Fel's Imperial transport was searched with equal speed and efficiency. The Geroon shuttle, in contrast, took nearly three times as long to be cleared. Most of that was due to the fact that so much of the vessel had been repaired, rebuilt, or replaced that there were virtually none of the sealed equipment modules that most ships carried and that would normally not have to be checked. The search would have taken even longer if the bunkrooms and storage compartment Luke had noticed on his first visit hadn't been open to space behind their vacuum-sealed doors. The Chiss confirmed the doors' pressure readings, assured Luke that line creepers couldn't survive in vacuum, and moved on.
The whole procedure took most of the day. In the end, they found nothing.
"So we apparently have two options," Luke commented to Mara as they sat together in the forward lounge watching the hyperspace sky roll past. "Either a single group of line creepers got in and ignored everything else while they worked their way nearly to the center of the ship, or else someone brought them in and deliberately let them loose in that spot."
"Guess which option I'd pick," Mara invited.
"I know which one you'd pick," Luke said dryly. "What bothers me is that our saboteur seems to have had only that one group. What if he hadn't accomplished whatever he'd intended the first time around and had needed to create another diversion?"
"Maybe he had a few spares and spaced them before the search started," Mara suggested.
"Which means what?" Luke asked. "That he lost his nerve and dumped the evidence even though he wasn't finished with it?"
"More likely that he did accomplish what he set out to do last night," Mara said. "And that one really bothers me."
"Why?"
"Because I can't figure out what that was. Drask's been over every piece of equipment in the forward third of the ship and hasn't found anything. So what did the diversion gain anyone?"
Luke stroked thoughtfully at his cheek. "Maybe Drask is looking in the wrong place," he suggested. "Maybe we're looking at a two-stage diversion: line creepers in the control lines and doused lights in the bow, while the actual work went on somewhere else."
"Fine," Mara said. "But where? And what? Don't forget, the Chiss checked every cubic centimeter of the ship today."
"Looking for line creepers."
"Looking at everything," Mara corrected. "I watched them go through the Sabre, Luke. Even when they were sampling the air they were looking around. If there'd been any spare weapons or explosives or anything else out of place in there, they'd have spotted it. And I'll bet that goes double for the Imperials and Geroons."
"Probably triple for the Imperials," Luke conceded. Outside, the mottling vanished into starlines and collapsed into stars. Yet another navigational stop, apparently. Idly, he wondered what sort of firepoints the Chiss had waiting at this one. "So what's our next move?"
"Unfortunately, that's probably up to him," Mara said, not sounding at all happy about it. "The initiative always lies with the attacker. About all we can do is be ready—"
She broke off as a raucous trilling tone suddenly sliced like a vibroblade through the lounge. "Alert T-Seven!" a Chiss voice snapped over the speakers. "Arc twelve-two. Repeat: Alert T-Seven; arc twelve-two."
The nearest comm panel was at the far end of the next couch over. Luke got there first. "This is Master Skywalker," he said. "What's going on?"
"This does not concern you—"
"This is Aristocra Formbi, Master Skywalker," Formbi's voice cut into the circuit. "Please come to the Geroon vessel as quickly as possible."
"On our way," Luke promised. "What's happened."
There was a hint of a sigh from the speaker. "One of the Geroons has been shot."
There were a dozen Chiss swarming about the corridor outside the Geroon shuttle when Luke and Mara arrived. Two of them, Feesa and someone in Defense Fleet black, were kneeling beside the writhing and moaning figure of a Geroon, working on him with one of the ship's medpacs. Formbi, looking grim, was standing off to the side where he'd be out of the way. "What happened?" Luke asked as they were passed through the outer circle of Chiss.
"He was shot with a charric as he left his vessel," Formbi told them. "Upper back, left side. We're searching for the weapon now."
Luke stepped around Feesa and looked down, his heart sinking inside him as he got a look at the victim's face. It was Estosh, the youngest of the Geroons, his features twisted in pain at the charred and blackened skin across his left shoulder.
"You are a Jedi," Formbi went on. "I'm told Jedi have healing powers."
"Some of us do," Luke said, kneeling beside Estosh and studying the injured area. Behind him, he could feel Mara's sympathetic pain as she gazed down at the wound. She'd been shot with a Chiss charric once herself and knew exactly how it felt. "Unfortunately, neither of us has any special skills in that area."
"Is there nothing you can do?" Feesa asked.
Luke pursed his lips, trying to think. With himself or another Jedi, a healing trance would be the obvious answer. He might even be willing to risk it with Fel or one of the human stormtroopers, if the victim had been one of them.
But with an alien, especially one with unknown physiology and a mental and emotional structure he was unfamiliar with, it would be far too dangerous unless there was no other choice. "Can you tell me how bad it is?" he asked Feesa. "Is it life threatening, or only very painful?"
"It is certainly painful," Feesa said stiffly. "I do not know the rest. What does it matter?"
"It matters a great deal," Luke told her, looking around the corridor. The rest of the Geroons, he noted with surprise, were nowhere to be seen. "Where are Bearsh and the others?"
"Inside their vessel," Formbi said. "They say they are afraid for their lives."
Luke grimaced. But he supposed he couldn't really blame them. "Someone go tell them to get out here," he said. "Tell them there's nothing to be afraid of."
"They will not come," one of the Chiss said contemptuously. "They fear now that the whole of the Chiss Ascendancy stands against them." He made a clicking sound in the back of his throat. "They are an easily terrified species."
"They can be terrified on their own time," Luke told him shortly. "Right now, I need someone to tell me how bad this is."
"I'll go," Mara volunteered, crossing toward the entryway room. "If they don't trust the Chiss, maybe they'll trust a human."
Whatever it was she said to them, it obviously worked. Two minutes later Bearsh and the others emerged hesitantly from the transfer tunnel, looking around like children in a festival frighthouse. "Come here, Bearsh," Luke said, beckoning. "I need to know how bad this injury is."
"It is terrible," Bearsh moaned as he sidled nervously past the Chiss to Estosh's side. "How could someone do this to him?"
"We hope to learn that soon," Formbi said. "In the meantime, Master Skywalker needs to know if his injuries are life threatening."
Bearsh knelt down gingerly, his fingers probing the edges of the burned skin. Estosh tensed, but said nothing. "No," Bearsh said after a moment. "But he is in great pain."
"I know," Luke said reluctantly. "But I'm afraid there's nothing I can do for that. Jedi healing powers can be dangerous to use. I can't risk it if he'll most likely heal by himself."
"Of course not," Bearsh said, his voice sounding bitter. "He is only a Geroon, after all."
"I meant it would be dangerous for him," Luke said, trying hard not to be irritated. None of this was his fault, after all. "About all I can do is help you get him inside."
"That would be most kind," Bearsh murmured, his flash of bitterness subsiding. "Thank you."
"No problem." Luke stretched out to the Force, reaching for a mental grip on Estosh—