Star Wars_ Darksaber - Kevin J. Anderson [40]
The children. Luke and Callista had spoken of having children of their own if they were to get married. Callista insisted that Luke, being the foremost Jedi Master of the day, must have powerful children, to make the strong Jedi bloodline flourish—if one were to look at romance in such a cold and … Imperial fashion.
She was terrified that if they had children while she had no access to her powers, their descendants might suffer the same Force blindness. But Luke didn’t care: he wanted Callista, though she would not listen when he tried to reassure her. Their only chance lay in severing the invisible chains around her, breaking through the maddening transparent wall.
Leia came forward to hug Luke. High above the skyline, the wind picked up, and breezes stung his blue eyes, whipping his hair in all directions. He bent down to scoop up the kids in a warm hug.
“Now do I get to hug Callista?” Han said, and came forward to give her a brief embrace as Leia laughed. Chewbacca blatted something, and Han waved him aside. “Nah, Chewie—you can hug Threepio if you want.”
“Well, the very idea!” Threepio said.
Luke set foot on the boarding platform with Callista at his side. Artoo whistled mournfully, blinking his optical receptor from red to blue. “Don’t worry, Artoo,” Luke said. “You enjoy your time with Threepio. We need to be by ourselves for a bit.”
When Artoo gave a low hoot, See-Threepio placed a golden hand on the dome of the astromech droid in indignation. “Humph! I’m sure I see no need for a starry-eyed couple to turn down the companionship of a faithful droid. I can’t imagine why they’d need to be completely alone.” He patted his counterpart. “Come along, Artoo. We’ll find something useful to do.”
As the droids hurried toward the turbolift, Luke and Callista waved farewell again and prepared for launch.
* * *
See-Threepio and Artoo-Detoo passed through nine security checkpoints as the turbolift descended deep into Coruscant’s crust. “We’re obviously droids,” Threepio muttered. “I simply don’t understand why they need to put us through such indignities to get down here. Virus scanning, indeed!”
Finally the doors hissed open, and they stepped into the sterile chambers of pulsating mainframe computers in the Imperial Information Center.
“Remember when you and I were here, Artoo, trying to find Jedi candidates for Master Luke?” Artoo bleeped that of course he remembered.
“This time it’s nothing terribly exciting, I’m afraid, but in the process of studying backup files for Mistress Leia, I discovered some troubling computer glitches that I’m at a loss to account for. I cannot find any trace of them before the day that horrid Durga the Hutt came to visit and all chaos broke loose. At first I was concerned that our mitigation efforts might have caused some deep core damage, but standard diagnostics yielded nothing. I have been reticent to point this out to Mistress Leia because I’m sure she’s still upset about that entire debacle.”
Artoo trundled across the polished floor. The assassin droids trained their implanted blasters on the two newcomers, targeting systems tracking the large motions. A battery of observation cams studied them with cold objectivity from near the juncture of wall and ceiling.
“This place gives me the chills … rather, it would give me the chills, if I had the physical capability to have them,” Threepio said. “As it is, my circuits are merely … uneasy—but if you could do anything to assist me, Artoo … ?”
The astromech droid was already accessing a terminal, requesting further details. Artoo’s input jack locked into the main drive and spun around. Threepio paced about in stiff discomfort. The assassin droids stared at them. The sheer droids paid no attention whatsoever.
“Would you like me to tell you a story to pass the time, Artoo?” Threepio said.
Artoo blatted an emphatic NO.
“Well, really!