by Timothy Zahn
“Acknowledged,” Pellaeon said, easing over away from the trees. Simulated AT-AT combat, frustrating though it could be sometimes, was far enough outside his normal command duties that it was actually a form of relaxation for him.
Though of course nothing that included combat was ever truly outside a Supreme Commander’s duties. The better Pellaeon understood how mechanized equipment handled on difficult terrain, the better he would know how to deploy them in future operations.
Assuming, of course, the Empire ever again had occasion to launch ground assaults.
Firmly, he shook the thought away. One of the reasons for coming down here, after all, had been to distract himself from the continued and frustrating lack of response to his peace offer on the New Republic’s part.
He was past the stand of trees now. Easing back on his speed, he keyed for a side view to see how Raines was handling the jungle.
Very straightforwardly, actually. Keeping an eye farther ahead than Pellaeon was doing, he was using his forward laser cannon to cut down potential obstacles well before they became a problem.
A fairly noisy technique, of course, and one that gave any enemies that much more advance warning. On the other hand, AT-ATs were hardly the weapon of choice where stealth was required, and Raines’s method was definitely moving him through the jungle faster than Pellaeon. Lifting his gaze, trying to stifle the reflexive impulse to watch where his AT-AT was about to step, he squeezed off a few tentative shots.
“That’s the way, Admiral,” Raines said approvingly. “Just try to anticipate where the trouble’s going to be before you’re too close to aim the guns where they can do any good.”
Pellaeon grunted. “Better yet, avoid using AT-ATs entirely in this situation.”
“Whenever we can,” Raines said. “Unfortunately, troublemakers like to hide themselves in places like this and then put up energy shields over their heads. Besides, there’s nothing like an AT-AT clumping through the trees to scare the sneer off someone’s face.”
There was a click from the headset. “Admiral, this is Ardiff,” the Chimaera’s captain’s voice came. “Lieutenant Mavron is on his way in.” There was just the briefest pause. “He reports, sir, that he has a vector.”
Pellaeon felt his eyes narrow. Mavron’s mission had been a long shot one last attempt to find out something about the force that had hit them six days ago. If he said he’d found a vector … “Have him report to Ready Room 14 as soon as he docks,” he instructed Ardiff, shutting off the simulator. “I’ll meet you there.”
Ardiff was waiting alone in the ready room when Pellaeon arrived. “I assumed this was to be a private meeting, so I cleared the other pilots out,” he explained. “Is this about that HoloNet search?”
“I hope so,” Pellaeon said, waving him to one of the chairs around the central monitor table and sitting down himself. “Ah—Lieutenant,” he added as the door slid open and Mavron stepped inside. “Welcome home. A vector, you said?”
“Yes, sir,” Mavron said, setting a datapad down on the monitor table and easing himself into a chair with the peculiar stiffness of a man who has been sitting in a starfighter cockpit for too long. “The HoloNet relay at Horska did indeed still have their records for transmissions from this area just after that raid against us.”
“You were able to pull them all, I presume?” Pellaeon asked, picking up the datapad.
“Yes, sir,” Mavron said. “Unfortunately, I couldn’t get any names, but I did get endpoints for the transmissions.” He nodded toward the datapad. “I took the liberty of sifting through them on the way back. The one I marked struck me as the most interesting.”
Pellaeon felt his jaw tighten as he found the lieutenant’s mark. “Bastion.”
Ardiff rumbled deep in his throat. “So it was an Imperial behind that attack.”
“There’s more,” Mavron said. “The original endpoint was Bastion; but then it got relayed a few more times and wound up somewhere in the Kroctar system.”
“Kroctar system?” Ardiff said, frowning. “That’s deep in New Republic territory. What would someone from Bastion be doing there?”
“I wondered that, too,” Mavron said, his voice suddenly grim. “So I stopped off at Caursito on the way back here and pulled a copy of the TriNebulon for that day. If the timings are correct, a few hours after that transmission the Unified Factions of Kroctar announced that a treaty had been negotiated between themselves and the Empire. The mediator of record—well, according to Lord Superior Bosmihi, it was Grand Admiral Thrawn.”
An icy chill ran up Pellaeon’s back. “That’s impossible,” he said, his voice sounding strange in his ears. “Thrawn is dead. I watched him die.”
“Yes, sir,” Mavron said, nodding. “But according to the report—”
“I watched him die!” Pellaeon thundered.
The sudden outburst surprised even him. It certainly startled Ardiff and Mavron. “Yes, sir, we know,” Ardiff said. “Obviously, it’s some kind of trick. Lieutenant, I imagine the rest can wait until you file your complete report. Why don’t you go get yourself cleaned up.”
“Thank you, sir,” Mavron said, clearly glad to be given the opportunity to escape. “I’ll have my report filed within an hour.”
“Very good.” Ardiff nodded. “Dismissed.”
He waited until Mavron had gone and the door was once again closed before speaking. “It is a trick, Admiral,” he said to Pellaeon. “It has to be.”
With an effort, Pellaeon pulled his thoughts back from the memories of that awful day at Bilbringi. The day the Empire had finally and irrevocably died. “Yes,” he murmured. “But what if it’s not? What if Thrawn really is still alive?”
“Why, in that case …” Ardiff trailed off, his forehead wrinkled in sudden uncertainty.
“Exactly,” Pellaeon said, nodding. “The time when Thrawn’s tactical genius could have done us any good was—when? Five years ago? Seven? Ten? What could he possibly do now except bring the New Republic down on us in panic?”
“I don’t know, sir.” Ardiff paused. “But that’s not what’s really bothering you.”
Pellaeon looked down at his hands. Old hands, gnarled with age and darkened by the sunlight of a thousand worlds. “I was with Thrawn for just over a year,” he told Ardiff. “I was his senior fleet officer, his student”—he hesitated—“perhaps even his confidant. I’m not sure. The point is that he chose the Chimaera and me when he returned from the Unknown Regions. He didn’t just pick us at random; he chose us.”
“No, there wasn’t much Thrawn did at random,” Ardiff agreed. “From which it follows that if he’s back …?”
“That he’s chosen someone else,” Pellaeon finished the other’s sentence, the words a sharp ache in his heart. “And there can be only a very few reasons why he would do that.”
“It can’t be position,” Ardiff said firmly. “You are Supreme Commander, after all. And it certainly can’t be competence. What’s left?”
“Vision, perhaps,” Pellaeon suggested, tapping the datapad gently with a fingertip. “This peace proposal was my idea, you know. I came up with it, I argued for it, and I crammed it down the Moffs’ throats. Moff Disra was one of those who loudly and strongly opposed it. Moff Disra of Bastion. Coincidence?”
For a moment Ardiff was silent. “All right,” he said. “Even if we grant all that—which I don’t, by the way—why send a pirate or mercenary group out here to attack us? Why not simply come here and tell you directly that the treaty idea is off?”
“I don’t know,” Pellaeon said. “Perhaps it isn’t off. Perhaps this is exactly where Thrawn wants me to be. Either preparing to talk to Bel Iblis, for whatever reason, or else—”
He pursed his lips. “Or else simply out of his way. Where I can’t interfere with whatever he’s planning.”
The silence this time stretched out painfully. “I don’t believe he would do that to you, sir,” Ardiff said at last. But the words carried no genuine conviction
that Pellaeon could hear. “Not after all you went through together.”
“You don’t believe that any more than I do,” Pellaeon said quietly. “Thrawn wasn’t human, you know, no matter how human he might have looked. He was an alien, with alien thoughts and purposes and agendas. Perhaps I was never more to him than just one more tool he could use in reaching his goal. Whatever that goal was.”
Almost hesitantly, Ardiff reached over and touched Pellaeon’s arm. “It’s been a long road, sir,” he said. “Long and hard and discouraging. For all of us, but mostly for you. If there’s anything I can do …”
Pellaeon forced a smile. “Thank you, Captain. Don’t worry; I’m not going to give up. Not until I’ve seen this through.”
“We’re staying here, then?” Ardiff asked.
“For a few more days,” Pellaeon said. “I want to give Bel Iblis every possible chance.”
“And if he doesn’t show?”
“Whether he does or not, we’ll be going to Bastion next,” Pellaeon said, hearing a touch of grimness in his voice. “For this and other matters, Moff Disra has some explaining to do.”
“Yes, sir,” Ardiff said, standing up. “We’ll hope that this whole Thrawn appearance is just some trick of his.”
“We most certainly will not,” Pellaeon reproved him mildly. “Thrawn’s return would revitalize our people and bring nothing but good to the Empire. I would never want it said that I valued my own pride above that.”
Ardiff colored slightly. “No, sir, of course not. My apologies, Admiral.”
“No apologies necessary, Captain,” Pellaeon assured him, getting to his feet. “As you said, it’s been a long, hard road. But it’s nearly over. One way or another, it’s nearly over.”
The entry procedures at the Drev’starn Spaceport were considerably tighter today than they’d been the last time Drend Navett had landed here on the Bothan homeworld. Hardly surprising, considering the events of the past five days. With the surprise Leresen attack against their orbital manufacturing plant and the subsequent multispecies military buildup in the sky overhead, tensions were growing at a rapid and eminently satisfying pace.
And the Bothans’ normally business-friendly procedures had suffered as a result. Once little more than a formality, exit from the spaceport quarantine area now required a complete ID check and cargo scan.
Not that that mattered to Navett. This time through, there was nothing in his cargo that would raise even a paranoid Bothan’s fur. And his ID was as perfect as only Imperial Intelligence could make them.
“Your identification and personal effects appear to be in order,” the Bothan customs official said after the fifteen-minute procedure that seemed to be the norm today. “However, the Importation Department will have to run further tests on your animals before they can be allowed into the city proper.”
“Sure, no problem,” Navett said, waving his hand in one of the expansive gestures typical of the Betreasley district on Fedje where his ID claimed he’d been born. He had no idea whether the Bothan would notice subtleties of that sort, but the first law of infiltration was to wear a role the way a storm-trooper wore his armor. “Hey, I done this on dozens of planets,” he added. “I know how this quarantine thing works.”
The Bothan’s fur rippled, just noticeably. “On many worlds, you say?” he asked. “Is there some problem you have with maintaining ownership of your shops?”
Navett frowned, as if trying to decipher his way through a complicated sentence, then let his face clear. “Naw, you got it all wrong,” he said. “I’m not tryin’ to set up a place I can settle down in. ’Sides, unless you got a bunch of guys to run the racks for you, you can’t make a go of the exotic pet business unless you keep movin’. Lot of potential stock you’ll never even hear about unless you go where they come from.”
“Perhaps,” the Bothan murmured. “But I suspect you will not find much of a market on Bothawui in these troubled times.”
“You kiddin’?” Navett said, letting some oily smugness show through. “Hey, this place is perfect. A planet under siege—lots of tension—that’s exactly where folks are going to need a pet to get their minds off their troubles. Trust me—I seen it happen dozens of times.”
“If you say so,” the Bothan said with a ripple of his shoulder fur, obviously not caring whether this slightly uncouth alien made a profit here or not. “Leave me your comlink frequency and code and you’ll be notified when the quarantine is ended.”
“Thanks,” Navett said, collecting his documents together. “Make it fast, okay?”
“It will be as quick as regulations require,” the Bothan said. “A day of peace and profit to you.”
“Yeah. Same to you.”
Five minutes later Navett was walking down the street, jostling his way through the mass of travelers hurrying in and out of the spaceport. Passing up the rows of for-hire landspeeders, he put his back to the setting sun and headed off on foot toward a row of cheap hotels bordering the spaceport area.
With his back to the sun, he spotted the shadow coming up behind him a few seconds before Klif dropped into step at his side. “Any problems?” the other asked quietly.
“No, it went real smooth,” Navett said. “You?”
Klif shook his head. “Not a one. He took the bribe, by the way, but he wouldn’t promise we’d get the animals out any sooner.”
“Not with a bribe that small,” Navett agreed, smiling to himself. An insultingly small gratuity from the pet dealer’s assistant, and none at all from the dealer himself, ought to nicely reinforce their carefully constructed image as small-timers trying to turn a fast profit without the slightest idea how the game was played.
And with the Bothans, an image like that practically guaranteed them to be the focus of private amusement, back-room contempt, and complete official disinterest.
Which meant that when the time was right for the Drev’starn section of the Bothawui planetary shield to come down, it would.
“You see Horvic or Pensin in there?” Klif asked. “I didn’t spot either of them.”
“No, but I’m sure they got in all right,” Navett said. “We can tap the rendezvous point tomorrow if we can find a shop fast enough.”
“I picked up a rental listing,” Klif said. “Most of them come with apartments above them.”
“That’ll be handy,” Navett said. “We’ll look through it tonight and see if there’s anything in the right area. If not, we can always check with a rental agent in the morning.”
Klif chuckled. “Don’t worry—we’ve got plenty of bribe money left.”
“Yes,” Navett murmured, looking around. Fifteen years ago, according to rumor, it had been information from Bothan spies that had led the Rebel Alliance to Endor and resulted in the death of Emperor Palpatine and the destruction of the second Death Star. In the years since then, Bothans had been involved with the Black Sun organization, the destruction of Mount Tantiss, and any number of other blows against the Empire.
He didn’t know the full scope of the plan that was under way here; but of all the worlds Grand Admiral Thrawn might have chosen for destruction, few would have given him more personal satisfaction than this one.
They had reached their chosen hotel now, and as they started up the steps an ancient droid standing warden beside the door stirred himself. “Good even, good sirs,” he wheezed. “May I call for a baggage carrier?”
“Naw, we can handle ’em,” Navett said. “No sense wasting good money on a droid.”
“But, sir, the service is free,” the droid said, sounding confused.
But by then Navett and Klif were past him, pushing through the doors and strolling into the lobby. They were, he noted, the only hotel guests carrying their own bags.
But that was all right. Let the Bothans and their more sophisticated guests snicker at them behind their backs, if they chose. When the fire began to rain from the sky, the laughter would turn to screams of terror.
And Navett would be e
njoying every minute of it.
CHAPTER
6
It was on her fifteenth day in the darkness of the Nirauan cave when Mara Jade awoke to discover a rescuer had finally arrived.
It was not, however, any of the potential rescuers she would have expected.
Mara?
She sat up suddenly in her bedroll, blinking her eyes reflexively open despite the fact that in the pitch-darkness there was absolutely nothing to see. The sense of someone calling to her had been wordless, but as clear as if her name had been spoken aloud. She stretched out with the Force …
And as she did so, the sense of his presence came drifting in to her. His presence, and his identity.
It was Luke.
The tone of his emotions changed, the hard edge of anxiety permeating it turning abruptly to relief as he sensed her response and knew that she was unhurt. A new touch of anticipation flowed into his mind, and as she focused she could sense a physical darkness around him. Best guess was that he was in the cave, she decided, probably working his way her direction.
Which unfortunately meant that his anticipation was a bit premature. Finding the cave was one thing; finding each other within its multiple twistings was going to be something else entirely.
But Luke already had that covered. To her wordless question came a renewed sense of assurance from him; and even as she frowned, she caught a sense of others around him, beings who he seemed to be following. Apparently, some of the mynocklike creatures who had hauled her in here in the first place were acting as guides.
She looked up at the ceiling and walls around her. More of the creatures were up there, silently watching her. “Skywalker’s coming,” she called up into the darkness. “You happy?”
They were. Even with her frustrating inability to hear their words directly, there was no mistaking the surge of excitement that rippled through them. “I’m so pleased,” she said. Standing up, she felt her way toward the subterranean creek gurgling its way through the rock a few meters away. She’d picked this spot early on in her captivity as a place where she would have water available, and in the days since then had learned to navigate the trip without using her glow rod.
