“Oh, there’s telling, all right,” Thrawn assured him. He straightened up and took a deep breath. “Sound intruder alert, Captain. We have visitors aboard.”
Pellaeon stared up at him in astonishment, fumbling fingers locating and twisting the alert key. “Visitors?” he asked as the alarms began their throaty wailing.
“Yes,” Thrawn said, his glowing red eyes glittering with a sudden fire. “Order an immediate check of Karrde’s cell. If he’s still there, he’s to be moved immediately and put under direct stormtrooper guard. I want another guard ring put around the supply shuttles and an immediate ID check begun of their crews. And then”-he paused-“have the Chimaera’s main computer shut down.”
Pellaeon’s fingers froze on his keyboard. “Shut down-?”
“Carry out your orders, Captain,” Thrawn cut him off.
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said between suddenly stiff lips. In all his years of Imperial service he had never seen a warship’s main computer deliberately shut down except in space dock. To do so was to blind and cripple the craft. With intruders aboard, perhaps fatally.
“It will hamper our efforts a bit, I agree,” Thrawn said, as if reading Pellaeon’s fears. “But it will hamper our enemies’ far more. You see, the only way for them to have known the Chimaera’s course and destination was for Mara Jade to have tapped into the computer when we brought her and Karrde aboard.”
“That’s impossible,” Pellaeon insisted, wincing as his computer-driven displays began to wink out. “Any access codes she might have known were changed years ago.
“Unless there are codes permanently hard-wired into the system,” Thrawn said. “Set there by the Emperor for his use and that of his agents. Jade no doubt is counting on that access in her rescue attempt; therefore, we deprive her of it.”
A stormtrooper stepped up to them. “Yes, Commander?” Thrawn said.
“Comlink message from detention,” the electronically filtered voice announced. “The prisoner Talon Karrde is no longer in his cell.”
“Very well,” the Grand Admiral said darkly. “Alert all units to begin a search of the area between detention and the aft hangar bays. Karrde is to be recaptured alive-not necessarily undamaged, but alive. As to his would-be rescuers, I want them also alive if possible. If not-” He paused. “If not, I’ll understand.”
Chapter 23
The wail of the alarm sounded over the overhead speaker; and a few seconds later the turbolift car came to an abrupt halt. “Blast,” one of the two gunners who had replaced the service techs in the car muttered, digging a small ID card from the slot behind his belt buckle. “Don’t they ever get tired of running drills up there on the bridge?”
“Talk like that might get you a face-to-face with a stormtrooper squad,” the second warned, throwing a sideways glance at Luke and the others. Stepping past the first gunner, he slid his ID card into a slot on the control board and tapped in a confirmation code. “It was a lot worse before the Grand Admiral took over. Anyway, what do you want `em to do, announce snap drills in advance?”
“The whole thing’s burnin’ useless, if you ask me,” the first growled, clearing his ID the same way. “Who they expect’s gonna come aboard, anyway? Some burnin’ pirate gang or something?”
Luke glanced questioningly at Karrde, wondering what they should do. But Mara was already moving toward the two gunners, the ID from her borrowed flight suit in hand. She stepped between them, reached the ID toward the slot—
And whipped the edge of her hand hard into the side of the first gunner’s neck.
The man’s head snapped sideways and he toppled to the floor without a sound. The second gunner had just enough time to gurgle something unintelligible before Mara sent him to join his friend.
“Come on, let’s get out of here,” she snapped, feeling along the line where the door fitted into the car’s cylindrical wall. “Locked solid. Come on, Skywalker, get busy here.”
Luke ignited his lightsaber. “How much time have we got?” he asked as he carved a narrow exit through part of the door.
“Not much,” Mara said grimly. “Turbolift cars have sensors that keep track of the number of people inside. It’ll give us maybe another minute to do our ID checks before reporting us to the system computer. I need to get to a terminal before the flag transfers from there to the main computer and brings the storm troopers down on top of us.”
Luke finished the cut and closed down the lightsaber as Mara and Karrde lifted the section down and out of the way. Beyond was the tunnel wall, not quite in line with the hole. “Good,” Mara said, easing through the gap. “We were starting to rotate when the system froze down. There’s room here to get into the tunnel.”