Survivor's Quest

He jerked as something suddenly came down over his head. He blinked; but even as his eyes registered the vision-enhancing eyepieces in front of them, his skin registered something far more important: the feel of clean, cool air being blown at his face.

He reached a hand up to his head, the fingertips bumping against something hot and hard. But the reaction had been pure reflex anyway, because he'd already figured out what was happening. One of the stormtroopers, recognizing his desperate need for air, had come to his side and put his own helmet over Luke's head.

He took a deep, careful breath. The air smelled as good as it felt. He took another breath, and another, filling his lungs and replenishing the oxygen in his bloodstream. His thoughts flicked to Mara, but before he could ask he sensed that she, too, was being given the same care by a stormtrooper standing on the hot but no longer burning deck beneath her. He eased his Force-hold on her, lowering her down into the Imperial's waiting arms.

There were a pair of hands on his shoulders now, half guiding, half pushing him back the way he'd come. A moment later they reached the doorway and stepped through. "I'm all right," he called, taking one final breath and pushing the helmet away. Its owner caught it on its way up, and Luke got just a glimpse of an intense, dark-ski

And froze, feeling his mouth drop open in astonishment. Like him, Mara had taken a few breaths of clean air and was in the process of returning the borrowed stormtrooper helmet to its owner.

Only the head sticking up out of the white armor wasn't human. It was green with touches of orange, dominated by large eyes and a narrow highlighting of glistening black scales that curved over the top and sides of the head almost to the nose. He caught sight of Luke staring at him and his mouth gaped open in what had to be a grin.

Luke could only stare back. The 501st Stormtrooper Legion—Vader's Fist—the absolute epitome of Emperor Palpatine's hatred of nonhumans and his determination to bring them under human domination.

And one of its own members was an alien...

Under the circumstances, Luke had to privately admit, General Drask was surprisingly polite about the whole thing. "We appreciate the assistance," he said, standing like a small, immovable pillar in the smoke-stained corridor as a small river of Chiss moved past and around him on cleanup duty. His voice was under careful control, but there was no mistaking the smoldering fire in his glowing red eyes. "But in the future, you will not take action aboard this vessel without specific authorization from myself, Aristocra Chaf'orm'bintrano, Captain Brast'alshi'barku, or another command-rank officer. Is that understood?"

"Clearly," Fel said before either Luke or Mara could say anything. "I apologize for overstepping our bounds."

Drask nodded shortly and brushed past them, heading aft toward the damaged area. "Come on," Fel said to Luke, lip twitching in an ironic half smile. "Our work here appears to be done."

They headed forward. "Certainly a gracious bunch, aren't they," Mara commented sourly as more Chiss hurried past them going in the other direction.

"You have to look at it from his point of view," Fel reminded her. "First of all, we're supposed to be honored diplomatic guests, not volunteer firefighters."

"That's Formbi's point of view, not Drask's," Mara countered. "At least the honored part is."

"Doesn't matter how he personally feels," Fel said. "He has his orders, and when a Chiss accepts orders he carries them out, period. Still, that said"—he smiled suddenly—"I suspect he's chewing hull fasteners right now. He doesn't like anything about the Empire of the Hand or humans in general, and it has to gall him no end for us to have saved his ship for him."

"Which brings up a more serious question," Luke said. "Namely, what exactly happened back there? Accident, or sabotage?"

"I'm sure they'll be looking into that," Fel said. "But if it was sabotage, it was a pretty poor job of it. Even if those tanks had ruptured, it would only have put one relatively minor sector of the ship out of action. It certainly wouldn't have killed everyone aboard or anything so dramatic."

"Unless that's all the damage the saboteur needed," Mara suggested. "Maybe all he wanted to do was scuttle the mission, or delay it while another ship was brought out for us to use."

"Fine, but why would anyone want to delay the mission?" Fel asked reasonably. "Everyone aboard seems pretty eager to get on with it."

"Seems being the operative word," Mara pointed out. "Someone could easily be faking."

"Really," Fel said, frowning. "I thought you Jedi could pick up on things like that."

"Not as well as we'd sometimes like," Luke said. "We can pick up on strong emotion, but not necessarily subtle lies. Especially if the liar is good at it."

"Or maybe our saboteur does want to get to Outbound Flight, but doesn't want all the rest of us getting there with him," Mara said thoughtfully. "If he could manage alternate transport for himself while we were left hanging, that again might be all he needs."

"But what would getting to Outbound Flight first gain him?" Luke asked. "Besides, the Chiss have already been there, haven't they?"

"Actually, all they did was a long-range fly-by," Fel said. "They got enough readings to figure out what they'd found, then hightailed it out of there and forwarded the data to the Nine Ruling Families with a request for instructions. The Families held a quick debate, declared the area off limits, and put Formbi in charge of getting in touch with all of us."

"Then let's try backing up a step," Luke suggested. "What is it about Outbound Flight that anyone might particularly want?"

Mara shrugged. "It's Old Republic technology," she pointed out. "Fifty-plus years out of date. That makes it pretty much of historical value only."

"Only to the three of us here," Fel said. "A lot of the cultures in this part of space are pretty primitive, technologically. Any one of them could learn a lot from a set of Dreadnaughts in even marginal condition. I daresay even the Chiss military would learn something if they had the time to take everything apart and study it."

"Or maybe the Geroons figure they can trade what's left for a new home." Luke shook his head. "I wish we had more information."

"We do," Fel said, sounding puzzled. "Or rather, I do."

Luke looked at him in surprise. "You do?"

"Sure," Fel said. "Before we left, Admiral Parck went looking in Thrawn's records for anything he might have on Outbound Flight. Turns out he had a complete copy of the project's official operational manual."

"The whole thing?" Luke asked, frowning.

"The whole thing," Fel confirmed. "Four data cards covering perso

"I thought you'd never ask," Mara said dryly. "Let's go."

The Imperial transport was docked in a mirror image of the half port and reception room that the Jade Sabre was using on the opposite side of the ship. The stormtroopers were already inside in the ready room, stripping off their armor to check for damage from their battle against the fire and talking quietly together about the incident.

"You know, I don't think I've ever seen a stormtrooper without his armor before," Luke commented as Fel led the way through the ready room and into a narrow corridor. "Not a conscious one, anyway."

"They do come out on occasion," Fel said with a grin. "Though never in public, of course."