by Timothy Zahn
"Fel's transport, for one thing," Mara told him. "No idea what else, but from the way Drask took off I'd guess something serious. Vital equipment, or possibly fuel storage."
Luke winced. "Right. See you there."
The air began to smell of smoke before he was halfway down the main portside corridor. He kept going; and then, suddenly, he was there, braking to a halt behind a dozen Chiss with handheld extinguishers running into a half-open door through which smoke was pouring. He spotted Mara off to one side with Fel and eased his way past a Chiss in military dress uniform shouting orders in a sharp, staccato language. "Situation?" he called to Mara.
"The fire's right by a nexus of maneuvering jets and their fuel supply," she told him grimly. She'd stripped off her fancy jacket and gown, and was dressed now only in the gray combat leotard and soft-boots she'd been wearing underneath the formal wear. "The stormtroopers are already inside with extinguishers, trying to keep it away from the tanks."
Luke looked over at Fel. The young Imperial was wearing a stormtrooper's headset comlink, an intense expression on his face as he stared through the open door. "Don't they have automatic extinguisher systems?" he asked.
"They used to," Mara said. "Apparently, a malfunction in the system was what caused the explosion in the first place."
"That's useful," Luke said, blinking back tears as the acrid smoke stung his eyes. Some of the Chiss who had gone into the fire zone were starting to come out now, most of them staggering slightly as they trailed plumes of smoke. "How come the stormtroopers are in there?"
"They were the first ones on the scene with self-contained breathing equipment," Fel said before Mara could answer. "Speaking of breathing, how are Jedi in oxygen-poor atmospheres?"
"We can handle a few minutes," Luke said. "Less, if there's a lot of physical or mental exertion involved. What do you need?"
"Some delicate lightsaber work." Fel pointed to the doorway through which the smoke was pouring. "They've got the fuel tanks isolated for the moment, but the fire's got too much of a head start and it's pushing in on them. They think they've located the extinguisher system—"
"They think?"
"That's why the work needs to be delicate," Fel said. "Otherwise, they'd just blast the lines open and be done with it. What we need is for you to lightly scratch the conduits, just enough to let out a few drops so we can see exactly what kind of liquid's inside. The last thing we want is to dump more fuel or something else flammable."
"No kidding," Mara said. "Assuming they're right, then what?"
"Then you cut them all the way open," Fel said. "It looks like the explosion only warped the area around the main spray valves, so if you can open the lines behind them we should be able to flood the compartment and put it out in short order."
Luke looked over at the dress-uniformed Chiss, now huddled with a pair of crewers strapping on air tanks and breather masks. Protocol, he knew, probably dictated that they clear this with one of the ship's officers before going in.
But the officer looked too busy to listen to passengers. And if the fire was already getting close to the fuel tanks... "All right," he said, coming to a decision. "How do I find the conduit?"
"How do we find it?" Mara corrected, her lightsaber already in hand.
"Mara—"
"Don't even think it," she warned. "Besides, I'm better with delicate work than you are."
Unfortunately, she was right. With an effort, Luke forced back his instinctive reaction to shield her from danger wherever possible. "Fine," he said. "How do we find the conduit?"
"They'll guide you in," Fel told him. "Watch for a bright light."
"Right." Unhooking his lightsaber from his belt, Luke took a deep breath and stretched out to the Force. He lifted his eyebrows at Mara, got her confirming nod, and ducked through the doorway.
The smoke was considerably thicker inside the room than Luke had expected, swirling madly around as the compartment's venting system tried its best to clear it away. Ahead, through another half-open door, he could see the blaze of the fire, the crackling of flames punctuated by the hiss from fire extinguishers. Squinting against the smoke, he slipped through the second doorway, dodging around staggering crewers and trying to stay clear of the flames as he looked around for the stormtroopers.
There was no sign of them. But there was another doorway angling off to the right where the fire was burning even more intensely. Even as he sent a questioning thought toward Mara, a dim light suddenly shone out from the room, the narrow beam fighting its way through the smoke.
Mara had seen it, too. Luke caught her wordless signal, sent back an equally wordless confirmation, and started picking his way through gaps in the flames. He managed it with only a few minor burns, and a minute later eased into the room.
The four stormtroopers were standing in the far corner, arranged in a combat semicircle with their backs to an extensive array of fuel tanks, sending short bursts of spray from their extinguishers at any tendril of flame that threaded its way too close. The one shining his light through the doorway looked over as the two Jedi came in and flipped the light upward, centering the beam on one of a set of five conduits snaking their way across the ceiling. Luke nodded acknowledgment and looked for a way through the flames.
Unfortunately, there wasn't one.
He peered into the smoke, listening to his heartbeat counting out the seconds. Even Jedi breath control had its limits, and he and Mara were getting dangerously close to them. He could use the Force to lift his lightsaber to the conduit, of course, but he wasn't at all sure he would have enough control at that range for the delicate scratch Fel wanted. The only other option he could see would be to lift Mara there directly and let her do the job.
It would be risky. That much activity would put a severe strain on his system in his current oxygen-deprived state, quickly running him to the limit of his breath control and leaving him at the mercy of the smoke still filling the room. If the smoke also contained toxic gases, he could be in serious trouble.
He would have to chance it. Turning to Mara, he replaced his lightsaber on his belt and gestured toward the conduit. He could sense her own doubts, but she knew better than to waste time arguing. She nodded her readiness, and he stretched out to the Force to lift her gently off the deck. Keeping her as high over the flames as he could without banging her head against the various pieces of equipment jutting down from the ceiling, he moved her into position. She had her lightsaber ignited before he eased her to a stop, giving the conduit a quick and almost casual-looking slash with the tip of the blade.
For a long moment nothing happened. Then, through the haze of smoke, Luke saw a few drops of liquid collect on the underside of the conduit. They coalesced into a single large drop and fell onto the deck below.
With a sizzle audible even over the crackle of the flames, the particular tongue of flame directly below flickered and went out.
Mara didn't wait for further instructions. Her lightsaber slashed again, slicing the conduit lengthwise; and suddenly the room was filled with a noisy spray of liquid, splattering against the ceiling and walls and showering down onto the fire.
It was almost too late. Luke's vision was starting to waver now as his body ran out of air, and it was all he could do to keep from dropping Mara onto the dying flames and fire-heated deck below her.
Clenching his teeth, he hung on. A few more seconds, he told himself sternly. A few more seconds and the fire would be out, or near enough. Then he could set Mara down and they could both start breathing again.
Unless between the lingering smoke and the extinguisher spray the room contained nothing but those toxic gases he'd wondered about earlier. In that case, he would just have to hope that the fire would be mostly gone before he blacked out, or at least that the stormtroopers would notice and pull him out of anything before he burned to death. A few more seconds...
He jerked as something suddenly came down over his head. He blinked; but even as his eyes registere
d the vision-enhancing eyepieces in front of them, his skin registered something far more important: the feel of clean, cool air being blown at his face.
He reached a hand up to his head, the fingertips bumping against something hot and hard. But the reaction had been pure reflex anyway, because he'd already figured out what was happening. One of the stormtroopers, recognizing his desperate need for air, had come to his side and put his own helmet over Luke's head.
He took a deep, careful breath. The air smelled as good as it felt. He took another breath, and another, filling his lungs and replenishing the oxygen in his bloodstream. His thoughts flicked to Mara, but before he could ask he sensed that she, too, was being given the same care by a stormtrooper standing on the hot but no longer burning deck beneath her. He eased his Force-hold on her, lowering her down into the Imperial's waiting arms.
There were a pair of hands on his shoulders now, half guiding, half pushing him back the way he'd come. A moment later they reached the doorway and stepped through. "I'm all right," he called, taking one final breath and pushing the helmet away. Its owner caught it on its way up, and Luke got just a glimpse of an intense, dark-skinned face before the other slid the helmet back down over his own head again. He glanced back over his shoulder to make sure Mara was all right—
And froze, feeling his mouth drop open in astonishment. Like him, Mara had taken a few breaths of clean air and was in the process of returning the borrowed stormtrooper helmet to its owner.
Only the head sticking up out of the white armor wasn't human. It was green with touches of orange, dominated by large eyes and a narrow highlighting of glistening black scales that curved over the top and sides of the head almost to the nose. He caught sight of Luke staring at him and his mouth gaped open in what had to be a grin.
Luke could only stare back. The 501st Stormtrooper Legion—Vader's Fist—the absolute epitome of Emperor Palpatine's hatred of nonhumans and his determination to bring them under human domination.
And one of its own members was an alien...
* * *
Under the circumstances, Luke had to privately admit, General Drask was surprisingly polite about the whole thing. "We appreciate the assistance," he said, standing like a small, immovable pillar in the smoke-stained corridor as a small river of Chiss moved past and around him on cleanup duty. His voice was under careful control, but there was no mistaking the smoldering fire in his glowing red eyes. "But in the future, you will not take action aboard this vessel without specific authorization from myself, Aristocra Chaf'orm'bintrano, Captain Brast'alshi'barku, or another command-rank officer. Is that understood?"
"Clearly," Fel said before either Luke or Mara could say anything. "I apologize for overstepping our bounds."
Drask nodded shortly and brushed past them, heading aft toward the damaged area. "Come on," Fel said to Luke, lip twitching in an ironic half smile. "Our work here appears to be done."
They headed forward. "Certainly a gracious bunch, aren't they," Mara commented sourly as more Chiss hurried past them going in the other direction.
"You have to look at it from his point of view," Fel reminded her. "First of all, we're supposed to be honored diplomatic guests, not volunteer firefighters."
"That's Formbi's point of view, not Drask's," Mara countered. "At least the honored part is."
"Doesn't matter how he personally feels," Fel said. "He has his orders, and when a Chiss accepts orders he carries them out, period. Still, that said"—he smiled suddenly—"I suspect he's chewing hull fasteners right now. He doesn't like anything about the Empire of the Hand or humans in general, and it has to gall him no end for us to have saved his ship for him."
"Which brings up a more serious question," Luke said. "Namely, what exactly happened back there? Accident, or sabotage?"
"I'm sure they'll be looking into that," Fel said. "But if it was sabotage, it was a pretty poor job of it. Even if those tanks had ruptured, it would only have put one relatively minor sector of the ship out of action. It certainly wouldn't have killed everyone aboard or anything so dramatic."
"Unless that's all the damage the saboteur needed," Mara suggested. "Maybe all he wanted to do was scuttle the mission, or delay it while another ship was brought out for us to use."
"Fine, but why would anyone want to delay the mission?" Fel asked reasonably. "Everyone aboard seems pretty eager to get on with it."
"Seems being the operative word," Mara pointed out. "Someone could easily be faking."
"Really," Fel said, frowning. "I thought you Jedi could pick up on things like that."
"Not as well as we'd sometimes like," Luke said. "We can pick up on strong emotion, but not necessarily subtle lies. Especially if the liar is good at it."
"Or maybe our saboteur does want to get to Outbound Flight, but doesn't want all the rest of us getting there with him," Mara said thoughtfully. "If he could manage alternate transport for himself while we were left hanging, that again might be all he needs."
"But what would getting to Outbound Flight first gain him?" Luke asked. "Besides, the Chiss have already been there, haven't they?"
"Actually, all they did was a long-range fly-by," Fel said. "They got enough readings to figure out what they'd found, then hightailed it out of there and forwarded the data to the Nine Ruling Families with a request for instructions. The Families held a quick debate, declared the area off limits, and put Formbi in charge of getting in touch with all of us."
"Then let's try backing up a step," Luke suggested. "What is it about Outbound Flight that anyone might particularly want?"
Mara shrugged. "It's Old Republic technology," she pointed out. "Fifty-plus years out of date. That makes it pretty much of historical value only."
"Only to the three of us here," Fel said. "A lot of the cultures in this part of space are pretty primitive, technologically. Any one of them could learn a lot from a set of Dreadnaughts in even marginal condition. I daresay even the Chiss military would learn something if they had the time to take everything apart and study it."
"Or maybe the Geroons figure they can trade what's left for a new home." Luke shook his head. "I wish we had more information."
"We do," Fel said, sounding puzzled. "Or rather, I do."
Luke looked at him in surprise. "You do?"
"Sure," Fel said. "Before we left, Admiral Parck went looking in Thrawn's records for anything he might have on Outbound Flight. Turns out he had a complete copy of the project's official operational manual."
"The whole thing?" Luke asked, frowning.
"The whole thing," Fel confirmed. "Four data cards covering personnel lists, inventory manifests, technical readouts and maintenance guides, flight operations checklists and procedures, schematics—everything. You want to take a look?"
"I thought you'd never ask," Mara said dryly. "Let's go."
The Imperial transport was docked in a mirror image of the half port and reception room that the Jade Sabre was using on the opposite side of the ship. The stormtroopers were already inside in the ready room, stripping off their armor to check for damage from their battle against the fire and talking quietly together about the incident.
"You know, I don't think I've ever seen a stormtrooper without his armor before," Luke commented as Fel led the way through the ready room and into a narrow corridor. "Not a conscious one, anyway."
"They do come out on occasion," Fel said with a grin. "Though never in public, of course."
"Fine, but why stormtroopers?" Mara asked. "Why didn't you just design and create your own elite force if that's what you wanted?"
Fel shrugged. "Mainly because the psychological advantage was already in place," he said. "Thrawn had brought several stormtrooper legions out here, and used them very effectively against a whole series of troublemakers. Once potential enemies came to respect and fear men in stormtrooper armor, it paid to keep using it."
"Even if not all those inside the armor are men anymore?" Luke asked.
Fel smil
ed. "Yes—Su-mil. Also goes by the warrior name Grappler."
"Your stormtroopers have names?" Mara asked. "I thought they were just assigned operating numbers."
"Even some of Palpatine's stormtroopers had names," Fel told her. "We all have names here. In case you're interested, Aurek-Seven consists of Grappler, Watchman, Shadow, and Cloud."
"Colorful," Mara commented. "I hope you don't expect us to keep track of them in public."
"Especially since they don't seem to have gotten around to imprinting their names on their helmets," Luke added.
"And they never will," Fel said. "We don't put that kind of identification on stormtrooper armor. That way, no one can tell whether the stormtroopers he's facing are the absolute best the Empire of the Hand has to offer or a set of freshly trained recruits facing their first genuine action. It keeps our enemies from playing the odds against us."
"Were Su-mil's people one of those enemies?" Mara asked.
"Not at all," Fel assured her. "Su-mil is an Eickarie, one of the latest peoples to join the Empire of the Hand. They were a fragmented tribal people whom we helped liberate from the domination of a very organized warlord with a relative handful of disciplined troops."
"Helped how?" Mara asked. "Threw him out, then moved in yourselves?"
"Hardly," Fel said. "The Eickaries were actually very good fighters. They'd just gotten used to fighting among themselves over the years, and the Warlord took advantage of that to keep them working at cross-purposes. All we did was help organize and arm them. They did all the rest."
"And once they were free they simply decided to join up with you?" Luke asked.
"We're not Palpatine's Empire, either, Master Skywalker," Fel said. "We're more like a confederation than a true empire, in fact, with allies instead of conquered peoples. We keep the name, again, mainly for the historical aspects."
"And the psychological value, of course," Mara murmured.
"Of course," Fel agreed. "If you've gotten used to the notion of the Empire of the Hand being unbeatable, you're likely to give up that much sooner when a Star Destroyer appears over your planet or a squad of stormtroopers blows a hole through your defensive perimeter. Frankly, our philosophy is that the best battles are those where the enemy gives up before any shots have to be fired at all."
