Thrawn: Alliances (Star Wars) (Star Wars: Thrawn) by Zahn Timothy

Author:Zahn, Timothy [Zahn, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2018-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

* * *

—

Earlier, during one of the long, tense nights Padmé had been stuck on the boat, she’d considered trying to find LebJau’s secret door into the factory on her own.

Now, as he led her through the darkness, she was very glad she hadn’t.

For starters, the dry riverbed itself was trickier than she’d realized. Not only was it littered with debris that had probably been part of the washed-out road, but the gaps beneath some of the larger pieces had become home to various creatures or even whole families of them. Padmé didn’t know which of them were dangerous, and it wasn’t something she wanted to find out the hard way. Luckily, LebJau knew where to walk to avoid unpleasant encounters.

The entrance itself, once they got there, also proved a surprise. The door LebJau had talked about was still there, an imposing panel set into the wall about five meters above the rocky floor with a small section of the old road still attached to a support mesh at its base. But LebJau didn’t even glance at it, instead leading Padmé to another pile of debris and a hidden gap tucked away behind a large slab of broken permacrete. Twenty meters and three switchback turns later, they were finally inside.

“Careful,” LebJau said, flicking on a glow rod. “The footing is tricky.”

“Right,” Padmé said, looking around. The area they were in was all permacrete, low-ceilinged and with fat floor-to-ceiling pillars every ten meters or so. The floor was littered with bits of wire, discarded cable ties, and occasional whole coils of cable. A second look at the ceiling showed spots where more cables rested in permanent loops. “Is this the service level?”

“Yes,” LebJau said, turning to the left and picking his way carefully through the debris.

“And you said it runs under the whole complex?” Padmé asked, digging out her own glow rod and turning it to narrow beam. Sure enough, there were no walls or other barriers as far as the light reached.

“I know what you’re thinking,” LebJau said. “But forget it. The permacrete is two meters thick—has to be, to support all the weight—and there are only eight ways up into the rest of the building. And the metalheads have sealed all the ones leading into the north and east wings.”

“Yes, that could be a problem,” Padmé agreed.

Only Anakin would be here soon…and even two-meter-thick permacrete was no match for a lightsaber.

If LebJau had sent those messages. “What about my messages?” she asked.

“Grubs says he sent them two days ago,” LebJau said. “How long before someone comes with our money?”

“Once Uncle Anakin gets the messages, a few days at the most.”

LebJau gave a grunt. “Fine. Okay. This way.”

The next ten minutes were spent picking their way through the rubble to a rusty ladder leading up into a conical indentation in the ceiling. At the top was a hinged trapdoor, which seemed to take all of LebJau’s strength to push open. “The wristbands don’t open these service hatches,” he said as he offered her a hand up the ladder.

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