by Timothy Zahn
“So burning through their resources as fast as possible, without any long-term considerations?” Eli asked, frowning. “You sure?”
“Look at the curve of the combat pods,” Thrawn said. “The shape of the stripes, the positions of the blaster barrels. Weapons such as this not only are functional, but also incorporate the artistry of their creators. The beings who created and built these fighters believe in short, quick answers to questions and problems.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” Eli said. The explanation sounded ridiculous, but he’d seen Thrawn pull equally obscure facts out of equally imperceptible visuals. “Where does that leave us?”
“They are designed to swarm,” Thrawn said. “But they only briefly show that tactic. That leads to the conclusion…?” He paused expectantly.
“That the rest of the time they’re under direct command from somewhere,” Eli said as it suddenly clicked. “Somewhere on the outer moon?”
“They were launched from there,” Thrawn agreed. “But they are not being controlled from there. The changes occur when the fighters fly through the transmission shadow of one of our ships.”
“So if we can find and analyze all the shadows, we can backtrack to the transmitter,” Eli said with a sudden surge of hope. “And you came here because you needed the sensor station to power through that kind of calculation?”
“Precisely,” Thrawn said.
Eli felt his lip twitch as the final element fell into place. By masking his insight and revelation this way, Thrawn was hoping to pass on more of the credit to the rest of the Thunder Wasp’s crew. And, by logical extension, to Commander Cheno. One last chance for him to shine in combat. “What do you want me to do?”
“I will run the calculations and coordinate the locations and vectors,” Thrawn said. “You will watch for other shadows and mark them.”
“Right.” Eli glanced at the tactical, wincing at all the spots of red that marked major damage to the Imperial ships. “Work fast.”
The next two minutes dragged by. Eli looked back and forth across the battle, catching three more of the subtle changes that marked a fighter briefly running on its own programming. He had no idea how many Thrawn spotted in that same time period, but the Chiss turned abruptly to his board no fewer than ten times.
“Corvette down!”
Eli looked at the tactical, his stomach knotting. Where one of the Raider corvettes had been, there was now a roiling cloud of shattered metal and fire-tinged debris. “Sir?” he murmured urgently.
“Done.” Thrawn touched a final key.
And abruptly, bright yellow crosshairs appeared on the planetary display. “Commander Cheno?” Thrawn called up toward the command walkway. “I believe we have isolated the ground-based transmitter that is coordinating the attack. I recommend that you pass this information to Admiral Gendling and request he target and destroy it.”
“What are you talking about?” Cheno asked, frowning down at him. “What transmitter?”
“The one feeding tactical data to the vulture droids,” Thrawn said. “The Foremost’s turbolasers are the only ones that can reach effectively to the surface.”
“I see,” Cheno said. He didn’t, Eli suspected, but he knew better than to ignore his first officer’s advice. “Comm: Contact the Foremost. Inform the admiral that I need to speak with him immediately.”
Eli huffed out a long sigh. And with that, it was over. Thrawn had come through again, and it was over.
Only this time, it wasn’t.
“Ridiculous,” Admiral Gendling scoffed. “Even if these fighters are being controlled and haven’t simply been reprogrammed, there’s no possible way for you to have located the transmitter.”
“Sir, as I explained—”
“And I’m not about to go shooting at random into a civilian city on the strength of some mid-level officer’s wild guesswork,” Gendling interrupted. “Less talk, Commander. More fighting.”
Eli winced. In general, not shooting into a civilian population was a perfectly sensible approach to combat. More sensible, in fact, than he would have expected from a lot of Imperial officers.
But in this case, the proposed attack was hardly random, and failing to act was likely to be very costly. “Now what?” he asked Thrawn.
For a moment Thrawn stared at the tactical in silence. Then, reaching to the board again, he keyed in a new order.
And on both the sensor and tactical displays a set of moving gray wedges appeared.
“Signal all ships,” he ordered the comm officer. “The gray wedges mark the transmission shadows where the vulture droids rely on their own programming. Within those shadows they will be most vulnerable and therefore most easily destroyed.” He raised his voice. “Senior Lieutenant Hammerly?”
“On it, sir,” she called back. On the tactical, four droids flying through the Thunder Wasp’s shadow disintegrated in four bursts of turbolaser fire. “That what you had in mind, sir?”
“It is indeed,” Thrawn confirmed. “Well done.”
“All ships acknowledge our transmission,” the comm officer added. “Gunners are switching tactics.”
And with that, the tide finally began to turn.
But it was bloody. In the end, Gendling’s remaining corvette was severely damaged, nearly half its crew dead or wounded. The Thunder Wasp and Foremost were in better shape, but both ships would need time in a shipyard before they would be combat-ready again.
The vulture droids were all destroyed. The Umbarans had surrendered unconditionally. The Foremost’s stormtrooper squads were on the surface and supervising the surrender of the insurgents.
And Admiral Gendling was furious.
—
“You’re lucky I don’t bring you up on charges right here and now, Commander,” the admiral said. His expression holds embarrassment and guilt. His tone holds harshness and anger. “You do not—do not—usurp an admiral’s authority and command that way. I speak for my crew and to my crew.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way, Admiral,” Commander Cheno said. His tone holds tension, but also resolve. “I was simply trying to recapture the initiative in the most efficient way possible and save the battle. And with it, a few lives.”
“Are you mocking me, Commander?” Admiral Gendling demanded. “Because if you are, as the Emperor is my witness, I’ll take you down so hard and so fast they’ll have to scrape up what’s left of your career with a flatcake turner. Whose bright idea was it, anyway? I know you didn’t come up with any of that yourself.”
Commander Cheno’s expression remains resolved. “I ordered the information passed to the Foremost and the remaining corvette,” he said. There is a small emphasis on the word remaining. “As for the discovery of the enemy’s weakness, that was a joint effort of my bridge crew.”
With slow deliberation, Admiral Gendling turned his eyes to Thrawn. His arm and torso muscles are rigid. “Your first officer has built himself quite a reputation,” he said to Cheno. “Maybe I should ask him who came up with the transmitter idea.”
“Or maybe you should speak directly with me,” Cheno said. “As you said, the commander speaks for his crew.”
For three seconds, Gendling continues to stare. Then he turns back to Cheno. “I’ll have your career, Commander,” he said. “I’d take your ship, too, but it’s clear that some upstart half your age will do that.”
“If the upstart is deserving, more power to him,” Cheno said.
Gendling smiles with malice and pride. “This isn’t over, Commander. You can be very sure of that. I’ll see you at your court-martial. Dismissed.”
Commander Cheno is silent while returning to the shuttle. Only once aboard, and in flight, does he speak. “Well,” he said. His voice holds weariness. “It looks as if I may not be ending my career quite as quietly as I expected.”
“There is no need to protect me,” Thrawn said. “The Thunder Wasp’s log will answer all his suspicions.”
“Perhaps,” Cheno said
. “Logs can be altered, you know.”
“I did not know that.”
“Not easily, of course,” Cheno said. He offers a small smile. “Certainly not legally. Doesn’t matter. As he said, you have a reputation. More to the point, he can’t really bring up all the details of this supposed breach of protocol without exposing his own ineptitude. No, he’ll satisfy himself with destroying my career and leave you and the rest of the Thunder Wasp’s crew alone.”
“That is not right or proper.”
“No, but it is reality,” Cheno said. “As I said, my career isn’t important. What’s important is the future of the Imperial Navy.” He gestures with respect and admiration. “You’re that future, Thrawn. It’s been a privilege to be your commander.”
“Thank you, sir,” Thrawn said. “I have learned a great deal serving under you.”
“I doubt that,” Cheno said. His tone holds dry humor, with no bitterness or resentment. “But I thank you. And I, too, have learned a great deal.”
—
Eli had half expected the shuttle to return empty, with both of its passengers consigned to the Foremost’s brig. To his relief, both Cheno and Thrawn emerged from the docking bay. Cheno murmured something to Thrawn and then headed toward the bridge. Thrawn watched until the commander’s turbolift car departed, then beckoned Eli to join him. “Ensign,” he greeted Eli quietly. “I presume you wish to know how our meeting with Admiral Gendling went. In brief, not very well.”
“I’m not surprised,” Eli said, wincing. The look on Cheno’s face as he left the docking bay…“I take it the commander took the brunt of it.”
“Yes,” Thrawn said. “Partly because he was in command during the battle. Partly because he attempted to shield my role in the outcome.”
“So because Gendling screwed up, he’s taking it out on you,” Eli growled. “I thought only politicians were that level of stupid and nasty.”
“I have found those characteristics in all fields of endeavor,” Thrawn said. “Has your research uncovered anything of use?”
“Maybe.” Eli handed Thrawn his datapad. “The building the transmitter was operating from is owned by a group of humans. The locals don’t know their names and can’t give anything useful in the way of descriptions. But it’s clear you were right about no Umbarans being directly involved in the attack.”
“I doubt Admiral Gendling will take that into consideration.”
“No one’s taking that into consideration,” Eli said sourly. “Since most of the unrest and turmoil was concentrated in the mining districts, Gendling’s already called for the Empire to take direct control of Umbara’s entire mining and refining sector.”
“Interesting,” Thrawn said. “Did you find any indication that Nightswan was directly involved?”
“The transmitter was run by humans,” Eli said. “That’s as close as we’ve gotten right now.”
“Still, we know that Nightswan has been involved in mining and metal smuggling elsewhere,” Thrawn said. “Tell me, how valuable are the Umbaran mineral deposits?”
“Very,” Vanto said. He took back his datapad and keyed in a few commands. “Several important ones. Key among them: doonium.”
Thrawn pondered a moment. “Is there any way to calculate a system’s success rate against smugglers?”
“You can get a rough figure, anyway,” Eli said. “You take the amount of legitimate shipping on some easily identifiable product—those Paklarn grist mollusks, for example—and compare it with the amount being sold elsewhere. The numbers are a little loose, and they obviously don’t apply to every product type. But as I said, it gives you a rough figure.”
“Understood,” Thrawn said. “Do you have that figure for Umbara? If possible, I would like it for the success rate for smugglers of rare metals or rare metal ores.”
Eli called up the relevant numbers, ran a quick mental calculation. “It’s very good,” he said. “Somewhere in the ninety percent range.”
“And the number for a comparable Imperial-controlled world?”
Eli nodded and busied himself with his datapad. “Looks like…whoa. Sixty-five to seventy percent. Though from personal family experience, I’d guess it could actually be as low as forty or forty-five.”
“It would seem we have found the reason for the attack,” Thrawn said. “The purpose for a clearly futile assault upon an Imperial force. Nightswan wished for the Empire to take control of Umbara’s mines.”
“Because it’s easier for him and his smugglers to cheat material past Imperial inspectors than past the Umbarans.” Eli huffed out a breath. “I’ll grant that it sounds like Nightswan’s brand of deviousness. But we don’t even know for sure that he was involved.”
“He was,” Thrawn said. “He is. Who else would invite me here to demonstrate his handiwork?”
Eli blinked. “He what?”
“Surely it is clear,” Thrawn said. “He set up his mollusk smuggling group in an area he knew the Thunder Wasp was patrolling. He made certain that Umbara was mentioned within the smugglers’ hearing. He knew of my interest in Clone War weaponry and made certain the name Nightswan was on at least one order.”
“Interesting,” Eli murmured. On the surface, for Thrawn to even suggest such a thing bordered on the egomaniacal.
Still, the Chiss was seldom wrong about tactical matters. And Nightswan wasn’t exactly an ordinary mastermind, either. It was entirely possible that he would do such a thing simply for the challenge of it all. “Well, if it is him, he lost this one.”
“Not at all,” Thrawn said, his voice grim. “I defeated his vulture droid attack, but winning that encounter was not his true goal.”
“The Imperial takeover.”
“Or perhaps the Imperial takeover itself was merely a step,” Thrawn said. “It may have been his final goal if he was merely a smuggler. But he is more.”
“So if he’s not a smuggler, what is he?”
“I do not yet know,” Thrawn said. “Possibly his activities are building to a political confrontation or resolution on some planet or system. Possibly he seeks vengeance or humiliation against some person or organization. But whatever his goals and motivations, he is a person of extreme interest.”
“I guess we’d better keep an eye out for him, then,” Eli said. “Sooner or later, he has to surface.”
“Incorrect, Ensign. Sooner or later, he will choose to surface.”
One is born with a unique set of talents and abilities. One must choose which of those talents to nurture, which to set aside for a time, which to ignore completely.
Sometimes the choice is obvious. Other times, the hints and proddings are more obscure. Then, one may need to undergo several regimens of training and sample several different professions before determining where one’s strongest talents lie. This is the driving force behind many life-path alterations.
There are few sets of skills that match only one specific job. More often they are adaptable to many different professions. Sometimes, one can plan such a change. Other times, the change appears without warning.
In both instances, one must be alert and carefully consider all options. Not every change is a step forward.
—
It had been a hard day, full of desperate and petty people with desperate and petty problems. By all rights, Arihnda should be exhausted.
At the same time, it had been a resoundingly successful day, with solutions for nearly all those problems and gushings of heartfelt gratitude. By all rights she should be ecstatic.
She was trying to decide which feeling would dominate her evening, and anticipating the start of that evening, when there was a warning beep from the outer door.
She glanced at the chrono, suppressing a sigh. Technically, the office still had two minutes to go. Realistically, none of today’s problems had been solved in less than twenty. Her evening was evidently going to start later than she’d hoped.
But this was her job, and she was good at it, and there wasn’t anyth
ing better for ten kilometers in any direction, including up or down. So however long this took—
“Hey, stranger,” Juahir said cheerfully as she walked through the inner door. “How are you doing?”
“Juahir!” Arihnda all but gasped, feeling her face light up in a smile. “I’m fine. What are you doing in the pricey end of the planet?”
“Oh, this is the pricey end, is it?” Driller asked, walking in behind her. “Hey, at least you make enough to actually live here.”
“Just barely,” Arihnda said, feeling her smile grow a little brighter. Driller had dropped in on the office a couple of times before his uncle came back to reclaim his apartment, but she hadn’t seen him since.
As for Juahir, she’d come by only once, and that had been nearly six months ago. They’d talked a few times on the comm, though, and Juahir had a standing invitation to tour the Federal District if she ever found the time to come to this side of the planet.
Apparently, she just had.
“It’s great to see both of you,” Arihnda said, coming around her desk and giving each of them a quick hug. “How long are you going to be here? Do you have plans for the evening? I’m off duty in about a minute and a half.”
“You sure they can do without you?” Driller asked, looking pointedly at the line of empty desks. “Or did the supervisor decide you were so good they didn’t need anyone else?”
“No, we’re still a fully staffed and thoroughly overworked office,” Arihnda said. “Everyone else just happened to have evening plans and I volunteered to do the last half hour alone.”
“Well, that’s not fair,” Juahir said with mock outrage. “Serve them right if someone came in here and swept you off your feet.”
“It’s not so bad,” Arihnda said. “Actually, I do my best work when I’m alone.”
“You like the extra pressure?” Driller asked.
“I like the lack of witnesses.”
He gave her a sideways look. “You’re kidding, right?”
Arihnda shrugged. “You’d be amazed how far a little insinuation will get you with an apartment owner.”