Showdown At Centerpoint

by Roger MacBride Allen

  interior of the pad, tracing the eireuits, the logic paths, the potentials

  and safeties that were inside the machine. It had been asleep for so long,

  so very long, waiting for someone to wake it up. And now. Now was the time.

  He knew, knew with absolute certainty, how to make it work. No Q9-X2 here to

  tease him, or make him worry about trapdoors and stuff. He knew. He was

  sure. Anakin Solo reached out and pressed the center button of the

  five-by-five grid. The green button turned purple. Good. He paused for a

  moment, and then, stretching his fingers as far as they would go. he pressed

  all four of the corner buttons at once. They turned orange, not purple. He

  frowned. That wasn't quite what he had expected, but never mind. Move on.

  Starting at the top and moving counterclockwise, he pressed the center

  button of each outer row in turn. These did indeed turn purple. That made

  him feel a bit better. The keypad made the chiming noise again, but this

  time it wasn't just once. It kept going, over and over and over. Anakin

  closed his eyes once more and held his palm over the keypad. Yes. Yes. That

  was it. Starting from the bottom right, and moving clockwise, he pressed

  each of the corner buttons in turn. Each turned from orange to a reassuring

  purple as he pressed it. He paused, only for a moment, just before he pushed

  in the last one. Was this such a good idea? He was going to get in trouble

  for this, he knew that much. But would it be so much trouble that it

  wouldn't be worth it? No. He had to do it. There was no turning back now. He

  pushed in the last orange button. It turned purple, and suddenly the chiming

  noise was louder and higher-pitched. There was a low-pitch hum from behind

  Anakin, and he turned around. A section of the floor was sliding away. For a

  moment he wondered if he had been wrong about trapdoors. But then a whole

  complicated console rose slowly up out of the floor, a strange-looking

  control panel, all in the same silver stuff as the chamber itself, in front

  of a stranger-looking little seat that looked as if it were intended for a

  being that bent in different places from a human. Hopping with excitement,

  all doubts forgotten, Anakin sat down in the odd little chair and did not

  even notice that it was adapting itself to his body, reforming itself,

  lifting him up and moving him forward so he would be able to reach the

  controls more comfortably. He stared at the instruments for a full minute,

  then extended his arms and spread his fingers out as far as they would go.

  He shut his eyes and reached out into the intricately, beautifully

  complicated universe of switches and paths and controls and linkages behind

  the knobs and levers and dials that covered the control panel. Power

  ratings, capacitance stowage, vernier control, targeting subsystems, safety

  overrides, shielding constraints, thrust balancing. What they all were, what

  they all meant, how they all worked, and worked together-all of it flowed

  into him, as if the ancient machines were speaking to him, telling him their

  story. He knew it all. He knew it all now. Anakin put his hands on the

  control panel and felt it all flow through him. Wake it up. He had to wake

  it up. The whole system had slept for so long. It wanted to come awake, to

  revive itself, to do its proper work. He moved as if he were asleep, in a

  dream, moving to what his ability in the Force told him he could do, not to

  do what needed doing, or what he ought to do. He knew, somehow, the

  compulsion, the desire to make the system come on, was within himself, that

  the machinery was nothing more than machinery. But it fell as if it were the

  machine whispering to him, not his own in- stincts and abilities urging him

  on. Pull that long lever to start the initiator process activator. Twist

  that dial to bring the geogravitic energy transfer system on-line. Tap in

  that command sequence at the standard five-by-flve keypad to clear the

  safeties. Somewhere, deep below him, the ground shuddered slightly, and a

  low, powerful hum began to build. The chiming noise grew more and more

  intense, becoming louder and louder, the chiming coming faster and faster. A

  flat spot on the control panel twisted and shimmered and then started to

  swell upward, to form itself into a handle like a spacecraft's joystick.

  Anakin reached out to it with his left hand, barely aware of what he was

  doing, not noticing that the handle was lorming itself, reshaping itself, to

  fit itself to his hand. A graphic display appeared in the air over the

  handle. a hollow wireframe cube, made up of a grid of smaller cubes five

  high, five across, and five deep. All the smaller cubes were transparent,

  but, as Anakin watched, one cube, in the far lower left corner, turned

  green. Slowly, carefully, he pulled back on the joystick. The solitary green

  cube turned purple, and suddenly the three transparent cubes it touched

  turned green. The corner cube turned orange, the second layer turned green,

  and a new layer of cubes turned purple. The colors spread out until the

  entire five-by-five-by-five grid shifted through green to purple to bright,

  glowing orange. The ground trembled again, and the hum of power grew deeper,

  and. somehow, more emphatic, more solid, the sound of massive energies

  waiting to be unleashed. Anakin let go of the joystick. At the moment he

  did, the chiming slopped. The control chamber was suddenly silent as the

  power hum dropped away into lower and lower frequencies, until it was so

  deep a tone it was below the threshold of hearing. The joystick melted away,

  flattened itself back down into the control panel. And there, in the blank

  space at the center of the panel, a new button created itself, flowing up

  out of the panel surface, shaping itself into a disk about six centimeters

  across and a centimeter high. As he watched, the button shifted its color,

  changed from silver to green, green to purple, purple to orange, plain

  orange to a throbbing, pulsating orange, pulsing from the color of molten

  iron to the ciull near red of a dusky sunset. The chamber was silent. Anakin

  stared in open-mouthed fascination at the final button, his eyes wide, the

  light of the throbbing orange button throwing weird and shifting colors onto

  his clothes, his face, his eyes. The button. The button was there. It called

  to him, or else his own compulsion, his compulsion to make machines work, to

  make machines do, called from deep inside himself. He did not know. He did

  not care. He reached out his left hand. He held it poised over the button

  for a moment. And then he pushed it down. Lightning flared out from the apex

  of the central cone in the great chamber, lancing out toward each of the

  lower cones, slamming into them with sparks and fire. Thunder, deafeningly

  loud, the sound of the earth eracking open and splitting itself apart,

  roared out through the great chamber. Blinding light exploded out from the

  lightning strike to reflect off every silver surface, flooding the chamber

  with brilliance. The lesser cones answered back, sending their own

  thunderbolts hack to strike at the top of the center cone, blasting it into

  incandescence. Then, as suddenly as it had be
en there, the lightning was

  gone, and the cones were as they had been, unaffected by the massive power

  that had played around them. The sound of the thunder echoed through the

  chamber, reverber- ating back and forth like the angry war cry of some

  long-forgotten god. The chamber shuddered and shook with the thunder.

  Chewbacca, aboard the Falcon, was thrown from his bunk as the ship' bounced

  and lurched along with the chamber. He was halfway to the ship's control

  room before he eame fully awake and realized the ship was on the ground. Not

  just on the ground, but under it, in a sealed chamber, with no hope of

  escape. Shields. The Falcon's shields would provide at least some

  protection. He had to get everyone aboard, and fast. He turned and headed

  for the open access ramp. The twins had gotten out from under the ship. They

  were on their feet and struggling to stay that way as the ground bucked and

  heaved under their feet. Chewbacca shouted for them to get aboard, but the

  echoes of the thunder were so loud that even his voice did not carry. He

  waved his arms, gesturing for them to get aboard. Jacen saw him and nodded

  vigorously. He grabbed his sister's arm and pulled her toward th e ramp. The

  simple effort of trying to move at all was enough to knock them both off

  their feet. But they kept on moving, crawling toward the access ramp. The

  shaking of the around seemed to ease off, even as the echoing roar faded

  away. But Chewhacca had no illusions that things would stay quiet for long.

  He rushed down the ramp even as the twins were crawling up it. The others.

  He had to get to the others. Moving as if he were on the deck of a

  storm-tossed ship in the sea, he made his way to the far side of the ship.

  The hovercar had toppled over on its side. As he moved toward it the side

  hatch popped open and Kbrihim came crawling out, half carrying, half

  dragging his aunt Mareha. She seemed to have a bad cut on the left side of

  her head. She looked half-stunned. Somehow, without even knowing how he did

  it, Chewbacca crossed the distance to the hovercar. He reached out and

  lifted Mareha away from Ebrihim's side, then tucked her under one arm and

  lifted Ebrihim down to the ground with the other. He shouted at Ebrihim to

  get aboard the Falcon, and pointed toward the ship. Either Ebrihim could

  understand what Chewbacca was saying or else he understood the gesture. He

  nodded and started toward the ship. The ground had all but stopped moving,

  and Ebrihim was to walk more or less without being knocked over. Chewbacca

  looked toward the ship himself and saw Qy, down and inert, slumped over next

  to his charging stand. Still carrying Marcha, he moved to the charging stand

  and examined the situation. The droid looked completely dead and motionless.

  Chewbacca pulled at the cable connecting the droid to the charger, but the

  connection seemed to have gotten jammed somehow. Chewbacca yanked harder,

  and the cable snapped. He scooped the droid up in his free hand and headed

  for the Falcon. At that moment the lightning struck again, blasting out from

  the central cone toward the six smaller cones that surrounded it. Chewbacca

  looked up involuntarily to see the dazzling bright display, but then

  realized his mistake and looked away before he could be blinded by the

  light. The light he could look away from, but the sound, the overwhelming

  sound-there was nothing he could do to shut that out. He hurried toward the

  ship as the lesser cones answered back to the master, sending their own

  bolts of fire back toward the central cone. The noise redoubled, louder than

  ever, and the ground bucked harder, nearly knocking Chewbacca over. The

  Falcon was bouncing on its landing jacks, riding their shock absorbers.

  Chewbacca staggered around to the far side of the ship and got to the entry

  ramp. He had to time his rush up the ramp between the buckings and surgings

  of the silver surface of the ground. Judging the moment to be right, he

  rushed aboard ship. He hit the switch to raise the ramp, then got to the

  lounge. He set the Duchess Marcha and Q9-X2 down on the deck as gently as he

  could. Ebrihim had already produced a first-aid kit from somewhere, and

  knelt down next to his aunt. The two Drall, the droid, the twins-Chewbacca

  suddenly realized that Anakin wasn't there. He had half assumed the youngest

  child would be with the twins. He turned and headed toward the door.

  "Anakin's safe!" Jacen shouted over the thundering din, clearly reading

  Chewbacca's thoughts from his action. "He's in some sheltered side tunnel. I

  can feel him in the Force. He's not hurt, and he's feeling more scared we'll

  be mad at him than scared he'll get hurt. I think he set this off."

  Chewbacca just stood there and stared at Jacen for a moment, unsure what to

  do. He had sworn to protect the children above all else. If Anakin were

  indeed safe, then he could button up the ship and wait this thing out. But

  if-if-Anakin were in danger, then what could he do? Search all the endless

  side corridors for him during this massive disturbance? But if he did that,

  he would be exposing the ship, and those aboard her, to greater danger. He

  would have to get the shields raised and lowered so he could go in and

  out-and no one besides him knew the ship well enough to keep the shields up.

  "lo keep the others safe, he would have to stay here. Very well. It was not

  certain, it was not perfect, but it was the best judgment, the best decision

  he could make under the circumstances. If he had judged wrong, and harm came

  to Anakin as a result, then, he knew, his own life would be forfeit, and

  rightly so. It took him but a moment to think it all through. But thought

  was nothing without action. He rushed for the cockpit and activated the

  Falcon's, shields at full strength. The sound faded away somewhat as the

  shields engaged. Chewbacca tried to activate the ship's rcpulsors to raise

  her up off the heaving deck of the chamber, but they would not engage. He

  checked the propulsion readouts. Every propulsion system was offline. He had

  no idea why. But there was no time to worry about that now. He needed to get

  the ship up off the deck before it was bounced apart. Even without the

  propulsion systems, there was a way to do that. Chewbacca worked the shield

  controls, shifting power away from the upper shields to the lower ones,

  extending the lower shields as far as they would go, and softening them, so

  they formed a gradual thickening membrane rather than a hard edge-if only

  the trick would work. The Falcon hesitated a moment, and then rose up off

  her landing jacks to rest on a cushion of softened lower-side shields. The

  bouncing and bucking and heaving of the deck was still there to be felt, but

  the shields smoothed it down and gave the ship a chance to ride it out. He

  set the shields to self-compensate and maintain their betting. He could at

  least hope the shields would protect them against what was happening, but he

  would not be able to do more than hope until he knew what was going on. All

  he knew for sure was that it seemed to be happening above them all. He

  looked up, just as another spectacular cycle of lightning bursts flashed

  back and
forth between the tops of the cones, and then another, and another.

  The cycle was clearly growing faster, and more powerful. There was no way of

  knowing what sorts of energy and radiation those bolts were putting out.

  Chewbacca could do little more than hope that the Falcon's shields would

  protect those inside against it all. The lightning transfers grew faster and

  faster, more and more powerful, until all the cone-tops were a constant

  blaze of light, joined together by spikes of fire. Then, it seemed, the

  cone-tops drew the fire in, absorbing the energy that flowed around them.

  The roaring thunder of the lightning faded away as the cone-tops flared and

  flickered with energy, light of every color sparking and shimmering on their

  surfaces. Just when Chewbacca thought the display had reached its climax, he

  realized the scintillating colors W'cre flowing down the cones, toward the

  bottom of the chamber-toward the Millennium Falcon. Chewbacca tried

  frantically to activate one of the propulsion systems, any of the propulsion

  systems-but ail of them stayed stubbornly off-line. Suddenly the entire ship

  was balhed in lightning, a firestorm of sparks and flares that coursed

  around the shields, sparking and flaring everywhere. Every circuit breaker

  and safety cutoff in the ship tripped at once, and Chewbacca made no effort

  to reset any of them. He had no desire to have any active circuits running

  with that much power flowing around the ship. As suddenly as it had flowed

  over the ship, the wave of power swept past it. Chewie craned his neck

  around to watch the energy wave moving, just in time to see it incinerate

  the hovercar, detonate Q9's charging stand, and set everything else left

  outside ablaze. The blaze of energy swept on, swooping up the sides of the

  chamber's conical interior wall, rushing up toward the apex of the chamber,

  a ring of seething power that grew brighter, more powerful, more energetic

  as it moved higher up the cone. The ring of fire merged into a single point

  of raging power at the apex of the cone and exploded outward in a torrent of

  light that streamed forth in all directions, blindingly bright. The walls of

  the cone seemed to shudder, shake, expand as the power burst rippled through

  them. Another stream of scintillating power coursed down the big central