Wedge grinned after him.
Six hours later, minutes before the evening meal was due to arrive, Wedge sat at his usual desk, the terminal alive before him. Of course, it didn’t give him access to the worldwide datanet; that would defeat the purpose of his captivity. But it did apparently sample the datanet once or twice a day, allowing Wedge to follow Coruscant and galactic news, and offered a wide variety of thirty-year-old games and battle simulation programs. Now he brought up one of those simulations-this one allowing him to recreate, at squad-action level, the ambush of Rebel Alliance ships at Derra IV, an action that had taken place before either of his captors had been born-and began playing it through from the Rebel side.
The little chron at the top right of the terminal screen told him that he had five minutes to wait before his next meal would arrive.
He took a sip from his tumbler of water, untouched since his noon meal arrived. It was still almost full. Slowly, his attention still apparently full on the battle simulation before him, he lowered the hand with that tumbler to his lap. He positioned it under the lip of the desk until it was beneath desk number two, and then, with excruciating, silent care, poured most of the water out onto the floor there. It broadened as a slowly spreading, all-but-invisible pool.
Three minutes left. He couldn’t cut things too close. Titch might vary his schedule by a few seconds. Young officers weren’t that dependable.
He held the tumbler over desk number two, inverted it as close to instantly as he could, and set it down rim-first. To observers, it would-well, should-look as though he were merely setting aside an empty drink container. Water began pooling out from under the rim and spread out in all directions-toward that desk’s chair, toward the lip adjoining Wedge’s desk. Like the water on the floor, it should be all but invisible to the sort of low-resolution holocams used to monitor prisoners.
Wedge typed in the next turn’s series of commands to the simulation program and leaned forward to watch the turn’s results. While locked in that pose, he groped around carefully under the desk and located the power cable that ran from the system’s main processor up to the monitors around the desk.
Two minutes left. He watched the Imperials on the screen slaughter the Rebels at Derra IV, as they had more than thirty years before.
He made an exasperated noise. With his free hand, he powered down the terminal. Then, with his other hand, he pulled the power cable loose and drew it to him, gathering all the slack he could obtain. Only then did he lean back in his chair.
The door behind him slid open. Titch entered-Wedge recognized him by the sound of his heavy, confident stride-and asked, “Not going so well, is it?” Then the man moved into view, Wedge’s meal in his hands, and walked up to desk number two. He set the tray down. For a brief moment, he looked confused as his fingers contacted water on the desktop.
Wedge powered up his monitor and tossed the power cable onto desk number two.
Titch jerked and began to shake, trapped in the spasms of electrocution. The overhead lights dimmed.
Wedge stood quickly, propelling his rolling chair back and away from him. He glanced behind him. The chair came to a halt a hand span from where he’d aimed it, dead in the center of the open doorway.
Wedge watched the security man being electrocuted. It was now a waiting game, duration measured in seconds. If Barthis did not act before Titch suffered irreparable damage, Wedge might have to —
Finally it came, Barthis’s voice from the next chamber: “Power down Block Forty-five-zero-two. Do it now!”
Nothing happened. Wedge waited. He heard running footsteps, a single individual approaching-Barthis. He could imagine her with a blaster pistol in her hand, and he was still armed with nothing.
Then the lights went out. Wedge heard a gasp from Titch, a metallic thud as the man hit the floor. This was followed within half a second with a whoosh as the depowered door slid down and slammed into Wedge’s rolling chair.
Wedge located Titch by touch. The man moved feebly. Wedge found his belt, removed the blaster from its holster, and switched it from its burn setting to its stun setting. He said two words: “Remember, refreshers.”
Then, on hands and knees, he scooted over toward the chamber doorway. Just before he reached it, he could feel air flow into his makeshift prison, and then his free hand encountered one wheel of his rolling chair. Carefully, quietly, he slid past the chair, which creaked under the weight of the door it held.
He listened and could hear Barthis’s voice, a few meters away: “Send a security detachment to Forty-five-zero-two. The prisoner was contained when the power cut dropped the door, but he has Lieutenant Titch as a prisoner. No, for the moment, we’re secure.”