Survivor's Quest

by Timothy Zahn

  "You think it's real, then?" Mara asked as they headed back across the bridge and into the monitor anteroom. "I mean, it couldn't have been something from the past, could it?"

  "You mean like an echo of what happened to Outbound Flight fifty years ago?" Luke shook his head. "No. One of us might possibly pick up something like that, but not both of us at the same time. No, this was real, and it happened just now."

  They had to do some climbing through the rubble at the bottom of the turbolift shaft in order to reach their car, but they'd made sure to leave adequate hand- and footholds, and within a few minutes they were once again inside. "Were you able to tell where it happened?" Mara asked as the car began moving sluggishly upward.

  "No," Luke said. "Someplace above us, but it all went by too quickly to pin it down any better than that. You?"

  Mara shook her head. "All I could tell was that the deaths didn't seem human, somehow."

  "Really," Luke said, looking at her thoughtfully. "Interesting. I had something of that same feeling, but I couldn't decide whether that part was real or just the fact that there are so many Chiss and Geroons around."

  "Or maybe it was a little of both," Mara said. "If someone decided to start shooting at Jinzler or the Five-Oh-First, they wouldn't be likely to let Formbi and Bearsh just walk away."

  The car lumbered to a halt in the storage core. "Where exactly are we headed?" Mara asked as they hurried through the silent storage rooms.

  "We'll try the turbolift Fel and the stormtroopers used to go to D-Six," Luke said over his shoulder. "We should be able to reach either D-Six or D-Five with that one."

  "Yes, that part I'd already figured out," Mara said. "I was asking which of the two Dreadnaughts you think we should start with."

  "I don't know," Luke said as they reached the turbolift lobby where they'd taken their leave of the Imperials. "Fel went to D-Six; Jinzler and Formbi are probably on D-Five. Pick one."

  The turbolift door slid halfway open and stopped. "Let's make it D-Five," Mara decided as they squeezed inside. "Even with three Chiss warriors along, the civilians are likely to be harder pressed if things have gotten messy."

  "Sounds good," Luke said. Using the Force to pull the doors at least partially closed, he tapped the key for D-5.

  The car didn't move.

  "Uh-oh," he said, trying the key again. Still nothing.

  "Terrific," Mara growled, pulling out her comlink. A quick on-off showed that the jamming was still in place. "Well, so much for the easy approach," she said. "Looks like our choices are to climb the shaft or head aft and hope the turbolifts back there are still working."

  "Or to continue around to the turbolift Pressor had us trapped in," Luke reminded her. "Actually, given that we've already cut some of the repulsor controls in that pylon, it might be the easier one to climb."

  "Probably safer, too," Mara pointed out, pushing the doors open again.

  "Right," Luke agreed as they squeezed back out into the turbolift lobby and took off at a run toward the next turbolift lobby over. "It would be a little tricky to play Hilltop Emperor if the repulsor beams came back on."

  Mara stiffened. Suddenly, unbidden, a horrible revelation had come like a thundering of blaster bolts chewing their way into her stomach. The Geroon ship—Bearsh's farewell to the rest of his people as the Chaf Envoy prepared to head into the Redoubt—the vague and nameless puzzle that had bothered her so tantalizingly at the time—

  And the image of a Geroon child triumphantly waving a red headband.

  "What is it?" Luke asked, his own step faltering at the abrupt spike he felt in her. "Mara?"

  "Blast it," she bit out, sprinting past him as she doubled her speed. "Come on—no time to waste. Blast them all."

  "What—?"

  But she had left Luke and his bewildered question behind her. So simple; so embarrassingly simple.

  And yet Mara Jade Skywalker, former Emperor's Hand, had missed it completely. Musing on the Empire that had been, and her former place in it, she had missed it completely.

  She was nearly to their target turbolift, and over her panting breath she could hear Luke's footsteps as he caught up to her. Steady, his thought came, flowing calmness over her as he tried to soothe some of her agitation.

  But even Jedi calm couldn't help her now. People had already died because of her carelessness. Unless they hurried, others would suffer the same fate.

  Maybe even all of them.

  * * *

  The turbolift lobby was almost completely dark when Pressor and Trilli arrived. "This is crazy," Pressor declared, looking around in disbelief. Even some of the emergency permlights were out, which should have been well-nigh impossible. "What could have caused all this?"

  "You got me," Trilli said. "The power's all right at the generators—that was the first thing the techs checked. It's just getting lost somewhere along the way."

  "So, what, we've got a short in the wiring?"

  "It'd take a lot more than just one," Trilli pointed out. "And that wouldn't explain the permlights, anyway."

  "Yes," Pressor conceded. "Have we got a tech crew on the way?"

  "One's already here," Trilli told him. "They're a deck up, checking out the turbolifts. Apparently, that's where the outages started."

  Pressor scratched his cheek. "The turbolifts that the two Jedi and Imperials were able to get past?"

  "I thought about that, too," Trilli said. "But the power was just fine earlier after they got out."

  "Maybe it's some sort of delayed reaction," Pressor suggested. "Something they set up to cover their tracks."

  "I don't know," Trilli said doubtfully. "Seems kind of a waste of effort. Especially for Jedi."

  Across the lobby, the faint sound of a ventilator fan went silent. "There goes another one," Pressor said, peering in that direction. "You know what this reminds me of? That infestation of conduit worms we had a few years after the landing."

  "That's impossible," Trilli insisted. "We exterminated them thirty years ago."

  "Unless we've just imported a new batch," Pressor said, jerking his head back down the corridor.

  Trilli muttered something under his breath. "Uliar's not going to be happy about this at all."

  "No kidding." Pressor started to reach for his comlink, remembered the jamming in time and headed instead toward one of the wall-mounted comms. "We'd better get a couple more tech teams down here," he said. "If it's conduit worms, we want them gone, and fast."

  "Right," Trilli said. "You want me to wait here while you go tell Uliar the good news?"

  Pressor made a face. "Let's both wait," he said. "There's no point in starting rumors until we know for sure what we've got."

  "Besides which, you don't want to spring this on Uliar alone?"

  Pressor keyed the wall comm for the tech section. "Something like that."

  * * *

  The center portside corridor on D-6 was as snarled with rusted debris as anything Fel had seen up on D-4. The center starboard corridor, in contrast, was almost perfectly clear.

  "They've definitely been using this one," Watchman commented as the group made their cautious way aft. "Not very much traffic, but it's steady."

  "How do you figure that?" Fel asked.

  "From the pattern of dust on the deck," Drask told him. "There are places where occasional footsteps have lifted or moved it. No more than twenty people come this way each day. Possibly fewer."

  "Possibly as few as ten," Watchman agreed. "The two guards we left stunned back there, running three shifts a day, plus a few more would pretty well cover it."

  "Commander?" Grappler, in the lead, called back over his shoulder. "I'm picking up voices ahead."

  "Extend formation," Watchman ordered. "Not too far—make sure to stay in sight."

  "I see a light," Grappler announced. "Looks like it's coming from one of the crew bunkrooms."

  "Watch for trouble," Fel warned. "They may have had time to get reinforcements in position."


  Apparently, they hadn't. A minute later, the group had arrived.

  At a prison.

  Fel hadn't been particularly impressed by Luke's claim that there had been an old prison down in the supply core, and Drask's description of the setup hadn't done anything to modify that skepticism. But about this place he had no doubts at all. The door to the old crew quarters had had a pair of narrow slits cut into it, one at eye level for observation, the other just above the floor and wide enough to pass a tray of food through. Supplementing the door's original lock was a heavy add-on with the kind of twin access ports that implied two separate codes were necessary to open it.

  "Hello?" a woman's voice called tentatively from behind the door. "Perry? Is that you?"

  Fel stepped to the door and pressed his face to the upper slit. The bunkroom had been divided into at least three sections, two of which were currently closed off by light, hand-movable panels. The center section, the one visible from the observation slit, had been set up as a recreation area, with chairs, a couple of small tables, games, and toys. Seated in two of the chairs were a pair of women, one in her twenties, the other much older, watching as four children with ages ranging between six and ten years old played or talked. The younger woman was leaning toward the door, squinting to try to see Fel through the narrow slit.

  Abruptly, she stiffened. "You're not Perry," she said, her voice quavering a little. "Who are you?"

  "I'm Commander Chak Fel of the Empire of the Hand," Fel identified himself as the children all paused in their activities and turned to see what was going on. "Don't worry, we aren't going to hurt you."

  "What do you want?" the older woman asked.

  "We're here to help," Fel assured her, frowning as he looked around. These certainly didn't look like hardened criminals who deserved to be kept behind a double-coded lock and supplied through a zoo-style feeding slot. In many ways the room reminded him of the nursery they'd passed down the corridor, in fact, or perhaps a special classroom of some sort. "Who are you people?"

  "We're the remnant of the Republic mission called Outbound Flight," the older woman said.

  "Yes, we know that part," Fel said. "I mean you and the children. What are you doing in there?"

  "Why, we're the dangerous ones, of course," the younger woman said bitterly. "Didn't you know?" She waved a hand to encompass the children. "Or rather, they are. That's why they're in Quarantine. We're just here to take care of them, poor dears."

  "The dangerous ones, huh?" Fel asked, eyeing the children. As far as he could tell, they looked like any other kids he'd ever known. "What exactly did they do?"

  "They didn't do anything," the older woman said quietly. Apparently she'd been at this long enough for her bitterness to decay into resignation. "All they were was a little bit different from everyone else. That's all. Director Uliar's imagination and hatred did all the rest."

  "And what exactly does his imagination and hatred tell him?" Fel asked. "What does he think they are?"

  "Why, pure evil, of course," the younger woman said. "Or at least, that's what he's afraid they'll grow up to be."

  Fel looked at the kids again. "Pure evil?" he asked.

  "Yes," the older woman added, her forehead creasing as if it should be obvious. "You know.

  "Jedi."

  CHAPTER 18

  Fel just stared at her, his brain refusing to form words. Pure evil? Jedi? "Who told you Jedi were evil?" he demanded. "Some of them may have their moments, but..."

  He trailed off. Both women were looking at him as if he'd just told them that red was green. "Don't you know anything?" the younger woman said. "They destroyed us. They betrayed and destroyed us."

  "Did you actually see this happen?" Fel persisted. "Or is it just something you heard from—?"

  "Commander," Drask said.

  Fel turned away from the observation slit. "What?" he snapped.

  "For the moment, this is irrelevant," the general said quietly. "We can learn more about their history when the Aristocra and ambassador are once again safely under our protection."

  Fel felt his jaw tighten in frustration. But the Chiss was right. "Understood," he said reluctantly. "So we just leave them here?"

  "Would you prefer we take them with us?" Drask countered.

  "No, of course not," Fel conceded reluctantly. "I just—of course not. Back to the turbolift?"

  "Yes," Drask said, his eyes flashing with quiet anger toward the locked room. "We have seen what we came here to see."

  Fel nodded. He hated to just leave these people here, prisoners of some insane half-remembered myth or personal vendetta. But Drask was right. It could be dealt with later. "All right, stormtroopers, form up. We're heading back to the forward turbolifts."

  He started to turn, and, as he did, something about Grappler's stance caught his attention. "Grappler?" he asked.

  Reluctantly, he thought, the Eickarie came back to attention. "Your pardon, Commander," he said, his voice sounding even more alien than usual. "I was... remembering."

  "Remembering what?"

  "My people." Grappler gestured fractionally toward the Quarantine door with his BlasTech. "The Warlord took away many such innocents who were of no genuine threat and put them in places like this. Most were never heard from again."

  "I understand," Fel said, leveling his gaze at the white faceplate. "But the best thing we can do right now is find Formbi and Jinzler and make sure they know about this. Rule One is that diplomats always get first crack at this sort of problem."

  "And if they are unable or unwilling to do anything?"

  Fel looked back at the locked door. "Rule Two is that soldiers get second crack," he said darkly. "Move out."

  * * *

  Outbound Flight's designers had clearly never considered the possibility that anyone would ever wish to travel through the connecting turbolift pylons without an actual turbolift car or at least a maintenance repulsorlift pack. As a result, they had kept the tube interior smooth, without any of the access ladders Luke had assumed would be there. There were also no other built-in handholds, and all the wiring was buried behind protective metal panels.

  Fortunately, Jedi had their own resources.

  "How's it going?" Luke grunted as he hauled himself another arm's length up the thick power cable.

  "I'm doing fine," Mara countered from above him. "Question is, how are you holding up?"

  "I'm fine, too," Luke assured her, taking a moment to look up at the woman sitting on his shoulders. It would have looked utterly ridiculous, he knew, had there been anyone around to see them: a man hauling himself hand over hand up a set of power cables while a grown woman sat high atop his shoulders like a small child watching a Victory Day parade.

  But silly looking or not, it was working, and faster even than Luke had anticipated. With the metal access panels long since frozen shut by age and rust, there was no way to reach the cables beneath them except via a lightsaber wielded by a steady hand. Any other approach they could have used would have required each of them to cut away a section of paneling, haul him- or herself up to that level via the newly exposed cables, and then pause to cut away the next section. This way, Mara was able to concentrate on the task of precision cutting while Luke could give his full attention to the climb itself.

  Or at least he could do so as long as his arms held out. Stretching out to the Force, letting its strength flow into his muscles, he kept going. It was just as well, he reflected, that they hadn't had to get out of the rigged turbolift car this way. Drask would never have made it.

  "Watch it," Mara warned. "We're hitting the edge of another eddy."

  "Right," Luke said, making sure to get an extra-firm grip with each pull upward. With the storage core and each of the Dreadnaughts running its own gravity direction, the tube had been designed to align incoming cars with the proper "up" before they arrived at their various destinations. The gravity eddy fields required for such an operation weren't too difficult to get past—he and Mara had al
ready forded two of them—but getting caught unprepared could be trouble.

  "I wish these things weren't tied into the ships' environmental system," he muttered as he felt the eddy current tugging at his body, trying to turn him around. Mara had abandoned her lightsaber work for the moment in favor of steadying herself with a grip on Luke's collar. "Without gravity in the pylon, we could have just floated up to D-Five."

  "It would have taken us half a day just to find all the redundancies and shut them down," Mara pointed out, waving her free hand cautiously above her. "Okay, there's the upper edge of the eddy."

  Luke eased them past the interface and they continued on their way. "So when are you going to tell me what this is all about?" he asked.

  Even over the humming of her lightsaber he heard Mara's sigh. "It was that scene on the Chaf Envoy's observation deck," she said. "Just before we headed into the Redoubt, when Bearsh and the Geroons were saying good-bye to their ship."

  "I remember," Luke said. "You said at the time something about that wasn't right."

  "I just wish I'd caught it sooner," Mara said, an edge of self-recrimination in her voice. "I should have caught it earlier. Remember when the Geroon ship first arrived, and on the comm display behind Bearsh we saw some children playing Hilltop Emperor?"

  "Yes," Luke said, replaying the scene in his mind. "It looked all right to me."

  "Oh, it looked just fine," Mara bit out. "Problem is, a couple of days later, when the Geroons were saying their farewells, the same scene was going on in the background."

  Luke frowned. "What do you mean, the same scene? More children playing on the structure?"

  "I mean the same children playing on the structure," she said. "Doing the same things, in exactly the same way."

  Luke tightened his grip on the cables. "The whole thing was a recording?"

  "You got it," Mara said bitterly. "There are no children aboard that ship, Luke. Bearsh was lying through his teeth. Both sets of teeth."

  "And I missed it completely," Luke said, feeling like a fool. "I wasn't even paying attention."