Free Star Wars: Red Harvest by Joe Schreiber Page A

these peculiar half-ravaged structures, their slabs and the black tower overhead. “But you already know the orchid can’t live without me.”
    For a long time, Tulkh didn’t answer—so long, in fact, that Zo wondered if he planned on ignoring her entirely.
    A moment later, though, he spoke.
    “Have you heard of Darth Scabrous?”
    Zo felt something clenching deep in her chest. It was familiar, this tightness, like an emotional echo of some long-forgotten childhood fear. She remembered feeling it the moment the ship landed. And now it had a name.
    Darth Scabrous
.
    She felt her gaze sucked inexorably back toward the tower.
    “He wants the plant,” Tulkh said. “I’m bringing it to him. That’s the job I was hired to do.”
    “I see.”
    “No,” Tulkh said, “you don’t.” He shook his head. “But you will.”
    Zo tried to speak, but all that came out was a croak.
    Tulkh stared at her from the other end of the spear, the inarticulate ultimatum communicating more than words ever could.
    A moment later she stepped through the gateway.

11/Mind Eraser, No Chaser
    “R OJO T RACE, WELCOME TO M ARFA . I ’M N ILES E MMERT . W E WERE TOLD YOU WERE coming.”
    The silver-haired agricultural-lab attendant stood with his hand extended. Trace paused just long enough to give it a perfunctory squeeze, his eyes already scanning the area, taking in everything at once as they walked across the landing bay. The ship he’d commandeered was a generic midsized star skiff, big enough for a crew of eight, small enough to escape scrutiny, retrofitted with ion engines and a Class One hyperdrive for long-range travel. He traveled alone.
    “I want to see the research level.”
    “Of course.” Emmert nodded. “The incubation chamber is on B-Seven. That’s where your sister took care of the orchid.”
    The lift was waiting. Ten minutes later Emmert guided him between the rows of plants and vegetation, heading for the chamber’s air lock. The panel hung open, and Trace looked in at the broken electronicsequipment inside, squatting down to place both hands directly on the dirty, scratched surface of the chamber floor.
    “As far as we can tell,” Emmert said, “Hestizo was—”
    Trace cut him off with a gesture, not bothering to glance up. A flurry of activity surged through him: he heard Zo’s voice, and saw the face of her attacker—it was a Whiphid, he realized, the biggest one he’d ever seen—yanking her and the orchid out of the chamber. Trace felt his sister’s surprise blurring into pain as the blunt end of the Whiphid’s spear slammed her in the head. He felt the blinding impact as she jerked back, slumping unconscious to the floor, the flower tumbling from her grasp. The Whiphid bent down, hoisting her over his shoulder and grabbing the orchid at the same time before he turned and lumbered away.
    “He came for the flower,” Trace said.
    Emmert nodded. “The Murakami orchid is renowned for its Force abilities. It possesses power, but it requires a keeper, someone with an equally high midi-chlorian count, to keep it fully alive.”
    “Was there anyone else in this part of the facility at the time?”
    “Just Wall Bennis, the lab director.”
    “Is he still—”
    “Unconscious,” Emmert replied, “in the bacta tank. Our physicians estimate he’ll be awake in a day or so.”
    “We can’t wait that long,” Trace said. “What about surveillance in the loading and landing facility?”
    “Our sensors recorded the arrival and departure of an unlicensed ship early this morning.” Emmert glanced away, abashed. “It must have come in under some kind of cloaking device and managed to evade our detection … but we went back to the morning’s footage and found this.”
    He reached into the pocket of his lab smock and pulled out a datapad, thumbing it awake. Trace looked at the screen. It showed a shot of the main hangar below, centering on an oblong vessel that looked as if it had been grafted together