Star Wars_ Tales From Jabba's Palace - Kevin J. Anderson [105]
Lobot angled his head at Random. She read the data he generated on her pad. “Not all the generators were targeted, sir.” Her voice could not hide her puzzlement. “A diversion?”
Calrissian tugged his cloak more tightly around his shoulders. A diversion he could understand. Misdirection. Like noisily knocking over a pile of betting chits to disguise the skillful pass that brought a winning gambling tab to the top of the deck.
“Where’s she headed?” Calrissian asked. The decking beneath him was almost at a normal angle now, thrumming at the edge of perception with the regular hum of the generators and the constant shifting of the control surfaces that kept the floating city in trim.
But Sarl Random had no answer for him. She had only been acting security chief for a single shift—ever since she had brought him the evidence that revealed what his real security chief actually was. In another mining colony, she might have been tossed over the rimguard herself. But she was too inexperienced to know how dangerous it could be to expose corruption in a facility so small it was a law unto itself. And she had taken her discovery to Baron-Administrator Calrissian himself—in spite of all the stories told of him on a dozen worlds—a man to whom the word “honor” still had meaning.
A communications panel chimed and Lobot punched the code that released its speaker wand. He automatically handed it to Calrissian.
“This is the administrator. Go ahead.”
A droid reported. “Traffic control, sir. One of the transport shuttles has launched without clearance from the east platform.”
Calrissian permitted himself a smile of relief. The prisoner had finally made a mistake. “She can’t get far in that.” It was an orbital transfer vehicle only, strictly intrasystem. “Scramble all the Twin Pods. I want her brought back at once—still functioning—or know the reason why.”
“You should blow her out of the sky,” the droid responded. Then quickly added, “Sir.”
Calrissian and Random exchanged a look of surprise. Droids didn’t talk that way.
“Who is this?” Calrissian demanded.
“Wuntoo Forcee Forwun. Sir. Traffic controller, second class.”
Calrissian had been ready to reprimand the presumptuous droid, but hesitated as he recognized the prefix code. Three other Wuntoo units, all from the same manufacturing lot, had been found in the recycling bay, bound for the furnace. At least, parts of them had been found there, showing disturbing evidence that they had been taken apart while they were still switched on. What had happened to the rest of them was something only the former security chief knew, so Calrissian had some understanding of what the droid must be feeling—if a droid could be said to feel. Cloud City’s baron-administrator had encountered enough droids with such convincing emotional analogues that he often had cause to question the common wisdom. And the processors used in the Wuntoo units, which made them capable of tracking the complexities of this facility’s air and space traffic, certainly were elaborate enough to allow unexpected behaviors to emerge.
“Listen to me, Forwun—this is no time for revenge. Issue my orders directly to the patrol or stand down from duty. Do you understand?”
There was a long pause, the hiss of static on an open channel. Then the droid said, “Orders issued, sir.”
Lobot nodded at Calrissian. He was monitoring the security channels.
“Patrols launched,” Random confirmed, reading from her display pad.
Calrissian slipped the speaker wand back into the wall panel. “This won’t take long,” he said to Random. “That transport will be dragged back here before—”
He didn’t finish because the air was viciously rent by a bone-jarring crack of thunder. Calrissian, Lobot, and Random turned sharply to stare past the rimguard, into the clouds.
The Iopene Princess emerged from the billows of Tibanna, its dull gray finish bloodied by the ruby light of the setting primary.
“No,” Calrissian whispered.