Survivor's Quest

Mara felt her lips tighten. "Mostly, they ran away," she said. "I can't remember a single story of a Jedi taking out a shielded one on his own."

Luke seemed taken aback. "Oh."

"Oh, indeed." Mara leaned her head back out of the room to peer down the corridor. "You did say it had stopped, right?"

Luke nodded. "I heard it unroll. From the direction of the sound, I'd guess it's sitting midway between the two command deck doors."

"Like a big metal vornskr on guard duty."

"Exactly," Luke said, starting to sound back on track again. "At least now we know what else Outbound Flight's organizers packed aboard. Where in the worlds did they get a droideka, anyway? I thought only the Trade Federation had them back then."

"They did, but you forget that the Trade Federation had been allegedly rehabilitated after the Naboo incident," Mara pointed out. "They were all sweetness and light—well, they were all grudging cooperation, anyway—until the Separatists dropped the hammer at Geonosis and the Clone Wars began. Someone probably persuaded them to donate a few to Outbound Flight with an eye toward sentry use on any new colonies they might set up." She gestured. "Fortunately, it looks like the Vagaari only have one of them working."

"One is plenty for me," Luke assured her dryly. "I'm surprised they got even that far."

"I'm not," Mara said sourly. "Or at least, I shouldn't have been. The more I think about it, the more I think droid technology was what Estosh came here looking for in the first place."

"What makes you say that?" Luke asked, frowning.

"It was right after that first cleaner droid appeared on D-Four and you slipped away to scout out our path," Mara said, feeling yet another twinge of professional embarrassment. Like the fake Geroon refugee ship, this was something she should have instantly caught on to. "We got to talking about droids in general, and one of the Vagaari asked specifically about droidekas. There's no place he could have picked up that term except from Fel's operational manual."

"Okay," Luke said slowly. "But we already know they're the ones who stole it."

"Right," Mara said. "But there were four densely packed data cards in that set. What are the odds they would have stumbled across a list of droid designations unless they were specifically looking for them?"

"Even less than the odds they'd find the maintenance and activation procedures," Luke said, nodding. "So this whole fuss is over nothing but a few droids?"

"They're only a few droids to us because we're so used to having them around," Mara pointed out. "Remember what Fel said about the Chiss not having droid technology? If the Chiss don't, probably no one else out here does, either. If the Vagaari can learn how to build and field a droid army, they're going to have a huge advantage, especially among the less developed cultures who seem to be their preferred prey."

"I guess you're right," Luke said. "So the original plan was probably to kill everyone aboard the Chaf Envoy, spread out through Outbound Flight to collect all the droids they could find, then sneak back through the Redoubt before we were gone long enough to have raised any alarms."

"That's my guess," Mara said. "It was just pure luck they got a working Dreadnaught as a bonus."

Luke grimaced. "Some bonus. The chief Vagaari's going to be really pleased to have this show up on his doorstep."

"Not if we can help it," Mara declared. "Come on, you're the Jedi Master. Think of something."

"Maybe we don't actually have to destroy it," Luke said. "All we really want to do is to get onto the command deck and take control of the ship."

"And, what, we just persuade the droideka to turn its head for a minute?"

Luke smiled tightly. "As a matter of fact," he said, "I think we can do exactly that."

Carefully, Luke eased his way to the end of the starboard corridor. Directly in front of him was the archway and access door into the command deck, while somewhere out of sight to his left the droideka was standing guard.

He stretched out his mind to Mara, sensed that she was in mirror-image position thirty meters away in the portside corridor. The droideka was now directly between them... and the way its arms were hinged, it could only fire in one direction at a time. Bracing himself, he ignited his lightsaber and stepped out into the cross-corridor.

The droideka was, as he'd surmised earlier, standing with its back to the command deck wall midway between the two access doors. Its shield popped on as its sensors detected Luke's movement, its guns swiveling as it tracked toward him. "Yes, it's me," Luke called, lifting his lightsaber to guard position as he took another two steps toward the machine. "Come on; have at it."

The droideka obliged with a burst of blasterfire. Luke's lightsaber flashed back and forth, deflecting the shots as he slowly reversed direction back the way he'd come. He made it back to the corner and ducked back to safety. Closing down his lightsaber, he turned aft and started ru

The sounds didn't come. Frowning, he slowed to a halt, listening more closely. Still no pursuit. Reversing direction again, he returned to the corner and eased an eye around it.

The droideka's response was another round of blasterfire that gouged a fresh set of pits in the metal walls. But in that single brief glimpse Luke had seen that the droideka hadn't budged from the spot where he'd left it.

Retreating a few paces down the corridor, he pulled out his comlink and thumbed it on. "Mara?"

"It doesn't seem to want to come out and play, does it?" her voice answered.

"No, it's apparently happy right where it is," Luke said. "You want to give it a try?"

"Not worth the effort," Mara said. "It's already seen that there are two of us, and it's smart enough not to get suckered into chasing one of us when the other one's unaccounted for. I was afraid we were going to run into that problem."

"It was still worth a try," Luke said. "On to Plan Two, I guess. You ready?"

"Ready," she answered. "Watch yourself."

"Right." Luke shut off the comlink and returned it to his belt. Stepping back to the corner, he lifted his lightsaber, braced himself—

And spun 180 degrees around a fraction of a second before the burst of blasterfire erupted toward him from far down the corridor. Another Vagaari hit squad had launched its assault, apparently hoping to sneak up on him while he was concentrating on the droideka.

Like the previous attacks, this one was over quickly. Luke could sense the pain that indicated one of the deflected bolts had returned to its source, then sensed the distance change as the aliens retreated, dragging their wounded comrade with them.

He took a deep breath. With the combat tu

The droideka must have expected a repeat of Luke's earlier, more cautious appearance. Its first spatter of fire passed harmlessly behind him as he sprinted across the cross-corridor and skidded to a halt in front of the anteroom door. The droideka's second volley found the range, and Luke set his teeth firmly together as he swung his lightsaber across the multiple shots coming at him. He didn't dare split away enough of his attention to look behind his attacker; but if Mara was on schedule, she was even now moving stealthily from her corridor to the portside anteroom door...

Abruptly, the fire coming at Luke broke off as the droideka pivoted around. Luke had just enough time to see Mara in the distance, stabbing her lightsaber into the edge of the blast door, as the droideka opened fire.