Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 05_ Agents of Chaos 02_ Jedi Eclipse - James Luceno [95]
Rubbing his freed wrists, Droma glanced at him. “We’re going up?”
“I’ve got a job to do.” Han gestured with his chin toward Bow. “You’ll have to deal with this one. Take him down to the maintenance sublevel and find a closet to stick him in. If he gives you any trouble, shoot him. Then meet me on level five.”
Bow worked his jaw, but managed to keep from saying anything that might provoke Droma to take Han at his word.
While the lift was climbing, Han stripped off the pale-green suit to reveal an expensive business suit beneath it. Droma’s curiosity was palpable.
“No time to explain,” Han said. Handing Droma the bundled-up suit and the open stun cuffs, he added, “Hold on to these; we’re going to need them later.”
At level five, he slipped a sheer glove onto his right hand and headed down a broad, gleaming corridor toward the transceiver room. In his left hand he palmed the fatal data card the droids had given him.
The handprint reader was housed in a niche alongside the control room door. When Han laid his gloved hand on the pad, the device’s screen identified him as Dees Harbright, cousin once removed of Count Borert Harbright and senior vice president of marketing for Salliche Ag, whom the black-bearded, finely tailored Han resembled—sufficiently, at any rate, to bring the half-dozen control room technicians to their feet as he entered.
“Sit down, everyone, sit down,” he said in the most cavalier tone he could muster. “I just wanted to have a look at our deactivation system. Are we operating on schedule?”
“One thousand two hundred fifty droids have been shut down and warehoused this quarter, sir,” a whip-thin female tech chirped. “During the same period, personnel acquisition division has succeeded in recruiting over three thousand refugees, who have agreed to remain on Ruan as employees.”
“Splendid, splendid,” Han said, moving about the room, the data card still palmed in his left hand. While the female tech went on to offer additional statistics, Han—with his back to a peripheral device he hoped would prove the path of least resistance—slotted the disk, which Baffle promised would literally disappear once it had worked its sorcery.
“We’re expecting to have at least fifteen hundred more droids warehoused by the end of the next quarter,” the cheerful woman was saying when the computer system loosed a series of strident tones that struck Han as the machine equivalent of a distress cry.
“System crash!” another technician shouted in obvious disbelief.
At every duty station, lights began to blink out, display screens went gray, and technicians did all but tear their hair out in an effort to resuscitate the system before it crossed over to wherever machine minds went when they crashed. So desperate were their efforts, Han experienced a twinge of guilt—at least until he reminded himself that the machine had been responsible for deactivating thousands of droids.
The mounting panic made it easy for him to slip out of the room unnoticed. The corridor was as quiet and brightly lit as it had been moments earlier, betraying nothing of the chaos ensuing in the control room. Adjusting the fit of his fine jacket, Han sauntered toward the turbolift, nodding with genteel suffrage to everyone he passed. As he neared the lift, Droma appeared from behind a plasteel pillar that had obviously served as his hiding place, the pale-green suit draped over one arm.
“Try not to look so guilty,” he whispered.
Han’s tight-lipped smile held. “Just get in the lift and put on the stun cuffs,” he said without moving his lips.
Once inside, though, his calm and well-mannered facade collapsed. Quickly, he slipped back into the inspector’s suit, then took the blaster from Droma and made certain it was armed.
“I won’t even venture a guess as to how you managed this,” Droma said as he donned the stun cuffs.
“Yeah, but it’d be fun to hear you try.” Han slid the blaster into his jacket pocket. “As soon