I want you to try to interface with the vagabond.”
Lobot turned toward the droids. “Threepio—Artoo—I ask you to wait until we know more. None of our supplies are critical yet. We do not know what we are dealing with.”
“I am sorry, sir, but Master Luke placed us in the care of Master Lando,” Threepio said, allowing Artoo to tow him toward the panel. “We are obliged to follow his instructions, no matter what reservations you may have.”
“Thank you, Threepio,” Lando said, fixing Lobot with a baleful gaze touched with a hint of smug triumph.
“I’m glad to know that you’re still on the team.”
Whether it was due more to Lobot’s misgivings or to Artoo’s innate sense of self-preservation, the astromech droid proceeded cautiously in carrying out Lando’s instructions, and Lobot was glad to see it.
At first Artoo stopped a safe distance from the panel and began to scan it, his dome rotating back and forth as he brought different sensors to bear— optical, thermal, radionic, electromagnetic. Threepio called out the results of each reading to the two men, who were watching from opposite sides of the passage.
Lobot already knew the results by the time Threepio pronounced them, for the droid—on his own initiative, and without any notice to Lando—had opened another of his data registers to the cyborg’s neural interface. It was a signal of support that Lobot accepted in silence, saying nothing that would betray the small mutiny.
When the initial scans produced no obvious red flags, Artoo moved in closer and extended his sensor probe. The scan head was too large to fit fully into the smaller sockets, but Artoo brought it as close to the first of them as he could without actually touching it.
“Field, zero-point-zero-nine gauss,” said Threepio.
“Flux density, one-point-six-zero-two. Alpha rate, zero.
tive—Artoo, I don’t understand a word of this. Will someone please tell me what it means?”
Artoo swiveled his head and emitted a sharp series of whistles, which Threepio did not translate.
“I am trying to hold still,” Threepio said as Artoo moved the probe to the next socket. “It’s not my fault I wasn’t designed for weightlessness. Most sensible beings live on planets, where they belong.”
The response from Artoo sounded churlish even to Lobot’s ears.
“I don’t care what you think,” Threepio said.
“Why, you’re only a mechanic. I was meant for nobler purposes. I should be at a diplomatic reception, helping to forge peace between bitter rivals, arranging a dynastic marriage- - Oh, how I miss the old days—” Artoo’s response was an electronic bleat. “Very well, then,” Threepio said haughtily. “See if I care. I don’t need your help.”
With that, the golden droid released his grip on Artoo’s right tread support and folded his arms across his chestplate.
“But I need your help, Threepio,” said Lando. “So stop squabbling with your brother and call out the numbers.”
“Why do you keep making that error, Master Lando? That egotistical little tyrant is no kin of mine,” Threepio sniffed.
“I can help you, Lando,” Lobot said quietly, without explanation.
“Field, zero-point-eight-two gauss.
Flux density, one-point-seven-four. Alpha rate—” Lando looked at Lobot with annoyance, a sight that gave Lobot surprising satisfaction.
Neither of them saw Threepio reach out and clutch one of the projections on the panel to steady himself. But both heard a loud burst of static on the contact suit comm unit and saw a blue glow in the passage.
“Gracious me!” Threepio exclaimed.
Quickly looking that way, Lobot saw that the end of the panel was crawling with blue-white snakes of en ergy. They were crackling between the tips of the projections, dancing up Threepio’s arm nearly to the elbow joint, and rapidly growing more intense.
“Threepio—don’t let go—” Lobot began.
The warning came too late. The moment his surprise abated, Threepio pulled back his hand in a reflex of squeamishness.
An instant later a massive, squirming bolt of energy leaped from the panel to Threepio’s hand, flashed up his arm and one side of his head, and sprang from there to the face of the passage. Before anyone could react, it had raced away down the passage and disappeared, spreading as it went until it was dancing over the entire surface like a halo of blue fire. One finger of the bolt ran along the hand lines, leaving them crumbling into black dust in its wake.
The bolt left Threepio convulsing and spinning in midair. His right arm was burned black and smoking from the servos and energizer controls, his head was frozen at an odd angle and quivering as though an actuator were caught in a feedback loop.