by Timothy Zahn
But as she gazed at Thrawn’s face, she had the eerie sense that he wasn’t playing the game. In fact, she wasn’t sure he even knew how to play it.
And if Thalias really was expecting her to go…
“Okay,” she said. “Can you—? Never mind.”
“What?”
“I just wondered if you could get me some more colored graph markers, that’s all,” Che’ri said, feeling her face warming with embarrassment. Of all the stupid things to ask for—
“As a matter of fact,” Thrawn said, “there are two new boxes already aboard. And four binders of art sheets to draw on.”
Che’ri blinked. “Oh,” she said. “I’m—thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” Thrawn gestured toward the ship. “Shall we go?”
* * *
—
“You’re troubled,” Thrawn said into the silence of the scout ship’s bridge.
Che’ri didn’t answer, her eyes focused on the brilliant stars blazing through the canopy, her mind churning with the sheer wrongness of this.
Sky-walkers didn’t fly alone. Ever. She’d always had a momish along, someone to take care of her and make her meals and comfort her when she woke from a nightmare. Always.
Thalias wasn’t here. Che’ri had hoped she would rush in at the last moment and demand that Thrawn take her with them.
But the hatch had been sealed, and the controller had given permission to launch, and Thrawn had taken them out of the cold blue of Csilla’s atmosphere into the colder black of space.
Just the two of them. No officers. No warriors.
No momish.
Che’ri hadn’t always gotten along with her caregivers. Some of them she’d really, really disliked. Now she was wishing even one of the rotten ones was here.
“They’ve never understood you, have they?” Thrawn said into her silence.
Che’ri made a face. Like he would know anything about that.
“You want more than what you’ve been given,” he continued. “You don’t know what you’ll do when you’re no longer a sky-walker, and it troubles you.”
“I know what happens,” Che’ri scoffed. “They told me. I get adopted by a family.”
“That’s what you’ll be,” Thrawn said. “That’s not what you’ll do. You’d like to fly, wouldn’t you?”
Che’ri frowned. “How did you know that?”
“The pictures you’ve been drawing with the markers your caregiver gave you,” Thrawn said. “You like drawing birds and flashflies.”
“They’re pretty,” Che’ri said stiffly. “Lots of kids draw flashflies.”
“You also draw landscapes and seascapes as seen from above,” Thrawn continued calmly. “Not many your age do that.”
“I’m a sky-walker,” Che’ri muttered. Thalias had no business showing Thrawn her pictures. “I see things from the sky all the time.”
“Actually, you don’t.” Thrawn paused and touched a key on his control board.
And suddenly all the lights and keys on his board went out and the board in front of Che’ri lit up.
She jerked back. What in the name—?
“There are two handgrips in front of you,” Thrawn said. “Take one in each hand.”
“What?” Che’ri asked, staring numbly at the handgrips and glowing lights.
“I’m going to teach you how to fly,” Thrawn told her. “This is your first lesson.”
“You don’t understand,” Che’ri said, hearing the fear and pleading in her voice. “I have nightmares about this.”
“Nightmares about flying?”
“About falling,” Che’ri said, her heart thudding. “Falling, being blown around by wind, drowning—”
“Can you swim?”
“No,” Che’ri said. “Maybe a little.”
“Exactly,” Thrawn said. “It’s fear that’s driving those nightmares. Fear and helplessness.”
A touch of annoyance rose above the bubbling panic. First Thalias, and now Thrawn. Did everyone think they knew more about her nightmares than she did?
“You feel helpless in the water, so you dream of drowning. You feel helpless in the air, so you dream of falling.” He pointed to the handgrips. “Let’s take some of that helplessness away.”
Che’ri looked at him. He wasn’t joking, she realized. He was deadly serious. She looked back at the handgrips, trying to decide what to do.
“Take them.”
Abruptly, she realized something else. He wasn’t ordering. He was offering.
And she really had always wanted to fly.
Setting her jaw, choking back the fear, she reached out and gingerly closed her hands around the grips.
“Good,” Thrawn said. “Move the right one to your left, just a bit.”
“To portside,” Che’ri corrected. She knew that one, anyway.
“To portside,” Thrawn agreed with a smile. “See how the positions of the stars changed?”
Che’ri nodded. Their ship had turned a little to the left, the same way she’d moved the handgrip. “Yes.”
“The display just above it—there—shows the precise angle of your turn. Now move the same lever forward a bit.”
This time, the changing stars showed the ship’s nose had dropped a little. “Aren’t we getting off course?”
“It’ll be easy enough to get back,” Thrawn assured her. “Now, the left-hand grip controls the thrusters. Right now it’s set at its most delicate level, so that a small movement translates to a small increase or decrease in thrust. Rotating the grip will change that; we won’t bother with that right now. Ease it forward—just a little—and note how our speed changes on that display—that one right there.”
By the time they finished the lesson, half an hour later, Che’ri’s head was spinning. But it was a strangely exciting kind of spin. She hardly noticed any strain over the next few hours as she used Third Sight to guide the ship toward the edge of the Chaos.
When she was done navigating for the day, after they ate dinner together, she asked if he would give her another lesson.
And that night, for the first time she could remember, she had a dream about flying that wasn’t a nightmare.
Thrawn had told Che’ri that there was an arc of systems a short distance into the Lesser Space regions outside the Chaos that should be promising. So far, though, the arc had turned out to be a bust.
One of the worlds had looked interesting, but aside from a local patrol force it didn’t seem to have any military presence at all. The next three worlds were only sparsely settled, though one of them was at least civilized enough to have a long-range triad transmitter.
But the fifth world…
“What are those?” Che’ri asked, staring at the small objects flitting back and forth across the long-range sensor display. They looked like shuttles or missiles or fighter craft, but they seemed hardly big enough for even a pilot, let alone a passenger or two.
“I believe those are robotic combat craft,” Thrawn said, his eyes narrowed in concentration as he gazed at the display. “Powered and operated by artificial intelligences called droids.”
“They run their warships with machines?”
“Some of them, yes,” Thrawn said. “Indeed, if the reports are true, one side of the massive war taking place in Lesser Space is largely being waged by such droids.”
Che’ri thought about that. “Seems kind of stupid,” she said. “What if someone gets into the controls and turns them off? Or gets into the factory and changes all the programming?”
“Or if their intended programming leaves errors and blind spots that can be exploited,” Thrawn said. “The desire to minimize warrior deaths is futile if the war is then lost. Increase the focus on Sensor Four, please.”
Che’ri nodded and keyed the corre
ct control, a small part of her brain noting with satisfaction how comfortable she’d become in the cockpit over the past few days. Thrawn had turned out to be a much better teacher than she’d expected.
Or maybe she was just a really good learner.
“What do you see there?” Thrawn asked.
Che’ri frowned. There was something weird in the center of the display she’d just adjusted: perfectly round and giving off a strong but alien energy signature. “I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“I have,” Thrawn said thoughtfully. “But the energy shield I saw was aboard a ship. This one appears to be protecting a building.”
“It’s a shield?” Che’ri asked. Now that he mentioned it, it was shaped like the shields of the old-time warriors she’d seen pictures of. “Is that like our electrostatic barriers?”
“Same protective function, but much stronger and more versatile,” Thrawn said. “The Ascendancy would benefit greatly from that technology.”
Che’ri looked sideways at him. He wasn’t thinking of trying to go down there, was he? Not with all those robot things buzzing around.
He seemed to sense her look and her sudden fears. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to charge in on our own,” he assured her. “Though with a full complement of decoys aboard, getting through their sentry screen would be trivial. Still, an aerial force implies a similar ground force, and you and I are hardly equipped to deal with that degree of opposition.”
“Okay,” Che’ri said cautiously. He still had that intense look in his eyes. “So…what are we doing?”
“Our mission has always been to find allies,” Thrawn said, reaching forward and manipulating one of the sensor controls. “But perhaps we don’t need an entire army of them.”
“How many people do we need?”
He pointed at one of the other displays. “Let’s start with one.”
Che’ri blinked in surprise. Centered in the display was another ship, about the same size as theirs. It was floating all dark and silent and low-power, and was clearly watching the same buzzing robot ships she and Thrawn were. “Who’s that?”
“No idea,” Thrawn said. “But the appearance and energy profile don’t match any of the other ships we’ve seen since leaving the Chaos.”
“Doesn’t look like the robot ships, either,” Che’ri offered.
“Excellent observation,” Thrawn said, and Che’ri felt her face warm with satisfaction at the compliment. “It’s possible the pilot is scouting for the opposite side of the war. If so, we may have found an ally—there!”
Che’ri stiffened. The other ship’s energy profile had suddenly changed. Even as she opened her mouth to ask what was going on, the ship rotated a few degrees, and with a flicker it disappeared into hyperspace.
“Quickly, now,” Thrawn said, and Che’ri’s board went dark as he took control. “Get ready for Third Sight.”
“We’re going after it?”
“Actually, I’m hoping to get ahead of it,” Thrawn said, running power to the thrusters and hyperdrive. “The first world we visited was the most populous and therefore the most likely place from which to send a message or to rendezvous with allies.”
“Wouldn’t one of the more empty worlds be better for that?”
“In theory, yes,” Thrawn said. “But a scout would want to avoid drawing any more attention than necessary. The fewer the inhabitants, the more scrutiny is automatically attached to strangers.”
“Okay,” Che’ri said, making a face as she activated the navigator board. By the time they were ready, the other ship would have a good ten-minute lead on them. How did Thrawn think she could get ahead of it?
“It’ll be all right if we arrive second,” Thrawn said. “But even with their lead, I have no doubt we’ll arrive first. A ship that size is unlikely to have a hyperdrive and navigational system equal to a Chiss ship and a Chiss sky-walker.”
Che’ri hunched her shoulders once as she got a grip on the controls. Darn right. They were Chiss, and they were not going to lose a race. Not to anyone. “I’m ready,” she said. “Tell me when.”
* * *
—
Che’ri’s first thought when she came out of her Third Sight trance was that she’d lost. The other ship was nowhere to be seen: not approaching the planet, not in orbit around it. She sighed, pressing her hand to her throbbing head. She’d tried so hard, but—
“There,” Thrawn said.
Che’ri felt her eyes widen, her headache instantly forgotten. He was right. The ship they’d seen watching the robot craft had just emerged from hyperspace. “What do we do now?”
“Let’s see if they’re interested in talking.” He keyed the comm. “Unidentified ship, this is Senior Captain Mitth’raw’nuruodo of the Chiss Ascendancy,” he said in Minnisiat. “Can you understand me?”
Silence. Thrawn repeated the greeting in Taarja, then in Meese Caulf, then Sy Bisti. Che’ri was trying to remember if there were any more trade languages she’d ever heard of when there was an answering ping from the comm. “Hello, Senior Captain Mitth’raw’nuruodo,” a woman’s voice came in Meese Caulf. “What can I do for you?”
“It is considered courteous for one party of a conversation to offer his or her name to the other,” Thrawn said.
“You think we’re going to have a conversation?”
“We seem to be doing so,” Thrawn pointed out.
There was a short pause. The other ship, Che’ri noted, was heading toward the planet, without any hint that the pilot might be interested in a closer look at the Chiss visitor. “Call me Duja,” the woman said. “My turn. Does the Chiss Ascendancy favor the Republic or the Separatists?”
“Neither,” Thrawn said. “We take no side in this war of yours.”
“Then I see no reason to talk to you. No offense,” Duja said. “You haven’t seen a Nubian ship land lately, have you?”
“What does it look like?”
“Shiny silvery metal,” Duja said. “Smooth curves, no angles, twin engine pods.”
“We have not seen it.”
“Conversation over, then,” Duja said. “Nice talking to you.” There was another ping as she shut off the connection.
Che’ri looked at Thrawn, expecting him to call Duja back and try to persuade her, maybe offer to work together. But to her surprise, he merely closed down the comm. “You’re just letting her go?” she asked.
“She’s not a warrior,” Thrawn said, his voice thoughtful. “A scout, perhaps a spy, clearly someone with training. But not a warrior.”
“How do you know she’s had training?”
“Her ship is armed,” he said, “and as we spoke she rotated slightly so the weapons could be more quickly brought to bear if necessary.”
“Oh,” Che’ri said. She hadn’t seen any of that. “What do we do?”
“We wait,” he said. “As I said, she’s a scout or a spy. Sooner or later, a warrior will come.”
* * *
—
The warrior Che’ri and Thrawn were waiting for, it seemed, was in no great hurry.
Thrawn and Che’ri had been waiting three days when the silvery ship Duja had talked about appeared. It disappeared into the trees a fair distance from a settlement built in and around a group of black stone or wooden spires. A few hours later, Duja’s ship rose from the forest and headed away, pursued briefly and uselessly by a couple of the planet’s patrol ships. Che’ri waited for the Nubian to follow it, but the big silver ship remained hidden.
And then, again, nothing. Thrawn spent the days studying all the information he could find on the planet—which Che’ri learned was named Batuu—and giving Che’ri more piloting exercises with the control board in simulator mode. Che’ri, for her part, ran the exercises over and over, and over and over again. Thrawn hadn�
�t actually said so, but she had a strong suspicion that when the expected warrior arrived Thrawn would be leaving the scout ship in her hands. When that happened, she was determined not to let him down.
And then, even as Che’ri was privately about to give up hope, he was there.
* * *
—
“Unidentified ship, this is General Anakin Skywalker of the Galactic Republic,” the pilot said over the scout ship’s speaker, the Meese Caulf words a little mangled but mostly correct. “You are intruding on Republic equipment and interfering with a Republic mission. I order you to pull back and identify yourself.”
“I greet you,” Thrawn said in turn. “Did you give your name as General Skywalker?”
“I did. Why, have you heard of me?”
Thrawn caught Che’ri’s eye as he touched the MUTE button. “Interesting coincidence,” he commented.
Che’ri nodded. The pilot had spoken the word as if it was his name, but probably he’d just messed up the language.
Thrawn unmuted the comm. “No, not at all,” he said. “I was merely surprised. Let me assure you I mean no harm to you or your equipment. I merely wished a closer look at this interesting device.”
“Glad to hear it,” the pilot said. “You’ve had your look. Pull back as ordered.”
Thrawn pursed his lips thoughtfully. Then, very deliberately, he eased the ship back from the ring they’d moved up to examine. “May I ask what brings a Republic envoy to this part of space?” he asked.
“May I ask what business it is of yours?” the pilot countered. “You can be on your way at any time.”
“On my way?”
“To continue your travels. To go wherever you were going before you stopped to look at my hyperdrive ring.”
Again, Thrawn touched MUTE. “Opinion?”
Che’ri blinked. He was asking her opinion on this? Her opinion? “I don’t know anything about things like this.”
“You’re a Chiss,” Thrawn reminded her. “As such, you have instincts and judgment, perhaps more than you know. Do you think he’ll make a good ally?”
