But if he rotated the ship ninety degrees, standing it on its drive nozzles and taking it in nose-first...
"I hope," Mara said, "that you're not thinking what I think you're thinking."
"I am," Luke said. "Hang on."
He gave the engines a burst of power, pushing the small craft ahead a dozen meters along the Dreadnaught's underside. Then, shutting down the main drive, he shifted power to the forward-ventral maneuvering jets, pitching the Skysprite's nose upward. The pylon stump slid past, and he fired one final burst from the main drive, running them straight upward into the tube.
To the accompaniment of a horrendous screech of torn metal.
Luke fought back a wince as he activated the forward landing claw, firing it past the turbolift cars to a more solid connection with the wall. "Was that the hyperdrive ring?" he asked as he took in the cable slack, winching the Skysprite another couple of meters into the pylon.
"Let's just say we'd better not need a quick exit," Mara said. "Aside from that, it was a classy maneuver."
"Thanks," Luke said, shutting the Skysprite's systems back to standby and making sure his vac suit was sealed. "At least we don't have to wonder whether or not they heard us coming. Grab the sealant kit and let's go."
The Skysprite's canopy was, fortunately, reasonably flat, and they were able to get it open in the cramped space without having to cut their way out. Working his way up the landing claw cable, Luke maneuvered between the parked turbolift cars to that last-second gash he'd carved with his thrown lightsaber and squeezed through it.
The damage turned out to be even more impressive than he'd expected. The lightsaber handle had apparently bumped the top of the door a fraction of a second before the blade had closed down, swinging it up and nicking a small hole in the lobby ceiling.
"Nice," Mara said, nodding to the latter as she handed Luke the sealant kit through the opening and then eased her own way through it. "You cut off not only the turbolift lobby, but a section of the next deck up, too. Anything up there they would have particularly missed?"
"Just the next turbolift lobby up," Luke said, looking around. His lightsaber was lying over in a corner beside four dead Vagaari who had been in the wrong place when the Dreadnaught broke free and the lobby depressurized. The blast doors that had reacted to the emergency were about five meters away down each of the three corridors leading away from the lobby. "I think one of the aft electronics supply rooms is just down the corridor from it, though, and a droid maintenance facility is off in the other direction," he added, starting across the lobby. "Depending on which blast doors reacted up there, either or both of those might have been locked away from them, too."
Mara grunted. "It would have been a lot simpler if none of them had worked," she pointed out, taking the sealant kit back from him and opening it. "Then the whole ship would have depressurized, and they'd all have died right then and there."
"Which they obviously didn't, since the ship is still under power," Luke pointed out, retrieving his lightsaber and taking a quick look at the alien bodies.
"I didn't say I believed it," Mara said. "I just said it would have been simpler. Anyone we know?"
"Nope," Luke said, experimentally igniting the lightsaber. The green-white blade flashed to existence with gratifying strength. "Good," he said, closing it down again and hooking it onto his belt next to Lorana's. "I was afraid the activator might have stuck on and drained all the power. You need any help?"
"No, I've got it," Mara said, unfolding the patch to the proper size and starting to seal its edges around the gash. "You just stand there and be ready for trouble. They may try to pull something cute even before we get the lobby repressurized."
"Right." Moving to the blast door blocking the corridor leading forward, he stretched out to the Force. There were alien minds in that direction, he could tell, and a high degree of maliciousness. But that was all he could read. Holding his lightsaber ready, he waited.
No attack had come by the time Mara finished laying out the patch and checking its integrity. "Ready?" Luke asked as she packed the kit away.
"Ready," Mara confirmed. "You sure you don't want to use the emergency oxygen tanks to repressurize? It would let us get out of these suits before we have to do any serious fighting."
Luke looked over at the red-rimmed emergency cabinet fastened to the side wall with its collection of oxygen tanks, sealant kits, and medpacs. "I'd rather leave that in reserve," he told her. "Depending on how much of a fight the Vagaari put up, we may wind up needing extra oxygen somewhere else along the line."
"Okay." Igniting her own lightsaber, she took up a ready stance a couple of meters in front of the blast doors. "Remember, just nick it. Enough to let the air in but not enough to trigger anything they might have on the other side."
"Right." Standing as far off to the side as he could, feeling awkward in the confines of his vac suit, Luke jabbed the end of the green-white blade through one corner of the thick door.
There was a sudden hissing noise, and a stream of air began to blow in through the opening, its edges swirling white as water vapor condensed and froze in the vacuum. He glanced at the atmosphere tester on his vac suit, wondering if the Vagaari might have tried poisoning the air on this deck. But there was nothing. A minute later the whistling faded away as the pressures equalized.
"Anything?" Mara asked.
Luke checked the tester again. "Looks clear," he said.
"Good." Laying her lightsaber on the deck, Mara popped her helmet and started stripping off the vac suit. "I hate trying to move in these things. Watch for company, will you?"
A minute later she was finished. A minute after that, both vac suits were off and piled neatly back near the turbolift doors. "Here we go," Luke commented as Mara took up a stance a couple of meters back from the blast door, her lightsaber humming in front of her. "Let's see what the Vagaari have come up with."
Reaching out with the Force, he keyed the control. Ponderously, the blast doors began to slide back into the walls.
And from a dozen standing and kneeling Vagaari five meters back came a withering hail of blasterfire.
Luke was ready, keying the doors instantly closed again as Mara scattered away the shots that had made it in. "Well, that answers that question," she commented.
"Partially, anyway," Luke corrected. "Did you happen to notice the little flat boxes lying along the sides of the walls?"
She shook her head. "Observation was your job," she reminded him. "My job was staying alive."
"Right," Luke said. "Anyway, they were just like the little gray boxes they used to mine the turbolift, except that these were white."
"White?" Mara frowned, then nodded. "Of course—repainted to blend in with the corridor walls. How many were there?"
"I didn't get an actual count," Luke said, studying the image in his memory. "But they were spaced a meter or two apart and ran all the way down to where the corridor jogs to the right."
"Cute," Mara said. "So the next time we open the blast doors, we'll probably see the Vagaari in full retreat. We'll chase them, watching for blaster shots, and whoever's handling the detonators will have his choice of when to blow us to bits."
"Something like that," Luke said, looking at the ceiling above them. "What do you think? We go up?"
"They'll probably have something ready up there, too," Mara said, her voice and sense suddenly thoughtful. "After all, they've seen what lightsabers can do."
"You have an idea?" Luke prompted.
She favored him with an evil smile. "What they haven't seen is this," she said. Letting go of her lightsaber, she levitated it in front of her.