Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 07_ Conviction - Aaron Allston [31]
She brought the shuttle down to a landing smooth enough that it was almost undetectable as a cessation of motion. She began powering down immediately and toggled her comm board. “This is Pilot Dorn. Welcome to Coruscant and the Senate Building. I hope you enjoyed your flight.” With no additional speech making, she tripped the switch to lower the belly boarding ramp.
In her peripheral vision, from the port side, she saw an interior hangar door slide upward, allowing a small party, mostly humans, to enter. She recognized Chief of State Daala, gleaming in a spotless white admiral’s uniform. With her were a number of security agents and aides, including a green Twi’lek woman.
Seha pretended to pay no attention. She brought up a diagnostics screen—a simulated diagnostics screen—and began tapping each item on it in turn as she would for a normal power-down checklist.
She heard her passengers catch up their carry bags and briefcases. Noisily, they began trooping down the boarding ramp.
And then there was Daala’s voice, drifting up from the ramp: “Wynn. General Jaxton, Senator Bramsin. Delighted to have you back in one piece.”
The gruff voice of General Jaxton followed, but grew fainter with each word. “Good to be back. So I can mount an operation against the Errant Venture and the Jedi. Imagine the arrogance …” Seha saw the Chief of State’s party, now considerably larger in size with the addition of her passengers, move back toward the door.
Moments later there was a creak as someone moved up the boarding ramp too silently for footsteps to be audible but not so carefully that the ramp itself settling did not make noise. Then a man spoke from just behind Seha: “What do you think you’re doing?”
Seha glanced up at him. He was youthful, nice-looking, with brown hair in a military cut. He wore a Galactic Alliance Security lieutenant’s uniform and a scowl that suggested he needed her to be impressed with his sternness and force of will.
She smiled up at him. “Powering down. I’m getting some anomalous readings from the thrust generators.”
He shook his head. “You’re authorized only to set down, let your passengers off, and lift. You’re going to have to leave.”
She gestured at the monitor screen with the checklist on it, at the three items blinking red. “I’d really rather—”
“I’m sorry, I have to insist.”
Seha let her tone turn frosty. “Well, then you have two seconds to get your rear end off my shuttle.” She turned her back on him and began a fast restart of powered-down systems.
The lieutenant was halfway down the ramp when the right stern thruster blew.
It didn’t explode, not really. The plastoid-shelled capacitor and associated chemical package wired into the circuitry there, activated by the power-up switch, discharged, frying all the circuitry in that module, as well as catching on fire and emitting a tremendous amount of red-gray smoke.
Seha let out a well-practiced yell of outrage and frantically flipped all the emergency-off switches within reach.
On the permacrete just ahead of the shuttle, the lieutenant stood, staring up into her viewport, looking stricken. She glared at him, then rose. She ran back and down the boarding ramp to confront him.
A holodrama stereotype of righteous hostility, she thrust her datapad, showing a feed of the new, revised diagnostics screen, toward his face. “You see this? Couldn’t wait five minutes for a simple diagnostics check and slow restart, could you? What do I tell my captain? What do I tell the Senator? The whole thruster array is blown because somebody couldn’t wait. What is your name, Lieutenant Used to Have a Career? The Senator’s going to want to know.” She didn’t bother to say which Senator. It was better for him to assume it was the one