"The people will come," Keely said, his eyes still focused on the table. "If we lead them, they will follow. All of them."

"Of course," Jinzler said, a shiver running up his back. Was the councilor going senile? Or had the long exile driven him completely insane? "We will, of course, need to consult with our governments," he said aloud, deciding the best approach right now would be to stall and hope he didn't improvise himself into a corner. "We'll need to discuss how to locate and deliver a ship that will suit your needs."

"Good," Uliar said, leaning back in his seat. "Go ahead. We'll wait."

"It's not quite that simple," Formbi put in. "First of all—"

"Of course, of course." Uliar lifted a hand in an imperious gesture toward the young man standing beside the Chiss. "Peacekeeper Oliet? You may turn off the jamming."

The Peacekeeper reached for the antique comlink in his belt; hesitated. "I'm sorry, Director, but I don't think I should do that without Guardian Pressor's permission."

Uliar's face darkened. "Then get it," he said, his voice rumbling ominously.

To Jinzler's left, the door again slid open, and with perfect timing Pressor stepped inside. "There you are," Uliar said, his tone making the words an accusation. "Release the jamming. Ambassador Jinzler needs to contact his government."

"It's not the jamming that's the problem," Formbi said before Pressor could reply. "The fact is that communication with the outside galaxy is impossible from inside the Redoubt. If Ambassador Jinzler and I are to consult our governments, we'll need to leave Outbound Flight."

Uliar's eyes narrowed. "Will you, now," he said, his voice almost silky smooth. "How very convenient. Perhaps you won't find it so necessary if I tell you that one of you will be required to remain while—"

He broke off as, with a squeak of boots on decking, the Peacekeeper who'd taken Pressor aside earlier appeared from the corridor and came to a halt at Pressor's side. He grabbed the Guardian's arm and began murmuring urgently to him. "Guardian?" Uliar demanded. "Guardian!"

"Your pardon, Director; Councilors," Pressor said, most of his attention on the man still whispering to him. "A small matter that needs to be dealt with. I'll be back in a moment."

He flashed a hand signal to the two Peacekeepers standing guard over the Chiss and Geroons. Then he and the messenger hurried from the room, the door wheezing shut behind them.

Jinzler looked across the room at the guard beside the Geroons. The young man's face was suddenly tight and nervous, and his hand was now resting on the butt of his blaster. Whatever was going on, it was apparently far more serious than Pressor was admitting.

And it seemed to Jinzler that there were only two places trouble could be coming from right now. The Jedi, or the Imperials.

Swallowing, he turned back to Uliar. "Well," he said, searching for something to say. "As long as we have a few minutes, Director, why don't we get some details. I'd like to hear exactly what kind of ship you're looking for."

Mara was on her knees, studying the scattered bones and trying to visualize what the owner of the charric might have looked like, when she felt the faint and distant sensation.

She paused, closing her eyes as she stretched out to the Force. Bits and pieces flowed into focus—fear, surprise, anger, violence—then flowed away again into the general roiling fog. She worked harder at it, trying to pull back from the details to get a bigger picture.

The larger view refused to come, and a moment later the sensation itself faded into the darkness and dust and ancient bones. But that moment had been enough.

Somewhere nearby, someone had died. Violently.

She opened her eyes and looked at Luke. His eyes were still closed, his mouth tight as he, too, chased after the last wisps of the vision. She waited, fingering her lightsaber and fighting for patience, until he too had lost the contact. "How many?" she asked.

"Several," he said, climbing hastily to his feet. "No injuries, either, just deaths. Quick ones, too, as if the victims were ambushed."

"You think it's real, then?" Mara asked as they headed back across the bridge and into the monitor anteroom. "I mean, it couldn't have been something from the past, could it?"

"You mean like an echo of what happened to Outbound Flight fifty years ago?" Luke shook his head. "No. One of us might possibly pick up something like that, but not both of us at the same time. No, this was real, and it happened just now."

They had to do some climbing through the rubble at the bottom of the turbolift shaft in order to reach their car, but they'd made sure to leave adequate hand- and footholds, and within a few minutes they were once again inside. "Were you able to tell where it happened?" Mara asked as the car began moving sluggishly upward.

"No," Luke said. "Someplace above us, but it all went by too quickly to pin it down any better than that. You?"

Mara shook her head. "All I could tell was that the deaths didn't seem human, somehow."

"Really," Luke said, looking at her thoughtfully. "Interesting. I had something of that same feeling, but I couldn't decide whether that part was real or just the fact that there are so many Chiss and Geroons around."

"Or maybe it was a little of both," Mara said. "If someone decided to start shooting at Jinzler or the Five-Oh-First, they wouldn't be likely to let Formbi and Bearsh just walk away."

The car lumbered to a halt in the storage core. "Where exactly are we headed?" Mara asked as they hurried through the silent storage rooms.

"We'll try the turbolift Fel and the stormtroopers used to go to D-Six," Luke said over his shoulder. "We should be able to reach either D-Six or D-Five with that one."

"Yes, that part I'd already figured out," Mara said. "I was asking which of the two Dreadnaughts you think we should start with."

"I don't know," Luke said as they reached the turbolift lobby where they'd taken their leave of the Imperials. "Fel went to D-Six; Jinzler and Formbi are probably on D-Five. Pick one."

The turbolift door slid halfway open and stopped. "Let's make it D-Five," Mara decided as they squeezed inside. "Even with three Chiss warriors along, the civilians are likely to be harder pressed if things have gotten messy."

"Sounds good," Luke said. Using the Force to pull the doors at least partially closed, he tapped the key for D-5.

The car didn't move.

"Uh-oh," he said, trying the key again. Still nothing.

"Terrific," Mara growled, pulling out her comlink. A quick on-off showed that the jamming was still in place. "Well, so much for the easy approach," she said. "Looks like our choices are to climb the shaft or head aft and hope the turbolifts back there are still working."

"Or to continue around to the turbolift Pressor had us trapped in," Luke reminded her. "Actually, given that we've already cut some of the repulsor controls in that pylon, it might be the easier one to climb."

"Probably safer, too," Mara pointed out, pushing the doors open again.

"Right," Luke agreed as they squeezed back out into the turbolift lobby and took off at a run toward the next turbolift lobby over. "It would be a little tricky to play Hilltop Emperor if the repulsor beams came back on."

Mara stiffened. Suddenly, unbidden, a horrible revelation had come like a thundering of blaster bolts chewing their way into her stomach. The Geroon ship—Bearsh's farewell to the rest of his people as the Chaf Envoy prepared to head into the Redoubt—the vague and nameless puzzle that had bothered her so tantalizingly at the time—

And the image of a Geroon child triumphantly waving a red headband.