Timothy Zahn - Survivor's Quest

Fel shrugged. "Actually, I'm in the fleet end of the Imperial military," he said. "My usual command is a fleet-arm of clawcraft." He grinned again. "And my father is very proud of me."

They emerged from the corridor onto a deserted command deck. "No one on duty?" Luke asked, looking around.

"Is there anyone on duty in your ship?" Fel countered reasonably as he crossed to what appeared to be the main sensor station and waved his guests to a pair of chairs at nearby consoles. "Actually, we don't have a separate flight crew. This kind of transport is designed for a stormtrooper unit to be able to fly by itself, at least on routine operations. Takes some of the strain off our pilot cadre."

"Does that mean you're low on trained personnel?" Mara asked as she and Luke sat down.

"Everyone's always low on skilled pilots," Fel said, sitting down and swiveling his chair toward a rack of data cards. "I doubt the New Republic's any different. But at the moment we're doing all right. There are at least two alien groups within the Empire that have shown very good aptitude for general flight operations..."

He trailed off, and Luke caught a sudden dark flicker in Fel. "What is it?" he asked.

Slowly, Fel swiveled back to face them. "Well," he said, his voice studiously conversational. "I think I know now what that fire was all about. Whoever it was figured the Imperial Five-Oh-First would go charging back to help, nobly oblivious to our own safety."

"What are you talking about?" Mara demanded.

Fel gestured to the rack of data cards. "The Outbound Flight operational manual," he said. "It's gone."

Mara looked at Luke, to find him looking back at her. "Really," she said, looking over at Fel. "That's handy."

"Isn't it, though," Fel said. His voice was still quiet, but his face suddenly seemed older and harder. More mature, somehow, than Mara's first impression of him as a kid playing soldier. "Yes, that's certainly one way of putting it."

"I take it you don't have another copy?" Luke asked.

"This was the copy," Fel said. "The original records are back on Nirauan."

"Of course," Luke said. "What I meant—"

"I know what you meant." Fel passed a hand across his face; and when he had lowered it, some of the hardness had faded. "Sorry. I'm just... I messed up. I hate when I mess up."

"Welcome to the club," Mara said, an odd feeling flickering through her. In all her time with the Empire, she wondered, had she ever heard an Imperial officer actually admit to having made a mistake? "Let's skip the finger pointing and see if we can figure out who's got it. You have any idea how many people are aboard?"

"Not that many," Fel said, sounding a little more on balance. "I think this size ship runs a crew of only thirty to thirty-five. There seems to be an honor guard running around, too—call it two squads of six warriors each. Typical ambassador's staff runs to twenty, plus Formbi, so that's sixty-eight Chiss, max."

"Plus five Geroons, you and four stormtroopers, Jinzler, and us," Luke said. "Unless there's someone else we don't know about."

"Right," Fel said.

"Wait a second," Mara said, frowning in concentration as she searched her memory. "You said Formbi had a staff of twenty?"

"I said that was typical for an ambassador," Fel corrected. "I haven't actually run the numbers myself."

"And I presume most of them would be from Formbi's family," she said. "That means they'd all be wearing yellow, right?"

"That's the Chaf family color, yes," Fel confirmed. "Why?"

"Because I didn't see more than four yellow outfits at dinner tonight," Mara said. "Formbi, Feesa, and two others. Everyone else was wearing black."

"She's right," Luke agreed. "Which family wears black?"

"None of them," Fel said, frowning. "That's the Chiss Defense Fleet. Black's a combination of all colors, since the military draws from all the families."

"What about his honor guard?" Mara asked. "Would they be from his family?"

Fel shook his head. "All honor guards wear military black. Huh. I wonder what he's done with the rest of his entourage."

"Maybe he had to leave them behind," Luke suggested. "With a mission of this sort the Nine Families might not have wanted any one family too heavily represented."

"I suppose that would make sense," Fel agreed slowly. "There's always been a tricky balance of power among the families."

"We can do a head count in the morning," Mara said. "Let's go on. How many of these assorted people might have known you had those files?"

Fel grimaced. "That's not going to narrow it nearly as much as you think. I was talking about it to Ambassador Jinzler this evening in the reception corridor before we were seated for dinner."

"You told Jinzler about it?" Mara bit out.

"Yes," Fel said, frowning at her vehemence. "I wanted to know if he'd brought any records of his own I could compare against ours. Why, shouldn't I have done that?"

Mara waved a hand in disgust. Of course Fel had no way of knowing the man was a fraud. "Skip it," she said. "Did he?"

"What, have any records?" Fel shook his head. "No. He said everything useful the New Republic might once have had had been lost or destroyed."

"Probably true," Luke murmured. "Could anyone have been able to overhear this discussion?"

Fel exhaled noisily. "Could everyone have been able to overhear it, you mean," he said. "The whole dinner crowd was milling around the corridor being sociable."

"Yes, but the whole dinner crowd wasn't paying attention," Mara countered. "Tell us who was."

Fel frowned into space, searching his memory. "For starters, of course, there were several Chiss," he said slowly. "I remember Feesa passing by at one point—I think she'd just brought you two in. Then there was—"

"Wait a minute," Luke said, straightening in his chair a little. "We were there by then?"

"Yes, but you were all the way across the corridor," Fel said. "Talking with Formbi, I think."

"That's not the point," Luke said, looking at Mara. "What do you think?"

"Worth a try," she agreed. "Just hold those thoughts a minute, Fel. We'll be right back to you."

Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and stretched out to the Force. The memory-enhancement technique the Emperor had taught her only worked on short-term memories, but the reception corridor ought to be recent enough to be accessible. She let the pictures flow backward through her mind's eye: the fire, the dinner, the flow of conversation before dinner...

There it was: Formbi stepping forward to greet them as Feesa brought them into the gathering. She and Luke speaking with him, assuring him their quarters were quite satisfactory and that, no, they didn't know very much about Outbound Flight but were looking forward to the voyage.

And in the background, Fel and Jinzler across the corridor by one wall, deep in conversation.

She froze the image, studying it. Then, slowly, she let it run forward again, watching everything and everyone around them.

All too soon, she had her answer. With a sigh, she slipped out of the trance and looked over at Luke.

He was already finished with his own memory enhancement. "What do you think?" he asked.

"He's right," she said in disgust. "It'd be simpler to figure out who didn't know. I spotted at least two Geroons close enough to listen in, plus a couple of the Chiss crewers and two command-rank officers."

"Including General Drask," Luke agreed. "About the only likely suspects who couldn't have known were Formbi and us."

"And, of course, Feesa works for Formbi," Mara reminded him. "She could have clued him in at any time."

Luke lifted a hand, let it fall into his lap. "Which leaves you and me. Dead end."

"Not necessarily," Mara said as a sudden thought struck her. "Okay, so they got the data cards. But they'd also need a datapad to read them with. That leaves only Jinzler."