Enemy Lines II_ Rebel Stand - Aaron Allston [63]
And avenue labels; they glowed atop posts. “I appear to be at the corner of Row Fourteen and Column Five.”
PROCEED TO THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF ROW 25 AND COLUMN 10.
“How will I know which is the southwest corner?”
IF YOU MANAGE TO ARRIVE THERE WITHIN THE NEXT SEVEN STANDARD HOURS, EAST WILL BE THE DIRECTION WHERE THE SUN IS.
“Very funny. Ha-ha.” Irritated to his cybernetic core, C-3PO set off toward the indicated destination.
Han gave up on the door. He backed away to the cot attached to the wall and sat there. “I can’t get the access panel off,” he complained. “It’s built like a prison.”
“It is a prison,” Leia said.
“That explains it. Can you do anything? With the Force?”
“Sure, if I had my lightsaber.” Leia stood at the center of the room, studying the air vents, the slot in the door that doubtless was intended for the insertion of a food plate. “Which, you’ll recall, I left behind with your favorite blaster, since they are both sort of identifiable. But give me a minute.” She closed her eyes and tried to submerge herself in the Force, to feel whatever it was that it might choose to show her.
She could feel living things all around her, hundreds, thousands, too many to count, just as it was in any highly populated area. There were no pockets of dark side energy, no glowing beacons or other anomalies to focus on.
There was the door, and though her telekinetic skills were far inferior to those of most Jedi she knew, she did possess some. She focused on the door, tried to understand its internal structure as the Force showed it to her.
She could feel its metallic strength, feel little discontinuities that suggested moving parts. Soon enough, she distinguished the vertical bars that rose and descended from the door to keep it from swinging open. Other bars, less formidable, slid in behind them to keep them from sliding into their unlocked position.
She plucked at the lower holding bar, felt it twitch under her effort. By concentrating further, she felt it slide free, just for a moment, before some other energy pulled it back into place.
Leia tried again with the upper bar. It, too, she could pry out of place for a moment—not long enough to slide the main locking bar out of position.
She sighed and opened her eyes. “Not a chance,” she said. “Not without a lot of practice. In maybe two, three days I might be able to handle one of the locks. In a few weeks, maybe I could do both at the same time and get that thing open.”
“It’s all right,” he told her. “We’ll get out of here some other way.”
“How?”
“I have no idea.”
TEN
R2-D2 had been manufactured a long time ago, and those long years of experience meant that he had a store of knowledge of tricks, techniques, and strategies that made the programming of most other droids pale in comparison, and he found that he needed every one of them here.
Because, frustratingly enough, the prison computers of this spaceport were just unwilling to set his friends free.
Oh, he was able to obtain some information about them readily enough. Han and Leia shared a cell in the prison’s deepest level and were labeled ENEMIES OF THE STATE and HOLD FOR SPECIAL ENVOY PICKUP.
The prison computers could be persuaded to keep secret the fact that R2-D2 was trying to get past them. He’d managed to forge himself a false ID as a security program testing defensive program efficiency. All he had to endure from them was little expressions of mockery each time he failed to penetrate one of their protocols. Which was often.
The prison computers could not be persuaded that the Solo cell was actually unoccupied and ready for another occupant, which would have unlocked the thing. They could not be convinced that the Solos had military authority equivalent to the prison manager or head of security. They could not be induced to deliver captured explosives now held in