Timothy Zahn - Outbound Flight

“At this moment, Master C’baoth and his Padawan, Lorana Jinzler, are on their way to the spaceport,” Windu said.

“Apparently, Chancellor Palpatine mentioned some bogged-down negotiations on Barlok, and C’baoth persuaded the Council to send him there to mediate.”

“It this something major?”

“Major enough,” Windu said. “The Corporate Alliance versus the local government. And you know how anything involving any of the big corporate players makes headlines these days.”

“Yes,” Obi-Wan murmured. Center-stage negotiations, so of course C’baoth would be headed in that direction. “Again, what do you want me to do?”

A muscle in Windu’s cheek tightened. “We want you to go to Barlok and keep an eye on him.”

Obi-Wan felt his mouth drop open. “Me?”

“I know,” Windu agreed soberly. “But you’re here, and you’re available. Besides, Skywalker seemed to get along well enough with him the one time they met. Maybe you can frame the whole thing as a desire to show your Padawan how Jedi negotiations are done.”

Obi-Wan snorted. “You really think C’baoth will buy that?”

“Probably not,” Windu conceded. “But if you don’t go, it’ll have to be either Yoda or me. You think he’ll be less explosive if one of us shows up?”

“You have a point,” Obi-Wan said with a sigh. “Fine.

We’re between assignments anyway. And you’re right; Anakin was rather impressed by that take-charge single-mindedness of his. Maybe a little youthful hero worship will keep him calm.”

“Maybe,” Windu said. “At any rate, there’ll be a ship waiting by the time you and Skywalker get to the spaceport.”

“Any instructions other than to just watch him?”

“Not really,” Windu said. He pursed his lips, and his gaze seemed to stretch out toward infinity. “There’s something else going on, though. Something deep inside the man that I haven’t been able to get a grip on. Some private thoughts, or agenda, or… I don’t know. Something.”

“Right,” Obi-Wan said. “I’ll be sure to watch for that.”

Windu gave him the sort of wryly patient look Jedi Masters seemed to do so well. “And keep in touch,” he said.

Thrawn had told Car’das that his base wasn’t far from the spot where his task force had run into the Bargain Hunter: What he hadn’t mentioned was that the trip would take nearly three standard days.

“About time,” Qennto muttered under his breath as the three humans stood together at the back of the Springhawk

‘s bridge and watched as the handful of ships flew in formation across a small asteroid field. “I’m about to go stir crazy.”

“You could always join Maris and me for the language lessons,” Car’das offered. “Commander Thrawn really is decent company.”

“No thanks,” Qennto grunted. “You two want to aid and abet a potential enemy, be my guests. Not me.”

“These people are not potential enemies,” Maris said firmly. “As you’d realize if you’d made any effort to get to know them. They’re very polite and extremely civilized.”

“Yeah, well, the Huns have a civilization, too, or so they say,” Qennto retorted. “Sorry, but it’ll take more than good manners to convince me the Chiss are harmless.”

Mentally, Car’das shook his head. Ever since that first night aboard when he’d been frozen out of the negotiations, Qennto had been nursing a grudge against the Chiss in general and Thrawn in particular. Car’das and Maris had both tried to talk some sense back into him, but Qennto was more interested in brooding than in reason, and after a few attempts Car’das had given up. Maybe Maris had, too.

Thrawn had been across the bridge, standing beside the crewer at what Car’das had tentatively identified as the navigation station. Now the commander stepped back and circled to where the humans waited. “There,” he said, pointing ahead out the wide viewport. “The large asteroid with the slow rotation. That’s our base.”

Car’das frowned at it. The asteroid wasn’t rotating so much as it was doing a slow wobble, nearly but not quite end over end. Not for pseudogravitational purposes, obviously; the Springhawk showed that the Chiss had artificial gravity. So why pick a rotating asteroid?

Maris was obviously wondering the same thing. “That wobble must make it hard to dock with,” she commented.

“It does require a certain degree of skill,” Thrawn agreed, lifting his eyebrows slightly like a teacher trying to draw an answer from a group of students.

Car’das looked back at the asteroid. Could Thrawn have set up a deliberately tricky docking procedure as a training exercise for new recruits? But he could do that more easily and safely with a separate practice station.

Unless this asteroid was merely a training facility andnot his main base at all. There were certainly no lights or indications of construction showing anywhere that he could see.

Was that the conclusion Thrawn expected them to come to?

And then, suddenly, he had it. “You’ve got a passive sensor array at one end,” he said. “The wobble lets it sweep the whole sky instead of just one spot.”

“But why spin the whole asteroid?” Maris asked, sounding puzzled. “Couldn’t you just rotate the array?”

“Sure he could,” Qennto growled. “But then there’d be something moving on the surface an enemy might spot. This way everything’s all nice and quiet and peaceful, right up to the minute when he blows their ships out from under them.”

“Essentially correct,” Thrawn said. “Though we’re not expecting enemies to actually come calling. Still, it’s wise to take precautions.”

“And they didn’t blow our ship out from under us,”

Maris said, tapping a finger on Qennto’s chest for emphasis.

Qennto turned a glower toward her. Car’das spoke up quickly: “So we’re in Chiss space now?”

“Yes and no,” Thrawn said. “Currently, there are only some survey and observation teams here, so it’s hardly representative of a proper Chiss system. However, the second planet is quite habitable and within a few years will probably be opened up to full colonization. At that point, it will come officially under the protection and control of the Nine Ruling Families.”

“I hope you’re not expecting us to stay for opening ceremonies,” Qennto muttered.

“Of course not,” Thrawn assured him. “I tell you this simply because you might wish to return someday and see what we’ve made of the Crustai system.”

“You’ve named it already?” Maris asked.

“The initial survey team always has that honor,”

Thrawn said. “In this case, the name Crustai is an acronym for—”

“Crahsystor Mitth’raw’nuruodo,” a Chiss called from across the bridge. “Ris ficar tli claristae su fariml’sroca.”

“Sa cras mi soot shisfla, ”Thrawn replied sharply, striding back to his command chair in the center of the bridge and sitting down. “Hos mich falliare.”

“What did he say?” Qennto demanded, grabbing at a nearby chair back for balance as the Springhawk veered sharply portside and began to pick up speed. “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure,” Car’das said, mentally replaying the Cheunh words and trying to sort out the various prefixes and suffixes. The Chiss grammar was logical and relatively easy to learn, but after only three days of lessons he didn’t have much vocabulary to work with. “The only word roots I caught were the ones for `stranger‘ and ’run.‘ ”

“Stranger. Run.” Qennto hissed between his teeth as the stars in the viewport stretched into starlines. “They’re after someone.”

“Someone not too far away, either,” Maris murmured.