Survivor's Quest

by Timothy Zahn

So what was it that was bringing all this back? Fel and his stormtroopers, the most visible image of Imperial rule and excesses? The mission itself and its constant reminder that the destruction of Outbound Flight had been one of Palpatine's early atrocities?

  Or was it something else entirely, something more subtle? After all, Palpatine had paid for his deeds with his life. So had Darth Vader and Tarkin and all the other Grand Moffs. Even Thrawn, whom she now realized had probably been nobler than all the rest of them put together, was gone. Only she, Mara Jade, the Emperor's Hand, had survived.

  Why?

  She rolled uncomfortably over onto her side, transferring her stare from the darkness of the ceiling to the darkness on the far side of the room. Survivor's guilt, she remembered hearing someone call it once. Was that what Fel and Outbound Flight had sparked in her? If true, it was pretty stupid, particularly at this late date.

  Unless it was what Luke had suggested earlier. That there were still things about the Empire that she was reluctant to let go of.

  She took a deep breath, let it out quietly. Luke was still awake, too, she knew, watching her emotions swirl around, ready to join her in her struggle whenever she was ready to invite him in.

  She reached over and found his hand. "We're supposed to be doing Jedi healing trances, right?" she murmured.

  He took the hint. "Right," he murmured back. "I love you."

  "I love you, too," she said. "Good night."

  "Good night."

  She closed her eyes, settling herself more comfortably against the pillow and stretching out to the Force. After all, Luke had accepted her, dark past and all. If he could do it, she certainly ought to be able to.

  * * *

  Mara's breathing slowed, her mind and emotions quieting as she slipped into the healing trance. Luke watched her lovingly as she went silent, then gently disengaged his hand from hers and rolled over to face the opposite wall. It had been a long and busy day, and he had his own burns to deal with. He'd best get to it.

  But the calmness and concentration necessary for the healing trance refused to come. Something was going on aboard this ship, something wrapped in a dark and murky purpose. Someone aboard—maybe more than one someone—was going to Outbound Flight for some other reason besides respect or penance.

  He shifted his shoulders uncomfortably beneath the weight of the blankets. But then, to be perfectly honest, didn't he have an ulterior reason of his own for being here?

  Of course he did. Outbound Flight was a relic from the last, turbulent days of the Old Republic, its existence and records offering the chance to fill in some of the gaps in the New Republic's history of that period. But even more importantly, it might offer a detailed look into the ways and organization of that last generation of the full Jedi Order. There might be information aboard that would fill in the gaps in his own knowledge and understanding, showing him what he was doing right.

  And, more importantly, what he was doing wrong.

  He grimaced in the darkness. Luke Skywalker, Jedi Master. The Jedi Master, as far as most of the New Republic was concerned. Founder, teacher, and leader of the resurgent Jedi Order.

  How in the worlds had he wound up in this position, anyway? How was it that he had been loaded with the responsibility for rebuilding something that had taken past generations centuries or more to create?

  Because he had been all that there was, that was how. When gone am I, Yoda had said in those final moments, the last of the Jedi will you be. Pass on what you have learned.

  He'd done his best to live up to Yoda's command. But sometimes—too many times—his best hadn't been enough.

  Yoda's training had helped, but not enough. The Holocron had helped, but not enough. Advice and correction from Leia and Mara had helped, but not enough.

  Was there something that had survived aboard Outbound Flight that might also help? He didn't know. To be honest, he was almost afraid to find out.

  He was going to search for it just the same, because he had to. He and Mara had both felt the gentle but unmistakable leading of the Force in accepting Formbi's invitation, and he knew too well that ignoring that nudge would bring bitter regret somewhere down the line. For good or evil, they were going to Outbound Flight.

  And who could tell? Maybe there was even something aboard that would finally lay to rest his questions about Jedi marriage. Dissenting opinions from other Jedi Masters, perhaps, or even an indication that the whole Order had been wrong in the prohibition.

  But he wouldn't know until they arrived. And he might as well arrive healthy. Taking a deep breath, letting the doubts and concerns slide away from him, he stretched out to the Force.

  * * *

  All the noise and bustle in the corridors outside had died down by the time Dean Jinzler put aside his datapad and started getting ready for bed. It had been a long, strange day, full of odd people and odd events, and he was tired with the kind of weariness that had haunted him for so much of his adult life.

  And yet, at the same time, there was a fresh excitement underlying the fatigue. An excitement, and a darkly simmering dread.

  Outbound Flight. After half a century, he was finally going to see the huge, mysterious project that had taken Lorana away from the Republic. He would stand where she had stood, see what she had seen. Perhaps, if he was very lucky, he would even be able to catch an echo of the idea or goal that had captured her own imagination, and to which she had dedicated her life.

  And he would see where that all-too-short life had ended.

  He gazed at his reflection in the refresher station mirror as he cleaned his face and teeth. Behind the lines and wrinkles, he could still see a hint of the much younger face that had sneered at Lorana and resented her for so many years, the face that had sent her off without even a proper farewell. The eyes gazing back at him—had her eyes been that same shade of gray? He couldn't remember. But whatever the color, he knew her eyes hadn't been cold and hard like his, but warm and alive and compassionate. Even toward him, who hadn't deserved any compassion at all. The hard set to his mouth hadn't been there, of course, way back then.

  Or maybe it had. He'd carried this edge of quiet bitterness with him for a long time.

  Rather like that young woman he'd met earlier, the stray thought occurred to him: that Mara Jade Skywalker. There was an air of old and bittersweet memory about her, too. For all the evidence of recent smoothing he could see in her face, it was clear that some of those memories would take a long time to fade.

  Some memories, of course, never faded completely, no matter how much one might wish them to. He was living proof of that.

  He finished in the refresher and stepped back into the bedchamber. And yet, for all the traces of old hardness and cynicism he could see in her face, he also knew that it had been Mara who had made the final decision not to expose him to Formbi.

  That made him nervous all by itself. Compassion was something he'd long ago learned to dislike, and compassion from Jedi was even more ominous. Jedi, if you believed the old stories and New Republic propaganda, were supposed to be able to read people's characters and attitudes with a single glance. Could they also read minds and thoughts and intentions? If so, what exactly had Mara read in him?

  He snorted. Nonsense. How in the name of Outer Rim bug-eaters could she possibly read his feelings when he himself couldn't even sort them out?

  He didn't have an answer. Maybe she would, if he asked her.

  Or maybe she would just decide that her mercy and second chances would be better spent on someone else, and turn him in to Formbi after all.

  No. The chance cube had been thrown, and all he could do now was to sit back and see it through to the end. And as for the Jedi, his best bet would be to simply keep his distance from both of them.

  Turning off the light, he settled himself down into the bed. And tried to push back the memories long enough to sleep.

  CHAPTER 8

  The next two days went by quietly. Luke spent much of the time w
ith 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 a
lien 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."