Outbound Flight

by Timothy Zahn

  "In Sy Bisti, if you please, Admiral," Thrawn reminded her.

  "This is not an interspecies conversation circle," Ar'alani countered tartly, ignoring the request. "What exactly have you promised these aliens?"

  "They're merchants and traders," Thrawn reminded her, his own voice going a little stiff. "I've offered them some of the items as compensation for their weeks of service."

  "What service?" Ar'alani demanded, shifting her glare to Car'das and Maris and then to Qennto. "You've provided them with food and living quarters, taught them Cheunh—and for this they deserve compensation?"

  "We're also teaching the commander our language," Maris offered.

  "You will not speak to an admiral of the Chiss unless first spoken to," Ar'alani told her brusquely.

  Maris reddened. "My apologies."

  "There's plenty here for both our visitors and the Ascen­dancy," Thrawn said. "If you'll come this way, there are some de­tails of the engine room I'd like to show you." He took a step toward the door

  "A moment," Ar'alani said, her eves back on Qennto and the shield he was still defiantly gripping. "Who will decide which items your humans will be permitted to take?"

  "My intent was to leave that decision largely to Captain Qennto," Thrawn said. "He's been working on this inventory for some weeks now and has an extensive knowledge of the contents. I can provide you with a copy of the complete listing before you leave."

  "A listing of what's in here now?" Ar'alani asked. "Or a list­ing of what was here before he removed his chosen items?"

  "Both lists will be available," Thrawn assured her, taking an­other step toward the door. "And my spot checks have shown the lists and descriptions are accurate enough. At any rate, you'll have time on the voyage home to examine both the lists and the treasures themselves."

  "Or I could examine them right now," Ar'alani said, gestur­ing to one of her two warriors. "You—get the listing. I think, Commander, that I'd prefer to take my own inventory."

  "As you wish, Admiral," Thrawn said. "Unfortunately, I'll be unable to assist you in that task. There are administrative matters that require my attention."

  "I can make do without your assistance," Ar'alani said. From the tone of her voice, Car'das had the feeling that she would just as soon not have him looking over her shoulder. "Make sure I have a shuttle with which to return to my ship when I'm fin­ished." Her eyes flicked to Thrawn's brother. "And I think it would be wise if Syndic Mitth'ras'safis remained with me. With the syndic's permission, of course."

  "I have no objections," Mitth'ras'safis assured her. To Car'das's eye, his face looked a bit troubled.

  "Then I'll look forward to conversing again with you at your convenience," Thrawn said. Catching Car'das's eye, he nodded toward the door.

  They were twenty meters down the corridor before Car'das dared to speak. "You don't really have any administrative work to deal with, do you?" he asked Thrawn, keeping his voice low. "You just wanted to get away from the admiral for a while."

  "A harsh accusation," Thrawn said mildly. "You'll tarnish Ferasi's high opinion of me."

  Ferasi's—? Car'das looked behind him, to discover that Maris had indeed followed them out of the treasure room. "Oh. Hi," he said lamely.

  "I think you missed the point, Jorj," she said. "Commander Thrawn didn't duck out on the admiral. He maneuvered her into deciding on her own to stay behind."

  "What leads you to that conclusion?" Thrawn asked.

  "The fact that this is the first I've heard about Rak spending weeks taking inventory of the treasure," she said. "He would cer­tainly have mentioned something like that to me."

  "Yet he didn't deny it," Thrawn pointed out.

  "Because that part of the conversation was in Cheunh," Car'das said, finally catching on. "Which he doesn't under­stand."

  "Excellent," Thrawn said, nodding. "Both of you."

  "So what exactly is going on?" Maris asked.

  They rounded a corner, and Thrawn abruptly picked up his pace. "I've had a report of another Vagaari attack, this one still in progress," he said. "I'm going to take a look."

  "How far away is it?" Car'das asked. "I mean, the treasure room's not going to hold their attention that long."

  "It's approximately six standard hours away," Thrawn said. "And I fully expect Admiral Ar'alani to deliver a severe repri­mand when I return, assuming she delays her departure until then. For now, though, all I need is for her to be distracted long enough for us to slip away."

  Car'das's stomach tightened. "You're not just going there to observe, are you?"

  "The purpose of the trip is to evaluate the situation," Thrawn said evenly. "But if I judge there's a reasonable chance of eliminating this threat to the Chiss Ascendancy . . ." He left the sentence unfinished, but there was no doubt as to his intentions. He was going to attack.

  And from the way he'd pulled Car'das out of the treasure room, it was clear he expected his language tutor to come along for the ride.

  Car'das took a deep breath. He'd already been through more space battles than he liked, and going up against a fully armed Vagaari raiding party was not something he really wanted to do. But maybe there was still a chance of gracefully backing out. "I'm sure you'll do whatever is right," he said diplomatically. "Good luck, and—"

  "May I go with you?" Maris interrupted him.

  Car'das threw her a startled look. Her eyes flicked to his, a hard-edged warning in her expression. "It might be good to have a witness along," she continued. "Especially someone who has no connection to any of the Ruling Families."

  "I agree," Thrawn said. "That's why I'm taking Car'das."

  Car'das winced. So much for a graceful exit. "Commander, I appreciate the offer—"

  "Two witnesses would be better," Maris said.

  "Actually, Qennto would be a better choice than either Maris or me," Car'das tried again. "He's the one—"

  "In theory, yes," Thrawn agreed, his eyes on Maris. "But no matter how carefully planned or executed, a battle always entails risks."

  "He's the one who really likes this kind of excitement—"

  "So does flying with Rak," Maris countered. "I'm willing to take my chances."

  "I could go get him out of the treasure room—"

  "I'm not sure I am," Thrawn countered in the same tone. "Should you be injured or killed, I wouldn't want to be the one to bring that news to your captain."

  "If we're on the bridge together, you won't have to," Maris pointed out. "If I die, you probably will, too, and someone else would get stuck with that job." She jerked a thumb at Car'das. "It sounds like Jorj would rather stay behind anyway. He can do it."

  "Forget it," Car'das said firmly, his mind suddenly made up for him. He'd seen Thrawn's combat abilities, and he'd seen Qennto's temper, and he knew which one sounded safer. "If Maris goes, we both go."

  "I'm honored by your trust," Thrawn said as they reached the shuttle bay "Come then. May warriors' fortune smile on our efforts."

  11

  One minute to breakout," the helmsman called.

  "Acknowledged," Thrawn replied. "Warriors, stand ready."

  Standing behind the commander's chair, Car'das stole a look at Maris. Her face looked a little pale above the wide collar of her vac suit, but her eyes were clear and her jaw firmly set. Probably looking forward to Thrawn being all noble and honorable, he thought sourly. Waiting for him to bolster her already stratospheric opinion of him. Women.

  So what in blazes was he doing here?

  "If the reports are accurate, we'll arrive in a safe area a short way beyond the outer edge of the battle zone," Thrawn said, his eyes dropping to the helmets gripped in their hands. "Still, it would be wise for you to have your helmets already in place."

  "We can get them on fast enough if we need to," Maris as­sured him.

  Thrawn hesitated, then nodded. "Very well. Then stand ready."

  He swiveled back to face forward. Car'das watched the countdown timer, his mouth fee
ling uncomfortably dry; and as it hit zero the starlines appeared out of the hyperspace sky and col­lapsed into stars.

  And through the canopy he found himself staring at the most horrific sight he'd ever witnessed.

  It wasn't the simple pirate attack he'd expected, with three or four Vagaari marauders preying on a freighter or starliner. Stretched out before them, writhing against the backdrop of a cloud-flecked blue-green world, were at least two hundred ships of various sizes locked in battle, linked together in twos or threes or groups by savage exchanges of laser- and missile fire. In the distance, on the far side of the planet, he could see the glittering points of a hundred more ships, silently waiting their turn.

  And through the swirling combat drifted the debris and bod­ies and dead hulks of perhaps twenty more ships.

  This wasn't a pirate attack. This was a war.

  "Interesting," Thrawn murmured. "I seem to have miscalcu­lated."

  "No kidding," Car'das said, the words coming out like an amphibian's croak. He wanted to tear his eyes away from the car­nage but found himself unable to do so. "Let's get out of here before someone sees us."

  "No, you misunderstand," Thrawn said. "I knew the battle would be of this scale. What I hadn't realized was the Vagaari's true nature." He pointed through the canopy at the distant clus­ter of ships. "You see those other vessels?"

  "The ones waiting their turn to fight?"

  "They're not here to fight," Thrawn corrected him. "Those are the civilians."

  "Civilians?" Car'das peered out at the distant points of light. "How can you tell?"

  "By the way they're grouped in defensive posture, with true war vessels set in screening positions around them," Thrawn said. "The error I spoke of was that the Vagaari aren't simply a strong, well-organized pirate force. They're a completely no­madic species."

  "Is that a problem?" Maris asked. She was gazing calmly at the panorama, Car'das noted with a touch of resentment, almost as calmly as she'd faced the piles of bodies aboard the Vagaari treasure ship.

  "Very much so," Thrawn told her, his voice grim. "Because it implies in turn that all their construction, support, and main­tenance facilities are completely mobile."

  "So?" Car'das asked.

  "So it will do us no good to capture one of the attackers and use its navigational system to locate their homeworld," Thrawn said patiently. "There is no homeworld." He gestured out at the battle. "Unless we can destroy all of their war vessels at once, they will simply melt away into the vastness of interstellar space and regroup."

  Car'das looked at Maris, feeling a fresh wave of tension rip­ple through him. A bare handful of ships at his disposal, and he was talking about destroying an entire alien war machine? "Uh, Commander . . ."

  "Calm yourself, Car'das," Thrawn said soothingly. "I don't propose to destroy them here and now. Interesting." He pointed out into the melee. "Those two damaged defenders, the ones trying to escape. You see them?"

  "No," Car'das said, looking around. As far as he could tell, no part of the battle area looked any different from any other part.

  "Over there," Maris said. Pulling him close to her, she stretched out her arm for him to sight along. "Those two ships heading to starboard with a triangle of fighters behind them."

  "Okay, right," Car'das said as he finally spotted them. "What about them?"

  "Why haven't they jumped to hyperspace?" Thrawn asked. "Their engines and hyperdrives appear intact."

  "Maybe they feel it would be dishonorable to abandon their world," Maris suggested.

  "Then why run at all?" Car'das said, frowning at the sce­nario. The fighters were rapidly closing, and the escapers were al­ready far enough outside the planet's gravitational field to make the jump to lightspeed. There was no reason he could see how further delay would gain them anything.

  "Car'das is correct," Thrawn said. "I wonder . . . there!"

  Abruptly, with a flicker of pseudomotion, the lead ship had made the jump to safety. A moment later, the second also flick­ered and vanished.

  "I don't get it," Car'das said, frowning as the pursuing fight­ers broke off and curved back toward the main part of the battle. "What were they waiting for? Clearance?"

  "In a sense, yes," Thrawn said. "Clearance from the laws of physics."

  "But they were already clear of the planet's gravity field."

  "From the planet's field, yes," Thrawn said. "But not from the Vagaari's."

  He looked up at them again, a glitter in his glowing eyes. "It appears the Vagaari have learned how to create a pseudogravfield."

  Car'das felt his jaw drop. "I didn't even know that was pos­sible."

  "The theory's been around for years," Maris said, her voice suddenly thoughtful. "We used to talk about it at school. But it's always required too much energy and too big a generator con­figuration to be practical."

  "It would seem the Vagaari have solved both problems," Thrawn said.

  Car'das gave him a sideways look. There was something in the commander's voice and expression that he didn't care for at all. "And this means what to us?" he asked cautiously.

  Thrawn gestured at the canopy. "The Vagaari are obviously using it to keep their prey from escaping until they can be oblit­erated. I think perhaps I could find more interesting uses for such a device."

  Car'das felt his stomach tighten. "No. Oh, no. You wouldn't."

  "Why not?" Thrawn countered, his eves sweeping methodi­cally across the battle scene. "Their main attention is clearly elsewhere, and whatever defenses they have around their gravity projectors will be arrayed against a possible sortie from their vic­tims."

  "You assume."

  "I saw how they defended their treasure ship," Thrawn re­minded him. "I believe I have a good sense for their tactics."

  Which, translated, meant that Car'das had zero chance of talking him out of this lunatic scheme. "Maris?"

  "Don't look at me," she said. "Besides, he's right. If we want to grab a projector, this is the time to do it."

  Something cold settled into the pit of Car'das's stomach. We? Was Maris starting to actually identify herself with these aliens?

  "There," Thrawn said abruptly, pointing. "That large spheri­cal gridwork."

  "I see it," Car'das said with a sigh of resignation. The sphere was near the Chiss edge of the battle, where they could get to it without haying to charge halfway through the fighting. There were three large warships hovering protectively between it and the main combat area, but only a handful of Vagaari fighters ac­tually within combat range of it.

  A tempting, practically undefended target. Of course Thrawn was going to go for it. "I'd just like to remind everyone that all we have is the Springhawk and six heavy fighters," he pointed out.

  "And Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo," Maris murmured.

  Thrawn inclined his head to her, then swiveled around toward the port side of the bridge. "Tactical analysis?"

  "We've located five more of the projectors, Commander," the Chiss at the sensor station reported. "All are at the edges of the battle area, all more or less equally well defended."

  "Analysis of the projector layout and the jump pattern of the escaped vessels indicates the gravity shadow is roughly cone-shaped," another added.

  "Are the three defending war vessels within the cone?" Thrawn asked.

  "Yes, sir." The Chiss touched a key and an overlay appeared on the canopy, showing a wide, pale blue cone stretching out­ward from the gridwork sphere into the battle zone.

  "As you see, the three main defenders are inside the cone, which limits their options," Thrawn pointed out to Car'das and Maris. "And all three vessels are positioned with their main drives pointing toward the projector. Years of success with this tech­nique has apparently made them overconfident."

  "Though those close-in fighters are dipping in and out of the cone," Car'das pointed out.

  "They won't be a problem," Thrawn said. "Does the projec­tor itself appear collapsible?"

  "U
nable to obtain design details at this distance without using active sensors," the Chiss at the sensor station reported.

  "Then we'll need a closer look," Thrawn concluded. "Signal the fighters to prepare for combat; hyperspace course setting of zero-zero-four by zero-five-seven."

  "Hyperspace setting?" Car'das echoed, frowning. Back at their first tangle with the Vagaari, Thrawn had successfully pulled off a fractional-minute microjump. But their target sphere was way too close for that trick to work now.

  And then, beside him, he heard Maris's sudden chuckle. "Brilliant," she murmured.

  "What's brilliant?" Car'das demanded.

  "The course setting," she said, pointing. "He's sending them to the edge of the gravity cone, the edge right by the pro­jector."

  "Ah," Car'das said, grimacing. Of course there was no need for an impossibly short microjump here. The fighters could head into hyperspace as if they intended to make it their permanent home, relying on the field itself to snap them out again at pre­cisely the spot where Thrawn wanted them.

  "Once in place, they're to clear out the enemy fighters and create a defensive perimeter between the projector and the war vessels," Thrawn continued. "The Springhawk will follow and at­tempt to retrieve the sphere."

  Car'das squeezed his hands into fists. Very straightforward ... unless they missed the edge of the cone they were aiming for and got pulled out somewhere in the middle of the battle instead. Or unless such a short jump fried all their hyperdrives, which would lead to the same result.

  "Assault Teams One and Two are to prepare for out-hull op­eration," Thrawn said. "There will most likely be an operational crew aboard the projector; they're to locate and neutralize with minimal damage to the projector itself. They'll be joined by Chief Engineer Yal'avi'kema and three of his crew, who will ei­ther find a way to collapse the projector to a size we can take aboard or else attach it as is to our hull for transport. All groups are to signal when ready."

  The minutes crept by. Car'das watched the battle, wincing at each defender that flared and died under the merciless assault and wondering how long Thrawn's own luck would hold out. Certainly the Chiss ships had proved their exceptional stealth ca­pabilities back when they'd sneaked up on both the Bargain Hunter and Progga's ship. But even so, sooner or later someone on the Vagaari side was bound to notice them sitting quietly out here.