Timothy Zahn - Outbound Flight

“Let us wait and see their intentions,”

Mitth’raw’nuruodo said, turning back to gaze out the bridge canopy. “Perhaps they will be cooperative.”

Doriana frowned. “Cooperative how?”

Mitth’raw’nuruodo smiled faintly. “Patience, Commander. Let us wait and see.”

“They arrived quite suddenly,” C’baoth’s voice came from Lorana’s comlink, calm but with an edge to it she’d seldom heard before. “Some ploy of the Chiss, I imagine.”

“What are they doing?” Lorana asked, keeping her voice down as she gazed ahead of her at the line of men, women, and children walking alongside the stacks of storage crates toward the Jedi training center. There was no point in worrying these people any more than they already were.

“So far, just waiting,” C’baoth told her. “Captain Pakmillu informs me that their ship design is radically different from that of the Chiss, but of course that means nothing.”

“Have you asked the commander about them?” Lorana asked. Uliar, walking at the end of the line of prisoners, glanced over his shoulder and started to drift backward toward her.

“Maybe they have nothing to do with him.”

C’baoth snorted. “With all of space for them to fly through? Please.”

“What’s going on?” Uliar asked softly.

Lorana hesitated. But all of Outbound Flight was in this together. “An unidentified fleet has arrived,” she told him.

“Over two hundred ships, at least a hundred of which seem to be warships.”

“Who are you talking to?” C’baoth asked.

“We’re trying to figure out whether they’re Chiss ships, Chiss allies, or someone else entirely,” Lorana continued, ignoring the question.

“What are their reactor emissions like?” Uliar asked.

“Is it a similar spectrum to Mitth-whatever’s ships, or something different?”

“Who is that?” C’baoth demanded. “Jedi Jinzler?”

“Reactor Tech Uliar says we might be able to deduce their identity or affiliation from their reactor emission spectrum,” Lorana said.

“And what precisely is Reactor Tech Uliar doing out of the imprisonment I ordered for him and his fellow conspirators?” C’baoth asked acidly.

“We’re on our way there,” Lorana said, feeling her resolve eroding beneath the weight and pressure of his personality. “I thought that since he’s an expert in thesethings—”

“We have experts up here, too,” C’baoth cut in. “Loyal experts. You concentrate on putting Uliar where he can’t do any more harm and leave the alien fleet to—”

He broke off as a melodious voice, or possibly two of them, began to speak in the background. “What’s that?” Lorana asked.

“They appear to be hailing us,” C’baoth said. The alien voices grew louder as the Jedi Master moved closer to one of the bridge speakers.

Lorana listened closely. It was a strange language, highly musical, with a distinct singsong component to it.

“Uliar?” she whispered.

He shook his head, his forehead creased in concentration. “Never heard anything like it before,” he whispered back. “But it doesn’t sound like the kind of language near humans like the Chiss would come up with.”

Lorana nodded agreement. “Master C’baoth?” she called. “It doesn’t sound like—”

“Get the conspirators to their holding area, Jedi Jinzler,” C’baoth interrupted. “Then go to Dreadnaught-Four and report to Jedi Master Ma’Ning in the weapons blisters.”

There was a click as he shut off his comlink.

Lorana sighed. “Yes, Master C’baoth,” she murmured as she returned her comlink to her belt.

“We’re in trouble, aren’t we?” Uliar asked quietly.

“We’ll be all right,” Lorana assured him, trying to convey a confidence she didn’t feel. First Mitth’raw’nuruodo, and now this new threat… and with Outbound Flight’s defense resting squarely on the shoulders of their handful of Jedi.

And suddenly she was getting a very bad feeling aboutall of it. “I need to get up to D-Four to assist Master Ma’Ning,”

she told Uliar. “Get your people inside, and when these other matters are settled we’ll get your problem straightened out.”

Uliar snorted. “It’s not our problem.”

Lorana grimaced. “I know,” she conceded. “Don’t worry. We will straighten it out.”

“They’re probably not answering because they don’t understand you,” Car’das explained as patiently as his pounding heart would allow. “As I said, they’re from the same region of space I am, and we don’t know the language of the mighty and noble Vagaari.”

“You will soon learn it,” the Miskara promised him coldly. “In the meantime, you will serve as translator.”

Car’das grimaced. That was all he needed: the people on Outbound Flight assuming he was a renegade or, worse, a traitor. Whatever necessary… “Of course, Your Eminence,” he said. “I stand humbly ready to serve the Miskara and the Vagaari people in any way you wish.”

“Of course,” the Miskara said, as if even a breath of hesitation on Car’das’s part would be unthinkable. “Tell me first: how deeply within the vessels will the fighting machines be stored? Will they be at the surfaces, or deeper inside.”

“Deep inside,” Car’das told him, not knowing whether it was true but not about to take the time to try to actually think about it.

“Good,” the Miskara said with satisfaction. “Then we may destroy as we will without risking our prize.”

An unpleasant sensation tingled across Car’das’s skin.

With a hundred Vagaari warships blotting out the starscape around him, the Miskara’s words were as close to a death sentence as anything he’d ever heard.

And he was the one who’d pointed the Vagaari in thatdirection.

“Now: speak this,” the Miskara continued. “ ‘You of the vessel known as Outbound Flight: we are the Vagaari. You will surrender or be destroyed.’ ”

… Or be destroyed.“

Lorana looked across the weapons blister at Ma’Ning, at the tight set to his mouth. The first voice from the unknown ships had definitely not been human. This one just as definitely was.

And the human had been speaking Basic, as well. This wasn’t good. “A captive from the Republic?” she suggested.

“Or a traitor,” Ma’Ning said grimly. “Either way, it’s going to make this that much trickier.”

“Not at all,” C’baoth’s voice came from the comm speaker. “There’s nothing even a traitor could have told them that will have prepared them for the kind of coordinated defense a Jedi meld can offer.”

“With a hundred or more warships at their disposal I can’t see them worrying overly much about how tight our defense is,” Ma’Ning countered.

“Patience, Master Ma’Ning,” C’baoth said, his voice glacially calm. “Trust in the Force.”

“They’re moving forward,” Captain Pakmillu’s voice cut in. “All weapons stations stand ready.”

Lorana took a deep breath as she stretched out to the Force for strength and calm. This was it: the first genuine test of the Jedi control system C’baoth had spent so much of his time teaching the rest of them.

“What in the name—?” Abruptly, Ma’Ning hunchedcloser to his sensor displays. “Master C’baoth?”

“I see them,” C’baoth said. “So this is the sort of enemy we face.”

“What is it?” Lorana asked, swiveling her chair to her own displays.

“Look at the warships,” Ma’Ning said. “See all those plastic bubbles on the hulls?”

Lorana felt her chest tighten. “There are people in there!”

“Living shields,” C’baoth confirmed, his voice thick with contempt. “The most evil and cowardly defense concept ever created.”