Star Wars: Outbound Flight

21

The fact that Mitth’raw’nuruodo was a near human this far from Republic space had been Lorana’s first surprise.

More surprising than that were the culture and refinement of his demeanor and speech as he spoke to her and C’baoth from the other side of the conference room table.

His reason for intercepting Outbound Flight was the biggest surprise of all. And the most chilling.

C’baoth, predictably, wasn’t impressed by any of it.

“Ridiculous,” he said scornfully when Mitth’raw’nuruodo had finished. “A mysterious species of conquerors moving across the galaxy toward us? Please. That’s the sort of story bad parents frighten their children with.”

“You know everything there is to know about the universe, then?” Mitth’raw’nuruodo asked politely. “I was under the impression that this region of space was unknown to you.”

“Yes, it is,” C’baoth said. “But rumors and stories aren’t limited by geographical and political boundaries. If a species so dangerous truly existed, we would surely have heard something about them by now.”

“What about Vergere?” Lorana murmured from beside him. “Something like this might explain her disappearance.”

“Or it might not,” C’baoth countered. “It doesn’t take a species of conquerors to silence a single Jedi.” His eyes glittered.

“To silence a group of Jedi, of course, is a different matter entirely. And as to this Darth Sidious you cite, I put even less faith in his words than I do in idle rumors. Darth is the title of a Sith Lord, and the Sith have long since vanished from the galaxy.

That makes him a liar right from the start.”

“Perhaps,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said. “But I didn’t come here for an open debate. The fact remains that I cannot and will not permit you to continue on through this region of space. You must turn back to the Republic and pledge to never return.”

“Or?” C’baoth challenged.

Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s glowing red eyes were steady on him. “Or I will be forced to destroy you.”

Lorana braced herself for the inevitable explosion. But C’baoth merely smiled thinly. “So says the avian chick to the billinus dragon. Do you truly believe your twelve ships could survive ten minutes against the firepower I hold here in my hand?”

Mitth’raw’nuruodo lifted his eyebrows politely. “Your personal hand?” he asked.

“My Jedi are even now standing by in the ComOps Center above us, as well as at the weapons stations of each individual Dreadnaught,” C’baoth said. “I’ll soon be joining them… and if you’ve never before faced Jedi reflexes and insight, you’ll find it a sobering experience.”

Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s expression didn’t change.

“Whatever their training, it will do them no good,” he said.

“Your only choices are to leave now and take your people home, or perish. What is your answer?”

“What if we promised to go around this region?”

Lorana asked.

C’baoth looked at her, and she sensed his surprise at her presumption quickly turning to anger. “Jedi Jinzler—”

“I mean all the way around it,” Lorana continued, fighting against the weight of his displeasure pressing against her mind. “We could go to a different part of the Rim and jump off for the next galaxy from there.”

“No,” C’baoth said firmly. “That would take us thousands of light-years out of our way.”

“That would be acceptable,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said, looking at Lorana. “Provided you avoided the entire region lying along your current vector.”

“No,” C’baoth bit out, his eyes blazing. “Lorana, you will be silent. Commander, you do not dictate to us. Not you; not anyone else.”

Abruptly, he shoved hack his chair and rose towering to his full height. “We are the Jedi, the ultimate power in the universe,” he declared, the words ringing through the conference room. “We will do as we choose. And we will destroy any who dare stand in our way.”

Lorana stared up at him, her heart suddenly poundingin her throat. What was he saying? What was he doing?

There is no emotion; there is peace…

“In that event, the conversation is over,”

Mitth’raw’nuruodo said. His expression hadn’t changed, but as Lorana tore her gaze from C’baoth and looked at the commander she could sense a hardening of his resolve that sent a fresh shiver up her back. “I will give you an hour to consider my offer.”

“No, you will cease whatever you’re doing to hold us in this system and move your ships out of our path,” C’baoth countered.

“One hour,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo repeated, sliding back his own chair and standing up. “Jedi Jinzler, perhaps you’ll escort me back to my transport?”

“As you wish, Commander,” Lorana said, not daring to look at C’baoth as she scrambled to her feet. “Follow me, please.”

Captain Pakmillu had offered some of his security personnel to bring Mitth’raw’nuruodo aboard. Typically, C’baoth had refused, insisting he and Lorana needed no such show of force to keep the alien commander in line.

Which now left Lorana and Mitth’raw’nuruodo alone as they walked back toward the hangar. “Your Master C’baoth is both arrogant and stubborn,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo commented as they walked. “A bad combination.”

“He is all that,” Lorana conceded. “But he’s also a Jedi Master, and as such he has knowledge and power hidden from the rest of us. For your own sake, I beg you not to underestimate him.”

“Yet if this knowledge is hidden, how can you be sure it is accurate?”

Lorana grimaced. That was, unfortunately, a good question. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Surely you don’t stand alone,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo pointed out. “There must be others aboard who oppose to Master C’baoth’s tyranny.”

Tyranny. It was a word Lorana hadn’t dared use even in the privacy of her own mind. Now, suddenly, it could no longer be avoided. “Yes, there are,” she murmured, frowning.

Directly ahead down the corridor, shifting nervously back and forth between his feet, she could see Chas Uliar from D-4 loitering against the wall. Here to confront her with some new problem, no doubt.

But he said nothing as she and Mitth’raw’nuruodo approached, merely following them with brooding eyes as they passed him.

There was another shuttle parked near the Chiss vehicle, she noted, one of Outbound Flight’s transports. Curious; that hadn’t been there when the Chiss commander arrived. “We don’t intend your people any harm,” she told Mitth’raw’nuruodo as they stopped at his shuttle’s hatchway.

“I believe you,” he said. “But intent alone is meaningless. Your actions are what will determine your fate.”

Lorana swallowed. “I understand.”

“You have one hour.” Inclining his head to her, Mitth’raw’nuruodo turned and disappeared into his vehicle.

Lorana moved back to allow the pilot room to maneuver… and as she did so, she sensed a familiar presence.

Turning, she saw Uliar walking toward her.

Striding along behind him, a cold fire in his eyes, was C’baoth.

“Jedi Jinzler,” C’baoth said as Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s shuttle slipped through the atmosphere shield and disappeared out into the blackness of space. “I have another job for you.”

The talks had gone on longer than Uliar had expected,and he’d had enough time to get rid of his swoop and find a spot in the corridor outside D-1’s forward hangar where he could wait.

He’d been waiting now for nearly twenty minutes.

More than enough time for his internal tension to start to fade away and then start ramping up again.

Where in blazes were Pressor and the others?

He could call Pressor and ask, of course. But comlink conversations among different Dreadnaughts ran through a central switching node. If C’baoth had taken over the comm system like he’d taken over everything else, that would show that Uliar wasn’t on D-4 like he was supposed to be and tip him off that something was up.

And then, even as he tried to come up with another way to find Pressor, he saw them coming down the corridor: Lorana Jinzler and a blue-skinned, glowing-eyed near human who had to be Commander Mitth’raw’nuruodo.

So he was an unknown alien, or at least one Uliar had never seen. More importantly, he didn’t have the clothing or other trappings that would indicate he was some official from Coruscant. Uliar grimaced, a part of his hope dying within him.

But only a part. Whether he was a genuine military commander or just some pirate with an assumed title, Mitth’raw’nuruodo seemed determined to keep them from passing through his territory. If Uliar could persuade him to order them back to the Republic—or even if he and his gang were able to plunder enough of Outbound Flight’s supplies that Pakmillu was forced to go back for replacements—they might still be able to get Palpatine to do something about C’baoth’s growing stranglehold on the expedition.

At the very least, Uliar and the others would then have a chance to jump ship and find something else to do with their lives.

Jinzler and Mitth’raw’nuruodo were coming towardhim… and with the rest of the committee still absent, it was all up to him. Taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth to speak.

Or rather, he tried to open it. To his horror, his mouth and tongue refused to work.

He tried again, and again, watching as Jinzler and Mitth’raw’nuruodo closed the gap, his throat and checks straining with his effort. But nothing worked.

And then they were there, right beside him. He tried to step in front of them, to at least keep them here until he could find a way to unfreeze his mouth. But his legs wouldn’t work, either. Silently, he watched them pass him by, oblivious to his urgency and agony and helplessness.

“So you think to betray me, Uliar?” a quiet voice came in his ear.

Uliar’s neck still worked, but there was no need to turn around. He knew that voice only too well. “Did you really think you could ride a swoop all the way from Dreadnaught-Four without my people in ComOps noticing and alerting me?”

C’baoth went on. “So will treason always betray itself.”

With a jolt like that of a suddenly released clamp, Uliar felt his mouth being freed from C’baoth’s restraint. “It’s not treason,” he croaked. “We just want our mission back.”

“My mission, Uliar,” C’baoth said darkly. “My mission.

Who else is in this pathetic little conspiracy?”

Uliar didn’t answer. “Well, let’s go see,” C’baoth said.

“Discreetly, of course, if you please.”

As if Uliar had a choice. With C’baoth’s hand riding loosely on his shoulder, the two men headed down the corridor after Jinzler and the blue-skinned alien. They reached the hangar just as the others arrived at Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s ship. A few meters away was one of Outbound Flight’s shuttles…

Uliar felt his breath catch in his throat as he suddenlyrealized why the rest of the committee hadn’t appeared. Rather than bringing everyone in along the corridors and turbolifts like an impromptu parade, Pressor had instead loaded them aboard one of D-4’s shuttles and had Mosh fly them across.

Which meant there was still a chance. All Pressor had to do was pop the hatch, and before C’baoth realized what was happening they would be in front of Mitth’raw’nuruodo, ready to plead their cause. Surely even a Jedi Master couldn’t strangle the words out of all of them at the same time.

But the hatch didn’t open. With his tongue frozen again, Uliar watched helplessly as Mitth’raw’nuruodo spoke briefly with Jinzler, then went inside his shuttle and closed the hatch.

And with that, their last chance was gone.

C’baoth’s hand prodded at Uliar’s back, nudging him forward. “And now,” the Jedi said with cold satisfaction, “all that remains is for me to decide what to do with all of you.”

Jinzler turned around as they approached, her expression flickering with surprise at their presence. “Jedi Jinzler,” C’baoth greeted her. “I have another job for you.” He waved a hand casually at the silent shuttle.

The hatch abruptly flew open, spilling Pressor and Mosh out. From the way they sprawled onto the deck, it was obvious they’d been shoving at the hatch with all their weight when C’baoth released his grip on it. “So they were trying to open it,” Uliar murmured.

“Of course they were,” C’baoth said contemptuously.

“If a swoop couldn’t escape my notice, how did you expect an entire shuttle to do so?” He raised his voice. “You—all of you—come out. I want to see your faces.”

“What’s going on?” Jinzler asked, staring at the people as they began filing silently out onto the deck.

“This, Jedi Jinzler, is a conspiracy,” C’baoth said, hisvoice as dark as Lorana had ever heard it. “These people apparently don’t appreciate all the work and effort we’ve put into making Outbound Flight as rewarding a place as possible to work and live.”

“Maybe we just don’t want your ideas of what’s rewarding,” Uliar said. “Maybe we don’t want to be treated like children who can’t decide for ourselves what we’re going to do with our lives.”

“Do you have the Force?” C’baoth countered. “Can you tap into that which binds the universe together, and thus automatically defines what is best for us all?”

“I don’t believe the Force wants to control every aspect of our lives,” Uliar shot back. “And I sure don’t believe you’re the chosen spokesman for that control.”

C’baoth’s face darkened. “And who are you to—?”

“Master C’baoth,” a voice called.

Uliar turned. Standing at the entrance to the hangar, gazing at them with a face carved from stone, was Master Ma’Ning. “A word with you, if you please,” he said. “Now.”

“What are you doing here?” C’baoth called back, and Lorana could sense both surprise and suspicion radiating from him. “You should be at your duty station.”

“A word with you, if you please,” Ma’Ning repeated.

Snorting under his breath, C’baoth strode across the deck toward him. Lorana hesitated a moment, then followed.

“This had better be important,” C’baoth warned as he reached the other Jedi Master. “We have work to do.”

“It is,” Ma’Ning assured him, his voice under careful control. “I’ve spent a great deal of time over the past few days considering and meditating on the situation aboard Outbound Flight… and I’ve come to the conclusion that we’ve oversteppedour proper place as guardians and advisers of these people.”

“Walk warily, Master Ma’Ning,” C’baoth warned, an edge of menace in his voice. “You’re speaking to the rightful and duly appointed leader of this expedition.”

“That you are,” Ma’Ning acknowledged. “But even the most powerful and knowledgeable of Jedi may sometimes stumble. It’s my opinion that in your zeal to guide, you’ve crossed the line into direct rule.”

“Then your opinion is wrong,” C’baoth countered flatly.

“I’m doing what is necessary—and only what is necessary—to keep this mission running smoothly.”

“Others would disagree,” Ma’Ning said, his eyes flicking over C’baoth’s shoulder to the crewers and their families gathered together beside their borrowed shuttle. “At any rate, it’s now a matter for all of Outbound Flight’s Jedi to decide.”

C’baoth seemed to draw back a little. “Are you suggesting that a Judgment Circle be convened?”

“In actual fact, Master C’baoth, I’ve already made the arrangements,” Ma’Ning said. “The circle will convene as soon as the situation with the Chiss has been resolved.”

For a long moment the two men gazed at each other, and Lorana could sense the tension arcing along the line between their eyes. “Then it will convene,” C’baoth said at last. “And when it concludes, you’ll understand that I do what is best for Outbound Flight and its people.”

He looked at Lorana. “You’ll all understand.”

He turned back to Ma’Ning. “Until then, I am still in command,” he went on. “You’ll return at once to Dreadnaught-Four and prepare for combat.”

Ma’Ning’s lip twitched. “The negotiations with the Chiss have failed?”

“There was nothing to negotiate,” C’baoth said.

“Return to Dreadnaught-Four.”

Ma’Ning’s eyes flicked to Lorana, as if wondering whether he should ask her opinion on that. But if he was, he left the question unvoiced. “Very well,” he said, looking back at C’baoth. Turning, he left the hangar.

C’baoth took a deep breath, let it out in a long, controlled sigh. “Did you know about this?” he asked quietly.

Lorana shook her head. “No.”

“A waste of time,” C’baoth said contemptuously. “Still, if it’ll end this dangerous disunity, he can convene his little circle. Now; come.”

Turning, he led the way back to Uliar and the others.

“Wonder what they’re talking about,” Pressor murmured at Uliar’s side.

“No idea,” Uliar said, studying the three Jedi closely.

Even if they’d been closer, the hangar’s lousy acoustics would probably have made their conversation impossible to hear.

But neither distance nor acoustics could disguise their expressions… and to Uliar, it was abundantly clear that no one over there was very happy right now. “Maybe they’re finally having it out,” he suggested.

“I doubt it,” Pressor said. “Jedi stick together like molwelded deck plates.”

“Yeah, I’ve noticed,” Uliar agreed sourly. “Probably just a difference of opinion on how to swat down this Mitth-whatever.”

“Probably.” Pressor cleared his throat. “You know, Chas, it occurs to me that we still have one card we could play,”

he said, lowering his voice even further. “Back in the aft reactor storage area we’ve got a couple of droidekas packed away foremergency intruder defense. If we pulled them out and turned

‘cm loose, even the Jedi would have to sit up and take notice.”

Uliar snorted. “Oh, they’d notice, all right. All the bodies lying around would be a dead giveaway. Those things are way too dangerous for amateurs to fool around with.”

“Maybe,” Pressor said. “But still—”

“Break time’s over,” Uliar interrupted as the Jedi conversation broke apart. Ma’Ning turned and left the hangar, while C’baoth and Jinzler conversed a moment longer and then headed back toward the shuttle. In Uliar’s estimation, both looked even less happy than they had before.

They reached the silent group by the shuttle, and for a moment C’baoth sent his gaze around at all of them as if memorizing their faces. “Jedi Jinzler, you’ll escort these people back to Dreadnaught-Four,” he said at last. “No. On second thought, take them to the storage core and put them in the Jedi training center.”

Jinzler turned to him, her eyes widening in surprise.

“The training center?”

“Don’t worry, there’s plenty of room,” C’baoth said.

“I’ve ordered all the students to Dreadnaught-One’s ComOps Center, where they can observe the upcoming meld in safety.”

“But they’ll be locked in down there.” Jinzler’s gaze flicked past Uliar, lingering on the children as they clutched their parents’ hands. “Besides, we’re on full battle alert,” she added.

“They need to be at their stations.”

“Where they can preach their sedition to others?”

C’baoth countered darkly. “No. They’ll be out of trouble down there until I’ve had time to decide on a more permanent solution.”

Jinzler seemed to brace herself. “Master C’baoth—”

“You will obey my order, Jedi Jinzler,” C’baoth said.

His voice was quiet, but Uliar could hear the weight of will and age and history behind it. “Between the Chiss and whatever game this Sidious impostor is playing, Outbound Flight has no time right now to deal with internal dissent.”

And as Uliar watched, Jinzler’s brief flicker of defiance faded away. “Yes, Master C’baoth,” she murmured.

With one final look at the people still lined up on the deck, C’baoth turned and strode away. “If you please, Uliar?”

Jinzler said quietly, her eyes avoiding his.

Uliar gazed across the hangar at C’baoth’s receding back. Someday, he promised himself Someday. “You heard our beloved Jedi slave master,” he growled. “Everyone back in the shuttle.”

The pulsating hyperspace sky flowed past the Vagaari warship, closer and more vivid and more terrifying than Car’das had ever seen it. With only a single layer of thin plastic between him and the waves, he couldn’t shake the sensation that at any moment they might break through and snatch him away from even the precarious safety of his hull bubble, leaving him to die alone in the incomprehensible vastness of the universe. He tried closing his eyes, or turning around so that his face would be to the hull. But somehow that just made it worse.

And it would be a six-hour journey back to the Crustai base, six hours of uncertainty and mental ‘agony along with the emotional strain of the hyperspace sky beating against his transparent coffin. More than once he wondered if he would make it with his sanity still intact.

He never had the chance to find out. Less than two hours after leaving the Geroon homeworld, the hyperspace sky suddenly coalesced into starlines and collapsed back into stars.

There was a click from somewhere beside him.

“Human!” the Miskara’s voice snarled into his ear.

Car’das jerked, banging his head on the cold plastic.

What in the worlds—?

“Human!” the voice came again.

And this time he realized it was coming from the diamond-shaped device he’d puzzled at earlier. The Vagaari version of a comlink, apparently. Reaching awkwardly over his shoulder, he grabbed it. “Yes, Your Eminence?”

“What is this trap you have led us to?” the Vagaari demanded, his tone sending a shiver through Car’das’s body.

“I don’t understand,” Car’das protested. “Did your people get the wrong coordinates from the transport’s computer?”

“We have been brought too soon into crawlspace,” the Miskara bit out. “The stolen ship net has been used against us.”

Behind Car’das came the subtle clicking of locks as someone prepared to open his prison. “But how could the Chiss have planned such a thing?” he asked, fumbling to get the words out before the door could be opened. If he was brought before the Miskara now, he was likely to die a quick and very uncomfortable death. “They must have been using it on someone else, and we just happened to run into it.”

“With all of space to choose from?” the Miskara shot back. Still, Car’das thought he could hear a slight dip in the other’s anger level. “Ridiculous.”

“Stranger things have happened,” Car’das insisted, feeling sweat breaking out on his forehead.

Behind him, the hull cracked open. Car’das tensed, but the Vagaari outside merely thrust a set of macrobinoculars from the Chiss shuttle into his hands. “Look forward,” the Miskara’s voice ordered. “Tell me the story of this vessel.”

The door was slammed shut again behind him.

Exhaling some of his tension, Car’das activated the macrobinoculars and scanned the sky in front of him.

The object of the Miskara’s interest wasn’t hard tolocate. It was a set of six ships, big ones, arranged around a cylindrical core with tapered ends.

It was Outbound Flight.

He took a careful breath. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” he told the Miskara. “But it matches the description of a long-range exploration and colony project called Outbound Flight. There are fifty thousand of my people aboard those ships, with enough supplies in the storage core to last all of them for several years.”

“How many fighting machines will they have?”

“I don’t know,” Car’das said. “There’ll be some, certainly, mostly those bigger tripod-type droidekas to be used as colony boundary guards. Probably a few hundred of those.

Most of their droids will be service and repair types, though.

They probably have at least twenty thousand of those types.”

“And these mechanical slaves will have the same artificial brains and mechanisms as the fighting machines?”

Car’das grimaced. It was pretty clear where the Miskara was going with this. “Yes, they could probably all be adapted to combat of some sort,” he agreed. “But the people there aren’t going to just hand them over to you. And those Dreadnaughts pack a lot of firepower.”

“Your concern is touching,” the Miskara said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “But we are the Vagaari. We take what we want.”

There was a click, and the comlink shut off. “Yes,”

Car’das murmured. “So I’ve heard.”

“There,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said, pointing out the Springhawk‘s canopy. “You see them, Commander?”

“They’re a little hard to miss,” Doriana ground out, his throat tight as he gazed at the hundreds of alien ships that had suddenly appeared at the edge of Mitth’raw’nuruodo’sgravity-field trap. “Who the blazes are they?”

“A nomadic race of conquerors and destroyers called the Vagaari,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo told him.

“What are they doing here?” Kav demanded, his voice shaking. “How did they find us?”

“I would imagine we have Car’das to thank for that,”

Mitth’raw’nuruodo said calmly. “As it happens, this system is on a direct line between the last known Vagaari position and my Crustai base.”

Doriana stared at the other. “You mean Car’das betrayed you?”

“Car’das has his own concerns and priorities.”

Mitth’raw’nuruodo lifted his eyebrows pointedly at Doriana. “As do we all.”

There was no real answer to that, at least none that Doriana was interested in voicing. “What are we going to do about them?” he asked instead.

“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.’ ”