Star Wars: Death Troopers

Chapter 15 VHB

Sartoris walked back up the corridor toward the warden's office with a pair of E-11 blaster rifles, their stocks collapsed so he could hold one in each hand. He'd taken them off two of the stormtroopers in the hallway-one of them, right outside the infirmary, had attempted to shoot him with it. The guard in question, a man that Sartoris had known for years, had staggered toward him with his helmet in his hand and blood in his eyes, coughing and ranting at the top of his lungs. He didn't seem to have any idea where he was but kept insisting he get medical care. He said his lungs were filling up with fluid and he couldn't breathe, he was drowning from the inside but they wouldn't let him into the medbay. Sartoris tried to shove past the man, and the guard pulled the blaster and pointed it at him. When he finally realized who he was about to shoot, the trooper stopped and swayed sideways against the wall.

"Cap, I'm sorry, I didn't realize…"

Sartoris grabbed the E-11 from him, switched it to stun, and shot him point-blank. Twenty meters later, another stormtrooper came at him, and Sartoris had been faster this time, dropping him on sight. It had been like that the rest of the way up. Guards and troopers in ineffective infection-control gear stumbled up and down the hallway, coughing and puking blood into their masks, reaching out to him for help and begging him for answers to what was going on. Many of them had already collapsed and lay facedown on the floor. The farther he went, the more bodies lay in his path. Sartoris stepped over them when he could; other times he stepped on top of them. With every passing meter, the musty fug of bile and stale sweat hanging in the air grew more oppressive. He had never smelled anything like it. If things were this bad up here in the administration level, he couldn't imagine how bad it was down in Gen Pop-it would be a nightmare down there. He wondered if the warden had already pulled all the remaining guards up from the detainment levels entirely, sealed the whole thing off, and was waiting for the inmates to die.

Reaching Kloth's office, he pressed the call-switch and waited for an acknowledgment, but the warden's voice didn't answer back.

"Sir, it's Captain Sartoris. Open up."

No reply, but Sartoris knew he was in there. Historically the warden had faced all crises big and small from the sanctity of his office-today would be no different.

And the warden had something that Sartoris needed.

The access codes to the escape pods.

Maintaining the pods had been one of the duties of ICO Vesek, and Sartoris knew that Vesek had the launch codes to activate the pods. And so he had sat next to Vesek's bunk in the quarantine bubble, staring down into Vesek's hallucinating expression, those disoriented rolling eyes, asking him over and over for the launch codes. But Vesek had been less than forthcoming. Eventually Sartoris had lost patience with the guard-he could be forgiven for that, couldn't he? Wouldn't it make sense that eventually he'd need to apply a bit more pressure, to help Vesek focus on what he was asking?

He hadn't meant to pinch Vesek's nose shut for as long as he had. If Vesek had cooperated, simply snapped out of it for a moment and given him the codes, none of that would have been necessary. All Sartoris had needed was information, the same way he'd wanted information from that old inmate Longo, but the old man hadn't been very forthcoming, either, and this was a prison barge, after all, wasn't it?

Accidents happened.

But Vesek wasn't an inmate, a voice inside Sartoris's head whispered. Vesek was one of your own men, and you -

"He was on his way out anyway," Sartoris muttered, and turned his attention back to the task at hand. Warden Kloth was in there, and he needed to talk to him more urgently than ever. Sartoris was going to convince Kloth that they needed to get off the barge now if there was any chance of staying alive. There was plenty of room in the escape pod for both of them-or just himself, if Kloth didn't see things his way.

"Warden?" Sartoris shouted.

Still nothing from the other side of the door. Sartoris glanced down at the blasters in his hands, and back at the door. It was probably blast-proof, and shooting his way in would only start a volley of ricocheting bolts that might end up killing him. But he needed to get the access codes, sooner rather than later, if-

Then the door slid open, all by itself.

At this point, Sartoris hadn't been expecting it, and he actually hesitated for a moment, peering inside the chamber. Kloth's office appeared empty-the holomural desert scene, an abandoned console, the view outside unobstructed.

Sartoris stepped inside, and the smell hit him hard. It was the same ammoniac odor that had accumulated in the corridors outside, only a more concentrated version, and he cupped his hand over his nose and mouth, laboring to suppress his gag reflex.

"Captain," something gargled from the other side of the console. "How nice to see you."

Sartoris took another step and looked forward, then down. Warden Kloth was lying on the floor below his console, curled on his side in the fetal position, in a pool of something grayish red. When he saw Sartoris standing over him, he lifted himself up on both elbows and took a raspy, shaking breath. Webs of sticky fluid dribbled from his nose and chin. The sickness had stripped away any remaining affectation of toughness and cruelty, leaving only the trembling, skinned thing that Sartoris had known was inside him all along.

"I've been watching the monitors," he said. "This infection from the Star Destroyer…" He coughed again. "It's spreading too quickly to stop. Would you agree?"

"Yes, sir."

"Then we're left with only one choice…" Kloth sucked in another labored, snorkeling breath. "We have to abandon ship."

"My thoughts exactly."

"You'll help me to the escape pod," he said between hacking coughs. "That's SOP. I'll make. my full report from there. Imperial. Corrections won't question my decision-they can access all the data from the infirmary afterward-they'll see I had no choice…"

Sartoris had to smile. Even in extremis, the man was still thinking about how to cover himself in front of his superiors.

"You have the access codes for launch?" he asked.

Kloth coughed and nodded, and coughed harder, the force of it making veins bulge like twisted blue worms in his temples.

"I think," Sartoris said, "that you should tell me now."

The warden stopped coughing. His eyes narrowed, then widened. Sartoris was pointing both of the E-11s at Kloth's face, close enough that he knew Kloth would be able to smell the tinge of ozone that still clung to their barrels, and see that Sartoris had switched them back to kill.

"You're an animal," Kloth said. "I should have relieved you from duty when I had the chance."

"It's not too late," Sartoris said, holding the blasters steady. "You could make it your last official act as warden."

"Put those down. You'll need both hands to help me to the pod."

"I think I can manage," Sartoris said. "After you give me the codes."

"I don't have much choice, do I?"

Sartoris regarded him blandly. "I suppose you could try lying to me. But I deal with liars and con artists every day, so under the circumstances I wouldn't recommend it."

"The codes are already imprinted here. I couldn't alter them if I tried." Kloth handed him a datacard, his hand trembling only slightly, and held Sartoris's gaze steadily as he did so. "Captain?"

"Yes?"

"There's a subsection of the Imperial Corrections Psychological Profile Exam known as the Veq-Headley Battery. It's specifically skewed to indicate any underlying psychopathological attitudes in the applicant. with the understanding that such things might come in handy in service to the Empire." His tongue came out and moistened his upper lip. "Would you like to know how you scored on your VHB, Captain Sartoris?"

"I think we both already know the answer to that, sir," Sartoris said, and squeezed both triggers.

The effect at close range was nothing short of spectacular. Warden Kloth's entire cranial vault sheared away in a dense cloud of scarlet, gristle, and bone. His neck and shoulders flopped sideways, torqued on some invisible axis with the leftover momentum of the energy blast, and then landed with a wet splat, skidding backward in the spattered reservoir of blood.

Sartoris pocketed the datacard and turned to face the still-open door. That was when he saw the young guard in the isolation suit standing out in the corridor, staring at him slack-jawed, his fever-blotched face gone abruptly pale so the blisters stood out like stars. When the guard realized that Sartoris was looking at him, he jerked both hands up and backed into the hallway behind him, his chin going up and down trying to yammer out words.

"Captain? You j-just shot Warden Kloth."

"Did him a favor," Sartoris said, taking note of the guard's runny nose and the fever sores clustering around his lips. "You want one?"

The guard looked as if he'd just lost control of his bladder and bowels simultaneously.

"Get out of here." Pointing with one of the blasters: "Go that way."

The guard nodded, turned, and fled, boots clattering, rasping audibly for breath. Sartoris wished him well. He went the other direction, and started making his way to the escape pod.