Part 31 (2/2)

They exchanged glances, and Uliar could almost see them shrinking back behind their faces. ”We'd better stay here,” Sivv answered. ”Whenever Ma'Ning finishes, we are supposed to be on duty.”

”Sure,” Uliar said, feeling his lip twist with contempt. Why did everyone go instantly spineless whenever jedi were involved? ”See you later.”

He took a turbolift down to Dreadnaught-4's lowest level, then made his way forward until he reached one of the ma.s.sive pylons that attached the Dreadnaughts to the storage core beneath them. Four of the six turbolift cars that ran through the pylon were off somewhere else, but the other two were waiting, and a few minutes later he arrived in the storage core.

The core was arranged in a series of large rooms, each nearly filled with stacks of crates held in place by multiple wrappings of crash webbing. A relatively narrow section at the front of each room was empty, providing a walkway and work area for sorting the crates. At each end of the walkway were a pair of doors leading into the rooms forward and aft of it: one of the doors person-sized, the other the much larger access panel required for transfer carts.

The turbolift let him out in section 120, Uliar saw from the small plaque attached to the crash webbing. Ma'Ning had said the Jedi school was in 124, and he headed aft.

Neither of the doors into 124 was marked with any special notice of its new cla.s.sroom status. Steeling himself, trying not to think about all the legends about Jedi power, he walked up to the smaller door and touched the control.

Nothing happened. He tried again; still nothing. He moved to the larger cargo door, only to find that it, too, was sealed. Stepping back to the smaller door, he curled his right hand into a fist and pounded gently on the metal.

There was no answer. He knocked again, gradually increasing the volume level. Were they all out making nuisances of themselves?

”What do you want?”

He jumped, turning to a comm display that had been set up to his left just inside the cargo netting. C'baoth's face was framed there, glowering at him. ”I need to talk to you about your students and their teachers,”

Uliar said, feeling his resolve starting to erode beneath that intimidating gaze. ”They're in a reactor control and monitor room where they have no business-”

”Thank you for your interest,” C'baoth interrupted. ”But there's no need for concern.”

”Excuse me, Master C'baoth, but there's every need for concern,” Uliar insisted. ”Some of those systems are very delicate. It took me four years to learn how to handle them properly.”

”Your ways are not the Jedi ways,” C'baoth pointed out.

”That's a nice slogan,” Uliar growled. His anger, which had faded somewhat during the trip down here, was starting to bubble again. ”But devotion to plat.i.tudes is no subst.i.tute for tech school.”

C'baoth's dark look went a little darker. ”Your lack of faith is both thoughtless and insulting,” he said. ”You will go now, and you will not return.”

”Not until those children are out of my reactor room,” Uliar said doggedly.

”I said go,” C'baoth repeated.

And suddenly an invisible hand was pressing against Uliar's chest, pus.h.i.+ng him inexorably away from the locked door and back toward the other end of the section. ”Wait!” Uliar protested, batting uselessly at the pressure against his chest. He'd never realized Jedi could do this through a comm display, without actually being there in person. ”What about the children?”

C'baoth didn't answer, his image following Uliar with his eves until he was nearly to the far door. Then, simultaneously, the display image and the pressure on Uliar's chest vanished.

For a long minute Uliar stood where he was, his heart pounding with tension and dissipating adrenaline, trying to decide whether he should go back across the room and try again. But there was obviously no point in doing so. Taking a deep breath, he turned and made his way back up to Dreadnaught-4 and the reactor room.

Ma'Ning and the children were gone when he arrived, and Sivv and Algrann were at their stations. ”Well?” Sivv asked as Uliar silently took his scat.

”He told me to go away and mind my own business,” Uliar told him.

”This is our business.”

”Don't tell me,” Uliar said tartly. ”Go tell him.”

”Maybe we should talk to Pakmillu,” Algrann suggested hesitantly.

”What for?” Uliar growled. ”Looks to me like the Jedi are the ones running the show now.”

Algrann cursed under his breath. ”Terrific. We leave a tyranny run by bureaucrats and corrupt politicians, only to end up in one run by Jedi.”

”It's not a tyranny,” Sivv disagreed.

”No,” Algrann said tightly. ”Not yet.”

18.

Outbound Flight,” Qennto repeated, frowning off into s.p.a.ce as he slowly shook his head. ”Nope. Never heard of it.”

”Me, neither,” Maris seconded. ”And you say this Kav and Stratis want to destroy it?”

”Kav and whoever,” Car'das said. ”Thrawn thinks Stratis is an alias.”

”Fine; Kav and Master No One,” Qennto said impatiently. ”So why do they want to destroy it?”

Car'das shrugged. ”Stratis spun a big loop pastry about how dangerous the Jedi are and how they want to take over and make everyone to do things their way. But that has to be a lie.”

”Not necessarily,” Qennto said. ”A lot of people out there are starting to wonder about the Jedi.”

”They're certainly helping to prop up the Coruscant bureaucracy,” Maris pointed out. ”Anyone who wants genuine government reform will have to persuade the Jedi to change sides.”

”Or else kill them,” Qennto said.

Maris s.h.i.+vered. ”I can't believe it would ever come to that.”

”Well, Stratis sure wasn't talking about persuasion,” Car'das said. ”What about these Dreadnaughts? You ever hear of them?”

”Yeah, they're Rendili StarDrive's latest gift to the militarily obsessed,” Qennto said. ”Six hundred meters long, with heavy s.h.i.+elds and a whole bunch of upgraded turbolaser cannons, most of them cl.u.s.tered in four midline bubbles where they can deliver a terrific broadside volley.

Normal crew runs around sixteen thousand, with room for another two or three thousand troops. I hear the Corporate Sector's been buying them up like Transland Day souvenirs, and some of the bigger Core Worlds aren't far behind.”

”Has Coruscant been doing any of the buying?” Maris asked.

Qennto shrugged. ”There's been talk lately about the Republic finally getting its own army and a genuine battle fleet. But they've been talking that way for years, and nothing's ever come of it.”

”So with six Dreadnaughts, we're talking up to a hundred thousand people aboard Outbound Flight?” Car'das asked.

”Probably no more than half that,” Qennto said. ”A lot of the standard jobs would be duplicated among the s.h.i.+ps. Besides that, you want to build in extra elbow room on a long-term colony s.h.i.+p.”

”That's still a lot of people to kill if all they want is to get at a few Jedi,” Maris pointed out.

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