Off the Grid


Chapter 5

Inside the hangar bay, the ever-reliable Betsy sat primly on her landing gear, tended to by scores of mech droids and drones, all intent on giving her the tune-up scheduled for Magnafighter 66B. Inside Betsy's triple reinforced durasteel hull, nestled comfortably in the forward pilot's seat, sat the shabby but self-assured figure of her owner. This had been quite the day already, he thought, and it wasn't half done. His new Jedi acquaintances had gone off on some damn fool's errand, leaving him here to twiddle his thumbs. Thought pretty highly of themselves, those two did. Prob'ly thought they didn't need help from nobody – at least not ordinary humble folk. Shoulda listened to his wisdom last night. Don't go stickin' yer nose in what's beyond yer ken, and no trouble will come to ye. He shook his head sagely, and glanced out the forward viewport again.

"Hell's moons," he cursed reverently.

What he saw took his breath away. The doors opposite him had slid open to admit a veritable phalanx of droids into the bay. Not just workers or lug droids, either. No, these were battle units. He'd seen some pretty nasty security models belonging to shipping company magnates back in the day. But nothing like these, nor in such numbers. This was a vaping army, to be sure. He remembered what the Jedi had told him about war brewing in the galaxy . Of all the -! Some were spindly mean little critters, while others were boxy and menacing. They were all armed to the teeth, maybe four or five score of them. At their head walked another odd contraption – a humanoid looking thing with a swiveling, squarish head. That thing could creep a body out worse than all the others put together. That one looked like it might be…intelligent.

The miner bolted out of his chair and headed for the smuggler's hatch in the aft of his ship. That bearded Jedi had told him to take cover if there was trouble, and he wasn't fool enough to ignore that advice now.

Crouched in the dark, stuffy confines of Betsy's smuggling hatch, the old prospector let out a few more well-chosen curses under her breath. Overhead, the tramp of metallic feet could be heard entering the ship, ringing with a hollow echo overhead as they searched the mining tug for occupants. Vaguely he wondered whether the threatening aspect of his current situation had anything to do with all those years of tax evasion.

"Sir," a soulless voice said overhead. "There are no life forms aboard this vessel."

Another voice answered – eerie, self-possessed. The miner knew without looking that this voice belonged to that weird intelligent looking droid, the leader of the others. "This vessel is not a registered Republic ship. The Jedi must have local assistance. However, I do not calculate that this fact will increase the risk potential."

What? That damned stinking metal head thought he was beneath notice as a threat? The old miner ground his teeth and muttered a few more colorful phrases under his breath. Arrogant piece of machinery, undervaluing grit and wit. He could teach it a thing or two, he reckoned.

"Where are the Jedi now, sir?" one of the minions asked.

"If they were able to acquire our security protocols and penetrate our first line defenses, they have the technical skill to infiltrate this station's infrastructure. I calculate that they will attempt sabotage.'

"What should we do with their ship?" one of the underling robots enquired.

"They will return to it if they are able. Post a guard inside. If they succeed in making it back to this location, detain them and call for back-up immediately."

"Roger roger roger roger," echoed other droids.

Inside his safe hiding spot, the prospector sat and gnawed on his lip, wondering how in the hells he was going to get out of this one alive. Then another thought occurred to him. Like as not, this Separatist revolution, or whatever it called itself, was gonna replace taxes and twaddle with something even worse, some star-forsaken tyranny yet to be dreamed of. He surely, surely wasn't about to cooperate with any of that rot. No, it was live free or die for him. In the dark, he tightened his grip around his trusty blaster rifle, making sure its firing mechanism was primed and ready, and nurtured the seeds of desperate courage.


The Jedi stood outside the main thermo-stabilizer shaft leading to the core coolant system and looked at each other.

"Twenty seconds between cycles," Anakin said. "That means we're in, cut the lines, and out again before the next pulse. Otherwise, we're both deep frozen."

"Twenty seconds," Obi Wan repeated grimly. "Ready?"

"Now!"Anakin slammed the access hatch open with the Force and they sprinted into the shaft opening, flying down its length to the accelerator fan banks. An internal pressure door barred their way. In his head, he counted down: thirteen, twelve…Obi Wan hit the controls; as the panel began to slide open a tremendous wind caught them in the backs and threw them against the moving durasteel slab. The air howled around them, disappearing into the widening gap in a vacuum of terrible, inexorable power. They glanced at each other in stark and wordless horror. The interior of the energy core chamber had been remotely depressurized. No living thing could survive within it. Together they closed the doors with the Force, panting in the too-thin air on their own side.

"Seven!" Anankin gasped, hauling Obi Wan upright and setting off down the shaft at top speed. They flew for their lives as the seconds counted down….five, four, three, two, one…they jumped as far and as fast as they could as the shaft suddenly reverbrated with the power of the next blast cycle, and landed sprawling in the outer corridor, pulling the hatch shut after them.

Gasping in great lungfuls of air, they staggered to their feet again. "They know we're here," Obi Wan scowled, casting a wary glance in either direction.

"What's Plan B?" Anakin demanded.

"The fuel storage tanks," Obi Wan shrugged. " – Though I imagine that will be anticipated as well."

"What about the control center?" Anakin suggested.

"Too heavily guarded. We need to stay on the lower levels if we want any hope of making it back to the ship again. If they're onto us, we haven't much time."

"Got it!" the younger man exclaimed. "We'll take out the shield stabilizers. It won't register as a problem until the next storm hits. You saw how those derelict platforms were mangled. Nature will do its job and we'll be long gone before they know what's coming."

Obi Wan didn't look happy. "That leaves too much to chance. If the damage is discovered, they will have ample time to make repairs. And who is to say Dooku isn't sending a fleet through here as we speak? We can't gamble on a storm hitting soon enough."

Anakin frowned. "Well, then…it's the repulsors."

"What? Anakin, are you completely mad?"

The young Jedi lifted one shoulder diffidently. "It would be like scuttling a boat. Whole station will fall in to the planet's core. Hopefully we'll have time to get to the ship and get off."

"And how do you propose destroying the repulsors? They'll be ray shielded."

"Yes," Anakin corrected his friend. "But not the support struts. We'll just carve them off. Little bit of a hack job, but we can't do everything with style."

"You suggest that we balance on the support beams underneath this station, in gale force winds, and carve through triple compressed durasteel columns with our sabers?"

"Yup, that's pretty much the plan."

Obi Wan sighed and pressed his mouth shut in a narrow line. "You are completely mad."

"Come on, then," Anakin called, already dashing down the adjacent corridor.


The smuggler's hatch cracked open again. In the narrow aperture of light, the prospector could see two metallic pairs of legs, terminating in flat splayed feet. They stood immobile, outside the cockpit entance, waiting for the Jedi to return. Painstakingly, the old man pushed the long barrel of his rifle out the opening and took aim at the right-hand droid. Squinting down its length, his finger tightened on the trigger. The droid's head appeared between the cross hairs…

With a loud sizzle of plasma, the bolt passed clean through the droid's processors and out the other side, slamming into the bulkhead behind and leaving a dark scar. The prospector dropped the hatch shut again as the droid's slumped to the deck, malfunctioning. Its compatriot's footsteps could be heard, rushing down the deck toward the aft boarding ramp. They passed over the smuggler's hatch and then doubled back in confusion, hesitating. Then it went forward ot the cockpit.

"Hey, ugly!" the old man shouted, popping the hatch open and letting loose with the second barrel. The droid spun about alarmingly fast and returned fire, but the hatch cover saved the miner from destruction. The shot ricocheted off the special reinforced material and bounced back into the assaulter's chestplate. The prospector himself finished off the staggering automaton with a double blast and grinned ferociously to himself.

"Not bad for an old timer," he chuckled triumphant;y, climbing stiffly out of the recess in the deck. He gave the body of the first droid a good solid kick, just to be sure, and then shoved the second one off Betsy's console. It clattered to the floor with a satisfying shower of sparks.

There was a troop of droids scattered through the hangar, guarding each entrance. Not too many, though – not enough to stop him from punching Betsy through the maglev barrier and away to freedom. He still had a chance at survival. The Jedi had been gone at least an hour….now what could be taking them so long?

He fingered the ignition and guidance systems nervously. Self-preservation, that was the rule out here. Don't get involved in other people's business and no harm will come to ye. If those reckless young fools wanted to come out here and get killed, that was their business. He hadn't bargained for droids trespassing on his ship when he agreed to bring them here on their crazy mission. The older Jedi had even ordered him to take off if there was too much trouble.

"Damn it," he muttered to himself.


The only sure path to the gargantuan repulsor supports was through the lower level maintenance catwalks. Obi Wan and Anakin scuttled down the maze of intersecting ladders and scaffolding as fast as they could, jumping from narrow platform to narrow platform, running along thin rails, leaping down flights of metal stairs in one bound. They dropped the last ten meters straight down into a Force-cushioned landing on the dirty expanse of thrumming composite plastoid which sealed the interior space from the howling winds and gases outside. A huge, heavily sealed hatch set in the floor promised an exit to the lower world, where the mighty repulsor units labored to keep the colossal platform afloat.

"One more level down," Anakin said, striding rapidly toward the trap door.

"Wait!" Obi Wan's eyes narrowed. "Something's not right."

"It's now or never, master! Not a bad feeling – not now." He used the Force to unseal and unlock the hatch. The rotating lock swiveled in place and clicked solidly. He leaned down to touch the handle…

And spat out a Huttese curse as a shimmering white haze of radiance surrounded him and Obi Wan.

"Now you've done it," the older man grumbled. "Ray shields."

"Blast it! That's just unfair!"

Beside him, Obi Wan frowned and ran a hand over his beard. "They do seem to be one step ahead of us. It's most inconvenient."

"You think that old coot will leave without us?"

"He'd better," Obi Wan replied darkly. "Otherwise I doubt any one of us is getting off this station alive."

Anakin scowled. "Now who's focusing on the negative?"

But in lieu of answer, Obi Wan only jerked his head meaningfully at the upper levels of the maintenance scaffolding, where a tactical droid and a retinue of fifty battle units were descending in a steady line. When the parade reached the deck where the Jedi stood imprisoned behind the shimmering white energy barrier, the tactical unit stepped forward to leer at them with its expressionless face.

"Ha ha ha ha ha," it chortled emotionlessly. "You are trespassing on Confederacy military property, Jedi." It folded its blunt hands neatly in front of itself. "Protocol dictates that I interrogate and then eject all non-authorized personnel immediately."

The battle units spread out in a threatening circle. Back to back, the Jedi gazed round at the welcoming committee. Fifty to two was fair odds, but the ray shields were a minor yet significant obstacle.

"I predicted that you would reach this level fourteen minutes ago," the droid observed. "You are behind schedule."

"Sorry to keep you waiting," Anakin snarled.

"Must you taunt every captor we encounter?" Obi Wan groused.

The droid signalled one of its minions standing near a control panel on the far wall. "Let us not waste any more time," it droned. "I have calculated that your demise will occur in fifteen point six standard minutes."

"Far be it from us to interfere with your busy schedule," Obi Wan quipped.

The droid seemed to share his gallows humor, for its only reply was another flat cackle of glee. "Ha ha ha ha - ha ha ha ha ha."