Survivor's Quest

Jinzler sighed, some of the stiffness going out of his shoulders as he dropped his gaze to the deck. "My name's Dean Jinzler, just as I told you," he said. "I work sort of on the edges of Talon Karrde's intelligence organization—"

"We know all that," Mara cut him off again. "What are you doing here?"

"A gentleman came to me a little over eight weeks ago," Jinzler said. "A rather old gentleman, flying a spacecraft of a type I'd never seen before."

"What was his name?" Luke asked.

Jinzler hesitated. "He said he didn't want me spreading it around... but I suppose you two would be all right. He said his name was Car'das."

Luke looked at Mara, feeling a ripple of shock from her that echoed his own surprise. That was a name he remembered quite well.

"Car'das?" Mara demanded. "Jorj Car'das?"

"That's the one," Jinzler said, nodding. "He said he'd once been an associate of Karrde's. Do you know him?"

"Never met the man," Mara said, her voice carefully neutral. "Though not from lack of trying. How do you know him?"

"I don't, really," Jinzler said. "I'd never seen him before that day. He came to me and suggested—strongly—that I put in for a transfer to the sector relay post at Comra. He said there would likely be a message coming through soon that would be of great personal interest to me."

"And you just went?" Luke asked. "Not even knowing who he was?"

"I know it sounds crazy," Jinzler admitted. "But frankly, I had nowhere else to be just then. Besides, there was something about him..." He trailed off.

"Okay, so you transferred to Comra," Mara said. "I take it this message he mentioned was the transmission addressed to Luke that you filched?"

Jinzler winced. "Yes," he admitted. "It showed up about, oh, I guess it was a little over a week ago now. I—" He looked up at Mara, his lip twitching in a slightly shamefaced smile. "—I filched it, grabbed one of our courier ships, and headed for the rendezvous point Formbi had specified."

"Only the ship didn't make it," Luke commented.

Jinzler blinked. "How did you know that?"

"We're Jedi," Luke reminded the other pointedly. "What happened?"

"The hyperdrive gave out in the Flacharia system," Jinzler said. "It would have taken me more than a week to repair it by myself, and I didn't have enough money to hire out the job. Fortunately, at that point Car'das showed up again and offered me a lift."

"Really," Mara said. "What an intriguing coincidence."

Jinzler lifted a hand, palm upward. "Maybe he was following me to make sure I got here okay. I never saw him on my sensors, but with a courier that doesn't mean a whole lot. He did say—" He broke off.

"He did say what?" Luke prompted.

"It didn't make any sense to me," Jinzler said. "All he said was that he was trying to fulfill a promise he'd been neglecting for a very long time."

"Did he say what that promise was?" Mara asked. "Or to whom it had been made?"

"Neither," Jinzler said. "Actually, the way he said it, I had the odd impression he wasn't talking to me so much as he was talking to himself."

"Okay," Luke said. "Go on."

"That's all there is, really," Jinzler said. "We came into the outer Crustai system and Car'das sent a message in. Formbi came out in the Chaf Envoy's glider and picked me up."

"What did he think of Car'das?" Mara asked. "Or had Car'das left by then?"

"Actually, the two of them had a long talk together while I was transferring across to the glider," Jinzler said. "I didn't understand the language, but it sounded a lot like the one the Geroons were speaking when they first arrived. They finished their conversation, I introduced myself as Ambassador Jinzler from Coruscant, and Formbi brought me back to the ship. And that was that."

Luke nodded. Straightforward enough, and they could presumably confirm some of the details with Formbi. Assuming Formbi was willing to talk about it, of course. "Okay, that's the how," he said. "Now let's hear the why."

"There was a Jedi aboard Outbound Flight," Jinzler said. "Well, actually there were several Jedi aboard. This particular one was named Lorana Jinzler."

He seemed to brace himself. "She was my sister."

He stopped. Luke frowned at Mara, caught her own suspicious puzzlement. "And?" he prompted.

"What do you mean, and?" Jinzler asked.

"So your sister died with Outbound Flight, and you wanted to go pay your respects to her memory," Luke said. "So what was so dark and personal that you couldn't tell us earlier?"

Jinzler lowered his eyes, his hands wrapping tightly together in his lap. "We didn't part on... very good terms," he said at last. "I'd rather not say any more if you don't mind."

Luke felt his lip twist. More evasion, which seemed to be an integral part of this man.

But at the same time there was the sense of truth to his pattern of thought and emotion. He glanced a question at Mara, caught her reluctant agreement. "All right," he said. "We'll let that part sit for now. But."

He let the word hang in the air a moment like a threatening sandstorm in the distance. "We may need to hear more before we're done here," he continued. "If and when that time comes, you will tell us everything. Clear?"

Jinzler straightened up. "Clear," he agreed. "And thank you."

"Don't thank us yet," Luke warned, nodding toward the door. "The Chiss are waiting. Go back to your quarters."

"And the next time you think you hear something suspicious, use one of the corridor comm panels to call it in," Mara added. "If you'd done that, we might have caught him."

"I understand," Jinzler said. "I'll see you in the morning."

He crossed the lounge and disappeared into the corridor. "Well?" Luke asked as the door slid shut behind him. "What do you think?"

"For starters, I'm getting tired of this piecemeal approach," Mara growled, stalking over to the viewport and leaning against it as she stared out at the stars. "I'd like nothing better than to sit him down and drag the whole story out of him. With hydrogrips, if necessary."

"You really think that's the best way to approach it?" Luke asked, crossing to the viewport to stand beside her.

"No, of course not," she said with a sigh. "I just wish we could, that's all."

"At least we've got a few new puzzle pieces to work with," Luke pointed out. "Let's start with Jorj Car'das. You think this is the same man Karrde asked you and Lando to try to track down ten years ago?"

"Who else could it be?" Mara countered. "Contacting someone working for Karrde's organization and flying a ship that wasn't a New Republic design? No, it's got to be him."

"What makes you think his ship wasn't a New Republic design?"

"Jinzler has a certificate in hyperdrive tech," Mara reminded him. "If he didn't recognize the ship, it had to be something pretty exotic."

"Mm," Luke said. "I don't suppose you ever got Karrde to open up about who Car'das actually was."

"Karrde, no," Mara said. "But I was able to coax a bit out of Shada a couple of years ago. Apparently sometime in or around the Clone Wars era Car'das started up a smuggling operation, building it up into something that rivaled even the Hutts' organizations. A few years after that, he suddenly and mysteriously disappeared, and one of his lieutenants took over for him."

"Karrde?"

"Right," Mara said. "No one apparently heard anything of or from Car'das until you found that beckon call on Dagobah after Thrawn's return and Karrde sent Lando and me out hunting for him. When the Caamas Document crisis hit three years ago and the New Republic started to tear itself apart over what to do about the Bothans, Karrde and Shada took the Wild Karrde and went out hunting for him themselves."

"Did they find him?"