Outbound Flight

by Timothy Zahn

  "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."

  9

  Guildmaster Gilfrome's here," Anakin's voice said softly from Obi-Wan's comlink. "just coming up the steps to the east door."

  "Magistrate Argente's here, too," Obi-Wan told him, gazing down from the administration building's west door as Argente climbed up the stairs on that side, his people pressed protectively around him. "And I see Master C'baoth and Lorana approaching through the marketplace."

  "So that's it?" Anakin asked.

  Obi-Wan scratched his check thoughtfully. The expected attack on Magistrate Argente hadn't come during the night, nor had it been launched on the trip here to the conference room.

  Now, with the miners' representative on the scene, the conspirators' last chance was gone, at least until the negotiators broke for lunch. "It is for now, anyway," he told Anakin. "But stay alert."

  Argente and his people reached the top of the stairs, and Obi-Wan bowed in greeting. The group brushed past without a single acknowledging glance and disappeared inside. Suppressing a flicker of annoyance, Obi-Wan turned his attention to C'baoth and Lorana as they started up the stairs. Lorana, he noted, was a bit pale, her steps a little tentative. But her expression was deter­mined, and as they reached the top of the steps she smiled a bit awkwardly at him. "Master Kenobi," she said, nodding. "I never had a chance to properly thank you for what you and Anakin did for me yesterday."

  "And this is also not the time," C'baoth put in. Nevertheless, there was a flicker of approval in his eyes as the two Jedi ex­changed nods. "There is still danger, both to the negotiators and the negotiations themselves. Stay here with Master Kenobi and watch the crowd for familiar faces."

  "Yes, Master C'baoth," Lorana said.

  With another nod at Obi-Wan, C'baoth strode past through the doorway, leaving the two of them alone. "How do you feel?" Obi-Wan asked.

  "Much better, thank you," Lorana said. "I really don't know how much good I can do here, though," she added, turning toward the marketplace spread out before them at the bottom of the steps. "I only saw three of the conspirators."

  "That's three more than the rest of us have," Obi-Wan pointed out. "Not counting the ones already in custody, of course."

  "Maybe their arrest scared off the others."

  "It may have scared them away from a missile attack, but they're not going to just give up and go away," Obi-Wan said. "They seem obsessed with what they see as the Corporate Al­liance's attempt to steal their planet's wealth, and once a person's obsessed he or she doesn't listen to logic anymore. Sheer mo­mentum will carry them the rest of the way through this."

  Lorana shook her head. "I'm afraid I don't understand that kind of thinking."

  "You need to learn to understand it," Obi-Wan told her. "Obsession is something that can happen to even the strongest person, and for the best of motives." He gestured. "Still, with you and me at this door, Anakin and Riske at the other, and the police and the Corporate Alliance's security watching the sky, we should be able to stop whatever they throw at us."

  "I hope you're right," Lorana murmured. "If not, Master C'baoth will never let us hear the end of it."

  Seated on his hotel room balcony, Doriana smiled down at the scene below him. The players had assembled, and it was time for the performance to begin.

  Picking up his comlink, he keyed it on and punched in the proper activation code. Then, setting the comlink aside, he settled down to watch.

  Even stretched out to the Force, Lorana's only warning was a burst of commotion at the leftmost edge of the market­place, a sudden movement of shoppers as they scattered away from one of the booths. "Something's happening," she warned, pointing.

  The words were barely out of her mouth when the booth erupted in a flash of light and a burst of smoke. "Watch out!" Obi-Wan barked, the snap-hiss of his lightsaber sounding behind her.

  Lorana yanked out her own lightsaber, igniting it as she tried to pierce the expanding smoke cloud. As far as she could tell, nothing else seemed to be happening. "To the right!" Obi-Wan warned.

  Lorana turned; and to her horror she saw a silvery cylinder streak out of another of the booths, flying a bare meter above the ground.

  Coming straight toward them.

  "I've got it," she said, jumping into its path and lifting her lightsaber into attack-3 position. Defense against incoming re­motes was an exercise C'baoth had drilled her in for hour after wearying hour. Behind her, she sensed Obi-Wan moving back and to her right into backstop position. She settled her breath­ing, watching the missile approach, trying not to think about what would happen if her attack detonated the warhead . . .

  It was nearly to her when, without warning, the front of the nose cone erupted into a cloud of sparkling smoke, and a cone of roiling black liquid sprayed out at her.

  She squeezed her eyes tightly shut, instinctively flinching to the side as she did so. She sensed the missile start to pass, and swung her lightsaber as hard as she could in that direction.

  But her sidestep had put her off balance, and even as her blade sliced through the air she knew she was too late. Behind her, she heard the pitch of Obi-Wan's lightsaber change as he took his own shot at it. But the missile's roar changed as fresh thrusters kicked in, and as the heat of the missile's exhaust swept across her she could tell that he, too, had missed.

  "Come on!" he shouted. A hand grabbed her arm, and sud­denly they were running through the heat and dissipating smoke in the missile's wake. She blinked her eves open, ignoring the sting as the black liquid dribbled into them, to see the missile jinking back and forth down the wide central corridor like a droid seeking a target. Across the building at the far door she saw Anakin and Riske charging in from the other door, Anakin's lightsaber blazing in his hand, Riske's blaster firing uselessly. Let­ting go of Lorana's arm, Obi-Wan locked his lightsaber on and hurled it at the missile.

  But even as the spinning green blade closed on it, the mis­sile's nose dipped and it made a hard turn to the left. She could sense Obi-Wan stretching to the Force, trying to bring his lightsaber back on target. But she could also sense that he wouldn't be in time.

  Which left only one thing they could do. Closing her eyes, she stretched out to the Force, turning her thoughts to her Master. Master C'baoth, she sent urgently toward the room be­yond the archway. Danger. Danger. Danger. The missile dis­appeared through the archway, and she joined with the others in racing down the corridor after it. She caught up with Obi-Wan just as he reached the opening, and turned the corner with him.

  And found herself confronted by an extraordinary sight.

  Seated at opposite ends of the table, the mining and Corpo­rate Alliance representatives had turned in their chairs to stare with a mixture of surprise, fascination, and terror at the missile that had intruded into their solemn proceedings. Between them, half risen from his own chair, C'baoth was holding a hand palm-outward toward the missile, his eyes blazing.

  But the missile was no longer moving. It was frozen in midair, halfway between the archway and the table, its thrusters spitting fire uselessly as they tried to drive it forward against C'baoth's Force grip.

  "Don't be concerned," the Jedi Master intoned, his voice resonating with power and authority. "So certain parties believe that they know best what is right and just for Barlok, do they? That killing us will bring them their desire? That the influence of violence supersedes the authority of justice?"

  The thrusters gave a final sputter and fell silent, and still the missile hung in midair. "Thank you, Master C'baoth—" Obi-Wan said, starting toward the missile.

  "Stand fast, Master Kenobi," C'baoth ordered sharply. "That is what our attackers believe, Magistrate Argente; Guild-master Gilfrome," he said, sending a hard look at each end of the table. "Do you believe it, as well?"

&nbs
p; Argente found his voice first. "No, of course not," he said, his voice quavering, his eyes locked on the missile that had nearly brought a sudden and violent death to them all.

  "Then why do you persist in eroding the legitimate rights of the people of Barlok?" C'baoth demanded. "And you," he added, turning back to Gilfrome's end of the table. "Why do you persist in denying the time and expense the Corporate Alliance has spent in developing resources that would otherwise have forever lain uselessly beneath the soil of your world?"

  Gilfrome bristled. "Now, see here, Master C'baoth—"

  "No, you see," C'baoth cut in, looking again at Argente. "Both of you see. I have listened to your arguments and your po­sitions and your selfish pettiness. It ends here."

  Deliberately, he closed his outstretched hand. With a raucous crackling of stressed metal, the body of the missile crumpled in on itself. "The people of Barlok demand a fair and just decision," he said, more quietly now as he gestured Obi-Wan forward. "I will tell you what that decision is going to be."

  The room was silent as Obi-Wan stepped to the mutilated weapon, stretching out his hand to take its weight from C'baoth. Holding it in a Force grip in front of him, he turned and headed back toward the archway. Lorana looked a question at C'baoth, got a microscopic nod in return, and turned to go with Obi-Wan.

  It was only then that she noticed Anakin standing beneath the archway, his eyes filled with admiration as he gazed across the room at C'baoth. "That's telling them," he murmured as she and Obi-Wan reached him.

  "Come on," Obi-Wan said, his forehead wrinkling slightly as he looked at the boy. "Let's get this thing to the police disposal team."

  "Report," the gravelly voice of Darth Sidious ordered, his hooded face hovering above the holoprojector.

  "The Barlok operation has been a complete success, my lord," Doriana told him. "Both sides of the negotiations were so shaken by the attack that C'baoth was able to force them into an agreement."

  "And is of course taking full credit for it?"

  "Knowing C'baoth, there was never any doubt on that score," Doriana said. "Fortunately, the whole planet seems quite happy to let him have it. Another day or two, and he'll be the hero of the entire sector. Give him a week, and he'll probably be organizing his own victory parade through midlevel Coruscant."

  "You have done well," Sidious said. "And what of the unan­ticipated interference from Kenobi and Skywalker?"

  "Negligible," Doriana said, wondering again at the speed and breadth of the Sith Lord's knowledge. He hadn't even men­tioned Kenobi's unwelcome arrival on Barlok, yet Sidious ap­parently knew all about it. Clearly, he had excellent sources of information. "All I had to do was add a shroud-liquid sprayer to the missile to make sure they wouldn't be able to stop it until it reached the conference chamber where C'baoth could make his dramatic grandstand play."

  "And neither he nor Kenobi suspect your manipulation of the events?"

  "Not at all, my lord," Doriana said. "My sources tell me the police analysts could tell the sprayer was a last-minute add-on, but they've concluded that it was added in response to C'baoth's appearance on the scene, not Kenobi's."

  "I don't want Kenobi taking any of the credit," Sidious warned. "He cannot be permitted to blunt C'baoth's triumph and prestige."

  "He won't," Doriana assured him. "Kenobi isn't the type to seek public recognition. C'baoth certainly isn't the type to offer him a share."

  "Then all continues to go according to my plan," Sidious concluded with satisfaction. "Opposition in the Senate and the Jedi Council to C'baoth's pet project will melt away now before the fire of his newly enhanced stature."

  "And if not, I have other contingency plans for raising it even higher," Doriana said. "The right word in Palpatine's ear is all it will take."

  "Yes," Sidious said. "Speaking of Palpatine, you'd best leave Barlok and return to your official business. I also want you to find a way to make yourself the Supreme Chancellor's personal li­aison to Outbound Flight's final preparations."

  "Easily done, my lord," Doriana assured him. "Palpatine is so tied up with other matters that he'll welcome the chance to pass this one onto my shoulders."

  "Excellent," Sidious said. "You have done well, my friend. Contact me when you return to Coruscant, and we'll discuss the final details."

  The image vanished, and Doriana keyed off the connection. A simpler man, he reflected, even a master of the Dark Side like Lord Tyranus, might have tried to eliminate C'baoth directly through a genuine assassination, utilizing a more potent attack from more competent conspirators.

  But as Sidious himself had pointed out, Doriana was more subtle than that. After all, why simply dispose of a powerful troublemaker like Jorus C'baoth when you could dispose of him and as many other Jedi as he could talk into accompanying him on Outbound Flight?

  Smiling to himself, Doriana began to disassemble his holo-projector. Jorus C'baoth, Jedi Master and potential threat to Darth Sidious's plan for the Republic, was dead.

  He just didn't know it yet.

  It had been a long, frustrating day at the Preparation Center, one more of an endless series of them stretching back to the be­ginning of time, and as Chas Uliar keyed open his apartment door he wondered yet again if all of this was ever going to be worth it.

  He'd been fresh out of school when he'd been approached by Outbound Flight's recruiters, and in the excitement and opti­mism of youth had instantly signed up to go along. But now, after two years of ever-slowing preparations and ever-lengthening de­lays, the shine had begun to fade. The latest rumor was that the Senate Appropriations Committee had decided to scratch all the families off the voyage, which would essentially turn Outbound Flight into little more than an extended military reconnaissance mission.

  Which would, of course, take away the one thing which had made this whole project unique. But then, what did the corrupt bureaucrats of Coruscant care about anything as trivial as history or glory or even a vision for the Republic's future?

  The glowplates in the common room were off, but as he switched them on he spotted a sliver of light coming from be­neath the doors of both sleeping rooms. At least two of his three roommates were home, then. The planners had deliberately packed the recruits tightly together this way to simulate the close quarters that would exist aboard the six Dreadnaughts once Out­bound Flight set off on its mission. Some people, mostly those from the more sparsely settled Mid Rim worlds, hadn't been able to handle the lack of privacy and had dropped out, but Uliar himself hadn't had any problems.

  Though if all the families were tossed out like the Senate wanted, he thought sourly, he would probably get a suite this size all to himself.

  He was looking through the pantry, trying to decide what to have for dinner, when one of the doors opened behind him. "Hey, Chas," Brace Tarkosa called from behind him. "You hear the news?"

  Uliar shook his head. "I've been on D-Five all day trying to run down a fuel line problem," he said, turning around. "Let me guess: the Senate's decided to close us down completely?"

  "You've got it backward," Tarkosa said, grinning. He was a strongly built man, two years older than Uliar, and allegedly one of the first hundred people to have signed up with the project. "Not only are they not closing us down, they've restored full funding and authorized the final assembly of the Dreadnaughts and reversed themselves on dropping the families."

  Uliar stared at him. "You're kidding," he said. "Did someone on Coruscant have spoiled shellfish for lunch and start hearing voices?"

  Tarkosa shook his head. "Rumor has it that it's all Jedi Master C'baoth's doing. He came roaring back from some nego­tiation session two days ago with enough momentum to crush-roll this whole thing straight through committee." He lifted a finger. "And it looks like we're going to get some more Jedi, too."

  "How many?"

  "Don't know," Tarkosa said. "As many as C'baoth wants, ap­parently."

  "Wouldn't that be nice," Uliar murmured, a faint wisp of hope tugging at h
im. Rumors around here were as cheap as hard­ware problems, and he certainly wasn't ready to take any of this at face value. But if the Jedi had genuinely signed on to the proj­ect, maybe things would finally start to turn around. After all, a solar wind drove all wisp-sails, and everyone knew that Jedi al­ways got the best of everything. "So when is this all supposed to happen?"

  "Any day now," Tarkosa assured him. He grinned lopsidedly. "Hey, have a little faith. Come on—let's go get Keely, and hit the tapcaf for dinner."

  "You go ahead," Uliar told him, turning back to the pantry and pulling out a packaged ship's ration. "I'll save my celebrating until the Jedi are actually here."

  "Six of them?" Obi-Wan repeated disbelievingly.

  "Including C'baoth himself, yes," Windu confirmed, his back rigid as he stared out the Council Chamber window at the evening Coruscant skyline. "And eleven Jedi Knights have signed on to go along, as well."

  Obi-Wan grimaced. Six Jedi Masters, plus eleven Jedi Knights, was not an insignificant number in these increasingly dark days. "I thought you and Master Yoda told him he could have no more than two other Jedi."

  "That was before Barlok," Windu said ruefully, turning to face him. "After Barlok . . . well, let's just say that not even the Council is completely immune to pressure."

  "Yes, I heard some of it," Obi-Wan said, nodding. "He was pushing his arguments to anyone who would listen."

  "And he can be highly persuasive when he wants to be," Windu said. "I just wasn't expecting so many to get caught up in his excitement."

  Obi-Wan felt a frown crease his forehead. Jedi Master Mace Windu, as closely attuned with the Force as any Jedi in the Re­public . . . and yet he hadn't foreseen something this dramatic? "Couldn't you refuse them permission?"

  "Of course we could," Windu said. "But I'm afraid that at the moment that would just cause more dissension. We can't af­ford that, not in these times of turmoil. And to be honest, there are good arguments to have a strong Jedi presence aboard Out­bound Flight." He paused, studying Obi-Wan's face. "Tell me, did the investigators on Barlok ever locate or identify the human whom the Brolf conspirators claimed had helped with their mis­sile attack?"