Anakin sat behind the controls, with Mezdec next to him. "The takeoff could be bumpy," he told the others. "We don't have enough power for a smooth ride. Once we get into the upper atmosphere we should be okay."
Anakin started the engines. The retractable roof of the hangar slid back. Watching the instruments carefully, Anakin gave the engines power and they rose, too slowly for Obi-Wan's comfort. The ship shook with the effort.
Anakin's face was completely calm, but Obi-Wan noted the sheen of perspiration on his skin. The controls shook in his hands. The shuddering ship rose over the icy wasteland. It slid sideways, dangerously close to the side of the mountain. Obi-Wan saw Thik close his eyes. Shalini touched her belt, where the disk lay hidden.
Anakin gave another boost to the power, and the ship shot up into the upper atmosphere. "That was the hard part," he announced to the others.
"Next stop, Typha-Dor."
If we are lucky, Obi-Wan thought. If we are very, very lucky.
Chapter Four
Anakin glanced at the radar. There was no traffic in the vicinity.
Most transient ships stayed clear of the Uziel system, due to the troubles there. Now that Vanqor controlled the airspace, no one was eager to tangle with it.
Safe for the moment, Anakin let Rajana take over the piloting. He needed to keep a closer eye on the instruments.
Mezdec looked up from the navigation screen. "Everything all right?"
"I just want to take a look at the stabilizer controls," Anakin said.
"Without full power, we'll be in trouble if something malfunctions. I had to reroute the cables from the left stabilizer in order to get lift. I want to make sure we didn't pull too much power on the takeoff. I'm going to run a full status check."
He set the status check in motion and watched as the computer ticked off the different indicators. Anakin decided to do a second check, this time manually. He couldn't be too careful in a ship operating at less than full power. He scanned through the warning sensors.
"That's odd," he said to Mezdec. "I'm getting an indicator green on three power feeds on the escape pod. I'm showing two anti-gray generators."
"The pod does have two anti-gray generators," Mezdec said. "It was upgraded in case it had to be used as a primary transport to get all the way back to Typha-Dor. Samdew sabotaged the pod, too."
"I saw that," Anakin said. "But there was no console indicator for an extra generator and three power feeds."
"The feed indicators are in the pod itself," Mezdec said.
"I see. I'll check them there, then." Anakin went back to the escape pod. He did a status check. Then he stopped by the small area where Obi-Wan had settled himself in the rear of the craft.
Anakin eased into a seat next to him. He leaned over casually and spoke in a low tone. "The escape pod is double-boosted. Highly unusual for this model. The indicators don't run through the sensor array in the main cabin. In other words, I found Samdew's back door. If I'd checked the pod itself, I could have fixed the problem on the transport. All that needed to be done was a rewiring job to suck power from the pod and bring it to the transport. We could have taken off with full power."
"Can you do it now?"
Anakin shook his head. "Not while we're flying. But that's not the issue. I have one question."
"Why didn't Mezdec figure it out?" Obi-Wan interjected in a low tone.
"Could it be an oversight?"
Anakin shrugged. "Sure. If he's not very bright. But he seems to know his stuff. And he had a month to try to fix the transport."
Obi-Wan frowned. "Something has been nagging at me. There were scorch marks on the comm console. Mezdec said that he came out of the sleeping quarters and saw Samdew at the comm unit. He saw that Sam-dew was sending a communication to the Vanqors."
Anakin nodded. "So he blasted the comm console to stop him."
"A blast from that distance shouldn't have left scorch marks on the panel," Obi-Wan said.
"Not unless he shot from very close," Anakin agreed. "Maybe he was mistaken about where he was standing."
"If he was close enough to blast the panel to leave scorch marks, wouldn't you think he'd be close enough to stop Samdew without shooting?
Why did he have a blaster, anyway? He said he'd been sleeping, and it was the middle of the night," Obi-Wan said. "Anyway, the point is that he lied.
" "But the others came out and saw what happened," Anakin said. "And Samdew shot Thik."
"Think back, Padawan," Obi-Wan said. "You are telling me the impression you got, not the words that were actually said."
Anakin thought back, annoyed at himself. He had spoken quickly, without reviewing the conversation in his mind. That wasn't consistent with his training.
He focused, as a Jedi should. He remembered the conversation clearly now, in the exact words and sequence the others had used. An exact memory was one of the tools of a Jedi mind.
"Samdew was dying when he tried to shoot Mezdec," Anakin said. "That's what Rajana and Thik saw. Thik just got in the way. So Samdew could have been shooting at Mezdec because Mezdec was the spy. But what about Samdew activating the fire system?"
"We only have Mezdec's word for that, too," Obi-Wan said. "We only have Mezdec's word for everything, including the disabled transport."
"Do you think he's the spy?" Anakin asked. "I don't know," Obi-Wan said.
Shalini had seen them talking, and she slid into a seat next to Obi- Wan. "Everything all right?"
Anakin glanced at his Master. Mezdec was Shalini's husband. As the head of the group, she had a right to know what they were thinking. But where would her loyalties lie?
"Fine," Obi-Wan said. "Tell us something. Did you have any other evidence that Samdew was the saboteur?"
"What more evidence did we need?" Shalini said. "He killed four of us.
" "What do you think his plan was before he was interrupted?" Obi-Wan asked.
"We knew he was beginning his transmission to the Vanqor fleet,"
Shalini said. "Luckily Mezdec intervened before they got a lock on our position. I imagine that his message would be that we had the invasion plans. Then he would kill us and take off."
"In the disabled transport?"
"The Vanqors would send a transport, I suppose," Shalini said. "What are you suggesting?"
"It seems an inefficient way for a spy to behave," Obi-Wan said. "Far better to alert the Vanqors that their plans had been retrieved, then stay in place and hope for more chances to betray Typha-Dor."
"Maybe he was an inefficient spy," Shalini said. "Maybe his mission was over. Maybe he was tired of the cold." She eyed Obi-Wan curiously. "Why don't you say what you mean?"
"There could be another spy," Obi-Wan said. "Or Samdew might have been innocent. He did not get a chance to defend himself."
"He shot Thik!" Shalini said.
"He was aiming at Mezdec," Obi-Wan reminded her. "The only person who had identified him as a spy."