Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 01_ Jedi Search - Kevin J. Anderson [13]
Wedge frowned. The demolition teams had encountered a lot of ancient artifacts in the ruined buildings, but nothing that had been so powerfully shielded and hidden. Something told him this was important.
He looked up with a start to see that the construction droid had reoriented itself and returned to the reinforced building that stood in its way. Bending down its scannerdome head, the droid inspected the tough walls of the shielded room, as if analyzing how best to rip it to shreds. Two of the explosive electrical claws extended downward.
The construction droid knew nothing about what secrets these buildings might contain. The droid merely followed the blueprint in its computer mind and carried out its programmed modifications.
Wedge felt an agonized moment of indecision. If he shut the droid down to inspect the mysterious building, it would take three days to reset all the systems and power it up again. But if the droid had indeed uncovered something important, something the Cabinet should know about, what would a few days matter?
Blue-white lightning flickered on the ends of the construction droid’s explosive claws as it reached toward the shielded walls.
Wedge picked up his comlink and made ready to shut down the droid—and then his mind blanked. What was the code?
Beside him Lieutenant Deegan saw his moment of panicked confusion and snapped the answer. “SGW zero-zero-two-seven!” Wedge instantly keyed it into the comlink.
The droid froze just as it was about to discharge its electrical claws. Wedge heard the hissing rumble as the factories inside went into standby mode, powering down and cooling off. Wedge hoped he had made the right decision.
“Okay, Purple and Silver Teams come on in with me. We’re going to do a little exploring here.”
Summoning a cluster of floating lights to follow them, the teams converged at the foot of the construction droid and then moved into the wreckage. Loose dust flickered down.
They scrambled over the rubble, careful not to cut themselves on shattered transparisteel and protruding metal. Wedge heard the skittering sounds of small life-forms hiding in the new cracks. The patter of falling stones continued to fall as the collapsing walls shifted and reshifted. “Watch your backs—this place is still falling apart,” Wedge said.
Ahead a wide cavelike gash had opened in the heavily shielded room, showing only a lightless interior.
“Let’s go in. Nice and easy.” Wedge narrowed his eyes at the shadows around them. “Be ready to retreat at a moment’s notice. We don’t know what’s in there.”
A deafening screech sounded far above, reverberating in the night. The demolition teams jumped, then forced themselves to relax when they found it was only the cooling construction droid venting waste heat.
Wedge stepped to the edge of the darkened hole. The buckled crack in the wall was completely dark, showing nothing.
The moment he poked his head into the darkness, the monster lunged forward, all fangs and spewing saliva.
Wedge cried out and stumbled back, bouncing against the jagged edge of the opening as the locomotive of claws and fur and armored body plating charged at him.
Before he could straighten his thoughts—before he could even imagine shouting an order to his troops—a spiderweb of crisscrossed blaster fire erupted into the night. Most of the beams struck home with a smoking hiss into the creature’s body. A second round of blaster fire lanced out.
The monster roared in explosive surprise and pain before collapsing with enough force to start a small avalanche in the debris. Its death sigh sounded like steam escaping from a furnace.
Wedge slumped to the ground and suddenly felt his heart begin beating again. “Thanks, guys!”
The rest of them stood, frozen in surprise and terror, gawking at their own reflexively