Abyss by Troy Denning Read Free Book Online

hidden lock inside its framework by triggering a latch that could only be accessed with the Force. Meanwhile, Ben gathered some equipment from nearby ships, and they proceeded to camouflage the
Shadow
together. Ben tossed some hand tools onto an engine mount, and Luke leaned a torch kit against a landing strut. Finally, they used the Force to stir up a cloud of dust that would eventually drift back onto the
Shadow
, leaving it covered in the same gray blanket as the surrounding vessels.
    They weaved their way through the tangled mass of ships and into the primary air lock at the back of the berthing deck. Like the hangar itself, the chamber was equipped with motion-sensitive lights that remained fully functional. So when Ben secured the hangar hatch behind them, the two Skywalkers patiently waited for an automatic valve to open and equalize pressure with the station interior.
    They were still waiting two minutes later when the motion-sensitive lights switched off.
    Ben’s voice came over the helmet speakers. “Great—maybe we
should
have started on the repairs.” His tone was joking, but with a nervous edge. “And waited until they sent someone to fetch us.”
    “
Something
,” Luke corrected. He raised an arm, and the lights reactivated. In contrast with the hangar illumination, which had been tinted heavily toward the blue end of the spectrum, the light in the air lock had a distinctly green cast to it. “Or maybe we should just equalize pressure ourselves.”
    Luke reached over to the side of the chamber and pushed down on a lever, which he assumed to be the handle of a manual standby pump. A sharp
clunk
shook the entire air lock; then the ceiling slid aside and left them staring up into a cavernous darkness above.
    Ben’s hand dropped to the lightsaber hanging on his belt. “What’s that?”
    “The door, I think.”
    Luke extended his awareness through the opening. When he did not sense any danger, he Force-leapt up into the darkness and landedadjacent to the hole. Almost instantly dim green light began to pour from a nearby wall, illuminating a short length of squat, wide corridor. Ben arrived a moment later, still standing on the air lock floor as it rose into the hole through which Luke had just jumped.
    “Do you get the feeling someone’s making this easy for us?” Ben asked.
    “Either that, or the equipment is just that reliable,” Luke said. “I don’t know which worries me more.”
    “The equipment, definitely,” Ben said over the suit comm. “This place has the same external design as Centerpoint Station, remember? That
can’t
be coincidence.”
    “Probably not,” Luke admitted. “But this station can’t be as dangerous. It’s sitting between two black holes, and it would be pretty hard to target anything from in here. We can’t even get navigation readings.”
    “Yeah,
we
can’t,” Ben agreed. “But
we’re
not the ones who built it.”
    Luke frowned at the thought that another weapon similar to Centerpoint Station might exist in the galaxy. Fortunately, this one was much smaller, which meant it probably did not share the same function. At least, that was what he
hoped
it meant.
    Luke checked his external readouts and was not surprised to discover he and Ben remained in a hard vacuum. He motioned Ben to the other side of the corridor. “And on that cheery note …”
    They started toward the interior of the station, studying their environs as they walked. No more than two meters high but three times as wide, the corridor appeared to have been designed to move a lot of traffic quickly—an impression reinforced by two metal bands running along the floor, which might have been a guide ribbon for some sort of robotic hovercart. The walls and ceiling were made of a translucent composite that did not quite conceal the network of fibers, tubes, and ducts running behind them.
    After the Skywalkers had traveled ten meters, the wall behind them fell dark, and a pale green glow began to