Timothy Zahn - Outbound Flight

“Of course,” Lorana said automatically, feeling her muscles tense as a horrible thought suddenly occurred to her.

“When you say we, Master C’baoth, who exactly—I mean—”

“Don’t flounder, Jedi Jinzler,” C’baoth reproved her mildly. “A Jedi’s words, like a Jedi’s thoughts, must always be clear and confident. If you have a question, ask it.”

“Yes, Master C’baoth.” Lorana braced herself. “When you say, we… are you expecting me to come with you on Outbound Flight?”

“Of course,” he said, frowning at her. “Why else do you think I recommended your elevation to Jedi Knighthood so soon?”

A familiar tightness wrapped itself around Lorana’s chest. “I thought it was because I was ready.”

“Obviously, you were,” C’baoth said. “But you still have much to learn. Here, aboard Outbound Flight, I’ll have the necessary time to teach you.”

“But I can’t go,” Lorana protested, her brain skittering around desperately for something to say. She didn’t want to leave the Republic and the galaxy. Certainly not with so much work here to be done. “I haven’t made any preparations, I haven’t asked permission from the Jedi Council—”

“The Council has granted me whatever I need,” C’baoth cut in tartly. “As for preparations, what sort of preparations does a Jedi need?”

Lorana clamped her teeth firmly together. How could he have made such a decision without even consulting her?

“Master C’baoth, I appreciate your offer. But I’m not sure—”

“It’s not an offer, Jedi Jinzler,” C’baoth interrupted.

“You’re a Jedi now. You go wherever the Council chooses to send you.”

“Anywhere in the Republic, yes,” Lorana said. “But this is different.”

“Only different in your mind,” C’baoth said firmly. “But you’re young. You’ll grow.” He pointed at the approaching collection of ships. “Once you see what we’ve done and meet the other Jedi you’ll be more enthusiastic about the destiny that awaits us.”

“What about this one?” Tarkosa asked, tapping his fingers on a rack of negative couplings. “Chas?”

“Just a second, just a second,” Uliar growled, scanning the racks already in place as he silently cursed the crowd of tech assistants the Supreme Chancellor’s Office had sent from Coruscant to help with the loading. For the most part, they’d proven themselves completely useless: dropping delicate components, sorting others into the wrong storage areas, and more often than not doubling up on one rack of spares while the proper set was left buried somewhere in the bowels of the storage core far beneath them. “It goes there,” he told Tarkosa, pointing to a spot next to a rack of cooling-pump parts.

“What in the worlds?” a deep voice said from behindhim.

Uliar turned to see a balding middle-age man in a plain tan robe standing in the doorway. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Jedi Master Justyn Ma’Ning,” the other said, his forehead creasing as he surveyed the chaos in the room. “This equipment should have been stowed two days ago.”

“It was,” Uliar said. “Very badly. We’re trying to fix it.”

“Ah,” Ma’Ning said, a wryly knowing look on his face.

Apparently, he’d met the Coruscant tech assistants, too. “Better speed it up. Master C’baoth is arriving today, and he won’t be happy if he sees things this way.” With a nod, he turned and headed off down the corridor.

“Like Jedi happiness is our problem,” Uliar muttered under his breath at the empty doorway. He turned back to the storage racks; and as he did so, a repeater diagnostic display suddenly flickered on.

“That got it?” a voice called, and a young man popped his head into view through an open floor access panel.

“Hang on.” Uliar stepped to the display and ran through its options list. “Looks perfect,” he confirmed.

Coruscant’s tech assistants might be worthless, but the few actual techs who’d come with them were another story completely “Thanks.”

“No problem,” the other said, setting his toolbox on the floor beside the panel and pulling himself out. “You still having trouble with the repeater in the aft reactor bay?”

“Unless what you just did fixed that one, too,” Tarkosa said.

“Probably not,” the young man said as he maneuvered the access panel back into place. “These things are hooked parallel, but I doubt the circuit extends that far. I’ll try to get toit when I get back from D-One.”

“Why not do it now?” Uliar suggested. “D-One’s all the way over on the far side of the hexagon. Why go all the way there and then have to come all the way back?”

“Because D-One’s also the command ship,” the tech reminded him. “Mon Gals might look like pushovers, but when Captain Pakmillu says he want something fixed, he means now.”

Tarkosa snorted. “What’s he going to do, bust all of us to civilian?”

“Don’t know what he’d do to you,” the tech said drily,

“but I’d still like to have a job once you fly off into the wild black.

It won’t take long, I promise.”

“We’ll hold you to that,” Uliar said. “You sure we can’t persuade you to come along? You’re light-years ahead of most of our regular techs.”

A muscle twitched in the other’s cheek. “I doubt that, but thanks anyway,” he said. “I’m not ready to leave civilization just yet.”

“You’d better hope civilization doesn’t leave you,”

Tarkosa warned. “The way things are going on Coruscant, I wouldn’t bet on it.”

“Maybe,” the tech said, picking up his toolbox. “See you later.”

“Okay,” Uliar said. “Thanks again.”

The other smiled and left the room. “Good man,”

Tarkosa commented. “You ever get his name?”

Uliar shook his head. “Dean something, I think.

Doesn’t matter—it’s not like we’ll ever see him again after tomorrow.

Okay, that rack of shock capacitors goes next to thenegative couplings.“

“The entire system can be run from here,” Captain Pakmillu said, waving a flippered hand around the vast Combined Operations Center. “That means that if there’s an emergency or disaster on any of the ships, countermeasures can be instituted immediately without the need to physically send people to those sites.”

“Impressive,” Obi-Wan said, looking around. Situated just aft of the cross-corridor behind the bridge/monitor room complex, the ComOps Center stretched probably thirty meters aft and filled the entire space between the Dreadnaught’s two main bow corridors. It was currently a hive of activity, with dozens of humans and aliens bustling around and half the access panels and consoles open for last-minute checks or adjustment.

“What’s that thing?” Anakin asked, pointing to a low console two rows over from where they were standing. “It looks like a Podracer control and monitor system.”

“You have sharp eyes, young one,” Pakmillu said, his own large eyes rolling toward the boy. “Yes, it is. We use it to control our fleet of speeders and swoops.”

“You’re joking,” Obi-Wan said, frowning at the console. “You run swoops through these corridors?”

“Outbound Flight is a huge place, Master Kenobi,”

Pakmillu reminded him. “While each Dreadnaught is linked by the pylon turbolifts to its neighbors and the core, there’s still a great deal of travel involved where the turbolifts do not go.

Speeders are vital for moving crewers back and forth in both emergency and non-emergency situations.”

“Yes, but swoops?” Obi-Wan persisted. “Wouldn’t a more extensive turbolift system have been safer and more efficient?”

“Certainly,” Pakmillu rumbled. “Unfortunately, it would also have been more expensive. The original Dreadnaughts did not include such a system, and the Senate didnot wish to pay the costs of retrofitting.”