CHAPTER 25

As night fell outside the opulent palace of Durga the Hutt, the other inhabitants of the bog planet went about their desperate lives. Disguised in tatters, with dirt and weariness smeared across his bearded face—just like any other downtrodden victim of Nal Hutta—General Crix Madine slipped through the gathering gloom with his destination firmly in mind.

With liquid movements he had developed during years of covert operations, Madine worked his way through the dim streets between rundown prefab shacks in a squatters’ village. Locked-down warehouses shone like military bunkers under the wan moonlight and harsh security beams around the heavily guarded spaceport.

Distribution centers busily processed the raw materials torn from Nal Hutta’s surface and shipped the supplies to the moon Nar Shaddaa. Madine watched chains of light, the trails of regular supply ships, lifting through the cloud-strewn skies to the Smugglers’ Moon and returning with cargo holds filled with black-market goods that were purchased and laundered on the moon itself.

The Hutt race had the habit of usurping a world, then using it up, squeezing it dry of resources and polluting the environment. When they eventually destroyed their stolen home planet, the Hutts would move someplace else—and their crime empire was currently in the process of digesting Nal Hutta.

Slum entertainment centers stood on rickety durasteel stilts in the glimmering wet marshland. The entertainment complex seemed like an afterthought to provide hopeless amusement for those trapped on Nal Hutta. Even from a distance Madine could hear the loud music and louder screams.

On the other side of the spaceport Durga’s palace was lit up with blue-white spotlights that played across its outer walls. The structure rose like a giant ivory edifice, towering and aloof in the midst of the other inhabitants.

Carrying a partially concealed glowlantern, Madine made his way to the wire-mesh fence that blocked access to the spaceport landing field. Under the security lights Durga’s private ship rested, a custom-designed hyperspace yacht, long and vermiform, its smooth iron gray hull adorned with fins and stabilizers for atmospheric travel.

As he crept to the barrier Madine saw other furtive figures huddling near the fence, staring longingly at the ships parked there, tantalizing reminders of a way to escape this world … but all the strangers ran away when Madine approached. He wished he could call after them, offer them some hope, promise to rescue them when all this was over—but he could not.

He reached the fence and held the thin, unbreakable wires like any other dejected dreamer. Armed Weequay guards stood in a tight perimeter around Durga’s ship; their wrinkled, leathery faces were stony, and they waited like unflinching statues. Madine knew the Weequays were not terribly intelligent, but they were loyal and vicious—there would be no chance to get close to the ship. But he didn’t need to.

Madine squatted at the base of the fence and pulled the glowlantern from the billows of his ragged cloak. He found the hidden catch and opened the compartment behind the lantern. Madine reached inside and withdrew the small fluttering creature, a moon moth with powder-blue gossamer wings that beat gently as it tried to fly.

“Not yet,” Madine said. “Pause.”

The moth froze in midmotion. Other nocturnal insects buzzed around the brilliant security lights guarding the spaceport landing pad. This moth was a perfect replica of a common insect, crafted by Mechis III’s finest droid specialists. The moth machine had limited computer memory—but it knew to follow commands, and it knew its own mission.

Madine held the moth in the palm of his hand and pointed it toward Durga’s well-lit hyperspace yacht. “Acquire target,” he said. The moth’s antennae gyrated and its wings trembled in affirmation. Madine waited just a moment to make sure, then he commanded, “Launch!”

The powder-blue moon moth lifted into the air, spiraling on the night breezes. It flew in a careful random pattern, precisely erratic, drawing no attention whatsoever.

As Madine tilted his head up, cold pearls of rain began to drop, beading on his cheeks. He blinked, rubbed the greasy water from his face, but his beard absorbed the moisture. Staring at the moth as it approached its target, Madine’s heart pounded.

This mission was simple and smooth. The moth machine fluttered down and alit on the outer hull of Durga’s yacht, just behind one of the stabilizer fins.

The moth stayed on the hull for only a moment, paused to deposit its precious egg—a microscopic droplet—then it beat its wings and rose into the increasing downpour. Madine waited until the tiny droid was lost to sight up in the night blackness, flying as far from Durga’s ship as the buffeting winds would allow.

He felt a twinge of sadness when he reached deep into the torn folds to his pocket for the tiny controls—and pressed the “destruct” button.

He saw a sparkle of white light, a flash of the tiny detonation. Then he turned and was already moving away from the fence, melting into the shadows around the prefab ghettos. He had plenty of time to reach the rendezvous point.

The moth’s mission had been successful, and now Madine would be able to track Durga’s movements, wherever the Hutt went.