26

Whistler’s lights popped on and the little R2 droid began surveying the room in which he found himself. Aside from the light he produced, he detected no other source of light energy. His scan did reveal power conduits, computer cable conduits, and a fairly large system of air duct-work behind the walls. The room had only one door, which appeared to be quite dense, and he found no thermal bleed-through from any living creatures standing guard near it or against the wall.

All of this data filtered into a simple program that assessed his situation and made available different options for his future actions. In the past the program had recommended returning to a dormant state, with lights off, monitoring local comm frequencies for any communication from Corran. He had been in that passive wait state from the moment the Imperials had placed him in the room with the rest of Rogue Squadron’s astromech droids. Corran had managed to communicate with him via comlink and gave Whistler access to the scramble codes the Imperials used, as well as a way to tap the comm traffic during the training sessions they went through.

Corran had also informed him of the Rogues’ status. The circumstances they found themselves in were indeed alarming. Whistler’s awareness of this fact was based on his analysis of Corran’s speech patterns and the signs of stress in his voice. He catalogued those signs of anxiety along with the key words that seemed to trigger them: Isard [status alive], Imperial Base [secret], TIE Defenders [secret], and mission [secret, dangerous].

Whistler began a passive scan of comlink frequencies. He catalogued the vocabulary being used on each, then ran a correlation between them. First he determined that the Rogues and their Imperial counterparts were running yet another simulation that pitted the rival pilots against each other. Over the past two weeks this sort of training mission had become common. On the other frequencies he began picking up comments that indicated Corran’s hunch about the base had been correct. The pilot had guessed that in such a small facility, with no serious threats to deal with, watching the simulator battles between the Rogues and the Imps would attract a lot of attention. Whistler’s correlations indicated voyeur traffic on 65 percent of the local frequencies and, more importantly, 85 percent of the security frequencies.

That percentage flipped a bit in a program. A line of code called up Whistler’s evasion and escape programming. Such programming was not common in an astromech droid, but few astromech droids had been refitted for work in the Corellian Security Force. Not only had his preparation for that work equipped him with special circuitry that allowed for surveillance and analysis, escape and evasion, and an array of code-slicing programs, but it had even shifted internal components around such that when a restraining bolt was fastened to him it did little more than communicate the result of commands sent by a remote. When the Imperial tech had used the remote on him, Whistler feigned shutting down and starting up again. More than once criminals had assumed a security droid was disabled by a restraining bolt and had learned to regret that assumption.

Regardless of the fact that the cylindrical device afixed to his torso did nothing to restrain him, Whistler rolled over to the corner of a shelving unit, lodged the cylinder next to the edge, and quickly spun his body. The restraining bolt snapped off and clattered to the floor.

Whistler allowed himself a low, barely audible whistle. Whirling his head about he spotted Gate and rolled over to the red and white R5 astromech. Whistler reached out with his pincer arm, sent a blue trickle of energy over the restraining bolt on Gate’s torso, then pulled it free.

Gate’s lights flashed on and the droid began to shudder, bouncing from foot to foot.

Whistler tootled at him to calm down, then quickly answered the taller droid’s inquiries about location and status. Whistler reassured him that the mission they were being sent on had official sanction. He also informed Gate of the highly risky nature of their mission with a low tone.

Gate countered sharply that his microprocessing time was too valuable to waste analyzing meaningless odds. In the final analysis, he suggested, they were droids who had been entrusted with a mission and they would accomplish it. All non-vital calculations would only waste time and power.

Whistler hooted happily and rolled over to the large air intake vent mounted in the wall. He brought out his cutting attachment and sliced through one of the screws holding it in place. Gate joined him, cutting the grate free. Whistler slowly backed away, letting the grate lean into the room, then he caught hold of one edge with his pincer and pulled it away from the dark cavity beyond.

Gate entered the ductwork with no difficulty at all. The maintenance and construction droids used to create and repair the environmental system in the base were slightly taller and decidedly broader than the astromech droids. Gate caught hold of the other edge of the grate, allowing Whistler to come around to the opening. The smaller droid took hold of the grate and pulled it into place, while Gate extended his pincer and crimped ductwork around the edge of the grate to hold it in place.

The astromech droids rolled into the ducts and paused at an intersection. Whistler extended his communications probe and jabbed it into a communications port. The metal ductwork distorted comm frequencies enough that the repair droids regularly hooked into the base’s communications and computer system for position updates, repair requests, and other data. During his time passively surveying the comm frequencies on the base, Whistler had picked up enough transmissions from repair droids coming online and hooking into the communications network that he easily mimicked one and got into the system in nanoseconds.

First he calibrated his internal clock with local and Imperial standard times. Second he sliced his way into the local spaceport scheduling and control system to download a complete schedule of arrivals and departures for the next week. He found several ships that were leaving within the next day, most of which could easily find space for a pair of astromech droids. The spaceport computer system even provided a link to a number of cargo brokers. Once in their systems, he could obtain passage for himself and Gate.

Paying for their passage faced him with a quandary. Corran had explained that Isard wanted Rogue Squadron to seem dead. If Krennel was unaware of their continued survival, they could be used against him. The very fact that Rogue Squadron had been ambushed at Distna indicated that Krennel had some intelligence resources in the New Republic, and the intervention of Isard’s forces meant she had intelligence sources within Krennel’s Hegemony—and possibly within the New Republic as well. Paying for the passage from the various accounts Corran held—accounts Whistler could embezzle from without too much trouble since he knew all the relevant passwords and numbers—might suggest Corran lived. That word would get back to Krennel and Isard, placing the Rogues in danger from whatever Isard’s angry reaction might be.

From his communications with the Pulsar Skate’s computer, Whistler had drawn a list of accounts that Mirax maintained for her business dealings. Using one of them seemed most effective, since she often authorized shipments between points so she could pick them up at some waystation. Still, unauthorized use of one of her accounts would likely attract too much attention and might suggest to her that the Rogues had survived. While Whistler had no evidence to suggest Mirax was anything but smart, her reaction in absence of solid evidence might also jeopardize things.

The Skate had yielded yet older accounts, ones that Mirax had not tapped in a long time. All the data concerning them indicated they had been established by Booster Terrik well before he’d been sentenced to Kessel, and had not been touched since. Whistler analyzed the account activity and balances, and picked one of them to finance their escape.

Whistler ran through a quick threat analysis of their escape route, cross-correlating reports of crimes, percentages of Jawas and Ugnaughts in the local populations, and the fluctuating resale prices on droids along the course to their destination. Most of the risks seemed minor but there were a couple of points where the potential for interference seemed high. That assessment clicked in another piece of program that sent off a message setting up a rendezvous with someone who would be able to get them past the dangerous part of their journey and to their final destination.

If he showed up.

Whistler went over the text of the message again, edited it more closely, and sent it.

He would show up.

Whistler quickly established their primary connections, then created four separate and alternate routes to get where they needed to go. With a high-frequency series of squeals and whistles meant to register above the level of human hearing, he communicated full details to Gate. Then the two of them rolled off together to the maintenance egress hatch near the atmospheric control plant at the rear of the building. Once it grew dark outside, they’d escape the base and world, to get Rogue Squadron the help it was sure to need.