Star Wars - Gathering Shadows - The Origin of the Black Curs - Unpublished Read Free Page B

wound.
    Platt scrambled up the ridge again. One of the guards was situated at the front of the dugout, leisurely wiping down the barrel of the E-Web; the other sat off to the side, staring into space, waggling his foot. Occasionally he would lean out and look up at the gray afternoon sky.
    “Doesn’t look like they heard,” Platt said.
    Tru’eb gingerly approached the Sullustan. He fumbled for a pulse, and then stepped back.
    “Come look at this, Platt. It’s incredible.”
    Platt gave the guards a final look before sliding back down.
    “What?” she asked.
    “Look,” he said, pointing.
    The Sullustan lay twitching, but not breathing. On closer inspection he turned out to be completely immobile; the appearance of twitching was caused by the presence of hundreds of tiny wormlike creatures swarming around the hole in his back.
    Platt felt her gorge rise. She backed away, but there was no escaping the stench of the body or the memory of the worms: she leaned against a tree and vomited.
    Then she stood up and coughed a couple of times. “Thank you, Tru’eb. Thank you for sharing that with me. I’m just going to go far away from you right now.”
    She ventured a little ways into the woods, until the smell dissipated somewhat. Tru’eb followed her. “But don’t you see?” he said. “This is the source of the Walking Dead illusion. Some parasites can release enzymes which provide electrical stimulation to the brain of a dead host. So this fellow may be biologically deceased, but there are artificial signals going out to his body.”
    Platt turned around. “Get outta here.”
    “Do you have a better explanation?”
    “Worms operating a complex bio-electrical system? You’re making that up.”

    “All right, so I’m just guessing. But you know,” said Tru’eb, studying a worm perched on the tip of his index finger, “I have actually heard about a similar incident. Do you remember when I was working on Big Quince’s ship?”
    Platt rolled her eyes. “You think I could ever forget?”
    “This was before I met you. I was not privy to a great deal of information, of course, but I recall a story that was going around. Apparently some Imperial friends of Big Quince’s were quite traumatized after seeing a squadron of dead stormtroopers stagger across a battlefield. At the time I assumed that the storytellers were spiced. Now I wonder.”
    Worms inside your armor. Platt felt her entire body start to pucker.
    “Supposedly,” Tru’eb went on, “each corpse walked around aimlessly for a while, then went back to the place where it had been killed.”
    “And this guy here was walking toward the Green Boys over there.”
    “That does not necessarily mean he died there.”
    “No, but something’s definitely up with those guys,” Platt said. “I mean, look at them. If it weren’t for the fog, they’d have the best vantage point in the whole mountain range. You wanna tell me they’re just sitting around guarding nothing?”
    Tru’eb held up his hands. “Furthest thing from my mind.”
    Platt looked at the Sullustan again. For a moment she thought she was going to vomit again. But instead, she stopped herself and broke into a slow grin.
    “Hold on just a second,” she said. “I have an idea.”

    When Harkness opened his eyes this time, it was still dark, but his body felt almost weightless. Not dizzy and thick, not drugged; just light. It was because there was less pain in his body now.
    He didn’t feel as though he could sit up yet, but at least the possibility of moving didn’t fill him with trepidation anymore. And the humming sound lingered at the back of his head in a muted, almost pleasant way. He entertained the idea that it might be a fraction of a song Chessa used to sing; she had been on his mind for what seemed like hours now, although he couldn’t remember her ever singing in front of him.
    “Hey,” he said. His voice was stronger, clearer. “Hey, Sarge.”
    “What?” said Jai, still