Star Wars - Black Fleet Crisis - Shield Of Lies

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  make the first move," Lando said. "Artoo, Threepio, come on up here.

  I want you to try to interface with the vagabond."

  Lobot turned toward the droids. "Threepio--Artoo--I ask you to wait

  until we know more. None of our supplies are critical yet. We do not

  know what we are dealing with."

  "I am sorry, sir, but Master Luke placed us in the care of Master

  Lando," Threepio said, allowing Artoo to tow him toward the panel. "We

  are obliged to follow his instructions, no matter what reservations you

  may have."

  "Thank you, Threepio," Lando said, fixing Lobot with a baleful gaze

  touched with a hint of smug triumph.

  "I'm glad to know that you're still on the team."

  Whether it was due more to Lobot's misgivings or to Artoo's innate

  sense of self-preservation, the as-tromech droid proceeded cautiously

  in carrying out Lando's instructions, and Lobot was glad to see it.

  At first Artoo stopped a safe distance from the panel and began to scan

  it, his dome rotating back and forth as he brought different sensors to

  bear--optical, thermal, radionic, electromagnetic. Threepio called out

  the results of each reading to the two men, who were watching from

  opposite sides of the passage.

  Lobot already knew the results by the time Threepio pronounced them,

  for the droid--on his own initiative, and without any notice to

  Lando--had opened another of his data registers to the cyborg's neural

  interface. It was a signal of support that Lobot accepted in silence,

  saying nothing that would betray the small mutiny.

  When the initial scans produced no obvious red flags, Artoo moved in

  closer and extended his sensor probe. The scan head was too large to

  fit fully into the smaller sockets, but Artoo brought it as close to

  the first of them as he could without actually touching it.

  "Field, zero-point-zero-nine gauss," said Threepio.

  "Flux density, one-point-six-zero-two. Alpha rate, zero.

  tive--Artoo, I don't understand a word of this. Will someone please

  tell me what it means?"

  Artoo swiveled his head and emitted a sharp series of whistles, which

  Threepio did not translate.

  "I am trying to hold still," Threepio said as Artoo moved the probe to

  the next socket. "It's not my fault I wasn't designed for

  weightlessness. Most sensible beings live on planets, where they

  belong."

  The response from Artoo sounded churlish even to Lobot's ears.

  "I don't care what you think," Threepio said.

  "Why, you're only a mechanic. I was meant for nobler purposes. I

  should be at a diplomatic reception, helping to forge peace between

  bitter rivals, arranging a dynastic marriage-- Oh, how I miss the old

  days--" Artoo's response was an electronic bleat. "Very well, then,"

  Threepio said haughtily. "See if I care. I don't need your help."

  With that, the golden droid released his grip on Artoo's right tread

  support and folded his arms across his chestplate.

  "But I need your help, Threepio," said Lando. "So stop squabbling with

  your brother and call out the numbers."

  "Why do you keep making that error, Master Lando? That egotistical

  little tyrant is no kin of mine," Threepio sniffed.

  "I can help you, Lando," Lobot said quietly, without explanation.

  "Field, zero-point-eight-two gauss.

  Flux density, one-point-seven-four. Alpha rate--" Lando looked at

  Lobot with annoyance, a sight that gave Lobot surprising

  satisfaction.

  Neither of them saw Threepio reach out and clutch one of the

  projections on the panel to steady himself. But both heard a loud

  burst of static on the contact suit comm unit and saw a blue glow in

  the passage.

  "Gracious me!" Threepio exclaimed.

  Quickly looking that way, Lobot saw that the end of the panel was

  crawling with blue-white snakes of en ergy. They were crackling

  between the tips of the projections, dancing up Threepio's arm nearly

  to the elbow joint, and rapidly growing more intense.

  "Threepio--don't let go--" Lobot began.

  The warning came too late. The moment his surprise abated, Threepio

  pulled back his hand in a reflex of squeamishness.

  An instant later a massive, squirming bolt of energy leaped from the

  panel to Threepio's hand, flashed up his arm and one side of his head,

  and sprang from there to the face of the passage. Before anyone could

  react, it had raced away down the passage and disappeared, spreading as

  it went until it was dancing over the entire surface like a halo of

  blue fire. One finger of the bolt ran along the hand lines, leaving

  them crumbling into black dust in its wake.

  The bolt left Threepio convulsing and spinning in midair. His right

  arm was burned black and smoking from the servos and energizer

  controls, his head was frozen at an odd angle and quivering as though

  an actuator were caught in a feedback loop.

  Lobot loosed a string of curses he had forgotten he knew and started

  toward the injured droid. Lando stared dumbly for a moment, then did

  the same. But Artoo beat both of them to Threepio, latching on and

  dragging him away down the passage in the opposite direction from the

  one the bolt had taken. As Artoo passed Lando, the droid made a

  hostile noise.

  "I'm sorry," Lando said, throwing his arms up in a gesture of

  surrender. "It's not my fault. Lobot--tell him it's not my fault."

  Hastening up the passage after Artoo and Threepio, Lobot letted past

  Lando in purposeful silence.

  Artoo would not allow Lando to approach Threepio. He had to content

  himself with watching from several meters away while Lobot and Artoo

  hovered over the protocol droid and tried to assess the damage.

  From several meters away, the damage looked to be considerable.

  An R6 or R7 could have survived the jolt handily.

  The latest combat-rated droids were armored against power surges and

  induced currents up to and including a near-direct hit from a class one

  ion cannon.

  But Threepio had been designed for wars of words.

  His buffers and breakers were minimal, and the bolt of energy from the

  panel had overwhelmed them. If the charge had passed across his body,

  through the primary processors, instead of up one side, Threepio would

  be dead.

  As it was, Lando could see that Threepio's right arm was rigid and

  useless at his side, the servo controllers burned and the linkages

  fused. Even worse, his speech synthesizer or vocal processor had been

  crippled. When he spoke, his voice phased and changed timbre, as

  though he were a million klicks away on a pocket comlink.

  Twice already he had halted in midsentence, as though stuck searching

  for the most ordinary of words--something Lando had never heard him do

  before.

  After a few minutes, Lobot left Threepio with Artoo and joined Lando.

  To Lando's surprise, there were no words of recrimination--only a

  business-like coolness barely distinguishable from Lobot's usual

  demeanor.

  "Threepio's arm is beyond repair, given that we have no spare parts,"

  Lobot said. "Artoo is t
rying to free the lateral actuator and restore

  freedom of motion to Threepio's head." He nodded past Lando at the

  equipment grid, which Lando had towed away from the scene of the

  accident. "I need the tool kit."

  "In a moment," Lando said. "What happened back there---have you

  thought about it?"

  "I need the tool kit, Lando," Lobot repeated, and moved to pass between

  Lando and the passage wall.

  Lando reached out and caught Lobot's forearm.

  "You were right about these passages. They're getting ready to--"

  Something moved at the periphery of his vision, and Lando's gaze

  flicked past Lobot to the droids, then past the droids to the growing

  glow where the passage bent out of sight. "Blast!" he exclaimed.

  "Get away from the wall. Artoo, look out!"

  "What?" Lobot craned his head.

  Using his grip on Lobot's suit, Lando dragged him toward the center of

  the passage, just as the energy halo appeared at the horizon of their

  vision and sped toward them. It surrounded them for only a moment as

  it raced through on its course, but its passage made the hair rise on

  the back of Lando's neck.

  "It's gone all the way around?"

  "Yes."

  "It doesn't seem to have lost any strength at all," Lobot said in

  wonder.

  "No," Lando said. "That's what I was trying to tell you. You were

  right. These are conduits--superconduct-ing accumulators. Perhaps

  even some sort of gas-tube cascade generator."

  "For the weapons," Lobot said slowly. "It has to be for the

  weapons."

  "That panel is the ballast, the source of the spark.

  Threepio created an arc path while it was building up to fire--probably

  prematurely. He may have caused the system to report a failure, buying

  us a little time as it resets."

  "The weapons are useless in hyperspace. That explains our reprieve."

  "It also answers your question about the panel--about why it showed up

  now," Lando said. "Smart.

  She's a smart lady. The last thing I do before I enter an unfriendly

  room is check my weapon."

  "Testing the integrity of the system. She must be getting ready--"

  "Wait," Lando said. "Listen."

  All at once, all around them, the ship began to groan and growl in a

  slow, deep voice.

  Lando released Lobot and dove toward the equipment grid, wresting the

  sensor limpet from its restraints.

  The limpet was secured in a harness of silk line, with a single

  trailing cord ending in a loop.

  "I have to do this now," Lando said. "Artoo! Map!

  What's the shortest way to the outer hull?"

  Artoo's reply was a squawk.

  "Point out the direction--I can't understand you!"

  "He's not answering you," said Lobot. "He's asking me why I'm not back

  with the tools yet." He closed his eyes. The lights on his interface

  blinked at a furious rate.

  "Through there," he said. "Eighteen meters. But I don't know what's

  between here and the hull."

  "I'll tell you when I get back," Lando said. He drew his blaster,

  burned a hole in the direction Lobot had pointed, and was gone.

  With his thrusters holding his widely set feet against the outer

  bulkhead of the vagabond, Lando pointed the cutting blaster down

  between his legs and squeezed the actuator. A perfect circle of hull

  vanished in a puff of gray smoke, which was instantly sucked out

  through the opening.

  The limpet had been floating freely, tethered to Lando's left wrist.

  Now it strained at the end of a taut line, rocking as the compartment's

  air rushed past it.

  Pocketing the blaster, Lando let the line play out through his gloved

  fingers until the limpet slipped through the opening. Only the cord on

  Lando's wrist kept it from escaping completely into space.

  Then he simply waited, watching the hull breach knit closed. When the

  opening had shrunk enough to prevent the limpet from being pulled back

  inside, Lando took up the slack and pulled the limpet back against the

  hull. Reaching through, he pressed the dual switches that activated

  the limpet's sensors and armed its attachment system.

  Letting a little line play out again, Lando waited until the hole had

  closed to the size of a peephole, then yanked the limpet toward him.

  There was an audible thwack as the crisscrossing anchor spines fired

  and drew the limpet flush against the hull. For insurance, Lando

  knotted the cord around the safety tab that had cover ed the limpet's

  switches, pulling it snugly against the inner face. Lando hoped that

  even if the ship was somehow able to slough off the limpet's barbed

  anchor spines, the harness and improvised stop would keep it in

  place.

  That job accomplished, Lando turned away to examine for the first time

  the compartments he had crashed through en route to the outer hull.

  Unlike in the accumulators, where the entire face of the passage itself

  gave off a pale yellow glow, the only light in the outer compartment

  came from the twin "ear lamps" located on either side of Lando's

  helmet. When he swept their beams through the dark volume that

  enclosed him, a great emptiness swallowed the light forward, aft, and

  around the circumference of the ship. It was as if he were alone in

  the darkest corner of space.

  Only when he looked up, away from the outer hull near which he hovered

  and back the way he had come, did the light catch and reflect to him

  any of the substance of the ship. And what the light revealed there

  made Lando shiver with a chill no warmer could drive away.

  For the lamps showed that the inner wall was covered with alien

  faces--a collage, a portrait gallery, a mural, a memorial, stretching

  as far as the light could carry, and likely beyond. There were

  thousands of different faces, or thousands of variations on the same

  face, each gazing out from its own hexagonal cell. The faces were

  unlike any Lando had ever seen, and yet he keenly felt the intelligence

  in the large, round eyes that seemed to seek him out.

  More than by any other gift, Lando had found his way by reading the

  faces of strangers and knowing them better than they knew themselves.

  He read in the sculpted, deeply lined faces of the Qella both strength

  and surrender, a settled wisdom and a thwarted curiosity, and most of

  all a terrible knowledge of the impermanence of life. The beings who

  had sat for these portraits, and the artisans who had created them, had

  known when they did so that these images might be all that survived

  them, and they had held nothing back.

  There was a circular gap in the mural where Lando had burned his way

  through it from behind. The supporting wall had healed, but the

  overlying portraits had not--four were damaged in varying degrees, one

  obliterated forever. Lando fought off sharp pangs of guilt as he

  jetted up toward the mural and reopened a hole at that same spot.

  "I'm sorry," he said to the surviving faces as he left them behind.

  "But this is your tomb--your memorial.

  I'm trying to keep it from becoming mine. I like to think that if life

 
meant this much to you, you'd be rooting for me to succeed."

  Lando found the others where he had left them, still tending to

  Threepio. The golden droid was the only one to react strongly to his

  return, turning his head toward Lando and greeting him cheerfully.

  "Master Lando!" he said in a crackly voice. One glowing eye

  flickered. "What are you doing on Yavin Four? Why are you wearing

  that costume? Do you know, you look rather like a droid?"

  "Threepio, take a look around," Lando said. "Do you recognize this

  place?"

  The droid's head swiveled. "Oh. Oh, yes, I see. The Qella

  vagabond.

  I seem to have had an accident." He turned and clanged Artoo on the

  dome with his good arm. "And it's all your fault, you good-for-nothing

  sabo teur. You belong in a waste compactor, along with all the

  other--" "No," Lando said sharply. "It was my fault. I gave the

  orders. I made the mistake. I'm sorry, Threepio. I promise you,

  we'll get you put back to specs as soon as we get home."

  "It is I who should apologize, Master Hambone," said Threepio. "I am

  sure that my clamminess was the approximate corpse of my mishop."