With one last flash, the white light died. The grille fell out in a single circular piece and dropped to the ocean floor far below. Tels went through first, staying carefully clear of the still-hot metal. His feet disappeared. A minute later his hand reappeared, giving a definite thumbs-up. One by one, the rest of the team followed him into the pipe.
Juno swam ten meters to a ladder that led up to a level deck. There the water was below knee height and the atmosphere was breathable. She gratefully dispensed with the breathing apparatus and took in a chest full of sweet, if slightly scum-tainted, natural air. The deck was illuminated by faint down-lights that flickered weakly with age. It didn’t look as if anyone had visited that level in at least a decade. Still, she moved as quietly as she could to a higher section, where the way was completely dry.
There she slipped off the wet suit and straightened the flight uniform she’d been wearing beneath. PROXY flickered back to his usual form and followed her, yellow eyes flickering in the dim light.
“Are you feeling all right?” she asked the droid. Apart from an occasional flutter, his chameleon circuit remained stable, but he had hardly spoken since his awakening. “Is there something I should worry about?”
“Oh, no, Juno. I am simply processing my lack of a viable primary program.”
“Does it seriously impair your function?” she asked, wondering if she had made a mistake involving PROXY in the mission.
“No,” PROXY said, “but it does concern me. I have been deactivated twice since Raxus Prime, and each time it seems a miracle that I have returned. Who am I, if not my primary program? What am I, if I have no reason to function?”
That seemed a very human concern, and one that had no easy answer. “I guess you’re just you,” she said. “And you seem okay to me.”
“Thank you, Captain Eclipse. That is of some small reassurance.”
“Every being is the sum of its experiences and actions,” put in Bail Organa, coming up alongside them and dropping his discarded wet suit next to Juno’s. “Sometimes we don’t know what our primary program is, or was, until we’ve lived long enough to look back at our lives.”
“I’m afraid I do not understand how to function under such circumstances,” the droid said. “Droids are not designed to program themselves.”
“I’m sorry, PROXY,” Juno said, with real feeling. “I didn’t realize you felt so strongly about this. Do you wish I hadn’t woken you up this time?”
“Not at all, Captain Eclipse. I am glad to be in the world again, and I remain optimistic that I will be assigned a new primary program one day. I cannot be the only example of my class in operation.”
Juno wasn’t so sure of that. She’d never seen a droid like him before, and assumed that he was something Darth Vader had commissioned years ago to act as plaything and tutor to his young apprentice.
The thought of Starkiller darkened her mood. Why was she thinking about him so much? Sometimes she wished her primary program could be changed as easily as a droid’s. It would certainly save her a whole lot of grief.
When the Quarren were ready, they gathered at the top of the ramp, where a corridor led off into two opposite directions.
“This is where we split up,” said Ackbar. “Siric, you know what to do?”
The bomb expert and his assistants patted their waterproof packs and nodded.
“All right, good luck. Make your move on Seggor’s signal.”
The five headed off into the gloomy distance, feet slapping softly against the floor. Ackbar guided Juno, Organa, PROXY, and Seggor Tels up the other way. They moved silently, conscious of the fact that the city was entirely in Imperial hands. They could trust no one, and carried blasters openly in case they happened across anyone so deep in the basements.
Around them, the city hummed and shifted on the surface of the endless sea. There was no sense of motion, just a constant creaking and groaning of welds. Juno wondered if any of these floating cities ever sprang a leak, but didn’t think right then the time to ask. That was the least of their problems.
Ackbar and Tels swapped positions when they reached the upper levels. The Quarren had the codes for the fighter wing’s secure compound—obtained, he said, by bribing a maintenance team who had worked briefly for the city administration. Tels padded softly ahead of them, moving with stealthy confidence along the metallic corridors. If he was nervous, it didn’t show.
They reached the checkpoint, one of seven scattered across the city. This was the least frequented but still under heavy guard. Seven stormtroopers patrolled the area, keeping a close eye on anyone who approached.
“Your turn to shine, PROXY,” Juno said. “You’ve assimilated the Imperial files?”
The droid’s holographic generators flickered and flashed, hiding his true appearance behind another—that of a rotund, balding white human male dressed in an Imperial uniform.
“Yes, Captain Eclipse.” His voice changed, too, to match that of the fighter wing’s commander. “If you will follow me …”
“Sorry about this,” whispered Juno to Ackbar as she aimed her blaster at him. Organa did the same for Tels. “You know it’s just for show.”
“No hard feelings,” said Ackbar, slipping his own blaster out of sight.
PROXY strode confidently into view, leading the two humans and their Dac native “captives” to the checkpoint. The guards looked up as they approached and stood to attention.
“Commander Derricote?”
“Indeed,” said PROXY, not breaking step.
The trooper who had spoken raised a hand. “I’m sorry, sir. I just need to record your companions.”
“Of course. Two informants and two members of the Dac resistance for urgent interrogation. I have reason to believe that an attack is imminent.”
The troopers exchanged nervous glances.
“Security codes?” asked the squad leader.
Juno hid her anxiety. Why was a stormtrooper asking the flight wing commander for security codes? Something was going wrong. She tightened her grip on her blaster.
“Twenty, thirty-five, nineteen, sixty-seven,” said PROXY without hesitation, quoting the information he had sliced from the Imperial network.
“Thank you, sir. Move along.”
The troopers parted ranks, allowing the group of five an unobstructed path through the checkpoint. Juno held her breath as she passed between the troopers. All it would take now was for PROXY’s holographic impersonation to flicker and the ruse would be exposed.
“Commander Derricote, hold a moment.”
PROXY stopped in mid-stride but didn’t turn. “What now? Can’t you see I’m in a hurry?”
Juno didn’t learn what had made the trooper suspicious. A bolt of blasterfire from Bail Organa caught him in the throat, throwing him backward. A second bolt took out the trooper closest to him, and a third spun the next one along in a circle. The speed and accuracy of the three shots was as impressive as they were unexpected. She took two shots of her own as the opposing groups scattered, leaving just four troopers to return fire.
Bolts of energy flashed back and forth. Small explosions threw fragments of plastoid from the walls and ceiling. Smoke thickened the air, made her eyes water.
It didn’t last long. Ackbar and Tels took out three of the remaining troopers, and the last soon keeled face-forward across one of his compatriots, hit by Juno and Organa from two sides at once.
“Nice shooting,” Juno told the Senator as she emerged from cover. The compliment was sincerely meant. Shot for shot, he was both faster and more accurate than she was.
“I’m a little out of practice,” he said, checking up and down the corridor for signs the ruckus had been noticed. “You should’ve seen me during my Academy days …”
They dragged the bodies into a storage locker. With luck, no one would notice the breach in security before their mission was complete. PROXY maintained the illusion of Commander Derricote as they resumed their hasty march into the secure co
mpound.
It was more crowded than the city proper had been. Droids and techs hurried through the corridors, but thankfully no more troopers. They received the odd askance look, and Juno wondered why. What about PROXY’s impersonation didn’t ring true?
When they reached the flight wings’ empty barracks, she began to understand what PROXY had got wrong.
“It’s filthy in here,” she said, staring at the messily draped uniforms and unpolished boots. Weapons parts lay on bunks, next to scattered rations. Because grunts took their lead from their superior officer, she had no doubt that this reflected the real Derricote through and through. “Who are these guys?”
“I don’t know,” Organa said, “but we have to hurry. The briefing starts in ten minutes.”
They found a passerby and grilled him on the whereabouts of the real commander.
“In the n-nursery,” stammered the tech.
“They have kids here?” Juno’s sense of outrage reached a new peak. She would never have allowed such laxity under her command.
“For his p-plants,” the tech managed to get out. “The nursery’s what he calls the g-greenhouse.”
When he had provided directions, Organa knocked him out with a deft tap to the back of the skull.
“Tels and I will deal with the commander,” he told Juno. “You and Ackbar go with PROXY to the briefing. Make it convincing.”
“We’ll do our best,” Juno said, even as one growing doubt niggled at her. If Derricote was as slovenly as his pilots, that had to be what was giving them away.
They split up. Hurrying to the briefing room with Ackbar, she directed PROXY to look more like the real Derricote did. She hoped.
“Undo another button. Loosen the collar. Roll up the sleeves, too, and mess the hair more.”
“Are you sure this is an improvement, Captain Eclipse?” the droid asked her.
“As sure as I can be, PROXY. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.”
There was no guard at the briefing room entrance. Ackbar and Juno slipped to the back of the room as PROXY strode to the podium at the front. Pilots slouched in their seats and didn’t rise to attention when their commander entered. Although she had left the Empire more than a year ago, Juno’s blood still boiled. These guys were giving pilots everywhere a bad name.
No one looked twice at PROXY’s modified disguise. His preamble was brief. “Forget the flight schedules you already have,” he said. “I’m giving you a new assignment—practicing honor rolls over the city. All of you.”
There were groans from pilots who had only just come off an active shift. “Is this something to do with the shuttle that arrived last night?” asked one.
“That is classified,” said PROXY without missing a beat. “I want you in the air in five standard minutes. Dismissed.”
The pilots complained and griped but slowly began to move. Some even managed a semblance of urgency. Five minutes would have been a very quick turnaround even for a well-practiced flight wing. Juno wouldn’t have put a credit on this lot making ten, maybe not even fifteen.
Still, time was tight for the conspirators to get to where they needed to be next.
“Good work, PROXY,” Ackbar told him when the room was clear. “Now back to the rendezvous point.”
They retraced their steps through the secure compound, past the still-unnoticed checkpoint and into the city proper, where PROXY returned to his normal appearance. No alarms sounded; no shouts rang out. Everything appeared to be going according to plan, so far.
The five Quarren were waiting for them in the shadowy lower levels, rehydrating themselves in the rippling water. They communicated by hand signals that the charges were laid and the triggers set exactly as required.
So far, thought Juno, so good.
“Bail and Tels should’ve been here by now,” she said, checking her chrono and counting off the minutes. The TIE fighters of the 181st would be in the air soon, even by her most conservative estimate. “Search for them in the city’s security grid, PROXY. Maybe they’ve been picked up somewhere—”
“No need,” called the Senator himself from the top of the ramp. He jogged down to meet them with Tels in his wake, pushing their prisoner ahead of them. “Sorry to hold you up. Our friend here moves more slowly than we planned for.”
“What is the meaning of this?” blustered the real Evir Derricote, commander of the 181st fighter wing. He looked even scruffier than PROXY had portrayed him, although perhaps that was a result of his capture. “You’ll never get away with it!”
“Take those binders off him,” said Ackbar when the commander was before him. “We have a message for the Emperor. Get off Dac, and stay away from the Mon Calamari system, or—”
Something moved in the shadows. Ackbar reached for his blaster, and so did Juno. The Quarren huddled in closer to one another.
“Who’s there?” called Organa. “Come out!”
“I think they’ve said enough,” called a voice. “Take them.”
“It’s a trap!” gasped Ackbar.
Two dozen stormtroopers stepped into the light, weapons trained on the knot of conspirators they encircled. At their head stood a tall, thin man in the uniform of a senior officer in the Imperial administration. So senior, in fact, that she had never seen the insignia in person before. He had a nose like a knife-blade and eyes to match, and his cruel mouth was practically lipless.
It was clear that Ackbar knew him. He instantly raised his blaster to shoot at him, but a well-timed blaster-bolt from one of the troopers knocked the weapon from his hand.
“There’s no point resisting, Ackbar,” said the stern figure in a chillingly polite voice, striding confidently toward them with his hands behind his back. “You’re quite outnumbered. Please drop your weapons, or I will have you executed right here. All except you, Ackbar. I’m looking forward to having you back in my employ. That’ll remind my other slaves that escape is simply not an option.”
Ackbar’s mottled skin had turned a sickly yellow. “I will never be your slave again, Tarkin. Never.”
Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin smiled coldly. “That choice is now well and truly out of your hands.”
Derricote pulled free, rubbing his wrists. “Thank you, Grand Moff. Thank you for rescuing me.”
“I won’t say it was my priority, but I will accept your gratitude. Be careful it doesn’t happen again.” Tarkin turned to face Bail Organa. “Your weapon, Senator. I asked you to drop it.”
Organa obeyed, and so did the others. All except Tels. His gun remained in his hand, and none of the Imperials moved to force the issue. Slowly, without saying a word, he walked to join their numbers.
“Why?” Ackbar asked him.
“Once a traitor, always a traitor,” answered Tarkin for him, with a gloating tut-tut. “You Rebels should choose your friends more carefully. He contacted me a day ago, offering to return my slave in exchange for greater freedoms for his people and a place in the civil administration. He won’t get either, of course. I’m not known for changing my mind, particularly when it comes to negotiating with aliens.”
It was Tels’s turn to go pale. “You mean—”
“Yes, put your blaster down and stand with the others while I decide if you’re important enough for the Emperor to kill himself, or whether I should just dispose of you now. I’m leaning toward the latter, simply to spare the mess—”
At that moment, a series of explosions rocked the city. The floor moved beneath them.
“What’s that?” asked Tarkin of his nearest trooper. “Find out!”
Another trio of blasts brought part of the ceiling down. Tels raised his blaster and fired at the lights, extinguishing them. Utter darkness instantly fell.
In the confusion, Juno dived for her blaster. She heard a stormtrooper say, “It’s the Hundred Eighty-first, sir. They’re firing on the city.”
“Impossible!” blubbered Derricote. “I gave no such order!”
“To me!” Tarkin ordered his men from t
he ramp. “To me!”
Juno fired in the direction his voice had come from. Her shot went wide, revealing his high-cheeked visage in the flash. She rolled before the stormtroopers could return fire. Soon the space was a maelstrom of light and sound as more explosions rocked the city, one after the other, and the two sides exchanged blasterfire. She found Organa and stood with her back to him, admiring the elegant precision of his shots. When he fired, he nearly always hit, even in the dark.
The stormtroopers retreated up the ramp, following the voice of the Grand Moff. Juno and the others stayed exactly where they were, waiting for the echoes of the last explosion to fade away. When it did, there was blessed silence, apart from the tinkling of debris and the lapping of water.
A torch flared, held high in Ackbar’s hand. “Are we all here?”
Juno took a quick head count. Everyone was accounted for except PROXY and one of Siric’s assistants, who had been hit in the chest by a stray shot. Organa found Derricote huddling in a ball in the corner of the room with his hands over his head. He didn’t seem to notice that the firing had ceased until the Senator pulled him upright, blinking and fearful.
There was no sign of Tarkin.
“He must have slipped away in the skirmish,” said Ackbar, looking disappointed.
“Never mind,” said Organa, patting his shoulder. “That we almost got him sends the same message.”
“And we still have this one,” said Tels, squeezing Derricote’s face between his long fingers and peering close. “For what he’s worth.”
“You mean you’re not—” stammered the flight wing commander, looking from face to face in confusion. “And you are—”
“All on the same side, yes,” the Quarren said. “Thanks for your help.”
“But I didn’t—”
Juno almost felt sorry for him. “Explosions, timed to coincide with the honor roll you didn’t order. It won’t fool anyone for long, but it had exactly the right effect in the moment, don’t you think?”
Footsteps sounded on the ramp above. They looked up to see PROXY returning, the Tarkin disguise he had adopted during the battle slipping away with an electric crackle.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II Page 8