by Star Wars
And the Steadfast was off.
“Did she say how soon?” Khresh asked quietly.
“She doesn’t really know,” Eli said, a bit surprised that the first officer’s annoyance at him was already gone.
On the other hand, Khresh had gotten what he wanted. The Steadfast was on its way to find its commander, and Eli had noticed that for a lot of Chiss the path to reaching a goal was far less important than the goal itself.
That could be an admirable quality. It could also make for a very nasty kind of casual viciousness.
“Third Sight does seem to affect the time sense,” Khresh said ruefully. “It makes proper preparation difficult.” He looked sideways at Eli. “In some ways I envy your Empire’s more well-defined navigational methods.”
“It’s not my Empire anymore,” Eli said firmly. The idea that he was still loyal to the Empire instead of the Ascendancy was something he needed to push back against anywhere and everywhere it raised its head. It was the same battle, he’d long since realized, that Thrawn had been fighting throughout his life in the Empire.
The awkward question, and one Eli wasn’t yet prepared to answer, was whether either of them had actually made the complete break they both claimed.
“Probably no more than an hour or two, though,” he continued, deflecting the doubts back into a dark corner of his mind. “I’d go ahead and put the ship on full alert in half an hour or so.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Khresh said drily. “I feel much better, resting now in the comfort of your wisdom and experience.”
Eli gave a mental sigh. Apparently, some of the first officer’s annoyance was still there.
“I’d also suggest you keep your recorders ready to go,” he said, ignoring the sarcasm. “Whatever Admiral Ar’alani and Grand Admiral Mitth’raw’nuruodo are up to, I guarantee it’ll be interesting.”
* * *
—
The four hours Thrawn had allotted for planning and preparation were nearly gone. Now, with everything set, it all came down to waiting.
Faro hated waiting.
“Don’t look so glum, Commodore,” Ar’alani advised as she strode past Faro on her way to the forward viewport, where Thrawn stood motionless with his hands clasped behind his back. “It’s simple physics. It will work.”
Faro glowered at her back. The physics were hardly simple, but they were straightforward enough.
But like every good magic trick, the crucial part was in the timing.
For his next trick, Grand Admiral Thrawn will make a Grysk base disappear.
Ar’alani reached Thrawn and handed him the datapad she’d brought from Hammerly. Thrawn gave it a quick look, and for another moment the two Chiss held an inaudible conversation.
Faro watched them for a moment, wondering if she should walk over and join them. But Thrawn knew she was back here, and he would call if he wanted her. Shifting her gaze, she looked past them at the conjoined ships sitting just visible in the distance, still doing their slow rotation, poised for their part of the trick.
Ar’alani had wanted Thrawn to station humans aboard to handle the operation, arguing that Thrawn’s own calculations offered a better than 85 percent chance that anyone aboard would make it through unscathed. Thrawn had countered with a reminder of the other 15 percent, and the point that there was no sense in risking the Grysk forward base and valued members of the Chimaera’s crew as well. The remote triggers, he had assured her, would be more than adequate to the test.
At the time, Faro had agreed with the decision. After all, they were her crew, too. But now, staring at the conjoined ships floating all alone and vulnerable, she wasn’t so sure. If the Grysks had left a hidden comm jammer on a timer—or worse, if one or more of the incoming cloaked bombs were running jammers of their own—there would be nothing Thrawn and Ar’alani and all the rest of them could do except watch helplessly as the base was destroyed.
And if Thrawn was right about this being their best chance of finding a way to defeat the Grysks, that opportunity would be gone forever.
“Incoming!” Pyrondi snapped from her weapons console. “Large ship, bearing one thirty-one by forty-six, distance six thousand kilometers.”
Thrawn and Ar’alani both spun around to face her. “Identification,” Thrawn ordered.
“Configuration unkno—wait,” Hammerly said, leaning close to her displays. “It’s the Steadfast, Admiral.”
Ar’alani straightened up—an impressively regal move, Faro thought with a touch of amused cynicism, that perfectly disguised her moment of raw relief—then strode back down the walkway. She stopped beside Lomar’s station and unloosed a volley of rapid-fire Chiss words. A voice answered in the same language, and she sent off another string.
Out of the corner of her eye, Faro saw Thrawn beckon to her. Walking past Ar’alani, she joined him by the viewport.
“She’s ordered them to stay where they are,” he translated quietly, “and assured them she will give them the full story soon. Her first officer has pressed his desire to join in the operation. She has again ordered him to stay clear.”
“Yes, sir,” Faro said, wincing. Part of the past four hours’ worth of work had been dumping the Chimaera’s garbage, carefully blasting the containers and contents to small particles, irradiating them to make them show up more clearly on Hammerly’s sensors, and then spreading a uniform shell of that debris around the conjoined ships at a distance of twenty kilometers. Letting the Steadfast barge even close to the area might disturb that shell enough to destroy its usefulness. Even just coming alongside the Chimaera, which was itself sitting well outside the shell, would entail the use of thrusters and maneuvering jets that could send ripples into the drifting particles.
There was a breath of air on the back of Faro’s neck, and Ar’alani was back. “First Officer Khresh isn’t happy with the situation,” she reported. “He fears a Grysk attack, and knows the Steadfast is too far away to offer proper support.”
“But he obeys his admiral?”
“He is an officer in the Chiss Defense Fleet,” Ar’alani countered stiffly. “Of course he obeys me.”
“Good,” Thrawn said, checking the chrono. “The time is nearly upon us. Commodore?”
“I’m ready, sir,” Faro said, holding up the remote he’d entrusted to her.
A remote, and a responsibility, that she’d frankly expected Ar’alani to object to. After Ar’alani lost the argument about stationing humans on the conjoined ships, Faro had assumed she would then insist that she or Thrawn handle the final stage of the operation, citing the slightly faster Chiss reflexes.
But Thrawn had handed the job to Faro, pointing out in turn that Faro had overseen the group that had set everything in place. Faro had expected a resumption of the argument, but instead Ar’alani had accepted it without so much as a dissenting murmur.
Though now that Faro thought about it, she’d seen a subtle shift in Ar’alani’s distrusting attitude toward her over the past few hours.
Maybe being thrown together into a combat situation had quieted her previously low opinion of Imperials. Or maybe watching the Chimaera’s crew in action had changed her opinion of humans in general.
“Impact!” Hammerly snapped. “On the board.”
Faro twisted her head toward the tactical, popping the safety covers on her remote as she did so. Thirty degrees around the starboard side of the conjoined ships, the particles of the radioactive shell had suddenly been shoved aside, creating a small but clearly visible hole. Even as she watched, four more holes appeared in the shell, followed immediately by two more.
“So there were eight,” Thrawn murmured. “Commander?”
“Estimated impact: one hundred seconds,” Hammerly reported.
Thrawn nodded, and Faro could see him mentally counting it down. Will make a Grysk base disappear…
>
“Number one,” he said.
Faro pushed the first button.
At the Chimaera’s distance, there was little any of them could directly see. But the tactical and telescopic displays, plus Faro’s knowledge of the prep work, painted a picture as clear as any of the artwork holograms in Thrawn’s collection.
The three armored umbilicals connecting the conjoined ships disintegrated in unison, their centers blown into dust by the explosives the Grysks had planted on the ships, which had been gathered together by Faro and the Chimaera’s crew and moved to their current positions. Through the viewport Faro could see the subtle yellow flash, quickly swallowed up by the clouds of debris. The tactical display told a more complete story: The two ships had been completely and violently separated.
“Number two,” Thrawn said.
Faro pushed the second button.
The tanks of compressed oxygen and nitrogen stacked inside the bases of each of the umbilicals were next, shattered by smaller explosions that sent the suddenly released gases expanding violently down the remains of the tubes like the most powerful maneuvering jets in the galaxy. With the ships no longer connected in mutual rotation, and with the extra boost from the pressurized gas, the two vessels began moving apart.
But slowly. Much too slowly.
Faro waited, her finger poised over the third button. Thrawn counted off a few more seconds…“Number three.”
Faro pressed the third button…and deep within the no-longer-conjoined ships, the motors that drew in the tethers to the massive triad poles were activated.
The laws of angular momentum had been known since long before the first beings ever took to the stars. Faro had seen the physics in action many times, not just in tactical situations and maneuvers, but also with spinning dancers who drew in their arms in order to spin even faster.
In this case, the effect of the physics was twofold. Not only did the shortening tethers draw both the ship and its triad pole inward toward their mutual center of mass, thus speeding up the separation of the two ships, but the decrease in the distance between ship and pole also caused both their spins to speed up. Given the geometry of the system, an increase in rotational speed also translated into additional speed away from each other, moving both ships even farther from their original conjoined positions.
And in the space of a few seconds, the target the cloaked bombs had been aiming for had neatly vanished completely from the spot where it should have been.
“Occultation!” Hammerly reported. “Multiple events.”
Faro smiled tightly. So the bombs did have rudimentary decision-making and maneuvering capabilities along with their equally simple sensor packages. Ar’alani had expected they would, while Thrawn had been less certain. Now, with their target suddenly no longer at the mutual focus of their vectors, the bombs were blasting gas from their maneuvering jets, trying to change course to compensate.
But it was too late. The newly separated Grysk ships were already too far away from their original positions for the bombs to change their vectors, certainly not in the time and distance they had to work with. Faro held her breath…
The explosions that had destroyed the umbilicals and separated the ships had been barely visible from the Chimaera’s bridge. The multiple explosions of the seven bombs as they expended their fury on empty space more than made up for that mild disappointment. The blast was big, violent, and—in Faro’s imagination, at least—full of impotent rage.
The glow faded away, and for a moment no one spoke. Dobbs’s voice from Fighter Command broke the silence first. “TIEs moving into sensor range,” he said. “Scanning…minor surface damage indicated on the Grysk ships. Repeat, minor damage only.”
Ar’alani turned to Thrawn and inclined her head. “Well done, Admiral,” she said in Sy Bisti.
“Thank you, Admiral,” Thrawn replied, inclining his own head in response. He shifted his eyes to Faro. “Excellent work, Commodore,” he added. “Your placement of the explosives was perfect.”
“Thank you, sir,” Faro said. Ar’alani looked at her.
And to Faro’s amazement, the Chiss actually smiled.
Faro smiled back.
How to make a Grysk station disappear.
Hey, presto!
* * *
—
This time, at least, Eli knew all the words Khresh said. He’d just never heard them strung together in that particular order before. “I told you, sir,” he reminded the first officer.
“Yes, you did, Lieutenant,” Khresh conceded. “I believe the word you used was interesting.”
Eli nodded. Privately, though, he had to admit the show was considerably more spectacular than even he had expected. Whatever was going on out there, it harked back to some of the old missions he and Thrawn had gone on together.
Frankly, he was rather sorry he’d missed this one.
“This is Admiral Ar’alani,” Ar’alani’s voice came from the bridge speaker. “Senior Captain Khresh, you may now bring the Steadfast in. On your way to rendezvousing with the Chimaera, you’re to intercept and contain one of the two ships now floating free. Your choice as to which is easiest and most efficient to go after.”
“Yes, Admiral,” Khresh said. “We want just one of them?”
“For the moment,” Ar’alani said, her voice going grim. “The other must be left free and visible to serve as bait for our visitors.”
Khresh looked at Eli. “I gather you anticipate the Grysks will soon arrive in force?” he asked.
“I do,” Ar’alani confirmed. “And when they do, Grand Admiral Mitth’raw’nuruodo and the Chimaera will join us in utterly destroying them.”
Eli cleared his throat. “Excuse me, Admiral?” he spoke up. “Forgive the interruption, but I must speak immediately to Grand Admiral Thrawn.
“We have a slight complication to that plan.”
* * *
—
“It’s the Chimaera, Admiral,” the woman at the comm station called. “Grand Admiral Thrawn wishes to speak with you.”
“Thank you,” Savit said, striding down the command walkway toward the aft bridge. At last. He reached the comm console and keyed for the contact, making a private bet with himself that Thrawn would use the display and not the holo. “Grand Admiral Savit,” he said.
Sure enough, the holopad remained blank as the display lit up with Thrawn’s image. “Good day, Admiral,” Thrawn said. “I was informed you had attempted to contact me two hours ago.”
“Indeed,” Savit said, trying to read that smooth, nonhuman face. “I have a man here who claims to be Assistant Director Ronan of the Stardust project. He furthermore claims that you personally sent him to Aloxor on a secret mission.”
“Secret may not be the precise term,” Thrawn said. “But I did send him to investigate certain irregularities in the Stardust shipping operation.”
“What sort of irregularities?”
“Theft and destruction of Imperial property,” Thrawn said bluntly. “Manipulation of records. Consorting with pirates.” He paused. “Treason.”
“Interesting,” Savit said. Treason. That word was bandied around far too frequently these days. “He’s been rather secretive about his mission and its results.”
“I’m certain his reticence is not personal against you,” Thrawn assured him. “When would it be convenient for you to deliver him to me?”
“For me to deliver him?” Savit shook his head. “Sorry, Thrawn, but that’s not how it works. If you want him, you’ll have to send a shuttle to get him.”
“And the freighter that holds the evidence he discovered?”
Savit felt his eyes narrow. How did Thrawn know about the freighter? Had Lochry mentioned it? “I thought it would be best if I held on to that for the present,” he said. “Governor Haveland is most insistent that I turn the
evidence over to her. And she wants Assistant Director Ronan, too. She claims that since the evidence was discovered in Esaga sector, she has full jurisdiction over the matter.”
“You believe otherwise?”
“I won’t know what to believe until Coruscant has ruled on it,” Savit said, letting some contempt into his voice. “This sort of thing always boils down to politics.” Which you know so little about, he added to himself. “Bottom line: You can send a shuttle, or you can wait until Ronan is shipped off to Haveland and take your chances on getting him back from her.”
“I would think Director Krennic would also have a say in this.”
“I wouldn’t count on it,” Savit said. “Krennic needs the Esaga supply line. It’s too late for him to set up another one elsewhere if he wants Stardust finished on schedule. That means he needs Haveland, which means he has to play nice with the woman. If playing nice means one of his bureaucrats has to sit under house arrest in her mansion for a few months, that’s what he’ll do.”
“That doesn’t sound very loyal.”
“Loyalty is a slippery term these days,” Savit said. “Right now, the question isn’t what Krennic might do for Ronan, but what you’re going to do for him. Once he’s in your hands, you can return him to Stardust if you want and neither I nor Haveland can do anything to stop you. So. What do you want to do?”
“Unfortunately, I can’t send a shuttle to your current position,” Thrawn said. “My ship and all of its resources are heavily committed at the moment. However, if you could rendezvous at the system whose coordinates I’m sending you, I can spare a shuttle and crew that long.”
Frowning, Savit pulled up the system data Thrawn had sent.
And felt his breath catch in his throat. What the hell? “That’s not really part of my patrol circuit,” he said. “Why there?”
“It’s a system you might find interesting,” Thrawn said. “From your current position, you can be there in two hours. My shuttle will be waiting to retrieve Assistant Director Ronan.”
