Despite that, though, the place seemed oddly airy.
'Doesn't look like our friends downstairs are using this area,' he said. 'I wonder why.' Mara took a few steps to the side and pointed around the end of one of the wall segments.
'There's your answer,' she said. 'Come on—let's go see.' She disappeared around the wall. Luke followed, noticing for the first time a gentle flow of air coming from that direction.
And the reason for it was quickly clear. Beyond the wall, at the far side of the room, the black stone had been gashed open to the sky.
'Collateral damage from the battle that knocked down that tower, I'll bet,' Mara said, already crossing to the gash.
'Be careful,' Luke warned her, hurrying to catch up.
'Yeah, yeah,' Mara said. She reached the gash and cautiously looked out. 'I was right,' she said, pointing. 'There it is. Or what's left of it.'
Luke reached her side and looked out. They were looking across a vast, circular rooftop that slanted downward from their position at a reasonably steep angle. The stub of Mara's ruined tower was ahead of them and slightly to the left, eighty meters or so away. The distance and dim sunlight made it hard to tell for sure, but to Luke's eye the jagged edge looked slightly melted. 'And you say this stone absorbs turbolaser fire,' he said.
'Like a very dry sponge,' Mara agreed grimly. 'Whoever the builders of this place were, they must have had some impressive enemies.'
'Let's hope they were satisfied with wrecking that one tower and then went away,' Luke said, giving the rest of the rooftop a quick but careful examination. Symmetrically placed on the right side of the slanting rooftop was another tower, this one undamaged, stretching a good ninety meters into the sky and topped with a ring of ominous-looking protrusions. Weapons systems, undoubtedly. At the far end of the roof, almost two hundred meters from where he and Mara stood, he could see twin bumps that seemed to extend outward from the roof and then continue down the wall on that side. Twin guardhouses, possibly, flanking the main entrance. Beyond the roof, he could see a smooth surface stretching through the craggy mountaintop away from the fortress that could only be an access road. In the center of the fortress was a thirty-meter-long structure whose flat-topped roof extended horizontally out from the main rooftop, making the whole thing look rather like a round-cornered wedge that had been stuck on as an afterthought.
'There's a landing pad on top,' Mara said, pointing to the structure. 'You can just make out the markings.'
Luke nodded. The markings were dim, but visible enough when you knew to look for them.
'They probably have lights they can turn on when something friendly is on its way in.'
'With turbolasers ready at the top of that tower in case they're not so friendly.' Easing through the gap in the wall, Mara took a few steps out onto the rooftop, peering toward the landing pad. 'Looks like the area under the pad is open in front,' she reported. 'Probably their hangar. Might be a handy place to make for if we ever get caught too far away from our exit.' She turned back around—
And her breath caught, a surge of surprise shooting through her. 'Whoa,' she said, her eyes tracking upward. 'Come take a look at this.'
Maneuvering through the crack, Luke crossed to her side and turned around. Rising from atop the room they'd just been in was yet another tower.
And it had friends. Spaced around the curve of the fortress rooftop to the left were three more, all of the same design. Even with Luke's skewed perspective, he could tell that these four rear towers were both thicker and a good twenty meters taller than the single one standing below them. And as with the one below, each of these was also crowned by a ring of weapons emplacements.
'This must have been one impressive place in its heyday,' Mara commented. Her voice was steady, but Luke could tell that she was feeling the same vague uneasiness he was. 'Like the one on Hijama. I wish to blazes I knew what they were built to protect.'
'Or to defend against,' Luke added, taking one last look around the rooftop. No lights; no movement; no signs of life at all. 'Let's get back inside and find the way down.' The way down was on the far side of one of the other wall segments: a smaller version of the spiral slideway they'd used in the barracks section down below. Unlike that one, though, the slideway here wasn't moving. 'Either damaged or shut down for lack of use,' Mara said, easing a cautious eye over the edge. 'Next level down doesn't look inhabited, either.'
'This whole section is probably out of use,' Luke said as they started down. 'The way the roof slopes toward the broken tower, each of the levels ought to have a little more floor space as we go down. They've probably set up shop on the larger levels.'
'Makes sense,' Mara agreed. 'Let's keep going until we reach a floor with a working slideway somewhere on it. That should be either their highest working level or close to it.' The floors did indeed extend farther outward as they continued down, with the pattern of random wall segments changing with each level. It wasn't until the fourth level that Luke finally caught the faint hum of working machinery. 'I think we're here,' he murmured, shifting his grip on his lightsaber and stretching out with the Force. There still didn't seem to be anyone nearby.
