Luke shook his head. “Let’s get your ship clear, by all means. But I think it might be smart if you stayed right here for now. If I’ve got this worked out right, we’re going to need a lot of help from the people who were holding you, and we’d better stay where they can find us.”
“Why? What?” asked Han. “What’s happened?”
“A lot,” said Luke. “Most of it bad. Though maybe there’s some good news, as well, buried underneath it all. And that’s where our Selonian friends come in.”
Han looked at Luke, and sighed wearily. “It never is simple, is it? Come on, kid. Let’s head inside. I think it’s just about time we all sat down and compared notes.”
* * *
“Q9! Q9! Come in! Q9! Are you there?”
“Of course I am here,” Q9 replied. “I’m here, right where you left me, upside down in a storage bin. Where else would I be?” The droid had grown quite tired of his hiding place, and become quite irritable as a result.
“An interesting rhetorical question,” said Ebrihim, his whispered voice coming in via the droid’s comlink system. “But never mind. Suffice to say that we would like you to come over here, now, if you would.”
“With pleasure,” replied Q9. “Or more accurately, I will take great pleasure in getting out of this smuggling compartment. However, I will come to you, assuming I can get to wherever it is you are being held.”
“We are quite nearby, within sight of the ship.”
“Very good. But let us discuss a point or two before I come. My built-in surveillance gear detected the cessation of jamming quite some time ago. It is two hours since I monitored Thrackan Sal-Solo’s broadcast. Parenthetically, I must add that none of you were looking your best in that. But in any event, why have you waited until now to call me?”
“We have been waiting for the Human League troopers to go to sleep. The last of them turned in about an hour ago. It would seem they are now all quite soundly asleep, on board the assault boat.”
“Why have they not posted a guard? Why are they so lax?”
Ebrihim laughed. “We are at the bottom of a sheer-sided, kilometers-deep pit; we are being held inside a force field; and of the two ships available, one is nonfunctional, and the other is full of enemy troops. I expect they simply felt rather secure in their situation.”
“It could be a trap,” said Q9. “They could be trying to lull you into a false sense of security.”
“They are the ones with a false sense of security. They do not know we have a comlink, and they are unaware of your existence.”
“Where did you get the comlink?” Q9 asked suspiciously. “I did not know that you had one. How do I know you are Ebrihim? How do I know you aren’t a Human League agent posing as Ebrihim? How do I know this is not a trap to lure me out of my hiding place?”
Q9 could hear the sound of Ebrihim sighing wearily. “Q9, I do believe that you have developed a paranoid streak.”
“You would develop one too, if your main circuits were shorted out by a maniac child, and you were barely given a chance to double-check your repairs before you were stuck in a dark hole for a day. I have been in an inverted position for all that time, wondering what could happen to me next. I have come up with quite a number of alarming possibilities.”
“I see,” said Ebrihim, a note of impatience creeping into his voice. “That is most unfortunate. Let me see if I can put your mind somewhat at ease. We did not tell you we had a comlink because we were somewhat pressed for time when we were captured. I myself did not learn that Chewbacca had concealed the comlink on his person until long after we were off the ship. As for the other matter, I am indeed Ebrihim. The receipt of sale shows that I paid twelve hundred and fifty Drallish crowns for you. However, in reality, at the last minute I managed to talk your owners into a discount for cash of a hundred crowns, a detail which I forgot. When I inadvertently reported the higher amount as a deduction on my taxes, you pointed out the discrepancy to me and threatened to turn me in if I did not correct it. At the time I seriously considered selling you for the eight extra crowns I was forced to pay in taxes as a result. There have been many times when I have regretted my decision to keep you instead. Does that satisfy you?”
“I suppose so,” Q9 said doubtfully.
“Very good then. Now stop acting like a mentally unbalanced victim of paranoid dementia and get the blazes over here as quickly and quietly as you can. Ebrihim out!”
“No need to be so irritable about it,” Q9 said to himself, knowing full well Ebrihim had shut down his comlink. “I see nothing demented in my effort to insure my own self-preservation.” He paused for a moment. “On the other hand, there is something distinctly peculiar about a droid that has started talking to itself. Master Ebrihim may well have a point concerning my mental state. Ah, well.”
Q9 gently activated his repulsors, so they pushed the camouflaged cover up off the smuggling compartment. He let the cover get about a third of a meter high, and then lowered power to the port side repulsor, causing the lid to slide down to that direction and fall to the deck with a loud clunk. It was more noise than Q9 would have preferred to have made, but he had little choice in the matter.
Q9 extruded a pair of manipulator arms and slowly pushed himself straight up out of the compartment, until his body was completely out of the hole. He rotated his body around on the ball-and-socket joints of the arms until his base was pointed straight down. Then he activated his repulsors again and drew the two arms back into his body. It was a distinct relief to be right side up again, and out of that hole.
Q9 floated around the Falcon’s circumferential corridor until he came to the access ramp. The ramp was open and down, which saved him the trouble of opening it himself, and saved that much more noise as well. However it did represent lax enough security that Q9 could not help but worry anew that it was all an elaborate trap.
But if it was, he had already revealed his position, and he was as good as caught, anyway. He might as well press on. He moved down the ramp and out onto the wide expanses of the repulsor chamber’s interior.
It was dark, the chamber lit only by the dimmest of starlight. Q9 switched over to infrared, and suddenly the chamber was ablaze with illumination. He moved forward about thirty meters from the Falcon, and then stopped. He spun his upper dome in a complete circle, scanning the interior. As Ebrihim had promised, the prisoners were indeed easy to spot. Six warm bodies inside a force field were a fairly obvious target. Obvious enough that Q9 was not exactly thrilled to be moving toward it. He consoled himself with the notion that he himself was probably a first-rate target in infrared anyway. He completed his scan, and got a good range and bearing on the assault boat as well. Just as well to keep a sensor pointed in that direction.
Q9 floated briskly toward the force field containment and came to a stop precisely one meter from its perimeter. “I’m here,” he said. “Now what do you want?”
It was not easy to judge Drallish expressions in infrared, but it would seem that Ebrihim was glaring at him. “Most beings would find that obvious,” he said. “I want you to get us out of here!”
“Of course,” said Q9. “To pose a rhetorical question, what else would you want?” Q9 rotated his view dome left and then right. “Any suggestions on how I might accomplish that?”
“Around the other side,” Ebrihim said. “The control panel for the containment is on the children’s side of the dome.”
“Ah. So it is,” Q9 said, realizing that he was suddenly feeling quite cheerful. He floated briskly around to the other side of the containment, and saw the control panel on the outside, and the children on the inside, watching him. “Good evening, children,” he said, in a most lighhearted tone of voice. “How are all of you this evening?” He bobbled up and down on his repulsor, in rough imitation of a little bow.
Anakin regarded him gravely for a moment or two, and then turned to his brother and sister. “Q9 is acting weird,” he announced.
“Am I?” Q9 as
ked. “A moment please, while I run a behavioral diagnostic.” Q9 activated the appropriate routines and ran them against his action log for the past hour. “You’re quite right, young Anakin. I am behaving somewhat erratically. It might well have something to do with being roasted alive and being stuck in a storage bin for hours on end, but that’s all as may be. We’re all friends here. In any event, rest assured that my actions and reactions are still within acceptable limits. Quite so.”
“It is one of the flaws of the Q9-series design,” Ebrihim said, speaking to the children in a quiet voice from the far side of the vertical wall that divided the containment. “At times, they do not respond well to periods of extended stress.”
“But then, who does?” Q9 asked.
“He may exhibit fairly drastic mood swings for a time, but he should settle down after a while,” Ebrihim said. “We’ll just have to deal with him as he is for the time being.”
“Great,” said Jacen. “We’re counting on a manic-depressive droid to break us out of here.”
“And break you out I shall,” said Q9. “Just tell me how.” He spun his view dome about to check again on the assault boat, and then spun it back, a bit abruptly. “But be quick about it, before the guards have a chance to awaken.”
“Yeah,” said Jacen. “Right. Anakin is the one to ask.”
“Ah, yes,” Q9 said. “Anakin, master of all machines. Just tell me what to do, and I shall do it. So long as pushing the wrong button doesn’t drop the planet into the sun, or any such trivial inconvenience.”
“Q9,” said Ebrihim. “You must control yourself. Settle down. It is most important.”
“My apologies,” said Q9. Strange how they were all fussing over him now, when most of the time they barely gave him a moment’s notice. That is, when they weren’t actively against him. “Interesting,” he said. “I already seem to be slipping back into a depressive paranoid phase.”
“Just—just try and keep your thoughts ordered and balanced,” Ebrihim said soothingly. “Anakin, get him started.”
“Ah, okay,” Anakin said. “The control panel’s turned away from us, but I think there’s a big slot for a sort of metal key right in the middle of it. Can you see it?”
“How did you know that was there if you can’t see it?” Q9 asked suspiciously.
“I saw the other guy using it,” Anakin said, glancing toward Jacen a little doubtfully. “It’s there, right?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Ebrihim said that sometimes you can use your manipulator arms to pick locks and stuff. Do you think you could pick that one?”
Q9 extruded a close-up view cam on the end of a flexible arm. It carried a small illuminator light at its end, right next to the cable. He switched on the illuminator and brought the cam to bear on the lock. He examined it carefully, from several angles, then turned off the illuminator and retracted the close-up cam.
“No,” he said.
“Oh,” Anakin said. “That’s not good.”
“Is that it?” Q9 asked. “Can I go now?”
“No!” Anakin said. He shut his eyes and extended his hand out toward the control panel. “I can almost do it, but I can’t see the controls the way I can see the inside.” He shook his head and opened his eyes. “Read me what the labels say. Read me all the buttons and switches.”
Q9 extruded the close-up cam again and turned on the illuminator to examine the display. “It is a most archaic system of controls,” he said. “The first dial is labeled MAIN POWER SELECT—that’s the one with the lock on it. The selector can be set to OFF, SINGLE CONTAINMENT, DOUBLE CONTAINMENT, or QUAD CONTAINMENT. It is set to DOUBLE. Below that is a dial marked OVERALL INTENSITY. It is marked off from one to eleven, and is set to eight point five.”
“Twist that one down as far as it will go,” Anakin said.
Q9 extruded a manipulator arm and twisted the dial to the left as far as he could. “It will not turn any lower than the point marked two. I would conjecture that it cannot be turned lower without the key.”
“Right, right,” said Anakin. The boy reached out his hand and probed cautiously at the force field. He seemed to be able to push his hand slowly into it, but only by a few centimeters. “No, no,” said Anakin. “Still too strong. Read me the other controls,” he said.
“There are three dials. The first is lit up. It reads DOUBLE CONTAINMENT LEFT SIDE RELATIVE INTENSITY. The dial is marked from one to eleven, with the dial set at the center point, six. The other two dials appear to control quad mode settings. As we are clearly in double mode, the quad settings are not of any consequence.”
“Twist the double level to one side as far as it will go.”
Q9 did so, and the force field forming the children’s containment promptly darkened, so much that the effect was plainly visible even in the near darkness of the repulsor chamber.
“Turn it the other way,” Anakin said.
Q9 did so, and the field faded away again, until it was completely invisible, even in infrared. Anakin pushed at the field again, and it gave a bit more this time—but even pushing as hard as he could, he could not get out.
“Any more controls on that thing?” Anakin asked.
“That is all,” Q9 replied.
“Thought so,” Anakin said. “Couldn’t feel anything else.”
“Then why did you ask me?”
“Because I wanted to be sure!” Anakin said. “Don’t act so weird, okay?”
“Am I still behaving strangely?” Q9 asked. “Or do you just want me to think I’m behaving strangely? Is that your plan?”
“Q9, we don’t have time for this,” said Jacen. “Later. Whatever it is you’re doing, do it later. All right?”
Q9 looked at him suspiciously. “I am not ‘doing’ anything besides following orders.”
“Never mind,” Anakin said. “Q9—is it all as low as it can go? So it makes the field as weak this side as it can be?”
“As low as it can go without the key, yes.”
“All right,” said Anakin. “Hope it’s good enough. Here goes.” He extended his arms in front of him and spread out his stubby fingers as far as they would go. He shut his eyes and stepped forward, until his hands were in contact with the force field. “Gotta move slowly,” he reminded himself.
Pushing slowly, gently, he thrust his hand deeper and deeper into the weakened force field. The field around his hands began to shimmer and spark, brightly at first, but then fading away, until Anakin was standing in a pushed-out bubble of the force field, a bubble that was marked by dim, shimmering flickers of power. Anakin pushed farther on, but seemed unable to make further progress. “Help me,” he said to his brother and sister.
Jacen and Jaina stepped cautiously forward into the extruded bubble of the force field. Jacen shut his eyes and stretched out his hands. He frowned and shook his head. “I don’t see what you are— Oh, I get it.” He pushed out his hands farther, and Jaina did the same. The bubble lit up again with shimmers and sparks that did not light up quite as much as they did the first time, and that faded away more quickly and more completely.
“Try again, Anakin,” said Jaina.
Anakin pushed on the force field with just his left hand this time, with slow, steady pressure that stretched the field farther and farther. And then, moving quite slowly and gently, he bunched up his fingers into a fist and extended just his index finger. He pushed forward with his finger, stretching the field farther and farther until, at some gradual and indefinable moment, the tip of his finger was through and outside the field, on the other side. “Jacen, take my hand,” said Anakin. “Jaina, take his.”
Jacen grabbed his brother’s right hand in his left, and Jaina took Jacen’s right in her own left hand. Anakin pressed onward, until his whole finger, his whole arm, his shoulder, his head, his chest, were through. He leaned forward, pushing slowly, steadily forward. He lifted his left leg up, forcing it gently up and through the field. The field sparked and shimmered for a moment as his leg sl
ipped clear of it and he set it down on the outside. His right leg seemed to move through more easily.
And then, but for his right arm, he was through, and on the outside. He kept moving forward, very slowly, leaning forward as he pulled, dragging his brother’s arm out through the field. The field sparked and shimmered with greater violence when Jacen’s hand touched it. Jacen winced, and almost flinched backward. There was the crackle and spark of static electricity as his hand moved forward through the field. It was as if the field was resisting him more than his brother, and it was plain to see from the expression on his face that it was far from a pleasant sensation. The field seemed reluctant to let his head come through, and sparks and fire flickered about his face. His head broke through quite abruptly, and he let out a little grunt of pain as it did. His hair sprang straight out from his head, alive with static electricity, something that had not happened to Anakin. The sparks flared and flickered about him as he forced one leg and then the other through the field.
Jacen gasped with relief as his body broke free of the field. Anakin still held his left hand, and the two boys moved slowly out from the field as Jacen pulled Jaina’s hand through the field. Sparks shimmered again, but in a deeper, duller, angry color. “Ow!” Jaina said. “It’s—it’s like fire.”
“Just keep coming,” Jacen said. “Your hand is free of the field. Keep your eyes shut. It’s easier that way, believe me. Keep coming. Keep coming. There’s your arm free. Here comes your head. Hang on!. Hang on! Almost free. All right, your face is clear. That’s the worst part. You should see your hair! No, don’t open your eyes yet, but it’s sticking straight up from your head. Good. Good. Now push your leg through. Steady. Easy does it. Good. Good. Now the other one. Up, over, through. Good. Just the foot to come—whoops!”
Jaina tumbled down onto her brother as she broke free of the field, and Jacen went down, taking Anakin with him. The stretched-out part of the force field shimmered and sparked one last time, and then retracted, shrank, pulled back, merging smoothly back into the rest of the field, as if there had never been such a thing as a distortion in the field’s surface.
Star Wars: The Corellian Trilogy III: Showdown at Centerpoint Page 20