Star Wars: Survivor's Quest

CHAPTER 22

Luke gazed upward, feeling his throat tighten. There was undoubtedly an orderly and systematic method for detaching Dreadnaught-4 from the rest of Outbound Flight. Clearly, the Vagaari weren't interested in finding out what that procedure was.

The car was approaching the ring now. "One thing that puzzles me, Estosh," Luke said into his comlink, holding his free hand horizontally over the hole in the ceiling where Evlyn could see it. "You couldn't have known any of the Dreadnaughts would even be in one piece when we set off on this trip, let alone ready to fly. And you certainly didn't need all these troops just to track the Chaf Envoy's path into the Redoubt." The car reached the explosives, and he jabbed at the air with his finger. Evlyn was ready, and the car settled tentatively to a midair halt.

"That's right," Mara said. Luke could sense her concern as she picked up on his sudden tension, but again all of it was carefully filtered out of her voice. "So what was the original plan? Just out of curiosity, of course."

"You humans are strange creatures," Estosh said, his melodious voice starting to pick up an edge of suspicion. "Here you are, about to die, and yet instead of struggling to postpone your fate, you sit quietly and ask about things that cannot possibly help you."

Slowly, Luke ran the light from his glow rod along the explosives. The detonator wiring seemed straightforward enough, the kind of arrangement he'd seen demolitions techs use during the Rebellion. In theory, he should be able to simply pull it out of all the packages within reach.

The problem was that the detonator box itself was a quarter of the way around the tube from him.

There is no emotion; there is peace. Taking a careful breath, Luke tried to think. He could, of course, easily use the Force to maneuver his lightsaber over to the box and cut it away from the boxes of explosives. But the Vagaari might have wired it with a collapsing release to prevent any last-minute tampering. If it was rigged that way, cutting it free would instantly trigger a detonation.

In addition, there was something else pressed up against the metal beneath the boxes, something he could see but couldn't get to without disassembling everything on top of it. Unknowns were always to be considered dangerous, especially in explosives work.

"The thing is, you see, we Jedi don't die nearly as easily as you might like," Mara told Estosh calmly. "There's a good chance we'll be seeing you again, and the more we know about you, the easier it'll be for us to peel your epaulets back for good when we do."

Still, Luke decided, unknowns or not, if he could get over to the box he stood a good chance of figuring out how to disarm it. The problem was that the turbolift pylon was perfectly smooth, with no protrusions anywhere nearby that would hold his weight. The cluster of buried cables he and Mara had used for their climb up the forward pylon weren't situated close enough to the box, either. He probably could have rigged up something out of liquid cable, but he'd used up most of his supply when he and Mara had sealed off the edges of that first turbolift car.

But if his particular car was too far away, one of the other cars in the cluster should be positioned to pass right next to it. All he and Evlyn had to do was continue up to D-4, where the Vagaari had presumably locked the rest of the cars, transfer to the correct one, and ride it back down again. He wouldn't even have to expose them to enemy fire by going into the lobby; he could use his lightsaber to cut through the sides of the cars until they reached the one they needed.

He looked down into the car and gestured upward. Evlyn nodded and touched the switch, and the car began to rise again. They lifted past the explosives, around the curve—

"How very confident of you," Estosh said, his voice suddenly silky smooth. "My only regret is that I will not actually witness your deaths. Farewell, Jedi." There was a click from Luke's comlink as the Vagaari broke the connection—

And suddenly, below him, the turbolift pylon erupted in an eerie, flickering greenish-blue light and the sound of metallic hissing.

"Luke!" Mara called over the comlink. "What's going on?"

"I think they're about to blow the pylons," Luke said grimly, gesturing Evlyn to stop the car. The other five cars of the cluster were visible now directly above him, along with the gap the car they were riding would normally slip into. "You know any type of detonator that hisses and gives off blue-green light?"

"Sounds like a scorch stick," Mara said. "It's an acid-based, high-temperature paste used to burn a score mark in something to help the explosives crack it more cleanly."

"How long until it burns around a pylon this size?"

"Half a minute," Mara said. "Maybe a little more. If you're anywhere near it, get out now."

Luke listened to his heart thudding in his throat as he weighed his options. If he could just get to the detonator before the scorch stick finished its burn...

But no. Not in half a minute. Certainly not with Evlyn along to slow him down.

He shouldn't have brought her with him. For the first time in a long time, his instincts had played him false.

But this wasn't the time for questions or recriminations. "Right," he said, jabbing downward. "We're on our way."

Evlyn didn't need to be told twice. She hit the switch, and the car headed down again. On sudden impulse, Luke snatched his lightsaber from his belt and ignited it. If the Vagaari were going to get away, at least they weren't going to get away clean. Using the Force to hold down the switch, he hurled the weapon upward toward the gap in the cluster of cars. It hit the upper part of the turbolift lobby, and he had just enough time to see the wobbling blade carve out a large hole in the metal before the curve in the tube blocked it from his sight. The car dropped past the ring of explosives—

And with a jolt, he saw that Mara had overestimated how much time they would have. The scorched section already extended over more than half the circle, with the flickering fire seeming to pick up speed as it worked its way around toward the detonator.

They had maybe five more seconds before it finished.

"On the floor," Luke shouted to Evlyn, jumping in through the hole in the roof. The car wouldn't be nearly enough protection from the explosive power about to be unleashed, he knew, but it was all they had. "Come on, get on the floor," he repeated.

But to his surprise, Evlyn ignored him, remaining by the control panel as she punched keys on a command stick she'd plugged into the droid socket. He reached out a hand for her, wondering if she didn't understand or if she'd simply frozen in fear.

But even as his hand closed on her arm, he caught the sense of desperate determination in the girl. As he started to pull her down, she touched one last key on the command stick—

And Luke found the two of them abruptly floating in midair as the floor dropped out from under them. The car hit the main gravity eddy and began its turn, blocking his view of the explosives and the fiery blue-green glow.

An instant later, the pylon blew up.

The car floor seemed to leap up at him, slamming hard into his face and body, the impact knocking most of the air out of his lungs. He was still holding Evlyn's arm; reflexively, he pulled her close beside him as the shock wave from the explosion washed over them.

He was still holding her that way, ears ringing from the shock wave, when the car's side wall disintegrated.

He gasped as the pieces slammed into him, some of them hitting like clubs, others digging into his back and arms and legs like knife blades. Beside him he heard Evlyn cry out and let the Force flow into her, trying to suppress some of her pain. The rain of shrapnel stopped, the buffeting faded away, and Luke risked a look upward through what was left of the ceiling. The lower curve in the pylon was visible above them, with the safety of D-5's turbolift lobby just beyond it. Shakily but steadily, the car continued upward.

It was then he suddenly noticed that he couldn't breathe.

He expanded his chest, trying to fill his lungs. But there was nothing there. With the car shredded and the far end of the tube blown open, he and Evlyn had only the planetoid's thin atmosphere available to them.

Steady, Luke told himself sternly, forcing himself to relax. His body's cells contained enough oxygen for at least another half minute, he knew, and Jedi techniques could stretch it to triple that time. He shifted his hand to the back of Evlyn's neck, trying to let his own trust in the Force ease into her and slow her breathing. A few seconds later, the car settled into its place in the turbolift lobby.

The door remained closed.

Luke set his teeth, glaring up at it. But of course it wouldn't open on its own, not with a near vacuum on one side. It would have to be pried past its safety interlocks. Stretching out to the Force, he got a grip on the panel and pulled.

The door quivered once, but remained closed.

Luke tried again, trying to gather more strength. But between the effects of the concussive blast, the pain from the shrapnel still throbbing through his body, and the oxygen deprivation, he couldn't focus the necessary power.

His vision was starting to go hazy. Another few seconds and he would sink into unconsciousness. He stretched out one final time—

And with a thud that shook the whole car, the door slammed open. Luke opened his eyes, squinting through the rush of air blowing suddenly in his face.

Mara, her eyes blazing with fear, concern, and, yes, anger at him, grabbed his arms and pulled him through the door. Pressor was right beside her, lifting his niece through to safety.

The door slammed shut as Mara released her grip on it. "Hi, sweetheart," Luke said, managing a smile. "I'm home."

She shook her head. "Skywalker—"

"I know," Luke said. Still smiling, he let the darkness take him.

The medical bay recovery room door slid open, and Mara stepped inside. "How are they?" Jinzler asked, looking up from his chair by the side wall. "I heard one of the medics say they were in pretty bad shape."

"It looked worse than it really was," Mara assured him. Jinzler's face looked calm enough, she noted, but his hands in his lap were opening and closing restlessly. "Most of Evlyn's injuries were superficial and should heal pretty quickly," she went on. "Luke had some deeper cuts, but they caught it all before he lost too much blood. He's gone into a Jedi healing trance while they finish patching him up."

Fel grunted. "Must be a nice thing to be able to do."

"It can be handy," Mara agreed, looking around the room. They were, she decided, about as sorry a lot as she'd seen in a long time. Formbi was lying on one of the recovery tables, his eyes only occasionally fluttering open, his breathing deep and slow. Beside him on opposite sides of the table sat Drask and Feesa, the former looking drained above his own collection of bandages, the latter merely looking exhausted and apprehensive. Fel and the stormtroopers had gathered together in a back corner beside stacks of their mangled armor and were working their way through their own list of injuries. The alien stormtrooper, Su-mil, she noted with interest, had pale orange blood.

"So," Mara went on, raising her voice a little. "As long as we seem to have some time on our hands, why don't we all have a nice long talk together?" She looked at Fel. "You can start, Commander. Did I hear you say earlier that you caught the Vagaari wiring a recorder into the Chaf Envoy's navigational lines?"

"We didn't actually catch them in the act," Fel said. "Su-mil found the recorder after it had already been planted."

"I stand corrected," Mara said. "So why didn't you say anything to anyone?"

"To be perfectly honest, because we didn't know whom it was safe to tell," Fel said evenly. "We didn't know whether Bearsh had put it there, or General Drask, or Aristocra Formbi, Ambassador Jinzler—" He looked Mara straight in the eye. "—or you."

"I see," Mara said, accepting his gaze and sending it straight back at him. "All right, then, let's try this one. You told us once that you didn't know why Parck had sent you on this mission. You lied. Then you changed your story and said you'd been sent to protect us. I think you lied that time, too. You want to take one more stab at it?"

Fel's lip twitched. "Admiral Parck told us the mission would be going into great danger. We were sent to give added protection to Aristocra Formbi. And that was all we were told," he added firmly. "We didn't even know what direction the danger was going to be coming from." He grimaced. "If we had, I guarantee Bearsh and his friends would be locked up in binders right now."

"Yes," Mara murmured, stretching out with the Force. It did indeed seem to be the truth this time. Or at least, the truth as Fel knew it, which might not be the same thing. "I suppose this clears up the mystery of your missing operational manual, too."

Fel nodded. "Apparently the Vagaari wanted to know everything they could about Outbound Flight before we arrived."

"Right," Mara agreed. "All of which brings up an even more interesting point."

She turned to face the three Chiss. "As I think about it, Aristocra Formbi, you asked for an amazing amount of muscle to accompany you on this trip. First you called Parck and asked for Luke and me, only the message got waylaid. Then, when it looked like we weren't going to show, you called him back and got him to send a unit of the best stormtroopers he had available."

"And it was indeed fortunate all of you were here," Drask said, nodding his head gravely. "We owe you our lives."

"Yes, you do," Mara agreed. "But here's the question. How exactly did you know you were going to need all this help?"

"I do not understand what you are asking," Drask said evenly. But there was a new tightness at the corners of his eyes. "You were invited to take possession of Outbound Flight. That is all."

Mara shook her head. "Sorry, General, but that won't fly. After that incident with the line creepers, the Aristocra gave us specific orders not to use our lightsabers aboard the ship. Even when we couldn't get into the Dreadnaught's docking bay, neither of you asked us to just cut it open, which we could have done in a fraction of the time it took the techs with their torches."

"Yes," Jinzler put in, sounding suddenly thoughtful. "I remember thinking about that myself at the time, wondering if it was some form of stiff-necked Chiss pride."

"That was what I thought, too," Mara said, smiling tightly. "In fact, I thought it right up to the minute Bearsh told me to die and casually sent his wolvkils charging at me... and I cut them in half."

Jinzler inhaled sharply. "Your lightsaber," he said in sudden understanding. "He'd never seen a lightsaber."

"That's right, he hadn't," Mara agreed. "Because Formbi made very sure they never saw us in action. That, plus our Jedi abilities in general—which they also never really saw—gave us an edge they were completely unprepared for."

She looked back at the three Chiss. "So again: how did you know we'd need that edge?"

"I do not appreciate the tone of your words," Drask said stiffly. "You may not make such unsupported accusations against a senior member of the Fifth Ruling Family."

"Feesa," Jinzler murmured suddenly.

Mara looked at him. "What?"

"Feesa," Jinzler repeated, nodding as if an odd puzzle piece had suddenly fallen into place. "In the turbolift, right after Pressor sprang his trap, she was frightened far more than seemed reasonable. It was because we were all alone in there with Bearsh and another Vagaari, wasn't it?"

Feesa didn't answer. "I see," Mara said, eyeing Formbi closely. "So I was wrong. It wasn't the Aristocra running this scam at all. It was Feesa."

The Aristocra's closed eyelids twitched. "And since she's obviously too young to be a senior member of a Ruling Family or anything else," Mara went on, "I guess it's perfectly all right for me to make such accusations against—"

"Enough," Formbi said quietly.

"Please, Aristocra Chaf'orm'bintrano," Feesa said, an edge of urgency in her voice. "It's all right. I'm not afraid to admit my part in this."

"Your loyalty honors me, second niece," Formbi said, reaching over to touch her hand. "But it was my plan, and my decision. I cannot and will not allow others to take the responsibility for my actions."

He turned his head slightly. "Jedi Skywalker: approach where I may see you, and ask what you will."

Mara stepped up beside Feesa. "You knew they were Vagaari, didn't you?" she said, determined not to let his drawn face or the oozing blood on his arm influence her. "You knew it right from the start."

Formbi nodded. "Yes."

"But you told me you'd never seen one before," Jinzler objected.

"That was true," Formbi acknowledged. "But I had received a detailed description from one who had seen them." He smiled at Jinzler. "You, of all of us, should understand."

Mara stared at Formbi as it suddenly hit her. "You mean... Car'das?"

Again, the Aristocra nodded. "He and I spoke briefly when he brought the ambassador to the Chaf Envoy" he said. "When the Vagaari then appeared, I knew it was indeed them."

"Car'das gets around more than I'd realized," Mara commented. "Is he also the one who clued the Vagaari in on this in the first place?"

"No," Formbi said. "When I sent the message to Admiral Parck requesting Master Skywalker's presence, I made sure the transmission had enough edge leakage to be intercepted in the regions where we suspected the Vagaari were gathering their strength."

"And even knowing who they were, you let them aboard your ship?" Jinzler demanded, sounding more surprised than angry.

Formbi closed his eyes again. "The Vagaari are a violent people, Ambassador," he said wearily. "They have killed many, enslaved many others, and driven all who know them to terror and despair. Worse, they may already have made alliances with powers even more dangerous than they are. If Bearsh succeeds in escaping with even a partial route into the Redoubt, I have no doubt that knowledge will be used against us to terrible advantage."

"So the Vagaari need to be slapped down hard," Mara said, frowning. "So what's the problem?"

Formbi smiled wanly. "The problem is Chiss military doctrine, Jedi Skywalker," he said. "Specifically, the decree that no potential adversaries may be attacked until and unless they first act against Chiss interests within Chiss space."

Mara stared at him. "You wanted them to make a move against you," she said, not quite sure she believed it. "You invited them aboard one of your ships and into your most critical military base, hoping they'd pull this exact stunt."

Drask snorted. "This exact stunt? That had better not be the case."

"Of course I didn't expect what actually occurred," Formbi assured him. "My expectation was that the five Vagaari we permitted aboard would attempt to take control of the Chaf Envoy at some point after we reached Outbound Flight. That would have been sufficient provocation for us to act."

"Especially when you add in the slaughter of a few unarmed crewers?" Fel put in.

"Loss of life was neither necessary nor expected," Formbi insisted, some heat seeping through the fatigue into his voice. "My ship had been specially prepared for this mission. All crewers had been provided with hidden areas near their duty stations where they could protect themselves from attack as they watched for the Vagaari to betray themselves. With a squad of warriors in the Dreadnaught docking bay, I also expected there to be ample warning if Bearsh and the others attempted to return to the vessel. We expected to merely catch them in the act of attempted theft or sabotage, which would have satisfied the rules of engagement."

He closed his eyes. "I did not expect such a massive attack to come from the other direction," he said, the heat fading away. "The warriors whom I stationed in the Dreadnaught are certainly dead. So perhaps are all who we left aboard. Their blood now lies on my hands."

"It's hardly your fault that you didn't know about the Vagaari suspended animation trick," Jinzler pointed out. "Car'das must have missed that one."

"He merely met them," Formbi said. "He wasn't given a tour of their technical facilities."

"He'll have to do better next time," Mara said. "What about the others? Feesa and General Drask and your other aides?"

"Feesa knew the entire plan," Formbi said. "That was why I insisted she come along, so that if anything happened to me she could direct the operation. No one else knew more than you yourself were told."

He smiled slightly. "Though I believe General Drask was able to deduce much of the truth."

"Much, but not all," Drask rumbled. "It would have been better if you had taken me into your full confidence."

"If I had, you would have been as guilty as I of manipulating events to bring about this end." Formbi shook his head. "No. On my hands, and mine alone, must this rest."

"You can sort all that out when you get home," Mara said. "Can we assume the rules of engagement have been satisfied?"

"They have been more than satisfied, Jedi Skywalker," Drask said darkly. "We have been attacked without justification or mercy. A state of war now exists between the Chiss Ascendancy and the Vagaari."

"Good," Mara said. "I'd hate to have to go through this again just because we'd missed something in the fine print. In that case, there's just one little loose end left. That falling cable that nearly knocked Luke across the room when we first came aboard the Chaf Envoy. I trust you're not going to try to blame that one on the Vagaari?"

Drask cleared his throat self-consciously. "I am afraid I am to blame for that incident, Jedi Skywalker," he confessed. "When Aristocra Chaf'orm'bintrano asked Admiral Parck who of the New Republic would be the best warriors to have at hand against possible trouble, he recommended you and Master Skywalker."

"He seemed to have firsthand knowledge of your fighting skill," Formbi murmured.

"Yes," Drask said. "However, I did not entirely trust his tales of Jedi abilities."

"So you arranged a demonstration," Mara said. "Did we meet with your approval?"

"Let us simply say that you did not disappoint." Drask smiled slightly. "The demonstration arranged today by the Vagaari gave you a far better opportunity to prove yourselves."

"Yes," Mara murmured. "I should hope so."

Behind her, the door slid open and Evlyn and Rosemari stepped in, Pressor close behind them. "There you are," Mara said. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm all right," the girl said, looking around at the others as the door slid shut again. Possibly comparing bandage counts, Mara thought with a brief flicker of amusement. "Is Luke all right?" she asked. "I mean, Master Skywalker? He saved my life, pulling me down and protecting me when the pylon exploded."

"He's fine," Mara assured her as her mother steered her to one of the other recovery tables. "And as far as saving lives goes, I think the two of you come out pretty even on that scoring."

"What do you mean?" Rosemari asked, an odd edge to her voice. "Evlyn didn't do anything."

"She most certainly did," Mara insisted. "Evlyn reactivated that turbolift trap at exactly the right moment to shoot the car down the tube and into the eddy rotation just before the explosives detonated. If she hadn't done that, it would have been the fractured ceiling that took the brunt of the explosion instead of the wall, and a lot more high-speed debris would have gotten through. That kind of prescient timing can only come from the Force."

"But you won't tell them, will you?" Rosemari pleaded. "Please?"

"They don't like Jedi here, Mara," Fel said quietly. "I don't know exactly why, but they don't."

"We don't just not like them, Commander," Pressor said grimly. "If the council sticks the Jedi label on someone, they get immediately sent over to Three."

"You mean D-Three?" Jinzler asked. "The Number Three Dreadnaught?"

"That's the one," Pressor said. "The pylons between it and the rest of Outbound Flight were destroyed or collapsed during the attack and crash, leaving it isolated from everything else. So Uliar and the other Survivors set it up as a place where anyone with Jedi traits could be safely banished."

"I thought that was what the Quarantine on D-Six was for," Fel said.

Pressor shook his head. "Quarantine is for people they suspect of using the Force," he said. "Three is where they get sent once they're pretty sure."

"Pretty sure, you say?" Su-mil asked softly, his alien expression very still. In some ways, Mara reflected, he looked even more dangerous without his armor. "And how certain exactly is that?"

Pressor looked away from him. "They're completely sure," he said. "The Managing Council is. I can't speak for the rest of us."

He looked at Mara. "And it's not a death sentence, really," he added with an odd combination of earnestness and embarrassment. "The place has been set up with plenty of food and power. A person could live there for a lifetime in reasonable comfort."

"But in complete isolation," Su-mil said darkly. "You sentence these people to a life of loneliness."

Pressor sighed. "We've only done it twice," he said. "At least, up to now."

"They're not going to send her there, Jorad," Rosemari said. "They can't."

She looked suddenly at Mara. "You can take her with you, can't you?" she asked. "You can take her when you leave."

"The plan was to take all of you with us," Mara told her. "Unfortunately, unless we can get out of here and back to the Chaf Envoy, neither option has much of a future."

"I spoke to the techs a few minutes ago," Pressor said. "Most of the blast doors stopped working years ago, and most of the ones that did work have now been locked open by those cursed conduit worms. Unless we can get a few of them working again, we're not going to be able to get either the turbolift doors or any of the outer hatchways open without losing all our air."

He looked at Drask. "I take it there's still no word from your own ship?"

The general shook his head. "No," he said. "And I no longer believe they will be coming."

"You think they're all dead?" Pressor asked.

Drask closed his eyes. "Including crew members, there were thirty-seven warriors aboard the Chaf Envoy," he said. "The Vagaari may have had as many as three hundred." He opened his eyes into slender cracks of glowing red. "They would not have been prepared for such a devastating assault."

Mara felt her stomach tighten. The sudden multiple deaths she and Luke had sensed aboard D-l could have been all the Chiss, or a sizable fraction of them, or just the squad of warriors Drask had left in the D-4 docking bay. There hadn't been any way to tell at the time, and there still wasn't.

Though if there were surviving Chiss, it might not make any difference. Even if the Vagaari hadn't bothered to hunt down and kill everyone aboard, they would certainly have made a point of wrecking the ship on their way out. "So in other words, we should assume we're on our own," she concluded. "All right. Pressor, you said D-Three was isolated from the rest of Outbound Flight. That means you must have vac suits to get back and forth. Any of them still in working condition?"

"A couple dozen of them are," he said. "But as I told you, we can't get the hatches open."

"We don't have to," Mara told him. "All you need to do is build a small caisson around one of the turbolift doors with me in it. I can cut through the hull, climb up the pylon, and make my way cross-country to the Chaf Envoy."

"And how do you get back in?" Drask asked.

"I'll figure that out later," Mara told him. "What do you think?"

Above them, the lights flickered. "Terrific," Pressor muttered, glancing up. "They must be getting to the generator."

"What, we're running on generator power already?" Mara asked.

"We are in this part of the ship," Pressor said. "They've already gotten into the main power conduits."

"Wait a minute," Jinzler said, frowning. "You have portable generators? How many?"

"Probably ten that still work," Pressor said. The lights flickered again—"Better make that nine."

"I never even thought to ask," Jinzler said, sounding disgusted with himself. "Get them together as quickly as you can—all of them—and set them out along the corridors."

"Connected to what?" Pressor asked, sounding confused.

"Connected to anything you want," Jinzler said. "Lights, heaters—anything. Just crank them up to full power and then shut down the main reactors."

"It will not work," Drask declared. "Even if the generators succeed in drawing the line creepers out, there are too many of them. They will quickly overload and destroy the generators' wiring, then return to the larger sources of power."

"That's right," Jinzler said, smiling tightly. "If the worms actually get to them."

He turned back to Pressor. "But they won't, because around each generator you're going to create a moat of salt water. The worms will crawl in, short out their organic capacitors, and die."

"You're kidding," Pressor said. "I've never even heard of that."

Jinzler shrugged. "It's a trick we came up with when I was bumming around Hadar sector after the Clone Wars. It's fairly disgusting, but it works."

"I'll get the techs on it right away," Pressor said, pulling out his comlink. "You've certainly had a varied career, Ambassador."

Jinzler's answer, if he made one, was lost as a sudden surge of distant emotion yanked at Mara's attention. "Something's wrong," she said, pulling her lightsaber from her belt and heading for the door. Pressor got there ahead of her, slapping the release and ducking through.

It was then that they heard the shouting in the distance ahead.

"Come on," Pressor growled, drawing his blaster as he and Mara sprinted down the corridor.

They rounded a turn and nearly collided with a dozen techs and civilians running in the other direction. "They're back!" one of the techs gasped, jabbing a finger behind him as he dodged around Pressor. "In the turbolift. They're trying to break in."

Pressor swore under his breath, thumbing on his comlink. "All Peacekeepers to the forward starboard pylon," he ordered. "The Vagaari are back."

"This doesn't make sense," Mara objected, trying to stretch out to the Force as she ran. But the flavor of the alien minds was too faint to sort out against the clamor of civilian panic throbbing in the air around her. "Why would they have come back?"

"Maybe they decided they wanted to watch us die after all," Pressor said grimly. "If so, they're going to pay heavily for the privilege."

One of the other Peacekeepers was waiting in the darkness when they arrived at the turbolift lobby, the beam from his glow rod twitching back and forth as he fidgeted with apprehension. "They're coming through," he hissed, turning the beam on one of the doors. "I can hear them working on it. What do we do?"

Pressor never had a chance to answer. Almost before the words were out of the other's mouth, the door suddenly gave a violent creak and cracked a centimeter open. Three pry bars were in place before it could close again; and with another series of creaks the door was forced open. Pressor and the Peacekeeper leveled their blasters at the opening, and suddenly two combat-armored figures leapt out of the gloom, their own glow rods swinging back and forth. Behind the lights, Mara could see hand weapons tracking as they searched for targets—

"No," she snapped, reaching out to the Force and twisting all four muzzles to point into opposite corners of the lobby. "Don't shoot. They're friends."

She stepped into the middle of the standoff as a third armored figure emerged into the room. "Welcome to Outbound Flight, Captain Brast'alshi'barku," she said, bowing slightly to the newcomer. "I thought you'd never get here."