Survivor's Quest

"Of course it's important," Rosemari said. Her voice seemed sad, almost resigned, yet at the same time had a sense of peace to it. "Ambassador... there may be another hypercapable transport available. We have a Delta-Twelve Skysprite sitting in one of the docking bays over on Three."

Pressor turned to his sister, his jaw dropping in astonishment. "We've got a what?"

"A Delta-Twelve Skysprite," she repeated. "It's a two-passenger sublight transport with a co

"I didn't know there was anything like that aboard Outbound Flight," Pressor said.

"Not many people do," Rosemari said. "And I don't think anyone knows why it was even aboard. Dad certainly didn't."

She looked at Jinzler. "The problem is that the Managing Council made Dad disassemble the hyperdrive. They knew they'd never be able to find a way out of the cluster, and they didn't want one of their exiled Jedi to figure it out and get away."

Jinzler took a careful breath. A hypercapable ship... "You say the ring was disassembled, not destroyed? Are all the parts still there?"

"I'm sure Dad didn't break anything," Rosemari said. "He was being very careful. And when he was done, he put everything into a storage locker. If you could get it to work, someone might at least be able to go for help."

"So you'd just let us go?" Jinzler asked, eyeing her closely. "Even though keeping us here might help your daughter?"

"Against your will?" Rosemari asked quietly. "And at the cost of all those Chiss lives?" She shook her head. "Not for me. Not even for my daughter. Jedi serve others rather than ruling over them, for the good of the galaxy."

She looked down at her daughter, a bittersweet smile on her lips. "You see?" she said. "I even know the Code."

Evlyn wrapped her arms around her mother. "I knew you'd do the right thing," she murmured.

Jinzler took a deep breath. "Mara?" he called.

Three seconds later Mara appeared at the recovery room doorway, Captain Talshib right behind her. "What is it?" she demanded, glancing around for trouble.

"Rosemari says there's a Delta-Twelve tucked away over in D-Three," he told her. "You ever hear of that particular model?"

"Sounds vaguely familiar," Mara said, frowning in concentration. "Remind me."

"It was from Kuat Systems," he told her. "They manufactured the entire Delta line, including the Delta-Seven Aethersprite the Jedi used as starfighters during the early days of the Clone Wars. None of the Deltas had an internal hyperdrive, but TransGalMeg Industries made a hyperdrive ring for it to dock into. The Twelve was basically a larger, two-person version of the Seven that had its weapons stripped off for the civilian market."

"I'll take your word for it," Mara said. "So what's the question?"

"The question is whether you or Luke could fly it," Jinzler said.

"But the hyperdrive doesn't work," Pressor reminded him.

"I'll fix the hyperdrive," Jinzler said tartly. "Can you fly it?"

"Don't worry," she assured him grimly. "If you can fix it, we can fly it."

"You can fix it?" Evlyn asked, her voice sounding awed.

Jinzler looked at her. She was gazing up at him, her eyes as awed as her voice. A girl who had the power of the Jedi... and yet she was awed and impressed that he could fix a hyperdrive.

Suddenly he was staring at his sister again, all those years ago.

"Pretty exotic training for an ambassador," Pressor murmured.

Jinzler turned to face him; and as he did so, he felt himself drawing up to his full height. "I'm not an ambassador, Guardian," he said, his voice ringing clearly down the corridor with a pride and self-respect he'd never, ever felt before. "I'm an electronics technician."

He looked down at Evlyn and smiled. "Like my father before me."

As if from deep inside a well, a familiar voice called their standard code phrase. "I love you."

Luke blinked his eyes open, fighting the equally standard surge of disorientation. It was dark in the operating room, with only a dim permlight glowing off to one side, but he had no trouble recognizing the face leaning over him. "Hi, Mara," he said, working moisture into his mouth. "How's it going?"

"Better than I would have thought when you went under," she told him. "First things first. How do you feel?"

Experimentally, Luke took a deep breath. "Mostly healed, I think," he told her. "Muscles and skin seem fine." He wiggled his shoulders. "Except for my left shoulder blade."

"You took a big piece of shrapnel there," Mara said, rolling him half up onto his right side and probing the half-healed injury with her fingertips. "That one'll take a little more work."

"We seem to have time," Luke pointed out, glancing around the darkened room. Apparently, Bearsh's line creepers had gotten a solid grip on Outbound Flight's electrical systems. "Your turn."

"The Vagaari didn't bother to kill any of the Chiss when they left the Chaf Envoy except the squad we'd left in the Dreadnaught docking bay," Mara said. "That ambush is apparently what we felt while we were poking around D-One. They did dump a whole bunch of line creepers, though, which have pretty well incapacitated everything over there." She made a face. "Including the Sabre, of course."

"Of course," Luke agreed, eyeing her face and wincing for Estosh's chances if Mara ever caught up with him again. Messing with his wife's ship was not a healthy thing to do. "So we're basically stuck here?"

"Not as stuck as Bearsh was hoping," Mara said. "Jinzler taught us a little trick to draw the line creepers out of the conduits and kill them. Another three or four days and we should have all the ships cleaned out."

She smiled tightly. "Even more interesting is that Outbound Flight had a small starship tucked away. A Delta-Twelve Skysprite."

"Never heard of it," Luke said. "Is it functional?"

"They're ru

"Sounds like a more useful profession at the moment," Luke said. "What about the others? Did everyone make it out of the battle all right?"

"Yes, though no one's going to be doing any strenuous dancing for a while," Mara assured him. "The Five-Oh-First took the most damage, but Fel says they should be fine. The big question right now is whether you feel up to a little trip."

Luke had already figured out where the conversation was heading. "You mean to try to whistle up an alert on the Vagaari before they get out of Chiss space?"

"Preferably before they even get out of the Redoubt," Mara said. "Don't forget they've got a whole bunch of disguised fighters waiting for them at that command station."

"Right." Luke had forgotten that, actually. "You figure they'll try to destroy the station on their way out?"

"I would, if I were trying to sneak out with a stolen warship," Mara said. "But right now they've only got a six-hour head start on us. They're also flying a Dreadnaught, which weren't exactly known for their speed even under the best of circumstances. And we know the course they're on. If we can get out of here in the next hour or two, there's a good chance we can beat them to the station."

"Yes," Luke murmured.

Mara cocked her head slightly. "You don't sound convinced."

"Just thinking," he said. "What about food and air? I seem to remember Deltas not having a lot of range."

"It has enough," Mara assured him. "Anyway, we only have to make it out of the cluster."

"Right," Luke said, still considering. "How about recognition signals? I presume that the Chiss on Brask Oto aren't just going to take our word for any of this."