Showdown at Centerpoint (17 page)

“I would suggest hurrying,” Threepio said. “The Glowpoint has now increased its brightness by thirty-five percent.”

“How about we leave that droid behind when we go?” Sonsen said as she cranked the regulator up as high as it would go, A loud hissing started almost at once.

Lando worked his jaw and felt his ears pop. “You’ve got my vote,” he said. “I’ve been trying to leave him behind for years.”

“Forget it, both of you,” Luke said. “I’ve been through a lot with Threepio.”

“All right,” said Sonsen. “That should do it. Let me down.”

Luke lowered her to the ground.

“Okay,” said Lando. “Administrator Sonsen—Jenica—what’s the plan, exactly?”

“I’m going to open the door here,” she said. “When I do, we should let a good-sized blast of our air out, and that’ll at least slow down the bad air coming in. Lando and I will get out as fast as we can and run to the other lock. You”—she pointed at Gaeriel—“as soon as we are out the door, close it again, by pressing this button here. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Once the door is shut, the regulator will come back on and pump in clean canned air, but there is still going to be a lot of that junk out there in the mix. But no matter how bad the air gets in here, breathe it. It’s only going to be worse outside. So breathe as best you can once that door is shut. Give us three minutes—no more, no less—and then pop the door again and come running. That will give us time to get through the lock ourselves, get to the other side, and then cycle the lock so the outer door is open. Get into the lock fast. If the droids can get there with you without slowing you up, great. If not, leave them on this side, and we’ll cycle the lock again for them once you’re through. They don’t have to worry about breathing. Got it?”

“Got it,” Luke said.

“We’ll be left behind for sure!” Threepio said in his most theatrical tones, and even Artoo let out a sort of low moan.

Lando paid them no mind. Not when this whole Hollowtown place was about to get burned to another crisp. If only that were the worst of it. If the Glowpoint’s flaring again meant what he thought it did, a little thing like five people and two droids being roasted alive wasn’t going to matter much at all.

“Okay,” Lando said, “tie your cloths over your mouth and nose, and then let’s do one more thing that might help us get through this in one piece. We need to get as much oxygen into the bloodstream and lungs as possible before we go out there. The high pressure
will help, but we need to do more. Everybody, start breathing in rapid, shallow breaths. It’ll help you hold your breath a little bit longer when the time comes.” Lando followed his own advice, and started to breathe in fast, shallow, panting breaths. Not the healthiest thing to do for long, but it would help get him through the next few minutes. He looked out the viewport at the swirling clouds of murky ash and soot and shook his head. “Don’t breathe this stuff at all,” he said, around his panting breaths. “Even if it had all the oxygen you needed, that crud would probably burn a hole in your lungs.”

Lando started to follow and kept up his rapid, shallow breathing until he started to feel just this side of light-headed. He only hoped he was remembering all the procedures properly. “All right,” he said. “Artoo, you time it. Come after us in three minutes. Let’s do it.”

Sonsen tied her own cloth over her mouth and nose, looked around to make sure everyone else had done the same, and then hit the
DOOR OPEN
button.

The air blew out of the turbovator car with terrifying speed, and then a blast-furnace wall of air rushed in, pulling a stream of noxious dust and smoke and soot with it. Sonsen dove through the door, and Lando followed after her, already half blinded by the stinging, burning fumes that were everywhere. There had been nothing they could do about eye protection. Where the devil was Sonsen? Had he lost her already?

The air—if you could call it air—screamed past in the howling wind and cleared the view for just a moment. He spotted her, through watering eyes, heading toward the building.

The heat was nearly as bad as the poisoned air and the dust. Already the sweat was streaming out of his body, dripping down his brow, getting into his eyes, making it that much harder to see. He resisted the urge to wipe his brow—and the urge to breathe. Amazing
how fast you wanted to start again once you stopped.

Never mind. Sonsen—Jenica—was at the airlock, trying to work the very old-fashioned-looking controls—but the metal buttons and knobs were already too hot to touch. Lando pulled the torn-up piece of cloth out of his pocket—being careful to keep his vibro-shiv from falling out—and handed it to her.

She nodded gratefully, not wasting breath on words, and wrapped the cloth around her hand. She threw back the spill lever, equalizing pressure between the interior of the lock and the outside. It would seem the pressure was higher on the outside, judging by the column of smoke and soot that got sucked into the lock. Jenica threw back a big lever and the door swung out and open. She waved her arm vigorously, urging Lando in—and he needed no urging. It was a big lock compartment, capable of handling twenty or thirty people at once. That wasn’t good. The bigger the lock, the more air there would be to move, and the longer it would take.

The dust and smoke swirled around in the wretched air as Lando stumbled into the oven-hot interior of the lock—and suddenly realized that Jenica was not with him. He turned around to find her slumped over by the lock entrance, face-down on the ground, coughing and retching.

His own lungs feeling as if they were about to burst, Lando forced himself to go back outside after her. He grabbed her under the arms and dragged her in, wishing mightily for enough breath to curse the too-high gravity here in the equatorial regions of Centerpoint Station.

Half blinded by the caustic chemicals burning his eyes, Lando hauled Jenica Sonsen into the lock. He was about to let her slump down onto the deck when he realized just how hot that metal deck had to be by now. He threw her left arm over his shoulder and held her up as he searched frantically for the inside lock
controls. She managed to take a bit of her weight on her own feet. Coughing horribly, she pointed an unsteady finger over to one corner of the lock.

Lando looked in the direction she was pointing. There! He dragged himself over, Jenica still draped over him, and pulled the close-lock lever, burning his hand in the process. The metal was hot and getting hotter. It seemed to take forever for the door to swing back shut.

He had his finger jammed down on the air pump button almost before the door latches had closed, but the automatics cut in at once anyway—not pumping in good air, but dumping the bad stuff out into the other side of the lock. Shell One, Jenica had called it. The air pumps whirred busily, stirring the ashes and soot up into a new blinding cloud of dust.

Lando’s lungs were screaming for air, demanding that he breathe immediately. He felt as if he were about to pass out, but he knew he did not dare. If he fainted, his reflexes would start him breathing again—and that would probably kill him.

The pressure equalized, and the far lock door opened. The air outside was far colder than the stuff in the lock, and the temperature difference was enough to make up a sharp little gust of wind as the hot bad air expanded out into Shell One—and good cool air swept into the lock chamber.

Lando let go of Jenica and dropped to his knees. He barely noticed the burning heat of the deck as he gasped for air, coughing, gagging, his lungs heaving. He pulled the cloth away from his mouth and coughed harder, spitting out the horrid slime that seemed to have gotten into his mouth, even if he hadn’t been breathing that mess. “Out,” he said, his voice little more than a weak creaking noise. “We need—get out—set lock for others.”

Jenica had collapsed next to him. She nodded, unable to speak even that much. They helped each other to their feet and staggered out of the lock chamber.
The air here was a swirling mass of dreadful, sulfurous smoke—but there was air there too, good air. They could not breathe
easily
just yet, not until the dust and smoke dispersed. But at least they could breathe.

Jenica went to the Shell One side control panel and pulled the old-fashioned lever to swing the interior door shut.

“Hold it!” Lando shouted. He had spotted something. There was a rack of emergency equipment by the lock door—including two small tanks of oxygen with breathing masks. Lando grabbed one, twisted the valve to start the oxygen flowing, and threw it into the lock. Most—or maybe all—of the oxygen would go to waste, of course. But it didn’t matter. Even at full flow, a bottle that size would last ten or fifteen minutes before it went empty. But maybe just enough oxy would blow around to do some good. Or maybe if they were all blinded by the fumes, someone would still hear the hissing noise, and someone would find the mask, and put it to his or her face.

The door swung to, Jenica pulled the lever to open the Hollowtown-side door, and that was that. She turned around and slumped down on the floor with her back to the wall. Lando grabbed the other oxy tank and sat down on the floor facing her. He opened the flow valve and handed her the tank.

Jenica put the breather mask to her face and breathed in deeply—and was subdued by another wave of wracking coughs. She tried it again, with better success. “Yuck,” she said. “I didn’t mean to breathe any of that stuff, but something must have gotten in.” She handed the tank to Lando. He put the mask to his face and breathed in deeply. The cool, clean oxygen felt wonderfully pure and sweet. “Is there anything else we can do to help them in?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Not really. There’s a viewport in the airlock here. The safeties won’t let me open both doors at once, but I might be able to set things to pop open the hatch on this side before the chamber
repressurizes. That might get ’em in here a little faster. That’s about all.”

It had taken all of ninety seconds to get them in here. Amazing how much longer than that it felt. But if there was company coming, they had best get ready. Lando took another deep breath off the oxy tank and handed it back to Jenica. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get the lock set so you can pop the inner door early.”

“Yeah. We’d better. I have a nasty feeling your friends might have it a little rougher than we did.” Jenica stood up and rubbed her face. Her hand came away even dirtier than it had been. “Burning stars, but I must be a mess.”

“You did look better before,” Lando said with a smile. “Your face has about a centimeter of dust on it.”

“Oh, a little soap and water will fix
that,
” she said. “But I don’t even want to
think
what this has done to my hair.”

*   *   *

Luke Skywalker watched Artoo intently, waiting for the three minutes to be up. He forced himself to calmness, to clarity. Jedi were not impatient.

Except sometimes. This situation was getting out of hand. The temperature in the car had jumped dramatically when the outside air had come in. All of them were sweating profusely. And all of them—even the great Jedi Master himself—were having trouble breathing.

Kalenda coughed again and swore under her breath—what little breath she had. “How much longer?” she asked. Either the smoke or the cloth over her mouth made her voice seem a bit murky, a bit throaty.

“About another thirty seconds, I think,” Luke said. “Let’s get ready. Both of you out before me so I can keep an eye on you,” he said.

Gaeriel seemed about to protest, but Luke cut her
off. “It’s no time to be modest,” he said. “My Jedi powers give me an edge you two won’t have. If they didn’t, I’ve wasted my time with all that training for all these years. Artoo, Threepio, you come after me.
You
watch
me
. Watch all of us. We might need your help—but maybe we can move faster than you two can. If we get there first, we’re going to have to leave you on this side of the lock—but we’ll cycle the lock again as soon as we’re through. All right?”

Artoo whistled and beeped and swung his head back and forth. “I quite agree with Artoo,” Threepio said. “We might be immune to the poisonous atmosphere, but the corrosive airborne chemicals and the rising temperatures could easily do us harm. Please do not delay in getting us.”

“I won’t,” Luke said. “I promise.”

Threepio nodded happily. “I am glad to hear it,” he said. Apparently the word of a Jedi Master was good enough even for a protocol droid.

“Kalenda—Gaeriel—are you ready?”

“No, not really,” said Gaeriel, coughing just a bit. “But I doubt I ever will be ready for this sort of thing. Let’s go.”

Kalenda nodded and let it go at that.

“Here we go,” Luke said, and hit the button.

A new blast of burning-hot air struck at them as the door opened. The winds were blowing more and more fiercely as the Glowpoint dumped more and more energy into the system. Gaeriel stepped out into the storm and was nearly blown off her feet before Kalenda could grab at her. Luke stepped out into it and was nearly bowled over himself. The heat was incredible, and the noxious gases seemed to eat into his skin, his eyes.
For a Jedi there is no pain,
Luke told himself.
There is awareness. There is calm
. The three humans stepped around the side of the turbovator car—and discovered they had been in the lee of the wind. The full force of the corrosive gale blasted straight into their faces, utterly blinding them, forcing
them to jam their eyes shut. The wind carried finegrained sand, and that slammed into them as well.

Luke got one fleeting moment of good visibility before the roaring wall of dust and cinders enveloped them, one moment when he saw where the airlock hatch was—and saw that it was swinging open for them. That one moment would have to be enough. It would be worse than useless to open his eyes in this storm. Not only would he be unable to see—his eyes would be destroyed. He would have to do it by dead reckoning—and drag the others with him. He reached out with the Force and found Kalenda and Gaeriel hand-in-hand, just a meter or two ahead of him. They were headed in the wrong direction. They must have been turned around by the wind already.