Outbound Flight

"I understand," Thrawn said. "Understand in turn that I will continue to protect my people in whatever way I deem necessary."

"I would expect nothing less from you," Ar'alani said. Her eyes flicked once to Doriana and Car'das. "I release your prisoners to you. Return to Crustai, and leave me to deal with the rest of the Vagaari debris."

"I obey," Thrawn said, bowing his head to her. "The gravfield projector will be waiting for you at Crustai whenever you wish to retrieve it."

Ar'alani bowed in return and left the room.

Thrawn took a deep breath. "And with that, I believe it's finally over," he said. "A shuttle is waiting to take us back to theSpringhawk." He gestured to Doriana. "And then I will return you and Vicelord Kav to your vessel."

"Thank you," Doriana said. "We're looking forward to returning home."

And as they filed out of the room, Car'das wondered at the odd stiffness in Doriana's back.

They were passing through one of the systems midway through the star cluster when the hyperdrive finally died. "No chance of fixing it?" Thrass asked.

Lorana shook her head. "Not by me," she said. "Possibly not by anyone, at least outside of a major shipyard."

Thrass gazed out the canopy at the distant sun. "You have five other Dreadnaughts here, each with its own hyperdrive," he reminded her. "Could we move across to one of the others and use its systems?"

Lorana rubbed her forehead, wincing as the pressure accentuated the throbbing pain behind her eyes. "According to the status readings back in ComOps, none of the other hyperdrives is operational," she said. "And all the control lines to the other Dreadnaughts are down, besides. Whatever your brother used to… to stop C'baoth's attack, it scorched a great deal of the delicate equipment aboard. It's going to take months, maybe even years, to tear them apart and fix them."

Thrass tapped his fingers thoughtfully on the edge of the nearest console. "Then this system is where we stop," he said. "We'll shut down the drive, take the Delta-Twelve craft you spoke of, and go try to make a bargain for your people."

"I don't think we should shut down the drive," Lorana said, trying to think. "The shape it's in, if we shut it down we might not be able to start it up again."

"But if we don't shut it down, Outbound Flight won't take long to travel all the way through this system," Thrass pointed out. "We could be away for a month or more negotiating with the Defense Force and Nine Families. By that time, the vessel could have passed into interstellar space, where we would have difficulty locating it."

And if the hyperdrives proved unfixable, interstellar space would be where Outbound Flight would remain. "Then we'd better find someplace here where we can park for a while," she said. "A nice, high orbit around one of the planets, say. Let's fire up what's left of the sensors and see what our choices are."

The survey took most of two hours. In the end, there turned out to be only one viable alternative.

"It's smaller than I'd hoped for," Thrass said as they leaned side by side over the main sensor console. "Less gravity means less stability to the orbit from the perturbations of passing objects."

"But it also means less atmosphere that might cause the orbit to decay," Lorana pointed out. "And it's almost directly along our vector, which means no fancy maneuvering to get us there. I say we go for it."

"Agreed," Thrass said. "Let's hope the drive holds out that long."

They had reached the target planetoid and were on their final approach to orbit when the drive gave one final surge and shut down.

"Report," Lorana bit out as she stretched out with the Force, trying unsuccessfully to coax the system back to life. "Thrass?"

"The red curve bends too far inward," Thrass reported tightly from the nav console. "Fifteen orbits from now, it intersects the surface."

A wave of despair rose like acid in Lorana's throat. Resolutely, she forced it down. After all they'd been through, Outbound Flight wasnot going to end up destroying itself. Not now. "Get to the sensor station," she ordered him. "See if there's a place-anyplace-where we might be able to land this thing."

"This vessel was not designed with landing in mind," Thrass warned as he hurried to the proper console. "Could we possibly still make orbit?"

"I'm working on it," Lorana said, crossing to the cluster of engineering monitors and searching among the red lights for something that might still be showing green. Two of the forward braking and maneuvering jets, she saw, were still operative. If they could somehow rotate Outbound Flight 180 degrees and then use those jets to give them a boost along their current vector…

They had slipped into the planetoid's gravitational field and used up the first of their fifteen orbits before she reluctantly concluded that such a maneuver wouldn't be possible. There was simply too much mass to be moved, and too little time in which to move it. "No luck," she said, stepping to Thrass's side. "You find anything?"

"Perhaps," he said hesitantly. "I've located a long, enclosed valley that I believe will be deep enough to hold us."

"I don't see how that gains us anything," Lorana said. "Enclosed valleys imply valley walls, which imply a sudden stop somewhere along the line."

"In this case, the stop would be somewhat less violent," Thrass said, pointing to the display. "This particular valley is full of small rocks."

Lorana frowned, leaning over for a closer look. He was right: the whole valley was filled nearly to the top with what seemed to be gravel-sized stones. "I wonder howthat happened," she commented.

"Multiple asteroid or meteor collisions, most likely," Thrass said. "It doesn't matter. This is the only place on the planetoid that offers a chance for survival."

Lorana grimaced. But he was right. With the drive gone, coming down anywhere else on the planetoid would mean a full-bore collision at near-orbit speeds. With the gravel, at least they would have a slightly more gradual slowdown. "Can we reach it with the drive gone?" she asked, keying for an analysis.

"The valley is not far off our current orbital path," Thrass said. "I believe the maneuvering systems will be adequate to move us into position, and to give us at least a little deceleration before impact."

The analysis appeared on the display. "The computer agrees with you," she confirmed, looking out at the dark world rotating beneath them as she tried to think. "All right. We're here in D-One, the Delta-Twelve is in D-Three, and the rest of the survivors are in the core. If we want D-Three to end up on top of the gravel heap, we'll need to rotate Outbound Flight to put D-Six at the bottom. It'll hit first, taking the initial impact and hopefully slowing us down enough that the damage to the other ships will be minimal when they dig in."