Star Wars_ The Han Solo Trilogy 01_ The Paradise Snare - A. C. Crispin [86]
Han shook his head. He was tired—he’d been sleeping in short shifts for the past four nights, and it was catching up with him. “Escape? Tonight?”
“Yesssss!” Muuurgh’s anxiety was catching. Han could feel adrenaline beginning to course through his body. “Must escape! Tell Muuurgh what to do! Almost two hours before dawn. By sunrise Mrrov will be waiting with others at Altar place, and Vykk and Muuurgh must be ready with ship!”
“Okay, okay, pal. Calm down.” Han tried to think what had to be done first. “You’ve caught me by surprise here, and I need a second to unscramble my brain. First things first. We’ll need some blasters. Five or six of ’em. You used to live in the guards’ barracks. Think you can sneak in and get ’em?”
Muuurgh nodded. “Yessss … I will get five or six blasters.”
“If I were you, I’d swipe ’em from the Gamorreans. They’re dumb as a box of rocks, and they sleep like logs.”
Muuurgh’s whiskers twitched with amusement. “Yessss …”
“Okay, then. Meet me in front of the Administration Center in half an hour.”
With a final nod, Muuurgh melted into the underbrush.
Han headed for the Administration Center. First item on his agenda was to knock out the Colony’s comm units. He didn’t want anyone summoning reinforcements from the other colonies, or warning them that there was trouble afoot.
When the Corellian reached the comm center, he dug in his pocket for the scrap of flimsy that Bria had given him containing all of the security codes she’d gained from her foray into Teroenza’s mind. There was the code for Teroenza’s personal yacht, Talisman, the ship Han planned to use for their getaway. There was the code for Teroenza’s private living quarters, and the code for the collection room. And there was also the code for the operations center that contained the Colony’s generators, the base security viewscreens, the droid repair shop, the weapons lockers, and the comm unit.
Han tiptoed through the quiet hallways, wondering if he’d catch a glimpse of Muuurgh on his errand, but he saw not a flicker of motion. By now he knew enough about the security layout of Colony One to automatically avoid the bored night guards—who were, most likely, from what he’d seen on his previous forays, asleep at their posts.
It seemed an eternity before he reached the operations center, but finally he was there, entering Bria’s code. With a soft electronic hum, the door swung open. “That’s my girl,” Han muttered as he crept inside.
There was a guard stationed there, as Han had known there would be. A Twi’lek, asleep in the chair, feet propped up on the comm-unit console, head-tails dangling behind him like two ropes of pallid flesh. Resounding snores vibrated through the still air.
Han drew his blaster, changed the setting to STUN, and squeezed the trigger. A blue, circular burst erupted, enveloping the guard. The Twi’lek jerked once, then collapsed bonelessly into the chair, looking exactly the same—except the snores had stopped. “That’s a definite plus,” Han muttered, holstering his gun.
Stepping over to the comm unit, he pulled out the small multitool most pilots automatically carried in their pockets, and set to work loosening the casing. He intended to disable the comm unit, then replace the casing, so whoever tried to use it wouldn’t realize for a while that it had been sabotaged.
Moments later he lifted the outer shell off and put it on the floor. His eyes widened at the myriads of wires, circuits, transponders, cables, and row after row of identical unlabeled compartments. Han groaned aloud. “How’m I supposed to know which of these carries the line to the power generators?”
Selecting a wire at random, he cut it with the multitool’s small laser torch. The power indicator remained ON. Han cut another wire. Then another. With growing frustration, he grabbed a handful of the circuits and yanked them loose.