Part 2 (1/2)
But then a dozen of its arms locked together and extended to the adjacent wall of buildings, splaying out, breaking through in places, but steadying the droid's weight just long enough for it to regain its balance. A rustling noise came over the comlink as Wedge's teams let out a collective sigh of relief.
Wedge tried to see by the light of the s.h.i.+mmering aurora overhead and the floating lights they had strung. Hidden behind an edifice indistinguishable from the rest of the buildings stood solid metal walls, heavily reinforced but buckled and ruptured by the enormous foot of the construction droid.
Wedge frowned. The demolition teams had encountered a lot of ancient artifacts in the ruined buildings, but nothing that had been so powerfully s.h.i.+elded and hidden. Something told him this was important.
He looked up with a start to see that the construction droid had reoriented itself and returned to the reinforced building that stood in its way. Bending down its scanner-dome head, the droid inspected the tough walls of the s.h.i.+elded room, as if a.n.a.lyzing how best to rip it to shreds. Two of the explosive electrical claws extended downward.
The construction droid knew nothing about what secrets these buildings might contain. The droid merely followed the blueprint in its computer mind and carried out its programmed modifications.
Wedge felt an agonized moment of indecision. If he shut the droid down to inspect the mysterious building, it would take three days to reset all the systems and power it up again. But if the droid had indeed uncovered something important, something the Cabinet should know about, what would a few days matter?
Blue-white lightning flickered on the ends of the construction droid's explosive claws as it reached toward the s.h.i.+elded walls.
Wedge picked up his comlink and made ready to shut down the droid--and then his mind blanked. What was the code?
Beside him Lieutenant Deegan saw his moment of panicked confusion and snapped the answer. ”SGW zero-zero-two-seven!” Wedge instantly keyed it into the comlink.
The droid froze just as it was about to discharge its electrical claws. Wedge heard the hissing rumble as the factories inside went into standby mode, powering down and cooling off. Wedge hoped he had made the right decision. ”Okay, Purple and Silver Teams come on in with me. We're going to do a little exploring here.”
Summoning a cl.u.s.ter of floating lights to follow them, the teams converged at the foot of the construction droid and then moved into the wreckage. Loose dust flickered down.
They scrambled over the rubble, careful not to cut themselves on shattered transparisteel and protruding metal. Wedge heard the skittering sounds of small life-forms hiding in the new cracks. The patter of falling stones continued to fall as the collapsing walls s.h.i.+fted and re-s.h.i.+fted. ”Watch your backs--this place is still falling apart,” Wedge said.
Ahead a wide cave-like gash had opened in the heavily s.h.i.+elded room, showing only a lightless interior. ”Let's go in. Nice and easy.”
Wedge narrowed his eyes at the shadows around them. ”Be ready to retreat at a moment's notice. We don't know what's in there.”
A deafening screech sounded far above, reverberating in the night.
The demolition teams jumped, then forced themselves to relax when they found it was only the cooling construction droid venting waste heat.
Wedge stepped to the edge of the darkened hole. The buckled crack in the wall was completely dark, showing nothing.
The moment he poked his head into the darkness, the monster lunged forward, all fangs and spewing saliva.
Wedge cried out and stumbled back, bouncing against the jagged edge of the opening as the locomotive of claws and fur and armored body plating charged at him. Before he could straighten his thoughts--before he could even imagine shouting an order to his troops--a spiderweb of crisscrossed blaster fire erupted into the night. Most of the beams struck home with a smoking hiss into the creature's body. A second round of blaster fire lanced out.
The monster roared in explosive surprise and pain before collapsing with enough force to start a small avalanche in the debris. Its death sigh sounded like steam escaping from a furnace.
Wedge slumped to the ground and suddenly felt his heart begin beating again. ”Thanks, guys!”
The rest of them stood, frozen in surprise and terror, gawking at their own reflexively drawn blasters and at the heaving, dying hulk of the monster that had dwelled within the s.h.i.+elded building.
The thing looked like a huge armored rat with spines along its back and tusks coming out of its mouth. It had the tail of a krayt dragon, flicking in its final convulsions as black-purple blood oozed around burned craters of blaster wounds in its hide. ”Guess it got hungry waiting in there,” Wedge said. ”Your fearless leader needs to be a little more careful from now on.”
He sent the bobbing lights through the opening to illuminate the chamber ahead. Nothing else seemed to be moving inside. Behind them the giant armored rat shuddered with a last groaning sigh, then sagged.
In pairs they pushed through the opening into the isolated chamber.
The metal-plated floor was strewn with cracked bones and skulls from the sub-humans that lived in the city's lower levels.
”I guess it found something to eat after all,” Wedge said.
On the far side of the dark room, they found another tunnel from deeper underground where a grate had been peeled aside. The grate was rusted, but bright score marks from large claws showed where the rat-thing had torn its way through.
”Not it--a she,” Lieutenant Deegan said. ”And now you can see why she was so upset.” He pointed to the corner where the worst damage had occurred.
Broken blocks of building material lay piled on the rat-thing's nest. Bright smears of blood showed where three of the creature's young--each one the size of an Endorian pony--had been crushed by the boulders.
Wedge stared for a moment before he looked around the rest of the gloomy room. Adjusting the light-enhancers on his visor, he could see dark gadgets, consoles, bed-platforms with manacles and chains. Parked and dormant on two stands were glossy black Imperial interrogation droids; secret computer ports stared gray and dead like amphibious eyes.
”Some sort of torture center?” Lieutenant Deegan asked.
”Looks like it,” Wedge answered. ”Interrogation. This could yield a lot of information the Emperor didn't want us to have.”
”Good thing you shut down the construction droid, Wedge,” Deegan said. ”It's worth the delay.”
Wedge pursed his lips. ”Yeah, good thing.”
He looked at the cruel interrogation droids and the torture equipment. A part of him wished he had never found this place.
The sculpture on Leia's crystal table jittered forward, stopped, then rose into the air. The figure was a fat man with spread palms and a grin wide enough to swallow an X-wing fighter.
The dealer had a.s.sured Leia that it was a genuine Corellian sculpture, that it would make Han think fond memories of his own world just as Han's images of Alderaan did for her. Upon receiving the anniversary gift, Han had thanked her profusely, but could barely control his laughter. He finally explained that the statue was a trademarked figurine stolen from a chain of cheap Corellian eating establishments.
”Keep concentrating, Leia,” Luke whispered into the silence, leaning closer. He watched her intently. Her eyes were focused in the far distance, not seeing the sculpture at all. The statue continued to levitate, rising higher off the table; then suddenly it b.u.mped forward to topple onto the floor.
Leia heaved a sigh and slumped back in the self-conforming chair.
Luke tried to cover his disappointment as he remembered his own training.
Yoda had made him stand on his head while balancing rocks and other heavy objects. Luke had received other training from the twisted Joruus C'baoth, and he had learned the depths of the dark side from the resurrected Emperor himself.
His sister's training had been much less rigorous, and more haphazard as she continually rescheduled lessons to accommodate her increasing diplomatic duties. But Leia concerned him: he had been working with her for more than seven years now, and she seemed to be blocked, having reached the limit of the powers she could master. Given her heritage as the daughter of Anakin Skywalker, Leia should have been easy to train. Luke wondered how he would manage to instruct a large group of students at his proposed Jedi academy if he could not succeed with his own sister.
Leia stood and picked up the fallen statue from the floor, setting it back on the table. Luke watched her, keeping his face free of any downcast expression. ”Leia, what is it?” he asked.
She looked at him with her dark eyes and hesitated before answering. ”Just feeling sorry for myself, I guess. Han should have arrived on Kessel two days ago, but he hasn't bothered to send a message.
That's no big surprise, considering him!” But Luke saw more wistfulness than sarcasm in her eyes.
”Sometimes it wears on me not to have my own children here. I've been with the twins for only a fraction of their lives. I can count on one hand the number of times I've visited the baby. I haven't had time to feel like a mother. The diplomatic ch.o.r.es won't give me a rest.” Then she looked directly at him. ”And you're about to go off on your great Jedi hunt. I feel like I'm missing out on life.”
Luke reached out to touch her arm. ”You could become a very powerful Jedi if you would only devote some concentration to your work.
To follow the Force, you must let your training be the focus of your life and not become distracted by other things.”
Leia reacted more strongly than he had antic.i.p.ated, drawing away.