Free Star Wars: Shadow Games by Michael Reaves Page A

figure it out, Leebo’s head came up with a snap.
    “Huh.” The droid turned to face the interior bulkhead on the opposite side of the cabin. “Hey, boss—check this out.”
    Dash moved to where the droid stood, the quarterdeck schematics projected onto the burnished brown surface of the wall in front of them. “What is it?”
    “That area I’ve so helpfully highlighted in red for you is the original schematic for this row of suites.”
    “Yeah, so what am I looking at?”
    “Boss,” Leebo said, in what was, for the droid, a patient tone. “What’s
wrong
with this picture?”
    Dash peered at the red area and noticed something right away. He also realized why the room had struck him as peculiar.
    “This schematic shows these cabins as all being the same size.” He swept an index finger down the line of renderings. “But they’re not. This one is smaller than our suite. Or at least the front room is smaller, by about half a meter.”
    “Hurrah—you’re teachable,” said Leebo.
    Dash stepped through the schematic’s lines of light and pressed his hands to the wall. “There’s something behind here,” he said. He moved to the front corner ofthe quarters as the others left off their poking and prodding and came to see what he was doing.
    “The schematics show this wall as being about half a meter farther aft,” he said as he continued to run his hands over the surface, searching for unevenness or seams.
    “Unless you’ve got bionic fingers, boss, I’m pretty sure I’m better qualified to find what you’re looking for.”
    “The droid’s right,” said Finnick. “If all else fails we can burn through the metal.”
    “I really wish you wouldn’t. I just had it refinished.”
    The entire group turned as one to see Javul Charn standing nonchalantly in the doorway of her suite. Dara and Mel were with her.
    Dash just kept from letting loose with a scalding expletive. “Where have you
been
?”
    Dara rolled her eyes. “Sounds like my dad.”
    Mel stepped into the room. “They scared the hell out of me by appearing in the cargo bay, literally out of nowhere.”
    “Not nowhere,” Javul corrected, looking contrite. “We came out of a escape panel that connects—”
    Dash pointed at the wall. “Here.”
    “We didn’t know what was happening, Dash,” Javul said. “The alarm went off, the power cut out, and we thought there was a hull breach back here. We tried to raise somebody by banging on the door, but then we figured if there really was a hull breach, we might be in pretty bad shape if the doors failed. So we used the escape tube.”
    “I’ve already explained to them,” Mel said, “that there wasn’t a hull breach. It was something else.”
    “Yeah. Sabotage, apparently,” said Dash and was gratified when Javul paled, her flesh looking almost translucent.
    “Is there any way to be sure?” she asked.
    “I’m going to go check that power terminus, first off,”said Arruna grimly. “I’d like some company. Someone with a blaster and more than a little experience using it would be nice.” Her gaze turned to Eaden, who bowed, then followed her from the room.
    “You’re sure you’re all right?” Finnick asked Javul.
    She nodded. “I’m … I’m fine. Why don’t you secure the ship, run diagnostics on everything, then get us back in hyperspace as soon as you and Arruna and the captain feel it’s safe. We don’t want to be late for our Rodian engagements.”
    The ship’s systems showed no sign of damage or further sabotage, the hull was fine, and a G2 repair droid was scrambled to fix the broken door panels. Arruna determined that the power outage in the aft quarterdeck had been triggered remotely, and immediately disappeared into a conference with First Mate Finnick to pore over the computer records. If an event had triggered the outage, she reasoned, it would show up somewhere as a surge, a blip, or even, if they were far luckier than they deserved, a clear command