Star Wars_ X-Wing 02_ Wedge's Gamble - Michael A. Stackpole [9]
Corran’s suite had two bedrooms that had been built on to either narrow end of a rectangular room. The walls had been painted an Imperial grey. That color, combined with the deep blue of the carpet, made the room fairly dark. Corran had countered the color scheme by bringing in as many lights as he could find and rigging a small holoprojector to flash up images of other worlds and cover a huge chunk of the longest wall.
He’d begged, borrowed, and bartered for the furnishings installed in the room. Most of the functional surfaces were the tops of spare parts crates. He’d managed to keep one of the couches that had originally been in the room and swapped the one with the blaster-burn hole for two Y-wing ejector seats. A small refrigeration unit doubled as the holoprojector stand and, though filling the room with an occasional rattle or wheeze, managed to keep beverages cold and food from spoiling.
A slender, brown-haired man entered the suite first and smiled as an image of Alderaan appeared on the wall. “It has been a long while since I saw Wuitho Trifalls.” He pointed at the promontory from which a river fell in three spectacular waterfalls. “I visited there with my family the week before I went off to the Imperial Academy. NovaCom maintained a repulsorlift cabin in the area, so that’s where we stayed. It was as beautiful as that picture, but without the roar of the water, it seems …”
Dead, Corran didn’t need to see the sorrow and pain on Tycho Celchu’s face to know what word had gone unspoken. Save for the coldest-hearted Imperialist among the survivors of Alderaan, the Alderaanians had suffered a deep, emotional wound when their homeworld had been destroyed. It crushed some but others, like Tycho and Princess Leia Organa, seemed to be driven by that loss to forever put to rest the Empire and its evil.
“I apologize for that, sir. The projector chooses images at random.”
Tycho’s face brightened. “Don’t apologize. I may miss my home, but that does not mean I like seeing holograms of it any less. The planet may be dead, but its beauty lives on in images like that.”
The second visitor shuffled through the doorway, then took a hop forward as it shut behind him. The black droid had the body of a 3PO unit, but the crested clamshell head of a spaceport control droid. “Good evening, Lieutenant Horn. May I say I was pleased to receive your invitation to visit this evening because I am finding Captain Nunb a bit brusque for my tastes …”
Corran flicked a green-eyed glance at Tycho. “Do you want to do it or should I?”
“Do what? May I help?”
Tycho smiled. “We couldn’t do it without you, Emtrey. Shut up.”
“Sir, I must protest …”
“Shut up.”
“But I …”
“Shut up.”
With Tycho’s third repetition of the command, the droid’s arms snapped to its sides and its head canted forward sharply until its chin almost touched its chestplate. At the base of its skull, back at the top of its neck post, a glowing red button became visible. Emtrey shook once as if hit by a blaster bolt, then stood still and, most remarkably, silent.
“Every time I see that little routine I’m amazed.” Corran shook his head and waved Tycho to the couch. “I think I’ve gotten to the bottom of what’s going on with him, though.”
“Great.” Tycho sat down and turned to face away from the picture wall. “Tell me what you’ve got—or at least as much as you can.”
“Sure.” A shiver worked its way down Corran’s spine. A month previously Tycho had reported that Emtrey, Rogue Squadron’s M-3PO unit, had exhibited odd behavior when told to shut up repeatedly. The droid had been acting strangely for a time before that, but no one had complained because he was talking less and had managed to cobble together some excellent