Alliances (Star Wars: Thrawn, #2)(67)

“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. “We can turn on the ones in the south wing, but only for a minute or two at a time.”

“Power here is shut down, I assume?” Padmé asked as she climbed.

“Yeah,” LebJau said. “And I’m going to have to close this behind me when I go. Leaving it open would create air currents the metalheads might notice. You won’t be able to use your glow rod in here, either.”

“I know,” Padmé said, looking around. The room they’d entered was much larger and less confined than the service level, with high ceilings and windows at both sides. With their glow rods off the place was pretty dark, but there was some starlight coming in. All the windows looked like they were mesh-barred, blocking any movement either in or out.

“I’m saying again that you won’t be able to get out,” he said. “You got that, right? With the power off, these lids are heavy. Too heavy for someone your size.”

“I understand,” Padmé said, looking around. The level was virtually empty, with only a row of support pillars down the center of the building breaking up the monotony.

Maybe she could find something useful on one of the higher levels? “How many floors are there?”

“Three.” LebJau pointed across the floor. “There’s a stairway over there in the middle, and two more at the corners. Come on—my old workplace was on the third floor. That’ll probably be safest.”

Minutes later they emerged from the stairwell into another deserted factory. This one was laid out differently from the one on the lower level, with the space sectioned off into smaller cubicles hemmed in by thin, meter-tall partitions. “My station was over here,” he said, leading her through the maze.

Padmé followed, looking around. Even up here, the windows were mesh-barred. As for the factory itself, aside from the cubicle barriers, there was nothing. The desks and chairs had all been removed, along with tools, electronics parts, and basic office supplies. The shelves along the walls were hard to see in the faint light, but they also looked like they’d been cleaned out.

“This was mine,” LebJau said, stopping at one of the cubicles in the middle. “We used to have a few fold-up cots, but I guess the boss took them when the metalheads made them leave.”

“That’s okay,” Padmé said. “I’ll manage. Are you still going to bring me food and water?”

“There’s a water dispenser by the lavatory over there,” he said, pointing to the side of the room. “Should still be running. Food…I’ll try. But they’ve been shifting our cleanup times lately, and I might not be able to get here every day.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Padmé said. “I’ve still got food bars—it was the water I was worried about. How are they shifting your work times? Earlier, later, more often?”

“More often,” he said. “They cover everything and rush us in, we clean up the mess, then they rush us out again.”

“And then they go back to their work?”

LebJau shrugged. “I guess. Look, I gotta get back. Huga’s already twitchy about someone noticing I’ve been leaving every night. If someone tells the metalheads, we’ll be in the Bins in nothing flat.”

“We certainly wouldn’t want that,” Padmé said. So getting captured by the droids would get someone taken into the east wing. She tucked the idea away for possible future use. “How secure are they, anyway?”