Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [343]
In the control room and elsewhere in the facility, alert sirens were warbling, lights were flashing, and hatchways were sealing.
“Whatever you did, undo it!” Shryne said to Filli without missing a blaster bolt. “Deactivate the droids!”
A glance at display screens that had been sleeping moments earlier showed that scores of infantry droids and droidekas were hurrying toward the control center from all areas of the complex.
“Filli, hurry!” Jula added for emphasis. “More are headed this way!”
Shryne took a moment to look around the control room. The doorway through which he and Jula had entered was one of three, positioned 120 degrees from one another.
“Filli, can you seal us in here?” he shouted.
“Probably,” the slicer yelled back. “But we may have bigger troubles.”
“We can handle the droidekas,” Forte assured him.
Filli raised his head above the console and shook it negatively. “Someone at the Temple knows that we’ve sliced in!”
Starstone whirled on him. “How do you—”
“We’re getting an echo from the beacon,” Eyl Dix explained.
Redirecting a flurry of bolts, Shryne reduced six droids to shrapnel. “How long before the Temple ascertains our location?”
“Depends on who’s at the other end,” Filli said.
“Then cancel the link!” Jula said.
“We’re still downloading,” Starstone said. “We need all the data we can get.”
Shryne glowered at her. “What good is all the data in the Temple if we’re not around to put it to use?”
She narrowed her eyes. “I knew you’d say that. Do it, Filli,” she said over her shoulder. “Zero the link.” Glancing apologetically at Forte and Kulka, she added: “We’ll make the best of what we have.”
“Done,” Filli announced.
Shryne’s deflection shot dismantled another droid. “Now shut the power down before we’re shot to death or entombed in here!”
A moment later the droids returned to their inert status, and the control room was plunged into darkness. Five lumas provided just enough light to see by.
“I trust that someone knows the way out of here,” Forte said.
“I do,” Dix said, her antennae standing straight up.
“Then let’s hope the exit’s still open,” Shryne said.
Filli nodded. “It is. I got a look at the security screen before we cut the power.”
“Good job,” Shryne started to say, when blasterfire erupted from somewhere outside the control room.
“You said you zeroed it, Filli,” Jula snapped.
He spread his hands in confusion. “I did!”
Shryne listened closely to the distant discharges. “Those aren’t droid blasters,” he said after a moment. “Those are DC-fifteens.”
Starstone stared at him. “Stormtroopers? Here?”
Jula’s comlink chimed and she grabbed for it. “Archyr,” she said for everyone’s benefit.
“Captain, we’ve got company,” Archyr said from the drop ship. “Troopers from the Jaguada garrison.”
Shryne traded looks with Starstone.
“Whoever’s at the Temple didn’t waste any time,” she said.
Shryne nodded. “They must have been monitoring us from the start.”
“How many troopers?” Jula was asking Archyr.
“A couple of squads,” he said. “Skeck and I are pinned down on the landing platform. But most of the troopers have headed inside.”
“I can try to seal the entrances …” Filli said.
“No, don’t,” Shryne cut him off. “You think you can you rig a delay to the power generator?”
His luma grasped in his teeth, Filli began to riffle through his tool kit. “I’m sure I can cobble something together,” he said.
Shryne turned to Jula. “How long will it take us to reach the front entrance, closest to the cliffs?”
She threw him a questioning look. “That’ll dump us way downvalley, Roan. A good kilometer from the drop ship.”
He nodded. “But we avoid engaging troopers on the way out.”
Her brow continued to furrow. “Then why do you want Filli to—” She grinned in sudden revelation and turned to Filli. “Set it to power up in a standard quarter, Filli.”
“That’s cutting things pretty close, Captain.”
“The closer, the better,” she said.
By the time