Timothy Zahn - Outbound Flight

She froze, her breath catching in her throat, her eyes and mind and Jedi senses stretching out through the crowd of people between them. She’d seen this man many times before in the past few years, generally in the public areas of the Senate chamber but occasionally other places as well. He was young, probably a year or two younger than her, of medium height and build with short-cropped dark hair and a strangely bitter set to his mouth. She’d never gotten close enough to see what color his eyes were, but she assumed they were dark as well.

And every time she’d seen him, she’d had the distinct sense that he was watching her.

He was doing so now, studying her out of the corner of his eye as he pretended to work with a wiring panel he’d opened.

She’d often seen him at wiring panels or fiddling with droid modules, but whether he actually knew his way around circuit boxes or whether he just used them as a pretext to hang around, she’d never figured out.

At the beginning, she’d assumed it was all coincidence.

Even now, she had no actual proof it was anything else. All she had was the fact that, as her Jedi skills had grown, she’d been able to stretch out even through crowded corridors like this one to sense his mind.

And as she did so now, she found the same simmering resentment that she’d always felt before. Resentment, and frustration, and anger.

Directed at her.

Someone she’d harmed or slighted in a past so distant she couldn’t even recall the incident? But she’d been in the Jedi Temple since she was an infant. One of the non-Jedi employees at the Temple, then? But surely her instructors would have taken action if they’d sensed any threat from him.

The man looked in her direction. Then, deliberately, he turned his back on her and gave his full attention to his wiring panel. Lorana watched him work, fighting against her own flurry of discomfiting emotions. Should she go over and try to find out what he had against her? Or should she go first to the Senate records and see if she could track down his identity, holding off on any confrontations until she had more information?

Or should she let it go entirely, and assume that the meetings were a coincidence and that his anger was merely directed at Jedi in general?

She was still trying to make a decision when he closed the panel, collected his tool kit, and stalked away. He glanced back once as he reached the corner, then disappeared around it.

There is no emotion; there is peace. Lorana had been taught that dictum from her earliest days in the Temple, and she’d tried her best to incorporate it into her life. But as long as the question of that man remained unresolved, she knew somehow that she could never have complete peace.

She also knew that now was not the time. Taking a deep breath, lifting her comlink again, she keyed for the spaceport.

The door closed behind the two Jedi, and for a moment Kinman Doriana gazed at the spot where they’d exited, a sour taste in his mouth. As a general rule, nearly all Jedi struck him as pompous and arrogant and obscenely sure of themselves.

But even with that head start Jorus C’baoth was in a class by himself.

“You really don’t like him, do you?” Palpatine asked mildly.

Setting his expression carefully back to neutral, Doriana shifted his attention back to the Chancellor. “I’m sorry, sir,” he said. And he meant it. Whatever his personal feelings, it was bad policy to let emotions of any sort rise to the surface.

Especially where Jedi were concerned. “I just think that with all the other problems facing the Republic, a massive exploration and colonization project should be relegated to the bottom third of the priority list. And for Master C’baoth to insist that you personally do something about it—”

“Patience, Kinman,” Palpatine interrupted soothingly.

“You must learn to permit people their passions. Outbound Flight is Master C’baoth’s.”

He looked across the office toward the door. “Besides, even if they find nothing of real value out there, it may be that just the news of their expedition will spark the imaginations of people across the Republic.”

“If they ever do actually announce it,” Doriana said.

“The last I heard, the Jedi Council still had the whole project wrapped in secrecy.”

Palpatine shrugged. “I’m sure they have their reasons.”

“Perhaps.” Doriana hesitated. “But I’d like to apologize to you, sir, for speaking out of turn during the meeting.”

“Don’t concern yourself about it,” Palpatine assured him. “Actually, it was an inspired suggestion. Master C’baoth is quite good at the sort of mediation the Barlok situation so sorely needs. I should have thought of it myself.”

He snorted under his breath. “And to be perfectly honest, I’ll be just as happy to have him off Coruscant for a couple of weeks. It’ll give me a chance to consider how I’m going to persuade the Appropriations Committee to restore Outbound Flight’s funding.”

“As well as find a way to persuade the Council to give Master C’baoth all the Jedi he wants?”

“That one I can do nothing about,” Palpatine said. “If C’baoth wants more Jedi, he’s the one who’ll have to persuade Yoda and Windu.”

“Yes, sir,” Doriana murmured. “Well… maybe he’ll succeed so well at Barlok that they’ll have no choice but to give in.”

“Or else they’ll give in simply to get him off their backs,” Palpatine said drily. “He’s as persistent with them as he is with me. At any rate, that part is in C’baoth’s hands now.

Speaking of matters in hand, when are you leaving for your own trip?”

“Tonight,” Doriana said. “I have a ship reserved, and all the necessary files and documents are prepared and packed. I just need to stop by my apartment after work to pack my personal items and I’ll be ready to go.”

“Excellent,” Palpatine said. “Then you might as well go now. There’s nothing more I need from you for the rest of the day.”

“Thank you, sir,” Doriana said. “I’ll keep you informed on what happens at the various meetings.”

“Yes, do that.” Palpatine raised his eyebrows. “And be sure you deliver those data cards to Governor Caulfmar personally.”

“Yes, I read the reports,” Doriana said, nodding.

“Actually, if the timing works out I may take an extra day to poke around and see if I can identify‘ the traitor in his inner circle. With your permission, of course.”

“Granted,” Palpatine said. “But be careful. There are rumors of growing dissatisfaction in that sector.”

“There are rumors of that sort everywhere,” Doriana said. “I’ll be all right.”

“I trust so,” Palpatine said. “But still be careful. Andhurry back.”

It was a twenty-minute air taxi ride to Doriana’s home in the Third Ring Apartment Towers northeast of the Senate complex. He split the time between datapad and comlink, checking on his travel plans and smoothing out the inevitable last-minute details. The taxi let him out on the 248th-floor landing pad, and he rode the turbolift ten stories down to his apartment. Unlocking the door, he went in, locking and privacy-sealing it behind him.

He had told Palpatine that he still had to pack his bags. In actual fact, they were already packed and sitting in a neat row just inside the conversation room. Passing them by, he went to the desk in the corner and sat down. From behind the false back in the bottom right-hand drawer he took a holoprojector and plugged it into the computer. The access/security code was a simple matter of twelve letters and eighteen digits; punching them in, he picked up his datapad again and settled back to wait.

As usual, the wait wasn’t very long. Barely three minutes after he sent the call, the hooded face of Darth Sidious shimmered into view above the holoprojector. “Report,” the other ordered in a gravelly voice.