[Legacy Of The Force] - 07(50)

The chill in Caedus’s heart intensified. Without answering, he dashed toward the doors. Moments later, he entered his private office.

The guard, a muscular man with yellow skin, was there, slumped in Caedus’s desk chair, unconscious. A bruise was already beginning to appear on his chin. Leia was nowhere to be seen.

Caedus shoved him and the rolling chair aside, hearing but not looking as the chair toppled and deposited the guard on the floor. Caedus brought up his desk monitor and clicked it over instantly to his secret chambers, where Allana now lived.

There she was, curled up on a little daybed. Nearby, an entertainment monitor flickered, unwatched, its screen displaying an entertainment broadcast in which Ewoks spoke Basic and befriended shipwrecked little girls. Caedus tensed, remembering the deception he had perpetrated in Tenel Ka’s palace, but saw her features and relaxed. This was the real Allana.

He thumbed his comlink to life. “Security. Find Jedi Solo and report her location to me.”

“At once, sir.”

But it wasn’t at once. Thirty agonizingly long seconds went by, then the voice returned. “Sir, she’s approaching your personal hangar bay.”

“Alone?”

“Alone, sir.”

“Alert the guards there. Secure both the internal and external bay doors. If she tries to perform a bypass on the internal doors or begins to cut through them with her lightsaber, unsecure the outer doors, open them, and vent the hangar to space. I doubt she’ll want to play in hard vacuum.”

“Yes, sir.” There was a pause. “Doors secured remotely, sir. But the door guards aren’t responding. There’s no sign of them on holocam.”

Thoughts clicked through Caedus’s mind like sabacc cards going through an automated shuffler.

She was under observation until moments ago, so she couldn’t have gotten rid of the guards herself.

Conclusion: she has allies aboard, or she smuggled in allies on her yacht. Probably the latter.

She doesn’t have Allana, so Allana was not the goal of her mission. He pulled out his datapad and used it to transmit a query to YVH-908, the combat droid serving as Allana’s bodyguard. The droid sent back an immediate response, indicating no intrusions, no problems.

But to be sure, Caedus moved to the wall panel concealing the secret door that led to those chambers. It opened before him, and he stepped through into one of the best-kept secrets aboard ship. The narrow corridor led aft, to a succession of small rooms that almost no one living knew about. A few steps later, another door opened for him, presenting him with the same happy view of Allana he had seen on his monitor.

She opened her eyes, groggy, and yawned. “No more work?”

“I’m sorry. Lots more work. But I wanted to stop in to look at you.”

“I dreamed there was a lady here.”

“Well, have another good dream. I’ll be back soon.” He smiled, then stepped out again and let the door shut behind him.

No, Allana had not been Leia’s objective. So what is? Sabotage of the long-range turbolasers? Surely she knows that Luke took care of them. They won’t be repaired for weeks or months. “Engineering, commence a tiered diagnostics scan of all the ship’s combat and sensor systems.”

“Yes, sir.”

The security officer’s voice crackled across his comlink almost immediately. “Sir, Jedi Solo reached the bay doors. We had them locked down, but they opened right up for her and she walked in. Holocam image inside doesn’t show her. The holocams must have been subverted.”

Caedus hissed in frustration. “Vent the outer doors immediately.’”

“We did, sir. Issued the command, I mean. The system acknowledged, but exterior holocams show the doors still shut.”

“Bring up all weapons, prepare to blast that yacht to plasma the instant it launches.”

Remembering the stratagem he’d used on Hapes, Caedus felt a new fear. Perhaps Leia and accomplices had brought a bomb aboard. He never would have suspected it of her, but the idea had a beautiful simplicity to it. A sufficiently large explosion in his private hangar would cripple or destroy the Anakin Solo.

Worse, it would harm or kill Allana.

He spun, reentered the room he had just left, and smiled down at his daughter. “I was wrong. Work is done for a little while. Let’s go for a fun ride.”



CENTERPOINT STATION, FIRE-CONTROL CHAMBER

The chief technician’s voice was quiet and somber. “Anakin Solo imprinting lockout bypasses are holding. Energy charge is holding. Targeting system is holding. We read ready.”

Admiral Delpin nodded. “Acknowledge ready.” She turned Koyan’s way. “We await your authorization to launch.”