The two Jedi were standing near the entrance to a high-ceilinged, cathedral-like chamber. The huge room took up most of the middle portion of the Panacea, a gigantic medical aid ship, one of Chancellor Soh’s earliest Great Works. In the years since its completion, the vessel had been sent to various conflict zones, disaster sites, and areas affected by outbreaks of contagion, tangible evidence of the Republic’s commitment to its citizens, especially the weakest. Most recently, Soh had dispatched the vessel to the Hetzal system to collect and treat survivors of the Legacy Run disaster.

The Panacea’s huge central chamber, called the viewdeck, was a transparisteel dome. Under ordinary circumstances, the dome revealed whatever happened to be outside the ship, but in deference to most of the room’s occupants, a different choice had been made. Instead of the dark void of space, circuitry within the dome had rendered its surface opaque, with subtle green and blue tones moving through it, and warm yellow light shining down from above. Calm sounds played softly in the distance—burbling water, wind through leaves. The ship’s medical psychologists had subtly re-created the colors, sounds, and feel of a planet very like the one the settlers aboard the Legacy Run had hoped to make their new home. That was, if their transport ship hadn’t been destroyed in an instant of terror and flame, throwing them out of hyperspace and into a disaster that was not yet over.

Burryaga was tracking the Emergences closely. Because he had been present at the start of the disaster and played a fairly central role in its resolution, he felt connected to the whole terrible situation on a deep level. He wanted to stay involved, and help however he could, until the whole slow tragedy finally came to an end. Among other efforts, he read the daily report issued by the chancellor’s office on the status of the crisis. Recently, it was focused on burgeoning unrest as the effects of the ever-growing hyperspace blockade were felt. But it discussed the Emergences, too. Current count: twenty-one, and one of those last had caused the destruction of an orbital shipping facility over Dantooine that was coordinating a massive aid shipment to the increasingly beleaguered systems of the Outer Rim Territories.

Nib Assek walked out toward the center of the viewdeck, where thirty or so people were gathered, chatting among themselves in low voices. The Panacea’s staff had set out refreshments, and most of the people had drinks in their hands. It was like a party…but it wasn’t.