Or was that as clear as he'd thought?
He felt his hand tighten around Evlyn's as memories he'd spent years pushing away rushed in, washing over his carefully constructed view of himself and his life like a mountain stream cutting through loose mud. An image of his mother praising him for his near-perfect grade evaluation in fourth tier. Another image, this one of his father, complimenting him on his ingenuity as they worked together to rewire a section of the family holoviewer. More images—dozens of them—all showing that his long-held belief in parental neglect hadn't been true at all.
It fact, it had been an out-and-out lie. A lie he'd created and repeated to himself over and over until he'd genuinely believed it. A lie he'd created for one reason, and one reason only.
Jealousy.
He hadn't hated Lorana at all, he saw now. He'd simply hated what she'd become, because it was what he had longed to be but never could.
He closed his eyes. So simple... and yet it had taken him most of his life to finally recognize the truth.
Or perhaps it had simply taken that long for him to admit it to himself. Perhaps, down deep, he'd known it all along.
He opened his eyes; and as he did so, the image of Lorana's face vanished back into the mists of memory, leaving him once again sitting inside a ruined starship, huddled behind a makeshift barrier, holding a little girl's hand.
He turned to Uliar. "She has the power of the Jedi, Director Uliar," he said. "She always will. You should be honored to know her."
The other's eyes bored into him like a pair of hungry duracrete slugs. But there was apparently something in Jinzler's expression that warned against further argument. The director merely gave a contemptuous snort and turned his face away without speaking.
Jinzler looked at Tarkosa and Keely in turn, silently daring each of them to object. But whatever it was Uliar had seen, they saw it, too. Neither of them spoke.
And finally, he turned back to Rosemari. "There's one last thing," he said. "She needs the approval of the people she loves. More importantly, she deserves it."
Rosemari swallowed visibly. She didn't like this—that was abundantly clear in the lines etched across her face. But beneath the fear and pain, he could see some of the same toughness he remembered in his own mother. "It's all right, Evlyn," she said softly. "It's all right. Go ahead and... and use what you have."
Evlyn looked up into her mother's face, as if mentally testing her sincerity. Then she lowered her gaze to Jinzler. "What do you want me to do?"
Jinzler took a deep breath. "The Peacekeeper over there by the wall has a comlink on his belt," he told her. "Do you see it?"
Evlyn wiggled around to where she could peer through the mesh of the chair plugging the gap between table and bulkhead. "Yes."
"It's the only thing that can shut off the jamming and let us call to our friends for help," Jinzler said. "We need you to bring it to us."
"Your friends are dead," Keely murmured.
"No," Jinzler said. "Not these Jedi. I've heard of stories about them, Councilor. They can't be killed nearly as easily as Bearsh thinks."
"And there are still Chiss warriors aboard our ship," Feesa added. "Many of them. They can help us, too."
"But only if we can call them," Jinzler said, gazing into Evlyn's eyes. "Only if you can bring us that comlink."
Evlyn set her jaw. "All right," she said. "I'll try."
Jinzler felt his throat ache with an old, old pain. Do or do not. There is no try. His father had quoted that Jedi dictum to him over and over again as he was growing up. But never before now had he been able to get past his own resentment and see the encouragement embedded in those words. Pressing his cheek against the chairs above him, wincing as one of the wolvkils snorted a breath of fetid air practically in his face, he looked across the room.
At the Peacekeeper's side, the comlink twitched.
Uliar grunted something under his breath. The comlink twitched again, harder this time; and then, suddenly, it popped free of its clip and clattered onto the deck.
The wolvkils paused in their pacing, all three shaggy heads turning toward the sound. "Steady," Jinzler murmured. "Let it sit there a minute."
Evlyn nodded silently. A few seconds later, with nothing more to draw their attention, the wolvkils resumed their pacing. "All right," Jinzler said. "Now start it toward us. Slowly, and as steady as you can."
Slowly, though not at all steadily, the comlink began to move across the deck. One of the wolvkils paused again as it jerked its way to within three meters of the table, the animal's dark eyes watching the small cylinder with obvious curiosity. But none of its enemies was making any of the threatening moves it had been taught to react to, and its trainers clearly hadn't anticipated a situation quite like this. The wolvkil watched for a moment longer as the comlink rolled and bumped its way along, then lost interest and returned its attention to the creatures cowering behind their barrier. Again, Jinzler found himself holding his breath.
Then, almost anticlimactically, the comlink was at the chair. Reaching out carefully, Evlyn plucked the device in through one of the gaps in the mesh.
And an instant later jerked backward with a gasp as a snarling wolvkil slammed his snout into the chair, nearly knocking it out of position.
"Give it to me," Jinzler snapped, snatching the comlink out of the startled girl's hand. If a loose comlink rolling across the floor wasn't on the wolvkils' list of threats, something being held in an enemy's hand obviously was. "Here," he added, tossing it to Uliar as he swung his legs over and braced his feet against the chair. The wolvkil hit it again, but he'd gotten to it in time and it held steady. "Shut off the jamming."
Uliar's reply, if he made one, was lost as a set of snarling jaws and a clawed paw abruptly slapped into the chair directly above Jinzler's head. "Brace the chairs," Formbi called, struggling to sit upright and getting a one-handed grip on the back of the nearest one. Just in time; the third wolvkil leapt up onto the array of chairs above them, howling furiously as it bit and shoved its snout at them, trying to find a way through. One of its hind legs slipped down between two of them, and the animal howled even more furiously as it flailed around trying to extricate itself. The clawed paw slashed with random viciousness in the enclosed space, and Feesa gasped as it caught her across the shoulder, spilling a line of blood onto the bright yellow of her tunic.
"It's off!" Uliar called over the noise.
Holding grimly onto one of the chair backs with one hand, Jinzler thumbed on his comlink with the other, keying for general broadcast. "Luke—Mara—Commander Fel," he called. They couldn't be dead. They couldn't. "Emergency!"
Beneath her, Luke gave one final tug on the cables, bringing Mara's eyes level with the lower edge of the turbolift door. "How's that?" he called.
"Good," Mara called back, running her fingertips along the corroded metal at the side of the door. In actual fact, another pull or two might have been a little better for what she needed. But it had been a long climb, and even with all the strength he'd been able to draw from the Force Luke's shoulders beneath her legs had been trembling with muscle fatigue for the past five minutes. Better that she strain a little herself and let him conserve what he had left for whatever lay ahead.
Because if they were right about that soundless cry they'd both sensed a minute ago, there was serious trouble up here.
Ah—there it was. "Got it," she announced. Wrapping her fingertips around the manual release, she gave it a careful tug. There was a click as it came loose; stretching out to the Force, she pried the door open.