"I think you're right," Luke agreed. "What about you? Any luck with that sucker shot?"
Mara shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I hit the sensor head, but I don't know what kind of damage I did. Probably not very much—it sure didn't have any trouble lining up its blasters on me afterward."
"So they can't keep their shields up while they're rolling?"
"Right," Mara said. "About all they can do with their shields up is that little waddle thing. Problem is, in wheel form they're just too fast for a good killing shot."
"Certainly not from a blaster that small," Luke said. "Maybe we should see if we can find something with a little more power and try it again."
"Maybe," Mara said doubtfully. "But then you're going to run into a different limitation. With blasters, the more power it's got, the bigger and heavier it is. Even with the Force I had enough trouble hitting it with my sleeve gun. It would be that much harder to move even a carbine fast enough to keep up with a droideka's speed and maneuverability."
"How about if it wasn't moving?" Luke asked. "Could that same carbine punch through the shield?"
Mara shook her head. "I've never seen the specs, but from what I've heard it sounds like it would take something a lot bigger than that to do the trick."
"So we're back to hitting it when it's on the move," Luke concluded. "Maybe you should have tried that ambush trick with your lightsaber instead of your blaster."
"Wouldn't have worked," Mara said. "I would have had to stand right at the doorway to reach it, and it would have picked me up long before it got within range."
"How about now that its sensors are damaged?"
"I'd hate to try it," Mara said hesitantly. "There are several different types of sensors grouped there—composite radiation, vibration, and I think one or two more. It can aim and fire using any combination of them."
"Terrific," Luke said, starting to sound a little frustrated. "We can't use blasters, and we can't use lightsabers. So how did the Jedi of that era deal with them?"
Mara felt her lips tighten. "Mostly, they ran away," she said. "I can't remember a single story of a Jedi taking out a shielded one on his own."
Luke seemed taken aback. "Oh."
"Oh, indeed." Mara leaned her head back out of the room to peer down the corridor. "You did say it had stopped, right?"
Luke nodded. "I heard it unroll. From the direction of the sound, I'd guess it's sitting midway between the two command deck doors."
"Like a big metal vornskr on guard duty."
"Exactly," Luke said, starting to sound back on track again. "At least now we know what else Outbound Flight's organizers packed aboard. Where in the worlds did they get a droideka, anyway? I thought only the Trade Federation had them back then."
"They did, but you forget that the Trade Federation had been allegedly rehabilitated after the Naboo incident," Mara pointed out. "They were all sweetness and light—well, they were all grudging cooperation, anyway—until the Separatists dropped the hammer at Geonosis and the Clone Wars began. Someone probably persuaded them to donate a few to Outbound Flight with an eye toward sentry use on any new colonies they might set up." She gestured. "Fortunately, it looks like the Vagaari only have one of them working."
"One is plenty for me," Luke assured her dryly. "I'm surprised they got even that far."
"I'm not," Mara said sourly. "Or at least, I shouldn't have been. The more I think about it, the more I think droid technology was what Estosh came here looking for in the first place."
"What makes you say that?" Luke asked, frowning.
"It was right after that first cleaner droid appeared on D-Four and you slipped away to scout out our path," Mara said, feeling yet another twinge of professional embarrassment. Like the fake Geroon refugee ship, this was something she should have instantly caught on to. "We got to talking about droids in general, and one of the Vagaari asked specifically about droidekas. There's no place he could have picked up that term except from Fel's operational manual."
"Okay," Luke said slowly. "But we already know they're the ones who stole it."
"Right," Mara said. "But there were four densely packed data cards in that set. What are the odds they would have stumbled across a list of droid designations unless they were specifically looking for them?"
"Even less than the odds they'd find the maintenance and activation procedures," Luke said, nodding. "So this whole fuss is over nothing but a few droids?"
"They're only a few droids to us because we're so used to having them around," Mara pointed out. "Remember what Fel said about the Chiss not having droid technology? If the Chiss don't, probably no one else out here does, either. If the Vagaari can learn how to build and field a droid army, they're going to have a huge advantage, especially among the less developed cultures who seem to be their preferred prey."
"I guess you're right," Luke said. "So the original plan was probably to kill everyone aboard the Chaf Envoy, spread out through Outbound Flight to collect all the droids they could find, then sneak back through the Redoubt before we were gone long enough to have raised any alarms."
"That's my guess," Mara said. "It was just pure luck they got a working Dreadnaught as a bonus."
Luke grimaced. "Some bonus. The chief Vagaari's going to be really pleased to have this show up on his doorstep."
"Not if we can help it," Mara declared. "Come on, you're the Jedi Master. Think of something."
"Maybe we don't actually have to destroy it," Luke said. "All we really want to do is to get onto the command deck and take control of the ship."
"And, what, we just persuade the droideka to turn its head for a minute?"
Luke smiled tightly. "As a matter of fact," he said, "I think we can do exactly that."
Carefully, Luke eased his way to the end of the starboard corridor. Directly in front of him was the archway and access door into the command deck, while somewhere out of sight to his left the droideka was standing guard.
He stretched out his mind to Mara, sensed that she was in mirror-image position thirty meters away in the portside corridor. The droideka was now directly between them... and the way its arms were hinged, it could only fire in one direction at a time. Bracing himself, he ignited his lightsaber and stepped out into the cross-corridor.
The droideka was, as he'd surmised earlier, standing with its back to the command deck wall midway between the two access doors. Its shield popped on as its sensors detected Luke's movement, its guns swiveling as it tracked toward him. "Yes, it's me," Luke called, lifting his lightsaber to guard position as he took another two steps toward the machine. "Come on; have at it."
The droideka obliged with a burst of blasterfire. Luke's lightsaber flashed back and forth, deflecting the shots as he slowly reversed direction back the way he'd come. He made it back to the corner and ducked back to safety. Closing down his lightsaber, he turned aft and started running down the corridor, listening between the thudding of his footsteps for the sounds of the droideka giving chase.
The sounds didn't come. Frowning, he slowed to a halt, listening more closely. Still no pursuit. Reversing direction again, he returned to the corner and eased an eye around it.
The droideka's response was another round of blasterfire that gouged a fresh set of pits in the metal walls. But in that single brief glimpse Luke had seen that the droideka hadn't budged from the spot where he'd left it.
Retreating a few paces down the corridor, he pulled out his comlink and thumbed it on. "Mara?"
"It doesn't seem to want to come out and play, does it?" her voice answered.
"No, it's apparently happy right where it is," Luke said. "You want to give it a try?"