Alliances (Star Wars: Thrawn, #2)(85)

“Look out!” the big man called, leaping toward her.

“It’s all right,” Padmé said quickly, holding her left hand palm-outward toward him and lifting her blaster, muzzle-up, in front of Thrawn. The last thing she wanted was a battle between two allies, especially with her in the middle. “He’s a friend.”

“Doesn’t look like a friend to me,” LebJau rumbled. “Or an uncle.”

“He’s a friend of Uncle Anakin’s,” Padmé said. “Listen, I’ve got a job for you. This place is about to get very unhealthy. I need you to wake up everyone and get them out of here.”

“What?” LebJau asked. “What are you talking about?” His eyes narrowed. “What are you planning?”

“I’m sorry, but I’m afraid we need to take this factory down,” Padmé said. “I need you to get everyone to the river—”

“No,” LebJau bit out, bunching his hands into fists. “This is our factory. Our jobs. Our world. You can’t just come in here and—frost it, Padmé, this isn’t fair. It isn’t right.”

“Let me explain your choices,” Thrawn put in. “Your factory is going to be destroyed. That is not negotiable.”

“Who do you think you—?”

“Your only options,” Thrawn continued, “are to watch that destruction from a distance, or to watch it from the inside.”

A shiver ran up Padmé’s back. Thrawn’s voice had been measured, without emotion or emphasis. But there was a strength behind it, and an absolute conviction, that she’d seldom heard even in the most passionate Senate speeches.

LebJau heard that conviction, too. He swallowed, looked furtively at Padmé, then gave a reluctant nod. “All right,” he said, his voice shaking a little. “I just—how long do I have.”

“We’ll give you all we can,” Thrawn said. “But understand that we’re not fully in command of that timing.”

“Just go,” Padmé added. “Please.”

LebJau’s lips compressed briefly. Then he nodded again and hurried away.

“Where’s this trapdoor you spoke of?” Thrawn asked. His tone, Padmé noticed with another shiver, hadn’t changed.

“This way,” she said, continuing on. “Are you really planning to destroy the whole factory?”

“That’s a decision for you and General Skywalker,” Thrawn said. “This is your war. These are your enemies. But the workers need to be prepared for the worst.”

“I suppose,” Padmé said. Put in that light, it didn’t sound nearly as heartless.

But the voice and the tone still nagged at her.

“Here,” she said, stopping beside the trapdoor.

“Is this where you came up?” Thrawn asked, crouching down for a closer look at the lid.

“No, I came up through the one at the other end of this wing,” Padmé said. “But this one’s closer. If we can get it open.”

“Let’s find out.”

Laying down his E-5, he got a grip on the lid and pulled upward. To Padmé’s relief, it opened without trouble or even a noticeable squeak. “This one’s been used recently,” he said, retrieving the blaster and peering down the opening. “Have you a light?”

“Right here,” Padmé said, pulling out her glow rod and offering it to him.

He made no move to take it. “You know the route,” he pointed out. “You lead.”

“Fine,” Padmé said, making a face as she got a grip on the ladder and started down. Again, not unreasonable. But having an armed unknown at her back didn’t exactly help with her already high sense of vulnerability.

Still, Anakin vouched for him. That counted for a lot.

Once again, the service level seemed deserted. With Thrawn behind her, Padmé led the way toward LebJau’s secret exit, feeling a little strange about the lack of opposition. Earlier, she’d speculated that Duke Solha might have barricaded himself in with his main assembly line. If that was true, she may have just sent Anakin into the dead center of a droid army. Alone, and without even his lightsaber.

“What’s a Marg Sabl?”

Padmé blinked away her sudden fears. “What?”

“General Skywalker said he’d be a one-man Marg Sabl,” Thrawn reminded her. “What did he mean?”

“Oh,” Padmé said, trying to remember the details. It had been a long time since Anakin had told her about Ahsoka’s inspired maneuver. “It’s a battle tactic invented by his former Padawan apprentice. A warship turns its hangar bay away from its attacker and launches its fighters unseen. They stay in the ship’s visual shadow while they form up and accelerate to attack speed. Then they come around their ship from all sides, attacking the enemy from every direction at once.”

“Interesting,” Thrawn murmured. “I can see how that could be useful against certain species. Those in particular who have difficulty focusing in more than one direction.”

“It worked pretty well against the droid fighters Ahsoka was up against at the time, too,” Padmé said. “Anakin told me that a marg sabl is a type of Togrutan flower that opens its petals in a sunburst shape every morning.”