Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 04_ Backlash - Aaron Allston [36]
MILLENNIUM FALCON, DATHOMIR SPACEPORT
IT TOOK ALLANA SEVERAL HOURS TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO ESCAPE THE Falcon.
Some of her plans, she eventually acknowledged, would not have worked very well. Such as hiding in the Falcon’s smuggling compartments until C-3PO panicked, assumed that she’d escaped, and lowered the boarding ramp to go look for her, whereupon she would make a dash for the ramp and run past him, laughing. The problem with that one was that it might take hours for the droid to notice her absence, and hours more of searching before that moment of panic came, and in all that time she’d need food, drink, entertainment, and refresher breaks.
Instead, after failing to conceive of an escape plan that might work, she eventually hit on the notion of playing one of the ship’s instructional programs, one that taught correct ship maintenance procedures. It was in that ancient Corellian Engineering Corporation ship’s-tour tutorial, in less than an hour, that she was reminded of the tiny lift that gave mechanics access to the topside hatch and the equipment on the Falcon’s top hull. Minutes later she confirmed that C-3PO, having also forgotten about that exit, had not programmed it to ignore her commands.
As the shadows began stretching across the spaceport grounds, Allana sneaked herself and Anji into a storage compartment, found a coil of flexible cable, and took it to the tiny lift. She waited until she was sure that she could hear the droid’s puttering and monologue commentary emerging from the far side of the ship, and she activated the lift. As she’d hoped, it smoothly carried her and the nexu upward, the top hatch opening before them, and in a moment they stood atop the Falcon, staring at Dathomir’s sun as it began to dip, oversized and golden, below the western horizon.
She wrinkled her nose. Rain forest smelled bad. Her other grandmother really came from here?
Now was the scary part. She tied one end of her cable to a strut, adding hitch after hitch to her knot because she knew her rope-tying skills were not very good, and then dropped the remainder of the coil over the side. She leaned over to look. The ground seemed a long way down. But Anji just took one look and jumped, landing on the ground as lightly as … well, a nexu.
Allana focused her attention on Anji and thought, Sit. Anji yawned and stamped her feet, waiting. Close enough. Allana took a moment to make certain she remained undetected. There was someone in that skinny ship on the other side of the Jade Shadow standing in the hatch—a tall man and his lady friend, Allana thought—but they were in the shadows and it was hard to tell whether they were looking in her direction.
When she did not hear anyone’s voice raised in alarm, she grabbed the cable, sat down on the hull, and scooted along until her legs dangled over the edge. Then, alarm and excitement mixing in her, she allowed herself to slide over the edge, repositioning her hands so they would not scrape across the hull’s edge, until all her weight was supported by her hands.
Well, that wasn’t good. That was a lot of work. She was strong for her size, and had been encouraged to exercise by her very active grandparents, but she wondered if she would actually be able to climb all the way back up.
It didn’t matter. If she couldn’t get back into the Falcon on her own, she’d just have to alert C-3PO and face the music that much sooner.
She half climbed, half slid down the cable, gasping as a slide of too great a distance seemed to cut into her palms. Then, suddenly, she was standing on the ground next to Anji, her arms a little tired.
She looked at her palms. They had been abraded almost shiny by the cable, but there was no blood. She felt soreness but not real pain. She looked up at the mountainous height she had descended, shrugged, and turned to look out over the spaceport.
It was darker now than before. Lights were coming on atop