Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [53]
Cole was sprawled on his stomach, leaning into the small bay where the socket used to be. The position made his back ache, and the metal lip of the bay dug into his stomach. He had to hold his arm at an odd angle to work the rotator wrench.
As it hummed, he watched the bolts come out. Imagine him working on Luke Skywalker’s X-wing. He had seen Skywalker a few times on Coruscant, but had only heard of him on Tatooine. He was a well-known figure in Anchorhead—and everyone, if the tales could be believed, had been his friend.
Cole had mentally collected stories about Skywalker, half hoping to follow in his footsteps. Somehow he hadn’t put it together that Skywalker’s heroics were tied to his Jedi talents. Someone pointed that out to Cole, ending his dream.
He shook the bolts off the rotator wrench’s magnet and they clattered on the ground. The R2 unit watched them, as it did everything he removed from the ship, as if it were afraid he would again remove something important.
After that, Cole had wandered around Anchorhead, doing odd jobs. It wasn’t until someone who had known him—and who thought his loss funny—had taunted him (Whazzamatta, Fardreamer, can’t become a hero by repairing other people’s machines?) that he realized his talents were just as valuable as Skywalker’s, only in a different manner. A lot of people in the galaxy, a lot of beings, important beings, had no Force capabilities, and yet they contributed all sorts of things to the New Republic.
He had left on the next transport to Coruscant, and offered his services as a mechanic to the government. They had started him with meaningless work, work a droid could have done better, including sorting bolts by size, hoping to drive him away. But he couldn’t be driven. And when he showed more expertise in hands-on assembly than their best Kloperian, he was finally allowed to do the kind of work he loved.
The kind of work that, ironically, brought him to Luke Skywalker.
The last bolt rotated out. Cole slipped his fingers under the panel and yanked. He wasn’t strong enough to pull it out. He didn’t have the proper leverage.
The R2 unit moaned.
Cole tried again. The panel should have slipped out, but it didn’t. He climbed off the X-wing and brushed the dirt off his clothes.
The R2 unit bobbed and whistled.
“I’ll get back to it,” Cole said. “It just doesn’t want to come off.”
But his response didn’t quiet the little creature. It continued to make noise. He watched it with a stunned expression on his face. Maybe its systems were malfunctioning. Maybe—
Then it bumped him aside and approached the X-wing. A small metal arm emerged from its cylindrical body. At the end of the arm was a mechanical claw. The claw attached to the panel, and the R2 unit pulled.
“Hey!” Cole said. The droid could break the panel, the very thing Cole didn’t want because then he would have to replace it out of his own salary.
But the droid didn’t stop. The panel popped away from the fitting, leaving a five-centimeter gap. Then the droid swiveled its head 180 degrees to face Cole.
The droid jabbered something, clearly trying to communicate.
Cole wondered if Skywalker could understand everything the creature said. Probably. He had the Force to help him.
“Okay, okay,” Cole said. “Let me check it out.”
He balanced precariously on the platform beside the X-wing—there was barely enough room for him and the R2 unit—and peered behind the panel.
A green-and-blue Imperial insignia stared back at him.
He whistled, and glanced at the droid. It looked at him wisely. No