Treason - Timothy Zahn

by Star Wars

  And under the circumstances, the Grysks lurking behind their cloaking device surely wouldn’t want to be out of contact with their main base during the crucial minutes it would take to bring up their comm system. “Admiral, how big do these triad poles have to be?” she asked.

  “Not overly large, though they are quite massive,” Thrawn said. “One would fit within the Chimaera’s bridge.”

  “Or within one of the conjoined ships?”

  “Easily,” Thrawn said. “The separation between the poles is the crucial factor. Admiral?”

  “The distance can vary,” Ar’alani said. “Grysk triad poles typically run—” She paused, and Faro had the sense she was converting units in her head—“five to ten kilometers apart.”

  “The one on Batuu used a six-kilometer separation,” Thrawn added. “The key factor is that the separation must be strictly maintained among all three. That argues against the poles merely floating in orbit, as small perturbations would quickly distort the separation and make them useless.”

  “There are no asteroids or meteors nearby that are sufficiently large,” Ar’alani said. “The triad must therefore have been established on one of the planetary moons.”

  Faro gazed at the displays. Except that, as she’d already noted, none of the moons was closer than a light-minute away. Would the Grysks really put themselves that far from the triad?

  Especially since there was no reason why that gap should even have been necessary. As far as she could tell, the conjoined ships didn’t have to be this far out from anything else in the system. If they had a triad planted on a moon, why hadn’t they set up shop in orbit around that moon, or at least around the moon’s primary?

  “What is your intent with the fighter craft?” Ar’alani asked.

  “Their mission is threefold,” Thrawn said. “First, to gather information the Chimaera cannot obtain at this range without the active sensors. Second, to possibly provoke a reaction from the cloaked ship that would reveal its location.”

  Faro felt her stomach tighten. In other words, Thrawn had sent out some bait of his own.

  She understood that there was sometimes a need for such things. But putting her people in that kind of deliberate danger was never something that came easy.

  “And third,” Thrawn finished, “to be in position for a strike against the conjoined ships should I choose to launch one.”

  “You said you wished to capture alien prisoners and rescue the Grysks’ captives,” Ar’alani reminded him.

  “If possible,” Thrawn said. “As always, the safety of the Chimaera and the goals and good of the Empire stand paramount.”

  Ar’alani looked pointedly at Faro. “A moment, Commodore Faro.”

  “Of course, Admiral,” Faro said, nodding.

  She’d assumed Ar’alani would lead Thrawn to a quieter part of the bridge for a private talk. But of course, that wasn’t necessary. Turning back to Thrawn, she launched into a quiet but clearly impassioned speech in the Chiss language.

  Faro turned away from them. Hardly necessary under the circumstances, but it seemed the polite thing to do. Besides, she’d learned enough about expression, vocal tone, and body language from Thrawn that even just standing there watching them might be considered a form of eavesdropping. Better to busy herself with the Chimaera’s business and let Ar’alani have her moment.

  She stepped back to the weapons station, studying the displays over Pyrondi’s shoulder. The lead wave of TIEs was making its leisurely way toward the conjoined ships, with the second wave about half a minute behind them. The fighters were sending back the readouts from their targeting sensors via tight-beam lasers, but all of them were still too far for their equipment to pick up anything the Chimaera’s own passive sensors hadn’t already spotted.

  “I just got Lomar’s last comm sweep data, ma’am,” Pyrondi said quietly, her eyes flicking over Faro’s shoulder to the Chiss conversation behind her. “He’s still not getting any transmissions from anywhere.”

  “Could they be using comm lasers?” Faro asked.

  “Possibly,” Pyrondi said. “The dust level out here is low enough that it’s unlikely a particle would drift into a laser beam and reflect strongly enough for us to spot it.”

  “Hammerly’s got people watching for that, I assume?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “What if the laser was punching a signal to one of the closest moons?” Faro asked. “Never mind the dust—would it be powerful enough to ionize any of the solar wind particles?”

  “I don’t know,” Pyrondi said thoughtfully. “That would probably be a question for Hammerly or Lomar.”

  “I’ll ask them,” Faro said. She glowered at the displays one final time and turned away.

  And frowned. There’d been something there…

  She turned back, her eyes flitting back and forth among the various displays. Something had caught her eye.

  But what? Everything seemed exactly the same as it had been. The TIEs were making their silent way toward the conjoined ships. The ships themselves were still unmoving and equally silent, the distant sunlight glinting off their hulls. There were no indications of energy output from comms, drives, or weaponry from anywhere within sensor range.

  Faro stiffened. The sunlight glinting off the conjoined ships’ hulls.

  She spun around. “Admiral Thrawn?” she called.

  He broke off whatever he was saying to Ar’alani and walked toward her, his pace measured but with a sense of strong interest behind it. “Yes, Commodore?”

  “The conjoined ships, sir,” Faro said, pointing to the display and mentally crossing her fingers. Ar’alani, coming up now behind Thrawn, had the kind of look that warned that Faro had better have a damn good reason for interrupting their conversation. “I saw the sunlight reflected off their hulls, and I remembered—”

  “They’ve moved,” Thrawn murmured.

  “Yes, sir,” Faro said, feeling a surge of relief. So it wasn’t just her imagination. He saw it, too. “We’ll have better data when the TIEs get closer, but I’m guessing it’s a slow rotation around their common center of gravity.”

  Thrawn half turned toward the crew pits. “Commander Hammerly? Any indication of thruster or maneuvering jet usage from the target?”

  “No, sir,” Hammerly called back.

  “Were you able to get the occultation program running?”

  “Yes, sir, at least partially,” Hammerly confirmed. “We’re using it on the target, and so far haven’t seen any indication of cold-gas discharge.”

  “Thank you.” Thrawn turned back. “If the rotation is not new, it must have been present before we entered the system.”

  “Possibly a sensor-sweep technique,” Ar’alani suggested in Sy Bisti. The annoyance Faro had seen in her face a moment ago was gone, replaced by a growing interest. “If they have collimated or shield-focused sensors, a slow rotation would allow them to see farther without risking active sensor emanations.”

  Thrawn shook his head. “The rotation is too slow. I estimate an hour or more for a complete circuit.”

  “Which would make it useless in any active situation,” Ar’alani conceded. “Any thoughts as to its purpose?”

  “It may not have one,” Thrawn said. “It may simply be residual motion from the last shuttle launch.”

  “I wouldn’t want to rely on such a conclusion,” Ar’alani warned.

  “Nor would I,” Thrawn said. “I would also hesitate to create elaborate theories based on insufficient information. Another half hour, and the lead TIEs will be close enough to gather more data.”

  He turned to Faro, inclining his head in silent acknowledgment of her observation. “I’ll be in my office until then, Commodore, should you need me.”

  “Yes, sir,” Faro said.

  “Admiral,” he said, noddi
ng to Ar’alani. Turning, he strode toward the aft bridge.

  “His artwork?” Ar’alani asked quietly.

  Faro nodded. “I don’t think he’s got anything that was created by the Grysks themselves,” she said. “But he has holo copies of art from some of their victims.”

  Ar’alani made a sound in the back of her throat.

  “You disapprove of his ability?” Faro asked.

  “That word is meaningless,” Ar’alani said with a touch of scorn. “My opinions, whether approval or disapproval, are irrelevant to reality.”

  “Then what is your problem with it?”

  Ar’alani looked sharply at her. Faro held her gaze, forcing herself not to flinch. Ar’alani might be an admiral and therefore outrank her, but Faro was a commodore, and furthermore the commander of the ship they were currently standing in.

  To her surprise, Ar’alani’s glare softened, and something that might have been a smile touched her face. “Very good, Commodore,” she said. “You’re strong and confident. Mitth’raw’nuruodo chose well.”

  “Thank you,” Faro said. “Though in all fairness, my appointment to the Chimaera came from the Imperial Navy High Command, not Admiral Thrawn himself.”

  “I wasn’t referring to your position,” Ar’alani said, “but rather to his choice of protégée. I have nothing but respect for Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s abilities. I disagree with his choice of position.” Another half smile. “Unlike yours, he has chosen his.”

  “You mean his service with the Empire?”

  “Yes.” Ar’alani half turned to gaze out the forward viewport. “There are grave threats facing the Ascendancy. The Grysks and their clients, predominantly, but others as well. We need him to lend his name and his history to our cause. But so far he refuses.” She turned back to Faro. “Is his life here truly so much better?”

  Faro thought about Batonn, and the mission the Emperor had sent him on with Lord Vader, and his position in the current power struggle between Grand Moff Tarkin and Director Krennic. “His life here is precarious,” she told Ar’alani. “But this is apparently where he thinks he can best serve all of us. Including the Ascendancy.”

  Ar’alani made the throat sound again. “That statement is nonsensical.”

  “Is it?” Faro countered. “Consider. The Grysks have clearly set their sights on the Empire. Their presence here proves that. Ask yourself what would happen to the Ascendancy if they should succeed in taking over the Empire, or even a significant percentage of the Empire’s resources. Is that what you want coming against your people?”

  For a moment Ar’alani was silent. Then she turned again to the viewport. “There are other ways,” she murmured.

  “Perhaps,” Faro said. “If so, I’m sure the admiral would be more than willing to hear about them.” She gestured toward the viewport. “But for the moment, this is the battle Admiral Thrawn has chosen.

  “And I, for one, intend to help him win it.”

  As the group had prepared to leave Jeffrie’s place, Eli had noticed through the window that there were still a few gawkers loitering outside the storefront, apparently waiting to see which of the people who went in came out again under their own power. The fact that all of them were going to do so, he suspected uneasily, might raise as much curiosity as one or more of them being carried out in a body bag.

  Fortunately, Sisay had apparently had the same thought. She avoided the whole issue by slipping them out the back, through a narrow alley filled with trash bins and ragged-looking people sifting through them, and beneath a pair of lifter droids that were waiting patiently for the scavengers to finish. Another back door, a trip through and out the front of a café, and they were on their way.

  Eli had expected the trip to be short, with Sisay’s group based somewhere close to where Pik had landed their shuttle. But as they continued on through the noisy streets, it became clear that that wasn’t the case. Apparently Sisay had been outside their territory on other business and had just happened to pick up on the odd newcomers.

  Or perhaps more likely, Admiral Savit’s pressure had the local pirate gangs enough on edge that they were all patrolling the spaceport on the lookout for the grand admiral’s agents.

  A casual study of the people they passed along the way bolstered that theory. Eli had seen this sort of town before, back in the Wild Space systems where his family’s shipping business operated, and he knew how the unwritten status rules were structured and maintained. At the beginning of their walk, fewer than 10 percent of the people they passed seemed to recognize either Sisay or Skulk, and their subtle reactions suggested that about half of that number recognized them positively and the other half negatively.

  But as they moved along, the recognition factor rose steadily. Half an hour after leaving the shop, it seemed like everyone they passed knew the gang.

  On the downside, the percentages that looked at them favorably or unfavorably still hovered around 50 each. Unfortunately, an ambivalent status like that inevitably transferred to anyone in their company, which put him, Ronan, and the death troopers in that same precarious social position.

  Thrawn had suggested that the death troopers’ aura of imminent danger would ward off unwanted trouble. With Savit’s sweep of the area, it looked like that plan had unfortunately backfired.

  Finally, with the walls of the commercial part of the spaceport visible in the distance—the decent part, as Waffle had called it—they arrived at a somewhat decrepit building. Sisay led them through a faded lobby—the place had apparently once been a hotel—to a wide staircase leading to the second floor. They passed two men lounging lazily at the top of the stairs, their alert and penetrating eyes in sharp contrast with their feigned lethargy, and into a suite of rooms midway down the hallway.

  “So why exactly are we here?” Eli asked as Sisay gestured them to chairs arranged in a conversation circle in front of a battered desk.

  “Did you forget?” Skulk asked, crossing to a liquor shelf behind the desk and selecting two of the bottles. “We need to take a look at your gear.”

  “I thought we were past that,” Eli said, wincing as the sound of carrybag sealing strips being undone came from behind him.

  “You thought wrong,” Skulk said, turning to face them and holding up the bottles for their inspection. “I’ve got seagrape brandy and Chopkic wine. Who wants which?”

  “We don’t want a drink,” Waffle said. “We want to get on with our job.”

  “And it’s getting late,” Eli added, feeling a thin layer of sweat breaking out on the back of his neck. He’d thought that Sisay and the others had bought his story back at Jeffrie’s place. Now, it seemed, they still had doubts.

  And with the questioning having now been relocated to Sisay’s stronghold, the lopsided odds Eli had hoped to avoid had instead gotten worse.

  Pik and Waffle recognized that, too. Eli could see the tension stiffening their necks and cheek muscles even as they tried to feign nonchalance.

  “Relax,” Sisay said, looking at each of the Imperials in turn as she walked around to the other side of the desk. It seemed to Eli that her gaze lingered for a moment on the two death troopers. “The guard shift change is when you want to move, and that’s not for another three hours. We’ve got time.”

  “We’re not worried about the guards,” Eli said. “We have all the right codes and passes. The problem is maybe missing the ship we need to take to get to Savit.”

  “Yeah, let’s talk about those passes,” Sisay said, sitting down behind the desk and leaning back into the chair. “Brackis, you see them in there?”

  “Yeah, here they are,” someone said from behind Eli. One of the men who’d been with them at Jeffrie’s came around the conversation circle and tossed the four data cards from the carrybags onto Sisay’s desk. “Outer etching looks pretty good.”

  “Thanks,” Sisay sa
id. She held Eli’s gaze another second, then lowered her eyes to the data cards. “Does indeed. Looks very good. You mind telling me who the artist was?”

  “I don’t know,” Eli said. “All of our stuff came from the Hutts.”

  “Sure is nice to have a handy excuse like that, don’t you think?” Skulk commented as he set a glass of brandy on the desk in front of Sisay. “The Hutts this, the Hutts that.”

  “What do you want me to say?” Eli countered. “If you’d ever worked with the Hutts, you’d know they don’t exactly take you into their confidence.”

  “See, that’s the thing,” Sisay said, her voice suddenly going hard. “We have worked with the Hutts. And this story of yours just doesn’t etch out.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Eli saw Ronan shift position slightly. Keep it together, he thought urgently toward the older man. We can do this. Just keep it together. “Really,” he said, putting some scorn into his voice. “In what way, exactly?”

  “The Hutts don’t hire nobodies to do their dirty work,” Sisay said. “They all have their own stables of smugglers, pirates, and hired guns.”

  “Who says we’re nobodies?”

  “I say you’re nobodies,” Sisay said. “And no Hutt would hire you when we’re already here.”

  “You’re missing the obvious point,” Ronan put in. “They couldn’t hire you, because you don’t have me.”

  “And he’s the one who gets us close to Savit,” Eli said. “So whatever jealousy you’ve got going here, ramp it down.”

  “This isn’t about jealousy,” Skulk said. “It’s about the blowback if you scorch the job.”

  “Or the even nastier blowback if you aren’t who you say you are,” Sisay said, her voice going even darker. “Like if you’re more ISB plants trying to dig us out.”

  “That makes no sense,” Eli protested. “You accosted us. We didn’t try to recruit you or dig out all your wonderful secrets.”