Nothing happened.
Again, Kav keyed the switch. Again, nothing. "I'm afraid that won't work, Vicelord," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said calmly. "I took the liberty of removing the alternate command layer your programmers had created in the starfighters' systems."
Slowly, Kav lowered the activator. "You are very clever, Commander," he said softly. "Someday that cleverness will turn against you."
"Perhaps," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said. "Until then, allow me to thank you for showing me how such secondary programming is done. That will prove useful today."
"So what now?" Doriana asked cautiously.
"We talk to them," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said, keying his board. "Communications: create a channel."
By the time Lorana arrived, D-1's bridge had become a hive of quiet pandemonium. C'baoth was standing beside Captain Pakmillu's command chair, his back stiff as he gazed out the canopy. Pakmillu himself was over at one of the engineering stations, his flippered hands opening and closing restlessly as he studied the displays.
Outside the canopy, arrayed in the distance in front of them like a pack of hunting howlrunners, were a dozen small ships of a configuration Lorana had never seen before.
"The readback seems to indicate we're in the middle of a planetary mass shadow," the engineering officer was saying tautly as she reached Pakmillu's side. "But you can see yourself that can't possibly be right."
"This is Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet," a cultured voice boomed over the bridge speakers. "Please respond."
"Who's that?" Lorana asked.
"The commander of that force over there," Pakmillu rumbled, still studying the readouts. "He's been calling every five minutes for the past half hour."
"You haven't answered him?"
Pakmillu's mouth tendrils stiffened. "Master C'baoth has forbidden it," he growled. "He insists we know what happened to our hyperdrive before we reply."
"Maybe the commander couldtell us what happened," Lorana suggested.
"Of course he could," Pakmillu said sourly. "But I cannot persuade Master C'baoth to that point of view."
Lorana grimaced. "Let me talk to him."
C'baoth was still gazing at the alien ships as Lorana joined him. "So, Jedi Jinzler," he greeted her. "We meet our first challenge."
"Why does it have to be a challenge?" Lorana asked. "Maybe all he wants to do is talk."
"No," C'baoth said, his voice dark. "I can sense a deep malice out there, malice directed at my ships and my people."
"They're alien minds," Lorana reminded him, feeling her pulse starting to pick up its pace. She'd seen C'baoth in this stiff-necked mood before. "Perhaps you're simply misreading them."
"No," he said. "They intend trouble, andI intend to be fully prepared to deal with it before I talk to them."
"Command, this is Ma'Ning," a voice came from the command chair speaker. "We're standing ready at D-Four's weapons systems."
"Acknowledged," C'baoth said, giving Lorana a tight smile. "Dreadnaught-Four was the last. Now we're ready to talk."
Deliberately, he lowered himself into Pakmillu's command chair and touched the comm switch. "Alien force, this is Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth, commanding the Outbound Flight Project of the Galactic Republic," he announced.
Lorana looked back at Pakmillu, wincing to herself at C'baoth's casual preemption of his command authority. But there was no resentment in the Mon Cal's expression or stance, only a quiet sense of resignation. Apparently, he'd bowed to the inevitable.
"Master C'baoth, this is Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo," the cultured voice replied promptly.
"Let me see your face," C'baoth ordered.
There was a brief pause; then the comm display came to life, showing a near human with blue skin and blue-black hair and glowing red eyes. He was dressed in a black tunic with silver bars on the collar. "There are matters of great importance we need to discuss at once," Mitth'raw'nuruodo said. "Would you care to join me in my flagship, or shall I come to you?"
C'baoth snorted gently. "I will discuss nothing until you stand away from my path."
"And I will continue to hold here until we have spoken," Mitth'raw'nuruodo replied, his voice as firm as C'baoth's. "Are the Jedi afraid of talk?"
C'baoth smiled thinly. "The Jedi fear nothing, Commander. Come aboard, then, if you insist. A hatchway will be illuminated for your shuttle."
Mitth'raw'nuruodo inclined his head. "I shall be there shortly." He gestured somewhere offscreen, and the image vanished.
"You're going to allow him aboard?" Pakmillu demanded.
"Of course," C'baoth said, an odd glint to his eve. "Or don't you find it curious that this supposed resident of the Unknown Regionsspoke to us in Basic? "
Lorana felt her breath catch. To her chagrin, she hadn't even noticed the oddness of that fact. "No, there's something more here than meets the eye," C'baoth continued. "Let's find out what that something is."
"Come aboard, then, if you insist," C'baoth's voice echoed from the D-4 reactor monitor room speaker. "A hatchway will be illuminated for your shuttle."
There was a click. "D-Four?" a different voice called. "Any progress?"
With an effort, Uliar pulled his thoughts back to focus. "Still negative here, Command," he reported, running his eyes again over his displays. "There's plenty of power going to the hyperdrive. It's just not doing anything once it gets there."
"That's confirmed, Command," Dillian Pressor's voice seconded from the hyperdrive monitor room half a dozen meters away. "The readouts still insist we're in a gravfield."
"So do everyone else's," Command growled. "All right. Keep running your diagnostics, and stand by."
There was a click, and Command was gone. "This is insane," Pressor muttered.
"Maybe more insane than you think," Uliar said, his mind racing. This might finally be their chance. "Or didn't you notice that Commander Mitth-whatever was speaking Basic?"
There was a short pause. "You mean he's from theRepublic? "
"Well, he's sure not from the Unknown Regions," Uliar said. "We've got to find a way to talk to him."
"Who, us? "
"Of course us," Uliar shot back. "You, me-the whole committee. If this guy's from the Republic, maybe he's got the authority to get C'baoth and the rest of the Jedi kicked off"