There was no order Luke could hear or see – though he had to admit that he was at a bad angle to see what Gen. Ashen was doing with his hands – but they were still one corner away from the main entrance of the assembly rotunda when the Red Guards before him abruptly changed their formation from accurate lines to overlapping rows that effectively blocked the young Jedi from seeing what lay in front of their group. Half a step later, the stormtroopers behind them followed suit.
They had barely rounded the aforementioned corner before the Guards came to a stop completely, but by then the voices talking in front of the ornate entrance had become obvious and the young Jedi could guess what they were doing. A quick side-glance showed his sister scowling at the delay but submit to it with ill grace, which left him free to stretch his senses and listen in on the ongoing discussions.
"… overly fond of promoting 'friends' rather than competence," an unfamiliar voice was just saying. Luke though it might have been that old grand moff, Therbon.
"His corruption stemmed mainly from overindulgence and a resultant approachability for 'business opportunities'," his father's distinct mechanic baritone replied, "with Getelles removed, the Antemeridian sector should fall in line easily. Hissa, however, has dabbled where he should not have. Your fellow grand moffs Tigellinus, Praji and Weizel will each temporarily assign ten stardestroyers to your fleet until the situation is completely resolved."
Even without seeing the man, the young Jedi could feel the spike of indignation laced with fear coming from the grand-admiral-cum-grand-moff.
"As you wish, milord." Tigellinus said obediently, even so.
A minimal pause and then Therbon added, "There is another request I have to make, Lord Vader."
A moment of silence, filled only by the hiss of the ventilator. "Make it, then."
"Change is a game for the young ones and I have served the galaxy for over fifty years now. I will not shirk my duties but when the governance of the Kessel sector is resolved, I would greatly appreciate it if a successor could be found, too, for the Maldrood oversector."
Tigellinus was flabbergasted, evidently incapable of comprehending how anyone would voluntarily step back from the power inherent in a grand moff position; the Sithlord, on the other hand, merely gave back, "Your resignation will be considered when the time comes, Grand Moff Therbon."
Satisfied for the time being, the old man took his leave and Tigellinus was shooed away after him, with a curt, "You may leave as well. The Farrfin sector awaits your attention, Grand Admiral."
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When the Guards finally restarted moving, cleared the distance separating them from Lord Vader and flowed around him to include the Emperor's heir in their cordon, the resolute expression on Leia's face presumably heralded a sharp harangue about the uses and abuses of fear in galactic governance, but Gen. Ashen beat her to the first word.
Apparently, the low warble from the general's comlink Luke had noticed peripherally a minute or so earlier, had been more serious than expected.
"Milord, there has been a malfunction in the internal alarm network that will require an authorization code of Aurek level or above to reset," Ashen reported. "With your leave, milord, I will see to it?"
It was quite possible that Han was simply trying to distract the princess, playing for time to further defuse her temper, but in any case, a Corellian drawl cut in promptly.
"Whoa, wait a minute! Aurek level or above? So either you," an almost accusing finger was pointed at the grey-clad commander of the Palace forces, "or His Lordship," the hand flipped and a casual thumb indicated the resident Sithlord, "is called away suddenly?"
A challenging stare swept across the surrounding Imperials "Does anyone else want to spell 'trap' for me or shall I do the honors?"
Ashen glared; Leia hissed "Han!" and Vader replied, as dead-pan as only the vocoder could manage but ominous nonetheless, "The word you are looking for, General Solo, is 'sentry gun'."
Han blinked, Ashen did the same but caught himself faster.
"All access routes to the command center are protected by an enfilade of sentry guns, among other measures," the Palace force commander said, looking down his nose at the ex-smuggler – or would have if the Corellian had not been of the same height.
"The point is moot, though," the mechanic baritone went on, "the fastest way to disable a trap is to spring it, and no automated gun is a match for the Force." A black-gauntleted hand was placed meaningfully on the hilt of a lightsaber.
Ashen looked about as enthusiastic about the 'spring the trap' tactic as Piett had been in the beginning – and about equally resigned to get overruled.
Luke was about to nod agreement when something occurred to him. "Could this be a distraction? Meant to make us split the group in two, regardless if it's the general they are really after or the Force-users?"
"Gentlemen, are we not overthinking this?" a sharp soprano cut in, evidently tired of getting ignored. "Whatever that malfunction is, it is obviously serious enough for the commander of the Palace forces to be informed and have him intervene. Instead of speculating what the smokescreen is hiding, we should first check how much damage a fire could do."
"She's right," a metallically distorted voice growled. "How likely is it, for someone with in-depth access to Palace security to think like a rebel?"
A deep, almost subsonic boom cut short the argument, the basso roar of a distant explosion muffled by the myriad of intervening walls of the gigantic building.
At the very edge of hearing, the young Jedi thought he might hear the high-pitched wail of an alarm, but in the closer vicinity everything stayed quiet.
For a moment, that was.
"Get the alarm grid back running!" the Sithlord snarled at Ashen, adding "a blade might prove necessary," before the man had even started to acknowledge the order.
Luke nodded grimly. When the general pushed through the group and fell into a brisk jog that was the fastest pace dignity would allow for an officer – and probably the fastest pace those gleaming boots still found purchase on equally gleaming floors, too – the young Jedi stayed right behind him, regardless of the older man's longer legs.
A final look over his shoulder showed his father – assorted guards and their charges at his heels – hurrying the other way.
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They took a turbolift up to a more utilitarian level – and obviously it had been the lack of traction that had slowed Ashen earlier, for on the less polished floor of the new corridor the general picked up some additional speed. Approaching another turbolift, he performed an unexpectedly dexterous sleight of hand in fishing two code cylinders from his breast pocket one-handedly and inserting both, at once, into a pair of sockets next to the door of the lift, while calling the latter with the other hand.
As they waited for the turbolift to arrive, the older man threw Luke a few pieces of advice.
"Two sets of sentry guns, one above the exit, one facing it. They protect the command center and are activated when the center goes into lock-down or if the sensors in the corridor detect a threat, such as an activated weapon."
Luke nodded in understanding, the doors opened to allow them entry into the lift and the code cylinders saw use again, to coax it into accepting a certain level as their destination.
"If the command center had gone into lock-down, this turbolift should have been deactivated. It is not impossible that the guns are active regardless, but … it is less likely."
The lift started to rise and Ashen turned, a thin humorless smile on his lips. "The guns are motion-triggered and the doors of the lift are already in their line of fire. When the doors start to open, you'll have about half a second to determine if the guns on the opposite end of the corridor are priming to fire."
The young Jedi nodded absently, senses already stretching, searching for a threat, a warning, anything, but the Emperor's decades-long residence had steeped the building in Dark energies, and beyond those cloying clouds, he could feel nothing.
Half a second, that went way beyond human reaction times but with the Force it was doable. The general didn't seem to consider it impossible, which probably meant he had seen his father in action, and Luke, well Luke would just have to live up to those expectations!
The lift reached the designated level, stopped and opened its door, leaving the young rebel to stare down a quad laser canon some fifty meters away, the firepower equivalent of his entire X-wing combined into a single armament. There was probably some cosmic irony involved, Luke decided.
For now, the touch of irony seemed to satisfy the fates, though, the sentry guns gave no sign of preparing to fire and after an endless second, the young Jedi made a cautious step forward, out of the lift and craned his head back to get a look at the matching quad cannon mounted above the doors opening into the turbolift. The little light Luke could see was burning a steady green, which, hopefully, was a good sign.
"No sign of activation," Ashen confirmed, and proceeded to march down the corridor, steps swift but nowhere near running.
The young Jedi followed him, lightsaber hilt in his hand, every sense alert.
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The expansive room beyond the thick blastdoors looked pretty much how Luke would have imagined the security center of a building such as this to look like. Display over display over display, some switching from view to view every few seconds, some keeping track of specific locations, manned by a few dozen people in Imperial black and grey.
At a second glance, though, the busy bustle held an overtone of barely suppressed panic. To say that the officer on duty looked close to tears with relief at the sight of his superior taking charge would have been a lie, but the underlying sentiment was definitely there.
The exact details of the middle-aged man's report to Ashen partially escaped the young rebel, but he caught the gist. Instead of trying to get rid of the surveillance as such, someone had found a way to break the network, letting the gigantic dimensions of the Palace do the rest. There was simply no way to watch the entire construct simultaneously, so the command center would sweep across the neuralgic points continuously but otherwise relied on programmed routines that would focus the system automatically on those areas under alarm. Except that at the moment, alarms didn't spread from one section of the grid to the next, let alone to the command center, and without a way to prioritize, the sheer mass of information was crippling itself.
"We take down the secondary grid, reset it from the start and see if that solves the problem," Gen. Ashen decided afterwards, turning towards a nearby console to enter some kind of authorization code and then pressed his code cylinders into the other officer's hand to carry on with the rest of the procedure.
Luke used the time to try something he had never done before, too conditioned to keep his talent under wraps to even consider it, but if passive sensing didn't get him a clue, well, ships had active sensors for a reason and with the Emperor gone the necessity to hide himself was gone, too, wasn't it?
Drawing on the memory of his father doing the same, the young Jedi took a deep breath, gathered the Force around him and flared it. Just for a split second.
Across the room, one or two people started, evidently just sensitive enough to notice something off, but in a side-room something clattered and a previously well-hidden presence resonated fleetingly with the sudden pulse of power. Luke didn't think, he simply ran.
The sound of his steps – and the commotion rising in his wake – must have been the last straw, for his quarry ran, too. When the young Jedi burst into a near identical observation room, he saw a silhouette outlined for a split-second in the doorway opposite and then the unknown Force user – a Hand, what else could it be?! – was running down the corridor outside.
Only the Force saved Luke from a serious concussion when the blast door snapped shut right in front of him because someone had slammed his hand down on an alarm button and put the command center into lockdown. With his arms braced against solid durasteel, however, he could feel the reverberations of the sentry guns going off.
Individual fire, the rapid thud-thud-thud told the pilot and with starship-rated canons going against unarmored flesh and a target that had been trapped in a narrow corridor and within the range of both emplacements when the guns had activated … fifteen seconds was probably a lot longer than any ordinary human would have lasted before the shadowy presence flared once and faded and the guns cycled down.
Luke pushed off the wall, finally responded to his father's sharp mental query with an almost detached Just experimenting with active sensors, but quickly lost the mood for quips when the cameras outside showed only a smoking pile that wasn't identifiable as male or female or even human anymore.
Scared up a Hand – I think – but lost them to the sentry guns, he amended.
Unfortunate, was the dispassionate answer, they might have known how deep this plot is reaching, but no matter. Stay safe, Son!
And with that, the Sithlord's attention was drawn elsewhere.