Star Wars: Survivor's Quest

CHAPTER 18

Fel just stared at her, his brain refusing to form words. Pure evil? Jedi? "Who told you Jedi were evil?" he demanded. "Some of them may have their moments, but..."

He trailed off. Both women were looking at him as if he'd just told them that red was green. "Don't you know anything?" the younger woman said. "They destroyed us. They betrayed and destroyed us."

"Did you actually see this happen?" Fel persisted. "Or is it just something you heard from—?"

"Commander," Drask said.

Fel turned away from the observation slit. "What?" he snapped.

"For the moment, this is irrelevant," the general said quietly. "We can learn more about their history when the Aristocra and ambassador are once again safely under our protection."

Fel felt his jaw tighten in frustration. But the Chiss was right. "Understood," he said reluctantly. "So we just leave them here?"

"Would you prefer we take them with us?" Drask countered.

"No, of course not," Fel conceded reluctantly. "I just—of course not. Back to the turbolift?"

"Yes," Drask said, his eyes flashing with quiet anger toward the locked room. "We have seen what we came here to see."

Fel nodded. He hated to just leave these people here, prisoners of some insane half-remembered myth or personal vendetta. But Drask was right. It could be dealt with later. "All right, stormtroopers, form up. We're heading back to the forward turbolifts."

He started to turn, and, as he did, something about Grappler's stance caught his attention. "Grappler?" he asked.

Reluctantly, he thought, the Eickarie came back to attention. "Your pardon, Commander," he said, his voice sounding even more alien than usual. "I was... remembering."

"Remembering what?"

"My people." Grappler gestured fractionally toward the Quarantine door with his BlasTech. "The Warlord took away many such innocents who were of no genuine threat and put them in places like this. Most were never heard from again."

"I understand," Fel said, leveling his gaze at the white faceplate. "But the best thing we can do right now is find Formbi and Jinzler and make sure they know about this. Rule One is that diplomats always get first crack at this sort of problem."

"And if they are unable or unwilling to do anything?"

Fel looked back at the locked door. "Rule Two is that soldiers get second crack," he said darkly. "Move out."

Outbound Flight's designers had clearly never considered the possibility that anyone would ever wish to travel through the connecting turbolift pylons without an actual turbolift car or at least a maintenance repulsorlift pack. As a result, they had kept the tube interior smooth, without any of the access ladders Luke had assumed would be there. There were also no other built-in handholds, and all the wiring was buried behind protective metal panels.

Fortunately, Jedi had their own resources.

"How's it going?" Luke grunted as he hauled himself another arm's length up the thick power cable.

"I'm doing fine," Mara countered from above him. "Question is, how are you holding up?"

"I'm fine, too," Luke assured her, taking a moment to look up at the woman sitting on his shoulders. It would have looked utterly ridiculous, he knew, had there been anyone around to see them: a man hauling himself hand over hand up a set of power cables while a grown woman sat high atop his shoulders like a small child watching a Victory Day parade.

But silly looking or not, it was working, and faster even than Luke had anticipated. With the metal access panels long since frozen shut by age and rust, there was no way to reach the cables beneath them except via a lightsaber wielded by a steady hand. Any other approach they could have used would have required each of them to cut away a section of paneling, haul him- or herself up to that level via the newly exposed cables, and then pause to cut away the next section. This way, Mara was able to concentrate on the task of precision cutting while Luke could give his full attention to the climb itself.

Or at least he could do so as long as his arms held out. Stretching out to the Force, letting its strength flow into his muscles, he kept going. It was just as well, he reflected, that they hadn't had to get out of the rigged turbolift car this way. Drask would never have made it.

"Watch it," Mara warned. "We're hitting the edge of another eddy."

"Right," Luke said, making sure to get an extra-firm grip with each pull upward. With the storage core and each of the Dreadnaughts running its own gravity direction, the tube had been designed to align incoming cars with the proper "up" before they arrived at their various destinations. The gravity eddy fields required for such an operation weren't too difficult to get past—he and Mara had already forded two of them—but getting caught unprepared could be trouble.

"I wish these things weren't tied into the ships' environmental system," he muttered as he felt the eddy current tugging at his body, trying to turn him around. Mara had abandoned her lightsaber work for the moment in favor of steadying herself with a grip on Luke's collar. "Without gravity in the pylon, we could have just floated up to D-Five."

"It would have taken us half a day just to find all the redundancies and shut them down," Mara pointed out, waving her free hand cautiously above her. "Okay, there's the upper edge of the eddy."

Luke eased them past the interface and they continued on their way. "So when are you going to tell me what this is all about?" he asked.

Even over the humming of her lightsaber he heard Mara's sigh. "It was that scene on the Chaf Envoy's observation deck," she said. "Just before we headed into the Redoubt, when Bearsh and the Geroons were saying good-bye to their ship."

"I remember," Luke said. "You said at the time something about that wasn't right."

"I just wish I'd caught it sooner," Mara said, an edge of self-recrimination in her voice. "I should have caught it earlier. Remember when the Geroon ship first arrived, and on the comm display behind Bearsh we saw some children playing Hilltop Emperor?"

"Yes," Luke said, replaying the scene in his mind. "It looked all right to me."

"Oh, it looked just fine," Mara bit out. "Problem is, a couple of days later, when the Geroons were saying their farewells, the same scene was going on in the background."

Luke frowned. "What do you mean, the same scene? More children playing on the structure?"

"I mean the same children playing on the structure," she said. "Doing the same things, in exactly the same way."

Luke tightened his grip on the cables. "The whole thing was a recording?"

"You got it," Mara said bitterly. "There are no children aboard that ship, Luke. Bearsh was lying through his teeth. Both sets of teeth."

"And I missed it completely," Luke said, feeling like a fool. "I wasn't even paying attention."

"Why should you have been?" Mara pointed out. "There wasn't any reason to suspect them of anything."

"I still should have been more alert," Luke said, refusing to be mollified. "Especially after everything that was going on aboard the Chaf Envoy. So what exactly does it mean?"

"It means the Geroons are frauds," Mara said. "It means that ship of theirs isn't a refugee ship at all. Aside from that, I have no idea."

"Bearsh said the ship was mostly composed of small rooms," Luke said, trying to think it through. "That kind of structure is something our sensors might be able to check out, so we can assume he was telling the truth about that. What sort of ship would be composed of mostly small rooms?"

"A prison ship, maybe?" Mara suggested. "Or maybe a cargo ship like Outbound Flight's storage core? That's basically a series of small rooms."

"I wish we knew what size rooms they are," Luke said. "You ever ask Drask if he took any sensor readings of their ship?"

"No, but you'd think he would have said something if it didn't check out," Mara said.

"Maybe he did, only not to us," Luke said, visualizing the Geroon ship in his mind. Big and spherical, with a regular pattern of dark spots covering the hull. Viewports, he'd tentatively identified them at the time. Or vents, or decoration—

He drew in a sharp breath. "Or ejection ports," he said aloud.

"What?"

"Ejection ports," he repeated. "Those dark spots on the hull are just like the ones we saw on that firepoint asteroid on our way into the Redoubt."

"Ejection ports for fighters," Mara bit out. "The thing's a carrier."

"And we left it sitting right next to the Brask Oto Command Station," Luke reminded her grimly.

"Terrific," Mara grunted. "So much for the Geroons being peace loving."

From behind Luke's head, barely audible over the sound of Mara's lightsaber, came a soft chirp. "Did you hear that?" he asked.

"Hear what?"

"Another of those comlink chirps," he told her. "The kind Drask said sounded like someone communicating over the jamming. It came from your comlink."

"I missed it," she said, the tone of her lightsaber changing slightly as she sliced away more of the metal. "The Geroons, you think?"

"I don't think anyone else has lied to us as consistently as they have," Luke said grimly.

"Not even Formbi?"

"Not even Jinzler," he said. "And I'm getting a very bad feeling about this. How much farther?"

Her weight shifted slightly on his shoulders as she peered upward. "Fifteen minutes at this rate," she said. "Maybe more."

Luke set his teeth, stretching out to the Force for strength. "Let's make it less."

"No." With a contemptuous flick of his wrist, Tarkosa sent Jinzler's datapad sliding back across the tabletop toward him. "Completely unacceptable, all of them."

"What's wrong with the Rendili Battle Horn-class?" Jinzler asked, struggling to remain calm. This whole thing was starting to get ridiculous. "It's got the size you want, it's got the speed—"

"It's a freighter," Tarkosa said flatly.

"It's a bulk cruiser, not a freighter," Jinzler corrected. "It's armed, it's armored, it's got the range, it's got the capacity—"

"It's unacceptable," Uliar cut in. "Show us something else."

Jinzler reached over and snagged the datapad, swallowing the retort he so very much wanted to say. Uliar and the two councilors had shot down every single suggestion he'd made, and he was becoming extremely irritated with the whole bunch of them. "Fine," he said, keying for Mon Cal ship designs. Maybe there would be something here that the crotchety old Survivors could live with.

Of course, there would then be the whole question of persuading either the Chiss to buy such a ship or the New Republic to donate it to the cause. But that would be a crisis for another day.

From his comlink came another chirp. "What is that noise you people keep making on our comlinks?" he demanded.

"What are you talking about?" Uliar asked.

"That little chirping sound," Jinzler said. "Do all your comlinks have frequency bleed-through or something?"

"I repeat, what are you talking about?" Uliar countered. "You're doing that, not us."

Jinzler frowned. "What are you talking about? We're not—"

"Ah, yes," Bearsh murmured, standing up. "As was the beginning, so is the end."

Jinzler shifted his frown to the Geroon. "What?"

"As was the beginning, so is the end," Bearsh repeated. Ducking his head forward, he slid the limp wolvkil body off his shoulders and let it thump onto the table in front of him. Against the wall behind him, his three compatriots had also taken off their wolvkils, laying them on the floor, and Jinzler had the sudden irrational thought that they were about to present the dead animals to Uliar as a gift to try to get him to cooperate. "Once, victims," Bearsh went on. "Now, victors." Reaching to the wolvkil's neck, he broke off its decorative blue-and-gold collar.

And with a sudden, brief shudder, the wolvkil came to life.

Someone gasped as the animal scrambled to its feet; one of the Survivors, Jinzler thought dimly as the wolvkil shook itself like a wet karfler. Or maybe it had been Jinzler himself. For the moment, his brain was too frozen with shock to process anything but the impossibility that was now staring him in the eye along its long, tooth-filled muzzle. At the far wall, he was vaguely aware that the other three wolvkils had similarly and inexplicably revived.

For a stretched-out second no one moved. Bearsh murmured something reverent sounding in that melodious, two-toned language of theirs; from the Survivors' end of the table came another soft gasp. "No," he heard Uliar breathe. "It can't—"

The four wolvkils leapt.

Instinctively, Jinzler shoved himself back from the table as the nearest animal jumped toward him, fully expecting a terrible stab of pain as its jaws closed around his neck. But the furry missile shot past without even grazing him with its outstretched claws. The momentum of Jinzler's push sent his chair tipping over backward, and as his shoulder and head slammed against the deck a brief burst of stars blurred his vision. Through the sound of the blood roaring in his ears he heard screams and shouts and the sputter of blasterfire. There was a ululating roar, another scream; and suddenly he found himself being hauled to his feet.

It was Tarkosa, his eyes wild, his age-lined face etched with fear and rage. "Get back, you fool," he snarled, giving Jinzler's arm a single tug toward the back of the room and then letting go and backing up hastily himself. Blinking once to clear his eyes, Jinzler looked behind him.

The calm scene of a few seconds before had dissolved into chaos. The three Chiss warriors were bent over or on their knees, wrestling with the snarling wolvkils, clearly fighting for their lives. The Peacekeeper who had been standing guard over them was already down, lying motionless in a widening pool of blood, his blaster lying on the deck beside his limp hand. Even as Jinzler stared in horror one of the Chiss managed to twist his charric far enough around in the grip of his attacker's jaws and fire point-blank into its torso. But the wolvkil shrugged off the shot without even a snarl, its teeth and claws continuing to tear at the warrior's arm and chest. Across the room by the other side wall, the remaining Peacekeeper had been knocked prone by the three Geroons whom he had been guarding. Two of them were pinning down his gun hand as the third sat on his chest, rhythmically beating his head against the deck.

From behind Jinzler came a sizzling hiss, and a streak of blue fire shot past his shoulder to impact squarely in the center of the third Geroon's back. The Geroon screamed something vicious sounding and rolled forward off the Peacekeeper's chest. A second shot struck his shoulder, blackening his robe and eliciting another scream—

And once again Jinzler ducked reflexively away as one of the wolvkils abandoned the injured Chiss he'd been attacking and leapt past him. He spun around—

To see the wolvkil slam into Formbi, its snarling jaws snapping shut around the Aristocra's gun arm.

The impact staggered Formbi backward, but he managed to stay on his feet. Ignoring the blood suddenly flowing onto his sleeve, he twisted his arm around and tossed the charric to his free hand. Pressing the muzzle to the wolvkil's head, he fired.

That one at least wrenched a howl from the animal. But if the injury affected either its strength or resolve, it didn't show. Formbi fired a second time; and then the wolvkil seemed to realize it was no longer holding on to the proper arm. With one last tearing bite, it let go and reached out for Formbi's other arm.

It never had a chance to connect. Even as its jaws opened, Feesa appeared out of nowhere, a streak of yellow-clad blue that slammed into the wolvkil's side, tearing it off Formbi and sprawling both of them onto the deck.

The wolvkil howled in fury, twisting like a snake as it tried to buck her away. Feesa was faster, throwing her arms around its sides and burying her face in the fur of its back. The creature howled again, twisting its head back and forth as it tried to reach her. But Feesa held on, shouting in the Chiss language as Formbi fired round after round of blue fire into the wolvkil's body.

And with that, the paralysis holding Jinzler rooted to the floor abruptly snapped.

Bearsh was standing by himself in a little bubble of calmness, his hands on his hips as he coolly surveyed the carnage going on around him. "Call them off," Jinzler snapped, a sudden fury blazing inside him as he strode toward the Geroon. "You hear me? Call them off."

"I hear you, human," Bearsh said. The nervous, self-effacing voice Jinzler had become accustomed to aboard ship had suddenly changed to something harsh and arrogant. "You are as big a fool as they are. Stay back, or die now in agony instead of later in cold and darkness."

"You're the one who's going to die," Jinzler bit out, feeling his hands curling into fists. Bearsh might be younger, but Jinzler was a good head taller and at least fifteen kilos heavier, and the Geroon wouldn't have the element of surprise they'd had against the young Peacekeeper getting his brains beaten in. He would hammer the Geroon until he called off the attack. Would hammer him all the way to death, if that was what it took.

Perhaps Bearsh saw that in his eyes as he approached. His expression changed, and with a speed Jinzler wouldn't have expected he lifted his hands from his hips and grabbed for the end of his left sleeve. Jinzler tensed, lengthening his stride, trying to beat the Geroon to whatever weapon he was reaching for.

Bearsh's hand reached the sleeve; but instead of drawing a weapon, he merely ripped the outer layer of cloth away. Jinzler had just enough time to see that the arm was covered with what appeared to be lumpy packing material, half black and yellow, half translucent—

And abruptly the arm exploded into a hundred angrily buzzing insects.

He was barely able to wrench himself to a halt in time. For a second or two the insects swarmed aimlessly before coalescing into a spherical pattern swirling around Bearsh. "Careful, human," the Geroon warned softly. "Be very careful. I don't know what schostri stings would do to a human, but they're quickly fatal to most other lifeforms we've used them against."

His mouths curved in a sardonic double smile. "Of course, if you wish to serve as a test case, come ahead."

Casually, he turned his back on Jinzler, crossing toward the Geroon whom Formbi had shot and the two uninjured ones still beating on the Peacekeeper. The swarm moved with him, as if genetically programmed to recognize him as their hive or queen.

Jinzler took a cautious step forward, keeping a wary eye on the insects. Another few steps, and Bearsh would be within reach of the injured Peacekeeper's dropped blaster. If he got to the weapon first, any hope of stopping them and the wolvkils would be gone.

But the Geroon had apparently forgotten there was another spare weapon lying loose on the deck, the one dropped by the other Peacekeeper. Or maybe he simply didn't think it was relevant, since the only ones close enough to reach it were already fighting for their lives against the wolvkils.

Everyone except Dean Jinzler.

He eased his way toward the gun, striving to be as invisible as possible. Even if he shot Bearsh, he knew, the swarm of insects might well take vengeance on him. But it would be worth it to watch Bearsh's smile turn to pain and then to death.

Still no one seemed to have noticed him. Another few steps...

"Ambassador!" Formbi called.

Jinzler twisted his head back around. Uliar and the two councilors had flipped the long conference table onto its side and were dragging it toward one of the room's back corners. Formbi and Feesa were with them, the Aristocra staggering slightly as blood continued to pour from his mangled arm. The wolvkil he had been fighting lay still on the deck, its fur almost uniformly black from multiple charric burns. Rosemari and Evlyn were already back in the corner, Rosemari's arms visibly trembling as she clutched her daughter close to her. "Ambassador!" Formbi called again. "Come. Quickly."

"Shh!" Jinzler hissed at him. Didn't they see what he was trying to do?

"Yes, Ambassador, go," Bearsh agreed.

Jinzler turned back. Bearsh was standing beside the now motionless second Peacekeeper, the boy's blaster pointed casually in Jinzler's direction. "Or would you prefer to die now in agony?"

Jinzler hesitated. But if the Geroons wanted them all dead, there was nothing and no one left to stop them anyway. Clenching his hands one last time, this time into fists of impotent rage and defeat, he backed away.

"Bring chairs," Uliar called. "Quickly."

With his full attention still on the blaster in Bearsh's hand, Jinzler groped blindly for some of the fallen chairs and came up with two of them. All the Chiss warriors were lying broken and bloody on the deck now, he noted distantly, their own battles over. The wolvkils who had killed them stood panting, watching Jinzler with unblinking eyes as they licked their bloody muzzles and paws.

The Survivors had the table in position by the time he arrived, set on its edge across the back corner to form a low barrier. What they wanted with the chairs was quickly evident as Uliar and Tarkosa stacked them like sections of a roof over the top of the triangle-shaped gap they'd created behind the table, using the back walls and the sculpture pedestals for support. The Geroons had gathered together now as well, watching in silence as they completed their task. "Now get inside," Bearsh instructed as the last roofing chair was set in place. "Quickly."

Silently, the prisoners complied, crawling through a gap that had been left between one end of the table and the bulkhead. Uliar, the last one in, pulled a final chair into the gap behind him.

And there they were, Jinzler thought bitterly. Caged animals, in a cage of their own construction.

There was the sound of footsteps, and Bearsh's face appeared through the latticework of chairs above them. "There, now, you see?" the Geroon said sardonically. He had his left arm stretched out to the side, and the swarming insects were beginning to settle back into their places there. "Even humans are capable of following orders."

No one replied. "All right, you've got us," Jinzler said, deciding that someone should find out what was going on. "What do you want?"

Bearsh's mouths twisted crookedly. "I want you all dead, of course," he said. "The only question remaining is the method."

He gestured behind him, to where the other Geroons were slathering some kind of salve on the one Formbi had shot. "Purpsh, for instance, would very much like to gun you all down right here so that he can enjoy your screams. Especially yours, Aristocra Formbi. But I've decided to let you choose exactly how you will die."

"You won't get away with this," Uliar said. The words were defiant, but to Jinzler his voice merely sounded old.

"Oh, I think we will," Bearsh said calmly as he rewrapped his sleeve over the now quiescent insects. "Your precious Jedi and Imperial stormtroopers should all be dead by now—our sabotage of the turbolift cars they were trapped in will have taken care of that problem. Who else is there to stop us?"

"We will," Uliar growled. "We've been ready for trouble for fifty years. You don't think we can take you?"

"I doubt it," Bearsh said. "At any rate, we're not likely to find out. With your communications jamming still in place, you won't be able to summon your pitiful little colony to the attack. By the time they wake up to what's happened, we'll be long gone." He smiled. "And you will be well on the road to a dark and icy death."

He reached down and shook his robe. There was a soft clatter as some small objects fell to the deck. "A small present for the survivors of Outbound Flight," he said. "We have used some already on the turbolifts; these should take care of this particular area."

Frowning, Jinzler turned his head sideways, pressing his cheek against the chair above him to try to see over the edge of the table. There were half a dozen threadlike objects on the deck, he saw, spreading out as they skittered their way toward the walls.

He caught his breath. "Line creepers."

"Very good, Ambassador," Bearsh said approvingly. "After all, I promised that you would die in cold and darkness, didn't I?"

"What are line creepers?" Uliar asked.

"They're like conduit worms," Jinzler told him, feeling his stomach tightening. "Only worse. Bearsh slipped a few into the control lines aboard the Chaf Envoy and nearly shut it down." He lifted his eyebrows. "That was you, wasn't it?"

"We'll be traveling through your vessel for a while longer, distributing the rest of our little pets for maximum effect," Bearsh said to Uliar, ignoring the question. "After that, we'll leave you to your doom."

"There's no need to destroy these people or their home, Bearsh," Formbi said. His voice was deadly calm, with only a hint of the agony he must be feeling from his torn arm. "If you want the Chaf Envoy, take it."

Bearsh snorted. "You underestimate us, Aristocra. We have bigger game in mind than a simple Chiss diplomatic vessel."

He waved toward the wolvkils. "And speaking of game, we'll be leaving our pets behind to make sure you stay here quietly until we are finished. I trust you noticed how difficult they are to kill. If not, or if some of you decide you'd prefer a quicker death than the one we'll be leaving you, I'm certain they'll enjoy the exercise."

"Bearsh—" Formbi said again.

But Bearsh merely turned his back on them and strode away. Again peering out through the chairs, Jinzler saw the other Geroons fall into step behind him, the two uninjured ones supporting the third. The door wheezed open, and Bearsh looked briefly out into the corridor. A moment later they were gone, the door sliding shut behind them.

Jinzler shifted his attention to the three remaining wolvkils. They were padding around now, continuing to clean themselves, occasionally sniffing at their fallen victims. But it was clear they were also keeping an eye on the prisoners behind their barrier.

"I don't understand," Rosemari said, her shaking voice barely above a whisper. "What do they want from us?"

Uliar sighed. "Vengeance, Instructor," he said. "Vengeance for crimes real and crimes imagined."

"What crimes?" Rosemari asked. "What did we ever do to the Geroons?"

"We did nothing to the Geroons," Uliar said bitterly. "That's the problem."

Jinzler turned around to stare at him. "What?"

"Didn't you know, Ambassador?" Uliar bit out, his eyes dark as he glared past Rosemari's shoulder. "Bearsh and his friends aren't Geroons.

"They're Vagaari."