Chaos Rising

by Timothy Zahn

  “I assume Ar’alani’s got a plan—”

  An instant later the sky lit up as one of the two Vak ships disintegrated in a blaze of Nikardun laserfire. “Nikardun!” Ar’alani snapped again. “Do not attack! Do not attack!”

  She might as well have saved her breath. There was a second laser barrage, and the other patrol ship was gone as well. “Nikardun, those were not combatants,” Ar’alani ground out.

  “Maybe they weren’t before,” Kharill said, an odd tone to his voice. “But I do believe they are now.”

  Samakro frowned. He was right. All around them, the Vak patrol ships that had been studiously staying away from the combat zone were suddenly on the move. In groups of three and four they were converging on the Battle Dreadnought, their missiles blazing toward the huge ship, their lasers flashing against its electrostatic barriers and digging into its hull.

  “Lesson for today,” Kharill continued. “Don’t get so focused on one enemy that you end up making another one. Ready to come back to life?”

  “Let’s not,” Samakro said. “Ar’alani said we were teetering on the edge of disaster. It wouldn’t look very good if we suddenly showed we weren’t.”

  “Yes, I doubt the Vaks would be happy to know they were betrayed by one side and manipulated by the other,” Kharill agreed. “Then…?”

  “We sit back,” Samakro said. “Try to avoid any obvious attacks.

  “And watch the show.”

  * * *

  —

  “What is his plan?” Yiv shouted, leaning over to slap Thalias across the back of her head. “What is his plan?”

  “I don’t know,” Thalias said.

  “He brings in Chiss warships to attack me,” Yiv snarled as if she hadn’t spoken. “He goads the Vaks into conspiring with them against me. What is his purpose? What is his goal?”

  He reached down and dug his fingers into her hair, twisting her head around to face him. “What is his plan?”

  “I don’t—” Thalias winced back as his hand slapped at her face, managing to turn just far enough to take the blow on her ear instead of her cheek. The concussion sent a spear of pain and dizziness through her whole head.

  “There’s no need for that, General,” Thrawn’s calm voice said over the bridge speaker. “My plan is to put you in a box. And so you are.”

  “I can destroy you whenever I choose,” Yiv bit out.

  “Once you’ve moved within weapons range,” Thrawn amended. “A position I’ll note you don’t seem that eager to achieve.”

  “Would you like to see your death coming more quickly?” Yiv retorted. “Helm: Increase speed.”

  “I thought you wanted to bring me aboard the Deathless so that you could kill me yourself.”

  “You invited me yourself to come get you,” Yiv said. “Make up your mind.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Thrawn said. “It’s already too late. You’ve spent too long here for the Vaks and your own people not to conclude you don’t wish to join the battle over Primea. Leaving now will be interpreted as an attempt to escape from me. Either way, your reputation is permanently damaged.”

  “Only if there are any witnesses left to tell a tale other than my own,” Yiv said.

  “Interestingly enough, I’ve had that same thought,” Thrawn said. “You have only one move left, only one way to salvage your name and position. You’ll come within tractor beam range and bring my ship aboard. I’ll disembark, you’ll transfer my companions aboard, and they’ll leave in peace.”

  Yiv gave a contemptuous snort. “A long way to go, Chiss, just to take me where I planned to go in the first place. As I think about it, perhaps it would be just as satisfying to destroy you where you sit.”

  “And what of my companions?”

  “I told you I’d use them to show what I intended for the entire Chiss species,” Yiv said. “You’re right, it would be more impressive if you were aboard to watch their dismemberment instead of watching from your freighter.”

  Che’ri gave a little whimper. It’s all right, Thalias thought urgently in her direction. It’s all right. Just hold on a little longer.

  “Very well, General,” Thrawn said calmly. “If you’ve chosen to face me, so be it. I await your tractor beam.”

  For a moment, Yiv remained silent. Testing Thrawn’s words for flaws or betrayal, no doubt.

  But he wouldn’t find any, Thalias knew. More important, Thrawn had twisted the situation to where Yiv was angry and frustrated, and where revenge was the most important thing on his mind. The chance to bring Thrawn aboard alive and personally kill him would drive away any other considerations.

  Yiv barked a command. On the main display a hazy blue line appeared, connecting the images of the Deathless and Thrawn’s freighter. Some numbers shifted, and the freighter began moving forward.

  And it was time.

  Thalias looked sideways, catching Che’ri’s eye. “Hostages no more,” she murmured. Turning back forward, watching the freighter moving toward the Nikardun warship, she reached her hands to her face and dug her fingers beneath the edges of her hostage makeup.

  For a moment, the thick material resisted. Thalias kept at it, shifting her grip to use her fingernails as claws, noting out of the corner of her eye that Che’ri was doing likewise. Abruptly, the hard crust gave way, breaking and shredding into tiny pieces and leaving throbbing weals on the skin behind.

  And with a brief rush of cool and moisture, the compressed tava mist that had been concealed inside the ridges and plateaus blasted into the air.

  Thalias’s first impulse was to hold her breath. But that didn’t really do any good. The mist seeped instantly into her nostrils, the initial honey-scent quickly changing to something more like burnt sugar as the drug began to play with her senses. As the aroma changed again, this time to that of fresh leather, she could hear the sudden flurry of conversation around her growing slower, the pitch of the alien voices going deeper. The bridge itself began darkening even as, paradoxically, the indicator lights and the stars outside the viewport seemed to grow brighter.

  And she could feel her mind fading.

  It wasn’t like the way it felt to fall asleep, with stray thoughts and memories drifting across as she slipped into darkness. This was quicker and more complete, dulling her reason and her self-awareness even as it clouded over her thoughts. And yet, through it all, she was able to hold on to enough to see that it was all working exactly the way Thrawn had said it would.

  The bridge was big, and the amount of mist the techs had been able to pack inside the makeup was limited. But even a small amount of the sleepwalking drug was enough to cause confusion and disorientation, and that was all Thrawn needed. As the mist settled around the bridge crew, Thalias saw—both on the displays and through the viewport—that Thrawn’s freighter was twisting around, breaking itself free of the tractor beam. A second later the freighter leapt forward, driving at full acceleration straight toward the Deathless’s bridge.

  The Nikardun were hardly helpless, of course. Even as Thrawn sped toward them Yiv gave a slightly slurred order, and the Battle Dreadnought’s spectrum lasers blasted outward toward this threat suddenly bearing down on them. Their aim was tentative, and many of the shots flashed harmlessly into space. However, the Deathless’s bridge defenses were strong and the Nikardun only slightly impaired, and many of the shots hit straight and true.

  But a barrage that would have quickly demolished an electrostatic barrier and the unlucky ship behind it simply scattered off the Republic energy shield Thrawn and Che’ri had brought back from Mokivj. The freighter came closer…closer…the defensive laserfire intensified…

  And then, at what seemed like the last second, the mad rush faltered as the freighter slowed slightly. An instant after that the whole Dreadnought shook as the freighter crashed squarely into the oversized viewport,
crushing the forward consoles and scattering those members of the crew from its path. Through Thalias’s dreamy disorientation she felt the sudden outflow of air through the shattered viewport, then felt the flow cut off as the customized freighter nose Thrawn had installed settled precisely into the opening, sealing off the bridge from the vacuum beyond.

  Che’ri said something that sounded strangely urgent. Thalias looked over, discovering to her surprise that the girl was half standing up and hanging on to Yiv’s right arm, dragging down the weapon he had clutched in that hand. Yiv was trying to pull free, while at the same time cuffing Che’ri around the head and shoulders. A moment of thought convinced Thalias that he shouldn’t be doing that, and she got her own arms wrapped around the arm he was hitting the girl with. She had a vague sense that there was something else she was supposed to do, but she couldn’t remember what it was.

  And then, suddenly, Thrawn was there, plucking Yiv’s gun from his hand and wrapping a breather mask around Thalias’s face. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice distorted by his own mask.

  “Um-mm,” Thalias said brightly as Yiv made a sort of halfhearted lunge. Thrawn evaded the attack easily, sending the Nikardun to land heavily on all fours on the deck. Thrawn gave him a hefty squirt from a tava canister of his own, setting Yiv’s shoulder symbionts into a frenzied wriggle, then turned to Che’ri. By the time he’d asked her the same question he’d asked Thalias and had the girl’s breather mask in place, Thalias’s head was starting to clear. “Data library?” Thrawn asked as he pulled Yiv’s arms behind him and fastened the wrists together.

  “I think it’s that console over there,” Thalias said, marveling at how quickly and thoroughly her mind had recovered from the gas. “He also keeps a kind of questis in a compartment in the left armrest of his chair.”

  “Excellent,” Thrawn said. “You get his questis. I’ll get Yiv aboard the freighter, then see what I can copy before the rest of the crew breaks through the bridge door.”

  “We’re not going to destroy his ship?”

  “I never intended to destroy his ship,” Thrawn said. Reaching down, he took hold of one of Yiv’s arms and levered the unconscious Nikardun up off the deck. “All I need to do is destroy him.”

  “What about them?” Thalias persisted, pointing to the Nikardun crew members twitching or muttering on the deck. “Once you pull the freighter out of the viewport, won’t they all die?”

  Thrawn’s face hardened. “As Yiv has already said,” he reminded her quietly. “No witnesses.”

  It was, Ar’alani knew, necessary that she and Thrawn have a talk about what had happened at Solitair. But she managed to find enough excuses to put it off until they were nearly home.

  Finally, she couldn’t delay it any further.

  “I should have seen it,” Thrawn said, his eyes fixed on an otherwise unremarkable corner of Ar’alani’s office. “I should have seen the signs.”

  “No,” Ar’alani said. “I should have. But not you.”

  “Because you’re more experienced?”

  “Because you don’t understand politics,” Ar’alani said. “Politics, vying for position, feuds, grudges, ledger balancing—they’re all things you’ve never gotten a solid grip on.”

  “But why not?” Thrawn asked. “I don’t disagree; but it’s all strategy and tactics. Just a different form of warfare. Why can’t I read it?”

  “Because the techniques of warfare are relatively straightforward,” Ar’alani said. “You identify the objective, you gather allies and resources, you devise a strategy, and you defeat the enemy. But in politics, allies and goals are constantly shifting. Unless you can anticipate those changes, you can’t prepare for them.”

  “Alliances can shift in warfare, too.”

  “But it takes time to move ships and armies around and reconfigure battle lines,” Ar’alani said. “You have that time to adapt to the new landscape. In politics, it’s all done with words and bits of writing. Half an hour of conversation—less than that if there are bribes involved—and everything has changed.”

  “I see.” Thrawn took a long breath. “Then I need to study this form of combat. Study it, and master it.”

  “That would be helpful,” Ar’alani said.

  Only he never would master it, she knew. Just as some were tone-deaf to music, Thrawn was tone-deaf to the nuances and intricate self-serving dances that made up the world of politics.

  She could only hope that he and his overseers would be astute enough to keep him in the military arena. There, and only there, would he be of genuine and lasting value to the Ascendancy.

  * * *

  —

  Thurfian had had to swallow a lot of bitter quaffs during his years of dealing with Ascendancy politics. But this quaff was absolutely the worst of all.

  “A Trial-born,” he said to the man facing him from the comm display. “After the fiasco with the Lioaoi and Garwians, you’re making him a Trial-born?”

  “We have no choice,” Speaker Thistrian said heavily. “The Irizi are making serious overtures to him.”

  “They already tried that,” Thurfian said. “He turned them down.”

  “Never officially,” the Speaker said. “And that offer was just to make him a Trial-born. Now I understand they’re preparing to offer him ranking distant.”

  Thurfian felt his eyes widen. “A ranking distant? That’s absurd.”

  “Maybe so. Maybe not. And even Thrawn isn’t blind enough to miss the political advantages that would give him. All we can do is hope that he’d prefer Trial-born of the Mitth to ranking distant of the Irizi.”

  “They’re bluffing,” Thurfian insisted. “They’re trying to maneuver us into drawing him in and tying him closer to the family. The closer in he is, the bigger the political fallout when he makes his next big mistake.”

  “Maybe he won’t.”

  “Won’t make a mistake?” Thurfian snorted. “You don’t believe that any more than I do. The man’s a menace. Give him enough lead time, and he’ll burn himself down. And maybe the Mitth along with him.”

  “Or maybe he’ll do something that raises the Ascendancy to heights it’s never before achieved.”

  Thurfian stared at him. “You’re joking, right? To heights it’s never achieved?”

  “It could happen,” the Speaker said ruefully. “And if it does, we can’t afford to risk that glory shining on the Irizi instead of us.”

  “With all due respect, Speaker, there won’t be any glory,” Thurfian said. “Certainly the Council isn’t looking at all this with starry eyes. They’ve already demoted him back to mid commander.”

  “But they’ve also given him another ship,” Thistrian said.

  For the second time in less than a minute, Thurfian felt his eyes widen. “They’ve what?”

  “A full-rank heavy cruiser this time, too, the Springhawk,” the Speaker confirmed. “On top of that, there’s talk of also giving him his own combat group, Picket Force Two.”

  Thurfian stared at the Speaker, a chill running through him. “Who’s doing this?” he asked, his throat tight. “Someone’s burning serious political capital here. Who?”

  “I don’t know,” the Speaker said heavily. “On the fleet side, best guess is that it’s General Ba’kif or possibly Admiral Ja’fosk. On the Mitth side—” He shook his head. “It has to be someone close to the Patriarch.”

  “Could it be the Patriarch himself?”

  “I would hesitate to put that name to it,” the Speaker said. “But I also wouldn’t dismiss that thought out of hand. Certainly Thrawn’s life and career have been charmed from the very beginning.”

  “It’s still madness,” Thurfian said. “His failures and embarrassments still outweigh his successes.”

  “I would tend to agree,” the Speaker said. “But there’s madness, and then there’
s madness. I looked into Picket Two’s current assignment, and it turns out they’re working a patrol zone a fair distance past the Ascendancy’s east-zenith edge. That would put him far away from the center of Ascendancy politics.”

  Thurfian ran that over in his mind. Given Thrawn’s political ineptness, that wouldn’t be the worst assignment they could give him. “It’s also on the far side of the Ascendancy from the Lioaoi and Garwians.”

  “Another plus, in my estimation,” the Speaker said. “Mostly what’s out there are small nations, single-system groups, empty space, and pirates.”

  “Great,” Thurfian said sourly. “More pirates.”

  “But on that side of the Ascendancy, the only nations large enough to support a pirate group are the Paataatus,” the Speaker pointed out. “That means less potential for political entanglements if he goes hunting. Besides, he’s already demonstrated he can beat the frost out of the Paataatus if he needs to, and they know it.”

  “I suppose,” Thurfian said. “The Council could still have sent him out there without giving him a ship.”

  “Perhaps,” the Speaker said. “Still, the Springhawk’s hardly a major prize. There’s no glory to be had there, just the pressures and responsibilities of command. All things considered, it could have been worse.”

  “Really?” Thurfian countered. Commander of a cruiser and Trial-born of the Mitth. If it could have been worse, he could hardly see how.

  But it wasn’t over. Not nearly. If Thrawn rebuffed the Irizi again—and if Speaker Thistrian was right that that was a pretty foregone conclusion—it would put Aristocra Zistalmu even more solidly on Thurfian’s side. Together, they would continue their efforts to derail Thrawn’s career before he did something the Ascendancy might never recover from.

  And while they were only two right now, Thurfian had no doubt that more Aristocra would join them in the days and years ahead. If there was one love they all shared, above and beyond all the family politics and squabbling, it was love of the Ascendancy.