Lorana braced herself for the inevitable explosion. But C’baoth merely smiled thinly. “So says the avian chick to the billinus dragon. Do you truly believe your twelve ships could survive ten minutes against the firepower I hold here in my hand?”
Mitth’raw’nuruodo lifted his eyebrows politely. “Your personal hand?” he asked.
“My Jedi are even now standing by in the ComOps Center above us, as well as at the weapons stations of each individual Dreadnaught,” C’baoth said. “I’ll soon be joining them… and if you’ve never before faced Jedi reflexes and insight, you’ll find it a sobering experience.”
Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s expression didn’t change.
“Whatever their training, it will do them no good,” he said.
“Your only choices are to leave now and take your people home, or perish. What is your answer?”
“What if we promised to go around this region?”
Lorana asked.
C’baoth looked at her, and she sensed his surprise at her presumption quickly turning to anger. “Jedi Jinzler—”
“I mean all the way around it,” Lorana continued, fighting against the weight of his displeasure pressing against her mind. “We could go to a different part of the Rim and jump off for the next galaxy from there.”
“No,” C’baoth said firmly. “That would take us thousands of light-years out of our way.”
“That would be acceptable,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said, looking at Lorana. “Provided you avoided the entire region lying along your current vector.”
“No,” C’baoth bit out, his eyes blazing. “Lorana, you will be silent. Commander, you do not dictate to us. Not you; not anyone else.”
Abruptly, he shoved hack his chair and rose towering to his full height. “We are the Jedi, the ultimate power in the universe,” he declared, the words ringing through the conference room. “We will do as we choose. And we will destroy any who dare stand in our way.”
Lorana stared up at him, her heart suddenly poundingin her throat. What was he saying? What was he doing?
There is no emotion; there is peace…
“In that event, the conversation is over,”
Mitth’raw’nuruodo said. His expression hadn’t changed, but as Lorana tore her gaze from C’baoth and looked at the commander she could sense a hardening of his resolve that sent a fresh shiver up her back. “I will give you an hour to consider my offer.”
“No, you will cease whatever you’re doing to hold us in this system and move your ships out of our path,” C’baoth countered.
“One hour,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo repeated, sliding back his own chair and standing up. “Jedi Jinzler, perhaps you’ll escort me back to my transport?”
“As you wish, Commander,” Lorana said, not daring to look at C’baoth as she scrambled to her feet. “Follow me, please.”
Captain Pakmillu had offered some of his security personnel to bring Mitth’raw’nuruodo aboard. Typically, C’baoth had refused, insisting he and Lorana needed no such show of force to keep the alien commander in line.
Which now left Lorana and Mitth’raw’nuruodo alone as they walked back toward the hangar. “Your Master C’baoth is both arrogant and stubborn,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo commented as they walked. “A bad combination.”
“He is all that,” Lorana conceded. “But he’s also a Jedi Master, and as such he has knowledge and power hidden from the rest of us. For your own sake, I beg you not to underestimate him.”
“Yet if this knowledge is hidden, how can you be sure it is accurate?”
Lorana grimaced. That was, unfortunately, a good question. “I don’t know,” she said.
“Surely you don’t stand alone,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo pointed out. “There must be others aboard who oppose to Master C’baoth’s tyranny.”
Tyranny. It was a word Lorana hadn’t dared use even in the privacy of her own mind. Now, suddenly, it could no longer be avoided. “Yes, there are,” she murmured, frowning.
Directly ahead down the corridor, shifting nervously back and forth between his feet, she could see Chas Uliar from D-4 loitering against the wall. Here to confront her with some new problem, no doubt.
But he said nothing as she and Mitth’raw’nuruodo approached, merely following them with brooding eyes as they passed him.
There was another shuttle parked near the Chiss vehicle, she noted, one of Outbound Flight’s transports. Curious; that hadn’t been there when the Chiss commander arrived. “We don’t intend your people any harm,” she told Mitth’raw’nuruodo as they stopped at his shuttle’s hatchway.
“I believe you,” he said. “But intent alone is meaningless. Your actions are what will determine your fate.”
Lorana swallowed. “I understand.”
“You have one hour.” Inclining his head to her, Mitth’raw’nuruodo turned and disappeared into his vehicle.
Lorana moved back to allow the pilot room to maneuver… and as she did so, she sensed a familiar presence.
Turning, she saw Uliar walking toward her.
Striding along behind him, a cold fire in his eyes, was C’baoth.
“Jedi Jinzler,” C’baoth said as Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s shuttle slipped through the atmosphere shield and disappeared out into the blackness of space. “I have another job for you.”
The talks had gone on longer than Uliar had expected,and he’d had enough time to get rid of his swoop and find a spot in the corridor outside D-1’s forward hangar where he could wait.
He’d been waiting now for nearly twenty minutes.
More than enough time for his internal tension to start to fade away and then start ramping up again.
Where in blazes were Pressor and the others?
He could call Pressor and ask, of course. But comlink conversations among different Dreadnaughts ran through a central switching node. If C’baoth had taken over the comm system like he’d taken over everything else, that would show that Uliar wasn’t on D-4 like he was supposed to be and tip him off that something was up.
And then, even as he tried to come up with another way to find Pressor, he saw them coming down the corridor: Lorana Jinzler and a blue-skinned, glowing-eyed near human who had to be Commander Mitth’raw’nuruodo.
So he was an unknown alien, or at least one Uliar had never seen. More importantly, he didn’t have the clothing or other trappings that would indicate he was some official from Coruscant. Uliar grimaced, a part of his hope dying within him.
But only a part. Whether he was a genuine military commander or just some pirate with an assumed title, Mitth’raw’nuruodo seemed determined to keep them from passing through his territory. If Uliar could persuade him to order them back to the Republic—or even if he and his gang were able to plunder enough of Outbound Flight’s supplies that Pakmillu was forced to go back for replacements—they might still be able to get Palpatine to do something about C’baoth’s growing stranglehold on the expedition.
At the very least, Uliar and the others would then have a chance to jump ship and find something else to do with their lives.
Jinzler and Mitth’raw’nuruodo were coming towardhim… and with the rest of the committee still absent, it was all up to him. Taking a deep breath, he opened his mouth to speak.
Or rather, he tried to open it. To his horror, his mouth and tongue refused to work.
He tried again, and again, watching as Jinzler and Mitth’raw’nuruodo closed the gap, his throat and checks straining with his effort. But nothing worked.
And then they were there, right beside him. He tried to step in front of them, to at least keep them here until he could find a way to unfreeze his mouth. But his legs wouldn’t work, either. Silently, he watched them pass him by, oblivious to his urgency and agony and helplessness.
“So you think to betray me, Uliar?” a quiet voice came in his ear.
Uliar’s neck still worked, but there was no need to turn around. He knew that voice only too well. “Did you really think you could ride a swoop all the way from Dreadnaught-Four without my people in ComOps noticing and alerting me?”
C’baoth went on. “So will treason always betray itself.”
With a jolt like that of a suddenly released clamp, Uliar felt his mouth being freed from C’baoth’s restraint. “It’s not treason,” he croaked. “We just want our mission back.”