The air began to vibrate, accompanied by a hum, rising and falling, from the direction of the distant fire-control chamber. Seyah frowned, listening.
Kyp looked over the two forces. “This is going to be tricky. To get us there, I have to rush the CorSec troops. I’ll have to use my lightsaber. So while I’m dealing with the floating droids, the CorSec troops will be firing at me. When they see I’m a Jedi, the Alliance troops will fire at me. It’s going to take awhile to get through them all.”
Seyah gave him a dubious look. “How long?”
“Three minutes or so. Why?”
“I’m not sure we have that long.”
“Why not?”
“That sound you hear is them powering up the primary weapon.”
“Oh.” Kyp considered. “How good are the odds that your sabotage is going to destroy this place?”
“Well, clearly, the rotation-for-gravity thing didn’t work. That was a programming change, which we know the main program resists. I know far more about the weapon targeting system. I am a genius. With the last master plan, I just substituted data, not programming. And although my ex-wives will argue the point, I have to be right sometime. Call it good odds.”
“New plan.”
“Let’s hear it.”
“We abandon your third master plan and get out of here.”
Seyah nodded. “I like it.”
He led the way, sprinting back the way they’d come, and raised his comlink. “Seyah to Broadside. We’re headed your way. The remainder of the mission is scrubbed. Prepare for immediate liftoff.”
Chapter 36
ABOARD THE ANAKIN SOLO
Leia finished cutting a hole in the metal surface overhead and pushed the resulting plate out of the way, giving it a little boost in the Force so that its glowing edges would not contact her skin. Cool air flowed across her.
No alarms sounded, no blaster shots rained down on her-so far, so good. She stood, finding herself in a small workshop chamber, and leapt up to the floor, taking a look around.
Tables, electronic parts, computer gear, one door out, no other occupants. She gave a quick look to the items on the table. Complex but rugged wiring and circuitry, hardy cylinders of durasteel, a sophisticated and high-yield battery, familiar-looking buttons and brackets-someone was building a lightsaber. It was almost done; it needed only to have a shell chosen and decorated, a gem installed.
It had to be Jacen. Perhaps he was building a weapon for Ben, under the assumption that he would be able to return Ben to his service.
Iella clambered to her feet beside Leia. “How far?”
Absently, Leia pointed toward the side wall. “Just on the other side. We’re there.”
“I’ll activate the comm frequency jammer.” Iella set her backpack down on the lightsaber assembly table and opened it.
Han clambered out of the hole in the floor. “Before you activate that .
. .” He pulled out his own comlink and spoke into it. “Artoo, extract.”
Iella winced and threw a switch on the side of the box within her backpack. “That might have alerted sensors in this area.”
Han shrugged. “We can’t leave Artoo where he is, to be picked up and wiped by the Alliance.”
The wall Leia had gestured toward crashed inward. A YVH combat droid battered its way into the workroom, raising its arm toward Han, and fired.
Luke and Saba flanked Ben, their lightsabers up, and caught the barrages of blaster damage being hurled their way. Caedus waited, patient. They couldn’t sustain that amount of fire for very long. Either they’d die, or they’d figure out how to put the combat droids down fast. As blaster bolts began ricocheting all over the bridge, the Anakin Solo’s officers dived for cover behind their stations. Caedus merely ignited his lightsaber, ready to fend off any ricochets coming his way.
Curiously, Ben returned his own lightsaber to his belt. The boy gestured out in either direction. Something flew from each hand, down to the YVH droids in the officers’ pits, adhering to their chests.
Caedus sighed. Of course. The Jedi had plundered grenades from the droids they’d defeated.
As the thought occurred to him, the detonators went off. The combat droids disappeared-not vaporized, but hurled into and through the bulkhead armor behind them. The shock wave hammered everything at the stern end of the bridge, shredding officers’ stations, setting men and women on fire. Screams and alarms filled the air.
Ben repeated the move, planting a grenade on the chests of the two YVH droids flanking the Jedi. Caedus blinked. It seemed a suicide move. The explosions would consume the Jedi as well as the droids. But Luke and Saba lashed out, each kicking a different direction, and the two droids, still firing, toppled over backward into the pits where their comrades had been.