicks. The
Harvester
rested there, seemingly undamaged from the outside.
    “So far, so good,” Nakari said, landing the
Desert Jewel
on the far side, putting the
Harvester
between us and the forest. “Nothing can drop down on us going from ship to ship.”
    Scans revealed life-forms inside, but not enough to make up the entire crew of the
Harvester
. Attempts to raise them via comm failed, so we had no choice but to investigate in person. Swathed in our armor and practically teetering from the weight on our necks and shoulders, we set armored boots on the surface of Fex and trudged toward the ship, stun sticks in each hand and blasters on hips. Artoo burbled something that might have been an admonition to be careful as the ramp closed behind us. The
Harvester
was a Corellian XS-800 light freighter with entry allowed from the ground via a ventral air lock situated behind the cockpit and in front of the living quarters, and also via two loading elevators to the cargo areas nestled on either side of the ship.
    “Cargo areas first, agreed?”
    “Yeah.”
    We approached the portside cargo bay and Nakari sent remote codes to call down the freight elevator. It descended flawlessly and without any bodies on it, which was encouraging. The platform had a rudimentary console connected to the rest of the ship, and Nakari punched in codes to light up the interior. Hydraulics whined as we rose together, though we didn’t see much at first beyond the glow panels and cargo hooks in the ceiling. Might there be a Fexian skullborer perching up there even now, invisible to our eyes?
    “Stun sticks ready?” she asked.
    “Ready.”
    The clanking of our boots on the deck sounded muffled and far away, like someone else was walking elsewhere in the ship.
    A pallet of crates shrouded in tarpaulin hunched in one forward corner as the elevator stopped, but farther aft along the right wall a line of specimen crates with thick, clear glass was stacked three high, like one might see in a pet merchant’s stall. I doubted these held any promise of a nurturing relationship.
    “Check the crates first, leave nothing behind us,” Nakari said.
    The crates underneath the tarp turned out to be bulk food supplies—mostly protein sludge mixtures.
    “It’s our diet for the near future,” I said, “nothing more.”
    “Okay, let’s head aft.” There was an airtight hatch back there leading to a machine shop, bathrooms, and the galley, and from there to the other cargo bay on the opposite side; or we could go forward through the common area and living quarters to see what waited for us on the bridge. As we drew closer, most of the specimen crates were empty and inactive, save for ten closest to the hatch. We clumped our way forward to get a better look and saw that five of them in the middle row contained Fexian skullborers lying on their sides—unconscious for sure, since we could see them, but more likely dead.
    “You know, this makes me wonder,” Nakari