Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [352]
Through his comlink’s wireless earpiece, Shryne heard Jula’s voice.
“I just heard from our bundle,” she said. “He’s in motion.”
“We’re working our way around to him now,” Shryne said into the audio pickup fastened to the synthfur collar of his coat.
“You sure you’re going to be able to recognize him from the holoimages?”
“Recognizing him won’t be a problem. But finding him in this crowd could be.”
“I’m guessing he didn’t expect this big a turnout.”
“I’m guessing no one did.”
“Does that say something for the Emperor’s days being numbered?”
“Someone’s days, anyway.” Shryne paused, then said: “Hold for a moment.”
The palace’s south gate entrance was within sight now, but in the time it had taken Shryne, Skeck, and Archyr to complete their third circuit, a mob had formed. Three human speakers standing atop repulsorlift platforms were urging everyone to press through the tall gates and onto the palace grounds. Anticipating trouble, a group of forty or so royal troops dressed in ceremonial armor and slack hats had deployed themselves outside the gates, armed with an array of nonlethal crowd control devices, including sonic devices, shock batons, and stun nets.
“Roan, what’s going on?” Jula asked.
“Things are getting rowdy. Everyone’s being warned away from the south gate entrance.”
The crowd surged, and Shryne felt himself lifted from his feet and carried toward the palace. The cordon of troops issued a final warning. When the crowd surged again, two front-line guards sporting backpack rigs began to coat the cobblestone plaza with a thick layer of repellent foam. The crowd surged back in response, but dozens of demonstrators closest to the front failed to step back in time and were immediately immobilized in the rapidly spreading goo. A few of them were able to retreat by surrendering their footgear, but the rest were stuck fast. The trio of hovering agitators took advantage of the situation, accusing Alderaan’s Queen and vizier of attempting to hinder the marchers’ rights to free assembly, and of kowtowing to the Emperor.
The surges grew more powerful, with demonstrators trapped in the center of the crowd taking the brunt of all the pushing and shoving. Shryne began to edge toward the perimeter, with Skeck and Archyr to either side of him. When he could, he enabled his comlink.
“Jula, we’re not going to be able to get to the gate.”
“Which also means that our bundle won’t be able to exit the grounds that way.”
“Do we have a substitute rendezvous?”
“Roan, I’ve lost voice contact with him.”
“Probably temporary. When you hear from him, just tell him to stay put, wherever he is.”
“Where will you be?”
Shryne studied the palace’s curved south wall. “Don’t worry, we’ll find a way in.”
Those poor beings, trapped in that terrible foam,” C-3PO said as he and R2-D2 hastened for a narrow access door in the palace’s south wall.
Close to the palace’s underground droid-maintenance facility, where both droids had enjoyed an oil bath, the door was the same one they had used to exit the palace grounds earlier that day, when the protestors were just beginning their march.
“I think we’ll be much better off inside the palace.”
R2-D2 chittered a response.
C-3PO tilted his head in bafflement. “What do you mean we’ve been ordered inside anyway?”
The astromech chirped and fluted.
“Ordered to conceal ourselves?” C-3PO said. “By whom?” He waited for an answer. “Captain Antilles? How thoughtful of him to show concern for our well-being in the midst of this confusion!”
R2-D2 zithered, then buzzed.
“Something else?” C-3PO waited for R2-D2 to finish. “Don’t tell me you can’t say. It’s simply that you refuse to say. I’ve every right to know, you secretive little machinist.”
C-3PO fell briefly silent as the shadow of a low-flying craft passed over them.
His single photoreceptor tracking the flight of a midnight-black Imperial shuttle, R2-D2 began to whistle and hoot in obvious alarm.
“What is it now?”
The astromech loosed a chorus of warbles and shrill peeps. C-3PO fixed his photoreceptors on him