Fate of the Jedi: Backlash

by Aaron Allston

  Anji cocked her head and twitched her whiskers.

  “Don’t play stupid with me,” Allana warned. “I know how smart you are.”

  Anji contemplated Allana’s outstretched arm for a moment, blinked a couple of times, and trotted off—then stopped about halfway to the door and turned around to wait. Allana sighed. It would have to do.

  From her pocket, she brought out the tiny welder she’d borrowed from the Falcon’s tool locker. She’d seen Han use it several times for minor tasks, but never for arson. She ignited it and held its flame to the liquid she’d poured out over the barrels. In moments they were ablaze.

  She switched off the welder, collected Anji, then ran to stand beside the doors into the shop and kicked them several times, which resulted in a loud, metallic banging. Then she crouched down, pulling the garment’s dark hood over her head and wrapping Anji under her arm.

  There was no response. She watched the fire growing on the barrels and wondered if it would burn itself out or perhaps be snuffed by a neighbor before Monarg ever noticed. She wondered if Monarg was even in his shop. Perhaps she should have peered into his window again before trying this. But no, that would give C-3PO enough time to catch up to her and stop her.

  Then the doors swung outward. The one nearest Allana hit her, not hard, and pressed her and Anji up against the rough permacrete surface of the dome exterior. Anji bent her legs, gathering herself to jump on the man, but Allana dug her fingers into the nexu’s fur, holding her back.

  Through the gap between door and jamb, she saw Monarg standing in his doorway as if thunderstruck. Then the man said a word that Han never, ever would use if he thought Allana was around. He turned and dashed back into his shop.

  Allana frowned, unhappy. That hadn’t worked right. He was supposed to run outside and hop up and down near the fire.

  Monarg dashed out through the doorway, carrying objects in his hands. Allana thought she recognized one of them as a fire extinguisher, but he was visible in the gap for only a fraction of a second, so she could not be sure.

  She scooted sideways and peered around the door. Sure enough, Monarg was holding a fire extinguisher, and she heard its chuff as he began spraying its foamy contents across her fire. He was also looking around, paying as much attention to his surroundings as to the fire … and in his other hand was a blaster pistol.

  Allana gulped.

  But as Monarg moved around the burning pile, as he turned his face away from her and only his eye patch was visible, Allana dashed around the door and into his shop, still clutching Anji’s fur so the nexu would stay with her, then immediately ducked to one side so he could not see her through the open doorway.

  The shop was as she remembered from the other night, alive with the rolling and scooting little mechanic droids. All had trays of parts and tools incorporated into their bodies just above wheel level, and some carried more in their hands as well. The droids did not react to her presence.

  Dominating the center of the dome was the yacht. It was now a fiery yellow-orange, its many hull dents either pounded out or made hard to detect by the new color scheme. The yacht was far too big to have been brought in through the doorway Allana had used, but the shop had a larger sliding door at the far end, directly ahead of the yacht’s bow.

  Over against the far wall, not far from that door and beside a desk and computer console, was the blanketed mound Allana recalled. She led Anji over to it, keeping a wary eye back toward Monarg, making sure they never moved fully within his sight. As they reached the desk, the smell of fresh-brewed caf, strong as a Wookiee, assailed her nose and drove away the odors of paint and fuels; Monarg’s cup was there on the desk, just poured and steaming.

  She lifted the edge of the blanket draping what had to be her droid friend.

  And it was. R2-D2 stood there, silent, unmoving, his indicators unlit.

  “Artoo?” Allana’s voice was almost too faint for her to hear. Was he dead, at least as dead as droids could be? Then she saw the restraining bolt plugged into the droid’s torso.

  Of course he couldn’t wake up or answer. Monarg was stealing him. He had to keep the droid quiet so he could flush the droid’s memory and reprogram him.

  Allana grabbed the restraining bolt and tugged at it. Her small fingers slipped from the rounded piece of metal. She grabbed and yanked again, more fiercely, with the same result.

  Desperate, she looked back over her shoulder out the doors. Monarg was still in sight, his back to the dome. The fire was out, the fire extinguisher was at his feet, and his blaster pistol was in his hand. He looked back and forth, his posture suggesting that he was very, very angry.

  A mechanic droid rolled past Allana. She saw tools on its rack, one of them a set of hydraulic gripper-pliers. She snatched the tool, letting the droid speed harmlessly past.

  Monarg was turning now, back toward the dome.

  Allana pushed Anji under a workbench, then moved up next to R2-D2 and let the blanket fall across them both. A moment later she heard, over the noise of busy droids, the sound of the doors shutting … sealing her in the shop with Monarg.

  She moved as quietly as she could, making sure not to shift the blanket at all. She clamped the pliers onto the restraining bolt and began tugging. It still refused to come free.

  She did not hear Monarg again until a few moments later, when the chair to her left creaked. She bit her lower lip and continued tugging. She could feel how curious and excited Anji was getting, like she thought they were playing a game. Allana tried to make Anji feel how serious she was, but that only made the nexu nervous.

  C-3PO should be here by now. R2-D2’s bolt should come free. Nothing was going right. That seemed to be the way it always was for Grandpa Han, too.

  She heard Monarg’s voice, a surprisingly smooth, mellow tone. She had expected him to sound gruff and mean. “Yes? What do you want?”

  There was no answer. But a moment later the blanket concealing her was yanked aside. Monarg, seemingly as tall as a giant and twice as menacing, stood there, a mechanic droid beside him. The droid was pointing with one spindly arm at her, and as she came fully within view of its optical sensors it shifted so that it was pointing at the pliers.

  Monarg grabbed her arm, yanking her away from the astromech. “You. You set the fire.”

  She screamed, a high-pitched wail of distress, and kicked him in the shin. Then Anji jumped on his shoulders and tried to chomp the back of his neck. Her bite restrainer kept her teeth from closing quickly enough to break the skin, but the surprise of feeling the mouth of a nexu cub around his neck made Monarg scream and release Allana’s arm. At the same moment, the mechanic droid nimbly plucked the pliers from her hand and sped off back toward its intended task.

  Monarg whirled in a circle, then reached up behind his head and grabbed Anji. If her quills hadn’t been safety dulled, they would have gone right through his hand. But as things were, he grabbed the scruff of her neck and pulled her off, then slammed her head down on his workbench—twice—and tossed her onto the hangar floor several meters away.

  Anji landed with a pained yowl, then rolled back to her feet, whirled back toward Monarg and … staggered three steps before she collapsed in a whimpering heap.

  Allana kicked Monarg in the shins again. “Bully!”

  Redness suffusing his face, Monarg turned back to her and glared with his one good eye. “You’re going to pay for that, little girl.” He had to speak loudly. Allana realized that it was because she was still screaming.

  She stopped screaming, grabbed Monarg’s cup from the desk, and dashed its contents into his too-close face.

  He roared like a wounded Wookiee and staggered away from her.

  She threw the caf mug at him. It bounced off his left shin, directly above where she’d kicked him, then dropped to the permacrete floor and shattered.

  Monarg straightened and glared back in her direction, but his eye could barely open, and the way he turned his head, like a short-range sensor di
sh trying to pick up an incoming target, told Allana that he could not see her. She almost cheered.

  Then the hangar door bang closed again. Allana glanced over to see if C-3PO had finally arrived, but the droid was nowhere to be seen. In fact, she didn’t see anyone near the door, just two shapes that she might have been imagining disappearing into two dark corners. One looked big and male, and the other small and female, and then they were gone.

  Allana didn’t know who they were—or even if she had really seen them—but she did know that if they weren’t C-3PO, they probably weren’t on her side. She looked around for something else to throw at Monarg—something big enough to knock him out so she could rescue R2-D2 and Anji and get out.

  Monarg flipped the patch up from his other eye. The orb he revealed was durasteel gray with a glowing yellow optical at the center. That was inhuman enough, but then it extended out four centimeters from his eye socket, telescoping and pointing straight at her. Monarg lunged at her.

  Allana screamed again and darted aside. He froze where he was and turned, his head swiveling, the telescoping eye swinging independently.

  And yet he did not see her, not in those first few moments.

  She understood. The prosthetic he had for an eye was a micro-optic, designed to make very tiny things, such as delicate circuitry, easy to see and evaluate. With his normal eye out of commission, he had to look for her as if peering down a narrow reed. She ended her latest scream with a gulp and backed away.

  He spotted her again and came after her, but his leg slipped out from under him—almost like somebody had pulled it—and he fell down.

  Allana ran, hitting and ricocheting off one of the mechanic droids, and rounded the stern end of the yacht. It smelled like fresh paint. She wondered if she could find a container of paint to dash into his prosthetic eye. She peered back the way she’d come.

  He had lost her again. His head and eye turned this way and that. As a mechanic droid passed near him, he reached out, seized it, assured himself by touch that it was not a little girl, and let it go.

  Monarg made a strangled noise loud enough for her to hear, then raised his voice. “Headache mode!”

  Every mechanic droid in the shop slowed its pace. The rumble of wheels across permacrete and servos moving arms immediately muted. A near silence fell across the shop, broken only by faint whirs, quiet metallic clatters, and Anji’s soft whimpers.

  Allana gulped again. If she had to creep to avoid being heard, it would take her so long to get back to Anji and R2-D2 that Monarg was sure to hear her again … or maybe the pain of the caf would wear off and he could use his real eye again.

  But maybe … She looked at all the droids gliding around her. Even at reduced speed, they made pretty good time.

  She crouched down into a ball and rolled onto the carry-tray of a droid passing her. It was a simple move, acrobatics much easier than some Leia had taught her, and she felt very proud of herself as she rolled up to a sitting position, having made almost no noise at all.

  The droid carrying her rolled back the way she’d come, straight toward Monarg. Allana made an unhappy face, fearing that she’d have to kick the man again. But as the droid neared the man, he grabbed it, determined by touching its head-sensor area that it was one of his, and let it go. It moved past him a few meters, then suddenly veered off toward a set of side tables, almost as if someone had turned it off. Allana did not question her good luck. She just rolled free and stayed low, partially shielded by tables.

  Why didn’t Monarg command his droids to surround her and hold her in place? Obviously, it was because he couldn’t. Their spindly bodies didn’t have a lot of room for processors. Probably they knew only how to go places and fix things.

  Another droid rolled past Monarg, was confirmed by him as a droid, and was released. It rolled on toward R2-D2. Allana moved forward and slid into its carry-rack as it passed.

  This rack was full of tools. It was not comfortable to sit on, and she could not help but make a little noise as she situated herself on it. She saw Monarg turn back toward the noise, his eye stabbing around, seeking her.

  Between her feet, she saw a metal file that looked like it might be able to pry R2-D2’s restraining bolt loose. She snatched it up. Then an idea occurred to her. She picked up the hydrospanner beside her knee and flung it as far as she could toward the tables she had so recently hidden behind. It came down on the floor with a series of clangs as it bounced to a stop.

  Monarg’s head snapped in that direction. The droid Allana rode stopped, then reversed direction and headed off toward the spanner. Allana rolled free and came up in a crouch. She was now only a few meters from R2-D2. She moved as quietly as she could to stand before him.

  Monarg reached the vicinity of the hydrospanner, vainly looking for the source of the noise, and inadvertently kicked the tool. His extensible optic pointed straight down at it.

  Allana turned away from him and managed to get her improvised pry-tool jammed under one edge of the restraining bolt. She began tugging at it. It came a few millimeters free. She looked back again.

  Monarg now had the hydrospanner in his hand and was looking around in its vicinity. The droid Allana had ridden last rolled up to him and took the spanner from him, returning it to its tray. Then its head swiveled around, detecting Allana, and it rolled toward the girl.

  Frantically, she returned her attention to the bolt and tugged harder. Another few millimeters—

  A shadow fell across her, and Monarg’s hand clamped across her arm again. He yanked her away from the droid. Allana heard the clang of her pry-tool hitting the floor.

  Monarg hauled Allana off her feet, holding her at arm’s length so she could not kick him. The optic pointing out of his eye socket, looking around as if it had a mind of its own, made things even worse. She screamed again.

  He waited for her to run out of breath.

  And waited.

  She didn’t so much run out of breath as realize that her arm hurt. She choked off her wail and thrashed, trying to break free of the man’s grip, but he seemed to be as strong as a loader droid.

  “The problem with little girls,” he told her, “is that, unlike droids, they can’t be memory-wiped and reprogrammed. Meaning that if I let you go, no matter what you promise now, someday you’ll tell on me.”

  She glared at him, wishing that she could make one of her own eyes scary. “I’m not going to promise you anything. I will tell on you. You stole Artoo.”

  “Yes … I think you need to see the inside of a trash compactor.”

  Allana heard feet shuffling toward her out of the hangar’s dark corners. Monarg must have heard them too, because his prosthetic eye began swinging back and forth, peering into shadows.

  Allana struggled, swatting ineffectually at the arm by which he held her. She opened her mouth to tell Monarg that he was in a lot of trouble, but it was not her voice she heard next.

  “I say, I think you should unhand the little girl. If you do not, I will be forced to thrash you.”

  MONARG’S EXPRESSION CHANGED TO INCREDULITY. HE SWUNG AROUND toward the doors and the source of the new voice.

  C-3PO stood there, the doors open behind him, his posture as awkward and unthreatening as always. But his voice was stern as he addressed Monarg. “I assure you I am not jesting, sir. It is time for you to release the girl. If you wish to avoid unpleasantness.”

  “I thrive on unpleasantness.” With his free hand, Monarg rubbed his caf-abused eye and opened it wider. The skin surrounding it was red and it could not open fully, but it was clear to Allana that he could see again.

  Monarg cleared his throat. “Seal up shop.”

  The doors swung closed behind C-3PO, trapping him inside the dome, and Allana heard the sound of automatic bolts engaging.

  Undeterred, C-3PO took a few steps toward Monarg. “I am now in the process of loading a comprehensive package of unlimited-class total-combat maneuvers, the use of many of which constitutes a felony on most
civilized worlds.”

  “Protocol droids don’t fight.” Monarg dropped Allana. She landed on her feet, rubbed her arm where his grip had pained her, and then scampered to one side, into the shadow thrown by the SoroSuub yacht.

  Anji was still in the middle of the hangar floor, whimpering. Every time she tried to get up, she could only stagger a few steps before she seemed to get dizzy and fell down again. Allana didn’t know how she was going to get her friend out of the hangar. The nexu was still just a cub, but she was already too big for Allana to carry.

  Monarg advanced on the droid, his movements graceful and decisive. Allana winced. C-3PO was clearly in for a horrible beating, and she had no idea what he’d been thinking when he challenged Monarg.

  The mechanic droids had slowed to a halt when Monarg had called for the shop to seal up. Now they constituted a silent audience, their head sensors slowly swiveling to track their master as he approached C-3PO.

  Monarg stood before the golden droid, towering over him, and glowered down at him. “Have you finished loading your fighting program?”

  “Well, frankly, no. It’s a large package, and I’m having to debug and compile certain portions of it on the fly.”

  “Unfortunate for you.” Monarg put one hand on C-3PO’s chest and shoved.

  The golden droid staggered backward, slammed into the sealed doors, and slid to a sitting position on the floor. “You are no gentleman, sir.”

  “I’m aware of that. It doesn’t cost me any sleep.” Monarg advanced and kicked, a powerful blow that connected with the side of C-3PO’s head.

  His head rocked and the glowing lights of his eyes dimmed for a moment. “Oh, dear.”

  Allana had to stop this, now. C-3PO couldn’t endure much of this sort of pounding. He’d be in pieces in moments. Monarg kicked at C-3PO again, this time so hard that he spun himself around in a complete circle and fell on the floor. He screamed in surprise and rolled to his knees, then whirled around to glare at Allana.

  “Did you do that?” he demanded.

  “Do what?” Allana replied.