Car'das closed his eyes briefly. I will do whatever necessary-the words echoed through his mind. "I was merely concerned for the safety of your soldiers," he said.

"Let us find out how good the machines' aim is," the Miskara said.

"Machines: fire."

The salvo from the battle droids' carbines sent the three slaves toppling backward, dead before they even hit the floor. They were still falling when the fire from the droidekas almost literally cut them in half.

"Excellent," the Miskara said into the shocked silence. Not shocked by the deaths, Car'das knew, but by the display of firepower. "Where do the Chiss keep the others?"

"The commander will have them at the base," Car'das murmured mechanically, trying without success to force his eyes away from the charred bodies.

"Then we will relieve him of them," the Miskara said, gesturing to one of the advisers. "Order an a.s.sault force to be prepared at once."

"Yes, Your Eminence," the other said. Stepping off the dais, he strode from the room.

"And while we wait," the Miskara went on, turning back to Car'das, "you will teach me the rest of the words necessary for controlling my fighting machines."

Car'das swallowed hard. Whatever necessary . . . "As you wish. Your Eminence."

Outside the Springhawk's bridge canopy, the scattered stars and a small but magnificent globular cl.u.s.ter blazed brilliantly out of a black sky.

The stars, the cl.u.s.ter, and nothing else.

Surrept.i.tiously, Doriana looked at his chrono. Outbound Flight was late.

Apparently, the look hadn't been surrept.i.tious enough. "Patience, Commander," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said calmly from the captain's chair. "They will come."

"They are late," Vicelord Kav said, scowling at the back of Mitth'raw'nuruodo's head. "More than two hours late."

"Two hours is nothing in a voyage of three weeks," the commander pointed out reasonably.

"Not for Captain Pakmillu," Kav retorted. "Mon Calamari are notorious for punctuality."

"They will come," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said again, half turning to eye the Neimoidian. "The only question is whether or not this system is indeed on the correct straight-line path between their last Republic stop and the system where you were preparing to ambush them."

"Do you dare-?" Kav began.

"The vector was calculated correctly," Doriana interrupted with a warning glare. "Our question, on the other hand, is why you think they'll actually stop here."

"They will," Mitth'raw'nuruodo a.s.sured him. "The droid starfighters are ready?"

"Very much so," Kav a.s.sured him in turn, and Doriana could hear the vindictive antic.i.p.ation in his tone. The starfighters were ready, all right, complete with the second command layer the vicelord's chief programmer had built in on top of Mitth'raw'nuruodo's close-approach pattern.

The commander inclined his head to the Neimoidian. "Then we have only to wait." He turned back to the canopy And suddenly, with a flicker of pseudomotion, there it was, floating in s.p.a.ce not five kilometers ahead.

Outbound Flight had arrived.

"The device is called a gravity projector," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said. "It simulates a planetary ma.s.s, thus forcing out any ship whose hypers.p.a.ce vector crosses its shadow."

"Really," Doriana said, trying to sound calm. To the best of his knowledge, no one in the Republic had ever figured out how to turn that particular bit of hypers.p.a.ce theory into an actual working device. The fact that the Chiss had solved the problem sent discomfiting ramifications ricocheting across his mind.

Kav, predictably, wasn't nearly as interested in such longterm thought.

"Then they are in our hands," he all but crowed. "All forces: attack."

"Hold," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said. His voice was still calm, but there was a sudden new edge to it. "I give the orders aboard this ship, Vicelord Kav."

"It is our mission, Commander Mitthrawdo," Kav countered. "And as we debate, we lose the precious element of surprise." Fishing into his robes, he pulled out a comm activator. "You and your ships may do as you wish. But my starfighters will attack."

"No!" Doriana snapped, making a grab for the activator. If Kav fouled up Mitth'raw'nuruodo's plan, whatever that plan was, Outbound Flight might yet slip through their fingers.

But his reach was too short, his grab too late. Twisting his long arms out of range, Kav triumphantly keyed the activator. Swearing viciously, Doriana looked over at the asteroid where the lines of droid starfighters waited.

Nothing happened.

Again, Kav keyed the switch. Again, nothing. "I'm afraid that won't work, Vicelord," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said calmly. "I took the liberty of removing the alternate command layer your programmers had created in the starfighters' systems."

Slowly, Kav lowered the activator. "You are very clever, Commander," he said softly. "Someday that cleverness will turn against you."

"Perhaps," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said. "Until then, allow me to thank you for showing me how such secondary programming is done. That will prove useful today."

"So what now?" Doriana asked cautiously.

"We talk to them," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said, keying his board.

"Communications: create a channel."

By the time Lorana arrived, D-1's bridge had become a hive of quiet pandemonium. C'baoth was standing beside Captain Pakmillu's command chair, his back stiff as he gazed out the canopy. Pakmillu himself was over at one of the engineering stations, his flippered hands opening and closing restlessly as he studied the displays.

Outside the canopy, arrayed in the distance in front of them like a pack of hunting howlrunners, were a dozen small ships of a configuration Lorana had never seen before.

"The readback seems to indicate we're in the middle of a planetary ma.s.s shadow," the engineering officer was saying tautly as she reached Pakmillu's side. "But you can see yourself that can't possibly be right."

"This is Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet," a cultured voice boomed over the bridge speakers. "Please respond."

"Who's that?" Lorana asked.

"The commander of that force over there," Pakmillu rumbled, still studying the readouts. "He's been calling every five minutes for the past half hour."

"You haven't answered him?"

Pakmillu's mouth tendrils stiffened. "Master C'baoth has forbidden it,"

he growled. "He insists we know what happened to our hyperdrive before we reply."

"Maybe the commander could tell us what happened," Lorana suggested.

"Of course he could," Pakmillu said sourly. "But I cannot persuade Master C'baoth to that point of view."

Lorana grimaced. "Let me talk to him."

C'baoth was still gazing at the alien ships as Lorana joined him. "So, Jedi Jinzler," he greeted her. "We meet our first challenge."

"Why does it have to be a challenge?" Lorana asked. "Maybe all he wants to do is talk."

"No," C'baoth said, his voice dark. "I can sense a deep malice out there, malice directed at my ships and my people."

"They're alien minds," Lorana reminded him, feeling her pulse starting to pick up its pace. She'd seen C'baoth in this stiff-necked mood before.

"Perhaps you're simply misreading them."

"No," he said. "They intend trouble, and I intend to be fully prepared to deal with it before I talk to them."

"Command, this is Ma'Ning," a voice came from the command chair speaker.

"We're standing ready at D-Four's weapons systems."

"Acknowledged," C'baoth said, giving Lorana a tight smile. "Dreadnaught-Four was the last. Now we're ready to talk."

Deliberately, he lowered himself into Pakmillu's command chair and touched the comm switch. "Alien force, this is Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth, commanding the Outbound Flight Project of the Galactic Republic," he announced.

Lorana looked back at Pakmillu, wincing to herself at C'baoth's casual preemption of his command authority. But there was no resentment in the Mon Cal's expression or stance, only a quiet sense of resignation.

Apparently, he'd bowed to the inevitable.

"Master C'baoth, this is Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo," the cultured voice replied promptly.

"Let me see your face," C'baoth ordered.

There was a brief pause; then the comm display came to life, showing a near human with blue skin and blue-black hair and glowing red eyes. He was dressed in a black tunic with silver bars on the collar. "There are matters of great importance we need to discuss at once,"

Mitth'raw'nuruodo said. "Would you care to join me in my flagship, or shall I come to you?"

C'baoth snorted gently. "I will discuss nothing until you stand away from my path."

"And I will continue to hold here until we have spoken,"

Mitth'raw'nuruodo replied, his voice as firm as C'baoth's. "Are the Jedi afraid of talk?"

C'baoth smiled thinly. "The Jedi fear nothing, Commander. Come aboard, then, if you insist. A hatchway will be illuminated for your shuttle."

Mitth'raw'nuruodo inclined his head. "I shall be there shortly." He gestured somewhere offscreen, and the image vanished.

"You're going to allow him aboard?" Pakmillu demanded.

"Of course," C'baoth said, an odd glint to his eve. "Or don't you find it curious that this supposed resident of the Unknown Regions spoke to us in Basic?"

Lorana felt her breath catch. To her chagrin, she hadn't even noticed the oddness of that fact. "No, there's something more here than meets the eye," C'baoth continued. "Let's find out what that something is."

"Come aboard, then, if you insist," C'baoth's voice echoed from the D-4 reactor monitor room speaker. "A hatchway will be illuminated for your shuttle."

There was a click. "D-Four?" a different voice called. "Any progress?"

With an effort, Uliar pulled his thoughts back to focus. "Still negative here, Command," he reported, running his eyes again over his displays.

"There's plenty of power going to the hyperdrive. It's just not doing anything once it gets there."

"That's confirmed, Command," Dillian Pressor's voice seconded from the hyperdrive monitor room half a dozen meters away. "The readouts still insist we're in a gravfield."

"So do everyone else's," Command growled. "All right. Keep running your diagnostics, and stand by."

There was a click, and Command was gone. "This is insane," Pressor muttered.

"Maybe more insane than you think," Uliar said, his mind racing. This might finally be their chance. "Or didn't you notice that Commander Mitth-whatever was speaking Basic?"

There was a short pause. "You mean he's from the Republic?"

"Well, he's sure not from the Unknown Regions," Uliar said. "We've got to find a way to talk to him."

"Who, us?"

"Of course us," Uliar shot back. "You, me-the whole committee. If this guy's from the Republic, maybe he's got the authority to get C'baoth and the rest of the Jedi kicked off"

"It's not all the Jedi," Pressor argued. "Anyway, what would some hotshot from the Republic be doing way out here? It's more likely a pirate who found out about Outbound Flight and decided to grab some easy pickings."

In his mind's eye Uliar saw the firing scores from C'baoth's Jedi meld tests. "Trust me, Pressor, this thing is not easy pickings," he said grimly. "But whoever he is, we still have to try."

"Fine," Pressor said. "But how? We're on duty."

"To what?" Uliar countered. "A reactor that's working perfectly and a hyperdrive that isn't working at all?"

"Yes, but-"

"But nothing," Uliar cut him off. "Come on-this may be our last chance to get Outbound Flight back to what it was supposed to be."

There was a short pause. "All right, I'm game," Pressor said at last.

"But if this Mitth-whatever's already on his way, we don't have much time. Not if we're going to collect everyone and get all the way over to D-One."

"You just collect them," Uliar said. "I'll make sure he stays put until you get there."

"How?"

"No idea," Uliar said. "Just collect everyone, all right? And don't forget to bring the children. There's nothing like children when you're playing for sympathy."

"Got it."

Uliar keyed off the comet, and for a moment sat gazing unseeingly at his displays as he tried to think. D-1 was indeed a long way away, and if he knew C'baoth the conversation was likely to be short and unpleasant. If he tried to walk or even run, he was likely to miss Mitth-whatever completely.