Lost Tribe of the Sith 05 - Star Wars Purgatory

lighten the mood. He chuckled and flashed her one of his nova-bright grins. “You’re as bad as your old man. Can’t you see this is no time to joke?”
    Jaina cocked a brow. “So you
didn’t
decide to swing past Kessel to say hello to the wife and son?”
    “Good idea,” Lando said, shaking his head. “But …
no
.”
    “Well, then …” Jaina activated the auxiliary pilot’s station and waited as the long-range sensors spooled up. An old asteroid tug designed to be controlled by a single operator and a huge robotic crew, the
Rockhound
had no true copilot’s station, and
that
meant the wait was going to be longer than Jaina would have liked. “What are we doing here?”
    Lando’s expression grew serious. “Good question.” He turned toward the back of the
Rockhound
’s spacious flight deck, where the vessel’s ancient bridge-droidstood in front of an equally ancient navigation computer. A Cybot Galactica model RN8, the droid had a transparent head globe, currently filled with the floating twinkles of a central processing unit running at high speed. Also inside the globe were three sapphire-blue photoreceptors, spaced at even intervals to give her full-perimeter vision. Her bronze body-casing was etched with constellations, comets, and other celestial artwork worthy of her nickname. “I
know
I told Ornate to set a course for Coruscant.”
    RN8’s head globe spun just enough to fix one of her photoreceptors on Lando’s face. “Yes, you did.” Her voice was silky, deep, and chiding. “And then you countermanded that order with one directing us to our current destination.”
    Lando scowled. “You need to do a better job maintaining your auditory systems,” he said. “You’re hearing things.”
    The twinkles inside RN8’s head globe dimmed as she redirected power to her diagnostic systems. Jaina turned her own attention back to the auxiliary display and saw that the long-range sensors had finally come on line. Unfortunately, they were no help. The only thing that had changed inside its bronze frame was the color of the screen and a single symbol denoting the
Rockhound
’s own location in the exact center.
    RN8’s silky voice sounded from the back of the flight deck. “My auditory sensors are in optimal condition, Captain—as are my data storage and retrieval systems.” Her words began to roll across the deck in a very familiar male baritone. “Redi
rect
to
dest
ina
tion
Ashteri’s Cloud, arri
val
time seven
teen
hours fif
teen
,
Galac
tic
Stan
dard.”
    Lando’s jaw dropped, and he sputtered, “Tha … that’s not
me
!”
    “Not quite,” Jaina agreed. The emphasis was placedon the wrong syllable in several words; otherwise, the voice was identical. “But it’s close enough to fool a droid.”
    Lando’s eyes clouded with confusion. “Are you telling me what I
think
you’re telling me?”
    “Yes,” Jaina said, glancing at her blank sensor display. “I don’t quite know how, but someone impersonated you.”
    “Through the Force?”
    Jaina shrugged and shot a meaningful glance toward a dark corner. While she knew of a half-dozen Force powers that could have been used to defeat Ornate’s voice-recognition software, not one of those techniques had a range measured in light-years. She carefully began to expand her Force-awareness, concentrating on the remote corners of the huge ship, and, thirty seconds later, was astonished to find nothing unusual. There were no lurking beings, no blank zones that might suggest an artificial void in the Force, not even any small vermin that might be a Force-wielder disguising his presence.
    After a moment, she turned back to Lando. “They
must
be using the Force. There’s no one aboard but us and the droids.”
    “I was afraid you’d say that.” Lando paused for a moment, then asked, “Luke’s friends?”
    “I hate to jump to conclusions, but … who else?” Jaina replied. “First, Lost Tribe or not, they’re
Sith
. Second, they already tried to double-cross us once.”
    “Which makes them as crazy as a rancor on the dancing deck,” Lando said. “Abeloth was locked in a
black hole prison
for twenty-five thousand years. What kind of maniacs would think it was a good idea to bust her out?”
    “They’re
Sith
,” Jaina reminded him. “All that matters to them is power, and Abeloth had power like a nova has light—until Luke killed her.”
    Lando frowned in thought. “And if they’re crazy enough to think they could take