Star Wars_ Children of the Jedi - Barbara Hambly [47]
Then, carelessly almost, he threw him aside, and turned to face Ugbuz.
“What’s the meaning of this, trooper?” demanded the Gamorrean furiously. “That was a Rebel saboteur, out to thwart our mission! We caught him with that …” He gestured furiously to the bundle of wires and computer chips, torn ends trailing, that lay near where the shredder had been.
Luke met the Gamorrean’s eyes with a chilled and icy stare before which, after a moment, the piggy gaze dropped. Sullenly, almost, Ugbuz demanded, “Who the hell do you think you are?”
“It isn’t who I think I am,” said Luke softly, stepping close. “It’s who I am.” He lowered his voice to exclude the others, and spoke for Ugbuz’s ears alone. “Major Calrissian, special services. 229811-B.” He gave the serial number of the Millennium Falcon’s engine block. “Intelligence.”
Had it been possible for Ugbuz’s eyes to widen they would have; as it was his hairy ears shifted forward in awe and respect. He threw a quick glance over his shoulder to where the Jawa had been thrown. Though Krok had slung the Jawa with sufficient force to have surely broken all its bones, it was no longer there—Jawas being endowed with the ratlike ability to take almost any amount of physical punishment and still slither away through the first unwatched crack the moment they were no longer actually restrained.
Luke laid a hand on the stormtrooper captain’s arm. Both his fury and the exertion of using the Force had left him trembling, almost nauseated, sweat icy on his face, but he kept his voice soft, projecting into it all his Jedi power. “It’s all right,” he said. “You did as you thought best and it was clever work capturing it. But it was acting under my orders, infiltrating the Rebels. There was no actual damage done. You did right to protect the mission, and I’ll see your name shows up in commendations to the Ubiqtorate, but after this … let me interrogate prisoners.”
“Yes, sir.” For a moment a thoroughly Gamorrean expression of disappointment crossed Ugbuz’s tusked face. Then he was Captain Ugbuz of the Imperial Service again. He saluted.
“You did well, Captain,” said Luke, and used the Force to subtly project into Ugbuz’s mind the pleased warmth that surety of approval brings.
“Thank you, sir.” The pseudostormtrooper saluted again and lumbered over to pick up his blaster carbine, stopping once or twice to look over his shoulder at Luke, who limped away in the direction of the door, leaning heavily on his light-clustered staff.
“Very good, Master Luke,” said Threepio softly when Luke, weak with exhaustion, reached the door once more. “Though I must say, you really ought to find some way to discourage those Jawas from further depredations on the fabric of this vessel if we are not to all perish of cold and suffocation. They seem to have no idea of the damage they’re causing to their own environment.”
“Well, they wouldn’t be the first,” Luke remarked, leaning against the wall. He felt drained and beaten, his head aching in spite of the comaren. If in immediate danger of death by freezing, he doubted he could have summoned enough of the Force to light so much as a candle.
“If you’ll come this way, sir,” said the droid, “I believe I have found a partial schematic of the ship.”
The schematic of Decks 10 through 13 was etched onto four crystalplex panels in what was probably the office of the physical plant manager, showing the locations of lifts and gangways, power lines marked in red and water trunks—shower facilities, coolant lines, fire-control sprinklers—in blue. The asymmetry of the ship’s form made it difficult to remember. From the outside, Luke recalled, the asteroid was more bean-shaped than round, so the higher decks would be smaller, and grouped aft. From the location of coolant trunks, Luke deduced that the main power cores that fed the reactors, the computer core, and the guns were located aft as well.
His request for a full schematic from the office computer was greeted with a demand for an authorization code, and tinkering with