by Timothy Zahn
Mara didn’t reply. Maybe she was thinking about pointing out that the droideka’s sensors were obviously still functional enough to make that gesture useless. More likely, she was conserving her air.
Again, he caught the sounds behind him just in time. “Watch it,” he snapped, skidding to a halt and spinning around. The droideka had stopped a couple of meters into the corridor and was in the process of unfolding. “In there,” Luke ordered, nodding to a cross-corridor cutting across their path a couple of meters behind them.
The droideka opened fire as they backed toward it, but at this distance Jedi reflexes were more than adequate to handle the attack. A few seconds later, they were into the corridor and out of its sight.
For a moment they leaned side by side against the cool metal wall, panting hard. In the distance, Luke could hear the droideka starting to fold up again, and risked a quick look around the corner. If it thought it could bottle them up. . .
But with the enemy temporarily out of its sight, the machine had apparently decided to go back to guard duty. Luke watched it finish its reconfiguration and roll almost leisurely back around the corner into the command deck corridor. “This isn’t working,” he commented.
“No kidding,” Mara growled back. “Thanks for getting me out of that, by the way. I thought I might have a chance to get in a killing thrust before its shield went up.”
“I guess it saw you coming,” Luke said. “Did you know it could shoot while rolling that way?”
“No,” Mara said. “Either that was a very well-kept secret, or else it’s something new that someone built into this particular model. It’s not all that effective—you saw it could only fire straight along its path, and only at the spot in its rotation when the blasters were turned to the right spot.”
Luke grunted. “It was effective enough for me.”
“No argument there.” Mara shook her head. “We need a new approach, Luke. We keep playing this game, and eventually it’s going to wear us down.”
“Or a Vagaari sniper squad will get us while we’re being distracted,” Luke agreed. “Let’s think it through. We know we can’t get it with the shield up. That means we have to get it before then, either while it’s still rolling or else right as it stops and starts to unfold.”
“And as we just saw, it can put its shield up before it finishes unfolding if it senses an attacker nearby,” Mara pointed out.
“Which means we can’t let it see the attack coming,” Luke agreed. “Which brings us back to some kind of ambush.”
“Right,” Mara agreed. “Problem: the only place around here to hide is inside one of the rooms off the corridor.”
“Which we already tried.”
“Right,” Mara said. “What we need is for it to follow us someplace more promising. Maybe aft to the turbolaser blisters, where we’ve got all that wreckage to set up in.”
Luke shook his head. “It’s not going to let us do that,” he said. “You saw what it did just now. With both of us clearly in sight, it still stopped two meters in from the command deck corridor, fired a few times, then went back to guard duty.”
“It did, didn’t it?” Mara commented, her expression changing subtly as she stared at the wall across from them. “You think you could pick out the exact spot where it stopped?”
Luke pulled up the memory. “Easily,” he said. “Both times it stopped about two meters in, right in the center of the corridor where it’s as safe from possible ambush as it can get. Of course, there’s no guarantee it’ll go to the same spot the next time.”
“Oh, I think there is,” Mara said, smiling a sudden, private smile. “Even if this is one of the models with an autonomous brain, the Vagaari can’t possibly have the skill to have programmed anything fancy into it. I’m guessing it’s been given its patrol parameters and is going to stick with them down to the half centimeter.”
“Okay,” Luke said, eyeing her suspiciously. He knew that look, and it generally meant trouble. “But there’s still no cover anywhere nearby for an ambush.”
“That’s okay,” she said. “For this one, we’re not going to need cover. Here’s the plan. . .”
* * *
Getting a firm grip on his lightsaber, Luke once again stepped out into the command deck corridor.
The droideka’s head swiveled toward him, as if not believing he was actually going to try this again. Luke took another step; the droideka responded by tracking its blasters toward him. “Get ready,” Luke murmured. He took a third step, sensing Mara stepping into the corridor directly behind him—
And suddenly all other sensations and awareness vanished as the droideka opened fire.
Luke’s lightsaber flashed back and forth, deflecting the blasts as he continued to sidle toward the starboard anteroom door. He reached it, dimly hearing the snap-hiss behind him as Mara ignited her own weapon.
The droideka reacted instantly. Even as Mara stabbed her lightsaber blade into the blast door, it ceased fire, folded up, and began rolling full-speed toward them. Luke watched its approach, trying to judge the timing— “Go!” he snapped at Mara. He deflected a burst of rolling fire as he heard her close down her weapon and take off back to the relative safety of the corridor. He held position another half second, then broke out of combat stance and charged after her.
The droideka kept coming. Luke heard the subtle changes in pitch as it altered direction to continue the chase, and put some extra speed into his running. If he hadn’t been right about the droideka’s positioning the last time, or if the machine wasn’t as precisely programmed as Mara was hoping, this wasn’t going to work.
The sound of the rolling wheel abruptly halted. “There it goes!” Mara called, braking to a halt in front of him.
Luke stopped and spun around, lightsaber ignited and ready. The droideka was standing in the center of the corridor, exactly where it had been the last two times it had chased them in this direction, its hazy deflector shield up as it finished the process of unfolding into attack position.
And beneath it, lying on the deck beside one of its tripod feet where Mara had carefully placed it before they’d launched their little feint, was their secret weapon.
Lorana Jinzler’s old lightsaber.
Lying inside the droideka’s deflector shield.
Luke lifted his lightsaber; but in salute, not defense. Even as the droideka’s blasters settled into firing position, he felt Mara stretch out to the Force, twitching Lorana’s lightsaber off the deck and rotating it to point upward toward the large bronzium-armor bulb at the base of the droideka’s abdomen. With an asthmatic snap-hiss the green blade blazed to life, slicing into the droideka’s heavy alloy body—
Luke had just a fraction of a second of premonition. “Down!” he snapped, grabbing Mara in a Force grip and pulling her down onto the deck beside him with their backs to the doomed machine.
And with a thundering explosion, the droideka disintegrated.
Luke squeezed his eyes shut, wincing as the blast washed over him like a desert sandstorm, the heat singeing the back of his neck, the concussion lifting him up off the deck and slamming him back down again, the tiny bits of shattered metal whipping across his back and legs and arms like maddened stingflies. A wave of acrid smoke followed behind the blast, curling his nostrils. A second later cooler air flowed across him in the opposite direction toward the partial vacuum, causing a brief moment of turbulence.
And then, everything was once again still. Cautiously, he opened his eyes and looked back over his shoulder.
The droideka was gone. So was Lorana’s lightsaber, he noted with a twinge of guilt.
So was most of the portside blast door.
“Come on,” he said to Mara, dragging himself upright. He felt a little woozy, but otherwise he seemed all right. “Let’s get in there before they recover.”
“What?” Mara asked vaguely, rubbing at her cheek as she got shakily to her feet and turned around. “Oh. That could be useful.”
“
Right.” Luke looked around for his lightsaber, which had somehow ended up another three meters down the corridor, and stretched out to the Force to call it to his hand. “I take it that bulb thing with all the bronzium armor was the droideka’s mini-reactor?”
“You got it,” Mara said, stooping and retrieving her own lightsaber. “I was just trying to shut it down. I didn’t mean to shut it down quite that violently.”
“You must have hit one of the power regulators,” Luke said, taking a couple of deep breaths as he looked her over. Her clothing was badly scorched, but aside from a few minor cuts and burns she seemed uninjured. She still had some of the same blast-induced fogginess he himself was fighting, but it was rapidly fading away. “Come on—we have to get in there,” he repeated.
“Right,” Mara said, her voice firmer this time. Taking a deep breath, she started forward. “Let’s do it.”
The left side of the blast door had been collapsed inward, crumpling the thick metal and leaving a gap big enough for two people to step through together. He and Mara did just that, lightsabers ready in front of them.
There was, as it turned out, no need for caution. Outside, the concussion shock wave from the exploding droideka had had a long, wide corridor to spread out into as it dissipated its energy. Here, however, it had had only the relatively confined space of the monitor anteroom to bounce around in. From the looks of the twenty or so Vagaari sprawled over their consoles or lying twitching on the deck, the wave must have done some fairly serious bouncing.
“They’ll keep,” Luke decided, looking across the rows of chairs and monitor consoles toward the archway and blast door leading into the bridge. “Let’s see if we can get inside before Estosh realizes we’re here.”
“Go ahead,” Mara said, nodding to the left where one of the consoles had suddenly started beeping. “I want to see what’s coming through over there.”
Luke nodded, threading his way through the rows of consoles toward the door. He was nearly there when there was a hollow metallic clank, and with a ponderous rumble the door began to slide open.
“Sss!” Luke hissed a warning to Mara as he jumped to a group of consoles a couple of meters to the right of the door. Closing down his lightsaber, he dropped into concealment behind one of the cabinets and peered cautiously around the side.
Behind the opening door were a pair of nervous-looking Vagaari pointing heavy blaster carbines out into the monitor anteroom. At their feet, growling deep in their throats, were a pair of wolvkils.
Luke held his breath, recognizing the opportunity that had just been handed to them. Protected by thick bulkheads from any damage from the exploding droideka, the Vagaari in the bridge had nevertheless certainly noticed the blast. Estosh had apparently decided it was worth the risk of sending someone out to see what was going on.
Which meant the bridge now lay wide open to them, with only a couple of soldiers and their pet wolvkils standing in their way.
The question was how best to take advantage of that.
One of the soldiers said something back over his shoulder. Another voice replied from inside the bridge. Reluctantly, Luke thought, the two Vagaari stepped through the doorway and started across the room toward the wrecked blast door, their weapons clutched tightly in their hands.
And as they did so, one of the wolvkils turned its head and looked straight at Luke.
Luke looked back, stretching out to the Force. Back aboard Outbound Flight, he’d touched the nerve centers of a group of the predators, searching out the pathways that would let him put them harmlessly to sleep. Now, though, he needed something subtler, something that would suppress their curiosity or their aggressive instincts without doing anything as obvious as dropping them like a couple of softdolls. Carefully, quickly, he traced along a wolvkil’s nervous system. . .
And then, across the room, someone moaned.
The two Vagaari jerked in unison toward the noise, their weapons jerking with them. The moan came again, more gurgling this time. One of the aliens murmured something to the wolvkils, and Luke was suddenly forgotten as the two animals headed in that direction. The Vagaari followed, weapons held ready. Behind them, the door to the bridge reversed its direction and began to slide closed.
And with a tight smile, Luke rose from his concealment, took two quick steps behind the oblivious soldiers, and slipped through the closing door.
CHAPTER 26
The move was so smooth and quiet that for that first half second no one in the bridge even seemed to notice him. Luke took that moment for a quick assessment of the situation: ten Vagaari dressed in brown uniforms standing or sitting at various of the multitude of control consoles, the huge transparisteel viewport in front of them still showing the mottled sky of hyperspace, the big status board curving around the starboard bulkhead showing three more minutes to breakout.
And then the Vagaari who had been working the blast door controls suddenly focused on him and managed a strangled gasp.
The aliens at the consoles spun in their seats, goggling. Luke lifted his lightsaber and ignited it; and abruptly, every one of them hauled out a blaster and opened fire.
Most of that first panicky volley went wide. Luke easily blocked the three shots that had been accurately aimed and, mindful of the critical equipment filling the room, took care to send the deflected shots directly back to their sources. The next volley was even more poorly aimed as the surviving Vagaari, suddenly recognizing the danger they were in, scrambled for some semblance of cover. Luke took advantage of the unintended lull to send the Vagaari operating the blast door controls sprawling to the deck, reaching out to the Force to key the door open again. The rest of the Vagaari, now crouched beside consoles or behind chairs, opened fire again; a flurry of shots later, two more of them lay sprawled on the deck. Behind him, Luke sensed Mara sprinting to the archway to assist—
“Amacrisier!”
Abruptly, the firing ceased. Luke held his stance, senses alert. “You are remarkable warriors indeed, you Jedi,” one of the Vagaari said calmly from midway across the room as he holstered his weapon. “Had I not witnessed it myself, I would not have believed it.”
“Everyone needs a little amazement in their lives, Estosh,” Luke commented. “You look good in that uniform.”
“I appear now as I truly am,” Estosh countered, straightening up proudly. “Not the pathetically eager drone I made myself to be.”
“It was a nice performance,” Mara commented as she slipped in through the doorway to stand beside Luke. “I do think you overplayed it a little, though.”
“No matter,” Estosh said, starting to stroll casually across the bridge. “It fooled you all into thinking we were harmless. That was all that mattered.”
“Actually, you didn’t fool everyone,” Mara corrected him. “Aristocra Formbi was on to you right from the start.”
Estosh stopped short. “You lie.”
Mara shook her head. “No, but go ahead and believe whatever you want. So. You’ve got your droids, and you’ve even got yourself a Dreadnaught to carry them in. What’s the rest of the plan?”
Estosh’s mouths twisted. “Again you choose to let your female carry out your interrogation?” he sneered at Luke as he resumed his pacing.
“She’s just making conversation,” Luke said, feeling his forehead creasing. Estosh wasn’t just pacing aimlessly, he realized suddenly. He was heading somewhere specific.
“Speech is for drones and prey,” Estosh said contemptuously. “The conversation of warriors is in their actions.”
“We like to think we’re pretty good at both,” Luke said, wondering what the other was up to. One of the Vagaari who’d been killed in that first volley was sprawled across a console in Estosh’s path; the helm, he tentatively identified it. Could the dead Vagaari be carrying a special weapon Estosh was hoping to get hold of? Or was there an important course change he wanted to make?
Alternatively, there were two live Vagaari glaring silently at the Jedi from t
win consoles a little farther along the same projected path. Could Estosh be hoping to drop down behind them, using them as living shields while he did something clever?
Either way, it was time to put a stop to it. Luke shifted his weight, preparing to head off on an intercept path—
“Let him go,” Mara murmured from beside him.
Frowning, Luke glanced at her. There was a gleam in those brilliant green eyes, a microscopic smile creasing the corners of her mouth. She flicked her eyes briefly toward his, and crinkled her nose significantly.
“True warriors do not care if they talk well,” Estosh said scornfully.
Luke turned back to Estosh, running through his Jedi sensory-enhancement techniques. The Vagaari’s meaningless tirade grew painfully loud in his ears, but Luke wasn’t interested in sounds right now. Inhaling slowly, he sorted though the drifting aromas of age and dust, human and Vagaari, searching for whatever it was Mara had already spotted.
There it was; very faint and distant. He inhaled again, trying to identify it. . .
And stiffened. It wasn’t the distinctive tang of explosives, as he’d expected, but something far more virulent.
Poison.
Not just any poison, either. The acidity of the scent betrayed this as a corrosive poison, one designed to burn straight through the protection of a breath mask or atmosphere filter and then do the same to the victims’ lungs. It was a last-ditch weapon, lethal to defender and attacker alike, used only when defeat was inevitable but allowing an opponent victory was unthinkable.
He sent a quick, furtive look around the room. There were Jedi techniques for detoxifying poisons, techniques he had successfully used a number of times in the past. Problem was, they generally didn’t work against corrosive poisons like this one. The acidic matrix meant that both detoxification and healing techniques had to be used simultaneously, something that was nearly impossible for even an experienced Jedi to do without losing control of one or the other procedure.
