Star Wars_ Tales of the Bounty Hunters - Kevin J. Anderson [98]
“Authorization through level eight systems granted, Controller Toryn Farr,” the droid said. “But I cannot answer your question. Data on surrounding ships, if any, is unavailable.”
The scanners were destroyed or offline.
“How much of the ship is intact?” she asked.
“Freight decks one and two completely intact. Passenger deck one is 17.4 percent intact.”
“How many survivors are there?”
“Data on survivors is unavailable.”
“How long will air last on the intact decks?”
“Data on oxygen supplies is unavailable.”
“Are we on a collision course with—anything: other ships, Hoth, the star of this system?”
“Data on the ship’s present course is unavailable.”
So much that they needed—information, repair equipment, air, probably—would be unavailable. Toryn thought for a moment for a question she could ask that the droid or the computer might be able to answer.
“Are any escape pods functional and accessible from the intact decks?” she asked.
“Three escape pods are accessible from the intact portion of passenger deck one; however, the pods cannot be fired.”
At last some information she could use. “Why can’t the pods be fired?”
“Data on why the pods cannot be fired is unavailable.”
She had to get up there to find out.
“Attempt to compute answers to all my previous questions,” she told the hacker droid. “I’m going to investigate the escape pods, and I will check in with you again shortly for answers.”
She had to take charge of the situation and start to marshal the resources at hand. It was Rebel procedure, in a situation like this, for anyone with rank to assume he or she was in command till they met someone with higher rank.
So she took charge.
For now, she thought. Just for now. Surely someone else with higher rank had survived to help find a way to save everyone alive on the ship.
She set off down the dark passage. The metal walls were colder to the touch now. The ship was cooling quickly. Freezing to death was supposedly one of the easiest ways to die, she told herself.
Which was how she and the other survivors might die if they had to stay on this ship or if she found a way to launch the escape pods—because where would they take the pods, except back to Hoth? And how would they survive on an ice world—if they could get there and if the Empire didn’t shoot them down first?
Find the pods, she told herself, find out if they can be launched—then find a way to survive on Hoth.
The dark passage was crowded with wounded Rebels, and their dead. She kept stumbling over people and bodies. “I’m trying to find a way to help us,” she told the people moaning in the darkness.
She saw four small, round lights shining yellow farther ahead. Another console, she thought, but the lights got closer and closer to her—then she heard metal feet on the metal deck.
Droids. She was seeing the eyes of droids.
They turned on brighter lights and shined them on her—one droid had a light that shone from its forehead, the other carried a glowtube. They both carried medical supplies. “I am surgeon droid Two-Onebee,” the tallest droid said, the one with the light shining out of its forehead. “And this is my medical assistant, Effour-Seven. We are treating the wounded.”
“There are so many,” Toryn said. “Do you have any idea how many?”
“We have encountered forty-seven nonmechanical survivors so far,” Two-Onebee said. “Apparently we are the only intact droids.”
She told them what she was doing, took the glowtube from Effex-Seven, and set off down the passage. But after a moment she stopped and looked back at the droids.
“Two-Onebee,” she called. “One of our pilots, Samoc Farr, is strapped in a chair at the end of this passage. She has been terribly burned. Her burns are not treated, and she is going into shock. See what you can do for her.”
“Effour-Seven contains excellent burn-treatment programs,” Two-Onebee answered her. “I will send him at once.”
Effour-Seven started off while Toryn watched. She knew it would