Survivor's Quest

Fel held his breath. Five seconds later came the distinctive sputtering sizzle of a stun blast, and the firing abruptly ceased.

"All clear," Grappler a

Silently, Fel let out the breath he'd been holding. He'd worked with units of the 501st on several occasions, but never under actual combat conditions. This was going to be an educational experience. "Let's go, General."

The women and children, he noted as they passed the nursery, had retreated to the farthest part of the room and were standing huddled together, some of them visibly trembling. He considered pausing to try to reassure them, decided that anything he could say or do would only scare them more, and continued on without breaking stride.

The two gu

Fel looked down at the antique blasters lying beside the sleeping men. Disarming the enemy was standard procedure, of course. But he hadn't come here to fight these people, and there was a chance that what had just happened had been some kind of misunderstanding. "Just put them up there," he ordered, pointing to a makeshift ledge a meter and a half above the deck that was supporting some reworked cable co

"Yes, sir."

He watched as the stormtrooper complied, fully expecting Drask to object to his decision. But the Chiss said nothing. "Cloud?"

"I'm not picking up anyone else nearby," the stormtrooper reported. "There's a lot of the same sort of structural damage back there that we ran into on D-Four, though, and that could be masking them."

"Not to mention providing them with lots of choices for an ambush position," Fel said.

"Yes, sir," Watchman agreed. "Shall we go clean it out?"

Fel very much wanted to say yes. Antique weapons or not, those blaster bolts could still do considerable damage to an unarmored body if they co

But he couldn't do that. Not with Drask standing there listening. "We'll go together," he told Watchman.

"Yes, sir," the other said. "Stormtroopers: escort formation. Move out."

The council meeting chamber was simpler than Jinzler had expected it to be. There was a long rectangular table in the center ringed by a dozen padded wire-mesh chairs, with another eight or nine chairs lined up against each of the two side walls. In each corner of the room were a pair of pedestals with oddly shaped sculptures sitting on them, clearly handmade, while a few more pieces of local art hung on the walls.

Uliar was seated at the far end of the table, flanked on one side by Councilor Tarkosa and on the other by Councilor Keely. Facing them from the other end of the table, the end nearest the door, were Formbi, Feesa, and Bearsh, the latter hunched over in his seat like someone fighting a losing battle with disillusionment. The other three Geroons were seated together in the chairs along the left-hand wall, looking equally dejected, while the three Chiss warriors sat stiffly against the wall to the right. Each of the two latter groups had one of Pressor's Peacekeepers standing watch beside its row.

The conversation, or perhaps more accurately the confrontation, was already under way as the door wheezed open and Jinzler, Rosemari, and Evlyn stepped into the room. "Not good enough, Aristocra Formbi," Uliar was saying. "The actions of your people have cost us fifty years of exile and deprivation, not to mention the loss of nearly fifty thousand of our companions' lives. If you genuinely wish to atone for this atrocity, you'll need to do far more than that."

He looked up at Jinzler. "Ah—Ambassador," he greeted him gravely, gesturing to the chair beside Feesa. "Did you enjoy your tour?"

"Yes, thank you," Jinzler said, moving reluctantly forward. This looked like a discussion he really didn't want to get involved in, and for a moment he wondered if he should try to come up with another excuse to get out of it.

But the door had already slid shut behind him, and the others were all looking at him with varying degrees of expectation. He was apparently in for the duration.

So, it appeared, were Rosemari and Evlyn. Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the Geroons bound eagerly from his chair and smilingly usher the mother and daughter to chairs beside the Chiss warriors. Uliar's forehead wrinkled dangerously at that, but he apparently decided it wasn't worth making an issue of. "We were just discussing the extent of reparations the Chiss government will be providing in contrition for the Devastation," he said instead.

"And as I've already explained, I ca

"On the other hand, the Nine Ruling Families had agreed to turn Outbound Flight's remains over to the New Republic," Jinzler pointed out as he sat down beside Feesa. "It shouldn't be stretching that offer too much to include returning all the Colonists, as well."

"And what makes you think we want to return to that part of the galaxy?" Uliar asked. "What makes you think we want anything to do with you or your New Republic?"

"Then what do you want?" Jinzler asked.

"In a perfect world, we'd want the slow executions of everyone involved with what was done to us," Tarkosa bit out. "But Aristocra Formbi informs us that most of them are unfortunately already dead. So we'll settle for a ship."

Jinzler blinked. "A ship?"

"Not just any ship, of course," Uliar cautioned. "We want a ship at least as big as one of our Dreadnaughts—no, make that twice as big—equipped with the best and most modern equipment available."

"And weapons," Keely murmured, his eyes staring darkly at something in the table apparently only he could see. "Lots of weapons."

From Jinzler's belt came a soft chirp, the same odd sound he'd heard back in the turbolift foyer just after they'd been brought down here. He glanced at Bearsh across the table, but if the Geroon's comlink had made any such noise he wasn't reacting to it.

"Yes," Uliar agreed. "Plenty of weapons and defenses."

"You already have most of that list," Formbi reminded him. "According to Guardian Pressor, the uppermost Dreadnaught has been made capable of flight."

"Capable of flight, yes," Tarkosa said. "Capable of what we need, no."

"What do you need, then?" Formbi asked. "What exactly do you want with this new ship?"

"To fulfill our mission, of course," Tarkosa said. "Fifty years ago, we were commissioned to travel through the Unknown Regions to the edge of the galaxy and beyond in a search for new life and new worlds."

He glared at Formbi from beneath his bushy eyebrows. "The Chiss denied us that opportunity. We will therefore make it for ourselves."

Jinzler threw a startled look at Formbi. The Aristocra's face was settled in diplomatic neutral, but Jinzler could see a hint of surprise in his glowing eyes. "That's a rather ambitious project, Director," he said carefully, turning back to Uliar. "Especially for a group as small as yours."

"And what if your people don't wish to go?" Formbi added.