Star Wars: Survivor's Quest

CHAPTER 23

"We never even heard the Vagaari leave," Captain Talshib said disgustedly, his red eyes blazing even more brilliantly in the dim glow of the recovery room permlights. "We were sitting like fools in concealment in the command center, waiting for them to make their move. But they simply exited their own vessel, scattering line creepers along the way, and left. Apparently they had already decided to take the Old Republic vessel and had no time to waste with us."

"Yes, Bearsh would have informed Estosh of the new plan by that time," Drask agreed. "They had had the foresight to appropriate a set of special operations communicators before traveling to Outbound Flight and were able to send pulse messages through the humans' jamming."

"I wish I had known," Talshib rumbled. "We could have deployed to intercept them."

"It's just as well you didn't," Mara commented from the other side of Formbi's recovery table. "You saw what happened to the squad we left in the Dreadnaught's docking bay. They never even had a chance."

"Perhaps," Talshib said reluctantly. Warriors' pride, Jinzler thought as he leaned against the wall by the open doorway watching the discussion. Or perhaps just pride in general. Talshib would probably have preferred an overwhelming enemy attack, even if it had meant dying in combat, to the situation he currently found himself in.

Mara must have sensed that, too. "No perhaps about it, Captain," she said firmly. "If you hadn't been around to rig that sealant tent across the broken pylon, we'd still be trying to figure out how we were going to get out of here."

Talshib snorted. "Thus permitting you to travel freely from one dead vessel to another."

"Neither of them will be dead for long," Drask put in firmly. "If Ambassador Jinzler's technique works, both vessels should be functional within a matter of days."

Talshib snorted again. That was probably a good deal of his attitude problem, Jinzler had already decided. The Vagaari line creepers had wiped out the Chaf Envoy's communications with the landing party and otherwise crippled the ship before the crew, lurking in their hidey-holes, had even realized they were under attack.

And then, as if that weren't embarrassment enough, it was human ingenuity that was going to clear out his ship for him. That had to really gall him, and Jinzler was a little surprised that Drask had gone out of his way to mention where the plan had come from.

Unless Drask had done it on purpose, a not-so-subtle reminder to his subordinate that even the Chiss could learn from other species on occasion. Certainly the general's politely unfriendly attitude toward humans seemed to have warmed perceptively over the past few hours. Jinzler could only wonder what had happened to cause that change.

"Here comes another one," Evlyn stage-whispered from a few paces down the corridor. "No; two of them. No; it's a whole crowd."

Jinzler moved away from the wall and the discussion and crossed to her side. In the much brighter light blazing away from a rack above the portable generator, he could see a group of perhaps twenty line creepers wriggling their way across the deck toward the enticing aroma of electric current.

"Careful," he warned as Evlyn started toward them. "If you get too close your own bioelectrical energy might distract them."

"Okay," she said, backing up again. Together they watched as the fragile-looking creatures climbed briskly up over the lip of the wide, flat basin the generator's stubby legs were resting in. One by one, they dropped into the salt water, twitched a few times, and went still. "That's really cool," she commented.

"Effective, too," Jinzler agreed absently, most of his attention still back on the snatches of conversation he was able to hear of Formbi's war council. Drask and Talshib were discussing their options now, with Mara, Formbi, and Fel occasionally putting in a comment or suggestion. Luke, still in his Jedi trance, was across the corridor in the operating room where they'd finished patching him up.

Unfortunately, none of the options being batted around sounded particularly hopeful, at least not from where he was standing. Borrowing extra generators from Outbound Flight might speed up the decontamination process aboard the Chaf Envoy, but even so the best possible projected completion point was at least three days away. Unless the Vagaari had mechanical trouble along the way, the stolen Dreadnaught would have far too much of a head start for the Chaf Envoy to catch up with it before it reached the Brask Oto Command Station and escaped from the cluster.

"You'll be leaving soon, won't you?"

Jinzler shifted his full attention back to Evlyn. "We all will," he told her. "You, your mother—all of us."

"I mean as soon as the Blue—I mean the Chiss ship is fixed, you and Mara and Luke will be leaving."

"But we'll be back," Jinzler promised. "Or at least, some Chiss transports will be. They'll take you anywhere you want to go."

She shook her head. "It won't make any difference," she said quietly. "No matter where we go, Uliar will find some kind of Three to put me in."

"They're not going to do that," Jinzler insisted. "Surely they learned a lesson from this whole thing. If it wasn't for you, a good many more people might have died."

"That won't make any difference," she said again. "Not to them." She sighed. "I wish you'd never come here. If you hadn't..." She trailed off.

"If we hadn't, what?" Jinzler prompted. "You would have gone on living a lie?"

"I could have pretended," she said. "Lots of people pretend." She looked squarely up into his eyes. "Even you do."

An edge of guilt dug up under Jinzler's rib cage. "That's different," he said. "If I hadn't told them I was an ambassador, the Chiss might not have let me come along."

"But you're here now," she reminded him. "You could have stopped pretending a long time ago."

"Yes, well, we're not talking about me, young lady," he reminded her firmly. "We're talking about you. And the point is, you shouldn't be ashamed of what you can do."

"Maybe not." Pressor's voice came from behind them. "But that doesn't mean she should announce it from the command deck, either." Jinzler turned. Pressor and Rosemari were coming down the corridor toward them, Pressor with a pile of sacks across one forearm. "I brought you a new collection bag," he said, peeling one off the stack and handing it to Evlyn. "These are plasticized, so they won't get as soggy."

"Thanks," she said, taking it and handing him her partially full one in return.

"I really think you ought to go join the rest of the people down on Six, Evlyn," Rosemari said, eyeing her daughter's bandages. "Don't you think you'd be more comfortable there?"

"Would you be?" Evlyn said pointedly.

The corners of Rosemari's mouth tightened. "I suppose not," she conceded. "Director Uliar's probably been talking to people already."

"I'm sure he has," Pressor said. "But I've been thinking, and there may still be a way to backtrack on this."

"What do you mean?" Rosemari asked.

"Well, think about it," Pressor said. "Besides the stuff in the turbolift, which no one else saw, the only thing Evlyn did was pull that comlink across the meeting room deck. We could easily churn the water by saying it was actually Ambassador Jinzler who did that."

"Except that I'm not a Jedi," Jinzler pointed out.

"Maybe you lied about that," Pressor countered. "Or maybe you didn't even know yourself that you had the power."

"And you are the brother of a known Jedi," Rosemari added thoughtfully. "That has to count for something. Maybe your pep talk in the meeting room actually stimulated your powers, not Evlyn's."

"Are you suggesting I lie for your daughter?" Jinzler asked.

Rosemari held his gaze without flinching. "Why not?" she said. "It was you and your people who got her into this mess."

"It's not a mess," Jinzler insisted. "It's an opportunity."

Beside him, Evlyn stirred. "Ambassador Jinzler says I shouldn't be ashamed of who I am."

"Ambassador Jinzler doesn't have to live among these people," Pressor retorted, glaring at Jinzler.

"I do for the moment," Jinzler pointed out ruefully. "A moment that could stretch out considerably, I might add. We won't know until the line creepers have all been cleaned out whether or not they caused any permanent damage. We could conceivably find out that the Chaf Envoy will never fly again."

"That could be a problem, all right," Pressor grunted. "I don't suppose it occurred to you to bring a spare hypercapable vehicle with you?"

"We brought three, actually," Jinzler said with a grimace. "The commander's glider, the transport the Imperials came in, and Luke and Mara's ship. The Vagaari hit all three on their way out. Talshib says they even took the time to sabotage their own shuttle, and it wasn't even hypercapable."

Pressor shook his head. "They're thorough, you have to give them that. So how long until the rest of the Chiss come hunting for you?"

"That's just it," Jinzler said. "Formbi was playing this so close to the table that I'm not sure the rest of the Chiss even know we're out here. There are some aboard the command station we passed on our way into the cluster, of course, but the Vagaari might well be planning to destroy that on their way out. If they succeed, it might be months before anyone comes back out this way."

"That would solve the problem, wouldn't it?" Evlyn murmured.

They all looked at her. "What?" Pressor asked.

"That would solve the problem," Evlyn repeated. "Because if you stay, they'd have to put Luke and Mara in Three if they put me there. And they couldn't do that, could they?"

"I doubt it seriously," Jinzler agreed hesitantly. That hadn't even occurred to him.

"And then they could teach me how to be a real Jedi," Evlyn continued, looking up at her mother. "Then we wouldn't have to be afraid anymore about what they might do to me, because they couldn't."

Rosemari reached up to stroke her daughter's hair, an oddly pinched expression on her face. "Evlyn..."

"That's what you want, isn't it?" Evlyn pressed. She turned back to Jinzler. "It's what you want, too, isn't it?"

"Certainly, I want you to develop your gift," Jinzler agreed. "But we're the only ones who know about the Vagaari and what they've found out about the Redoubt. If we get stuck here, it may mean the deaths of many more Chiss."

"Is that important?" Evlyn said, a strange edge of challenge in her voice.

"Of course it's important," Rosemari said. Her voice seemed sad, almost resigned, yet at the same time had a sense of peace to it. "Ambassador... there may be another hypercapable transport available. We have a Delta-Twelve Skysprite sitting in one of the docking bays over on Three."

Pressor turned to his sister, his jaw dropping in astonishment. "We've got a what?"

"A Delta-Twelve Skysprite," she repeated. "It's a two-passenger sublight transport with a connecting hyperdrive ring. Dad showed it to me once when we were working over there together."

"I didn't know there was anything like that aboard Outbound Flight," Pressor said.

"Not many people do," Rosemari said. "And I don't think anyone knows why it was even aboard. Dad certainly didn't."

She looked at Jinzler. "The problem is that the Managing Council made Dad disassemble the hyperdrive. They knew they'd never be able to find a way out of the cluster, and they didn't want one of their exiled Jedi to figure it out and get away."

Jinzler took a careful breath. A hypercapable ship... "You say the ring was disassembled, not destroyed? Are all the parts still there?"

"I'm sure Dad didn't break anything," Rosemari said. "He was being very careful. And when he was done, he put everything into a storage locker. If you could get it to work, someone might at least be able to go for help."

"So you'd just let us go?" Jinzler asked, eyeing her closely. "Even though keeping us here might help your daughter?"

"Against your will?" Rosemari asked quietly. "And at the cost of all those Chiss lives?" She shook her head. "Not for me. Not even for my daughter. Jedi serve others rather than ruling over them, for the good of the galaxy."

She looked down at her daughter, a bittersweet smile on her lips. "You see?" she said. "I even know the Code."

Evlyn wrapped her arms around her mother. "I knew you'd do the right thing," she murmured.

Jinzler took a deep breath. "Mara?" he called.

Three seconds later Mara appeared at the recovery room doorway, Captain Talshib right behind her. "What is it?" she demanded, glancing around for trouble.

"Rosemari says there's a Delta-Twelve tucked away over in D-Three," he told her. "You ever hear of that particular model?"

"Sounds vaguely familiar," Mara said, frowning in concentration. "Remind me."

"It was from Kuat Systems," he told her. "They manufactured the entire Delta line, including the Delta-Seven Aethersprite the Jedi used as starfighters during the early days of the Clone Wars. None of the Deltas had an internal hyperdrive, but TransGalMeg Industries made a hyperdrive ring for it to dock into. The Twelve was basically a larger, two-person version of the Seven that had its weapons stripped off for the civilian market."

"I'll take your word for it," Mara said. "So what's the question?"

"The question is whether you or Luke could fly it," Jinzler said.

"But the hyperdrive doesn't work," Pressor reminded him.

"I'll fix the hyperdrive," Jinzler said tartly. "Can you fly it?"

"Don't worry," she assured him grimly. "If you can fix it, we can fly it."

"You can fix it?" Evlyn asked, her voice sounding awed.

Jinzler looked at her. She was gazing up at him, her eyes as awed as her voice. A girl who had the power of the Jedi... and yet she was awed and impressed that he could fix a hyperdrive.

Suddenly he was staring at his sister again, all those years ago.

"Pretty exotic training for an ambassador," Pressor murmured.

Jinzler turned to face him; and as he did so, he felt himself drawing up to his full height. "I'm not an ambassador, Guardian," he said, his voice ringing clearly down the corridor with a pride and self-respect he'd never, ever felt before. "I'm an electronics technician."

He looked down at Evlyn and smiled. "Like my father before me."

As if from deep inside a well, a familiar voice called their standard code phrase. "I love you."

Luke blinked his eyes open, fighting the equally standard surge of disorientation. It was dark in the operating room, with only a dim permlight glowing off to one side, but he had no trouble recognizing the face leaning over him. "Hi, Mara," he said, working moisture into his mouth. "How's it going?"

"Better than I would have thought when you went under," she told him. "First things first. How do you feel?"

Experimentally, Luke took a deep breath. "Mostly healed, I think," he told her. "Muscles and skin seem fine." He wiggled his shoulders. "Except for my left shoulder blade."

"You took a big piece of shrapnel there," Mara said, rolling him half up onto his right side and probing the half-healed injury with her fingertips. "That one'll take a little more work."

"We seem to have time," Luke pointed out, glancing around the darkened room. Apparently, Bearsh's line creepers had gotten a solid grip on Outbound Flight's electrical systems. "Your turn."

"The Vagaari didn't bother to kill any of the Chiss when they left the Chaf Envoy except the squad we'd left in the Dreadnaught docking bay," Mara said. "That ambush is apparently what we felt while we were poking around D-One. They did dump a whole bunch of line creepers, though, which have pretty well incapacitated everything over there." She made a face. "Including the Sabre, of course."

"Of course," Luke agreed, eyeing her face and wincing for Estosh's chances if Mara ever caught up with him again. Messing with his wife's ship was not a healthy thing to do. "So we're basically stuck here?"

"Not as stuck as Bearsh was hoping," Mara said. "Jinzler taught us a little trick to draw the line creepers out of the conduits and kill them. Another three or four days and we should have all the ships cleaned out."

She smiled tightly. "Even more interesting is that Outbound Flight had a small starship tucked away. A Delta-Twelve Skysprite."

"Never heard of it," Luke said. "Is it functional?"

"They're running the final diagnostics on it now," Mara said. "Jinzler's stopped being an ambassador, by the way, and gone back to being a lowly hyperdrive tech."

"Sounds like a more useful profession at the moment," Luke said. "What about the others? Did everyone make it out of the battle all right?"

"Yes, though no one's going to be doing any strenuous dancing for a while," Mara assured him. "The Five-Oh-First took the most damage, but Fel says they should be fine. The big question right now is whether you feel up to a little trip."

Luke had already figured out where the conversation was heading. "You mean to try to whistle up an alert on the Vagaari before they get out of Chiss space?"

"Preferably before they even get out of the Redoubt," Mara said. "Don't forget they've got a whole bunch of disguised fighters waiting for them at that command station."

"Right." Luke had forgotten that, actually. "You figure they'll try to destroy the station on their way out?"

"I would, if I were trying to sneak out with a stolen warship," Mara said. "But right now they've only got a six-hour head start on us. They're also flying a Dreadnaught, which weren't exactly known for their speed even under the best of circumstances. And we know the course they're on. If we can get out of here in the next hour or two, there's a good chance we can beat them to the station."

"Yes," Luke murmured.

Mara cocked her head slightly. "You don't sound convinced."

"Just thinking," he said. "What about food and air? I seem to remember Deltas not having a lot of range."

"It has enough," Mara assured him. "Anyway, we only have to make it out of the cluster."

"Right," Luke said, still considering. "How about recognition signals? I presume that the Chiss on Brask Oto aren't just going to take our word for any of this."

"Hardly," Mara agreed. "Formbi's already given me a recorded message to transmit to them, with Drask and Captain Talshib cosigning on it. Drask's also given me his private emergency prefix signal, or rather the one that'll be current on the day we reach Brask Oto: two-space-one-space-two."

"Sounds reasonable," Luke grunted, easing himself up into a sitting position. "Do we have time to eat before we take off?"

"They've packed us a lunch," Mara said. "We need to get going as soon as Jinzler gives the okay."

"Then that time is here," Jinzler said, stepping through the doorway. "The Skysprite checks out just—"

He broke off. "What is it?" Luke asked, frowning at the sudden surge of emotion in Jinzler's face and sense.

"That lightsaber," Jinzler said, his voice suddenly stiff. "May I see it?"

"Sure," Luke said, pulling the relic from his belt. "We found it down on D-One, in what was left of the bridge."

"We think it might have been Jorus C'baoth's," Mara added.

"No," Jinzler said quietly as he carefully turned the old weapon over in his hands. "It was Lorana's."

Luke felt his heart tighten. "I'm sorry" was all he could think of to say.

Jinzler shrugged, a fractional lifting of his shoulders. "I knew she hadn't made it," he said. "All this hatred and prejudice would have disappeared years ago if they'd had a true Jedi living and working in their midst. Do you know how she died?"

Luke shook his head. "The bridge was pretty well wrecked, and of course any evidence that might have been there is half a century old. There was no way for us to tell whether she died in the crash or before." He hesitated. "We did find some alien bones in the same area, though. They may or may not be connected with her."

"They probably were," Jinzler murmured. "She would have died trying to protect her people."

"I'm sorry," Luke said again. "Would you like to have it?"

For a moment Jinzler continued to gaze at the lightsaber, and Luke could sense the struggle going on within him. Something that had been his sister's; possibly his last link to that part of his own life...

He took a deep breath. "Yes, I would," he said, handing it back to Luke. "But not now. You might need it; and I rather like the idea of Lorana's lightsaber being used against those who helped destroy her. You can bring it back to me when this is all over."

"I will," Luke promised, taking the weapon back with a new reverence.

"And you'd better get going," Jinzler added. "The ship's still over in D-Three, so you'll need vac suits to get to it. I'll take you to where Pressor's got a pair laid out for you."

Luke had expected to see most of their companions on the way out, with the opportunity for both a proper farewell and also a quick assessment of their individual injuries.

It didn't work out that way. Fel and the stormtroopers had been moved down to D-6 with most of the rest of the colony, where they would be more comfortable while they recovered from their battle wounds. Drask and Formbi had been similarly transferred back to the Chaf Envoy for more specialized treatment than the Outbound Flight medics could provide, with Feesa as always staying at the Aristocra's side. Director Uliar and the rest of the council had rather pointedly retired to D-6 as well, leaving behind an unspoken but distinct impression that they wouldn't be returning to D-5 until it was free again from the taint of the Jedi and their influence.

Which meant that aside from a couple of silent techs and a pair of Chiss warriors guarding the turbolifts, the only ones there to see them off were Jinzler, Pressor, Rosemari, and Evlyn. Only Evlyn seemed to have anything to say, and she seemed too shy or troubled to say very much of it.

Under other circumstances, Luke would probably have taken the time to try to draw the girl out a little. Mara, he knew, would definitely have done so. But with the Vagaari already hours ahead of them, personal and social considerations would have to wait.

Ten minutes after arriving at the turbolift lobby they were suited up and ready to go. One of the Chiss guided them up the broken turbolift tube to the sealant tent and field air lock that the Chaf Envoy's crew had installed, then escorted them over the rough terrain of the planetoid's surface to the docking bay where the Delta-12 was waiting.

Thirty minutes later, after a quick test of the control systems and a final diagnostic check, Luke eased the Skysprite out of the docking bay and turned its nose upward.

"You ever ride in anything like this?" he asked as they drove toward the brilliant starscape.

"No," Mara said, unsealing one of the self-heating food packets Jinzler and the Outbound Flight techs had put aboard for them. "According to Jinzler, Kuat sold the Delta line around forty years ago to Sienar Systems. They got most of the starfighter contracts under Palpatine, and they either built the hyperdrive into the hull or left it out completely."

"Like with the old TIE fighters," Luke said, his stomach growling as he sniffed at the aromas rising from the packet. Karkan ribenes with tomo-spice; one of his favorite meals. Mara must have had a hand in the menu arrangements. "I never thought the TIE design made much sense."

Mara shrugged as she laid out the tray of ribenes, set a golden plaitfruit beside it, and pulled out two bottles of flavored water. "They were cheap to make, and Palpatine didn't mind spending pilots. Lunch is served. Dig in."

Luke set at the meal with enthusiasm, tearing the ribenes off the slab and devouring them right down to the bone, alternating with bites of the plaitfruit. It had been a long time since he'd eaten, and healing trances were always hard on energy reserves. Mara took a couple of the smaller ribenes, but from the way she nibbled at them it was clear she must have already eaten aboard Outbound Flight and was simply being companionable.

Midway through the meal the control board pinged with the announcement that the Skysprite had reached the edge of the planetoid's gravity well. Mara keyed in the hyperdrive, and with a flash of starlines they were off.

They chatted about inconsequential things as they ate, mostly just enjoying the chance to spend a few minutes of tranquility together. Luke finished off the ribenes and plaitfruit, and Mara produced a pair of choclime twists for dessert. "So," she commented as Luke bit into his. "When are you going to tell me about that deep revelation back in the recovery room?"

"Nothing deep or surprising," he told her, savoring the sweet tang. "It was just a random thought."

"Such as?" she asked, taking a bite of her twist.

"Such as, why should we settle for just warning the Brask Oto station?" he said. "Dreadnaughts might not have been known for speed, but they were known for toughness, and I doubt Thrawn took out all the weapons in his attack. Even if the station is alerted, it's going to have a hard time taking both a Dreadnaught and a Vagaari battle carrier."

"Agreed," Mara said. "So option two is?"

He smiled at her. "We intercept the Dreadnaught en route, get aboard, and take it back ourselves."

"Uh-huh," she said. "Just the two of us?"

Luke shrugged. "They won't be expecting it, that's for sure."

"No, it sounds too crazy even for us," Mara agreed dryly. "Any particular ideas on how we would get aboard without them noticing and massing fire against us?"

"Already taken care of," Luke assured her. "Back when Evlyn and I were retreating down the pylon, I threw my lightsaber into one of the D-Four turbolift doors, opening it to space. Assuming the local blast doors are working, that should have isolated the whole lobby area from the rest of the ship. We maneuver this thing into what's left of the pylon, go inside, reseal the hole I cut, repressurize, and we're in."

"Great," Mara said. "Then all we have to do is cut our way through two hundred Vagaari soldiers and take over the ship."

"Something like that," Luke agreed. "You game?"

Mara shrugged. "Sure, why not? I didn't have anything else planned for after lunch."

"Good," Luke said, wiping his fingers and mouth with his napkin and dropping it into the empty ribene container. "Then all we have to do is plot out our intercept point, maybe use some Jedi navigation technique to make up a little more time, and we'll be in."

"Right," Mara said, slipping the last half of her choclime twist back into its wrapper and resealing it. "Except that I'll be doing all that. Your job right now is to finish healing."

Luke grimaced. But she was right. "Fine," he said with a theatrical sigh as he adjusted his chair to horizontal position. "You always get all the fun stuff."

"I know," Mara said sweetly. "And I appreciate you indulging me that way. Now, go to sleep."

"Okay." Luke took a deep breath and stretched out to the Force. "Just don't forget to wake me when we get there."

"You'll be the first to know," she promised. "Pleasant dreams."

His last view before the darkness of the healing trance folded over him was of her red-gold hair shimmering in the light as she bent over the navigation console.