They both stared at each other, neither speaking as they contemplated their situation and what possible actions they could take. Eli opened his mouth to say something when there was no mistaking movement behind the horizontal blinds in the window. Breathing a silent curse, he slipped quickly out of the chair and crouched behind it. Seeing Eli's reaction, Thrawn pulled his legs up to keep them out of the window's view. He winced but said nothing.
Eli held his breath as he stared at the window, wishing he could close his eyes and yet at the same time unable to wrench them away. The blinds made it difficult to make out any details, but there was definitely someone walking slowly down the hall, headed for the stairwell they had come down.
Or headed for their door.
The taste of blood pulled Eli from the fear-induced stupor that had fallen over him, and he realized belatedly that he had been biting his lip. His knuckles were white where they held the chair in a vice-like grip. "Keep going, keep going," he mouthed to himself silently. The shadow disappeared as it moved past the window. Eli counted his heartbeats, expecting any moment for there to be an attempt on the door.
Several painful moments passed, and Eli was just about to release his hold on the chair and rise to his feet when the figure moved in front of the window again. It was closer this time, but it was moving in the opposite direction. And it was moving. Eli stayed frozen in place until it was out of sight once more. Then, with slow, deliberate movements, he released the chair and crawled on his hands and knees across the floor until he was beside Thrawn, beneath the window. Lifting himself up cautiously, he peeked out between the blinds.
The figure was moving away back down the hall at a slow, steady pace. He couldn't quite tell, but it seemed to maneuver more like a droid than a person. Eli remained still until it had disappeared from view down the hall.
"We can't stay here, either," Eli whispered. "We're as trapped as lyrats in a hole. We have to move again before it comes back."
"I cannot."
Eli frowned, shoving down the flare of frustration that had suddenly welled up inside him. "We must," he insisted. He was not oblivious to the reason why Thrawn did not want to leave, and he did sincerely feel bad about it. All the same... "If they find us in here, we're dead. We have nowhere to go."
Thrawn turned his head away. "You must get out."
A chill then washed over Eli. Was he really suggesting—? "Not without you, sir. You literally just told me not to give up hope. Are you now going to do just that?"
"No," Thrawn said softly but firmly. "But we need help. You move faster without me. You come back with help."
Eli couldn't deny that Thrawn had a point. And yet the thought of leaving Thrawn alone, even in a locked room like this one, did not sit well with him at all. There was something strange going on down here, and he couldn't in good conscience leave Thrawn. "Look." He settled onto the floor next to Thrawn. Faint red slits turned in his direction. "I am going to go into the cavern. Surely they have some hoverbeds in there to help move material around. I will find one and then come back for you. You won't have to walk. Then we will go to the far end of the cavern where the ships were and see if there are any left. There's a good chance there aren't, but we can still follow the cave system to wherever it leads. It must go back to the surface, since they use it for their ships. We will go together. I'm not leaving you behind." He gave Thrawn a serious look. "It's a long shot, I know, but it's better than staying here with—with—whatever is here with us."
Thrawn regarded him for a long moment, unspeaking. Then he nodded once. "Very well. Take this." He withdrew his sidearm and handed it to Eli.
"What? No! Forgive me, sir, but that's crazy. I won't leave you unarmed."
"I take yours," Thrawn said patiently, pointing to Eli's in its holster. "You are more likely to use it. You have...shot more. Mine has more." He closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. "I will lock the door until you return."
Eli nodded, understanding Thrawn's reasoning. There wasn't really time for arguing, anyway, and as long as Thrawn was willing to go along with him, he would take it. "I will be as quick as I can, I promise," he said, exchanging the weapons after only a brief hesitation. He startled when Thrawn reached out to grip his hand.
"Be safe."
Eli blinked in surprise. Then he nodded again. "Of course. You, too." He placed his other hand over Thrawn's. "I will come back for you." Thrawn bowed his head then released him, and Eli rose to his feet. He shuffled over to the screens, running his gaze over them quickly to see if they would be of any help in directing him where to go. The cavern itself should be through one of the doors on the other side of the hallway, based on the layout he had seen of the place from above. But which door would take him out there? He sighed heavily and shook his head. Without any indication of where each camera was situated, this could not help him at all.
Motion caught his eye, and as he leaned closer, he saw on one of the screens the same plodding figure that had passed by their door. It was still plodding, and he could see now that it was definitely a droid, and not the same droid from the lab—thank the stars. He couldn't tell from the angle of the camera which direction the droid was moving, but he hoped it was still moving away from them. If it was coming back, he wouldn't have a chance to find his way to the cavern in time. He had to take care not to destroy another droid if he could help it, as it would only draw more unwanted attention. Their hiding place could be compromised too soon.
Taking another deep breath in an attempt to calm his nerves, Eli stepped across the room to the door and touched the orange button to unlock it. The orange light went out. He then slid his hand to the door panel. Bracing himself, he activated the door. It opened with a quiet hiss.
The hallway in their immediate vicinity was clear, and Eli released a silent prayer of thanks. Inching as slowly as possible, he leaned forward until he was just able to peer around the edges of the door. The way to the stairwell was empty. Then he turned. As far as the lighting would allow him to see, the opposite end of the hallway was also empty, but it did extend beyond his sight. His heart was pounding in his ears, and he grew acutely aware of the sensation of the blaster in his hand, the hard, familiar form failing to provide the comfort he needed to move forward.
Even so, he had to go. Casting one final glance at Thrawn, he paused as their eyes met. Thrawn nodded stiffly, and Eli returned the gesture. Then he stepped out into the hall.
The door closed behind him. He forced his breathing to remain even as he listened for the sound of anything coming his way. All was silent. He moved soundlessly to the wall across from him before pausing again and listening. Still good. Taking cautious, measured steps, he proceeded down to the nearest door.
It was locked. The one after it was locked as well. Eli could feel time pressing on him like a weight, and sweat trickled down his temple. Any moment now that droid could return, and Eli had nowhere to go. Each door he tried was locked.
A cross corridor now lay before him, and he froze. What if the droid had turned down here? The main hall continued straight ahead, while the other appeared to stretch toward the cavern on his left and deeper into the facility on the right. Eli felt his stomach turn over as he briefly wondered what could be found deeper within. At the moment, his priority was to get them out; and quite frankly, he really didn't want to know what was down there.
This was not part of their mission.
Lifting his blaster defensively, he leaned out. All was clear. Without hesitating a moment longer, he took the left turn. Within a few paces he found himself standing before a large set of double doors. He stopped again. What if opening these doors set off an alarm?
The facility was already on red alert, he reminded himself. Releasing a slow breath, he prepared himself and then pushed the doors open, stepping into the darkness beyond. It was, indeed, the cavern. There were emergency lights along the wall stretching out to his right and to his left, but everything beyond the first several meters out into the cavern itself was swallowed in inky blackness. He could see the shapes of the nearest stacks of crates looming out of the darkness, but the ceiling and the remaining three walls were too far away for the lights to illuminate. Eli felt as if he was standing at the edge of a great chasm opening into nothing.
A flashlight. That would have been handy. Why didn't he have one on him? What had happened to the ones they were using before?
The door swung shut behind him, the latch falling loudly into place. He nearly jumped out of his skin at the unnaturally loud sound and spun on his heel, biting back a swear as he realized his foolishness too late. Hopefully no one was near enough to have heard that. All the same, not taking any chances, he dashed away from the door to the nearest crate and ran around it for cover, cradling the blaster close to his chest. Darkness hovered over him thick and heavy, and he found himself staring upward, his eyes straining for any sign of stars despite the fact that he knew there would be none.
Well, at least if anyone did hear the door close, it would draw attention away from the security room where Thrawn was hiding, right?
For several long, tense moments, Eli waited. When nothing happened, he concluded that his entrance into the cavern must have gone unnoticed. He closed his eyes automatically as he sought to remember what he had seen of the layout from the lab above. Peering out from around the crate, he looked upward at the rows of windows looking into the cavern from the facility, counting the floors to figure out where they had been. Then he turned back to mentally lay out the map in his head. He was pretty sure he could find his way to the back of the cavern, although he would be groping in the dark for most of the way. But where might there be a hoverbed? Everyone was leaving in hurry, so they could be anywhere. Eli pressed his lips together, thinking. If they were in a rush to get out, they wouldn't have bothered putting things away. Perhaps, then, he might find one near the landing pads. Glancing back and forth to confirm that no one else was around, he moved forward slowly.
…Why were they all running in the first place? He had purposefully pushed that question aside before as he had focused on getting the two of them to a safe place. But now the question kept pressing on his mind, and he felt the answer was significant.
There were a fair number of workers here as well as droids. They far outnumbered Thrawn and Eli and could have easily overtaken them. But instead, when the alarm was sounded, they ran. Why? Were they expecting a larger attack force?
And who had set off the alarm in the first place? It all seemed to coincide with the second attack by that droid in the lab. Frowning to himself, Eli stopped and turned to look toward the lab's window thoughtfully.
He stiffened, tightening his hold on the blaster.
No.
No, it couldn't be.
Eli blinked and rubbed his eyes then looked again. His throat closed painfully as he felt another icy hot jolt of adrenaline shoot through him.
There was a light in the window of the lab. Two lights. Two small red lights staring down at him. Watching him.
He couldn't move. He was paralyzed, trapped in place by an overwhelming dread. Then, without warning, a claxon blared throughout the cavern, and several flashing yellow lights came to life in evenly spaced positions halfway up the stone walls on either side of the cavern. Seconds later, a loud grating sound filled the room, as if a number of large freight doors were opening simultaneously. Between the gap of the nearest sets of crates, Eli could just barely see one such door sliding upward. Through it rolled some sort of machine. He wasn't in a position to get a good look at it, but he wasn't so sure he wanted to in the first place.
He looked back up at the lab window, but the eyes were gone.
A deep terror flooded him, and he was suddenly in great fear for Thrawn's safety. He couldn't continue his mission here in the cavern. He couldn't leave Thrawn alone, not if that droid was moving again.
A large stack of crates to his right crashed to the ground, and he had to jump back to avoid being crushed. With the crates now scattered across the floor, he had a better view of the machine that had entered the room near him. Its appearance reminded him of the first droid he had seen after their elevator accident, large and bulky and traveling on treads—but it was at least three times larger and in far better condition than that one had been. The row of lights on its head filled the area with harsh yellow-white light, and Eli lost his cover of darkness as the head swiveled in his direction. He lifted his blaster automatically, but he knew right away that it would not be enough to stop this thing. It rolled forward on its treads, splintering the crates and spilling their contents all over the floor as it moved toward Eli. Voice caught in his throat, Eli turned tail and took off at a blind run, weaving through the maze of crates and quickly losing his sense of direction.
Each door had released one of those things, and they were now all roaming the cavern floor. Most of them kept to the isles between crates; but as soon as they caught sight of Eli, they veered off-course to capture him. Or kill him. He wasn't sure.
And he didn't want to find out.
Thankfully, despite the twists and turns in the maze of crates, the wall of windows did not move, and Eli gradually made his way back to the entrance. He paused for just a moment beside the first crate he had hidden behind, catching his breath as he stared at the door. What if that red-eyed droid was waiting for him behind it? Or what if it had already found Thrawn?
A sick feeling twisted Eli's stomach. But before he could form another thought, two of the large droids appeared, one near the wall to his right and one near the wall to his left. They both turned at the same time and rolled forward with increased speed.
Gritting his teeth, Eli put his head down and dashed forward, slamming the door open as he ran through. This time he thought about the door and hastily closed it behind him, not waiting for it to close on its own. Thankfully, it was unlikely that the cavern droids would try to follow him in here as they were too tall for the hallways. Even so, he was not going to stick around to find out. Running forward, he skidded to a halt at the cross corridor.
Each direction was as silent and empty as it had been when he first came down this way. But that did not ease his apprehension. Turning to his right, he took off down the hall to the security room, fear and fury once again driving him forward. If that droid was here, he was going to take it apart piece by piece until there was no chance for it to revive again.
He glanced through the window as he approached the door, but he could see nothing inside. Stopping and breathing deeply through his nose, he forced himself to calm down as much as possible in order to regain control before knocking on the door itself with a special code he and Thrawn had developed back in their academy days. After waiting a moment, he knocked again, frowning and trying to ignore the uneasy feeling in his gut. When still nothing happened, he touched the door panel experimentally. The door slid open. His uneasiness grew exponentially. Thrawn had told him he would keep the door locked. Blaster raised, body tense, Eli stepped inside.
The room was empty.
