Star Wars_ The Dark Lord Trilogy - James Luceno [95]
Following what had sounded like a debate, the probe droids had chirped and bleated at the panel a second time. Issuing a resolved click, the panel had descended a couple of centimeters, then come to a halt.
Dyne recalled wondering where the platform’s shaft could lead.
Unlike many of Coruscant’s tallest buildings, 500 Republica did not rely on the support of earlier structures for its foundation, but was solid almost all the way down to bedrock. Or at least was thought to be. This far below Coruscant’s civilized crust, there remained areas as unfamiliar as the surfaces of some distant worlds.
Dyne had decided to contact Mace Windu at the Jedi Temple for advice on how to proceed. But when his repeated attempts failed, he and Valiant had made a command decision to carry on without the Jedi.
Ground imaging scans had already shown the shaft to be fifty meters deep. Four meters in diameter, the panel was large enough to accommodate the entire team, including the interpreter droid.
Definitely the most dangerous place to be, Dyne thought as he wedged himself among the commandos.
The probe droids chirped instructions to the panel, and it began to drop.
Slower than would have been the case had it answered to a repulsorlift.
The wall of the circular shaft was ancient ceramacrete, cracked and stained in places.
“If anyone’s down here,” Dyne said to Valiant, “they’re probably aware we’re on the way.”
The commandos didn’t need to be told. Weapons enabled, they hurried to firing positions the moment the platform came to a rest.
Ribboned with conduits and crowded with ancient machinery, the dismal space bore some resemblance to the tunnels and rooms they had passed through and explored since leaving The Works. But this one, Dyne told himself, was an archaeologist’s dream. Probably a maintenance node for buildings that had stood here in Coruscant’s dim past.
Twenty meters ahead of them, flickering light lanced from around the edges of a large metal door.
Dyne sent the droids to investigate, then studied the processor’s data screen.
“One flesh-and-blood behind the door,” he whispered to Valiant. “Readings also indicate the presence of droids.” He looked at the ARC. “It’s your call, Commander.”
Valiant regarded the door. “We’ve come this far. I say we go in like we own the place.”
Dyne’s heart began to race. “Find, fix, finish.”
In what had served as the archive room for LiMerge Power’s plasma facility, droid parts were piling up so fast and so high that Obi-Wan and Anakin could scarcely see Dooku’s wavering holoimage any longer.
The business of destroying infantry droids—for that’s precisely what the confrontation had come down to—was beginning to take a toll on Obi-Wan. The decapitations and amputations were no longer as surgical as they had been when Dooku had first unleashed the droids. The slices that halved his spindly opponents and the thrusts that pierced chest plastrons had lost some of their initial accuracy.
Neither he nor Anakin was relying on lightsabers only. Calling on the Force, they hurled whatever could be lifted from the floor or yanked from the walls. Force-pushing four droids to the floor, hewing half a dozen more with his flashing blade, Anakin leapt from Obi-Wan’s side, landed on the head of a perplexed droid, and began to race toward the far side of the hall, using other heads as stepping-stones.
But for every droid either of them destroyed, five more would appear, creating an impenetrable barrier between them and the doorway through which Dooku had certainly disappeared moments before they had arrived.
“Dooku!” Anakin snarled through clenched teeth. “I will kill you!”
“Control your rage, Anakin,” Obi-Wan managed to say between breaths. “Don’t give him the satisfaction.”
Anakin shot him a worrisome scowl. “Can’t have me becoming too powerful,