Star Wars: Survivor's Quest

CHAPTER 8

The next two days went by quietly. Luke spent much of the time with the Geroons, poring over New Republic planetary listings and trying hard to be patient with their continual and wearying mixture of hero worship and eagerness to please. Between world searches he tried to draw out some details of their encounter with Outbound Flight, but their stories seemed so confused and half mythic that he soon gave up the effort. Clearly, none of these particular Geroons had been there, and those who had hadn't done a very good job of reporting the event.

He didn't see Mara much during that time except at meals and in the evenings after they had settled in for the night. But a comparison of notes showed she was doing far better at the task of information gathering than he was. With Feesa as her guide, she had begun a methodical study of the Chaf Envoy and its crew.

Her first task had been to confirm some numbers. It turned out Fel had been right about the crew complement: besides General Drask there were four officers, thirty other crew members, and twelve line soldiers, making a total of forty-seven wearing the black Defense Fleet uniforms. Formbi's staff, in contrast, consisted only of Feesa and two other members of the Chaf family.

She never did get a proper explanation as to why Formbi was traveling so light, though Feesa did mention that under normal circumstances the entire ship's crew would have been Chaf, with no Defense Fleet personnel present at all. Eventually, she and Luke concluded that he had been right about the Nine Families' reluctance to have a single family get too much of the credit for the Outbound Flight expedition. The credit, or anything else that might come out of it.

The Chiss, for the most part, seemed fairly neutral to Mara's presence and the various questions she put to them during her tour. Drask continued to be gruffly polite when she ran into him, though there was no way of knowing how much of the courtesy was because of Mara's own status and how much was the fact that Formbi's aide was standing right there, ready to report any slippage in proper behavior toward the Aristocra's guests.

Formbi was even busier than the general, spending most of his time consulting in private with his other two staffers, Drask, or Talshib and the other ship's officers. Mara saw him a few times, but only at a distance, and usually in deep conversation with someone else. After that first formal evening meal together, he also began eating elsewhere, leaving his host duties mainly to Feesa and Talshib's officers.

As near as she could tell, Fel and his stormtroopers also kept largely to themselves and mostly out of sight of everyone else. On the handful of occasions outside of mealtimes when she ran into Fel, he was cordial enough, though she reported sensing a certain preoccupation beneath the surface. Neither of them mentioned the stolen data cards.

And though she readily admitted she couldn't prove it, she also had the distinct impression that Dean Jinzler was avoiding her.

If so, Luke mused, and particularly under the current circumstances, it was probably not the smartest move he could have made. Though Mara didn't actually say so, it wasn't hard for him to read between the lines and see that by the middle of the second day she had set herself the task of deliberately seeking Jinzler out wherever and whenever she could.

Even with that, though, the man was mostly successful in not letting himself be found. That irritated Mara all the more, and at one point Luke had to endure a prickly late-night hour in their quarters when he suggested to her that she might want to ease back a bit.

Finally, thankfully, late in the evening of the second day, Formbi summoned his passengers to the command center observation deck. But not, as it turned out, for the reason everybody thought.

"I welcome you to Brask Oto Command Station," Formbi announced, gesturing to the double-pyramid-shaped mass of glistening white metal floating in the center of the main viewing display. "It is here where you must all pause and consider."

There was a multiple buzz from the Geroons, like a cluster of honey-darters hovering over a promising flower bush. "Pause and consider what?" Bearsh asked. "Are we not arrived at Outbound Flight?"

"We are not," Formbi said. "As I said, you are here to consider."

"But we were told we had arrived," Bearsh persisted, sounding as upset as Luke had ever heard him. Small wonder, really, given the extent to which the Geroons had dressed for the occasion. Not only were they wearing elaborate robes covered with tooled metal filaments that looked to be twice as heavy as their usual garb, but all of them had also come to the meeting outfitted with their own shoulder-slung wolvkil body. Added to the already uncomfortable heat of the Chiss ship, they must have been sweltering under their loads.

"We have arrived at the point where the difficult part of the journey begins," Formbi told him patiently. "All must hear of the dangers we will face, then make a final decision whether you wish to proceed."

"But—"

"Patience, Steward Bearsh," Jinzler soothed the Geroon. Even here, Luke noted, Jinzler was standing as far away from the two Jedi as he could without being obvious about it. "Let's hear what he has to say, shall we?"

"Thank you, Ambassador," Formbi said, inclining his head toward Jinzler. He gestured behind him, and the double-pyramid station vanished from the display.

Luke inhaled sharply as a murmur of similar astonishment rippled through the assembled dignitaries. Centered on the display was a stunningly beautiful globular cluster, hundreds of stars tightly packed into a compact sphere.

"The Redoubt," Formbi identified it. "Within this group of stars lies the last refuge of the Chiss people should our forces ever be overwhelmed in battle. It is impregnable, impossible for even a determined enemy to quickly or easily penetrate, with war vessels and firepoints scattered throughout. There are also other surprises that nature itself has created for the unwary."

"Starting with some really tricky navigation," Fel commented. "Those stars are awfully close together."

"Correct," Formbi said. "And that is where the principal danger lies, to us as well as any potential enemy."

He gestured again at the display. "As you say, the stars lie close together, and the routes between them have not been entirely mapped out. We will need to travel slowly, making many stops along the way for navigational readings. The journey will take approximately four days."

"I thought your ships had already located the planetoid where Outbound Flight crashed," Fel reminded him. "Can't we just follow their course?"

"We indeed will use their data as our starting point," Formbi confirmed. "But inside the Redoubt, nothing is ever constant or stable. There is a great deal of radiation to which we will be subjected each time we halt for readings. There are also many planetoids and large cometary bodies that travel on unpredictable paths, driven by the constantly changing battle of gravitational forces. These, too, pose a significant hazard."

"We waste time," Bearsh spoke up. The annoyance had passed, and his voice was calm again. "Those of Outbound Flight gave their lives for us. Shall the Geroons shy away from danger as we seek to honor their memory?"

"Agreed," Fel said firmly. "We're going in."

"As am I," Jinzler added.

"We're in, too," Luke said, making it unanimous.

"Thank you," Formbi said, inclining his head toward them. "Thank you all."

Luke felt a strange shiver run up his back. Formbi's thanks, of course, had been addressed to all of them. But at the same time, he had the oddest feeing that the words had somehow been specifically directed at him and Mara.

Formbi turned to the Geroons. "And now, Steward Bearsh, you and your companions must say farewell to those aboard your vessel. They cannot accompany us farther, but must wait here for our return."

"I understand," Bearsh said. "If you will prepare a signal frequency, I will speak with them."

Formbi nodded and gestured again. For a few seconds the Redoubt cluster remained centered on the display. Then the image cleared away to reveal a Geroon standing in front of the children's playground they had seen earlier. "You may speak," Formbi said.

Bearsh drew himself up to his full height and began speaking in an alien language whose singsong tones ran mostly to two-part harmony. The kind of language, Luke decided, that a species with twin mouths might logically be expected to create.

Formbi had drifted off to one side and was gazing down into the command center. Trying to be unobtrusive, Luke drifted over to join him.

"Master Skywalker," Formbi greeted him softly. "I'm pleased you will be accompanying us the rest of the way."

"That's why we came," Luke reminded him. "I was wondering exactly how tricky the navigation is going to be for this trip."

Formbi smiled, his glowing eyes glittering in the relative dimness of the observation deck. "It won't be simple, but it certainly won't be impossible, either," he said. "Why do you ask?"

"There are some Jedi techniques that can help with hyperspace navigation," Luke told him. "Especially with something as complicated and crowded as this Redoubt cluster. We can sometimes find easier or safer routes than a nav computer can come up with."

"An interesting thought," Formbi said. "I wish we could have borrowed some of you Jedi when we first set out to study the cluster. Many lives would undoubtedly have been saved."

Luke frowned. "Are you saying you only just started building this haven?"

"I make a small joke," Formbi admitted. "No, we began studying the cluster more than two hundred years ago, before we even knew of your existence." He turned back to gaze at the Geroons on the display. "Though I will also say that it has only been in the past fifty years that the work has been set at the current pace of urgency," he conceded. "Fortunately, it now nears completion."

"I see," Luke said. Fifty years ago: just about the time Outbound Flight made its appearance in this area. Was the Old Republic the "determined enemy" that had worried the Chiss so much that they'd started in earnest to build a place to hide? Or could they have foreseen the rise of Palpatine and the Empire? Thrawn might have, certainly, if the other leaders had been willing to listen to him.

It would probably have worked, too. Even a man as arrogant as Grand Moff Tarkin might have hesitated before taking his Death Star into a maze like that. "I see now why your people don't need to bother with preemptive strikes," he commented. "With a refuge like this, you can afford to let any enemy take the first shot."

Formbi swiveled sharply to face him. "That has nothing to do with the Redoubt," he said stiffly. "It is completely and purely a matter of honor and morality. The Chiss are never to be the aggressor people. We cannot and will not make war against any until and unless we have been attacked. That has been our law for a thousand years, Master Skywalker, and we will not bend from it."

"I understand," Luke said hastily, taken aback by the vehemence of Formbi's response. No wonder Thrawn and his aggressive military philosophy had rubbed these people backward. "I didn't mean to imply anything else. Please forgive me for not making myself clear."

"Yes, of course," Formbi said, the fire in his eyes fading somewhat as he pulled himself back under control. "And forgive me in turn for my outburst. The subject... let's simply say that it's been a matter of strenuous discussion in recent days among the Nine Ruling Families."

Luke lifted an eyebrow. "Oh?"

"Yes," Formbi said in a tone that said, Drop the subject. "At any rate, I thank you for your offer of assistance, but your Jedi powers of navigation should not be needed."

Luke bowed. "As you wish, Aristocra. If you choose to reconsider, we stand ready to assist." Turning, he headed back toward where Mara was standing, wondering yet again how Leia could make this diplomacy stuff look so simple.

The Geroons, he noted, seemed to be near the end of their conversation. The alien on the display was humming something that sounded like a cross between a military fanfare and a Huttese opera excerpt, and Bearsh had just started his equally musical reply.

"What was that all about?" Mara asked as Luke came up beside her.

"I was offering Formbi our help in navigating the Redoubt," Luke said, frowning. There was a new tension in his wife's face that hadn't been there when he'd left a minute ago. "He says they can do it themselves. What's wrong?"

"I don't know," Mara said, her eyes narrowed as she swept her gaze slowly around the room. "Something just hit me..."

"Something bad?" Luke suggested, stretching out to the Force as he tried to read the pattern of her thoughts. "Something dangerous?"

"Something not right," she said. "Something very much not right. Not dangerous, I don't think, at least not in and of itself. Just... not right."

Across the observation deck, the two-toned music stopped. "Thank you, Aristocra Formbi," Bearsh said, switching back to his stilted Basic. After the Geroon language, the words sounded startlingly drab. "My people express regret that they cannot all pay homage to the heroes of Outbound Flight, but we understand your concerns."

His mouths made quick chopping motions. "At any rate, our vessel would most certainly not survive the voyage. And if the Geroon people perish, what use then would be Outbound Flight's sacrifice?"

"What use, indeed," Formbi agreed. Turning toward the command floor, he lifted his voice. "We are ready, Captain Talshib," he called. "Take us to Outbound Flight."

Feesa had called this place the forward observation lounge during their inspection tour of the Chaf Envoy, Jinzler remembered as he sipped the drink he'd brought with him and gazed out the curved viewport stretching across the entire end of the room in front of him. It had had a spectacular view of the Chiss starscape at the time, as well as a large collection of comfortable-looking chairs and couches, and he'd made a mental note to come back later after things had quieted down.

Now, of course, half a standard hour into their trip to Outbound Flight, the view wasn't nearly so interesting. Hyperspace, after all, looked pretty much the same anywhere you went.

But the couch was still comfortable, he had his drink and his solitude, and they were on their way to Outbound Flight. At the moment, that was all he asked out of life.

He lifted his glass to the mottled patterns of hyperspace streaming by. To Lorana, he gave a silent toast.

Behind him, the lounge door slid open. "Hello?" a voice called tentatively.

Jinzler sighed. So much for the solitude part. "Hello," he called back. "This is Dean—Ambassador Jinzler," he corrected himself.

"Oh," the other said tentatively, and as Jinzler turned he could see a shadowy figure move into the darkness. "I am Estosh. Do I intrude?"

One of the Geroons. The youngest, in fact, if Jinzler was remembering the introductions correctly. "No, of course not," he assured the alien. "Come in."

"Thank you," Estosh said, groping his way through the maze of furniture to Jinzler's couch. "What do you do here?"

"Nothing, really," Jinzler said. "I was just watching the light-years fly past, and thinking about Outbound Flight."

"They were a great people," Estosh said softly, sitting gingerly down beside Jinzler. "Which of course makes you yourself a great person," he hastened to add.

Jinzler grimaced in the dark. "Perhaps," he said.

"You are great," Estosh insisted. "Even if you do not feel it."

"Thank you," Jinzler said. "Tell me, what do you know about what happened?"

"I was not yet alive at that time, so I know only what I have been told," Estosh said. "I know that long before your people arrived the Vagaari came to our worlds, conquering and destroying and taking everything of value to themselves. They used us as laborers and craftspeople and slaves. They sent us into unsafe mines and dangerous mountains, and forced us to walk before them on warfields that we might die instead of them." He gave a shiver that shook the whole couch. "They wore us down until we were almost nothing."

"And then Outbound Flight came?"

Estosh sighed deeply, a sound like a whistle in a deep cave. "You cannot imagine it, Ambassador Jinzler," he said. "Suddenly they were there before us, weapons blazing from all directions, shattering our oppressors' vessels and destroying them."

Ahead, the churning hyperspace sky faded abruptly into starlines, and the starlines collapsed into a brilliant mass of stars. "Must be one of the navigation stops Aristocra Formbi mentioned," Jinzler commented, gazing out at the view. "Impressive, isn't it?"

"Indeed," Estosh said. "It is a shame the Chiss have no worlds here they would be willing to give us. To live here among such beauty—"

"Quiet," Jinzler cut him off, listening hard as a quiet warning bell went off in the back of his mind. Something was wrong...

Abruptly, it clicked. "The engines," he said, scrambling to his feet.

"You feel that? They're sputtering."

"Yes," Estosh breathed. "Yes, I do. What does it mean?"

"It means something's wrong with them," Jinzler said. "Or with the control lines. Or," he added grimly, "with the people in the command center."

Mara had just pulled off her boots in preparation for bed when the deck seemed to shiver beneath her feet.

She paused, stretching out to the Force, all her senses alert. "Luke?"

"Yes," he murmured, frowning in concentration. "Feels like something funny's going on with the engines."

"They've picked up a wobble," Mara said, flipping her legs up over the edge of the bed and rolling across to Luke's side, the side that had the comm panel. Stretching out, she jabbed the button. "Command center, this is Jedi Skywalker," she called. "What's going on?"

"There is nothing to be worried about, Jedi Skywalker," a Chiss voice answered. "There is a problem with the control lines to the aft end of the vessel."

"What kind of problem?"

"It is not your concern," the voice said tartly. "It is a small problem only, and we will deal with it. Stay in your quarters."

There was a click as the connection was cut from the other end. "I can hear the soothing tones of General Drask's voice in that order," Luke said, grabbing his shirt and starting to put it back on. "Sounds like he's been talking to his people about us."

"We going to check it out anyway?" Mara asked, rolling back to where she'd left her boots.

"Actually, I was thinking we might try a different approach," Luke said, finishing with his shirt and reaching for his lightsaber. "We've already seen one noisy diversion aboard this ship, and there's a lot of the same smell to this one."

"I agree," Mara said, picking up her own lightsaber. "He said the problem is aft. We go forward?"

"Right," Luke said. "You've been studying the ship. What's up there someone might be interested in?"

"All sorts of good stuff," she told him. "Forward navigational sensors, meteor defense systems, shield generators, some crew quarters, and bulk storage."

"Including food?"

"Right," Mara said. "Best of all, not very far back from the bow is the commander's glider."

"The hyperdrive-capable boat Fel told us about?"

"That's the one," Mara said. "Pick your target."

"Well, you can't expect him to make it easy on us," Luke said philosophically. "Here's the plan. You head for the bow along the main starboard corridor, watching for anyone or anything suspicious. I'll backtrack past the Geroon shuttle, see if there's any unusual activity in that area, then cross over to port side and check out the Imperials' transport. If everything looks okay, I'll head forward along the port-side corridor and meet you at the bow."

"Sounds good," Mara said. "See you there. And watch yourself."

"You, too."

The starboard corridor was largely deserted as Mara made her way forward, her senses alert for trouble. Most of the on-duty crewers were apparently aft, dealing with the engine trouble, while the rest were either snugged comfortably in their beds or engaged in other late-evening relaxations. The fact that the whole crew had obviously not been turned out implied that Drask did indeed consider the problem to be a minor one. Just the sort of low-key, not-quite-crisis-level event their mysterious data card thief might use for his next bit of sleight of hand.

She just wished she knew which of the possible targets he was after this time. Still, with a little luck, maybe she'd get a chance to ask him.

She was nearly to the bow when the corridor lights abruptly went out.

She froze in her tracks, pressing her back against the side wall in a pocket of shadow thrown by a misaimed emergency light. Wisps of sensation seemed to swirl around her as she stretched out with the Force, marking the presence of thoughts and emotions somewhere ahead. Someone was definitely moving around nearby. Maybe two someones.

Maybe even three.

She scowled to herself, peering into the darkness as she fought to push the hazy impressions into something solid. Between the Chiss and Geroons, the presence of so many unfamiliar minds surrounding her was severely limiting her ability to focus. There, ahead and to the right? Was that one of the beings she was sensing?

And then, from a side corridor in that direction, came a barely audible clink, as if someone had brushed the bulkhead with something hard. Holding her lightsaber ready, she slipped toward the archway leading into the corridor, keeping to the shadows as much as she could.

There was another faint clink as she reached the archway, this one much closer. She pressed her back to the wall and lifted her lightsaber high, thumb ready on the activator.

For a second she held the pose. Then, in a sudden smooth surge of motion, she swung around, igniting her lightsaber as she rotated, and planted herself in combat stance squarely in the center of the archway—

To find herself facing an Imperial stormtrooper as he simultaneously swung out from behind a coolant pump into the same stance, his BlasTech E-11 pointed squarely back at her.

Mara's first impulse, from somewhere deep in the dark corners of her mind, was to lower her weapon and order him to lower his. Her second impulse, from a more recent frame of reference, was to slash the blue lightsaber blade forward and cut him in half. Her final impulse, as her brain finally caught up with the conflicting reflexes, was to simply do nothing.

Fortunately, perhaps, the stormtrooper himself seemed to have no such confusion of loyalties or responses. Even as Mara fought back the urge to kill, he snapped the muzzle of his weapon upward away from her. "Jedi Skywalker," he said. "My apologies."

"No problem," Mara said, fighting the words out through a momentarily stiff throat as she closed down her lightsaber. That unexpected surge of past patterns had been incredibly disconcerting. "What are you doing here?"

"Commander Fel heard of the problem with the ship's engines and ordered me to secure the bow from potential danger," he said. "You?"

"Same thing," Mara said, peering down the darkened corridor over his shoulder. "You find anything?"

"The area around the glider appears secure," he said. "My intention was to continue forward and check the shield generators."

"Fine," Mara said. "We'll go together."

"Acknowledged," he said. Without asking, he stepped past her and moved into point position, ahead and slightly to Mara's left. In silence, they continued forward.

They had gone perhaps ten more meters when Mara caught a glimpse of something ahead. "Hold," she murmured, running through the Jedi sight-enhancement techniques as they stopped. It hadn't been a movement she'd seen, exactly, but something else.

The stormtrooper, with his helmet's own vision enhancements, got it first. "We're looking through the archway into the shield generator room," he murmured back. "That was a reflection from the generator shell."

"Right," Mara agreed, trying to overlay the view ahead onto her mental schematic of this part of the ship. A reflection off the semi-spherical cap of the shield generator meant someone was inside the room, moving port and possibly aft.

Unfortunately, there were three other exits from the compartment in that direction: one heading aft toward the shield monitor room behind it, one heading forward toward a small cluster of crew quarters, and the third all the way across the chamber to a mirror-image archway into the portside corridor. Three possible ways out, with only her and one stormtrooper available to cover them all.

Except that Luke should be on his way toward that far portside exit. Luke? She sent out the mental call.

Coming, the reply came, accompanied by a glimpse of the portside corridor. It was apparently as dark over there as it was on this side of the ship, but he seemed to be making good progress and she had the sense that he was nearby.

At any rate, they couldn't afford to wait any longer. "All right," she murmured to the stormtrooper. "You keep going straight ahead. Make sure he doesn't double back and get out through the starboard archway up there. If it looks like you can do it without risking him getting behind you, go ahead and sweep him portside. I'll head back to that last cross corridor and try to cut him off before he can get out through the monitor room."

"Acknowledged," the stormtrooper said. Lifting his BlasTech, he moved cautiously forward.

Mara didn't wait to see how he fared, but turned and moved as quickly and silently as possible back to the cross-corridor. Unlike the main passageway, this one had several jogs in it as it wended its way around and between rooms of various sizes and shapes. That meant more cover for her, of course; unfortunately, it also meant she wouldn't get a glimpse of the exit she was trying to block until she was practically on top of it. Setting her teeth, stretching out to the Force, she headed in.

She'd gone maybe five steps when the whole thing fell completely apart.

From somewhere ahead came a sharp shout and the sudden scuffle of running feet. Breathing a curse, Mara ducked ahead around the next jog in the corridor, coming into view of the generator room exit just in time to see the reflected blue flash of a Chiss charric heat weapon. Someplace in the distance, over the ruckus, she heard the distinctive snap-hiss of Luke's lightsaber. Sprinting to the doorway, she ducked through—

There was just the briefest flicker of warning, and she barely got her lightsaber ignited in time to block another charric blast that would have burned her upper right shoulder if it had gotten through. "Hold it!" she snapped, ducking back into the relative protection of the doorway as another pair of charric bolts shot past her face.

"Halt!" a harsh Chiss voice countered. "Identify!"

"Who do you think?" Mara shot back. "How many people have you got aboard with lightsabers?"

For a moment there was no reply. But at least the shooting had stopped. "Very well, Jedi Skywalker," the Chiss said in a somewhat more polite tone. "Come forward."

Warily, Mara stepped into the room. Over by the starboard shield generator to her right were two armed Chiss dressed in leisure clothing, apparently having come straight from the crew quarters a couple of corridors away. Behind them was the stormtrooper she'd sent in, his BlasTech held in ready position across his chest. Possibly the reason they'd stopped shooting at her, the cynical thought crossed her mind.

She turned her head to her left. At the far end of the generator room, Luke was coming toward the party from the portside archway, his lightsaber blade looking brighter than usual in the gloom.

And in the long gap between Luke and the Chiss, standing straight and tall and yet looking strangely vulnerable and forlorn, was Dean Jinzler.