Star Wars_ The New Rebellion - Kristine Kathryn Rusch [79]
“No one has been tampering with the equipment,” the Kloperian said.
“Someone has,” Cole said. “Look.” He nodded down toward the X-wing itself. The Kloperian slithered forward. It peered inside.
“I see nothing.”
“Then look again,” Cole said. “There’s a detonating device with an Imperial insignia inside the guidance computer.”
The Mon Calamari guard came over. It trained its huge eyes on the computer. “The Empire never announced its presence like this,” it said. “Such a device would have no need of an Imperial insignia unless someone was trying to lead us astray.”
“There are rumors that the new senate members, the ones who are former Imperials, were behind the bombing,” said another guard. “What if they weren’t? What if someone just wanted to make it look that way?”
The Kloperian prodded Cole with one of its blasters. “Who hired you to sabotage this X-wing, human?”
“No one,” he said.
“Skywalker?”
“Luke Skywalker is a hero of the New Republic,” Cole said. He could feel the shock down to his toes.
“Skywalker is above reproach,” the Mon Calamari said. “But he makes a good cover for this boy.”
“I don’t need a cover,” Cole said.
“Stop, boy. The more you say the more trouble you’ll be in. We caught you in the act of sabotaging this ship.”
“I haven’t done anything.” His voice was rising. Through the corner of his eye, he saw Artoo slowly move away from him. He had to keep talking, just so that they wouldn’t notice Artoo. “I just discovered the problem in a reconditioned X-wing. I was checking to see if the same problem existed in a new X-wing. So I checked the prototype. If I were going to sabotage a ship, don’t you think I’d sabotage one someone was going to use?”
“I have no idea what you would do, boy,” the Mon Calamari guard said.
“He might have a point,” said the slight woman guard beside the Kloperian. She had said nothing until now. “We don’t know if he’s sabotaging or experimenting.”
Artoo had ducked behind one of the other X-wings. Cole had to be careful not to look directly at the little droid.
“That’s not for us to discover,” the Mon Calamari said. “Let someone with authority make that judgment.”
“By all means,” Cole said. “Contact General Antilles. He’ll want to know about this.”
“You know General Antilles?”
“No, but I work for him.”
“We’ll go to your supervisor,” the Kloperian said. “I’m sure he’ll inform us that you were not authorized to make these changes.”
Artoo had reached the wall. His small arm came out, and he jacked into the computer.
“Luke Skywalker said that if anyone was to question me,” Cole said, hoping that his half-truth wasn’t obvious, “I was to tell them to contact General Antilles.”
The Mon Calamari sighed. “We cannot ignore this.”
“We should,” the Kloperian said. “It’s an obvious lie.”
“Hey!” one of the other guards yelled. “What’s that droid doing?”
Cole didn’t even have a chance to answer. The Kloperian turned all three blasters on Artoo and fired at once. The blasts hit him full-force. Artoo screamed as bright red light surrounded him. The computer panel flared, scorched, and popped as the interior overheated. Artoo’s jack shot out and the little droid rocked. Then, when the light faded, he listed to the right side. Tendrils of smoke floated from his head.
“Artoo!” Cole said. “Artoo!”
The droid didn’t answer.
He looked at the guards, feeling both an absurd sense of loss, and fear that Skywalker would never trust him again.
“That was the biggest mistake you could have made,” Cole said. “You just destroyed Luke Skywalker’s favorite droid.”
The Jawas gave them three blasters and one badly used speeder bike in trade for a handful of credits. They weren’t going to bargain at all until Davis spoke up. Then the Jawas launched into a heated discussion. Clearly, they were used to dealing with Davis.
Han wasn’t. He still didn’t feel as if he could trust the guy. But he had no choice.
For now.
The speeder bike hovered well, but it