Star Wars_ Darksaber - Kevin J. Anderson [118]
Trandia disassembled the heavy components, piling her armor beside his in an unused storage alcove. The empty suits looked like enough metal to be the shrapnel from an Imperial scout walker. Trandia’s braid had come loose, and strands of hair swam around her face. Perspiration dampened her neck, and her skin was flushed—but her eyes were flinty.
Madine and Trandia removed the tools and the detonators from their packs. He scratched his beard and held a clenched fist in the air. “To the success of our mission.”
Trandia matched his upraised fist. “We will succeed,” she answered.
Ducking low and moving quietly, they sprinted along the corridors, heading toward where the propulsion systems would be. Some of these decks were already inhabited by a skeleton crew, and they hesitated at corners, crept past droning voices of guards and crew members who lurked in open rooms.
As they hurried, though, Madine noted many darkened glowpanels, wires dangling from ceiling plates but connected to nothing, and dead blank computer terminals that seemed as if they had never functioned. Madine muttered to Trandia, “Maybe we don’t need to sabotage the weapon after all. This whole thing is a disaster waiting to happen.”
The engine sections were a great pulsing dungeon filled with smells of oil and coolant, hissing steam that might have been intentionally vented or just leaking from reactor cores. The storm of noise and flashing lights throbbed around them, drowning their surreptitious sounds as they crept into the tangle of engines.
More guards patrolled the catwalks above—stupid-looking Gamorreans and a hodgepodge of unsavory alien creatures: Weequays, Niktus, and walrus-faced Aqualish. Madine checked the blaster pistol and the four detonators he carried, then gestured that he and Trandia would split up.
The Darksaber’s guidance computers were giant banks of circuit boards fenced off by a transparent mesh that steamed with supercooled air blown through the hot circuitry.
The enormous engines themselves thrummed behind a thick shielding wall. If they could plant remote detonators in various spots around the compartment, the two of them unaided could cripple this great weapon, leaving it dead in space until New Republic forces could finish the job.
He and Trandia moved apart into the deeper shadows and the loud, unmuffled machinery. Trandia held her precious store of detonators as she slithered through the murk, darting from cover to scant cover, working her way over to the shielding wall that blocked the engines.
Alone, Madine moved to the mesh surrounding the propulsion computers. He bent down and removed a cutting tool from his equipment pouch, intending to slice through the protective fence. A detonator or two could completely kill the computers that drove the superweapon. He switched on the small vibroblade and felt the high-pitched hum through its handle. He hacked at the thin flexible mesh—but as soon as he severed the crystalline cords, a squawking alarm burst from the top of the computer.
Madine deactivated the vibroblade with a curse, grabbing for his blaster pistol. The guards in the engine compartment hurried to discover the nature of the disturbance, though they seemed somewhat apathetic. Madine wondered how often they responded to false alarms resulting from the inept construction work.
Madine decided not to fire just yet and slid back into shadows as the alien guards lumbered toward him, their own weapons drawn. If he could just be silent, they might miss him and go about their business. His heart pounded. The guards came closer.
Suddenly Trandia stood up from her hiding place near the wall of the engine compartment. She waved her arms and yelled to draw attention to herself. As the guards turned in astonishment, she fired her blaster at them, hitting a leathery-faced Niku, who hissed as he fell to the floor.
The other guards spun about and launched a volley of blaster bolts in Trandia