Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 07_ Conviction - Aaron Allston [142]
In moments he found what they needed, an old emergency evacuation document including a map showing exit points from the pumping station. Luke chose the one that was least likely to be under observation at any time, a hatch located in the middle of a broad topato field. “We’ll rendezvous there in twenty minutes.”
It took Ben, Luke, and Vestara a total of two minutes to reach the field and sneak out to the hatch. The hatch, a durasteel disk with a weatherproof alphanumeric keypad and a large metal ring to dog and undog the lock, was the cap of a permacrete cylinder protruding about a meter above the ground.
Ben gave his father a curious look. “I was kind of expecting us to go to one of the other hatches and leave those two behind. To keep them safe.”
Luke gestured for him to get to work on the hatch security. “No, we actually need the relay setup I asked for. We do; the galaxy does.”
Vestara offered him a puzzled frown. “Why?”
“Jedi secret.”
She made a noise of exasperation. “Not exactly trusting of you.”
“Correction—Jedi Grand Master secret. You’ll notice I’m not telling Ben, either.”
Ben concentrated on the keypad embedded in the hatch surface. “My dad neglects and abuses me.”
“True,” Luke said. “And when you become a father, you’ll discover how much fun that is.”
Ten minutes later Kandra and Beurth arrived. Kandra carried a cloth bag bulging with what had to be small duraplast boxes. Beurth had, over his shoulder, a spool of cable half the height of a man. Both approached in bent-over, holodrama-spy fashion, though the ongoing dust storm made such a measure unnecessary.
Luke looked over their bounty. “Datapads and comlinks in the bag?”
Kandra nodded. “Brand new. We broke in the back of an electronics shop and robbed the place. Well, sort of robbed. We left all our credcoins and some generic credcards as payment.”
Luke unrolled the end of the cable from the spool and turned to Beurth. “Dig a little furrow—your boot heel will do fine—out to the edge of the field, then along any dirt or sand street, out to the edge of town. Then lay the first section of cable in that furrow and cover it over. I don’t want the cable to be visible to anyone in town. Then roll the spool out as far as the cable will go and attach the last datapad at that point.”
Beurth grunted, nodded, and got to work on his task.
“Got it.” Ben unhooked his datapad from the hatch’s exterior jack, then tapped an eight-digit code into the keypad. The hatch hissed. Ben grabbed the metal ring on top and pulled it open. Warm air flowed out.
Luke peered in, gauged which portions of the hatch’s permacrete cylinder were free of electronic housing boxes, and straightened. He unclipped his lightsaber and activated it, then pushed its tip slowly into the side of the permacrete, forcing a hole clean through the material.
Ben looked at him in mock irritation. “And if you were going to do that anyway, why did I go to all the trouble to break their security?”
“Trust me.”
“Grr.”
Luke switched his weapon off, replaced it on his belt, and threaded into the hole a length of Beurth’s cable about ten meters in length. “Use some space tape to affix that to the permacrete and disguise its presence. And plug up the hole I made.”
After Beurth’s return, once he and Kandra began the process of rolling the spool along the furrow and burying the cable, the Skywalkers and Vestara entered the hatch and pulled it closed behind them. Descending a ladder that was nothing but durasteel rungs stapled into the permacrete wall, they climbed down into the pumping station. Its floor, five meters below, was natural stone, a sloping tunnel left by water movement in ancient times.
Once he’d reached the floor, Luke used more tape to fix the cable to the wall and then spliced one of the datapads to its end. He spent a few minutes entering a simple comm program. Then he nodded. “We have confirmation from Kandra.