Star Wars_ Outbound Flight Part 39

"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, his voice 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 a.s.sured 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 overstepped our 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 for emergency 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 hypers.p.a.ce 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 hypers.p.a.ce 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 hypers.p.a.ce 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 crawls.p.a.ce," 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 s.p.a.ce 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 to locate. 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's gravity-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."