Survivor's Quest

It was indeed the bridge, very much as he remembered from his brief time aboard the Katana some thirteen years before. Except, of course, that this particular bridge was littered with bones and broken consoles and ankle-deep in powdery dust.

And it was only about half as long as the other one had been.

"Now, that's impressive," Mara said. "I don't think I've ever even heard of a ship being crushed this badly, let alone seen it. They must have been really scorching space when they hit."

"Yes," Luke murmured. "Question is, whose idea was it to hit this hard?"

"You still thinking about those prisoners in the storage core?"

"Off and on," Luke said, frowning toward the crushed bow. There was something glinting dully over there amid the shards of the shattered observation bubble, something that didn't seem to fit with the rest of the wreckage they'd seen. "We know they escaped somehow," he continued, stepping carefully through the debris, wincing as something snapped beneath his boot. "We also know that there were eighteen Jedi aboard Outbound Flight, and yet Thrawn was still able to beat them. I keep wondering if there's some co

"It could be that Thrawn had a bigger fleet than anyone wants to admit," Mara suggested, leaning over one of the consoles for a closer look.

"Formbi said it was just his picket force," Luke reminded her.

"Formbi is also lugging around about two bantha-weights of corporate Chiss guilt over the whole incident," Mara countered, moving on to the next console. "Maybe there was more official Chiss involvement than he's letting on."

"Could be," Luke said, squatting down among the transparisteel shards. There it was. Gingerly, he reached into the debris and got a grip on it.

He froze. Not it; them. There were two objects buried in the rubble, both archaic in design and yet instantly recognizable as they lay among two distinct sets of broken bones.

Mara picked up instantly on his emotional reaction. "What is it?" she asked, abandoning her survey and coming to his side.

"Exhibit One," Luke said, lifting up a dented cylinder that could only be a lightsaber. "And," he added quietly, holding up a tarnished, dented hand weapon, "Exhibit Two."

Mara inhaled sharply. "Is that what I think it is?"

"I think so," Luke told her, standing up and turning the weapon over in his hand. "It's a few decades out of date, but the style is unmistakable.

"It's a Chiss charric."

For a moment neither of them spoke. Then, still wordlessly, Mara held out her hand. Luke placed the unknown weapon in it, and for another minute she studied it in silence. "Yes," she said at last. "You can see Chiss lettering on it. It's a charric, all right."

"So what's it doing here?" Luke asked. "Drask told us Thrawn never sent a landing party aboard."

"And how exactly would Drask know whether he did or didn't?" Mara pointed out. "He wasn't there. Was he?"

"Not that I've heard," Luke admitted, taking the charric back from her. An odd thought was starting to take shape around the edges of his mind...

"Not much we can tell from the skeleton, either," Mara commented, squatting down and gently touching one of the bones the charric had been lying beside. "Humanoid, but definitely not human. That covers a lot of species, unfortunately."

"Including the Chiss," Luke said. "Tell me, Mara. You spent a lot of time talking to the Chiss on the trip here. Did any of them ever say they'd actually seen any of the Vagaari? Or seen holos of a Vagaari, or even heard a description of one?"

Mara frowned, and he could sense her stretching to the Force as she searched her memory. "No," she said. "In fact, I remember Formbi specifically saying they hadn't been seen anywhere in the region since Outbound Flight. Though to be fair, I never actually asked anyone that particular question."

"Well, I did ask Bearsh once," Luke said. "None of his generation of Geroons ever saw a Vagaari, either."

"Which would make sense if they all disappeared fifty years ago," Mara pointed out. "Are you going anywhere special with this?"

"The Chiss were at Outbound Flight," Luke said. "According to Bearsh and Formbi, so were the Vagaari."

He lifted his eyebrows. "What if they were in fact the same people?"

Mara blinked. "Are you suggesting the Chiss are the Vagaari?"

"Why not?" Luke asked. "Or at least, some particular group of Chiss were. We both know how devious and creative Thrawn was. Would it have been that hard for him to invent a completely fictitious race for his own purposes?"

"Probably wouldn't have been more than a lazy afternoon's work for him," she conceded. "But why would he do that?"

"That's the real question, isn't it?" Luke conceded. "I don't know. I just find it oddly suspicious that when Outbound Flight disappeared, so did the Vagaari."

"Mm," Mara murmured, frowning off into infinity. "Maybe we should sit Formbi down in a quiet corner somewhere when we get back to the rest of the group. It's about time he was straight with us about what's going on."

"It's well past time," Luke said. "And we'll need to get him off alone. I don't think we'll want Drask listening in."

"That goes without saying." Mara gestured to the dusty weapons in his hands. "Either of those still work?"

"I don't know." Aiming at an empty spot across the room, Luke squeezed the charric's firing stud.

Nothing happened. "Dead as Honoghr," he said, sticking it into his belt. Pointing the lightsaber away from him, he touched the activator.

The weapon's snap-hiss sounded weak and rather asthmatic. But the green blade that blazed out appeared functional enough. "Whoever built this built it to last," he commented, closing it down and peering more closely at it. "I wonder if it was C'baoth's."

"C'baoth's?"

"He was apparently the senior Jedi Master on the expedition," Luke reminded her. "This is probably where he would have been during the attack. And look." He pointed to the activator. "See this? Looks like some kind of gem."

"You're right," Mara said, leaning toward him for a closer look. "An amethyst, I think."

"I'll take your word for it," Luke said, sliding the lightsaber into his belt beside the charric. "Come on, let's finish and get back upstairs. That talk with Formbi is starting to sound more and more interesting."

The turbolift creaked and moaned as it arrived at Dreadnaught-6, but it settled into place with only a couple of small bumps. "They've definitely been using this car," Fel commented.

"As we had already concluded below," Drask said pointedly.

With an effort, Fel held his tongue. Yes, Drask had noticed that the core's stack of supplies near this particular turbolift tube had been systematically raided; and, yes, Fel had agreed then with the general's conclusion that this probably meant at least part of D-6 was in use. But it didn't mean extra evidence shouldn't be noted and commented upon.

With a little more creaking, the doors slid open. Grappler, at point, stepped out into the corridor, his helmet turning back and forth as he sca

"The most direct path to D-Five, of course," Drask growled before Fel could answer. "That is, after all, our chief purpose in being down here."

With an effort, Fel controlled his temper. Drask had been nothing but a blue-ski