Star Wars: Legacy of the Force [04] - Exile by Aaron Allston

Author:Aaron Allston [Allston, Aaron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Adventure, Science Fiction, Fantasy
ISBN: 9780099492054
Amazon: 0345477537
Goodreads: 241103
Publisher: Arrow
Published: 2007-02-28T19:00:00+00:00

From: Hemalian Barkid

Account 7543 BH (Hangar 113)

To: Hangar Manager, Drewwa Spaceport

I will be returning home tomorrow. I’d really like my Y-wing to be ready when I get there. Please do a power-up, standard maintenance check, and astromech analysis of the computer, particularly the nav computer, and bill at your standard rate to my account.

It was that last part that Ben thought would sell the spaceport managers on this task. Everyone said that people loved doing last-minute tasks at their standard rates, because last-minute standard rates were always three or four times what standard rates would be if arranged in plenty of time.

Ben sent the message from the hangar door computer, which could plausibly have received and relayed the message from the real Barkid. He took his pocket holocam, the one he’d been carrying ever since his mission with Jacen to Adumar, and affixed it to the rafters, pointed down at the Y-wing’s security access panel, then made sure it would accept commands transmitted from his datapad. Finally he restored the environment blanket to the top of the Y-wing, smoothed out the dust as much as he could, and made himself a hiding hole behind some discarded plasteel crates to wait.

It didn’t take too long. Three hours later, the hangar door rolled open and two shapes entered—a female human mechanic in the standard yellow jumpsuit and an R2 astromech.

Ben’s heart sank. He’d assumed, based on how automated things were around here, that an operation as simple as a routine vehicle check would be handled by a mechanic droid. He’d planned to wait until the droid was finished with its task and then cut its head off, preventing it from leaving with the R2.

But he couldn’t cut the woman’s head off.

Well, technically he could. He just shouldn’t. Though if it came down to a question of doing that or failing in this mission—an important mission—what would he do? He frowned, struggling with the answer.

The woman—thirtyish, muscular, dark hair up under a yellow cap—swept the environment blanket off the Y-wing, sending a tremendous amount of dust into the air. She immediately began sneezing. Her R2 unit tweetled at her.

As the airborne dust reached Ben, he felt like sneezing, too. He held a finger under his nose and scowled at the woman.

As the woman moved up to the cockpit, Ben activated the holocam. The R2 unit tweetled again, spinning the dome-like top portion of its body around, its sensors obviously searching for something. Ben crouched further, as if it would make him even more invisible.

“Don’t be silly, Shaker,” the woman said. “What do you bet the owner has anti-theft sensors set up? We probably set one off.”

Mollified, the R2 unit tweetled again and returned its attention to its companion.

In a matter of a few minutes the woman punched her security code into the cockpit side panel, raising the canopy, and then used the hangar’s magnetic winch to lift up the astromech and lower it into its berth behind the cockpit. Ben watched as she

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