Survivor's Quest

Luke looked down the cross-corridor toward the starboard entryway, considering their options. The fact that the Vagaari had sealed the anteroom blast doors implied they weren't going to give up their territory quite so easily. "We go straight in," he decided. "Whatever they've got pla

"Hold it," Mara cut him off, her head cocked. "You hear something?"

Luke frowned. A new sound had been added to the background noises of a capital ship in flight, a metallic rumbling coming from their right. He looked again down the cross-corridor toward the other anteroom door—

And suddenly, a giant wheel-like machine rolled into view from the starboard corridor. It braked to a halt and began to open like a strange metal flower.

"Oh, no," Mara breathed, tossing her lightsaber to her left hand and snatching out her sleeve gun.

But she was too late. Even as she fired, the machine finished unfolding, its curved head rearing up over its tripod legs, its jointed forearms settling themselves into horizontal position, the hazy sphere of its deflector shield flickering to life and spattering Mara's shot into the ceiling. The head shifted slightly toward them, as if noticing the intruders for the first time, the arms swiveling their permanently mounted blasters to point in their direction.

It was a droideka. But unlike the one they'd so recently faced in Jerf Huxley's cantina, this one appeared to be fully functional.

And it was hunting them.

CHAPTER 25

Mara still had her lightsaber in her left hand as the droideka opened fire. She swung it around, trying to get it to guard position—

Just as the green blade of Luke's lightsaber cut in front of her, deflecting the shots that had been aimed at her torso. "Come on!" he shouted.

She didn't need to be told twice. Moving as quickly as they could while still defending against the sudden hail of fire, they ducked back into the portside corridor they'd just left. "Well, that's just—"

"Later," Luke snapped. "I hear it folding up again."

Mara swore under her breath, jamming her sleeve blaster back into its holster as she took off down the corridor. "Wait a second," she said as a thought suddenly occurred to her. "Keep going," she added, ducking into an open doorway to her right.

Luke broke stride. "What—?"

"I'm playing a hunch," she hissed back. "Get going before it sees you talking to an empty room."

She could tell he didn't understand and that he furthermore wasn't at all happy about leaving her alone like this. But as she could sense his doubts, he could also sense her confidence that it was a gamble worth taking. Giving her a quick nod, he resumed his sprint away from the command deck. Listening closely, Mara heard the droideka's rumbling change pitch as it made a tight turn around the corner and rolled into the corridor behind her husband. The pitch changed again as it spotted Luke in the distance and headed in pursuit. Taking a couple of steps backward into the room, hopefully putting herself out of range of the droideka's sensors, Mara pulled out her blaster again and leveled it at the doorway. She could very literally have only one shot...

Abruptly, a blur of shiny metal flashed into view. Letting the Force guide her hand, she fired.

The droideka was gone again almost before it registered in her vision, and from the direction it had disappeared came an abrupt cacophony of metal on metal as it scrabbled to a sudden halt to deal with this unexpected menace on its flank. Mara jumped to her feet and charged for the doorway, hoping she might get in a follow-up shot before it could recover its balance.

But the machine was too fast. By the time she emerged into the corridor, it had already started to wheel around toward her. Aiming for the sensor cluster in its head, she fired.

Too late. The droideka again got its shield up in time, ricocheting the shot away. It finished its unrolling and rose again, weapons tracking toward her. Mara dropped her blaster, igniting her lightsaber and bringing it back up in front of her. The droideka's blasters lifted slightly—

And suddenly the machine staggered as something big and dark came flying down the corridor and slammed into its shield from behind, sending its first volley into the deck. Mara backed away down the corridor, blocking the droideka's shots as it waddled awkwardly after her. A moment later, she'd made it back to the cross-corridor outside the command deck. A second object slammed into the droideka, and she took advantage of the distraction to dodge to her left and run full-speed toward the starboard corridor. Hoping fervently that the droideka didn't have a friend waiting in ambush, she rounded the corner.

No one was waiting, droideka or Vagaari. She'd made it two cross-corridors back when Luke stepped out in front of her, palm upraised. "It's all right," he said. "It's not following."

"You'd better be right," she said, breathing hard as she slowed to a halt. "Thanks for the assist. What were you throwing at it, anyway?"

"Whatever odds and ends were handy," he told her, glancing around and pointing her to a nearby electronics repair room. "The first one was a power converter, I think, and the second was a two-meter piece of structural bracing girder that had been broken off and was lying around."

"Neither of which is exactly a lightweight," Mara pointed out grimly as they stepped inside the room. "If hitting it that hard didn't do anything but spoil its aim for a couple of shots, we can forget about that as a way to take it down."

"I think you're right," Luke agreed. "What about you? Any luck with that sucker shot?"

Mara shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I hit the sensor head, but I don't know what kind of damage I did. Probably not very much—it sure didn't have any trouble lining up its blasters on me afterward."

"So they can't keep their shields up while they're rolling?"

"Right," Mara said. "About all they can do with their shields up is that little waddle thing. Problem is, in wheel form they're just too fast for a good killing shot."

"Certainly not from a blaster that small," Luke said. "Maybe we should see if we can find something with a little more power and try it again."

"Maybe," Mara said doubtfully. "But then you're going to run into a different limitation. With blasters, the more power it's got, the bigger and heavier it is. Even with the Force I had enough trouble hitting it with my sleeve gun. It would be that much harder to move even a carbine fast enough to keep up with a droideka's speed and maneuverability."

"How about if it wasn't moving?" Luke asked. "Could that same carbine punch through the shield?"

Mara shook her head. "I've never seen the specs, but from what I've heard it sounds like it would take something a lot bigger than that to do the trick."

"So we're back to hitting it when it's on the move," Luke concluded. "Maybe you should have tried that ambush trick with your lightsaber instead of your blaster."

"Wouldn't have worked," Mara said. "I would have had to stand right at the doorway to reach it, and it would have picked me up long before it got within range."

"How about now that its sensors are damaged?"

"I'd hate to try it," Mara said hesitantly. "There are several different types of sensors grouped there—composite radiation, vibration, and I think one or two more. It can aim and fire using any combination of them."

"Terrific," Luke said, starting to sound a little frustrated. "We can't use blasters, and we can't use lightsabers. So how did the Jedi of that era deal with them?"