The stationmaster—a corporate functionary whose name, according to his badge, was Cleben—was human. This, Den decided, was a distinct advantage, since it meant the man had no trouble keeping his attention on “Captain” Swiftbird.
But, naturally, there had to be a wrinkle.
“You’re a week early, Raptor,” he said. “And what happened to Captain Vless?”
Without missing a beat, Sacha grimaced. “I guess you wouldn’t have heard. Vless had quite the run of luck. Got promoted to a cushy position on Mandalore. Merchant commandant, if you please.”
Cleben looked impressed. “So you inherited his ship?”
Den tried not to panic. A simple scan of the docking bay would show that the Raptor had more than a new captain; she had a whole new everything. He started to open his mouth to utter a glib lie.
“Nope,” Sacha said smoothly. She shook her head, trailing dark, silver-streaked tresses over her shoulders. Cleben seemed fascinated. “He took his ship with him. All I inherited was his ship’s ident codes. Seems he’d always fancied naming his bird the Rancor’s Heart. A merchant commandant gets to pick things like that. Captains take whatever they can get.”
“Really,” said Cleben. “You can’t even name your own ships? I thought the Black Sun was a little more flexible than that.”
“Depends on what Vigo you fly under,” Sacha said. “I pilot for Xizor. He likes to control pretty much everything.”
Cleben nodded. “Yeah, I hear that about Xizor.” He looked at Sacha speculatively. “Maybe you can confirm something else I’ve heard about the prince—that he’s in deep with the Imperials.”
Den threw Sacha a significant glance.
She didn’t bat an eyelash. “Oh, now that’s the sort of rumor I can neither confirm nor deny.” She flashed a smile.
Cleben grinned back as if she’d just issued him an award. “Yeah, I get it. Look, I’ll need to go over your manifest. Assess my … I mean, our needs. The Toydarian’s first in line, but as soon as I’ve dealt with him. I’ll gladly take a look at your … cargo. That okay?”
“That’s fine,” Sacha said, smile intact. She tossed the datachip of the manifest onto Cleben’s console. “In the meantime, we’ll go check out the facilities.”
“This your first time here?”
She nodded.
“Eh, you might find it vaguely interesting. Since you’re new here, I’ll issue the standard warning. You’re restricted to the civilian areas of the station. Stay away from the Red Zone. Imperials only.”
Sacha made a pouty face. “Hey, even Imperials have itches to scratch. I’ve got some premium glitterstim—”
Den glanced at her sharply. Was that a lie, or had she really smuggled glitterstim onto the ship? He’d noticed a couple of crates of cargo that he hadn’t loaded …
The stationmaster was shaking his head. “Uh-uh. Don’t even think about it. They bring in their own forms of diversion. We supply them with the basics—food, beverages, medicinal supplies. Everything else, they take care of themselves. And they are dead down on glitterstim, especially when he’s here.”
“Darth Vader, you mean?” Den asked.
“Who else? And be careful down in the cargo bays. Every once in a while someone stumbles across the divide into their domain. That’s never pretty.”
“Killjoy,” Sacha said playfully, smiling.
“Seriously,” said Cleben. “These are not nice people. Any place their habitat touches ours is potentially dangerous. I wouldn’t want to see you get fragged, sweetheart.”
“I’ll try not to, honey.” Sacha returned the man’s come-hither gaze with a sketchy salute and strode out of the office, trailing her crew of two.
They wandered into the commercial section of the station where the support staff lived and amused themselves when they weren’t on duty. It was composed of a broad, curving arcade with various businesses along either side. There were inns for visiting crews, two cantinas, several eateries, a mercantile, a clothier, a repair shop for droids and mechanisms, and a gaming shop that featured amusements from a dozen worlds. Peripheral corridors radiated out from the main gallery at intervals, each color-coded and numbered.
At the very end of the commercial arcade was a wide, sealed portal with a rather understated version of the Imperial sigil decorating the control panel to its left. Even as Den watched, the doors slid open and a pair of stormtroopers issued out. In fact, there were more stormtroopers and Imperial officers here than Den was strictly comfortable with, so clearly there was no rule against fraternizing with the civilian staff.
Sacha chose one of the eateries and led them in for a meal and a vantage point from which to watch the comings and goings of the patrons—paying special attention to the stormtroopers and Imperial officers. Her interest in the Red Zone portal made Den nervous, but it was I-Five who remarked on it.
“I hope,” the droid said, fixing his monoculus on the Toprawan’s face, “that you’re not planning on sauntering down there and trying to get in.”
“Heck no. Even I’m not that much of a risk-o-phile. I’m thinking the cargo area might afford better access.”
“So, what’s our next move?” Den asked.
“Lay of the land. There’s got to be some way to come by the construction plans for this place. Those schematics Jax got from Xizor are a bit hazy on the Imperial side of the station.”
“Indeed,” said I-Five. “I hope it will merely be a matter of me having a brief discussion with the maintenance AI.”
Jax did not so much meditate on his way to the Bothan system as he ruminated, working at further assimilating the knowledge that the Sith Holocron had poured into his head. His agenda was fairly simple: determine where Yimmon was, then send a projection in to make the Inquisitors and their non-adept fellows look in the wrong place, while he headed for Yimmon from the opposite side of the facility.
Simple in theory. In practice … who knew?
He was more than aware of all the traps Vader had set around his prisoner. That probably meant that there was only one real access to wherever they were holding him and that the traps made any other avenues impassable—or at least they were meant to do that.
The blast cage was of no particular concern. It might muddy the Cerean’s biological signature, but it couldn’t touch what Jax felt through the Force. If Yimmon were to be placed in the blast cage, it would make Jax’s job a bit more difficult, but not impossible. Of even less concern were the sonic devices intended to confuse and distort scanners. In fact, given what he now knew about Force projection, they might be more a help to an invading Jedi than a hindrance.
Much hinged on Vader’s certainty of Jax Pavan’s demise. Presumably, the inclusion of Inquisitors in the Dark Lord’s party was his nod to the possibility that Jedi yet lived who might challenge him, but what if there were more? What if Vader were prepared to turn back a Jedi invader?
Jax bit down on that grim thought. Well, so what if the Dark Lord were prepared for a Jedi? He couldn’t possibly be prepared for a Jedi who had opened Darth Ramage’s Holocron and absorbed its contents.
It was Sacha Swiftbird’s personal opinion that the Raptor, late of Keldabe, Mandalore, could not have drawn a better assignment in Kantaros Station’s cargo bays than the one she’d gotten.
The freighter bays were arrayed in long arcs, two levels deep, that began beneath the manufactured part of the station and ended in a series of caverns that burrowed into the flank of the asteroid. The bay in which the faux-Raptor sat was within the asteroid itself, below the equator. Between her and the so-called Red Zone, there was but one ship—a fat, insectile ore carrier out of the Mimban system.
The ore ship had settled into the hangar bay stern-first, so that her swollen backside hung over the broad interior walkway, putting the smaller Raptor in her shadow and effectively shielding her almost entirely from the view of the Red Zone portal on this level. The portal was broad enough to take three antigrav pallets at once, and twice the hei
ght of the two stormtroopers guarding it.
On the other side of that barrier, Sacha knew, were Imperial ships … and the entire Imperial complex.
The exact shape of that complex was hidden, even from the Kantaros maintenance AI. The maintenance system and its automated minions had only sufficient intel on the layout of the Imperial facility that they could perform the most basic of upkeep functions. The various corridors and chambers were viewable only as part of a tactical display; there were no live images or even area designations available. The Red Zone’s internal systems were segregated from those of the main station and operated and maintained from within the zone itself. That meant they had to trust the schematics Jax had gotten from Prince Xizor.
Not a happy thought.
Now, standing at the bottom of the cargo ramp waiting for Stationmaster Cleben and his droids to take possession of the cargo he’d purchased, Sacha kept one eye on the portal and one on Cleben.
He liked to talk. When he talked, he liked to invade her space.
The third or fourth time he leaned into her and tried to put an arm around her waist, she pretended to see Den giving I-Five’s Ducky persona a mistaken order and moved swiftly to intercept.
“Hey! Hey! That crate’s mismarked! It’s not Corellian spice wine, it’s three-oh-seven ale. These guys can’t handle that rotgut! Put it back!” She slipped between the droid and the Sullustan, squatting to inspect the crate and change the label with her inventory handheld.
“This guy takes the biscuit,” she murmured so that only her companions could hear her. “Pushy sleaze. I wish I could get rid of him.”
“You did flirt with him back in his office,” Den observed unhelpfully. “I’m sure he’s just following up on his promise to handle your, em, cargo.”
Sacha glared at him. “I’d like him to keep his hands off my cargo, thanks. Any actual help would be appreciated.”
Cleben had wandered over to them at this point and was standing right behind Sacha as she rose—close enough that she could feel his breath fan her hair. She grimaced. Unruly droids she could handle, unwholesome speeds she could handle, bar fights she could handle. In fact, if this guy were this annoying in a bar, she’d simply deck him. Alas, she was on his territory and he had the authority to toss them all off the station.
She turned on her heel and offered Cleben a smile.
“Leave the crate,” he said, leaning in to put a hand on it. It bobbed gently in the grasp of its antigravity field. “I assure you, there isn’t an ale made that the lads on this station can’t handle … well, my lads anyway. Can’t vouch for those Imperial types.”
“Sure,” Sacha said. “The crate’s yours. Ducky, let him have the crate.”
I-Five obeyed immediately, releasing the antigravity containment on the crate and allowing it to crash to the deck of the bay … and onto Stationmaster Cleben’s left foot.
The result was spectacular and gratifying, in Sacha’s opinion. Cleben shrieked and hit the deck, “Ducky” reengaged the antigrav unit, and Den watched it all, wide-eyed, his mouth hanging open. Sacha took charge of the situation, cursing at the little droid and shouting for assistance.
In short order, a couple of Cleben’s men had arrived to carry him off to the infirmary and the cargo was hauled away by a team of efficient droids. It was during their departure that a couple of R2-AG units wove their way past the departing crates and beetled in the direction of the Red Zone portal.
Sacha, her head bent over her inventory tablet, watched through a veil of hair as the two droids bustled through the portal without so much as a nod on the part of the stormtroopers guarding the checkpoint.
Beside her, I-Five made a peculiar noise that sounded suspiciously like a purr.
“You saw it, too, huh?” she asked as she turned back toward their ship and started up the cargo ramp.
“Saw what?” Den asked. “What did you see?”
I-Five swiveled his oculus to focus on the Sullustan. “How we’re going to get inside the Red Zone. Or at least, how I’m going to do it.”
Less than ten minutes later, his carapace polished to a gleaming finish, “R2-Five” rolled out of the shadow of the Mimban freighter. He approached the Red Zone portal without hesitation and zipped through just as the previous droids had, disappearing from view beyond the guards.
Seated in the Laranth’s engineering bay, Sacha made a rude noise. “They’re probably fast asleep inside those little plastic shells.” She leaned forward, her eyes on the flat-panel display set into the communications console. “Didn’t so much as twitch.”
Den mirrored the movement, his eyes following I-Five’s progress into the Imperial docking bays. “Cams above the doors.”
“I see ’em,” Sacha murmured.
“I make five ships here,” I-Five said—his voice generated internally so that it was heard only aboard the ship. “Several empty bays. As you can see, the largest is the one closest to the interior access.”
They could see that. The empty bay, Den thought, was big enough for a Lambda-class long-range shuttle. Darth Vader’s shuttle.
Beyond the empty bay along the arc of the huge chamber was a second checkpoint, this one unguarded, but with obvious sensor arrays and surveillance cams. As they watched I-Five’s approach, the doors parted to expel an Inquisitor and an Imperial officer—a lieutenant. They were in conversation—something Den thought peculiar enough—then stopped and exchanged a few more words before the officer made his way to one of the docked shuttles and the Inquisitor turned and went back into the heart of the facility.
Neither of them noticed the little R2 unit going about its business, its turret swiveling this way and that. When the R2 stopped at a maintenance port to insert a connecting rod—presumably making a status check or receiving orders from the system—the Inquisitor continued on into the Imperial sector of the station. After a beat, the R2 unit followed at a respectful distance.
“Five, is that wise—following that Sith lackey?” Den asked, his stomach beginning to tie itself in knots.
“If I hope to find Thi Xon Yimmon, I believe so.”
“There’s no way to know if he’s going anywhere near Yimmon,” Den objected.
“There’s no way to know anything more than what I gleaned from my momentary contact with the AI on this side of the checkpoint. I believe I know where the detention center is.”
“That’s where the dark side peedunkey is headed?” asked Sacha.
“The dark side peedunkey?” Den repeated.
“It’s Huttese,” Sacha said. “You don’t want to know what it means.”
“I don’t know if that’s where the Inquisitor is going,” I-Five said. “But if he’s not, I won’t bother to follow him farther.”
Seemingly endless corridors of mind-numbing sameness unfolded before I-Five’s oculus. They were uniformly silvery gray in color, with textured floor coverings underfoot, and occasional portals—all open—that could be shut to seal off lengths of the corridor in case of emergency. Along these hallways were color-coded and labeled doors leading to other chambers, none of which seemed of interest to the mechanical spy. Some had surveillance cams mounted above them for extra security. I-Five continued to tail the Inquisitor, passing other droids, stormtroopers, and the occasional Imperial officer.
Just as Den was feeling as if his eyes would fall out from lack of blinking, the Inquisitor whom I-Five was following finally took a turn that the droid ignored. The Inquisitor stopped, turned, palmed a door control, and entered what I-Five’s swift glance revealed were private quarters.
The R2 unit rolled on without pause, taking a cross-corridor to the left that would lead to the bowels of the station.
Den swallowed a sudden nervous lump in his throat. “Careful,” he murmured.
“Not to worry.”
In moments the corridor I-Five traversed took on a decidedly fortresslike aspect. The bulkheads were thicker and textured like honeycomb. Within some of the hexagonal cells, small blin
king devices sat guard.
“Sonic distortion units,” I-Five told them. “My sensors are useless here, unless—”
He didn’t get to finish the thought. The corridor erupted with sudden activity—droids bustling this way and that, half a dozen stormtroopers and an Inquisitor hastening past him going the opposite direction. The sound of klaxons bleated through the connection between I-Five and his two companions aboard the Laranth.
The Inquisitor glanced down at the droid as he swept by, affording the watchers a glimpse of his face.
“Tesla!” Den sat up straight on a chill bolt of recognition.
Sacha ignored him. “What is it? What’s happening, I-Five?”
The point of view swung to the retreating troops. “Do you want me to find out? Or find Yimmon?”
Den and Sacha exchanged glances. “Yimmon,” they said in unison.
The view swung back to the corridor. The R2 unit rolled about five meters farther along, then stopped before a short, broad T-intersection and turned. At the end of the corridor was a portal warning in graphic characters that access was restricted to Imperial Security personnel by order of Darth Vader. There were security cams here, too. Anyone who entered the access corridor would be caught on them.
“That it?” Sacha asked. “Is that the detention area?”
“That would be my guess,” I-Five said. “And it is at the dead center of the asteroid. Shielded very effectively, I should say, unless one happens to be a Jedi.”
“Or a droid with more moxie than sense,” Den murmured.
“I heard that.” I-Five completed a visual sweep of the portal and its environs, then swung back around the way he’d come.
“Distance to the inner door?” Sacha asked.
“Four meters.”
“Four meters—four seconds,” Sacha murmured. “Standard lock interface?”
“Yes.”
“Which you should be able to open.”
“Probably not without alerting security. Do you have what you need, Sacha?”
“Yep. If you’ve located all the security sensors.”
The Last Jedi Page 34
