by Timothy Zahn
“Good afternoon, Captain Zothip,” the white-uniformed figure said calmly as he stepped into the room. “Permit me to introduce myself. I’m Grand Admiral Thrawn.”
It took Commander Dreyf less than a minute to locate the secret drawer hidden away beneath the ivrooy desk’s writing surface. It took only two minutes longer, with the help of some rather illegal tools, for him to force it open.
Inside were eight datacards. Three of them carried the labels of official governmental briefings: one from the Ubiqtorate, the other two from Fleet Intelligence.
But the other five …
“Make copies of them,” Pellaeon ordered as Dreyf slid one of the unlabeled datacards into his datapad. “All of them, even the official ones. We’ll see what the Chimaera’s decrypt section can do with them.”
“Let me try something first, if I may, sir,” Dreyf said, pulling a datacard from his pocket and inserting it into his datapad’s auxiliary slot. “One of the little extras that fell out of my backcheck of Lord Graemon’s finances was the encrypt he was using to communicate back to Bastion. Let’s see if Disra was careless or overconfident enough to use the same one here … Well, well. Our clever little Moff seems to have missed a bet.”
He smiled tightly at Pellaeon. “It’s here, Admiral. It’s all here.”
Pellaeon stepped to his side and looked over his shoulder. It was there, all right: names, dates, amounts, details of the various transactions. Everything. “You’ll be able to link this with Graemon’s end of the operation?” he asked.
“Easily,” Dreyf assured him, still scrolling through the files. “Disra was even kind enough to supply dates on everything. All I really need to do—”
“Wait,” Pellaeon cut him off, slapping fingertips at the other’s arm. Something had caught his eye as it went past. “Back up a few files. No, try one more. One more.”
And there it was: the name Pellaeon had spotted going past. The name, current location, imprisonment order—
“Colonel Meizh Vermel,” Dreyf read, frowning. “Isn’t he one of your aides, Admiral?”
“He is indeed,” Pellaeon said, his satisfaction with the catch they’d just made vanishing suddenly into the haze of dark fury. “He vanished while on a special mission for me.”
“Did he, now,” Dreyf said, his own voice darkening. “So Disra’s branched out into kidnapping now, has he?”
“Only on special occasions,” Pellaeon said, looking at the hidden drawer. Dreyf had done an efficient job of forcing the lock, but there was no way the damage could be covered up. The minute Disra opened the drawer again he would know someone had been in there.
And Pellaeon came to a decision. “Never mind copying them,” he said, gathering up the datacards. “We’ll take the originals.”
Dreyf blinked. “Sir? But—”
“And we’re leaving,” Pellaeon added, looking over at one of the troopers guarding the door. “Signal the Chimaera,” he ordered. “Captain Ardiff is to prepare for departure as soon as I’m aboard. Then call Lieutenant Marshian at the shuttle and tell him we’re on our way.”
“Yes, sir.” The trooper pulled out his comlink.
“What about Disra?” Dreyf asked. “We haven’t settled with him yet.”
“Disra will keep,” Pellaeon said grimly. “Right now, my main concern is to get Vermel free before Disra decides he’s a liability.”
“You’ll be going yourself?”
“Yes,” Pellaeon said, sliding the hidden drawer closed. “Depending on how Disra’s set up the imprisonment order, it may take my personal authority as Supreme Commander to get him out. Besides, at this point I don’t trust anyone off the Chimaera not to be in Disra’s pocket.”
“Or in Thrawn’s?” Dreyf murmured.
Pellaeon grimaced. “If Thrawn is indeed alive,” he said. “Regardless, I’m going.”
“It could be tricky,” Dreyf warned, dropping into step beside Pellaeon as they headed for the double doors. “Rimcee Station is a couple days’ flight away. Disra’s certainly going to miss these datacards before then.”
“Don’t worry, I have a few tricks of my own available,” Pellaeon said. “Trooper?”
“Lieutenant Marshian reports the shuttle will be ready to fly when we arrive, sir,” the trooper reported. “Captain Ardiff reports likewise for the Chimaera.”
“Good,” Pellaeon said, motioning the troopers to open the doors. “Then let’s not keep them waiting.”
For a few seconds the room was utterly quiet. The silence of a cave, or a forest, or a tomb. Disra let the stillness linger, thoroughly enjoying the look of stunned disbelief on Zothip’s face. It was high time the cocky, slime-eating pirate ran face-first into something his noise and bluster couldn’t handle.
He would have liked to see the consternation last a little longer. But for reasons known only to himself, the con man chose to break the spell. “You seem surprised by my presence here,” he said, his smooth Thrawn voice as absolutely perfect as the silence had been. “I can only conclude you haven’t been paying attention to the news coming out of Coruscant.”
For a moment Zothip’s mouth worked silently, the movement amplified grotesquely by the bushy beard, before he finally found his voice. “No, I heard you were back,” he said at last, the words coming out with some difficulty. The sound of his voice seemed to embolden him. “I just didn’t believe it, that’s all,” he added, straightening his shoulders.
“Why not?”
Zothip’s eyes darted to one of his men, as if reassuring him that he was the one in control here. “Because I figured anyone who’d gotten away from this slime-hole of an Empire wouldn’t be stupid enough to come back,” he said, his voice suddenly aggressive again.
On Thrawn’s other side, Tierce stirred. But Thrawn merely smiled. “Not bad,” he said. “A bit slow, but otherwise not bad at all.”
Zothip’s eyebrows pressed together. “What are you talking about?”
“The Empire is poised to rise again,” Thrawn said, crossing in front of Disra as he gave each of the other three pirates a brief, measuring look. “And while we certainly do not need allies, we are also not averse to having them.”
One of the pirates, standing behind Zothip and a little ways toward the right-hand wall, snorted in a refined sort of way. “Is that how you think of us?” he demanded, folding his arms across his chest. “As allies?”
“Control’s right,” Zothip seconded, jerking a thumb back at the other. “You give the orders and pull the profits while we do the dirty work. What kind of ally is that?”
“The kind of ally who stands to gain position beyond his wildest dreams,” Thrawn said, his voice cooling noticeably. “Position, power, and the wealth to buy and sell whole systems.”
“And when is all this supposed to happen?” Control put in. He was, Disra noted with a touch of uneasiness, drifting slowly away from Zothip toward the wall. As if distancing himself from his boss in preparation for some kind of action …
Tierce saw it, too. Out of the corner of his eye Disra saw the Guardsman take a quiet step that same direction, maintaining his same distance from Control as he simultaneously moved closer to the other pirate leaning against the wall to Zothip’s left.
Which left only the pirate standing at Zothip’s right out of the Guardsman’s quick reach. Disra glanced furtively that direction, hoping Tierce hadn’t forgotten about him.
“Quite soon,” Thrawn assured him. “Most of the pieces are already prepared and in position. Those which aren’t will be soon.”
“Those pieces being your other allies?” Control suggested. “Is that how you see us? As pieces in a game?”
“I don’t like being called anyone’s game piece,” Zothip growled before Thrawn could reply. “We’re the Cavrilhu Pirates. We don’t play any games but our own.”
He broke off at a twitter from the computer desk. “You expecting a call?” he asked sarcastically.
Disra ignored the comment, stepping forward a
nd keying the comm as he swiveled the display around to face him. “Yes?”
It was the lieutenant in the situation room … and from the look on his face Disra could tell it wasn’t good news. “Your Excellency, we have a problem,” the other said tautly. “The spies appear to have slipped out of the net.”
Disra bit back a curse. “How?”
“They used droids from a shop to blanket the Verpine biocomm frequencies,” the lieutenant said, sounding disgusted. “By the time we located the shop and shut off the transmissions, they’d made it out of range of our echo detectors. Is Grand Admiral Thrawn there with you?”
“Yes,” Thrawn said, stepping to Disra’s side. “I’ll be there shortly. In the meantime, disperse your echo detectors into a grid pattern to both sides of their last location and see if you can pick them up again.”
“Yes, sir,” the lieutenant said.
Disra blanked the display, throwing a quick glare at Tierce. He should never, ever have let himself be talked into this confrontation with Zothip while Solo and Calrissian were still on the loose. “We’d better get back,” he said, looking at Thrawn.
“So what, you’re just going to leave us here?” Control asked. He had backed away another step from Zothip, his arms still folded across his chest.
“Don’t be absurd,” Disra snapped, suddenly very tired of Zothip and his pirates. “You don’t want to be on the winning side? Fine—there are plenty who do. Major Tierce, call for an escort to show our visitors out.”
“You hold it right there,” Zothip rumbled, heaving his bulk out of the chair and dropping his hand to his blaster. “We’ll leave when I’ve got my twenty million. Now fork it over or else.”
“Or else what?” Disra demanded. “You ungrateful, slimy—”
“That’s it,” Zothip snarled. Lifting a finger to his mouth, he blew a piercing whistle. The two pirates on either side of him grabbed for their blasters—
And Tierce moved.
The pirate nearest to the Guardsman never even got his blaster clear of its holster before Tierce was on him. A short jab—a blurred movement of hands—a muffled snap of bone—and the pirate crumpled to the carpet like an empty sack. There was a startled curse from his compatriot across at Zothip’s right; but even as Disra turned his head to look, there was a whisper of movement from Tierce’s direction and the hilt of a knife sprouted suddenly in the man’s chest.
A knife that joined the one already sticking out of his neck.
Disra caught his breath, his eyes darting away from the pirate to the tall, slender woman who had suddenly appeared in the room by the hidden doorway. Her hand twitched, there was a flicker of reflected light—
And Zothip gasped with pain, lurching forward directly into the devastating kick Tierce had thrown at his stomach. Another agonized gasp as the kick connected, and the pirate chief sprawled with a thud over the computer desk, his blaster flying out of a suddenly limp hand to land on the floor.
And Disra found himself staring at the knife hilt that had appeared in the center of Zothip’s back. A gift, obviously, from the woman.
He looked up at her as she walked quietly to the desk, ignoring the three Imperials. Gripping Zothip’s beard, she turned his dulled eyes up to face her. “That was for Lorardian,” she said, her voice quiet but bitter.
Zothip’s mouth moved once, but no sound came out. The dull eyes became duller, and closed, and as the woman let go of his beard he sagged once more and lay still.
Again a silence descended on the room. And once again, Thrawn was the one who broke it. “Nicely done,” he said. “Thank you for your assistance.”
“Not that I needed it,” Tierce put in tautly. Disra glanced at him, noting with some surprise that the Guardsman had produced a small blaster from somewhere and had it trained on the woman. “Who are you?”
She looked up from Zothip’s body, her eyes dark and slightly contemptuous as she looked Tierce up and down. “Apparently, not all your people are as appreciative as you are, Admiral Thrawn,” she said, ignoring the Guardsman’s question.
“You’ll have to forgive Major Tierce,” Thrawn said soothingly. “My safety is one of his primary concerns, a responsibility he takes very seriously. But he doesn’t understand you the way I do.” He waved toward Tierce’s blaster. “You may put the weapon away, Major. The Mistryl shadow guards do not kill casually or without cause.”
Disra suddenly felt cold. A Mistryl shadow guard? Here in his palace?
The woman blinked, obviously taken aback by Thrawn’s revelation of her identity. “How did you know who I was?” she demanded, her eyes narrowing.
“Come now,” Thrawn said, mildly reproving as he waved a languid hand around at the carnage. “After that demonstration of your combat skills, who else could you be but a Mistryl? And of course, there was your reference to Lorardian,” he added, his voice softening. “My condolences on that.”
“Thank you,” she said, almost reluctantly tilting her head in acknowledgment. “I didn’t think anyone else knew or cared what happened there.”
“Information is part of my job,” Thrawn said.
“I suppose so.” The woman nodded to her left. “What are you planning to do with the leftovers?”
“I don’t know yet,” Thrawn said. “Tell me, Control: what shall we do with you?”
Disra shifted his gaze away from the woman, suddenly and belatedly realizing that the last pirate had indeed not been accounted for.
And with good reason. Control was standing perfectly still in the spot where he’d been when the fight began, his hands held open and empty in front of him, his blaster still in its holster. Yet on his face was not fear or anger, but cool contemplation of the scene. “My congratulations to you, Admiral,” he said, nodding at Thrawn and then at Tierce. “And to you, Major. I was expecting stormtroopers in hidden wall niches. Your way was much more subtle and equally effective.”
He turned his head to look at the woman. “Your appearance, on the other hand, was completely unexpected. I gather you sneaked in behind us. I’d give a great deal to know how you did that.”
“The only thing the Mistryl have to offer the Cavrilhu Pirates is death,” she countered coldly. “Give me a reason why I shouldn’t start with you.”
Control shrugged; but Disra could tell he wasn’t quite as calm as he was trying to let on. “Because you’ve already avenged the Mistryl deaths at Lorardian,” he said. “Zothip was the one who forced the issue there. There was nothing any of the rest of us could do about it.”
He turned his eyes back to Disra. “Just as he was also the one demanding revenge on you and Admiral Pellaeon for the fiasco at Pesitiin, Your Excellency,” he added. “I’d like to suggest that all such unpleasantries can and should be put behind us.”
Tierce snorted something under his breath. “Certainly the courageous one, isn’t he?”
“You miss the point, Major,” Disra said, smiling at Control. Suddenly, it was all making sense. “Control here isn’t scrabbling around desperately trying to save his skin. He had this whole confrontation mapped out right from the start.”
The Mistryl frowned at him. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that he decided he was tired of being second in line,” Disra told her, watching Control closely. The slight, knowing smile on the other’s lips was all the proof he needed that he had hit it precisely. “All of it was pure politics.”
“It was more than just politics. Your Excellency,” Control said. “Zothip had mouth and bluster; but he didn’t have the brains to run an organization as large as ours. For years now I’ve been the one who’s been holding it all together. It’s high time I took over the perks as well as the work.”
“How convenient that we’ve cleared the path for you,” Thrawn said. “Is there anything more you want from us?”
“For starters, I’d like to leave here alive,” Control said, giving each of the Imperials a smile that managed to be smug and ingratiating at the same time. “Other
than that—” He hesitated. “Zothip was right about our arrangement with Moff Disra,” he said, turning his attention to Thrawn. “We made out pretty good, but we were also taking too many of the risks. Besides that, the New Republic seems to be on to us now. I think it’s time we bowed out.”
“Then you forfeit your chance to share in the division of the galaxy at the Empire’s victory,” Disra warned, wondering why he was even bothering to try to talk Control into this. Certainly he didn’t really care if the Cavrilhu Pirates walked or not.
He needn’t have worried. “We’ll take our chances,” Control said. “You may be a genius, Admiral, but frankly I don’t think even you can pull it off.”
“As you wish,” Thrawn said. “You will, of course, still keep the Preybird production line operating.”
“We’ll keep it running,” Control promised. “In fact, I’ll give you our interest in the whole operation as a welcome-back present.”
He smirked, but in Disra’s eyes the expression rang just a little bit hollow. “And as a token of our past association with the Empire, and of our friendly parting of the ways.”
“Of course,” Thrawn said, giving him a knowing smile in return. “And just in case you’re wrong about the extent of my genius?”
The smirk twitched and vanished. “A lot of fringe groups got caught in the middle the last time you went up against the New Republic, Admiral,” he said. “I’d rather the Cavrilhu Pirates not wind up in that position.”
“I think that can be avoided,” Thrawn agreed. “Certainly as long as the Preybirds continue to be delivered.”
“You’ve got a deal,” Control said, his eyes flicking to the Mistryl as he cautiously lowered his arms. “If that’s all, then, I have an organization to restructure. Good luck to you, Admiral.”
“And to you, Captain Control,” Thrawn replied, inclining his head slightly. “I don’t expect to see you or any of your pirates in Imperial space again.”
Control swallowed visibly. “No, sir,” he said as he backed toward the door to the secret passageway. “You won’t.”
