Star Wars_ X-Wing 08_ Isard's Revenge - Michael A. Stackpole [128]
Corran dashed up the steps and pulled his lightsaber from his belt with his left hand. He thumbed it to life, letting its silver glow banish the shadows, then stroked it down either side of the front door. Hot metal glowing red on each side, the door fell forward, then surfed down the steps to strike sparks on the ferrocrete walkway.
Corran darted into the smoky foyer, dropping to one knee. He tracked the blaster across the opening, then raised it as Ooryl came in and took up a similar position on the left side of the door. Corran glanced quickly behind him to make sure there was no office at his back.
Nrin entered the building, doffed his helmet, and clipped the comlink from it to the throat of his flight suit. “Where to from here?”
Ooryl pointed at a large painted diagram of the building on the wall. “Blue level is supposed to be the isolation block. The Lusankya prisoners would be there, I would think. There seems to be only one stairwell allowing access up there.”
“Makes sense for security reasons—prisoners get loose, only one way out of their hole. Besides, I like to start at the top anyway.” Corran snapped off his lightsaber, clipped it to his belt again, and led the way off to the right, to the stairwell that occupied the northwest corner of the building. “Eight flights up and we’re there.”
The stairwell had been built tightly, with each flight covering half the distance to the next floor. At the top of one an immediate right-angle turn would lead to the next flight. The metal underside of more steps formed the roof of each flight and a wall ran down between flights, preventing someone on one course from seeing what was on the next.
The steps themselves had been floored with cheap brown duraplast tiles that were already worn, chipped, and cracking from constant use. The walls themselves were covered with a glossy beige tile with a matching tan mortar. Corran had visited many prisons during his time with CorSec, and he recognized the decor and knew the materials had not been chosen for their aesthetic effect. The fact was that they could simply be hosed down to remove blood stains. And I’d bet that more than one prisoner has slipped and fallen down a flight or two here.
Because they didn’t know if they were walking into trouble or not, they crept up the stairs slowly. At each floor landing they paused and checked the doorway, but found no one waiting for them. Finally, after five agonizing minutes, they reached the top floor and entered a small containment area.
The isolation cells themselves ran in two long blocks down the center of the fourth floor, oriented north to south. On the east and west sides two spacious galleries, easily five meters wide, separated the back walls of the cells from the tall, translucent windows along the exterior walls. A wall of heavy durasteel bars separated the containment area from the cells and galleries, but allowed Corran to see everything on the fourth floor very clearly.
And it allowed the guards who had overturned a desk and were using it for cover to see Corran. They opened fire from the western gallery, which drove him to the floor. He rolled to his right, reaching the doorway to the stairs. Nrin and Ooryl grabbed him and dragged him onto the landing.
He looked up at them. “Good news is that there’s only four of them. Bad news is that they have cover and there’s a metal bar wall between us and them.”
Nrin shrugged. “Use the lightsaber to slash it open.”
“Oh, I’d love to, but I’d be shot to pieces while getting there.” Corran hesitated for a moment, then bounced the heel of his left hand off his helmet’s forehead. “Sometimes I’m an idiot.”
Ooryl’s helmeted head canted to the side. “Sometimes?”
Corran gave his wingman a contemptuous sneer, but being hidden by the helmet drained it of its effect. “Nrin, give