Timothy Zahn - Outbound Flight

Jinzler’s eyes narrowed. “How?”

“We’re going to have to scuttle it,” Car’das said, watching her face carefully. Even with nothing left but torn and broken metal, there was an even chance she would be attached enough to the hulk to object violently to its destruction. People went all weird like that sometimes.

Sure enough, her eyes widened. “No,” she insisted.

“You can’t.”

“Look, I’m sorry,” Car’das said as soothingly as he could. “But there’s nothing left but dead metal and droids—”

“Never mind the dead metal,” she snapped. “There are people still aboard.”

Car’das felt his heart catch. No—that was impossible.

A Jedi might possibly have survived Thrawn’s attack, but surely no one else could have. “Who?” he asked. “How many?”

“Fifty-seven,” Jinzler said. “Including children.”

Car’das looked at Thrass, seeing his own horror reflected in the other’s face. “Where are they?” he asked. “Can we get them out of here?”

“In that shuttle?” Thrass countered before Jinzler could answer. “No. There isn’t enough room for even ten.”

“And it would take time to get them up here anyway,”

Jinzler said. “They’re still in the storage core.”

Car’das grimaced. The storage core. Of course—the one area Thrawn’s attack had ignored. “What do we do?”

“I don’t understand the problem,” Jinzler said, looking back and forth between them. “Why don’t we just leave?”

“For starters, we can’t fly Outbound Flight very far, not just the two of us,” Car’das said. “Not even if we had time to get your people up here to help us.”

Lorana looked around the bridge. “We won’t need them,” she said, her voice tight but firm. “I can fly Outbound Flight.”

“By yourself?” Thrass asked in clear disbelief. “One single person?”

“One single Jedi,” Jinzler corrected him. “Master C’baoth insisted we all learn to handle all of the major systems.

At least, under normal conditions.”

“The conditions here are hardly normal,” Car’das pointed out. “And it still leaves the question of where we go.

We’ll never make it back to the Republic, not with this much damage.”

“We have to reach a Defense Fleet base, as my brother originally intended,” Thrass said.

“And then what happens to my people?” Jinzler asked.

“Would they be prisoners of war? Captives held for study?”

“The Chiss aren’t like that,” Car’das insisted.

“But the end result might be the same,” Thrass conceded. “If the Fifth Ruling Family chooses to press its claim to Outbound Flight, even if we go to a military base they may demand that all aboard be placed in holding until the matter can be decided.”

“A prison by any other name,” Jinzler said grimly.

“How long would this decision process take?”

Thrass snorted. “With a prize such as Outbound Flight? It could be years.”

“So we can forget going anywhere in Chiss space,”

Car’das said. “Any idea what other habitable worlds there might be out here?”

“Even if I did, I would caution against anything nearby,” Thrass said. “This region is dangerous, with pirates andprivateers all around.”

“Not to mention what’s left of the Vagaari,” Car’das agreed with a shiver. “Come on, Thrass, think. There has to be something else we can do.”

Thrass gazed out at the Fifth Family ships. “There’s one other possibility,” he said slowly. “Within two days’ flight is a star cluster that the Defense Fleet has begun to fortify as an emergency refuge. I’ve seen the data, and there are at least ten habitable worlds within it that haven’t yet been explored.”

“Kind of an out-of-the-way homestead,” Car’das pointed out doubtfully.

“And still in Chiss space,” Jinzler added.

“But it’s a place where vessels of the Fifth Family wouldn’t accidentally discover you,” Thrass said. “Only Defense Fleet personnel go inside, and only to specific systems as they work on the fortifications.”

“So what’s the catch?” Car’das asked.

Thrass made a face. “The catch is that I don’t have the safe access routes into the cluster,” he said. “Are your navigational systems capable of finding such routes on their own?”

“Probably not,” Jinzler said. “But I might be able to.

There are Jedi navigational techniques that should be good enough to take us through even a star cluster.”

“So what happens if she can?” Car’das asked Thrass.

“They set up shop and wait for all this to blow over?”

“Or I return after they’re hidden and negotiate in secret with the Council of Families for their safe passage home,”

Thrass said.

“Even if such negotiations take a few months, the survivors will at least have a habitable world to live on.” Helooked at Jinzler. “There are other hypercapable vessels aboard that I could use, are there not?”

“Just one, a two-passenger Delta-Twelve Skysprite,”

Jinzler said. “But it should have the range you need.”

“So that’s it?” Car’das asked, not quite believing they’d hammered out something workable so quickly. “We hide Outbound Flight in this cluster, negotiate a deal with the Chiss—all the Chiss—and everyone gets what they want?”

“Basically.” Jinzler hesitated. “But then we won’t include you. I have something else I need you to do for me.” Her lips compressed. “A personal favor.”

“Like what?” Car’das asked cautiously. Doing a personal favor for a Jedi didn’t sound very appetizing.

“I want you to find my brother when you return to the Republic,” she said. “Dean Jinzler, probably working with Senate Support Services on Coruscant. Tell him—” She hesitated. “Just tell him that his sister was thinking about him, hoping that someday he’ll be able to let go of his anger. His anger at me, at our parents, and at himself.”

“All right,” Car’das said, the hairs on the back of his neck tingling. The fact that she was sending him on such an errand implied she wasn’t at all sure she’d be coming back.

Given the shape Outbound Flight was in, he wouldn’t have bet on it, either. “I’ll do my best.”

For a long moment she held his eyes. Then she nodded.

“You’d better go, then,” she said. She looked down at her still-glowing lightsaber, as if suddenly realizing it was still active, and closed it down. “Please don’t forget.”

“I won’t,” he promised. “Good luck.” He looked at Thrass. “To both of you.”

Ten minutes later, Car’das eased the Chiss shuttle out of the Dreadnaught’s hangar and flew it clear. Turning the nose toward the waiting Fifth Family ships, he looked back over hisshoulder at the magnificent failure that had been Outbound Flight.

He wondered if anyone would ever see it again.

Doriana was gazing out the bridge canopy, listening with half an ear to the argument still going on between Chaf’orm’bintrano, Mitth’raw’nuruodo, and the female Chiss, when Outbound Flight abruptly made the jump to lightspeed.

For a moment he stared in disbelief… and then, slowly, he felt a smile tug at his lips. So that was what Mitth’raw’nuruodo had been up to with this confrontation. He’d been stalling for time while some of his people stole the Dreadnaughts right out from under Aristocra Chaf’orm’bintrano’s nose.

And even Doriana’s own attempt to muddy the Chiss waters had apparently been part of that scheme. Had Mitth’raw’nuruodo anticipated Doriana’s efforts? Or had he simply incorporated them into his own plan as they occurred?

Either way, it was artfully done. “Excuse me?” he spoke up, lifting a finger. “I believe the discussion is over.” He waited until he had their attention, then angled the upraised finger to point out the canopy. “Your prize is gone.”