Star Wars - Hand of Thrawn 2 - Vision of the Future

by Timothy Zahn

  "I see," the Bothan said, peering at them. "When will this need to be done?"

  "This morning, actually," Klif said. "Sorry, but you'll have to look around on your own for a while, Investigator Proy'skyn, if you don't mind."

  "Of course, of course," Proy'skyn said. "Please, carry on."

  Navett stepped over to one of the overturned tables, hiding a grimly satisfied smile as he set it upright again. So much for the old woman's attempt at subtletyclearly, he and Klif could out-subtle her any day of the week. Not only did they now have reason to postpone long official questions, not only had they soothed any possible suspicion by offering the investigators the run of the place, but they would even be setting up the final phase of their plan right under the collective nose-fur of Bothan officialdom.

  Of course, they hadn't planned to institute that particular phase for a couple of days yet. But you couldn't have everything.

  Setting up the restraint grid, ignoring the quietly bustling Bothans wandering around looking for clues, they set to work.

  * * * They had finished fitting ninety-seven of the mawkrens with harnesses and cylinders, with about twenty more to go, when Navett first became aware of the new odor wafting through the shop.

  He looked up at Klif, engrossed in attaching one of the cylinders onto the back of the tiny lizard standing in rigid immobility on the restraint grid, then let his gaze shift around the shop. The four original Bothan investigators had long since left, replaced by a group of three techs busily pulling handprints and chemical samples from the various counters and cages. None of them seemed to have noticed the smell.

  Klif looked up, caught the expression on Navett's face. "Trouble?" he murmured.

  Navett wrinkled his nose. Klif frowned, sniffing the air...

  And suddenly his eyes widened. "Smoke."

  Navett nodded fractionally, his eyes darting again around the shop. Nothing was visible, no flames and no smoke, but the smell was definitely getting stronger. "She wouldn't," Klif hissed. "Would she?"

  "We'd better assume she would," Navett said. "Take the mawkrens we've finished and get them over to the tapcafe."

  "Now?" Klif glanced at the bright sunshine outside the window. "Navett, there's a full staff at work there right now."

  "Then you'd better come up with a really dandy diversion to get them out of the way," Navett shot back. If they lost the mawkrens, this whole thing would have been for nothing. "Wake up Pensin and Horvic; we're in full emergency mode here."

  Klif nodded grimly. "Got it," he said. Setting his tools aside, he started putting the last few mawkrens back into the cage

  And suddenly one of the Bothans let out a squawk. "Fire!" he bleated. "The building is on fire! Morv'vyalcall the Extinguishers. Hurry!"

  "Fire?" Navett asked, looking around in feigned bewilderment. "Where? I don't see any fire."

  "Foolish human," the Bothan snapped. "Can't you smell the smoke? Hurryleave everything and go."

  Navett shot a glare at Klif. So that was the old woman's plan. She couldn't figure out what in the shop their scheme needed, so she was going to force them to leave without any of it. "But my stock is very valuable," he protested.

  "As valuable as your life?" The Bothan, ignoring his own advice, was moving rapidly around the outer edge of the shop, hands brushing along the walls. "Goget out."

  "What are you doing?" Klif asked.

  "You are right, there is no flame yet," the Bothan explained. "The fire must therefore be inside the walls."

  "The Extinguishers are coming," one of the other Bothans reported anxiously, waving his comlink. "But they will not be here for a few more minutes."

  "Understood," the first said, pausing at the power coupling box. Abruptly, his fur flattened, and he pulled a knife from his belt. "Perhaps we can help prepare their way."

  "Wait a minute," Navett barked, jumping forward. The Bothan had dug the knife between wall panels directly over their hidden compartment. "What the fracas are you doing?"

  "The fire smells of wiring," the Bothan explained breathlessly. "Here at the power coupling is the likely place for it to be. If we can expose it and bring fire preventers to bear"

  He broke off, staggering as the prying knife unexpectedly shattered through the relatively thin false front of the storage compartment. He caught his balance, gaping at the Nightstinger sniper blaster now visible inside. "Proprietor Navett!" he exclaimed. "What is this weapon?"

  He fell to the floor, question unfinished, as Navett shot him in the back.

  The second Bothan got out just a squeak before Navett's second shot dropped him. The third was fumbling frantically for both comlink and blaster when Klif's shot took him out. "Well, that's torn it," Klif snarled, glaring at Navett. "What in the Empire?"

  "She's expecting us to be properly professional about this," Navett ground out. "And professionals never start shooting unless they have to. So fine we've just gone unprofessional. That ought to take her by surprise."

  "Oh, terrific," Klif said. "A brilliantly unorthodox strategy. Now what do we do?"

  "We take it down, that's what," Navett snarled back, thrusting his blaster back into his tunic and stepping over the body to pull the Nightstinger from its hiding place. "Rouse Pensin and Horvic and get your tails out to the ship and into space. You've got two hours, maybe less, to get aboard the Predominance and into position."

  Nightstinger in hand, he turned back to find a stunned look on Klif's face. "Navett, we can't do it now," he protested. "The attack force won't be ready for another three days."

  "You want to try to dodge our lady friend that long?" Navett snapped, dropping the Nightstinger onto the table and starting to scoop the rest of the mawkrens into their cage. "You can see her planshe's trying to maneuver the police or Extinguishers or Vader knows who else in a uniform into running interference against us for her. We have to move now, when she's not expecting it."

  "But the attack force"

  "Stop worrying about the attack force," Navett cut him off. "They'll be ready, all right. Or will get that way blasted quick. You have your orders."

  "All right," Klif said, sliding his own weapon away. "I'll leave you the landspeederI can lift another one for the three of us. Anything else you need?"

  "Nothing I can't get myself," Navett told him shortly. "Go onthe chrono's counting."

  "Right. Good luck."

  He left. Navett finished getting the mawkrens into their cage, then gathered up the rest of the cylinders and slid them back into the cage's false bottom. Yes, the old woman had forced his hand, and that sudden drastic change in plans was going to cost them dearly.

  But if she thought she'd won, she was mistaken. He only wished he could be around to see her when she realized that.

  * * * "I'm sure you understand, Admiral," Paloma D'asima said, obviously picking her words very carefully, "how unprecedented this step would be for our people. We have never before had what might be considered close relations with the Empire."

  Seated a quarter of the way around the table, Disra suppressed a cynical smile. Paloma D'asima, one of the proud and exalted Eleven of the Mistryl, might well think herself subtle, even clever, in the ways of politics and political sparring. But to him, she was as patently transparent as only a rank amateur could be. If this was the best the Mistryl could do, he would have them eating out of his hand before the day was over.

  Or rather, eating out of Grand Admiral Thrawn's hand. "I understand the conflicts we've had in the past," Thrawn said gravely. "However, as I've pointed out to youand to Karoly D'ulin before you," he added, nodding politely to the younger woman at D'asima's side, "the Empire under my leadership will bear little resemblance to that of the late Emperor Palpatine."

  "I understand that," the older woman said. Her face wasn't giving anything away; her hands, though, more than made up for it. "I only bring it up to remind you that we would need more than just your word as guarantee."

  "Are you questioning the word of Grand Admiral Thrawn?"
Disra asked, letting just a hint of an edge into his voice.

  The gambit worked; D'asima was instantly on the defensive. "Not at all," she assured him, too quickly. "It's merely that"

  She was saved by a signal from the conference room intercom. "Admiral Thrawn, this is Captain Dorja," the familiar voice said.

  Seated at Thrawn's side, Tierce touched the switch. "This is Major Tierce, Captain," he said. "The Admiral is listening."

  "Forgive the interruption, sir," Dorja said. "But you asked to be informed immediately if any unscheduled ships approached the base. They've just received a transmission from the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrannic, requesting emergency assistance."

  Disra threw a startled look at Tierce. The Tyrannic was one of the three ships lurking behind their cloaking shields off Bothawui. Or at least it was supposed to be there. "Did they specify the nature of their emergency?" Thrawn asked.

  "Coming through now, sir... they say they've come under attack by a sizable New Republic assault force and have been severely damaged. They say the force is right behind them and that they need shelter. General Hestiv is requesting instructions."

  Disra felt a tight smile crease his lips. Noof course it wasn't the real Tyrannic out there. Tierce's hunch had been right Coruscant had indeed launched a mad attempt to steal a copy of the Caamas Document.

  And not only was the trap ready and waiting, they even had one of the Mistryl's Eleven here to watch that pitiful attempt turned into a humiliating defeat. The real Thrawn couldn't have arranged things better.

  "Instruct General Hestiv to let the incoming Star Destroyer pass the outer perimeter," Thrawn told Dorja. "He's then to put all defenses on full battle readiness and prepare for enemy attack."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And then, Captain," Thrawn added, "you will similarly prepare the Relentless for combat. Track the incoming Star Destroyer as it approaches and plot its course, then bring us to stand directly between it and the base. At that point, you will order General Hestiv to bring full inner defenses to bear on it."

  "Yes, sir," Dorja said, sounding slightly puzzled but nevertheless unquestioning. "Will you be coming to the bridge?"

  "Of course, Captain." Thrawn stood up, favoring D'asima with a slight smile as he gestured her toward the conference room door. "In fact, I believe we all will."

  * * * The sudden noise snapped Ghent out of his doze and sent him jerking upright in his chair. He looked around the work area wildly, saw he was still alone. Only then did his sleep-fogged mind realize the sound was some kind of alarm.

  He looked around the room again, searching for the source of the trouble. There was nothing he could see. Obviously, it must be elsewhere in the station. A moment's search in the climate-control section of the board, and he found the cutoff switch.

  The sound faded away into an unpleasant ringing in his ears. For another moment he looked at the board, wondering if it would be worth trying to tap into the main comm system and find out what was going on. Probably not; whatever it was, it probably didn't have anything to do with him.

  He frowned suddenly. The board in front of him seemed to be flickering. Flickering?

  The frown vanished into relieved understanding. Of coursehe was getting reflections of light coming in through the viewport in the living area behind him. Getting to his feet, wincing as his knees informed him he'd been sitting in one place too long again, he hobbled in through the open door and peered out the viewport.

  The source of the flickering light was instantly apparent an awesome display of multiple turbolaser and proton torpedo blasts coming from the distance near the base's outer defense perimeter.

  And framed in the center of all that flashing firepower, bearing inexorably straight down on him, was the huge bulk of an Imperial Star Destroyer.

  Ghent caught his breath, staring at the incoming ship. Suddenly all of Pellaeon's and Hestiv's talk about danger and threats, tucked snugly away in the back of his mind for the past few days, came rushing to the forefront again. That Star Destroyer was coming for himhe was sure of it.

  Run! the thought flashed into his mind. Run out of here, down the long tunnel into the main base. Find General Hestiv, or that TIE pilot who'd brought him here from the Chimaera, or just find somewhere to hide.

  But no. Hestiv had warned him about spies inside the main base. If he went there, one of them would surely get him.

  And besides, he remembered suddenly, he couldn't go anywhere. He'd triple-sealed the single access door, passwording it with a layer of computer locks that would take any enemy hours to slice through. Even he, who'd set the blocks up in the first place, would probably need half an hour to undo them.

  And half an hour would be too late. Far too late.

  For another minute he watched the incoming ship, wondering distantly what they would do to him. Then, with a sigh, he turned away. He was trapped here, they were coming for him, and there was nothing he could do.

  Returning to the work area, this time closing the door behind him, he went back to his seat. The Wickstrom K220s had finally finished the complex analysis he'd set for them to do before all this happened. Keying the results over to the Masterline-70, pushing the events outside once again into the back of his mind, he got back to work.

  * * * It took Navett half an hour to locate and purchase the pressurized tank of flammable fluid he needed and another fifteen minutes to fit it with a sprayer hose. Forty-five minutes gone, during which time the alarm over the dead Bothans in the pet shop had probably spread to every corner of the city.

  But that was all right. The ugly furry aliens couldn't stop him now; and the more time it took him to get ready here on the planetary surface, the more time Klif and Pensin and Horvic would have to wheedle their way aboard that Ishori ship overhead.

  They would die there, of course. They knew that. But then, he would soon be dying down here, too. What was important was that, before they died, they would complete their task.

  The streets around the Ho'Din tapcafe, so quiet and deserted in the late night, were buzzing with activity here in the early afternoon. With the fluid tank pressed into the seat beside him, wedged at an awkward angle against the low roof, Navett drove slowly down the deserted alleys along the sides and back of the tapcafe, systematically spraying a thick layer of the liquid along the lower walls and the ground around them. The front wall, facing as it did onto a busy street, was too public for him to do the same there without arousing instant suspicion. But he had other plans for that area anyway. Returning to the back alley, again making sure he was unobserved, he fired a blaster bolt into the fluid as he drove past the tapcafe.

  He took his time circling through the alleyways until he came around again onto the main street, with the result that by the time he let the landspeeder coast to a stop across from the tapcafe the fire he'd started was blazing furiously away along the outer walls. Pedestrians were running frantically to and fro, waving and yelling as they either fled from the flames or formed themselves into ghoulish knots at a safe distance to watch; and as Navett retrieved the Nightstinger from the back seat the tapcafe's front doors swung open and a crowd of equally hysterical customers and waitstaff began streaming out through the smoke. Checking the Nightstinger's indicator, confirming that he still had three shots left, Navett settled down to wait.

  He didn't have to wait very long. The stream of refugees from the tapcafe had barely begun to dwindle when a white Extinguisher speeder truck came roaring around the corner and braked to a hard stop at one corner of the building. Through the side window Navett could see the driver gesticulating as his partner scrambled out and started climbing the outside ladder toward the pressure turret on top.

  He never made it. Resting the muzzle of the Nightstinger on the seat back for stability, Navett shot him down. His second invisible blast took out the driver; his third and last blew off the speeder truck's filler tube cap, sending the fire suppressant gushing onto the street to flow uselessly away from the flames.


  He lowered the now empty blaster onto the floor, giving the crowd around him a quick look. But no one was paying the slightest attention to the human sitting alone in his landspeeder. Every eye was locked solidly on the blazing building, with probably only an occasional brief thought turned to the puzzle of the two Bothan Extinguishers who had suddenly and inexplicably collapsed.

  The flow of customers from the tapcafe had stopped now. Navett gave it thirty more seconds, just to make sure everyone was out. Then, drawing his blaster and laying it ready on the seat beside him, he started the landspeeder and eased his way through the crowd toward the tapcafe's front doors.

  He was through the main part of the crowd before anyone even seemed to notice what he was doing. Someone shouted, and a Bothan wearing the green/yellow police sash jumped out in front of him, waving his arms violently. Snatching up his blaster, Navett shot him, veered around the body, and leaned hard on the accelerator. Someone behind him was screaming now; bracing himself, Navett increased his speed

  He hit the tapcafe doors with bone-jarring force, smashing them into shards as the landspeeder ground to a halt right in the middle of the destruction. He was out before the debris finished bouncing off the vehicle's roof, snatching the cage of mawkrens from the back and sprinting through the smoke and heat toward the door to the basement and the subbasement beyond it.

  He was halfway down the first flight of stairs when, behind him, he heard the explosion as the heat set off the remaining fluid in the pressurized tank he'd left in the landspeeder.

  And with the front of the tapcafe now as engulfed in flames as the rest of the building, he was truly and irrevocably cut off from the outside world.

  No one in the universe could stop him now.

  There was just a hint of smoke in the subbasementnothing serious, just a foreshadowing of what would inevitably come. Their equipment was just where they'd left it, but he took a minute first to run a quick check on the fusion disintegrator.

  It was a good thing he had. The old woman had been here again, gimmicking the device to overload and burn out the main control coil when it was first started. Grinning humorlessly to himself, Navett ungimmicked it, then spent a few more precious minutes reconfiguring the focus to extend the disintegration beam a few centimeters out from the canister mouth.