Treason - Timothy Zahn

by Star Wars

  Thrawn: Treason is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 2019 by Lucasfilm Ltd. & ® or ™ where indicated. All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  DEL REY and the HOUSE colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  ISBN 9781984820983

  International edition ISBN 9780593129654

  Ebook ISBN 9781984820990

  randomhousebooks.com

  Book design by Elizabeth A. D. Eno, adapted for ebook

  Cover art: Two Dots

  Cover design: Scott Biel

  v5.4

  ep

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  The Del Rey Star Wars Timeline

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  Other Star Wars Books by Timothy Zahn

  About the Author

  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….

  The Imperial Star Destroyer floated lazily over the blue-green planet below it, a hint of those colors reflected faintly against its hull in the shadows created by the distant sun. The warship reached the end of its patrol sweep and, apparently satisfied that there was nothing amiss in the vicinity, angled away toward deep space. It continued its leisurely course until it reached the edge of the planet’s gravity well, then in a flurry of flashlines made the jump to lightspeed.

  Seated in her command chair on the bridge of the Chiss Defense Fleet warship Steadfast, wrapped in darkness alleviated only by the stars outside and the handful of indicator lights still active, Admiral Ar’alani scowled. The accidental interloper was finally gone. The crucial question now was whether the Steadfast’s forced descent into full dark mode had given their quarry the time and distance it needed to escape. “Mid Commander Tanik?” she prompted quietly.

  “A moment, Admiral,” Tanik said softly. There was no real need for quiet—their quarry could hardly hear them across a thousand kilometers of vacuum—but Ar’alani had long noted that dark mode tended to have a silencing effect on a ship’s crew. “Searching along the last known vector.”

  “Assuming they didn’t take the opportunity to alter it,” Senior Captain Khresh growled from his position beside Ar’alani’s chair. “Imperial fools. The exact worst time, the exact worst place—”

  “Patience, Senior Captain,” Ar’alani admonished, gazing out at the starfield wrapped around the bridge viewports. She was just as frustrated as Khresh by the Star Destroyer’s unexpected and oblivious interference with their mission, but that wasn’t a reason to abandon his dignity and self-control.

  She looked back at the sensor board. Especially not with Tanik sitting right there within earshot.

  Sure enough, the sensor officer had a small smile on his face as he worked to relocate the Steadfast’s target. No doubt the tale of Khresh’s small outburst, mild though it might be, would wend its way back to the Ascendancy and there be thrown on the growing fire between their two families.

  Unfortunately, Khresh also spotted Tanik’s smile. “Is something amusing you, Mid Commander?” he demanded.

  “No, Senior Captain, nothing at all,” Tanik assured him calmly.

  “Have you found the target? If not, I suggest you put thoughts of entertainment out of your mind and concentrate on the task at hand.”

  “Yes, sir.” Tanik straightened in his chair. “Oh, wait, sir,” he said with exaggerated brightness. “I stand corrected. Admiral, we have them.”

  “On the board,” Ar’alani ordered.

  “There,” Khresh said, pointing at the glowing circle on the tactical board that marked the drive emissions. “Looks like they’re maintaining their original heading.”

  “Ship’s uncloaking, Admiral,” Tanik said. “Still too far away for any configuration analysis.” He shook his head. “I have to give them full marks for confidence.”

  “Confidence bordering on arrogance,” Ar’alani agreed. The target ship had naturally activated its cloaking field the moment the Star Destroyer popped into the system, hiding itself from the potential enemy. But from its current position, it was clear that, instead of shutting down its drive and playing dead the way the Steadfast had, it had continued to track along its course, fully expecting that the Imperial ship wouldn’t notice the telltales.

  Which, of course, it hadn’t.

  “Looks like it’s getting ready to jump,” Khresh said. “…There it goes.”

  “Secure from dark mode,” Ar’alani called. “Do we have their vector?”

  “We do, Admiral,” Tanik said as, all around them, the bridge and the Steadfast began once again to come to life. “Sending it to the helm.”

  Ar’alani turned her attention to the helm, and the young girl seated quietly in the navigator’s seat. “Whenever you’re ready, Navigator Mi’yaric.”

  “Yes, Admiral,” Mi’yaric said. She braced herself as she took the helm controls, then bowed her head. She held the pose a moment, then drew a breath and huffed it out.

  A moment later the Steadfast was in hyperspace.

  “Let’s just hope they’re all as incompetent as the ones in that Star Destroyer,” Khresh murmured at Ar’alani’s side.

  “They won’t be,” Ar’alani said, trying to hide her own misgivings. Tracking an enemy ship to learn its destination and purpose was one thing. Tracking it across borders toward the very center of alien territory was something else entirely. “Signal all senior officers. I want them in the bridge conference room in ten minutes to discuss the current situation.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Khresh said. “And…?” He left the question hanging.

  Not that Ar’alani didn’t know perfectly well what he was suggesting. The problem was that the newcomer—the alien—was still not fully accepted by some of the officers and crew. In a crisis situation, or even a politically charged one, lack of trust could lead to hesitation, which could lead to disaster.

  But she was likely to need information and analysis before this was over, and he was far and away the best resource the Steadfast had.

  And a good commander never wasted or ignored resources.

  “Yes,” she told Khresh. “Go ahead and signal him, as well.

  “Order Lieutenant Eli’van’to to join us.”

  Communications to and from a Star Destroyer like the ISD Chimaera came from many directions, and at many different status and security levels. Each message carried a numerical co
de specifying the degree of importance, and those codes defined how and by whom each was to be handled.

  Commodore Karyn Faro knew all of those codes. But somehow, in a still-youthful corner of her mind that years of Imperial military regulation and order hadn’t quite eradicated, those codes also somehow ended up as colors.

  Identification signals from nearby ships or status reports from mid-distant bases, routine matters handled by junior officers, came in shades of green or blue. The small percentage of more significant orders and reports from Coruscant—which was better known by the bureaucracy these days as Imperial Center—were pictured in shades of yellow or orange. Those were screened by the Chimaera’s more senior officers. The rare handful of vital or top-secret messages coming from the senior admirals of High Command, all of which were handled by Faro personally, moved into the range of darker shades of red or purple.

  And the few—the very few—that came from outside the official navy chain of command, the ones that went directly to Grand Admiral Thrawn himself, were an unremittent black.

  And they were never good news.

  “Your TIE Defender program is at risk,” Grand Moff Tarkin intoned.

  Standing just inside Thrawn’s office, with the image from the desk holoprojector facing away from her, Faro couldn’t see Tarkin’s expression. But she could see Thrawn’s, and the subtle hardening of those facial muscles sent a small shiver up her back.

  “Orson Krennic has been quite persuasive,” Tarkin continued, “about diverting the funding to his own project: Stardust.”

  “The Emperor has assured me that he supports my project,” Thrawn replied. His face was back under control now, Faro noted, and his voice its usual calm.

  But there was an edge there that Faro had heard before. The Emperor and Thrawn had a special relationship that dated all the way back to Thrawn’s first arrival on Coruscant. Rumor had it that especially in those early years the two men had sometimes disappeared for hours into the palace’s strategic planning center, closeted with a few top admirals and trusted moffs, for conversations on still-unknown topics. If Krennic was playing fast and loose with one of the Emperor’s favorites, he was treading on dangerous ground.

  On top of the ridiculous political maneuvering, Krennic was risking the Empire’s very survival. The TIE Defender assembly line Thrawn had established on the Outer Rim world of Lothal was poised to turn out the best starfighters the galaxy had ever seen: fast, maneuverable, heavily armed, and—in a radical departure from the rest of the TIE series—equipped with shields and hyperdrives. They could take on anything even the best-equipped pirate gang or uncooperative system could field, and could grind the slowly growing rebel movement into dust.

  Without the Defender, Coruscant was in for a long fight on all three of those fronts. With the Defender, the Empire would be unbeatable.

  “In my view, Director Krennic’s project has been nothing but expenses and excuses for years on end,” Tarkin said. “If construction of the Defender is to continue, you must make your case directly to the Emperor himself. I have already arranged the meeting.”

  “I’ll leave immediately, Governor Tarkin,” Thrawn said.

  The holoprojector flicked off, and Thrawn tapped the comm switch. “Commander, inform Governor Pryce I’m departing for Coruscant,” he ordered. “As soon as you have your course, make the jump into hyperspace.”

  The bridge acknowledged. For a moment Thrawn gazed at the desk as if considering his options; then he looked up at Faro. “Commodore,” he said gravely. “Is that the communications report I requested?”

  “Yes, sir,” Faro said, coming forward and holding out her datapad. “I’m afraid we were unsuccessful in finding a pattern.”

  Thrawn took the datapad, and for a moment he studied the numbers in silence. Faro watched him, wondering if, like her, he was thinking that Commander Eli Vanto might have been able to dig something out of the seemingly random times, dates, and comm frequencies she’d collected. Vanto had been gifted at such things.

  But Vanto was gone, disappeared without a trace one day from the Chimaera. And while rumors placed him everywhere from Wild Space to a secret planning group in the Emperor’s palace to floating dead in deep space, the fact was that no one really knew what had happened to him.

  Faro had asked Thrawn about it at the time. The grand admiral’s response had been polite enough, but Faro had left the conversation with the clear understanding that she was never to ask that question again.

  Privately, given the fondness Thrawn had had for the young man and the master–pupil relationship they’d shared as Thrawn nurtured Vanto’s career, Faro was pretty sure Vanto was dead. She could think of no other reason for him to have left the Chimaera.

  “Perhaps the rebels are being unusually cautious,” Thrawn said, handing back the datapad. “It could also be that the group planning to rescue Hera Syndulla is small enough that it has no need of overt communications.”

  Faro felt her lip twitch. Yes, the group that was undoubtedly plotting Syndulla’s rescue from Governor Pryce’s detention block was certainly small. But it should by no means be discounted, if only because it included the former Jedi Kanan Jarrus and the young would-be Jedi Ezra Bridger.

  In some ways, Faro would have preferred that Syndulla had died with the rest of her X-wing squadron in their abortive attempt to wrest the space over Lothal away from the Chimaera and the rest of Thrawn’s force. Prisoners could be useful in a number of ways, but they also created headaches and focal points for new enemy operations.

  With Thrawn completely in charge, Faro had no doubt he would turn those liabilities into assets. But Pryce had the prisoner, and she didn’t have Thrawn’s intelligence, subtlety, or sheer strategic skill.

  Even worse was the fact that Pryce had allowed herself to become emotionally involved in the situation. The governor was taking the rebels’ attacks on her planet personally, and that meant thinking with her heart instead of her head. Taking Thrawn’s advice and influence away from Lothal, even for a few days, could mean disaster.

  At the very least, Syndulla could die without rendering any useful service to the Empire. That would be a waste of a valuable resource, which Pryce also didn’t seem to care about.

  “I take it you disapprove of the Chimaera traveling to Coruscant?”

  “Yes, sir, I do,” Faro said. Thrawn had long since learned how to read her face and body language. Faro had long since accepted that ability without getting freaked out by it. “I don’t think Governor Pryce has any idea what kind of nasty she has by the tail with Syndulla. If Jarrus and his team move to rescue her, I don’t think Pryce can stop them.”

  “Agreed,” Thrawn said. “On the other hand, losing Syndulla would be a relatively small defeat. Losing the TIE Defender program would be catastrophic. If Director Krennic’s project is the one I think it is, it represents a strategically shortsighted approach to both offensive and defensive warfare. If he has indeed persuaded the Emperor to divert the Defenders’ funding, the Empire’s entire future would be strongly impacted.”

  “Yes, sir,” Faro said. Lord Vader, she knew, had also expressed interest in the Defender, especially after his experiences flying one against the Grysk forces out in the Unknown Regions. That support should certainly weigh in on Thrawn’s side.

  But Vader spoke for the Emperor. If the Emperor turned his back on the Defender, so would Vader.

  There was a chime from the comm. “Admiral; bridge,” Commander Hammerly’s voice came from the speaker. “We’ve just received a new set of destination coordinates from Governor Tarkin. We’re now apparently to meet him aboard the Firedrake, currently in the Sev Tok system.”

  A hint of a frown crossed Thrawn’s face. “Interesting. Did he indicate whether or not the Emperor would be present?”

  “No, sir, there was no mention of him,” Hammerly said. “But the message did
state that Director Krennic and a few others would be present. I did an origination check, and the message and coordinates definitely came from Tarkin.”

  “Very good, Commander,” Thrawn said. “Reset course to accommodate; jump to hyperspace when ready.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Thrawn again keyed off. “Thoughts, Commodore?”

  “Seems awfully cloak-and-blade,” Faro said, punching up the Firedrake on her datapad. Imperial Star Destroyer, flagship of Grand Admiral Balanhai Savit and the Third Fleet. “If Tarkin wants to meet aboard a Star Destroyer, why not here aboard the Chimaera?”

  “I’m sure Tarkin has his reasons,” Thrawn said. “He generally does.”

  There was a warning tone from the office’s repeater displays: The Chimaera was on the move. “Yes, sir,” Faro said. “With your permission, Admiral, I’d like to return to the bridge and run an extra check on all of this.”

  “Certainly, Commodore,” Thrawn said. “I trust you’re relieved that one of your concerns, at least, has fallen away.”

  Faro frowned. “Sir?”

  Thrawn’s eyes seemed to harden. “It appears that we will not, in fact, be traveling to Coruscant.”

  * * *

  —

  “Admiral?” Captain Boulag called from the Star Destroyer Firedrake’s command walkway. “Director Krennic’s shuttle has just docked in the hangar bay.”

  “Acknowledged,” Grand Admiral Savit called back from the aft bridge, scowling to himself. Last-minute schedule changes, high-ranking persons intruding on his ship, politics upon politics upon politics—it was like the Republic had been reborn within the Empire, with every bit of the old headaches and frustration reborn with it.