Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 04_ Backlash - Aaron Allston [41]
There was a man present. Allana did not see him at first; he moved into her field of view from someplace along a wall. He was tall and gaunt, wearing a stained gray jumpsuit. When he turned to track and speak to one of the rack droids, Allana saw that he had a patch over his left eye.
There was no sign of R2-D2, but along one wall in the shadow of the yacht was a blue drop cloth draped over something that could have been an astromech droid. It did not move, and Allana was struck with the sudden worry that her droid friend was hurt or dead. She’d have to find out.
“Miss Amelia? May I inquire, where are you?” C-3PO’s voice seemed to erupt from the pocket where Allana kept her comlink.
Allana ducked. Even as she did so, she saw the man’s head begin to turn up in her direction.
She hadn’t heard much noise from within the dome; even a hydrospanner dropped on the permacrete floor had barely been loud enough for her to hear. So the man probably hadn’t heard much of C-3PO’s voice. But Allana was suddenly afraid and didn’t want to count on that. She scrambled down the drums as fast as she dared and ran to hide among the drums she hadn’t moved. Then, finally, she activated her comlink. “I’m right here,” she whispered.
“Here, where, precisely?”
Should she tell C-3PO now? No, she needed to do that once she could trick him into coming with her. Which might mean tomorrow. “I’m playing hide-and-seek.”
“Ah. Am I to find you, then?”
“Yes. But don’t hurry. I have to, uh, hide better. Count to a thousand.”
“Very well.”
The door into the dome had not opened. Her heart in her throat, Allana sneaked back to the dome and carefully brought the three drums to their places in the stack, then raced across the spaceport grounds to the Falcon.
The climb up was twice as hard as she had imagined, and if she’d had to do it with arm strength alone, instead of shimmying with both arms and legs, she never would have made it. When she got to the top, Anji gave a little yowl from the ground behind her. Allana peered back over the edge and frowned. She hadn’t thought about how her nexu was going to get back onto the Falcon.
But Anji was determined not to be left outside. She cocked her head and studied the rope for a moment, then extended her claws and began to climb up just like Allana had. If her claws hadn’t been safety-dulled, she probably would have made it a lot quicker than Allana had. As it was, Anji’s feet kept slipping until she learned to catch the knots between her toe pads, and then she clambered right up. Within a few minutes Allana was hauling the coil of cable up to the top hull, standing on the tiny lift, and descending into the Falcon.
C-3PO found her as she was preparing for a sanisteam. “I say. You aren’t hidden at all well.”
“I got sweaty and bored. I’m going to clean up.”
“Excellent idea. And I’ll prepare you a nice snack for afterward. For being so cooperative today.”
She just smiled at him.
QUARTERS OF THE CHIEF OF STATE, CORUSCANT
WITH HER FORK, DAALA PUSHED SOME BITS OF FOOD AROUND ON HER plate, silently cursing her chef. The man was as good a personal chef as any government leader might need, but his choice of seafood for tonight’s meal was a grotesque reminder of Admiral Niathal’s suicide. Daala took a moment to calm down, to remind herself that her chef was not in the loop of government secrets, could not have known about the hypercomm transmission Daala had seen with Niathal’s body so prominently displayed.
She pushed her plate away and gave her dinner companion a look of apology. “I’m sorry. I’m not very good company tonight.”
Nek Bwua’tu, Chief of Naval Operations for the Galactic Alliance, a gray-furred Bothan, gave her a lupine smile in return. “The Chief of State does not need to apologize for having troubled thoughts. Only if your conscience were as easy as a cub’s would I be suspicious and worried.