Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [38]
“Yes, Doctor.”
She quelled an excitement rising within her and turned back to Netbers. “I have a feeling this is going to be fun, Captain. Is it usually fun?”
He nodded.
Kell swore and pushed his head deeper into the access hatch. He was hanging from sturdy metal rungs in the turbolift shaft, one floor below street level, illuminated only by the glow rod held by Shalla, who stood on the same rung he did and helped brace him as he worked. The panel Kell investigated opened into a maze of wires and circuitry, and his head was missing in that forest of equipment. “Give me more light.”
Shalla leaned in closer to oblige, poking her hand and glow rod through the curtain of wiring. She could see his neck flex as he looked around.
Finally Kell withdrew—slowly, so as not to knock Shalla free of her perch. He twisted to look over his shoulder at the other Wraiths, clustered in the open turbolift door behind him. “Two was right. There’s new wiring throughout. If we’d gone down and disabled the monitors on the panel between lift shafts, we would have set off another alarm.”
Face asked, “Can you disable that alarm?”
Kell considered. Shalla knew this really wasn’t his speciality. He’d said he was lucky to have done as well as he had on this mission. “Maybe,” he said. “But I can’t be sure I’ve identified all the security at that entry point. I think instead we need to go through a non-entry point.”
“Like where?”
“Like here.” He gestured at the curtain of wires. “Beyond this monkey-lizard nest, we have a riveted panel of metal between us and the Northwest Two lift shaft. But it’s not armor quality. I vote we just cut through and descend.”
“Do it.”
Kell brought out his vibroblade and powered it on.
They were within three meters of the bottom of the shaft when Kell spotted the access hatch they would have used had they not changed plans. “Nine, the gauge again?”
He felt Shalla rummage around in the top pocket of his demolitions pack. Then she handed him the sensor device he’d had to use so many times tonight. It read electrical currents and was of vital use to mechanics and demolitions experts, two categories into which Kell fit.
He aimed the device at the panel and swept it all around the bottom of the shaft. It registered a considerable amount of electrical current flow beyond the panel, no surprise, and along the recessed slot used by turbolift cars of this sort to acquire their power.
There was also a suspicious spike of activity on the wall opposite the panel, just above the door out of the lift shaft. It took him a few moments to identify the hemispherical depression, not larger than the end of his thumb, in the metal just above the door. “Holocam recess,” he said. “But it’s set up to watch the panel. If we get across to the door side and drop beside it, it shouldn’t spot us.”
Face said, “There are no rungs over there, Five.”
“Oh, well. Guess we go home instead.” Kell had Shalla tuck the gauge back in his pack. He checked to make sure that his pack and other gear were secure.
Then he let go of the rung he was holding on to and leaped across the turbolift shaft, slapping into the far wall like a slapstick character from a holocomedy. He dropped the final three meters to the duracrete bottom of the shaft, his large frame easily handling the shock of landing. He gestured up at his comrades as though to say, “Simple.”
He saw Face shake his head ruefully.
One by one they followed his lead. He half caught each of them, fractionally slowing their descents, then got to work on the minimal security on the turbolift door.
The halls were empty, sanitary, still smelling faintly of something antiseptic. The lights were on at half intensity, making even the whiteness of the walls and floor seem dim. All the Wraiths could hear was the distant hum of air-moving machinery and their own faint footsteps.
Face didn’t like it. It felt abandoned, and an empty facility would not yield them any secrets. It also felt somehow wrong. He glanced at Tyria to gauge her response—perhaps her abilities with the Force, however faint or erratic,