Star Wars - Outbound Flight

by Timothy Zahn

  “Maybe,” Doriana said cautiously, following the fleeing alien craft with his eyes. They were cutting in and out through the masses of drifting starfighters, clearly trying to throw off the pursuing missiles’ homing locks.

  But to no avail. Techno Union hardware was among the best in the Republic, and the missiles maneuvered their own way through the clutter with case as they continued to close the gap. The aliens reached the edge of the starfighter cloud and curved tightly back into it again, driving inward toward the main ships. Again, the missiles matched the maneuver. The fighters straightened out; and then, in near unison, each dropped a small object aft toward its pursuers.

  And Doriana stiffened as a well-remembered hazy cloud erupted from each of them, unfolding directly in the path of the incoming missile clusters. “More Connor nets!” he snapped.

  But there was nothing the onlookers could do. The nets enveloped the missile clusters and flashed their killing jolts of high-voltage current, destroying homing electronics and drive systems alike and leaving the missiles as dead as the drifting starfighters around them.

  Only once again, Mitth’raw’nuruodo hadn’t been content to merely protect his own ships from attack. Even as Doriana’s hands curled into helpless fists, their inertia sent the missiles slamming into the Techno Union ships. There were multiple blasts as sections of hull metal shattered outward into space.

  And then, like a minor sun going off at close range, one of the ships exploded completely.

  “What—?” Kav gasped. “No! Not from a single missile cluster. This is impossible!”

  “Everything Mitth’raw’nuruodo does is impossible,” Doriana retorted bitterly. “The missiles must have hit a weak spot.”

  “What kind? Where could it be?”

  Doriana snorted. “Just watch his ships. They’ll be targeting the same spot on all the rest of them.”

  He was right. Within minutes the alien fighters and cruisers had successfully dodged the desperate flurry of missiles the Techno Union ships were now throwing at them and had efficiently destroyed every one of them. The spot, Doriana noted with morbid fascination, was the line junction to the massive external fuel cells.

  “We must escape,” Kav said, his voice shaking. “Helm—prepare to jump to lightspeed.”

  “Wait a minute,” Doriana protested, grabbing at his arm. The specter of defeat loomed before him, along with the fate of all those who failed Darth Sidious. “You can’t just abandon the fleet.”

  “What fleet?” Kav snarled. “Look around you, Stratis. What fleet?”

  Doriana felt his throat tighten. He was right, of course. All six of the Techno Union Hardcells were gone, half of them destroyed by their own missiles. The seven escort cruisers, never intended to operate against such enemies without capital ship support, were being systematically hunted down and eliminated. Only the two Trade Federation battleships were still in any condition to fight or run.

  But with their communications still blocked, there was no way to order a general retreat. If the Darkvenge left, it would be leaving alone.

  “Jump calculated,” the helmsman called.

  “Make the jump,” Kav ordered, glaring at Doriana as if daring him to argue. “Do you hear me? Now.”

  “The hyperdrive does not respond!” the helmsman said, his voice bubbling with sudden panic. “It claims we are too close to a planetary mass.”

  Doriana twisted around to look at the row of status boards. That was what the readings said, all right.

  But there were no planetary masses nearby, or even any sizable asteroids. “Malfunction?”

  “No malfunction,” Kav murmured, his voice dull and fatalistic. “Merely more Chiss wizardry.”

  A fresh flicker of light caught Doriana’s eve, and he looked back out the viewports. Across the field of carnage, droid starfighters were starting to explode as too many minutes without communication passed and they began to activate their self-destruct mechanisms. Through the scattered bursts of fire, Doriana saw the Keeper suddenly lurch as the upper surface of its starboard ring half erupted in a hundred small explosions. “Vicelord!” someone called.

  “I know,” Kav said with a tired sigh. “The starfighters I ordered prepped are exploding.”

  Doriana nodded, his own bitterness long since faded into a deep sense of the inevitable. The reinforcements would have been flying through the hangar bays when Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s jamming began and they went dormant. Tumbling helplessly at high speed down a curved corridor, they would have slammed into bulkheads or storage racks or other equipment. There they’d lain, tangled and broken, while they waited for their own self-destruct chronos to run down.

  “Then it is over,” Kav said quietly. Lifting his hands, he carefully removed his five-cornered hat and set it with equal care on the floor in front of him. “We are all dead.”

  “It would seem so,” Doriana agreed mechanically, feeling his forehead creasing as a strange fact suddenly struck him.

  With all the death and debris and charred hulks of ships floating all around them, the Darkvenge itself had yet to be so much as scratched.

  He took another, longer look at the status boards. Except for the inexplicably dormant hyperdrive, everything else seemed perfectly functional. “Or maybe not,” he added. “I think Mitth’raw’nuruodo has something else in mind for us.”

  Kav snorted derisively. “And what precisely gave you that impression?”

  Puzzled, Doriana turned back to find that one of the alien cruisers had suddenly appeared outside the viewports. It was hovering bare meters away from the transparisteel, its missile racks pointing in to the bridge in silent warning and clear command. “Close down the midline quad laser batteries, Vicelord,” Doriana said quietly. “Then seal the main hangar exits and shut down all the droid starfighters.” He took a careful breath. “And then,” he said, “prepare for company.”

  17

  The final turbolift door slid open, and twenty meters down the corridor Car’das saw at last the open blast doors of the battleship’s bridge.

  Twenty meters of corridor lined on both sides with armed, tense-looking battle droids.

  Thrawn didn’t even hesitate. He strode forward calmly, his two warriors equally sedate as they walked at his sides. Swallowing hard, not wanting to walk that gauntlet but even less willing to cower in the turbolift car all alone, Car’das forced himself to follow.

  There were dozens of droids on duty on the bridge, most of them service and monitor units seated or plugged into the various stations in the control pits. Standing in the center of the quiet activity were just two actual beings, waiting together beside the vacant helm chair: a tall Neimoidian in elaborate robes, and a more sedately dressed human male. Again, Thrawn didn’t pause, but headed down the walkway toward them. He stopped three meters away, and for a moment seemed to size them up. Then, deliberately, he swiveled to face the human. “Commander Stratis,” he said, nodding his head in greeting. “I am Commander Mitth’raw’nuruodo.”

  “Stratis does not command this vessel,” the Neimoidian said stiffly before Stratis could answer. “I am Vicelord Kav of the Trade Federation. And you, Commander Mitthrawdo, have committed an act of war.”

  “Vicelord, please,” Stratis said. His voice was calm, but there was a warning edge to it. “Recriminations will serve no useful purpose.”

  “Do not think you have gained anything with your audacity,” Kav continued, ignoring him. “Even now, I could destroy you where you stand.”

  He gestured, and from behind them came a sudden metallic racket. Car’das spun around, his heart freezing as a pair of droideka destroyer droids rolled into view and came to a halt just inside the bridge blast doors. They unfolded into their tripod stance, and a second later Car’das found himself staring down the barrels of four pairs of high-energy blasters.

  “Vicelord, you fool,” Stratis bit out urgently. “What do you think—?”

  “Calm yourself, Commander,” Thrawn soothed him. “We’r
e in no danger.”

  Carefully, hardly daring to breathe, Car’das turned his head. Stratis’s eyes had gone wide, his throat muscles tight as he gripped the Neimoidian’s arm. But Thrawn merely stood quietly, his face expressionless as he studied the droidekas. The Chiss warriors had their hands on their weapons, but following their commander’s lead hadn’t drawn them. “Interesting design,” Thrawn went on. “That shimmering sphere—a small force shield?”

  “Uh… yes,” Stratis said cautiously. “I assure you, Commander—”

  “Thank you for the demonstration, Vicelord,” Thrawn interrupted, turning his glowing red eyes back to Kav. “But now you will send them away.”

  For a long, terrible moment Car’das thought the Neimoidian was going to defy Thrawn’s order the way he’d ignored Stratis’s rebuke. The Chiss and. Neimoidian locked eyes, and for half a dozen heartbeats the bridge was silent.

  And then Kav’s entire body seemed to wilt, his eyes dropping away from Thrawn’s stare as he half lifted a hand toward the droidekas. Looking back over his shoulder, Car’das watched in relief as the destroyers folded up again and rolled their way off the bridge.

  “Thank you,” Thrawn said. “Now. As I asked you before: please state your intentions and those of your task force.”

  “A task force that no longer exists,” Kav put in, his voice hovering between anger and dejection.

  “That loss was your doing,” Thrawn countered. “All I wished was a civilized answer.” He turned to Car’das. “Is that correct? Civilized?”

  “Or just civil,” Car’das told him, feeling his face warming at being suddenly dragged into the middle of the conversation. “Or polite.”

  “Civil,” Thrawn said, as if testing the word against some unknown set of guidelines. “Yes. All I wished, Commander, was a civil answer.”

  “Yes, I know,” Stratis said, his eyes on Car’das. “May I ask your companion’s name and origin?”

  “I’m just a visitor,” Car’das said quickly. The last thing he wanted was for these people to know his name. “That’s all.”

  “Not quite,” Thrawn corrected. “Car’das was simply a visitor. Now he’s my translator.” His expression hardened. “And my prisoner.”

  Car’das felt his mouth drop open, and for the second time in two minutes felt his heart freeze. “I’m what?”

  “You arrived uninvited in Chiss space,” Thrawn reminded him darkly. “Now, less than three months later, an invasion fleet from your people has appeared. Coincidence?”

  “I had nothing to do with this,” Car’das protested.

  “And we’re not an invasion fleet,” Stratis added.

  “Make me believe that,” Thrawn said, his voice darkening even further. “Both of you.”

  Car’das looked at Stratis. Suddenly, in the wink of an eye, this whole side trip had taken on a very bad taste. “Commander?” he entreated.

  Stratis’s eyes flicked to him, then back to Thrawn, a thoughtful expression suddenly appearing on his face. “Very well,” he said, gesturing toward the side of the bridge. “There’s an office back there where we’ll have more privacy”

  Thrawn inclined his head slightly. “Lead the way.”

  Doriana led them to Kav’s command office, his skin prickling with anticipation and the stirrings of fresh hope. An hour ago it had been all over, the mission a failure, Doriana himself among the walking dead. Even if their attackers allowed them to return to the Republic, he knew the payment Darth Sidious would demand for his failure.

  But now, suddenly, all that had changed. Maybe.

  “Please make yourselves comfortable,” Doriana invited, gesturing his guests to seats facing the desk as he circled around the massive carved-wood structure and sat down in Kav’s equally elaborate chair. Out of the corner of his eye he saw the vicelord glowering at him, but he had no time now for petty Neimoidian pride. “May I offer you some refreshment?”

  “No thank you,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said as he and Car’das sat down. The two Chiss guards, as Doriana had expected, remained standing in the doorway where they could watch everyone in the room as well as keep an eve on what might be happening on the bridge proper.

  “All right,” Doriana said, focusing his full intellect on the task at hand. This was it. “Let me tell you about a project called Outbound Flight.”

  He started at the beginning, describing the project’s origin and its mission and making sure to emphasize the Dreadnaughts’ size and weaponry. “Interesting,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said when he’d finished. “What does this have to do with us?”

  “The fact that Outbound Flight is a danger to both the Republic and your own people,” Doriana told him. “You remember my mentioning a group aboard called the Jedi? These are beings of great power, but who are also dangerous troublemakers.”

  “In what way?”

  “They have very rigid ideas of how people should act and what they should think and do,” Doriana said, watching Car’das out of the corner of his eve. This would have been easier without the presence of someone who actually knew something about Jedi, but Mitth’raw’nuruodo would have been instantly suspicious if Doriana had asked that the young man be left out of the conversation. Now he was going to have to walk a narrow line between making the Jedi look dangerous to Mitth’raw’nuruodo and at the same time not saying anything Car’das would know was an outright lie.

  And Car’das did indeed seem a bit surprised by Doriana’s assertions. But at the same time, he could also see a growing uncertainty in the young man’s face. The Jedi’s arrogance, coupled with their inability to do anything about the growing chaos and stagnation, had people all across the Republic wondering if perhaps their alleged guardians of the peace were more noise and bluster than genuine effectiveness. “They feel they have all the answers,” he continued, “and that everyone else should submit to their concept of justice.”

  “Yet you say they are traveling to another galaxy,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo reminded him. “Again, how then does this affect the Chiss?”

  “Because before they leave they intend to explore some of the unknown parts of our own galaxy,” Doriana said, wishing the Chiss were as easy to read as Car’das. So far, he didn’t have a clue as to what kind of impression this was making on him. “If they arrive in Chiss space, they’ll certainly attempt to impose their will upon your people.”

  “Attempt is the correct word,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said, his face hardening. “The Chiss do not simply accept alien concepts without careful consideration. We certainly do not submit to domination. By anyone.”

  “Of course not,” Doriana said, his cautious hope glowing a little brighter. So species and professional pride were the hooks into Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s heart. Excellent. “But I warn you not to underestimate them. The Jedi are ruthless and subtle, and I daresay their power is beyond anything you’ve ever encountered.”

  “You may be surprised at what we’ve encountered,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said, his voice grim. Abruptly, he stood up. “But we will discuss such matters later. Right now, there is other business that requires my attention.”

  “Of course,” Doriana said, rising to his feet as well. “What do you wish us to do in your absence?”

  “For the present, you will both remain on this bridge,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said. “I will send for you when I wish to see you again. In the meantime I will send aboard a team to examine your vessel and its equipment.”

  “Never!” Kav snapped. “This ship is the property of the Trade Federation—”

  “Quiet,” Doriana cut him off, glaring at him. Didn’t the fool understand anything? “We will, of course, render any and all assistance they may require.”

  “Thank you,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said. “They will have new orders for you when they are finished. You will obey those orders.”

  Doriana nodded. “As you wish.”

  Mitth’raw’nuruodo looked at Kav, and Doriana could sense the tension between them. But the Neimoidian
remained silent, and after a moment Mitth’raw’nuruodo turned to Car’das. “Come.”

  They left the room, the Chiss guards falling into step behind them. Doriana watched until they had disappeared through the bridge blast doors, then turned to Kav. “With all due respect, Vicelord, what in the name of your grub mother do you think you’re doing?”

  “That is my question for you,” Kav countered. “Do you simply turn your back downward and give over our lives and property to this primitive backworld alien?”

  “Look around you, Vicelord,” Doriana said grimly. “This primitive alien just wrecked our entire task force. And unless I missed it, he didn’t lose a single ship of his own in the process.”

  “And you wish to make him even stronger by offering him access to Trade Federation secrets?”

  Doriana took a deep breath. “Listen to me,” he said, enunciating his words carefully. It was as if he were back on Barlok, trying to walk those idiot Brolfi through a simple assassination scheme. “We’ve failed our mission. Even if Mitth’raw’nuruodo turned tail right now and left us in peace, there’s no way in the universe our single battleship could take on Outbound Flight’s six Dreadnaughts. We would have no choice but to return to the Republic and face Darth Sidious’s anger… and I can assure you that you would wish you had died today, torn apart in agony by the Chiss fighters.” He lifted a finger. “Unless.”

  He let the word hang in the air. “Unless?” Kav asked, his voice subdued.

  “Unless,” Doriana said, “we can persuade Mitth’raw’nuruodo to destroy Outbound Flight for us.”

  For a long minute the room was silent. “I see,” Kav said at last. “Do you think you can do that? And if you can, do you think he can achieve that victory?”

  “I don’t know,” Doriana had to admit. “He’s no fool, and he surely knows my description of Outbound Flight and the Jedi was horribly slanted. Odds are he cut off the talks so he could go off and get Car’das’s take on the whole thing.”