Survivor's Quest

by Timothy Zahn

  Luke grimaced, but he knew as well as she did that this couldn't be rushed. If she cut too far through the metal and nicked one of the repulsor power lines, none of them would be helping Formbi or Jinzler or anyone else. He fingered his own lightsaber hilt, cultivating his Jedi patience.

  And then, all at once, the square of metal popped out of the wall. Caught slightly by surprise, Luke let it fall nearly to the floor before he was able to nab it in a Force grip and lower it more gently the rest of the way. "Okay," Mara said, closing down her lightsaber and stepping aside. "Your turn."

  "Right." Stepping to the spot Mara had just vacated, he ignited his lightsaber. Stretching out to the Force, he eased the tip of the blade between the crisscrossing of wires behind the wall.

  "Careful," Drask warned, taking a half step toward him. "If you touch the wrong wire—"

  "Don't worry," Mara said, waving him back. "He knows what he's doing."

  Luke pursed his lips. He knew what he was doing, certainly, at least in theory. Whether he could actually pull it off was another question entirely.

  Just above the lightsaber blade a bright red wire stretched horizontally across the opening. Preparing his mind, he twitched the blade toward it.

  Not close enough to actually touch it, of course. But close enough to activate the short-range prescience that gave the Jedi what appeared to be superfast reflexes.

  And for that single brief instant, he could feel a sudden pressure against the soles of his feet.

  "Red wire powers the upper repulsor," he announced, closing down the lightsaber and stepping back.

  "Right," Mara said, going to the opening and marking the indicated wire with a bit of the dark brown coating from one of her ration bars. "One to go."

  Luke nodded and turned around toward the first opening she'd made in the wall. Choosing a blue wire this time, he ignited his lightsaber and again twitched the tip of the blade toward it.

  Nothing.

  He tried again with a green wire, then a red wire, then another blue wire, with similarly negative results. Then, finally, he waved the blade toward a black-striped white wire and felt a brief sensation of the floor dropping out from under his feet. "There," he told Mara, backing away. "Black-striped white."

  "Got it," she confirmed, marking it as she had the red wire on the other side. "Okay. We ready?"

  "Ready as we'll ever be," Luke agreed, getting into position again facing the black-striped white wire. Mara stepped behind him, pressing her back to his as she faced the other side and the red wire he'd identified.

  "Just a moment," Drask said, sounding more than a little alarmed. "What exactly do you plan here?"

  "It should be clear enough, General," Mara said. "We're going to cut the power lines."

  "But—" Drask broke off. "You really can do this?"

  Luke could feel Mara's red-gold hair shift against the back of his neck as she turned to face the Chiss. "Trust us," she said.

  Her hair resettled itself as she turned back to her target, and with a snap-hiss she ignited her lightsaber.

  And with a sensation Luke still found astonishing, he felt her mind flow into, around, and through his.

  For that exquisitely stretched-out moment in time they were truly a single mind, a single spirit poured into two separate bodies. They thought as one; they felt as one; they moved as one.

  And their lightsabers struck as one, each of the two glowing blades slashing through its targeted power cable in perfect synchronization.

  There was a slight jerk, more imagined than truly felt; and with a decided feeling of anticlimax, the turbolift car began to sink downward. Luke took a deep breath...

  As suddenly as it had begun, the melding ended. The sensation of oneness faded away, leaving only the warmth of the memory behind. "There," Mara said. To Luke's ears, her voice sounded a little strained as she, too, worked to regain mental and emotional balance after their moment of unity. "See? No problem."

  "What do you mean, no problem?" Drask bit out. "We are falling."

  "Don't worry," Mara said. "Now that we're traveling at a normal speed, there are built-in safeties to catch us at the other end. The problem was that Pressor's repulsors would have slammed us down too fast for them to trigger."

  "That was a dangerous chance to take," Drask growled.

  "You want out of here or not?" Mara countered.

  The Chiss hissed between his teeth. "You Jedi have the arrogance of untested power," he told her bluntly. "One day, you will take one too many chances, and it will destroy you."

  There was a gentle jolt from above, as if the car had momentarily shivered. "What was that?" Luke asked, glancing at the ceiling.

  "We have changed direction," Drask said, cocking his head oddly to the side. "We are now traveling more vertically than before."

  "How do you know?" Luke asked. Standing in the car's artificial gravity, he couldn't feel anything different.

  "I simply know," the Chiss said. "I cannot explain. It simply is."

  "All right, fine." The last thing Luke wanted right now was something else to argue about. "But in that case, where are we going?"

  "Perhaps Guardian Pressor enjoys layering his traps," Drask said, his hand on his charric. "This may lead to a special place reserved for anyone who defeats the first layer."

  "I don't know," Mara said, looking around. "Seems a little like overkill. Luke, do you remember what this setup looked like from the outside? There were a pair of curved tubes leading off the main one, right?"

  "Right," Luke confirmed, pulling up the image from his memory. "They looked like they were heading toward each other when they disappeared into the hill."

  "One coming off each side of the tube," Mara added. "Like they were branch routes you could take from either of the two Dreadnaughts."

  "Branch routes heading to the central supply core," Luke said, nodding as the explanation suddenly hit him. "Of course: the SC button on the control panel."

  "Right," Mara agreed. "That must be where we're going."

  The words were barely out of her mouth when the car abruptly jerked again, and the floor seemed to drop gently out from under them. Reflexively, Luke tensed, then relaxed as he realized what had happened. Now that the car was out of the main tube and Pressor's trap, it had been grabbed by the branch tube's normal repulsor beam and was being pulled sedately downward toward the storage core. "We are turning over," Drask said, again doing that head-cocking thing.

  "Must be lining up with the storage core's gravity direction," Luke said.

  "Is that good?"

  "Definitely," Luke assured him. "Shipboard gravity is usually tied in with the rest of the environmental system. If the gravity is working, chances are the core's got air and heat, too."

  A few seconds later the car settled to a stop, and the door slid open to reveal a large, musty-smelling cavern.

  Luke stepped out of the car, lightsaber ready in his hand. The room stretching out in front of him was only dimly lit, with perhaps a third of the permlight emergency panels still operating. The nearest true bulkhead was ten meters away toward the forward end of the core, with another bulkhead twenty meters in the other direction toward the rear. The space right in front of the turbolift was reasonably open, but the rest of the room had been partitioned by a grid of floor-to-ceiling meshwork panels dividing the floor space into three-meter-by-three-meter sections. A few of the sections had been partially or completely emptied, but most still held stacks of crates.

  "Haven't made much of a dent, have they?" Luke commented as the others stepped out to join him.

  "This facility was supposed to supply fifty thousand people for up to several years," Mara reminded him. "I'm surprised they got even this far into it."

  "This may have been used up during the first part of the voyage, when all were still alive," Drask said, moving the beam from his glow rod down the labels of one of the stacks. "Surely not many of the original crew could have survived."

  "How anyone surviv
ed is still beyond me," Luke said, shifting his glow rod to point at the aft bulkhead. Just visible at the edge of the beam were two doorways: one human sized, the other obviously built for cargo. "Let's head aft and see what else is back—"

  He broke off as the comlink at his waist emitted an odd chirping noise. He pulled it from his belt, peripherally aware that Mara and Drask were doing the same with theirs, and clicked it on.

  A burst of static crackled at him, and he quickly shut it off again. "That's strange," he said, frowning at it. "It sounded like something was coming through just then."

  "Same here," Mara said, turning her comlink over in her hand. "Yours, too, General?"

  "Yes," Drask said, sounding thoughtful. "It was as if—" He stopped.

  "As if?" Mara prompted.

  "As if someone had used a—I do not know the proper word in your language," the Chiss said. "It is a signal that stretches across all parts of the communications range in an attempt to penetrate jamming."

  "Some kind of full-spectrum burst," Mara said, nodding. "We use that technique ourselves sometimes. Usually between vehicles or ships, though—I've never seen it used on anything as small as a comlink."

  "Do Chiss comlinks have that capability?" Luke asked Drask.

  The other hesitated. "Certain of them do," he said. "Those I equipped our party with do not."

  "Let's put it a different way," Mara said. "Are there any of these more sophisticated comlinks aboard the Chaf Envoy?"

  Drask looked away. "There are," he conceded.

  Mara looked back at Luke. "Terrific," she said. "So someone's able to communicate with the ship. Only that someone isn't us."

  "Maybe it was just the survivors talking among themselves," Luke suggested, hunting for a less ominous explanation. "Maybe Pressor needed to send a signal to one of the other Dreadnaughts."

  Mara shook her head. "Intership comms ought to be hardwired."

  "Unless some of the lines are out."

  "Maybe," she said. Clearly, she didn't believe that for a second.

  Unfortunately, despite what she still sometimes called his farmboy na?vet?, neither did Luke.

  Someone aboard Outbound Flight was communicating through Pressor's jamming. The question was, who?

  And what were they saying?

  He looked at Mara, but she just shrugged. "Nothing we can do about it right now," she said. "Come on, let's see what's back this way."

  * * *

  "In hindsight, I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised to find you here," Ambassador Jinzler commented as Pressor led the group back toward the Number Five Turbolift Car. "Even in the most adverse of conditions, humans always seem to find a way to survive."

  "Yes," Pressor said, keeping his voice neutral as he waved the others ahead of him into the car. The two Geroons, he noticed, hesitated before stepping through the doorway. Jinzler himself didn't even break stride. The man was either very trusting, very overconfident, or very stupid. "Though the fact we lived through all of that certainly wasn't for lack of trying on somebody's part," he added.

  "Indeed," Jinzler murmured as he and the female Chiss stepped to one of the rear corners of the car. "Exactly how this all happened is one of the things we hope to find out."

  "Perhaps you'll have that chance," Pressor said, pulling out his command stick and plugging it into the droid socket on the control board. "Unfortunately, most of the records were ruined in the attack." He touched a button, and the barrier between Cars Four and Five slid open.

  The three black-clad Chiss in the car reacted like dolls on twitch-strings, spinning around as one of the walls of their prison vanished, their hands darting to their holstered weapons. The two Geroons, in contrast, lifted their arms and surged forward toward their compatriots as if they'd been separated for years instead of just a few minutes. The older Chiss, the one dressed in yellow and gray, merely turned casually toward Pressor and nodded. "Good day," he said, his Basic oddly accented but quite understandable. "I am Aristocra Chaf'orm'bintrano of the Fifth Ruling Family, representing the Chiss Ascendancy. You may address me as Aristocra Formbi. Do I have the honor of addressing Guardian Pressor?"

  "You do," Pressor said, returning the nod. The least he could do was show himself to be as cultured and polite as his visitors. "I welcome you to Outbound Flight, Aristocra Formbi, and apologize for the necessity of greeting you as I did."

  "No apology required," the Aristocra assured him. Those glowing red eyes flicked to the female Chiss still hovering close to Jinzler, as if checking to see that she was all right. "Your caution is completely understandable."

  "Guardian Pressor is going to take us to see his people," Jinzler spoke up. "After that, I presume we'll be discussing the possibility of their return to the New Republic."

  The Aristocra frowned. "The possibility?"

  "That's correct," Pressor said. "I'm not at all sure we'll choose to go back to the Republic. Or to go anywhere at all, for that matter." He made an adjustment on the command stick.

  "You didn't tell him where they are?" Formbi asked, his eyes on Jinzler.

  Pressor paused, his finger poised against the activation button. "What do you mean, where we are?" he asked.

  "I'm afraid our conversation didn't get that far," Jinzler admitted.

  Pressor looked at Formbi, feeling a knot forming in his stomach. "Why don't you tell me now?" he invited.

  Formbi's mouth twitched. "You're deep within a high-security defensive position of the Chiss Ascendancy," he said. "Traveling here is forbidden without special authorization. Now that we know about you, I'm afraid you can't be permitted to stay."

  The knot in Pressor's stomach tightened. "I see," he said, putting his voice back into neutral mode. "And if we refuse to leave?"

  "I would hope you wouldn't," Formbi said, matching Pressor's tone. "We will, of course, give you any assistance you might require in moving your people wherever you wish to go. It's little enough compensation for what you've suffered."

  "I see," Pressor said again. "Well, you can present your case before Director Uliar and the Managing Council. They'll be the ones who'll make the final decision."

  Jinzler cocked his head. "Who is Director Uliar?"

  "He's the head of the colony," Pressor told him, pressing the activation button on his command stick. Behind him the door to the alcove slid shut and the double car began to descend.

  "I see," Formbi said. "I'm sorry—I'd assumed you were the leader."

  "I'm the Guardian," Pressor said. "My Peacekeepers and I keep order within the colony. Director Uliar and the Managing Council make all the policy decisions."

  "Sounds rather like a corporation," Jinzler commented.

  "And why not?" Pressor retorted. "Corporations work a lot better than the political mess we left behind."

  "Yes, of course," Jinzler said hastily.

  "How many of you are there?" Formbi asked.

  Pressor turned his face away from them. "I think I should let Director Uliar handle any further questions."

  The car fell silent except for the distant creaks and rumblings of the turbolift equipment, and the melodic murmuring of the four Geroons as they huddled together in a back corner. Probably still assuring each other that they were all right, Pressor decided, eyeing the dead animals wrapped across their shoulders with a mixture of distaste and fascination.

  With a raucous squeak and a vibrating thump, the double car came to a stop, snapping Pressor out of his thoughts. "This way," he said, touching the door release on the command stick. "We'll go find Director Uliar." He stepped outside—

  And came to an abrupt halt. At the back of the turbolift lobby, as he'd prearranged, three of his Peacekeepers were standing ready, their faces displaying expressions ranging from wary to hostile to simply nervous.

  Standing in a silent group beside them were Director Uliar and the two Survivor members of the Managing Council. Beside Uliar, her auburn hair glinting in the corridor's light, was Instructor Rosemari Tabory. Pressor's
sister, and Evlyn's mother.

  And that part Pressor had most certainly not prearranged.

  "Director Uliar," he said in greeting as he crossed the lobby toward the group, trying to keep his voice steady. "Councilor Tarkosa; Councilor Keely," he added, nodding to each of the other two old men in turn. "What brings you here?"

  "Don't act the innocent, Guardian," Uliar advised, the age wrinkles around his eyes deepening as he gazed at the group emerging from the turbolift car. "It doesn't suit you. So these are our visitors, are they?"

  "These are some of them," Pressor said, flicking a quick look at his sister. Rosemari's expression was stiff, with a hint of paleness to her skin. "This is hardly the place for a historic diplomatic meeting, you know." He looked significantly at the two councilors. "Or the correct attendance for one, either."

  "The entire council will be summoned in due course," Uliar said. "But I think those of us who actually lived through the Devastation have first rights to face our destroyers."

  "This is a major event, with a major decision attached to it," Pressor insisted, keeping his voice low. "Probably the most significant thing that's happened since we arrived here. The Charter specifically requires that the entire Managing Council, Survivor and Colonist members, be present."

  "And they will be," Uliar promised. He twitched a smile. "Until then, I daresay Instructor Tabory can act as observer for the Colonists."

  "But—"

  "Which ones are the Jedi?" Keely cut in, his nervous eyes darting back and forth across the group that had now paused a little uncertainly by the turbolift door. "Guardian? Which ones are the Jedi?"

  "None of those here," Pressor told him. "The Jedi are still being held in one of the turbolift cars."

  "No one here is a Jedi, you say?" Uliar said. "Not even—? Why look, Instructor Tabory; there's your daughter. Imagine that."

  Pressor felt his stomach tighten as he glanced behind him. Evlyn was just emerging from the car behind the last of the Geroons, the calmness in her face in sharp contrast to the tension in her mother's. "She was assisting me," he said, looking back at Uliar.

  "Was she really," Uliar said, as if it were a surprise to him. "You took your niece up to Four, exposing her to all the extra radiation up there? Not to mention putting her at risk from potentially dangerous intruders? What an extraordinary thing to do."