by Timothy Zahn
“The two hours are over.”
“Yes, I know,” Anakin growled back, looking around the cell yet again. Still nothing.
“Have you found an exit?”
“No,” Anakin admitted between clenched teeth. “But don’t worry—I’ll figure out something.”
“Perhaps this will help.”
Frowning, Anakin looked over toward the other cell.
And watched in amazement as a thick, two-meter-long cord slithered through the air vent and landed in a heap on the floor.
“Where’d you get this?” he asked as he stepped over and picked it up. It was made of thin strips of cloth, braided together, with a slipknot at one end.
“I made it from the fibers of my clothing,” Thrawn said.
“Nice,” Anakin said. He’d heard the muffled sound of tearing early on in their imprisonment, but the outfits they’d taken from the Larkrer were a little tight and he’d assumed Thrawn was just making himself more comfortable.
“Since the dowel pins are tapered, I thought you could perhaps loop it over the tops and remove them.”
“Worth a shot. Hang on.”
Anakin took the cord to the door and carefully fed it through the vent opening. It was long enough for him to hold on to one end as he lowered the other to the left-hand dowel. It didn’t need to be that long, of course; either Thrawn had forgotten he could manipulate a shorter cord with the Force or else the Chiss was just being thorough. He worked the slipknot over the dowel, pulled the cord gently to tighten the loop, and gave a careful pull.
Nothing. He pulled a little harder, easing a bit more muscle into the task, painfully aware that a makeshift cord like this could only take so much strain before it broke. But the dowel pin was too tightly wedged.
“Perhaps if you try to oscillate the door you can loosen it,” Thrawn suggested.
Anakin smiled. No; not oscillate.
Lubricate.
“You have another strip of cloth handy?” he asked. “Doesn’t have to be big.”
“Will this do?” A ragged square of cloth, maybe five centimeters on a side, popped through the vent and fluttered toward the floor.
“Perfect,” Anakin said, catching it in midair with the Force and sending it through the vent in his door. Holding out a hand to focus his mind, he eased it to the floor outside his prison.
Into the first drop of oil R2-D2 had left behind.
He let the cloth soak up the whole drop, then moved it to the next, and the next, as far down the corridor as he could see. Then, bringing the now wet rag back, he eased it against the dowel pin below the slipknot. He wiggled the door once, then again pulled gently on the cord.
And with that final tug, the pin came free.
“Got it,” he told Thrawn as the pin swung on the cord into his view. He pulled the slipknot off the pin and shifted the cord and the oil cloth to the dowel on the other side of the door. Thirty seconds later, he was free.
“Excellent,” Thrawn said.
“Couldn’t have done it without you,” Anakin said, carefully pushing the door open and looking down the passageway.
The fact that no one had interrupted him during his door work suggested that Solha hadn’t left any droids on guard duty inside the room. He was right—the passageway was empty, the single door at the end closed.
Still, he doubted their captor had been careless enough to leave them completely unguarded. That meant droids outside the door, and he had no way of knowing what types or how many of them there were.
Time to remedy that.
“Get ready,” he told Thrawn, setting his palms against the door. “It’s about to get a little noisy in here.”
* * *
—
The first woman they found who was the right size was already fast asleep. Huga didn’t bother to wake her, but simply helped himself to her spare robe, sash, and boots and handed them to Padmé. Their next stop was more dark-edged: the unused corner where the former possessions of workers who had died were stored.
“Do people often die here?” she asked as she dressed. The worker’s robe was rough and smelled of sweat. But of course, so did she.
“One time each,” Huga said shortly as Cimy sifted through the mass of castoffs. “Come on, come on.”
“It was worse at the beginning,” Cimy said as Padmé knotted the sash around her waist. “Their leader, Duke Solha, pushed everyone—”
“Duke Solha?” Padmé interrupted, feeling her eyes go wide. “Solha is here?”
“You know him?” Huga asked, his voice suddenly heavy with suspicion.
“I met him once,” Padmé said, thinking back to one of those prewar diplomatic excursions that had sometimes seemed to be the bulk of her job as a senator. “A long time ago.”
“Long enough that he won’t recognize you?” Huga pressed. “Because if he’s going to know you, we’re bailing right now.”
“I’ll be fine,” Padmé assured him. “Let’s just get in there, okay?”
“Hey, I’m not the one holding things up,” Huga growled. “Cimy, you’ve got ten seconds to find that thing, or I swear—”
“It’s here, it’s here,” Cimy growled back. “Give me a second. Anyway, Duke Solha pushed everyone too hard. Mostly lifting and carrying, and sometimes just too much weight.”
“I’m sorry,” Padmé murmured.
“It’s better now,” Huga said. “Ah—finally.”
“This is it,” Cimy said, getting back to his feet and offering Padmé the discarded wristband. “But like Huga said earlier, we couldn’t glue it.”
“I’m not surprised,” Padmé said, peering at the wristband in the light of her glow rod. It was simple, thin plastoid, bright yellow, with a couple of barely visible wires running through the edges. “There’s an induction loop embedded in the material. If the ends aren’t lined up right, or if there’s glue or something blocking the circuit, it won’t give the right echo when it’s sparked.”
“Could we overlap and use tape or something?” Cimy asked.
“Ordinary tape won’t stick to this well enough,” Padmé said. “And you’d have to make sure the circuit ends were solidly together.”
“So what are you doing to do?” Huga asked.
Padmé pursed her lips. It was risky, but at the moment it was all she could come up with. “There are some metalheads patrolling this wing, right?”
“A few,” Huga said. “Mostly at the edges, to keep us from wandering off.”
“Do they patrol singly or in pairs?”
“Singly, most of them,” Huga said.
“The ones guarding the doors into the east wing are in pairs,” Cimy added.
“She didn’t ask about the door guards, dummy,” Huga admonished him.
“No, I need to know about those, too,” Padmé said. “You said you were in a work crew. Does it have a name or numerical designation?”
“A numeri—what?” Cimy asked.
“She means a number for all of us,” Huga said. “Yeah, we’re Maintenance Crew Herf Two. So what are you going to do?”
“Kill two birds with one rock,” Padmé said, wrapping the band loosely around her left wrist. She slipped her S-5 blaster into one of the robe’s side pockets and tucked the more compact ELG-3A into the sash at the small of her back, where it would be mostly out of sight but easily accessible. “Let’s go find one of the singles.”
* * *
—
Anakin pushed the door open about a meter, then released it and jumped back into his cell, letting the door crash shut.
The thud was quieter than he’d expected it to be. But it should be loud enough. If it wasn’t, he’d just have to try again.
“If you expect the guards to come in, bear in mind there’s little I can do while still locked in,” Thrawn warned.
“That’s okay,” Anakin said. “All you need to do is sit back and enjoy the show.”
* * *
—
Padmé’s plan had assumed that, with a Jedi supposedly running loose, Duke Solha would have patrols all over the factory.
But he didn’t. As she and her two companions headed toward the east wing they saw no one. For all appearances, Solha might have barricaded himself into his stronghold in the hope that the Jedi would eventually give up and go away.
Still, that didn’t mean he’d left the approaches to that stronghold unguarded. They rounded one final corner to find two B1 battle droids flanking a solid-looking door, their E-5 blasters leveled. “Halt!” one of them called as the three humans appeared. “Where are you going?”
“What do we do?” Cimy whispered from beside Padmé. “You said we needed just one metalhead.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll make it work,” she whispered back. Squaring her shoulders, she started toward the droids. “Maintenance Crew Herf Two,” she called. “Got an order to come clean something on the first floor.”
The droids looked at each other. “We were not alerted,” the first droid said. “Who gave you this order?”
“One of the others,” Padmé said, continuing to walk forward. “I don’t know which one—you all look alike.”
“Where is your wristband?” the second droid said.
“Right here,” Padmé said. She stopped in front of him and pushed back the sleeve of her robe, revealing the band balanced across her wrist.
“It is not correct,” the droid said. It lifted its blaster to point at her chest. “You will come with me for examination.”
“What about them?” Padmé asked, beckoning toward Huga and Cimy with her right hand. “We have a job to do, remember?”
“They will wait here,” the first droid ordered, waving its blaster back and forth between them for emphasis. “I will call for a supervisor.”
“Okay, but we were told to rush it,” Padmé said. She started walking again, watching both droids out of the corners of her eyes. The first continued to hold his E-5 on the two men as it popped the lock on the door. The second swiveled toward Padmé as she passed, its blaster tracking her movement, clearly intending to let her go by and then fall in behind her. She stepped directly between the droids—
Abruptly, she stopped. For an instant the second droid’s blaster tracked past her, out of alignment with her body—
And sweeping the blaster with her left forearm to keep it pointed away, she snatched the ELG from her sash, jammed the barrel up under the droid’s long chin to the intersection of head and neck, and fired.
The droid went limp, its processor vaporized. Padmé didn’t wait to see it fall, but spun around to face the other droid. It was trying to bring its own blaster to bear, but the weapon was too far out of line. Before it could swing the blaster even halfway around, she delivered her second kill shot.
In the silence, the double clatter as the B1s collapsed to the floor seemed to boom. The noise half covered Huga’s startled curse. “Are they dead?” Cimy asked, sounding awed. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“You need a blaster with enough punch,” Padmé told him, crouching down beside the second droid. Her shot had burned straight through the top of its head, leaving a smoking, red-edged hole. “Come here and give me a hand.”
“What do you need?” Cimy asked, gingerly dropping to one knee beside her.
“Hold the other end,” she said, taking one end of her wristband and pointing a finger at the other end. “Get a grip a couple of centimeters back. Now hold it steady.”
Carefully, Padmé touched her end to his, making sure the thin wires of the induction loop were lined up. Then, holding the ends together, she laid the plastoid against the glowing edge of the blaster hole.
“I’ll be krinked,” Huga muttered as he watched over her shoulder. “Is that going to work?”
“We’re about to find out,” Padmé said, sniffing the air. There was the faint smell of scorched plastoid. “Let’s ease it back…go ahead and let go, Cimy.”
He did so, and Padmé lifted her wrist for a closer look. “Seems okay. We’ll find out inside if I got it right.”
“Whoa,” Huga said. “What do you mean, we’ll find out? Cimy and I aren’t going in there.”
“I thought you were going to help me get Anakin out,” Padmé said as she stood up.
“We were helping you get in,” Huga said. “We’re not going in there without orders.” He nudged one of the droids with his toe. “Not after this.”
Padmé looked at Cimy. “Cimy?”
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m with Huga on this one.”
“I understand,” Padmé said, feeling a twinge of guilt. These were just normal people, trying to live their lives and survive under the Separatists’ thumb. Now, because of her, they were having to put their lives and the lives of their friends at serious risk. “Where exactly are these Bins?”
“The cells?” Cimy pointed at the door. “Inside, turn left, and the outer entrance door is in a plain permacrete wall about fifty meters in and on your right.”
“Thanks,” Padmé said. “One other favor. Would you find LebJau and tell him where I’ve gone?”
Huga snorted. “Why, because he still believes there’s a reward?”
“What do you mean?” Padmé asked. “I promised.”
“That was when you needed to let your uncle know where to find you,” Huga said. “But he’s here now, before he ever got your messages, so I guess he found you all right on his own. So tell me he can see the future and knew to bring money with him. Go ahead—tell me.”
Padmé sighed. Putting their lives on the line and now convinced there would be nothing to show for it. “Just tell LebJau,” she said. “And don’t worry—I will get you your money.”
The door the B1s had been guarding had relocked itself sometime during the past couple of minutes. But as LebJau had suggested, her newly restored wristband clicked off the lock as she approached, allowing her to push it open and slip through. Tucking the ELG back behind her sash and pulling out the more powerful S-5, she opened the door and slipped inside.
* * *
—
There was a distant thud, a subtle puff of air through the ventilation slits on Anakin’s door, and the soft clatter of rushing droid feet.
The guards had arrived.
“Hurry!” Anakin said, loudly enough for the droids to hear, softly enough for them to think he was talking to Thrawn or someone else. “They’re coming!”
He braced himself…and then, there they were: two B1s, their E-5s raised, rushing forward to see what had made the noise they’d heard from outside. They reached the cell doors—
And stopped, their heads turning back and forth in confusion.
And as they stood there, Anakin stretched out to the Force and shoved the first droid backward across the narrow passageway, slamming it hard into the permacrete wall behind it. The second droid managed to get its blaster up and aimed before Anakin smashed it into another tangled heap beside the first.
“Impressive,” Thrawn said.
“Thanks,” Anakin said, pushing open the door and stepping into the passageway. One of the E-5s had been damaged when the droid holding it had hit the wall; picking up the other one, he leveled it at the distant cell block door. If the commotion had been heard, they could be getting company any moment.
But the passageway was empty, the door at the far end having apparently closed by itself behind the droids. That wouldn’t last, he knew, but at least they should have a little breathing space. “Looks clear,” he said, keeping an eye on the door as he stepped to Thrawn’s cell and pulled out the dowel pins.
“Thank you,” Thrawn said. “The stories we tell of Jedi don’t do you full justice.�
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“We’ll try to send you back with some fresh material,” Anakin said as the Chiss pushed up the door and slipped out of his cell. “Okay. First job is to get my lightsaber back. After that we’ll take a look around and figure out what Solha and his friends are doing.”
“Have you a plan to retrieve your weapon?” Thrawn asked as they headed toward the door.
“Not really,” Anakin said. “It’ll probably depend on how easy it is to get up on the roof. I set it right next to one of the floodlights, so it shouldn’t have been noticed by any of the vulture droids.”
“We’ll hope there are no rooftop foot patrols.”
“I didn’t see anyone up there on our way in.”
“There was no Jedi on the loose then.”
“Point,” Anakin conceded. “We’ll figure it out.” He pulled open the door.
The first thing he saw was the blaster leveled at him from barely a meter away. The second thing he saw, above the blaster—
“Ani!” Padmé said, her eyes going wide, her lips parting in a relieved smile. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” Anakin assured her, turning his blaster away from her. Focused on the problem of his lightsaber, he’d completely missed her approach. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” she said. She started forward, her arms opening for a hug—
“This is Thrawn,” Anakin said, twitching a hand in warning. “He’s here to help me find you. Oh, and he speaks Meese Caulf.”
“Ah,” Padmé said, her arms dropping quickly as she peered past Anakin’s shoulder. “Thank you,” she added in Meese Caulf.
“My pleasure,” Thrawn said gravely. “You, obviously, are Ambassador Padmé. Is that a grappling hook on your weapon?”
Padmé looked down at her blaster, a flicker of surprise crossing her face. But then, she was new to Thrawn’s observational skills. “Yes,” she said. “It’s a combination blaster and ascension gun.”
“Then the plan is obvious,” Thrawn said. “You and I will travel to the rooftop to retrieve General Skywalker’s lightsaber. He’ll remain here and draw enemy attention away from us.”