Star Wars - Droid Trouble Read online

  For years, Tereb Ab’Lon had carefully planned and manipulated his rise to power, swearing to one day hold the title of Imperial Senator. That dream was shattered the day the Emperor dissolved the Imperial Senate.

  As Ab’Lon looked about the Bothan Embassy, his gaze finally resting on his immediate superior, the Bothan Ambassador to the Empire, Gatrar Shey’Tyan, the taste of rebellion whet his appetite. He watched as the ambassador helplessly submitted the Bothan people to the rule of a dictator, yet a slight smile managed to touch his fanged maw.

  The Empire would not, could not, last forever. With a little luck and a lot of planning, he hoped to help bring about an early demise and secure himself a position in the government that would rise from its ashes. A position with real power, where his name would be known to all, and the destinies of entire worlds would rest on his decisions.

  The council room had all but emptied when Ab’Lon’s attention returned to matters at hand. As the aide to the Bothan Ambassador, his tasks included keeping an eye on opponents’ strategies and political tactics aimed at discrediting Shey’Tyan and his position. A task Ab’Lon thoroughly despised, as he constantly attempted to cause Shey’Tyan’s fall to assume his position, thus increasing his own power.

  But no longer, he thought to himself. After Ab’Lon secretly joined the Rebellion. Shey’Tyan’s fall from power meant nothing. His goal was now the total collapse of the Empire. A goal that was to begin with the Imperial Navy operation plans he silently dropped into his astromech droid’s memory banks two days ago.

  Shey’Tyan started toward him, his regal attire flowing behind as he moved. Ab’Lon watched him approach and tried to hide the satisfaction he felt in himself. Tomorrow he would meet with a Rebel agent and turn the plans over to the Alliance, the first step in his eventual rise to power. But today, modesty and humility in the face of his superior were the key to ensuring tomorrow’s successes.

  Blaster bolts exploded outside the cockpit of the stolen Bothawui shuttle. Ab’Lon pulled it into a tight barrel roll and readjusted the trajectory to match his escape course.

  “Get those hyperspace coordinates set,” Ab’Lon growled as he completed the maneuver. “I’m a diplomat. I can’t dodge trained TIE pilots forever.” The faint cries of his astromech droid, followed by the usual fweep, echoed through the cockpit.

  Another volley of blaster fire erupted about the craft as Ab’Lon dropped it into an extreme dive. The fur around his neck rippled in panic as he stared helplessly at the deflector shield display indicating failure. The momentum from the dive had pushed him down into the pilot’s seat, restricting his movement until the lagging drive compensators kicked in.

  He knew that an Ambassador-class shuttle was not designed to take this kind of punishment. Of course, he wasn’t trained to battle a line of TIEs and a Victory-class Star Destroyer either. With a little luck, they might both pull out unscathed.

  Ab’Lon glanced at the sensor display quickly. The Star Destroyer was cresting Bothawui Proper, but it had yet to break orbit and pursue. Why should it, Ab’Lon thought to himself — without a gunner he couldn’t put up a fight. The patrolling TIEs were more than enough to blow him out of the sky.

  The TIEs released another barrage that rocked the shuttle. Ab’Lon tried to pull out of the dive into a hard port double turn. Blue lightning played off the control panels as several direct hits took out the shields and ionized the controls all at once. He lost control and began to spin, colliding with one of his pursuers.

  The rear-end collision left both ships with minor damage, but even as the TIE spun away. Ab’Lon could feel the shuttle slowing. A quick scan of the drive display, which was just now coming back on line, revealed the problem. One of the coolant lines to the main sublight drive had been severed, causing an automatic drive shutdown.

  Ab’Lon’s pointed ears dropped and his fur rippled in a quick wave down his neck. “Is the hyperdrive down as well?” he called as he hurriedly scanned the control displays for anything that might help him out of this situation.

  After a short pause, a decisively negative series of warbles, clicks, and whistles — followed by a fweep — came from the droid at the nav computer console over his left shoulder.

  Quickly, Ab’Lon checked the sensors. The TIEs had banked around and were coming up fast, but the Star Destroyer had only just begun to pursue. The shuttle was still a good 30 seconds out of tractor beam range.

  “Unidentified shuttle, this is the Star Destroyer Temerit,” the voice blistered with pride as it flowed through the comm. “You are ordered to surrender immediately.” There was no mistaking the unspoken intent behind those cold, mechanical words should he try anything else.

  “Are the coordinates set yet?” he called out expectantly. The shuttle might be dead in space, he thought, but the hyperdrive was still functional. If he could just make the jump to hyperspace before the Temerit could lock its tractor beam …

  An affirmative whistle, followed by a fweep, was precisely what he had been waiting for. A slight smile touched his lips. “Hold on,” he called back to the little droid. “I’m going to make the jump.”

  The warbles of protest, followed by a low moan and a series of panicked fweeps, went completely unheeded. Ab’Lon made the ancient Bothan gesture of good hope, and pulled the hyperdrive lever.

  Nim Bola made a left out of the Mos Eisley Cantina and walked past the small crowd gathered outside. He could see a Barabel’s head standing a half meter above the rest of the group and knew that his Rodian partner had to be nearby. There was no doubt that they were going to covertly attempt to follow Bola, but there was no reason to let them know. He casually moved past the community junkpile and started for his office.

  In one graceful movement, Bola pushed a wind-blown golden lock of hair out of his face and switched on the small comlink attached to his collar. “You were right,” he whispered into the comlink, “it’s a double-cross.” He casually waved away a couple of Jawas from a nearby droid lot. “I’ll take them through the alley opposite the hotel’s west side,” he whispered, glancing over his shoulder and picking up speed. “Be ready for them there.”

  He pulled his timeworn gray jacket tight as the chilling night breeze kicked up. “Cold, dark, and deserted,” he muttered to himself as his strides steadily increased. “Perfect time for an ambush, especially when you’re not the one being ambushed.” A smile touched his lips as he started to jog for the alley, taking a quick glance behind. At that moment, the two bounty hunters broke into a dead run, straight toward him. C’mon, he thought to himself, come and get me.

  The familiar starlines flowed into the mottled sky of hyperspace and a slight smile crossed Ab’Lon’s features, an expression that more resembled a snarl than a smile.

  “Fweep, calculate and set coordinates to make a second jump from the Piroket to the Tao-Grant system,” he said, the relief of escape filling his lungs with every breath. “There’s an established Alliance cell on the second moon of the system’s lone gas giant.”

  Ab’Lon glanced around the cockpit of the stolen shuttle and frowned, the fur about his face stood on end and his nose twitched nervously. “I don’t want the Empire to be able to track us,” he said thoughtfully. In his 12 years in politics, he had seen far too many Bothan leaders relax their guard and make mistakes, only to lose their position and often their lives. “Set coordinates for two short jumps after Piroket, away from Tao-Grant, then a third to it.”

  An affirmative whistle and a fweep flowed through the cockpit. Ab’Lon couldn’t help but allow a hearty smile, a fearful fanged expression that seemed better suited to convey horror than happiness. The little Artoo unit, nicknamed Artoo-ZeeOne. known also as Fweep, didn’t even realize h
e made the noise. Six Imperial technicians and innumerable Bothan droid repair techs had tried, unsuccessfully, to repair that malfunction. The task was finally abandoned and the “fweep” sound listed as a design flaw.

  Ab’Lon had acquired the little droid just before it was to be shipped off and dismantled. As a Bothan, he could see the obvious advantages of having a personal droid that almost everyone found annoying, especially the Empire, with its prim and proper devotion to perfection. Later he discovered the droid to be persistently loyal and remarkably easy to keep track of.

  Fweep proved to be invaluable after Ab’Lon secretly joined the Rebel Alliance. His position as top aide to the Bothan Ambassador to the Empire had given him access to certain Imperial Intelligence files that he could quietly drop into the little droid’s memory system, securing it for later transmissions.

  For nearly two years he’d been sending useful information to the Rebels, but nothing more. Often he’d skip over the more vital operations he’d seen — the fear of being caught in a situation that might cost him his office and his life was more powerful than his loyalty to the Alliance. Then three days ago, he got a glance at an Imperial Navy operations schedule.

  At last, Ab’Lon had a chance to supply the Alliance with a vital bit of information, but it was risky at best. This type of information always had safeguards and alarms to keep anyone from doing what he was attempting, and his skills at bypassing security codes weren’t nearly as good as his ability to dodge TIE fighters. Still, it was an opportunity he couldn’t let pass.

  At least that was his mindset until this morning, when a Star Destroyer escorting an Imperial dungeon ship arrived in orbit. Both craft immediately began landing drop ships and shuttles and launching patrol ships. In a matter of minutes the Empire controlled Lktim, one of Bothawui’s largest cities. Determined not to be taken captive. Ab’Lon set his planned and practiced escape into motion. That’s when he ran into the patrolling TIE fighters.

  Looking back on it, he wondered if it wasn’t paranoia and poor timing that got him into this situation. After all, he thought, there had been political prisoners awaiting transport on the planet. Anyway, Fweep still carried the plans and although the rendezvous was forgotten, he could still complete the mission by hand delivering the plans. He wondered how he’d be received by the Alliance.

  A faint gurgling noise, followed by a series of beeps and whistles, ending with a fweep, brought Ab’Lon back to reality. “Hold on,” he growled as he unlatched the restraints and pulled himself out of the seat. “I’m on my way.”

  He passed through the cockpit door into the lavishly decorated recreational chamber, and turned toward the maintenance area. Fweep had somehow managed to work his way into the lower level maintenance hatch and was already assessing the damage when Ab’Lon arrived.

  “How bad is it?” he asked tentatively, poking his head into the open hatch. A nauseating blue-black vapor worked its way into his nose, causing him to jerk his head back in a half growl, half cough.

  Fweep gurgled, beeped, and whistled for an annoyingly long time before his final fweep. Though Ab’Lon couldn’t follow much of the technical jargon, the basic problem was clear. The sublight drive was damaged beyond their ability to repair, and some of the command pathways between the hyperdrive system and the nav computer had been damaged during the battle.

  “So basically what you’re saying,” Ab’Lon started, the fur along his neck standing on end, “is that we might not be going to Piroket. And to make things worse, if we get there we’re not going to have a sublight drive to maneuver.”

  The droid beeped affirmatively, followed by a low fweep. Silence hung in the air as Ab’Lon sat, staring at the mess of wires, pipes, and cylinders, looking for any way out of this deplorable situation. He silently cursed the Empire and their TIE pilots.

  A low moan, followed by a fweep, ended Ab’Lon’s last hope of repairing the drive system. They had worked for nearly three hours on craft schematics and experimental hyperdrive logs looking for any conceivable method of jury-rigging the system and bringing the sublight drive back on line. They could do it, but not without overloading the drive generator, dismantling the hyperdrive, and getting outside the craft. All of which meant the task was hopeless.

  Even if he could get the drive system on line, where could he stop off for repairs in a stolen Ambassador-class shuttle? The Empire would surely have scouts searching for him throughout the galaxy by now; the Rebel base on Tao-Grant was his only hope.

  Ab’Lon’s pointed ears began to twitch and the fur along the back of his neck rippled erratically. With a snarl and a low rumbling from deep in his throat, he began to pace. Fweep watched him quietly pacing into the recreational chamber and back to the maintenance hatch, the little droid’s silver and gray dome swiveling with his master’s every move.

  The nav computer signaled 10 minutes to the Piroket system. Silently, trying to suppress his frustration and building rage. Ab’Lon helped the squabbling droid out of the maintenance hatch. He led Fweep over to the nav computer console and wedged him between it and two seats. The droid warbled, moaned, and fweeped, but Ab’Lon didn’t seem to be paying much attention. He tapped the nav computer display switch several times before it went on-line.

  “I don’t know what we’re going to do,” he finally growled. “Let’s just hope that we’re going to Piroket,” he said as he checked over the nav computer displays. Much of the control grid had blacked out since their initial jump and he had no way to calculate any coordinates other than those Fweep had entered.

  “Three minutes to disengage,” he said, more to himself than to Fweep, as he moved toward the pilot’s seat. He stopped in mid-stride and looked back to the little droid. “Could you get us to Tao-Grant if we disengage the nav computer?” he asked doubtfully.

  After about 30 seconds of silence, the little droid responded with a series of whistles that Ab’Lon could only translate as “maybe.”

  “It’s worth a try,” he said as he sat down and reached for the safety harness. “As soon as we …”

  Ab’Lon was slammed into the forward control panels as the shuttle jerked out of hyperspace. The sounds of smashing equipment and cracking bones filled the cockpit. He was dumped to the floor in a semi-conscious, broken mass.

  Fweep let out a series of shrill cries, followed by a low moan and a short string of fweeps. Ab’Lon barely heard the little droid as he struggled to regain his feet, dimly aware of a severe pain in his chest and blood trickling into his eyes from his forehead. He slowly glanced out the cockpit to determine what the little droid was in such a fluster about. There, eclipsing the void of space, sat a planet.

  His violet eyes widened and a cold chill ran up his spine, rippling the fur all the way up to his twitching pointed ears. The fog that clouded his mind quickly cleared and he leaped back into the pilot’s seat, reaching for the damaged controls and ignoring the protests of his battered body.

  Instinctively, he tried to pull the craft into an extreme climb. Then he remembered that the sublight drive was out. The craft rocked violently — nearly throwing Ab’Lon to the floor of the cockpit again — as it entered the planet’s gravity well. Frantically, he reached for the maneuvering thruster controls, firing them in attempt to break free. There was no change in course as the shuttle hit the upper atmosphere, tossing the battered Bothan toward the back of the cockpit.

  “Hang on,” he cried as he tried to make his way back to the pilot’s seat. “I think we’re going to crash.”

  The shuttle streaked downward and Ab’Lon did his best to keep it from being scattered across this planet’s desert terrain. “Are you all right back there?” he yelled over the shrieking alarms and flaring warning lights. The racket filled the cockpit and annoyed Ab’Lon.

  The electronic snort followed by a low fweep successfully conveyed the little droid’s impression of Ab’Lon’s piloting skills. He was half tempted to release the droid’s safety restraints and let him bounce around the cockpi
t for a while, but the ground was approaching fast. Besides, he decided, Fweep could probably magnetically anchor himself in place. A trick he wished he could use to keep himself in the seat of this shuttle. He’d been thrown to the cockpit floor once too often — the pain in his chest still stabbed like a vibroblade.

  He fired the maneuvering thrusters again, hoping to bring the nose of the shuttle up and keep the impact from killing him. He made the gesture of good hope, realizing that several fingers on his right hand were broken when they wouldn’t extend to the proper angles. As he braced for impact, he once more cursed the Empire for putting him into this situation.

  The speeder raced across the desert terrain of the Dune Sea. Nim Bola, a man who never much cared for the company of Rodians, decided that this one smelled worse in the sun than in the dark confines of the cantina. The thought of returning to the rank atmosphere of the Pit of Carkoon didn’t exactly make matters better, but there weren’t many solitary places to permanently dispose of incriminating evidence. The Sarlacc was both.

  Bola glanced at the two figures, piled one on top of the other in the speeder’s only passenger seat, and a smile touched his worry-lined features. The ambush couldn’t have gone any better. He’d lured them into the alley and Tavri dropped the Rodian with a single shot before the enemy could draw his weapon. The Barabel, on the other hand, took two blind shots at Tavri and turned to track Bola before three shots from the others’ sporting blaster and two from Tavri’s heavy blaster dropped him to the ground. The perfect payment for revenge.

  They’d hired him to track an Ithorian who had been frequenting the cantina lately. The pay was too good and the job too easy. Looking back on it, he decided that it may have been a good idea to warn them of the Ithorian’s pet meat eating plant, but then again, surprise is the spice of life.

  Bola brought the speeder to a halt a good 15 meters above the pit, well out of range of those damned tentacles. He glanced down at the waiting pink maw, the odor about the thing made the Rodian smell good.