Survivor’s Quest by Timothy Zahn

Author:Timothy Zahn [Zahn, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Novela, Ciencia ficción
Publisher: ePubLibre
Published: 2004-05-04T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

THE DOORWAY OPENED INTO ANOTHER STORAGE room, identical to the one they’d come in through except that in this one there was no turbolift access door. It also didn’t appear that any of the supply crates piled behind their meshwork panels had ever been touched.

Neither had the crates in the next room back. Or in the room behind that. “It’s one thing to talk about ten years’ worth of supplies for something this big,” Luke commented as they walked past the stacked crates toward the next door leading aft. “It’s something else to actually see them.”

“And this is just one level,” Mara murmured, an odd sensation creeping through her as she gazed at the rows of stacked cartons. All those people—nearly fifty thousand of them—all gone. Destroyed in a matter of seconds or minutes or hours.

Murdered on the orders of the man she’d once proudly served.

“Hey?”

She shook off the mood. Luke was looking at her, concern in his face. “You all right?” he asked.

“Sure,” she assured him. “I’m fine.”

Like she could actually fool him. “More ghosts from the past?” he asked quietly.

She looked over at Drask, off examining a stack of crates a few meters away. “It’s strange,” she told her husband softly. “I thought I’d been through this already. That I’d put it all behind me. But back on the Chaf Envoy, I actually started feeling … I don’t know. It’s hard to explain.”

“You started feeling comfortable?” Luke suggested.

Mara tried out the word in her mind. “Yes, I suppose that’s it,” she agreed. “Fel and this new Five-Oh-First Legion seemed so different from what Palpatine had created that it felt like something I could actually enjoy being a part of.”

Luke’s forehead creased. “You’re not seriously thinking of taking Parck up on his offer of a job with the Empire of the Hand, are you?”

“Of course not.” Mara hesitated. “Well, no, that’s not entirely accurate,” she confessed. “I mean, I certainly wouldn’t go anywhere without you. But at the same time …” She shook her head.

“I know,” he said. “The New Republic hasn’t exactly been a shining example of how to run a galaxy lately, has it?”

Mara snorted. “The understatement of the month,” she said. “All those stupid little brush wars and conflicts—I thought they’d all die down after we finally found that intact copy of the Caamas Document. But half of them are still simmering, and the Senate hasn’t done a thing to stop them.”

“That’s not entirely true,” Luke said. “But you do have a point. Things were a lot quieter under the Empire, weren’t they?”

“At least until your Rebellion got going,” Mara countered. “Then it got noisy again.”

“We tried,” Luke said, smiling back. The smile faded, and he shrugged fractionally. “You can’t play the what-ifs, Mara. Palpatine may have suppressed all those regional conflicts, but he also suppressed freedom and justice, especially for nonhumans. If someone else had been in charge … but we’ll never know.”

“I understand all that,” Mara said. “But that’s not really the point. The point is that I was just starting to feel kindly, even nostalgic, toward the Empire.

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