"That's impossible," Trilli insisted. "We exterminated them thirty years ago."
"Unless we've just imported a new batch," Pressor said, jerking his head back down the corridor.
Trilli muttered something under his breath. "Uliar's not going to be happy about this at all."
"No kidding." Pressor started to reach for his comlink, remembered the jamming in time and headed instead toward one of the wall-mounted comms. "We'd better get a couple more tech teams down here," he said. "If it's conduit worms, we want them gone, and fast."
"Right," Trilli said. "You want me to wait here while you go tell Uliar the good news?"
Pressor made a face. "Let's both wait," he said. "There's no point in starting rumors until we know for sure what we've got."
"Besides which, you don't want to spring this on Uliar alone?"
Pressor keyed the wall comm for the tech section. "Something like that."
The center portside corridor on D-6 was as snarled with rusted debris as anything Fel had seen up on D-4. The center starboard corridor, in contrast, was almost perfectly clear.
"They've definitely been using this one," Watchman commented as the group made their cautious way aft. "Not very much traffic, but it's steady."
"How do you figure that?" Fel asked.
"From the pattern of dust on the deck," Drask told him. "There are places where occasional footsteps have lifted or moved it. No more than twenty people come this way each day. Possibly fewer."
"Possibly as few as ten," Watchman agreed. "The two guards we left stunned back there, running three shifts a day, plus a few more would pretty well cover it."
"Commander?" Grappler, in the lead, called back over his shoulder. "I'm picking up voices ahead."
"Extend formation," Watchman ordered. "Not too far—make sure to stay in sight."
"I see a light," Grappler announced. "Looks like it's coming from one of the crew bunkrooms."
"Watch for trouble," Fel warned. "They may have had time to get reinforcements in position."
Apparently, they hadn't. A minute later, the group had arrived.
At a prison.
Fel hadn't been particularly impressed by Luke's claim that there had been an old prison down in the supply core, and Drask's description of the setup hadn't done anything to modify that skepticism. But about this place he had no doubts at all. The door to the old crew quarters had had a pair of narrow slits cut into it, one at eye level for observation, the other just above the floor and wide enough to pass a tray of food through. Supplementing the door's original lock was a heavy add-on with the kind of twin access ports that implied two separate codes were necessary to open it.
"Hello?" a woman's voice called tentatively from behind the door. "Perry? Is that you?"
Fel stepped to the door and pressed his face to the upper slit. The bunkroom had been divided into at least three sections, two of which were currently closed off by light, hand-movable panels. The center section, the one visible from the observation slit, had been set up as a recreation area, with chairs, a couple of small tables, games, and toys. Seated in two of the chairs were a pair of women, one in her twenties, the other much older, watching as four children with ages ranging between six and ten years old played or talked. The younger woman was leaning toward the door, squinting to try to see Fel through the narrow slit.
Abruptly, she stiffened. "You're not Perry," she said, her voice quavering a little. "Who are you?"
"I'm Commander Chak Fel of the Empire of the Hand," Fel identified himself as the children all paused in their activities and turned to see what was going on. "Don't worry, we aren't going to hurt you."
"What do you want?" the older woman asked.
"We're here to help," Fel assured her, frowning as he looked around. These certainly didn't look like hardened criminals who deserved to be kept behind a double-coded lock and supplied through a zoo-style feeding slot. In many ways the room reminded him of the nursery they'd passed down the corridor, in fact, or perhaps a special classroom of some sort. "Who are you people?"
"We're the remnant of the Republic mission called Outbound Flight," the older woman said.
"Yes, we know that part," Fel said. "I mean you and the children. What are you doing in there?"
"Why, we're the dangerous ones, of course," the younger woman said bitterly. "Didn't you know?" She waved a hand to encompass the children. "Or rather, they are. That's why they're in Quarantine. We're just here to take care of them, poor dears."
"The dangerous ones, huh?" Fel asked, eyeing the children. As far as he could tell, they looked like any other kids he'd ever known. "What exactly did they do?"
"They didn't do anything," the older woman said quietly. Apparently she'd been at this long enough for her bitterness to decay into resignation. "All they were was a little bit different from everyone else. That's all. Director Uliar's imagination and hatred did all the rest."
"And what exactly does his imagination and hatred tell him?" Fel asked. "What does he think they are?"
"Why, pure evil, of course," the younger woman said. "Or at least, that's what he's afraid they'll grow up to be."
Fel looked at the kids again. "Pure evil?" he asked.
"Yes," the older woman added, her forehead creasing as if it should be obvious. "You know.
"Jedi."
CHAPTER 18
Fel just stared at her, his brain refusing to form words. Pure evil? Jedi? "Who told you Jedi were evil?" he demanded. "Some of them may have their moments, but..."
He trailed off. Both women were looking at him as if he'd just told them that red was green. "Don't you know anything?" the younger woman said. "They destroyed us. They betrayed and destroyed us."
"Did you actually see this happen?" Fel persisted. "Or is it just something you heard from—?"
"Commander," Drask said.
Fel turned away from the observation slit. "What?" he snapped.
"For the moment, this is irrelevant," the general said quietly. "We can learn more about their history when the Aristocra and ambassador are once again safely under our protection."
Fel felt his jaw tighten in frustration. But the Chiss was right. "Understood," he said reluctantly. "So we just leave them here?"
"Would you prefer we take them with us?" Drask countered.
"No, of course not," Fel conceded reluctantly. "I just—of course not. Back to the turbolift?"
"Yes," Drask said, his eyes flashing with quiet anger toward the locked room. "We have seen what we came here to see."
Fel nodded. He hated to just leave these people here, prisoners of some insane half-remembered myth or personal vendetta. But Drask was right. It could be dealt with later. "All right, stormtroopers, form up. We're heading back to the forward turbolifts."
He started to turn, and, as he did, something about Grappler's stance caught his attention. "Grappler?" he asked.
Reluctantly, he thought, the Eickarie came back to attention. "Your pardon, Commander," he said, his voice sounding even more alien than usual. "I was... remembering."
"Remembering what?"
"My people." Grappler gestured fractionally toward the Quarantine door with his BlasTech. "The Warlord took away many such innocents who were of no genuine threat and put them in places like this. Most were never heard from again."
"I understand," Fel said, leveling his gaze at the white faceplate. "But the best thing we can do right now is find Formbi and Jinzler and make sure they know about this. Rule One is that diplomats always get first crack at this sort of problem."
"And if they are unable or unwilling to do anything?"
Fel looked back at the locked door. "Rule Two is that soldiers get second crack," he said darkly. "Move out."