Star Wars_ Legacy of the Force 01_ Betrayal - Aaron Allston [66]
His mission. That thought almost made him dizzy. It was his mission now.
His cutting done, he slapped the light control on the door control panel. White overhead lights came on and he spun, lightsaber ready, in case enemies waited there in the dark.
No living enemies did. But the room was still not as it was supposed to be.
The banks of lights, computers, and secondary control tables, some original equipment and some installed by the Corellians, lined the walls as they had in Dr. Seyah’s simulations.
But where the main control table was supposed to be rested something else entirely.
It was a mound of machinery as big as half a dozen Hutts engaged in a no-rules wrestling match. Roughly human-shaped, it had a desk-sized head that looked like a sensor node whose surface was thickly crusted with antennae, light monitors, and holocam lenses. Its torso was made up of mismatched modules, each at least as big as the head, connected with durasteel cables and light-bearing transparisteel fibers. Dangling torso units surrounded—perhaps incorporated—the control board Ben needed to access. The machine’s arms appeared to be the heavy-duty cylindrical limbs from a wrecker droid, and ended in the same clumsy, destructive manipulator hands. Instead of legs it had a thick bottom plate whose skirted edges probably concealed repulsorlift machinery. All these components were of different colors, some black, some silver, some industrial green.
Fully upright, it would probably be four meters tall, but it sat hunched forward, like a lazy student kneeling with bad posture.
Its head turned to bring two oversized holocam lenses to bear on him, and it spoke from somewhere in that head unit, its synthesized tones strikingly reminiscent of Jacen Solo’s voice: “Who are you?”
“I’m Ben Skywalker,” the boy said. He didn’t add, I’m here to destroy this whole installation.
“Wonderful,” the droid said. “I’m so happy to meet you. I’m Anakin Solo.”
chapter fourteen
CORONET, CORELLIA
The Behareh Spaceport, though a minor one by the standards of Coronet or any decent-sized city, still sprawled for many acres, even though it was located only a couple of kilometers from the urban heart. Unfortunately for Jaina and the team members, it differed from the city’s main spaceport in a significant way: there was no central parking or hangar area for visitors’ groundspeeders, no large common-arrival point where it would be comparatively easy to remain inconspicuous. Instead, Behareh was divided into dozens of smaller commercial properties, usually with the offices and hangars of three or four firms clustered around common launching and parking areas.
Kolir directed Thann to a cluster of businesses whose parking area was surrounded by tall trees. He landed. Here, the city’s space raid sirens were not as loud as in the government districts, but continued to blare into the skies.
As the groundspeeder slowed to a stop, Zekk’s eyes came open, alert, untroubled, unclouded by pain. “Are we on Corellia yet?” he asked.
“Quiet, you,” Jaina said, but brushed a lock of his hair from his forehead, a gentle gesture robbing any sting from her words. “Thann, Kolir, status?”
“Skywalker’s squadron is making a run over the government center,” Thann said. “To disguise the real purpose of their arrival and to give us some time to get airborne. As soon as we are, he’ll disengage and come over to escort us into space. Tahiri’s speeder will be here in a couple of minutes.” He frowned. “I think there’s something she’s not telling us.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure. She wouldn’t tell me.”
“I have a likely proshpect,” Kolir said, and held up her datapad; on its diminutive screen was a red-and-yellow company logo that read: DONOSLANE EXCURSIONS. “Female human manager on duty. The offishes should be over—” She looked around and spotted a curve-topped yellow duracrete building straight behind the groundspeeder. “Over there.”
The others looked