Outbound Flight

Chapter 8

With a sigh, Obi-Wan shut off his comlink and slipped it back into his belt. "Still nothing?" Anakin asked.

"No," Obi-Wan said, throwing a look at the darkening sky. The stars were starting to appear, and all around them house lights were coming on as families settled in for the evening.

Anakin muttered something under his breath. "We should have tried calling her earlier."

"Wedid try calling her earlier," Obi-Wan told him. "You were just too busy playing with Duefgrin's swoop to notice."

"Excuse me, Master, but I wasworking, not playing," Anakin said stiffly. "The Brolf we're looking for is named Jhompfi, he lives in the Covered Brush house ring, and he's supposedly using the burst thrusters on a speeder bike he uses to smuggle rissle sticks out to the Karts."

Obi-Wan stared at his Padawan. "When did you get all that?"

"When you were wandering around the neighborhood looking for clues," Anakin said. It was hard to sound hurt and smug at the same time, but the boy managed to pull it off "Those were the only times he'd talk to me." He wrinkled his rose. "I don't think he trusts grown-ups very much."

"You should have said something the minute you had that information," Obi-Wan said tartly, slipping the guide card into his datapad and keying for a house ring search. "Or hadn't it occurred to you that Lorana might be in trouble?"

"No, but it occurred to me that if we left too suddenly, Duefgrin might have called Jhompfi and warned him," Anakin retorted.

"Mind your place, Padawan," Obi-Wan warned the boy. It was a warning he seemed to be delivering more and more often these days.

Anakin gave a theatrical sigh. "My apologies, Master."

A map appeared on the datapad's display, showing the way to the Covered Brush house ring. "There it is," Obi-Wan said, angling the datapad so that Anakin could see.

"That's not the direction he was going when he left Duefgrin," Anakin pointed out uneasily.

"I know," Obi-Wan said grimly. "But right now, it's all we've got. Let's go take a look."

The neighborhood where the Covered Brush house ring was located was similar to many Obi-Wan had seen in his journeys around the Republic. It was poor but clean, a place where the people worked hard for what little they had but nevertheless worked equally hard to maintain their pride and dignity.

Some Jedi, he knew, treated such places and people with disdain or condescension. For his own part, he far preferred them to Coruscant's upper-level inhabitants with their immensely greater wealth but shifting-sand ethics. Most of the people in these places were friendlier and more forthright, without hidden political agendas or the lust for position and power.

At the very least, if someone here wanted to stab someone, he used a knife and not a deceitful smile.

"Where do we start?" Anakin murmured as they stopped beside one of the hedges across the street from the building.

"You could start by staying out of my way," a voice murmured from somewhere behind them.

Obi-Wan spun around, his hand darting beneath his tunic to his lightsaber as a face rose from concealment behind a section of hedge they'd just passed.

One look was all he needed. "Hello, Riske," he said, releasing his grip on his lightsaber. "Imagine meeting you here."

"I could say the same thing," Riske said sourly, jerking his head toward his side of the hedge. "You want to step into my office a minute?"

Obi-Wan glanced around. There were only a few Brolfi still out in the gathering dusk, and none of them was looking in their direction. Tapping Anakin on the arm, he did a quick backward leap over the hedge. He landed in a crouch, Anakin right beside him.

"You're persistent, I'll give you that," Riske said as he waddled over to join them, keeping his head down. "What are you doing here?"

"We're looking for a Brolf named Jhompfi," Obi-Wan told him. "He had someone steal a pair of burst thrusters for him this afternoon. We were hoping to ask him why."

"While you're at it, you could also ask about the explosives that disappeared from a mining site one of his close friends was working at," Riske said darkly. "Or about the stabilization system another friend apparently borrowed from his boss's hobby swoop, or the alloy packing cylinders that were lifted from another work site. You seeing a pattern here?"

Obi-Wan grimaced. "Someone's building a homemade missile."

"Or two or three of them," Riske said. "And it doesn't look like either of us will be able to ask Jhompfi about it, since he and all his friends seem to have disappeared."

"Wonderful," Obi-Wan said, peering over the hedge.

"Yeah, that's the wordI was thinking," Riske said. "So what's your interest in him?"

"Our friend-the Padawan you ran into earlier-was following him," Obi-Wan said. "She's disappeared, and I can't raise her on the comlink."

"Too bad," Riske said. "Nice kid, but not much combat savvy."

"We're not ready to give up on her quite yet," Obi-Wan growled. "You have any idea where Jhompfi might have gone to ground?"

"If I did, I wouldn't be hanging around here," Riske countered. "I've got people checking out the Mining Guild centers, but if Jhompfi's not coming home I doubt he'd be stupid enough to go to any of them."

"So what do we do?" Anakin asked.

"WhatI'm going to do is head back to the hotel and make sure we've got our security set up," Riske said. "I'm figuring it'll come tonight-the duracrete slugs always disappear just before they drop the house on you."

"Or they might try for the city administration center tomorrow," Obi-Wan suggested.

"Unlikely," Riske said. "Jhompfi's hardly going to attack a place where his own guildmaster is busy negotiating for him. No, it's got to be the hotel, or maybe the route to the admin center in the morning."

Unfortunately, Riske's analysis made sense. "Okay," Obi-Wan said. "You tie down that end, and we'll keep looking for Lorana."

"Good luck." Riske shook his head. "You know, I almost planted a tracker on her earlier, just so I could make sure she was staying out of my way. I wish now I had."

"I wish you had, too," Obi-Wan said. "We'll just have to manage on our own."

"Jedi are supposed to be good at such things," Riske said, pulling out a data card and handing it over. "This'll give you a direct connection to my comlink, running it through one of our encryptions. Call me if you hear anything, okay?"

"I will," Obi-Wan promised, sliding the card into his comlink pouch.

Riske nodded and moved away. He reached the far end of the hedge, glanced over it, then slipped back around and headed off at a brisk walk. "Now what?" Anakin asked.

"We'd better let Master C'baoth know what happened," Obi-Wan said reluctantly. "He and Lorana may be close enough for him to be able to detect her Force-signature."

"Maybe," Anakin said doubtfully as they returned to the end of the hedge and back onto the walkway. "You know, maybe we all should carry trackers."

Obi-Wan looked sideways at him. "I can think of at least one person who ought to have one," he muttered under his breath. "What was that?"

Obi-Wan shook his head. "Never mind."

C'baoth, when they finally raised him on the comlink, wasn't at all happy about being disturbed. He was even less happy when he heard their story "For the moment we'll pass over the fact that you involved yourself with the Barlok situation against my direct order," the Jedi Master rumbled, and Obi-Wan could imagine his eyes flashing from beneath his bushy eyebrows. "The important point right now is that you've put my Padawan at risk."

"I understand your anger, Master C'baoth-" Obi-Wan began.

"Anger?" C'baoth cut him off. "There is no anger, Master Kenobi. Not for a Jedi."

"My apologies," Obi-Wan said, trying hard to suppress some annoyance of his own. A situation like this, and all the man could do was recite Jedi canon? "It was an improper choice of words."

"Better," C'baoth rumbled. "What about you, Padawan Skywalker? Have you any thoughts?"

Obi-Wan angled the comlink toward the boy. "Not really, Master C'baoth," Anakin said. "Mostly, I'm concerned about Lorana's safety. I'm worried that she may have been killed."

For a moment C'baoth didn't answer. "No, she's not dead," he said at last. "I would have felt such a disturbance in the Force."

"Then you can locate her?" Anakin asked hopefully.

"The one does not necessarily follow from the other," C'baoth told him. "Unfortunately, I can't pick up her Force-signature at the moment. Master Kenobi, you said you'd spoken to the boy who obtained the boosters. He might know where Jhompfi's favorite hiding spots are."

"I don't think so," Anakin said. "He doesn't seem to be a part of the actual conspiracy."

"Yet he knows Jhompfi, and may have seen something in the past that will point the way."

"I doubt he'd be willing to discuss it," Obi-Wan said. "At least not with strangers."

"Did Iask if he would be willing?"

Obi-Wan felt his throat tighten. "Are you suggesting I force his mind?"

"No, of course not," C'baoth assured him. But the words, Obi-Wan knew, were for Anakin's benefit. That was, in fact, exactly what C'baoth had been suggesting. "We're the protectors of the weak, not their oppressors. At the same time, a crime has been perpetrated against a Jedi. Such a thing cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. Even if Padawan Jinzler chose not to fight in her own defense," he added darkly.

Obi-Wan frowned. "What do you mean?"

"There have been no reports of lightsabers being seen in the city, Master Kenobi," C'baoth said patiently. "Nor has news of multiple severed limbs reached my ears. Lorana Jinzler is only a Padawan, but I have certainly instructed her in combat better thanthat."

"Of course," Obi-Wan said, a sudden idea striking him. If C'baoth was right about Lorana going quietly with her kidnappers. . "Thank you for your time, Master C'baoth."

"I will expect my Padawan to be at my side when I meet Iviagistrate Argente and Guildmaster Gilfrome in the morning," C'baoth warned.

"Understood," Obi-Wan said. Breaking the connection, he slid the comlink back into his belt.

"So how are we going to find her?" Anakin asked.

"Master C'baoth gave us the hint himself," Obi-Wan told him. "He's right: if Lorana had fought against her attackers, we certainly would have heard of it. Therefore, she didn't."

"Okay," Anakin said. "And that means what?"

"It means that she must have decided that surrendering quietly would gain her more than fighting," Obi-Wan said. "She probably hoped she'd be taken into the center of the conspiracy where she could meet the people in charge. But. "

He let the word hang expectantly in the air, hoping Anakin would pick up the train of logic. "But they'd be crazy to bring a Jedi to their leaders," the boy said slowly. "Even a Padawan."

"Exactly," Obi-Wan said. "And what's the fastest way to tell if someone like Lorana is a Jedi?"

"If you catch her carrying a lightsaber," Anakin said, his voice suddenly picking up on Obi-Wan's own cautious hope. "So she had to get rid of it!"

"Right," Obi-Wan confirmed. "And she probably got rid of it on the spur of the moment, someplace near where she was kidnapped."

"Someplace close enough for us to be able to sense its Ilum crystal," Anakin finished excitedly. "But we'll still have to get pretty close, won't we?"

"True, but at least out in the street we'll beable to get that close," Obi-Wan pointed out. "If she and her lightsaber were both inside a house, we probably wouldn't be able to spot the crystal, at least not from outside." He gestured down the street, darkened now except for the faint glow of streetlights. "We'll start here in the Covered Brush area. Jhompfi was smart enough to stay away from his own house, but he may have been stupid enough to go to a nearby friend's. If we don't find anything, we'll start going through the poorer neighborhoods of Patameene District."

"Because that's the sort of neighborhood Jhompfi's used to?"

"No, because that's where they use hedges instead of walls to mark the land boundaries," Obi-Wan said. "You're not going to bury a lightsaber inside a stone wall without somebody noticing. If we don't find her there, we'll move on to the wealthier areas, then move on to other districts."

Anakin took a deep breath. "All right. I'm game if you are."

"Good," Obi-Wan said. "Then clear your mind, my young Padawan. It's likely to be a long night."

They'd been tramping the streets for hours when Obi-Wan finally felt the tingle he'd been waiting for.

The Ilum crystal in Lorana's lightsaber was close at hand.

He looked sideways at Anakin, waiting for the boy to sense it as well. Even in the middle of a serious situation, training exercises were part of a Padawan's life.

They got three more steps before Anakin's steady footsteps suddenly faltered. "There," the boy said. "Just ahead, on the left."

"Very good," Obi-Wan said approvingly, letting his eyes drift around the neighborhood. It was still a good two hours till dawn, and the houses around them were dark and silent, their inhabitants fast asleep.

Or at least, most of them were. The particular inhabitants they were interested in would be very much awake. "No, don't go to it," he told Anakin, catching the boy's arm as he started toward the hedge where Lorana's lightsaber lay hidden. "Here, around on the other side-quickly, now."

Together they moved around the end of the hedge and ducked down out of sight. "Is someone watching us?" Anakin murmured as Obi-Wan led them in a crouch to within a few meters of the lightsaber.

"We'll find out in a moment," Obi-Wan said. "Tell me, what would you do if you were guarding a prisoner in the middle of the night and suddenly something strange happened outside your window?"

"I don't know," Anakin said, frowning in thought. "I suppose it would depend on how strange it was."

"Let's find out." Stretching out to the Force, Obi-Wan reached his mind across the distance and triggered Lorana's lightsaber.

With a mutedsnap-hiss the green blade lanced out, startlingly bright in the nighttime darkness. A few small leaves showered down where they'd been cut loose from their branches, but the handle was wedged solidly in place and stayed where it was. "Now, let's see who in the neighborhood is still awake," he commented.

They didn't have long to wait. Less than a minute later a door in one of the houses across the street opened, and a lone Brolf peered anxiously out, his eyes darting around. Seeing no one, he lumbered across the street to the blazing lightsaber.

For a moment he stared at it uncertainly. Then, gingerly, he reached into the mesh of branches and pulled the weapon free. Holding it at arm's length, he turned it carefully in his hand, clearly trying to figure out how to shut it off.

"Allow me," Obi-Wan spoke up, rising to his full height behind the hedge. Reaching out with the Force, he closed down the lightsaber.

The Brolf was fast, all right. Almost before the blade had vanished he leapt into action, jumping sideways and hurling the lightsaber straight at Obi-Wan's face as he hauled a blaster out of his tunic.

Fast, but stupid. Obi-Wan was a Jedi, with Jedi reflexes, and he had his own lightsaber ready in his hand before the Brolf even started his leap. Reaching up with his free hand, he caught Lorana's weapon and then ignited his own, casually catching the Brolf's shot on his blade and sending it ricocheting off into the night sky.

Stubbornly, the Brolf kept at it, firing again and again with the single-minded foolhardiness of a battle droid. Obi-Wan settled into battle mode, his attention focused inward as he let the Force guide his hands, deflecting the shots as he strode toward his attacker.

And then, through his tunnel vision, he dimly sensed something happening across the street. The Brolf heard or saw it, too, and for a split second his attention wavered as his eyes darted that direction.

It was all the opening Obi-Wan needed. Taking an extra-long step forward, he gave a short, controlled slash that sliced the Brolf's blaster neatly in half.

The Brolf had been quick to attack. Now, with equal speed, he dropped the remaining half of his blaster and took off down the street as fast as his stubby legs could carry him. Obi-Wan considered chasing him down, decided against it, and turned toward the house the other had emerged from.

It was only then that he realized Anakin was no longer with him.

"Blast!" he bit out under his breath, breaking into a run. There was a diffuse blue light flickering from somewhere inside the house, and as he headed up the walkway to the open door he heard the familiar hum of his Padawan's lightsaber. Picking up his pace, he charged inside.

He found Anakin in one of the inner rooms, standing over Lorana's limp form, his lightsaber held in guard position toward a pair of Brolfi cowering in the corner. A third Brolf lay motionlessly on the floor, the remains of a blaster beside him. "Master," Anakin said, clearly trying to sound casual but not entirely succeeding. "I found her."

"So I see," Obi-Wan said, closing down his lightsaber and kneeling down beside the young woman. Her breathing and pulse were slow but steady. "What did you use on her?" he demanded, turning toward the Brolfi in the corner.

Neither answered. "I didn't see anything when I came in," Anakin offered.

"Then they must have it on them," Obi-Wan said. Stepping past Anakin, he ignited his lightsaber and started deliberately toward them.

As with the Brolf he'd dealt with outside, neither of these two was interested in being a hero. "He's got it," one of them spoke up hastily, digging a thumb into his partner's side.

"Yeah, here it is," the other agreed, digging a hypo from inside his tunic and lobbing it at Obi-Wan's feet.

"Thank you," Obi-Wan said politely. "Let's add your comlinks to the pile, shall we? And any weapons, of course."

A moment later two comlinks and a pair of long knives had joined the hypo. "What do we do with them?" Anakin asked.

"That depends on what they've been dosing her with," Obi-Wan said ominously, closing down his lightsaber again and picking up the hypo. It was unlabeled, of course. Running through his Jedi sensory enhancement techniques, he squirted a small drop of the liquid onto his sleeve and held it up to his nose.

One sniff was all it took. "It's okay," he assured Anakin as he let the enhancement fade away. "It's a strong sedative, not a poison. She'll be all right once it wears off."

He gestured toward the two Brolfi. "Which means they won't be facing any murder charges." He cocked his head. "At least, not until their homemade missile goes off."

Both of the prisoners jerked noticeably at the wordmissile. "We had nothing to do with that," one of them insisted. "It was all Filvian's idea. His, and the human's."

Obi-Wan frowned. There was a human mixed up in this? "What human?" he demanded. "What's his name?"

"He calls himself Defender," the Brolf said. "That's all I know."

"What does he look like?"

The Brolf looked helplessly at his companion. "Like a human," the second Brolf said, waving a hand vaguely.

"Do they need more persuasion, Master?" Anakin asked, letting his voice harden.

Obi-Wan suppressed a smile. In his experience, threats from fourteen-year-olds were seldom very convincing.

His eyes dropped to the dead Brolf on the floor. On second thought, in this case maybe they were. "Don't bother," he told Anakin. "They probably reallydon't know how to describe him."

"I'll bet Riske could get something out of them," Anakin suggested.

For a long moment Obi-Wan was tempted. After all, the assassination plotwas directed against Magistrate Argente. It would be only fitting for them to be turned over to Argente's people for interrogation.

But that wasn't the way Jedi were supposed to do things. "We'll turn them over to the city police," he told Anakin, pulling Out his comlink. "Then I guess we'll just have to wait for Lorana to wake up. Maybe she can tell us more."

"We going to wait here?" Anakin asked, frowning.

"Of course," Obi-Wan said, smiling tightly. "After all, Jhompfi or Filvian or Defender might drop by."

"Right," Anakin murmured understandingly. "If we're lucky."

The Vagaari ship had been anchored to the outside of the Crustai asteroid base a quarter of the circumference around from the entrance tunnel. With a Chiss warrior at the controls, Thrawn and the three humans took one of the transports out from the base and docked with it.

To Car'das's private dismay, the alien bodies were still there, lying crumpled right where they'd fallen.

Qennto was apparently not thrilled by that fact, either. "You are planning to clean up this place eventually, aren't you?" he asked distastefully as they picked their way through the corridor toward the treasure room.

"Eventually," Thrawn assured him. "First we need to learn what we can of the enemy's strategy and tactics, and for that we need to know where each combatant was and how he was positioned when he died."

"Shouldn't you have put the ship somewhere out of sight?" Maris asked. She was 'clinging tightly to Qennto's arm as they walked, Car'das noted, apparently not doing nearly as well this time around as she had on their last visit. It made him feel better, somehow.

"Eventually, we'll move it inside the base," Thrawn said. "But we need to first establish that there are no dangerous instabilities in its engines or weaponry."

The treasure room, like the corridors, looked exactly the same as it had just after the ship's capture, except that now there were a pair of Chiss moving along the stacks, apparently making sensor records of the various items. "Spread out," Thrawn ordered the humans. "See if you can find anything of a familiar style."

"You mean like different kinds of money?" Qennto asked as he looked around the room.

"Or are you talking about the gemstones?" Maris added.

"I was speaking mainly of the artwork," Thrawn said. "We can learn more from that than we can from currency or gems."

Qennto snorted. "You expecting there to be sales receipts?"

"I was thinking more of the art's origins." Thrawn gestured toward a set of nested tressles. "Those, for instance, were probably created by beings with an extra joint between wrist and elbow, who see largely in the blue-ultraviolet part of the spectrum."

Qennto and Maris exchanged looks. "The Frunchies, you think?" Maris suggested.

"Yeah, right," Qennto said with a grunt. He eyed Thrawn suspiciously, then unhooked Maris's arm from his and strode over to the tressles.

"What are Frunchies?" Car'das asked.

"The Frunchettan-sai," Maris explained. "They have a couple of colony worlds in the Outer Rim. Rak calls them Frunchies because-"

"I'll be broggled," Qennto said, cutting her off as he leaned over the tressles with his head cocked to the side.

"What?" Maris said.

"He's right," Qennto said, sounding stunned. "It's signed with formal Frunchv script." He turned back to Thrawn, a strange expression on his face. "I thought you said you hadn't made it to Republic space."

"To the best of my knowledge, we haven't," Thrawn said. "But the artist's physical characteristics are obvious simply from looking at his work."

"Maybe toyou it's obvious," Qennto growled, looking back at the tressles. "It sure isn't to me."

"Or me," Maris seconded.

Thrawn raised his eyebrows at Car'das. "Car'das?"

Car'das peered at the artwork, trying to spot whatever these subtle cues were that Thrawn had seen. But he couldn't.

"Sorry."

"Maybe it was just luck," Qennto said, abandoning the tressles and kneeling down beside an elaborate blue-and-white sculpt. "Let me see here… yeah, I thought so." He looked over his shoulder at Thrawn. "How aboutthis one?"

For a moment Thrawn studied the sculpt in silence, his eyes occasionally flicking around the rest of the room as if seeking inspiration. "The artist is humanoid," he said at last. "Proportioned differently from humans and Chiss, with either a wider torso or longer arms." His eyes narrowed slightly. "There's something of a distance to his emotional state, too. I would say his people are both drawn to and yet repulsed by or fearful of the physical objects they live among."

Qennto's breath went out in a huff. "I don't believe this," he said. "That's the Pashvi, all right."

"I don't think I know them," Maris said.

"They've got a system on the edge of Wild Space," Qennto said. "I've been there a few times-there's a small but stable market for their art, mostly in the Corporate Sector."

"What did Commander Thrawn mean about fear of physical objects?" Car'das asked.

"Their world is sprinkled with thousands of rock pillars," Qennto said. "Most of the best food plants grow on the tops. Unfortunately, so does a nasty predator avian. It makes for-well, for pretty much just what he said."

"And you got all that from a single sculpt?" Maris asked, gazing at Thrawn with a strange look on her face.

"Actually, no," the Chiss assured her. "There are-let me see-twelve more examples of their artwork." He pointed to two other areas of the room.

"You sure?" Car'das asked, frowning at the indicated sculpts and flats. "They don't look at all alike to me."

"They were created by different artists," Thrawn said. "But the species is the same."

"This is really weird," Qennto said, shaking his head. "Like some crazy Jedi thing."

"Jedi?" Thrawn asked.

"They're the guardians of the peace in the Republic," Maris told him. "Probably the only reason we've held together as long as we have. They're very powerful, very noble people."

Qennto caught Car'das's eye, his nose wrinkling slightly. His opinion of Jedi, Car'das knew, was considerably lower than his girlfriend's.

"They sound intriguing." Thrawn nodded toward the sculpt. "I presume these Pashvi won't have put up much resistance to Vagaari raids?"

"Hardly," Qennto confirmed grimly. "They're a pretty agreeable people. Lousy at fighting."

"And your Republic and these Jedi don't protect them?"

"The Jedi are spread way too thin," Car'das said. "Anyway, Wild Space isn't actually part of the Republic."

"Even if it were, the government is too busy with its own intrigues to bother with little things like life-and-death situations," Marls said, a bitter edge to her voice.

"I see," Thrawn said. "Well. Let us continue our survey, and please inform me if you find anything else from your region of space."

He looked at Marls. "And as we search, perhaps you'll tell me more about these Jedi."