Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [42]
He feared that his own nervous state had set Leia off, but he hadn’t dared tell her or Han anything yet. He alone knew how desperately the enteched humans suffered, and therefore the danger they all faced if Bakura fell. And if that happened, Bakura’s resources (and population) would help the aliens take another world, where they’d charge up more battle droids to take another, and another, in a chain reaction that could spread clear to the Core worlds.
Perhaps they intended to wipe out all humanity—or maintain prison worlds as breeding populations. It wouldn’t surprise him if they had other kinds of droids that ran on human energy as well. He, Thanas, and even Nereus couldn’t even be sure they faced the entire Ssi-ruuvi fleet.
In the light of this crisis, he’d had no business being distracted by Senator Gaeriel Captison.
Yet those sensations he’d felt, as her presence responded to his probe, made him tingle in memory. The sensations, that is, before her sudden reversal. He’d never felt so strong and sudden a change from attraction to disgust. Now he had to speak with her. If she opposed Jedi so vehemently, she could ruin Leia’s chances for treaty talks. He’d rather have her honest opposition than be ignored. At first, anyway.
Sooner than Luke felt ready, his shuttle landed at the edge of the dark, artificial surface they’d picked out as the garrison. The nervous Alliance pilot helped Luke unload Artoo and then sped away north toward the spaceport. Luke stared up at the garrison’s perimeter. Above and behind a fence that crackled with high voltage, stormtroopers paced catwalks between enormous observation towers. A shimmering, sparking force field blocked the opening between gatehouse towers. Patrol droids converged on him from three directions.
This was the Empire, all right. Luke strode boldly toward the gate. “Come on, Artoo.”
A pair of black-helmeted naval troopers stepped out from behind one gatehouse. The force field snapped off. “Commander Skywalker?” asked one trooper, hand on his blaster.
I am peace. Luke pressed his palms together in front of his chest. “I’m here to speak with Commander Thanas.”
“And the droid?”
“Information repository.”
The trooper laughed shortly. “Espionage.”
“I’ll probably give Commander Thanas more information than I take away.”
“Wait here.” The trooper vanished into his gatehouse.
Luke stared through the fence. An AT-ST scout walker plodded past, looking like a huge gray metal head on legs. The main garrison loomed across a wide open area. “Standard” it might be, but from up close it looked suitably huge. Luke guessed it at eight stories tall. Turbolaser turrets gleamed on each upper level like guardians of a giant’s castle. From this angle, he spotted two vast launch chutes aimed at the sky. He could only guess how many TIE fighters might be racked inside. He wouldn’t’ve dared to go near this place with a squadron of X-wings. Alone, he was safer. He hoped.
The trooper reemerged with a restraining-bolt Owner and a repulsor disk with twin side struts. “The droid will come in on the disk,” he said, “shut down. You may carry your personal Owner, but unauthorized reactivation will be construed as hostile.”
Artoo beeped nervously.
“It’s all right,” Luke said. “Don’t worry.” He let the trooper deactivate Artoo’s main power converter. Once they strapped the silenced droid to the repulsor disk, Luke checked the clasps to make sure his metallic friend wouldn’t fall off. He touched his Owner, which dangled beside his lightsaber. It too reminded him of his dream back at Endor.
He’d never liked restraining bolts anyway. Governor Nereus’s personnel probably had Owners, too, that would let them command Artoo and Threepio despite the droids’ prior programming.
“Follow me,” the trooper said. He led to an open skiff. Luke took a middle seat and hooked the repulsor disk’s tow cable over one side. They sped over the base. The surface that had looked so dark on approach now seemed to be plain, dark gray permacrete. But count on Imperial bureaucracy to cover up anything