Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 04_ Backlash - Aaron Allston [20]
As he traveled the curving passageway that gave access to the Falcon’s main deck, the droid reached the passageway to the starboard-side loading port and saw that the boarding ramp was down. But R2-D2, his astromech ally of so many years—he couldn’t even remember their first meeting, so it had to have been prior to a memory wipe—was rolling up the ramp, and the ramp was rising into place, keeping the nighttime spaceport at bay. “Well, what have you been up to?”
R2-D2 wheetled at him, in the musical, very data-dense code of astromechs.
“Exploring? What’s to explore? It’s a patch of mud spattered with permacrete habitations. I’ve seen more promising sites on the underside of a shoe.”
The astromech wheetled again.
C-3PO stopped where he was to stare at his comrade. “Ah. So at a spaceport, a place where ships come and go all the time, you have seen … a ship. How observant.”
Wheetle.
“So what if the mechanic hurried to close the hangar door when he saw you watching? Humans can be very self-conscious, you know. Thank the Maker that we don’t suffer from such ailments.”
Wheetle.
C-3PO offered up a synthesized sigh. “The tail end of a SoroSuub yacht. Might I point out that there are about as many SoroSuub yachts out there as there are piranha-beetles on Yavin Four?”
The astromech’s tweetling took on an irritable tone.
“No, I won’t investigate with you. We’re not to leave the young mistress alone.” C-3PO shook his head in worry. “Frankly, Artoo, I don’t know what our Masters were thinking, leaving that poor child here alone with no one but us to protect her. We’re on Dathomir—don’t they realize what happens to Force-sensitive girls on this planet?”
R2-D2 answered with a long, low buzz.
“I most certainly do have something to worry about!” C-3PO replied. “Sometimes I think you have all the sensibility of a rolling dustbin and could be replaced by one. In fact, I insist that you stay here with me. I may need you to defend the ship.”
Tweetle-blatt.
“No, the best defense is not a strong offense. The best defense is a strong defense. And that means staying put, protecting Mistress Allana, and not letting her get into trouble, which is her genetic predisposition. As it would be yours, if you had genes.” C-3PO shook his head sadly and continued heading aft, secure that he had, in fact, sorted R2-D2 out for once.
SECURITY SERVICES SHOOTING RANGE, SENATE BUILDING, CORUSCANT
Fifty meters down the narrow black-walled lane, the gleaming silver droid went from stillness to an athlete’s run in an instant, hurtling toward Chief of State Daala.
Daala, dressed in baggy, comfortable exercise wear in blue, drew her blaster pistol from a shoulder holster and aimed in a single, practiced motion. By the time she put her sights on the droid, it had covered half the distance between them. She took an extra moment to aim, allowing the droid to close to ten meters, a distance at which the grin on its skull-like facial features was evident, and then she squeezed the trigger.
Her shot took the droid in the chest—upper right pectoral, had it been a human. The shot turned that section of silver skin black. The droid spun, its beautiful running gait interrupted, and Daala fired again, a snap shot that took the droid in the left side, blackening its hide there.
The droid spun down to the glossy black floor and slid to within three meters. As it did, Daala aimed one last time, carefully, and put a bolt into the thing’s temple.
The indicator screen built into the lane wall beside Daala flashed with the word KILL. Below it appeared more words:
REPLAY TASK
ANALYZE RESULTS
RESET
CHANGE PARAMETERS
EXIT SIMULATION
Instead of issuing one of those commands, Daala stepped aside and nodded for her companion to take the firing position.
General Merratt Jaxton, Chief of Starfighter Command, dressed like Daala for this practice, stepped up and