And more than once, late at night as she lay in bed beside Luke, she found herself wondering what it would have been like to serve an empire like that.
What it would be like to serve an empire like that.
It was the late part of ship's night after one of those speculative moments that the room's comm panel buzzed them abruptly awake. Twitching away from her, Luke rolled over to key it on. "Yes?" he called.
"This is Aristocra Formbi," the voice noted. "You and Jedi Skywalker may wish to wake and get yourselves dressed."
"What's wrong?" Mara called.
"Nothing's wrong," Formbi said. "We've arrived."
"There," Formbi said, pointing at the main command center Display. "There, just to the right of center. Do you see it?"
"Yes," Luke said, peering at the image. There was a ship there, all right, its once shiny hull blackened and crackled with multiple laser and missile impacts. It lay poised just over the crest of a steep hill on the planetoid's surface, as if it had been somehow frozen in the act of toppling over the edge.
And as the Chaf Envoy continued its inward spiral, he saw how it was the ship managed to stay suspended in midair. From points near the bow and the stern slender tubes could be seen extending from the underside of the hull, stretching downward at a shallow angle and connecting with another vessel mostly buried in the rubble at the foot of the hill. Midway along each of the tubes, he noticed, another pair of curved tubes veered off, stretching down and inward and coming together as they disappeared into the rocky hillside.
"Is that your Outbound Flight?" Formbi asked quietly, Luke nodded. The ship was a Dreadnaught, all right: six hundred meters long, armed with an awesome array of turbolasers and other weapons, capable of carrying and supporting nearly twenty thousand crewers and passengers.
Or it had been once. Not anymore. Gazing at the battered hull, he felt a stirring of distant pain for those who had been aboard when this had happened. "I think so," he told Formbi. "It fits the description, anyway."
"Engines look mostly intact," Mara commented. Her voice was calm, almost clinical, but Luke could feel the pain and turmoil behind the words. "The turbolaser blisters and shield bays were pretty well pounded, but the rest doesn't seem too bad. With some work, it might actually be able to fly again."
"The vessel on the surface appears capable of sustaining life," Formbi agreed. "The sensors indicate it has air and heat, and is using low levels of power. The other vessel, the one half visible at the foot of the hill, exhibits none of those characteristics."
"No surprise there," Luke murmured. "You can see a dozen places where the connecting tubes between it and the upper ship have been blasted open."
"What about the rest of it?" Jinzler asked. "I understood Outbound Flight was composed of six Dreadnaughts."
"The rest must be underground," Fel said. "What's left of them, anyway."
"Underground?" Bearsh echoed, sounding awed. "This vessel can even travel underground?"
"No, of course not," Formbi said. "Perhaps it would be more accurate to say the rest of it is beneath the—" He hissed thoughtfully. "I don't know the right word. The loose, fine stone in the valley between the hills."
"The scree?" Luke suggested. "Moraine?"
"Scree, I think," Formbi said slowly. "At any rate, our instruments indicate the loose stone is very deep in that place and that there is definitely metal beneath it."
"Do you have any idea what shape it's in?" Jinzler asked. "The parts that are underground, I mean."
"Our instruments cannot say," Formbi said. "We will have to wait until we are aboard to determine that."
"Assuming the connecting tubes under the rock are in better shape than those others," Luke pointed out. "If they are, we may be able to follow them around the circle. If not, we'll have to dig."
"Assuming enough of the circle of ships is there to make it worth the effort," Fel said.
"How did it get here in the first place, though?" Mara asked. "That's what I want to know."
"That remains a mystery," Formbi conceded. "Obviously, Thrawn must have had it towed here for future examination. Yet there is no evidence he or anyone else ever returned for any such study."
"I was actually thinking more about the mechanics of the operation," Mara said. "You said he was commanding a small picket force at the time. Did every junior Chiss officer know how to get in and out of the Redoubt cluster?"
"Absolutely not," Formbi said. "He would have had to search deep into high-ranking information archives to have gained such information."
"That certainly sounds like Thrawn," Fel commented. "Information was his passion."
"Yes," Mara said grimly. "And killing was his business."
A quiet shiver ran up Luke's back. According to Admiral Parck, there had been fifty thousand people aboard those six Dreadnaughts when Outbound Flight was destroyed.
Would the bodies still be aboard, lying where they'd fallen? Certainly he'd seen dead bodies before, but most of those had been the remains of Rebel and Imperial soldiers killed in battle. Here most of the deaths would have been civilians, possibly including children.
With an effort, he shook away the thought. Whatever was there, he would simply have to deal with it. "So what's the plan?" he asked.
"The planetoid is too small to hold significant atmosphere," Formbi said, nodding toward the display. "We will therefore land the Chaf Envoy on top of the hill beside the upper vessel and run a transfer tunnel to the portside docking port near the aft end. Then all those who will be going aboard will do so."
He gazed at the display, where the Dreadnaught was growing steadily larger as the Chiss ship closed the gap. "Once we're aboard, there will be a short ceremony in which I will recount the Chiss part in the vessel's destruction and express the depth of our regret," he went on. "I will then ask for forgiveness on behalf of the Nine Ruling Families and the Chiss Ascendancy, and formally return the vessel's remains to Ambassador Jinzler, representing the New Republic, and Master Skywalker and Jedi Jade Skywalker, representing the Jedi Order."
"And us?" Bearsh asked anxiously. "Will there be a place in the ceremony for the Geroon people to express our gratitude?"
"Whether or not you are permitted to speak will be a decision for Ambassador Jinzler," Formbi said gravely.
"Of course you may," Jinzler assured the Geroon, smiling encouragingly at him. "As will you, Commander Fel," he added, nodding to Fel. "Though I'm still not certain what exactly your interest is in Outbound Flight."
"Remembrances come in all sizes and shapes," Fel said obliquely.
"As do acts of repentance and atonement for past failures. Regardless, we'll be honored to participate in the ceremony."
"Then I suggest all return to your quarters or vessels and prepare," Formbi said. "In one hour, we shall begin."
Landing the Chaf Envoy beside the exposed Dreadnaught was a straightforward enough operation, though there had been some concern that the loose rock wouldn't adequately support its weight, especially given the possibility that a structurally damaged vessel might be buried beneath it. Fortunately, everything seemed solid enough. Setting up the connecting tunnel was handled with equal efficiency.
At that point, they ran into an unexpected problem. The docking bay hatchway Drask had selected, which had looked completely functional, turned out to be warped just enough to be impossible to open, and the Chiss ended up having to use cutting torches to carve out an access.
It was a slow process. Even the relatively thin hatchway of an Old Republic warship was incredibly tough, and the need to maintain a margin of safety in the enclosed area limited how much power the Chiss could run to their torches. More than once as he watched them work, Luke considered going to Formbi and offering to do the job with his lightsaber instead. It would be easier and cleaner and a lot faster.