Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 07_ Conviction - Aaron Allston [47]
The Twi’lek exchanged a look with the Bothan and seized the toolbox. He opened it. The Bothan held up a hand scanner; the Twi’lek grabbed each of the box’s contents in turn and held them under the scanner.
Hydrospanner. Data cards. Spray cans labeled as lubricant, preservative, and paint applicators. Meters. Datapads.
The scanner offered no blips of alarm, which seemed increasingly to annoy the Twi’lek. Finally he snapped the toolbox shut, shoved it back into C-3PO’s hands, and glared at the droids. “All right.”
“Thank you, sir—”
“It takes four standard minutes for a protocol droid to reach that hangar. I’ve timed it. If you’re not back in ten minutes, if you leave the main corridor for any destination other than that hangar, I’ll send lifter droids after you and have them crush you to a pile of flakes.”
“Understood, sir. Very good, sir. Thank you, sir.” His speed boosted by fear, C-3PO hurried out through the exit.
The hall beyond was broad, its floor surfaced in permacrete rather than stone or some other pleasing material, and it was busy, trafficked by traveling parties headed to or returning from their shuttles, by miniature speeders hauling vehicle repair parts and battery packs, by beings from scores of worlds, many of them nonhuman. Despite his apprehension, C-3PO was cheered to hear so many different languages represented. They gave him a rare opportunity to exercise his multiple instantaneous translation faculties.
But then R2-D2, rolling along in tripod mode behind him, had to ruin it by communicating, a series of cheerful-sounding notes and blerts.
“Yes, Artoo, he was big, and I suspect he meant what he said.”
Tweet, whistle, beep.
“Well, if we are delayed by circumstances beyond our control, we could very well end up in the crusher. Let’s hurry a bit, shall we?”
Blert, tweedle, whistle.
“Yes, a Wookiee could decide to play with us, pinning us in place until the Twi’lek came for us. It’s unlikely, it’s a ghastly thought, but it’s conceivable.”
Tweet, toot-toot, blort.
“Artoo, I think you’re having me on, and I don’t appreciate it.” But if he’d had the throat structure to do so, C-3PO would have gulped. All the many ways they could be delayed beyond their two-minute operating aperture … R2-D2’s suggestions set C-3PO’s mind racing, thinking of even more. A bolt failure causing his right leg to fall off … an impromptu parade cutting across their path … a malfunctioning set of blast doors … The possibilities were endless and horrible.
The two droids reached Bay 2315, which was similarly guarded by two security beings, a horned, red-skinned Devaronian male and a gray-skinned man from Duro. They, too, performed a scan on the toolbox contents, this time with slowness that agonized C-3PO, and then admitted the droids.
To C-3PO’s relief, the shuttle from Dust Dancer was nearby, only one berth over from the doors. A male human mechanic was at work on the main thrusters at the stern, performing some sort of welding action that threw a glowing trail of sparks out to a distance of four meters. And—glory be—Seha was already at the foot of the boarding ramp, waiting. C-3PO came as close to running as he could in approaching her. “Mistress—”
“Sela, remember.” Seha glanced over the protocol droid’s shoulder, at the guards in the doorway.
“Yes, Mistress Sela.”
“Stand still.” Seha maneuvered herself so C-3PO was directly between her and the guards. She affected to open the toolbox and examine its contents. “Artoo?”
“Mistress, we’re under considerable time pressure here—”
“Hush.”
R2-D2 crowded in close. A small port on his dome slid open, and his spindly manipulator arm emerged. In its grasper claw was a silvery tube the approximate length of a lightsaber handle, but thicker along its length. Words were stenciled on it in black. He placed it in the toolbox and retracted his arm.
“Everything seems to be here.” Seha’s voice turned stern. “Don’t let this