by Timothy Zahn
"No, I've got something else in mind," Luke assured her, leaning the cover up against the wall by the door and closing down his lightsaber. "Time to go for the high ground." Getting a grip on two of the pipes fastened to the wall, he started to climb.
Mara followed silently, clearly puzzled but willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. Midway through their climb, he could sense when she suddenly caught on. "Okay," he said when they were about two meters off the deck. Looking down over his shoulder, he stretched out to the Force and lifted the two covers to hover in the air just beneath him and Mara, their bowl sides up. "You ready?" he said.
Her answer was the snap-hiss of her lightsaber. Reaching over to the dripping bulkhead, she slashed the blade through it.
With a sudden gurgle, the trickle became a flood, the aromatic fuel flowing down the wall and running across the floor. "Watch your timing," Luke warned as the sloshing pool began to fill the small room. "Remember, the lips on these things are only about ten centimeters high."
"I know," Mara assured him. She had her lightsaber closed down and back on her belt now, with her sleeve gun drawn. "Get ready... now."
Abruptly, the door slid open at her Force command, the pool of fuel flowing out into the corridor. There was a surprised yelp from one of the wolvkils—
And Mara fired a single shot from her blaster into the liquid.
It ignited with a tremendous roar, the flames shooting nearly a meter off the deck. Even with the hovering covers protecting them, Luke found himself wincing at the rush of heat that washed over and past him. The yelp outside had become a howl of pain and fear, and he could hear startled Vagaari voices mixed in with those of the wolvkils. The height of the flames diminished as the blazing liquid continued to flow out into the corridor, settling down to perhaps thirty centimeters.
It was time to go. "Take the right one," he called to Mara over the noise of the flames, pointing to the hovering cover nearest her. He felt her take its weight. Then, focusing all his attention on the other one, he maneuvered it into the center of the doorway and settled it down onto the deck. Bracing himself, he jumped.
He hit the cover dead center, dropping into a crouch as he landed. The flames crackled all around him, flowing nearly to the level of the cover's lip, giving him the sudden feeling of being in a boat floating on a river of fire. Recovering his balance, he straightened up and looked around.
The entire corridor was filled with fire and smoke and the screams and howls of the injured. Through the shimmering heat haze to his left he could see flame-sheathed Vagaari writhing in agony as they staggered around trying to find a way out of the rolling river of fire. To his right, the blast doors reflected back the light of the flames, making metallic pinging noises as the sudden heat created uneven expansion in the metal.
Surprisingly, he saw only a couple of wolvkil bodies lying burning in the inferno. Apparently, the animals' speed was as good for escape as it was for attack.
Turning back to the room, he again stretched out to the Force, taking the second cover from Mara's grip. Sliding it over his head through the blocked doorway, he maneuvered it along the corridor and set it down in the flames just in front of the blast doors. "Okay," he called to Mara. "Let's go."
Bending his knees, he leapt over the fire to land in the center of this second metal boat. He glanced back to see Mara land safely in the cover he'd just vacated, then turned and slapped the blast door release.
There were no Vagaari waiting on the other side, though if there had been the flaming liquid now streaming out along the floor toward them would probably have sent them running anyway. Luke made another jump to get past the edge of the expanding fire and turned back around, ready in case Mara needed assistance.
She didn't. Without having to pause to open the blast doors as Luke had had to, she did the final part of the trip in two quick back-to-back leaps, landing on the deck beside him. Even before she was down, he stretched back out to the control and closed the blast doors again.
"Well, that was fun," she said, breathing hard after her trip through the smoke. With its source of new fuel now blocked, the fire on this side of the blast doors had settled into a small pool that was busily burning itself out. "Uliar's going to have a fit when he sees what we've done to his Dreadnaught."
"He can bill us," Luke said, looking around. "I vote we get out of this corridor. The command deck's another four decks up anyway."
"Seconded and approved," Mara said. "I take it you'll want to avoid the turbolifts?"
"Absolutely," Luke said, looking up at the high ceiling. "But as you pointed out, they haven't yet seen how high we can jump."
Igniting his lightsaber, he locked the switch on and hurled it spinning into the ceiling, carving out a neat hole just wide enough to pass comfortably through. "There we go," he said, catching the weapon and closing it down as Mara fielded the circle of deck metal as it tumbled toward them. "Let's go."
* * *
They made it to the command deck's level without further trouble. Either the Vagaari had been thrown into disarray by the turning of their firetrap against them, or else Mara had been right about their defenses being focused on that single corridor.
Still, there was a lot of distance yet to cover before they reached the command deck, and a potentially large number of Vagaari still available for Estosh to throw at them. Senses alert, lightsabers held at the ready, they started forward.
But for a while, Luke began to wonder if the aliens had indeed given up. As they'd already discovered on the lower decks, the damage was greatest in the Dreadnaught's midsection, where Thrawn's attack had methodically taken out the turbolaser blisters and shield projectors. The debris and twisted bulkheads made for ideal ambush points, yet the Vagaari made no attempt to use them. There were occasional stacks or lines of explosives, but laid out hurriedly and with no attempt at subtlety or camouflage, almost as if simply dropped there by Vagaari trying desperately to get out of the path of the approaching Jedi. The two clusters that couldn't be bypassed were quickly disarmed.
They made it through the midsection and continued on into the forward operations and crew areas. Here the resistance was slightly better organized: teams of three to five Vagaari would lurk in doorways or curves in the corridor, firing concerted volleys of blasterfire as Luke and Mara came into view. But again, Jedi senses and reflexes were more than adequate to the task, and it usually took only a few seconds of fire for the aliens to realize that their surprise had failed and to break off, scattering away into the shadows. From all appearances, it would seem Estosh was in the last stages of helpless desperation.
Mara didn't believe it, either. "He's up to something," she muttered as they passed the site of the latest would-be ambush, stepping over the bodies of the two Vagaari who had been unlucky enough to have their shots reflected straight back at them.
"Of course he is," Luke said, glancing in both directions as they reached yet another cross-corridor. No one lying in wait in this one. "The question is, what? What else could Outbound Flight's organizers have brought aboard that he could use against us?"
"We'll find out soon enough," Mara said. "Another couple of cross-corridors and we should be there."
They moved ahead cautiously. Three minutes later, they reached the command deck.
It was the same setup as they'd seen earlier on D-l, minus the extensive damage that the impact with the planetoid's gravel pit had created down there. A wide cross-corridor ran across the width of the ship just aft of the command deck, with an archway and sealed blast door set into the bulkhead directly in front of their portside corridor. Thirty meters to their right was a similar entryway, this one set in front of the main starboard corridor. Beyond the two blast doors would be the monitor anteroom with its long rows of consoles; from the far side of the anteroom, a single archway and even heavier blast door would lead onto the bridge proper.
"They're in there, all right," Luke said, stretching out toward the thick bulkhead with his mind
. "Quite a few of them. I get the feeling they're expecting us."
"They got that part right, anyway," Mara said. "How do you want to work this?"
Luke looked down the cross-corridor toward the starboard entryway, considering their options. The fact that the Vagaari had sealed the anteroom blast doors implied they weren't going to give up their territory quite so easily. "We go straight in," he decided. "Whatever they've got planned, they've either got a duplicate trap at each of the two doors, or else they've saved everything for the bridge proper. Either way—"
"Hold it," Mara cut him off, her head cocked. "You hear something?"
Luke frowned. A new sound had been added to the background noises of a capital ship in flight, a metallic rumbling coming from their right. He looked again down the cross-corridor toward the other anteroom door—
And suddenly, a giant wheel-like machine rolled into view from the starboard corridor. It braked to a halt and began to open like a strange metal flower.
"Oh, no," Mara breathed, tossing her lightsaber to her left hand and snatching out her sleeve gun.
But she was too late. Even as she fired, the machine finished unfolding, its curved head rearing up over its tripod legs, its jointed forearms settling themselves into horizontal position, the hazy sphere of its deflector shield flickering to life and spattering Mara's shot into the ceiling. The head shifted slightly toward them, as if noticing the intruders for the first time, the arms swiveling their permanently mounted blasters to point in their direction.
It was a droideka. But unlike the one they'd so recently faced in Jerf Huxley's cantina, this one appeared to be fully functional.
And it was hunting them.
CHAPTER 25
Mara still had her lightsaber in her left hand as the droideka opened fire. She swung it around, trying to get it to guard position—
Just as the green blade of Luke's lightsaber cut in front of her, deflecting the shots that had been aimed at her torso. "Come on!" he shouted.
She didn't need to be told twice. Moving as quickly as they could while still defending against the sudden hail of fire, they ducked back into the portside corridor they'd just left. "Well, that's just—"
"Later," Luke snapped. "I hear it folding up again."
Mara swore under her breath, jamming her sleeve blaster back into its holster as she took off down the corridor. "Wait a second," she said as a thought suddenly occurred to her. "Keep going," she added, ducking into an open doorway to her right.
Luke broke stride. "What—?"
"I'm playing a hunch," she hissed back. "Get going before it sees you talking to an empty room."
She could tell he didn't understand and that he furthermore wasn't at all happy about leaving her alone like this. But as she could sense his doubts, he could also sense her confidence that it was a gamble worth taking. Giving her a quick nod, he resumed his sprint away from the command deck. Listening closely, Mara heard the droideka's rumbling change pitch as it made a tight turn around the corner and rolled into the corridor behind her husband. The pitch changed again as it spotted Luke in the distance and headed in pursuit. Taking a couple of steps backward into the room, hopefully putting herself out of range of the droideka's sensors, Mara pulled out her blaster again and leveled it at the doorway. She could very literally have only one shot...
Abruptly, a blur of shiny metal flashed into view. Letting the Force guide her hand, she fired.
The droideka was gone again almost before it registered in her vision, and from the direction it had disappeared came an abrupt cacophony of metal on metal as it scrabbled to a sudden halt to deal with this unexpected menace on its flank. Mara jumped to her feet and charged for the doorway, hoping she might get in a follow-up shot before it could recover its balance.
But the machine was too fast. By the time she emerged into the corridor, it had already started to wheel around toward her. Aiming for the sensor cluster in its head, she fired.
Too late. The droideka again got its shield up in time, ricocheting the shot away. It finished its unrolling and rose again, weapons tracking toward her. Mara dropped her blaster, igniting her lightsaber and bringing it back up in front of her. The droideka's blasters lifted slightly—
And suddenly the machine staggered as something big and dark came flying down the corridor and slammed into its shield from behind, sending its first volley into the deck. Mara backed away down the corridor, blocking the droideka's shots as it waddled awkwardly after her. A moment later, she'd made it back to the cross-corridor outside the command deck. A second object slammed into the droideka, and she took advantage of the distraction to dodge to her left and run full-speed toward the starboard corridor. Hoping fervently that the droideka didn't have a friend waiting in ambush, she rounded the corner.
No one was waiting, droideka or Vagaari. She'd made it two cross-corridors back when Luke stepped out in front of her, palm upraised. "It's all right," he said. "It's not following."
"You'd better be right," she said, breathing hard as she slowed to a halt. "Thanks for the assist. What were you throwing at it, anyway?"
"Whatever odds and ends were handy," he told her, glancing around and pointing her to a nearby electronics repair room. "The first one was a power converter, I think, and the second was a two-meter piece of structural bracing girder that had been broken off and was lying around."
"Neither of which is exactly a lightweight," Mara pointed out grimly as they stepped inside the room. "If hitting it that hard didn't do anything but spoil its aim for a couple of shots, we can forget about that as a way to take it down."
"I think you're right," Luke agreed. "What about you? Any luck with that sucker shot?"
Mara shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I hit the sensor head, but I don't know what kind of damage I did. Probably not very much—it sure didn't have any trouble lining up its blasters on me afterward."
"So they can't keep their shields up while they're rolling?"
"Right," Mara said. "About all they can do with their shields up is that little waddle thing. Problem is, in wheel form they're just too fast for a good killing shot."
"Certainly not from a blaster that small," Luke said. "Maybe we should see if we can find something with a little more power and try it again."
"Maybe," Mara said doubtfully. "But then you're going to run into a different limitation. With blasters, the more power it's got, the bigger and heavier it is. Even with the Force I had enough trouble hitting it with my sleeve gun. It would be that much harder to move even a carbine fast enough to keep up with a droideka's speed and maneuverability."
"How about if it wasn't moving?" Luke asked. "Could that same carbine punch through the shield?"
Mara shook her head. "I've never seen the specs, but from what I've heard it sounds like it would take something a lot bigger than that to do the trick."
"So we're back to hitting it when it's on the move," Luke concluded. "Maybe you should have tried that ambush trick with your lightsaber instead of your blaster."
"Wouldn't have worked," Mara said. "I would have had to stand right at the doorway to reach it, and it would have picked me up long before it got within range."
"How about now that its sensors are damaged?"
"I'd hate to try it," Mara said hesitantly. "There are several different types of sensors grouped there—composite radiation, vibration, and I think one or two more. It can aim and fire using any combination of them."
"Terrific," Luke said, starting to sound a little frustrated. "We can't use blasters, and we can't use lightsabers. So how did the Jedi of that era deal with them?"
Mara felt her lips tighten. "Mostly, they ran away," she said. "I can't remember a single story of a Jedi taking out a shielded one on his own."
Luke seemed taken aback. "Oh."
"Oh, indeed." Mara leaned her head back out of the room to peer down the corridor. "You did say it had stopped, right?"
Luke nodded. "I heard it unroll. From the direction of the soun
d, I'd guess it's sitting midway between the two command deck doors."
"Like a big metal vornskr on guard duty."
"Exactly," Luke said, starting to sound back on track again. "At least now we know what else Outbound Flight's organizers packed aboard. Where in the worlds did they get a droideka, anyway? I thought only the Trade Federation had them back then."
"They did, but you forget that the Trade Federation had been allegedly rehabilitated after the Naboo incident," Mara pointed out. "They were all sweetness and light—well, they were all grudging cooperation, anyway—until the Separatists dropped the hammer at Geonosis and the Clone Wars began. Someone probably persuaded them to donate a few to Outbound Flight with an eye toward sentry use on any new colonies they might set up." She gestured. "Fortunately, it looks like the Vagaari only have one of them working."
"One is plenty for me," Luke assured her dryly. "I'm surprised they got even that far."
"I'm not," Mara said sourly. "Or at least, I shouldn't have been. The more I think about it, the more I think droid technology was what Estosh came here looking for in the first place."
"What makes you say that?" Luke asked, frowning.
"It was right after that first cleaner droid appeared on D-Four and you slipped away to scout out our path," Mara said, feeling yet another twinge of professional embarrassment. Like the fake Geroon refugee ship, this was something she should have instantly caught on to. "We got to talking about droids in general, and one of the Vagaari asked specifically about droidekas. There's no place he could have picked up that term except from Fel's operational manual."
"Okay," Luke said slowly. "But we already know they're the ones who stole it."
"Right," Mara said. "But there were four densely packed data cards in that set. What are the odds they would have stumbled across a list of droid designations unless they were specifically looking for them?"
"Even less than the odds they'd find the maintenance and activation procedures," Luke said, nodding. "So this whole fuss is over nothing but a few droids?"
