Star Wars_ Darth Bane 03_ Dynasty of Evil - Drew Karpyshyn [95]
The alarms were still blaring away, and it took a minute for Set to realize they had nothing to do with him.
They spotted Zannah. Or her Master’s escaped.
Extinguishing his lightsaber, he tucked it back into his belt.
Nobody’s going to be worrying about you. Not with a couple of Sith Lords wreaking havoc in one of the other wings.
He had what he had come for; it was time to leave Doan. Hopefully he would never have to come back again.
Set still intended to stick with his original plan of stealing one of the other ships, rather than risk running into Zannah by going back to where they had landed her shuttle. He just needed to look around until he found the hangars where the other vessels were being stored.
Shouldn’t be too hard. Just stick to the lit halls and keep out of everyone else’s way. Let them fight it out while you sneak off with the real prize.
Fortunately, that was something Set was very good at.
The echoing alarms chased Serra as she ran down the long hall toward the Stone Prison’s emergency control room. She punched in the code to the access panel, her fingers stabbing frantically at the keys as she kept glancing over her shoulder, fearing her enemy would appear in the hall behind her at any second.
The panel beeped sharply, and an ACCESS DENIED message popped up on the readout.
“No,” she whispered to herself. “No.”
When she had married Gerran, he had shared his personal access code with her. As the crown prince, his code was supposed to override every electronic security system in the royal family’s estate.
Maybe the king didn’t trust you. Maybe he disabled it when Gerran died.
No, that couldn’t be it. The code had worked on all the other locks here in the Stone Prison. Without it, she would never have been able to reactivate the generators that powered this section of the complex.
She tried to punch the code in again, her fingers trembling with desperate urgency. The alarms overhead were an inescapable reminder that every second she lost made it more and more likely that her prisoner would find a way to escape the dungeon before she destroyed it.
Once again, the harsh beep and ACCESS DENIED message were the only results.
Maybe Gerran’s code doesn’t work on this door. Maybe only the king is authorized to use the self-destruct sequence.
Slamming her palm against the door in frustration, Serra was unable to hold back the tears any longer. Beaten, she sank slowly to her knees, her face pressed up against the cold metal door.
For several seconds her body was racked by ragged, hitching sobs. Everything had gone wrong. Lucia had betrayed her; the dark man of her dreams was going to escape. Everything she had worked to accomplish had fallen apart.
This isn’t like you.
Although she hadn’t heard it in more than a decade, she instantly recognized the voice.
“Father?” she said aloud, though of course Caleb was nowhere to be found but inside her own head.
You’re stronger than this.
She nodded, not even caring if the voice she was listening to was nothing but a figment of her own imagination. Blocking out the alarms, she took a long, deep breath and carefully analyzed the situation.
It didn’t make any sense for the king to be the only one with access to this room. He couldn’t be expected to come here in person if there was ever a prison break or a riot. The warden would have access. Probably the guard captain, as well. And if the king trusted any of his servants with the code, he would also have trusted his son.
You’re rushing. Making mistakes. Try again. Slowly.
She rose to her feet and began to punch in the code for a third attempt. This time when she felt the panic threatening to possess her fingers, she fought back by calling up the image of her father’s face, calm and certain. Taking slow, deep breaths, she took extra care to hit the buttons in the correct sequence. For a second nothing happened; then there was a soft chime and the door swung slowly