Alliances (Star Wars: Thrawn, #2)(81)

“Have you found an exit?”

“No,” Anakin admitted between clenched teeth. “But don’t worry—I’ll figure out something.”

“Perhaps this will help.”

Frowning, Anakin looked over toward the other cell.

And watched in amazement as a thick, two-meter-long cord slithered through the air vent and landed in a heap on the floor.

“Where’d you get this?” he asked as he stepped over and picked it up. It was made of thin strips of cloth, braided together, with a slipknot at one end.

“I made it from the fibers of my clothing,” Thrawn said.

“Nice,” Anakin said. He’d heard the muffled sound of tearing early on in their imprisonment, but the outfits they’d taken from the Larkrer were a little tight and he’d assumed Thrawn was just making himself more comfortable.

“Since the dowel pins are tapered, I thought you could perhaps loop it over the tops and remove them.”

“Worth a shot. Hang on.”

Anakin took the cord to the door and carefully fed it through the vent opening. It was long enough for him to hold on to one end as he lowered the other to the left-hand dowel. It didn’t need to be that long, of course; either Thrawn had forgotten he could manipulate a shorter cord with the Force or else the Chiss was just being thorough. He worked the slipknot over the dowel, pulled the cord gently to tighten the loop, and gave a careful pull.

Nothing. He pulled a little harder, easing a bit more muscle into the task, painfully aware that a makeshift cord like this could only take so much strain before it broke. But the dowel pin was too tightly wedged.

“Perhaps if you try to oscillate the door you can loosen it,” Thrawn suggested.

Anakin smiled. No; not oscillate.

Lubricate.

“You have another strip of cloth handy?” he asked. “Doesn’t have to be big.”

“Will this do?” A ragged square of cloth, maybe five centimeters on a side, popped through the vent and fluttered toward the floor.

“Perfect,” Anakin said, catching it in midair with the Force and sending it through the vent in his door. Holding out a hand to focus his mind, he eased it to the floor outside his prison.

Into the first drop of oil R2-D2 had left behind.

He let the cloth soak up the whole drop, then moved it to the next, and the next, as far down the corridor as he could see. Then, bringing the now wet rag back, he eased it against the dowel pin below the slipknot. He wiggled the door once, then again pulled gently on the cord.

And with that final tug, the pin came free.

“Got it,” he told Thrawn as the pin swung on the cord into his view. He pulled the slipknot off the pin and shifted the cord and the oil cloth to the dowel on the other side of the door. Thirty seconds later, he was free.

“Excellent,” Thrawn said.

“Couldn’t have done it without you,” Anakin said, carefully pushing the door open and looking down the passageway.

The fact that no one had interrupted him during his door work suggested that Solha hadn’t left any droids on guard duty inside the room. He was right—the passageway was empty, the single door at the end closed.

Still, he doubted their captor had been careless enough to leave them completely unguarded. That meant droids outside the door, and he had no way of knowing what types or how many of them there were.

Time to remedy that.

“Get ready,” he told Thrawn, setting his palms against the door. “It’s about to get a little noisy in here.”



* * *



—

The first woman they found who was the right size was already fast asleep. Huga didn’t bother to wake her, but simply helped himself to her spare robe, sash, and boots and handed them to Padmé. Their next stop was more dark-edged: the unused corner where the former possessions of workers who had died were stored.

“Do people often die here?” she asked as she dressed. The worker’s robe was rough and smelled of sweat. But of course, so did she.

“One time each,” Huga said shortly as Cimy sifted through the mass of castoffs. “Come on, come on.”

“It was worse at the beginning,” Cimy said as Padmé knotted the sash around her waist. “Their leader, Duke Solha, pushed everyone—”

“Duke Solha?” Padmé interrupted, feeling her eyes go wide. “Solha is here?”

“You know him?” Huga asked, his voice suddenly heavy with suspicion.

“I met him once,” Padmé said, thinking back to one of those prewar diplomatic excursions that had sometimes seemed to be the bulk of her job as a senator. “A long time ago.”

“Long enough that he won’t recognize you?” Huga pressed. “Because if he’s going to know you, we’re bailing right now.”

“I’ll be fine,” Padmé assured him. “Let’s just get in there, okay?”

“Hey, I’m not the one holding things up,” Huga growled. “Cimy, you’ve got ten seconds to find that thing, or I swear—”

“It’s here, it’s here,” Cimy growled back. “Give me a second. Anyway, Duke Solha pushed everyone too hard. Mostly lifting and carrying, and sometimes just too much weight.”

“I’m sorry,” Padmé murmured.