Survivor's Quest

A minute later, it was finished. Mara looked around at the entirely new room that had appeared, impressed in spite of herself, wondering which level of Chiss official could command this particular brand of welcome.

She tried two more buttons in turn. Each time, she noted, the room went back to neutral before changing into its new configuration.

Unfortunately, none of the changes did anything with the cable she wanted to examine. Through it all, that particular edge of ceiling stayed where it was, with the cable remaining firmly out of reach.

Which meant she was going to have to be clever.

She went back to the first button she'd tried, studying the positions of the swinging wall panels and lowering ceiling columns and counting off the seconds to herself. It would just be possible, she decided. And in her philosophy, anything that was possible might as well be tried.

She put the room back into neutral and prepared herself for action. One Jedi poking around is idle curiosity, she'd told Luke. She wondered if Formbi would really take it that way if he caught her.

Taking a deep breath, she touched the button and ran.

She caught the lowermost of the panels before it had swung more than a few degrees open, leaping up and grabbing its top edge with her fingertips. Her first fear, that it would break off under her weight and dump her ignominiously onto the deck, didn't happen. She didn't give it the chance to change its mind, either, but quickly pulled herself partway up and then shoved off it, lunging toward the next panel a meter to her right. She caught the top of this one about a quarter of the way open, again pulled herself up, and again shoved off for the next in the climbing pattern she'd worked out. By the time her last stepping-stone panel was about to swing closed, she was where she needed to be. Pushing off one final time, she leapt across a meter and a half of empty space and wrapped her arms around the side of the nearest of the lowered ceiling columns.

For a moment she just hung there, catching her breath and stretching out to the Force to draw renewed strength into her muscles. The column's texture was rough enough for a good grip and, like the wall panels, seemed perfectly capable of handling her weight. Getting a grip on the lower part of the column with her knees, she started up.

The going wasn't particularly easy, but the thought of some Chiss wandering in and catching her hanging up here like an oversized mynock added motivation to the climb. Halfway up, she reached another column and switched to a back-and-feet chimney-style ascent. Reaching the top, she grabbed on to one of the flaglike ceiling sections that was now hanging straight down. Using it as a pivot point, she swung over to a column hanging down in the corner.

And with that, she finally had a close-up view of the rogue cable.

She squinted at it, wishing she'd thought to bring a light. The room itself was well lit, but the end where the cable had been reattached to its co

Still, a Jedi was never entirely without resources. Looking awkwardly over her shoulder toward her waist, she reached out through the Force and unhooked her lightsaber from her belt. Levitating it carefully, she maneuvered it over to the corner, turning the handle over so that the blade would be pointing safely downward. Then, eyeing the stud, she ignited it.

The snap-hiss somehow sounded louder than usual in the corner of a quiet room. The lightsaber didn't put out all that much light, but it was enough.

The cable had not, in fact, been cut, which had been her first suspicion. On the other hand, the co

So how had it come apart?

Moving the lightsaber as close to the co

Adjusting her grip on the column, she freed one hand and gingerly extended a finger into the opening. Nothing. She moved the finger around in a circle inside the opening, searching for the machinery or electronic co

Or rather, the equipment that should be behind any opening that was part of a ship's actual design. The lack of anything up there strongly implied that this particular hole had been put in as an afterthought.

She was still working through the possibilities when a flicker of sensation touched her mind.

Instantly, she closed down the lightsaber, shutting off its gentle hum. In the sudden silence, she could hear footsteps coming her way. Several sets, by the sound, but in too close a step to be Chiss on a casual stroll around the ship. This group was definitely military.

And here she was, trapped in a compromising position six meters in midair.

She looked around her, biting back an old curse from her days with the Empire. The column she was hanging on to was the only cover anywhere within reach. Problem was, she was hanging on the wrong side of it, in full view of the room below. She would have to work her way around to the wall side if she was going to have any chance of concealment; and from the speed those footsteps were approaching, she wasn't likely to have enough time.

Reaching out her free hand, she grabbed her lightsaber and reestablished a firm two-armed, two-kneed grip on the column. Then, moving as quickly as she could, she started maneuvering herself around toward the far side.

She was almost halfway around when the intruders marched in beneath the archway. She froze in place, shifting her gaze downward to look.

As she did so, her heart seemed to turn to stone.

Those weren't Chiss soldiers, sent by General Drask to hunt her down. They weren't even Chiss soldiers on routine patrol, searching for suspicious activities.

There were five figures below her, standing just inside the reception room in a loose box formation. The one in the center was a human male, young looking, wearing a gray Imperial uniform modified with rings of red and black trim on the collar and cuffs.

The other four were Imperial stormtroopers.

CHAPTER 5

Mara stared down at the stormtroopers, a sudden flood of memories whipping around her like stones and debris in a hurricane-strength wind. She'd worked with stormtroopers many times through the years she served Palpatine as his Emperor's Hand. She'd ordered them to do her bidding; occasionally, she'd led small groups of them on special missions.

She'd stood by and watched as they killed.

It was impossible. It had to be. The elite cadre of stormtroopers was all but extinct, wiped out in the long war against the Empire. Most of the cloning tanks used to create them so many years ago were gone, too, tracked down and destroyed so that no one else would ever again unleash such a terrible wave of death and destruction upon the galaxy.

And yet, there they were. It wasn't an illusion, or a fraud, or a twisting of her own memories. They stood like stormtroopers, they held their BlasTech E-11 blaster rifles like stormtroopers, they wore stormtrooper armor.

The stormtroopers were back.

The young Imperial was looking around the room, his hand resting on the belted DH-17 blaster pistol riding his hip. One of the stormtroopers murmured something, and he looked up. "Ah," he called. His voice sounded young, too. "There you are, Jedi Skywalker. Are you all right?"