"Fine," Poste said. "But we-I need a jammer."
"Any particular model?"
"Locris D-Eighty."
"Just so happens I have one of those." Druul came out from behind the counter, his trio of stalked eyes scanning the shop. "Ah, there it is." He lifted the device from a shelf and carried it to the counter. "I charge an hourly rate of five hundred credits."
"I thought it was four hundred," Poste snapped. The Gran appraised him. "Who told you that?"
"Your slicer droid."
"Kriffing droid," Druul said. "All right, it"s yours for four hundred. One hour down, plus a deposit of four hundred. When will you be returning it?"
"Uh," Poste said while he was counting out the last of the credit bills, "...not right away"
"I close at six local sharp. If you"re not here by then, the price rolls over into the following day."
"Whatever," Poste said. Cradling the jammer in his arms, he raced out the door.
The slicer droid detected his arrival at the Falcon"s landing bay and drifted out from behind a stack of shipping containers. Breathless, Poste set the jammer on the ground.
"What now?"
"Simply follow my instructions," the droid said.
Poste muttered a curse.
Half an hour later, with the jammer already running low on battery power and Poste running low on patience, the hovering slicer droid issued a series of beeps and tones.
"It is now safe to enter the landing bay. I will override the proximity alarm as we approach the ship. On learning that communications are jammed, the protocol droid may attempt to raise the boarding ramp and lock it manually, so you will have to hurry."
"Nice to know I count for something," Poste said. Side by side they circled around to the entrance to the bay. Poste took a breath and made straight for the boarding ramp, astern the c.o.c.kpit. He hadn"t covered a meter of duracrete when the Falcon loosed a blaring sound that ceased almost as abruptly as it began. Bounding up the ramp, he rushed into the YT"s main hold, where he found the Solos" golden protocol droid bent over the engineering station"s comlink and calling for Captain Solo.
"What!" The droid straightened and took a backward step. "Who are you? And what are you doing aboard the ship?"
"I"m borrowing it," Poste said. "Borrowing it? We"ll just see about that."
The protocol droid was stepping from the hold when the slicer droid drifted into the ring corridor, its pair of data-probe legs extended beneath it.
"Communications have been jammed, and I have disabled the manual release for the boarding ramp," the slicer droid announced. "In the event you are weighing the options of locking us inside the ship."
"A slicer droid?" C-3PO said. "What in heavens are you doing on Vaced?"
"That"s none of your business."
"I"ve encountered your sort before," C-3PO said, mixing insult and defiance.
The slicer droid"s snout turned toward Poste. "These protocol units tend to be garrulous and troublesome. I suggest you shut it off."
"Shut me off?" C-3PO said in sudden apprehension. "No, you mustn"t do that."
But Poste was already moving in, one hand reaching for the switch behind C-3PO"s head.
"You simply mustn"t..."
"That"s much better," the slicer droid said.
Poste nodded and glanced into the c.o.c.kpit connector. "Follow me. I need you to talk to the ship"s droid brain."
"It will be a pleasure, I"m sure."
Poste ducked through the c.o.c.kpit hatch, lowering himself uneasily into the pilot"s chair while he waited for the slicer droid to insert its probe into one of the c.o.c.kpit"s scomp link ports. "I am interfaced with the brains."
"Brains?"
"The ship"s systems are managed by three brains acting in accord."
"With their help, can you pilot this thing?"
The droid took a moment to respond. "The rental agreement you signed with Master Druul states explicitly that droids and other devices are, under all circ.u.mstances, to remain within fifty kilometers of Vaced s.p.a.ceport."
"Are you programmed to obey that condition?"
"No, I"m simply advising you that Master Druul will prosecute to the full extent of the law."
"I"ll worry about that later. Can you pilot it or not?"
"What is our destination?"
"Lesser Vaced." Poste thought he saw the droid"s visual scanner blink, but figured he had imagined it. "Yes or no?"
"Yes. I have limited experience in interplanetary travel, but this ship has a highly sophisticated autopilot system."
Poste grinned. Maybe Jadak was right and he"d be able to pull this off after all. "Any systems we need to override before starting the engines? Any anti-theft or anti-intrusion protocols? Any tracking devices or shutdown devices?"
"I"m searching . . ."
Poste swiveled the chair through a circle. Hem Solo"s seat, he thought. Kark, Han Solo"s ship. The famous Millennium- "There is a problem." Poste planted his feet on the deck to bring the chair to a halt.
"Huh?"
"With some effort on my part, the engines can be made to power up and the ship can be launched. However ..."
"Yeah?"
"At the first attempt to employ the sublight engine or hyperdrive, the ship will automatically enter a default mode, during which it can only be made to return to the place from which it was launched. No amount of slicing or workarounds can overcome this security feature, which relies on scans of the owner"s retinas and palm-print identification by the instrument panel steering yoke."
It took a moment for Poste to realize that he was neither surprised nor disappointed. In fact, the slicer droid"s p.r.o.nouncement came as a relief. Nothing to do now but wait for Jadak"s meeting with the Solos to wind up, then- Sounds of some sort made him swivel the chair toward the c.o.c.kpit hatch.
"Two beings have boarded the ship," the slicer droid said. "They are speaking Basic to each other in low tones."
Poste wasn"t half out of the pilot"s chair when a blaster poked through the hatch and the hulking human who was holding it all but wriggled into the c.o.c.kpit, drawing himself up to his full height between the pair of rear seats.
"Stay right where you are, kid."
A Nautolan entered behind the human. "Well, if it isn"t the hotshot from Nar Shaddaa," he said, showing filed teeth as he grinned. "The one who put a couple of bolts into the repulsorlift of our air-speeder."
"And he brought us a present," the human said, gesturing to the slicer droid.
Without lowering the blaster, the human turned slightly to his partner. "Cynner, take the kid into the main hold and secure him to something." He motioned with the weapon. "Up-and lay that toy blaster you"re carrying on the seat."
Poste rose, thinking about how good he was getting at following instructions. Setting the blaster down, he squirmed past the human and stepped into the c.o.c.kpit connector, where the Nautolan was waiting for him. He considered asking his captors who they worked for, but decided he was better off not knowing.
The protocol droid was just where he had left him, motionless at the intersection of the ring corridor and the main hold. The Nautolan shoved him gently in the direction of a hologame table that occupied the front part of the s.p.a.ce. While the head-tailed goon looked around for something to use to bind him, Poste reached a decision of his own. The boarding ramp was still lowered. There would be no getting to it with both the Nautolan and the protocol droid standing where they were. But according to a sketch Jadak had made of how he imagined the interior of the Millennium Falcon was laid out, the corridor was circular, and he might be able to make it to the boarding ramp by coming around from the stern. It required trusting that the Nautolan wasn"t familiar with the layout, and that he would chase him, but Poste saw no other way out.
He waited for Cynner"s gaze to shift, then bolted for the port arc of the corridor.
"Remata, he"s making a break for it!" Cynner called out. But what mattered was that he was in pursuit. Hearing the call, Remata barreled through the c.o.c.kpit connector, nearly knocking the deactivated protocol droid off its feet as he entered the main hold. Listening for a moment, he said, "Idiot," and raced into the starboard-side ring corridor.
Poste banged his way to the stern of the ship, past the Falcon"s hyperdrive and the escape pod accessway, his eyes scanning the deck for the maintenance hatch Jadak had included in the sketch. He was three-quarters of the way around the corridor when he spotted it, opposite and just aft of the ship"s small galley. Wedging his fingers into the section of grated decking, he lifted it clear and threw himself down the hatch, resetting the grating as best he could.
A moment later Cynner rounded the port bend, only to run straight into Remata, who had arrived from the opposite direction. "Where is he?" Remata asked. "He sure didn"t come by me." They searched the escape pod accessway.
Remata glanced up the port-side corridor. "Could he have ducked into one of the cabin s.p.a.ces?"
"I"ll check."
Cynner had no sooner set out than Remata spied the hatch"s ill-fitted deck grating. Lifting it out, he turned his ear to the hatch.
"Cynner, he went belowdecks!" he yelled down the corridor "There"s another access in the main hold. Hurry!"
Poste stumbled through the Falcon"s unlighted cargo areas, trip-ping over tools, slamming into engine parts, and flattening toys that squeaked when he stepped on them. Above and behind he could hear m.u.f.fled calls. Hands extended in front of him, he kept moving for ward, feeling his way around bulkheads and obstacles impossible to identify. He reasoned that he had to be beneath the main hold when sudden light poured in from above and he caught a brief glance of the Nautolan, silhouetted against the ceiling illuminators.
"He just pa.s.sed me!"
"I"ll get him!"
Poste heard eager footsteps behind him, then the sound of Cynner landing on the deck of the central cargo area. Throwing caution to the wind, he propelled himself into the forward freight-loading room, which Han Solo had turned into a bunker housing an array of concussion missiles. Feeling along the slightly curved forward bulkhead, his hands found the opening to a maintenance burrow that provided access to the deflector shield generator, landing jets, and pa.s.sive sensor antenna housed in the port mandible.
Poste pulled himself up and into the pitch-black tunnel, then began to worm his way forward over greasy components and through puddles of leaked lubricant to the mandible"s top-side maintenance hatch, which he prayed wasn"t secured from the outside.
The light of a glow stick danced around him.
"Any sign of him?" the human called.
"I don"t see him. He could be anywhere. I"ll try to find the lights."
"Don"t bother. Let him rot down here."
"Good enough for me. I"m heading back up."
Bellying forward, Poste found the circular hatch and sprang it. Hauling himself out onto the forward tip of the mandible, he rolled to one side. Then with his fingers hooked around the right-angle edge, he dropped to the duracrete floor and squatted behind the forward-most of the port-side hardstand disks.
Arriving in the c.o.c.kpit, Cynner found his partner seated at the instrument console. "Fancy me, sitting in Han Solo"s chair."
"I see the droid"s gone."
"We don"t need either of them." Swiveling to face front, Remata flicked the repulsorlift toggles and scanned the instruments. "Not all that different from the Two-thousand series."
"Should I check in?" Cynner said as he slid into the copilot"s chair.
Remata nodded and threw a switch. "Secure your harness."
Comlink out, Cynner heard the boarding ramp retract. "We have the ship " he said into the comlink"s speaker. "We"re raising it now."
Chapter twenty-seven.
"We worked first-light-to-absolute-dark for two standard weeks retrofitting that hyperdrive," Jadak said, "the Verpine, the Jawas, and me. The days were so hot we were frying nogull eggs on the hull, and some nights it got so cold we"d wake to find our drinking water sheeted with ice. Took another two weeks to install the laser cannon. When we finished, though, the YT was sporting in the neighborhood of a Cla.s.s One hyperdrive and a dorsal turret and battery. The Verpine, the Sull.u.s.tan, and I piloted her through her first jumps to lightspeed, and let me tell you, we could hardly believe how fast she was. That"s when I came up with the name, right after the initial series of test flights."
"She has a point-five now," Han said proudly, "thanks to an outlaw tech I knew in the Corporate Sector. After that was when I set the record for the Kessel Run. There"s still nothing to compare to her. Even the hyperdrives of these new Mandalorian ships are only rated point-four."
"Ratings don"t matter. A skilled pilot in a point-four could outfly an average pilot at the helm of a point-five."
"No way," Han said.
"I"ve seen it happen," Jadak said. "In sublight races, anyway."
"Well, sublight, sure. Now you"re talking about something completely different."
Jadak worked his jaw. Each time he tried to stick to the script and relate the tale in Quip Fargil"s vocal cadence, Solo would jump in with A question or a comment. His compet.i.tive nature would bring out Jadak"s own and end up pulling him out of character. Already the story was as much Fargil"s as Jadak"s. And now that Solo"s wife and daughter had stopped trying to rein Solo in, they were giving Jadak all their attention, and he could sense their suspicions mounting. But let them be suspicious. So long as Poste was succeeding.
"What was the plan for the Falcon at that point?" Leia asked. "Back then one of our chief concerns was the number of Star Destroyers the Empire was turning out, so command came up with a plan to target one of the shipyards. Fondor, Ord Trasi, even Yaga Minor were considered as potential targets, but after all the a.n.a.lysis command decided that we had to go after the big one-Bilbringi." Grateful to be back on course, Jadak took a sip of caf and set his cup down. "Were you there during the Imperial years, Princess Leia?"
"Only once. But I couldn"t have been more than nine at the time."
"Then you probably don"t remember how tricky it was to insert into orbit there."
"Because of the asteroid fields," Han said.
Jadak nodded. "At the time, many of the asteroids were being mined for use in the shipyards, so Imperial forces were deployed not only in the shipyards but close to many of the extraction operations. Even with prior authorization, it was difficult to navigate through the system because of all the checkpoints. So the notion of sneaking a hostile ship into Bilbringi wasn"t even worth discussing."
Han smiled in sudden revelation. "Unless you had a ship with a powerful enough hyperdrive to microjump all the way in."