by Timothy Zahn
Yiv’s mouth opened in a smile that was just as bitterly angry as his glare had been. “Then you’ll forever wonder as I send you to your grave.” Deliberately, he looked down at the two females kneeling in front of him. “But before you leave this life, I’ll show you exactly what I have planned for your entire species.”
* * *
—
The Springhawk had just sent its third Nikardun patrol boat into shredded oblivion when the three Battle Dreadnoughts suddenly flashed into view.
“And the bruisers have arrived,” Kharill announced calmly. “Nice microjump, or whatever they did.”
“Looked like an in-system jump,” Azmordi said from the helm. “Shorter and easier than even a micro.”
“Also doesn’t leave enough backtrail to show where it came from,” Dalvu added grimly. “If they came from Yiv, we still don’t know where he is.”
Which meant they couldn’t go to Thrawn’s aid if he needed them, Samakro knew. Thrawn’s life was in his own hands now. If he’d miscalculated any aspect of the plan—if he stumbled on any of the steps—he would likely die out there. So would a lot of Chiss.
And the Springhawk would be in need of a new captain.
Stop it! Samakro ordered himself. Thrawn was his commander, the rightful master of this ship, and Samakro’s job was to do his duty to Ar’alani and the Ascendancy and to return the Springhawk to its master in the best shape he could.
Which was suddenly a more challenging proposition than it had been thirty seconds ago. “Orders, Admiral?” he called.
“We split them up,” Ar’alani said. “Grayshrike, Whisperbird, Stingfly: Take the one to starboard. I’ll take the one to portside. Springhawk, you move on the middle one. Don’t fully engage, just keep it occupied. Everyone else, watch your backs and continue your attrition of the patrol craft.”
“Acknowledged,” Samakro said. So the Springhawk, all alone against a Battle Dreadnought? Terrific.
“At least she’s not expecting us to destroy it outright,” Kharill said drily. “I don’t suppose you have any idea how we keep something that size occupied?”
Samakro smiled. “As a matter of fact,” he said. “I do.”
But before you leave this life, Yiv had said in a voice that had sent a fresh shiver through Che’ri’s skin, I’ll show you exactly what I have planned for your entire species.
He was taking about her, she knew. Her and Thalias. Thrawn had promised that no harm would come to either of them, and Che’ri had held on to that hope through this whole thing.
But now doubt was beginning to chew away at the edges of that hope. Thrawn still sounded confident…but he was out there, all alone, and Che’ri and Thalias were in here, surrounded by Nikardun.
And yet, somehow, it felt like Thrawn was still in control. Admiral Ar’alani and a fleet of Chiss warships were at the planet, and they’d done something that had made Yiv so angry or frightened that he’d sent his other three big ships over there to stop them. That had to be part of the plan, didn’t it?
She stole a sideways look up at Yiv, wincing. She’d been wrong. He wasn’t frightened, not at all. He was just angry. Angry, hate-filled, and confident.
The other Nikardun on the bridge were talking together in a language Che’ri didn’t understand. Carefully, trying not to attract Yiv’s attention, she leaned a little closer to Thalias. “Do you know what they’re saying?” she whispered.
Thalias shook her head. “It’s their own language,” she whispered back. “It’s only when they talk to us or Thrawn that they use Minnisiat or—”
Abruptly, someone gave a wordless scream.
Che’ri flinched back, her heart seizing up. The scream had come from behind her, from Yiv himself. He’d heard her talking to Thalias, and now he was going to hurt her. Another wordless scream, and out of the corner of her eye she saw his hand jab out over her head at one of the other Nikardun. The other gave a nervous-sounding answer and touched a switch on his control board—
“Nikardun Battle Dreadnought, this is the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet warship Springhawk,” a calm Chiss voice came over the speaker in Minnisiat.
Che’ri frowned. Was that Mid Captain Samakro? Why was he talking to one of the Nikardun ships?
“I feel you should know that we’re Senior Captain Thrawn’s personal ship,” Samakro continued. “As such, it’s only sporting for me to offer you the chance to surrender before we destroy you.”
Yiv gave out another scream and again jabbed a finger. The same Nikardun gave a jerky nod and hastily shut off the transmission.
Jerky. Hasty. Like he was scared?
Carefully, she looked back at Thalias. The older woman was keeping perfectly still, but there was a tiny smile playing at the corner of her mouth. Che’ri frowned.
And then, she got it. The Nikardun on the Deathless’s bridge were scared, all right. But they weren’t scared of Thrawn. They were scared of their own leader. Whatever Samakro had been trying to do with that transmission, he’d made Yiv even more furious than he’d been before.
Which might not be a good thing, Che’ri realized with a fresh shiver. The stories about Thrawn talked about times when he’d deliberately made an enemy angry in order to keep him from thinking straight. But in this case, Yiv had her and Thalias as hostages, and he’d already threatened to hurt them. Making him angry might just make him hurt them sooner.
“That’s good advice, General,” Thrawn’s voice said over the speaker. “Be advised that if you continue along your current path I’m fully prepared to destroy you.”
“Your freighter against a Battle Dreadnought?” Yiv said contemptuously. “Your foolishness is matched only by your arrogance. Both will light your way to destruction. Whatever you do now, you die. You and all the Chiss will die.”
“Then make an end of it,” Thrawn invited. “Come and take me.”
Che’ri could feel her breath coming in quick, shallow gulps. Again, she could sense that this was all part of Thrawn’s plan. Again, she had no idea what it might be.
But again, Thalias was smiling.
* * *
—
Again, Qilori hadn’t the slightest idea what Thrawn was doing. But the small smile on the Chiss’s face chilled him straight to the bone.
He was up to something. Sitting out here, making no move to either advance or retreat, inviting Yiv to come and get him…but there wasn’t any possible end to this gambit except Thrawn’s utter destruction.
And then, suddenly, he got it.
Yiv was focused on Thrawn. Completely and obsessively on Thrawn. Nothing would distract him from that focus.
Which left the Deathless completely open to an attack from the rear.
Qilori felt his winglets quivering. He’d never anticipated he might need to communicate surreptitiously with the Benevolent on this trip, and so had never set up a tap into the freighter’s comm system. How could he warn him that Thrawn was goading him from here to keep him from anticipating the attack that would come from a completely unexpected direction?
“Pathfinder Qilori.”
Qilori jerked. “Yes?”
“You seem upset,” Thrawn said. “You’re possibly thinking I have another force prepared, waiting for the proper time to launch its attack?”
Qilori’s winglets flattened. How in the Depths did he do that? “I have no idea one way or the other,” he said diplomatically.
“But you know how it could be done, don’t you?” Thrawn persisted. “Even given the altered coordinates that you substituted for the ones in Yiv’s original message.”
“I don’t—” He broke off as Thrawn turned those glowing red eyes on him. “It’s not my concern.”
“Come now, Pathfinder, don’t be so modest,” Thrawn said. “You and I understand, even if many of Yiv’s victims don’t. For a long ti
me he’s been using the Pathfinders’ ability to locate each other through hyperspace to coordinate his attacks.”
“No, of course not,” Qilori protested reflexively. “Direct cooperation with a military force would be a blatant violation of Navigators’ Guild rules.”
“And would likely lead the guild to eject the Pathfinders from its organization?”
Qilori swallowed hard. “It could happen,” he admitted.
“Not just could,” Thrawn said. “You’d prefer, then, that I keep that knowledge to myself?”
Qilori glared at him. “Of course,” he ground out. “What’s your price?”
Thrawn turned back to the viewport. “The price,” he said, “is for you to forget everything you see from this point on.”
“Fine,” Qilori said.
It was a simple enough promise, he told himself. Yiv would probably also want him to forget today’s events, and he had a long history of obeying the Benevolent’s orders.
“And as to your earlier fear,” Thrawn continued, “there’s no need for me to launch any attack. The battle for the Vak Combine is taking place over Primea, and has left Yiv with only two options. One: He can stay here and attempt to destroy me, thus giving the impression that he’s hiding from the battle. Two: He can leave to bolster his forces, and thus appear that he’s running from me.” He gestured toward the Deathless. “Even now he attempts to decide which of those scenarios will damage his reputation less.”
“It will be interesting to see which way he goes,” Qilori muttered.
And really, there would be no question of Thrawn keeping that potentially devastating knowledge about the Pathfinders to himself. Not once he was dead.
* * *
—
Another barrage of spectrum laser fire blasted across the Springhawk’s hull, knocking out three more sections of the electrostatic barrier and gouging a couple of fresh grooves in the metal. At least, Samakro thought distantly as he shouted orders, Ar’alani couldn’t claim he hadn’t obeyed his orders.
The Springhawk was keeping the Battle Dreadnought busy, all right.
“Watch it, Springhawk, you’ve got two gunboats angling in from ventral portside,” one of the other Chiss ships snapped in warning.
“On it,” Kharill said, and there was a double-thud as a pair of plasma spheres blasted off toward the attacking gunboats.
“Keep us rolling,” Samakro said, looking at the tactical. The two Nikardun were trying to veer out of the paths of the plasma spheres.
But it was too late. Both gunboats flared as the spheres hit them, spraying hot, ionized gas across their sensors and external control lines and sending high-voltage spikes into the deeper parts beneath the hull metal. There were multiple flickers as power systems overloaded or got shunted, and a second later both Nikardun were coasting along, temporarily dead.
“Azmordi, swing us around,” he ordered the helm. “Get us behind them. Use them as shields.”
“For whatever that’ll buy us,” Kharill warned quietly.
Samakro grimaced. It wouldn’t buy them much, unfortunately. He’d tried dodging, running, feinting, and straight-up toe-to-toe slugging, and while he was wearing down the Nikardun Dreadnought the Springhawk was wearing down even faster. Even frequent sniping sorties by some of the other Chiss hadn’t been enough to deflect the Nikardun captain from his single-minded pursuit.
Yiv didn’t just want Thrawn dead. He apparently wanted everything even associated with him to also be destroyed.
Two more salvos skated across the Springhawk’s hull before Azmordi got them into the protected zone behind the two disabled gunboats. “Okay, we’ve got a little breathing space,” Kharill said. “Any thoughts as to what to do with it?”
Samakro considered. They were still a good distance from the Battle Dreadnought, which was why they hadn’t been completely destroyed yet. But the vector they were currently on was taking them closer to their attacker than they’d been so far.
That wouldn’t be a particularly good thing once their Nikardun traveling companions got their systems back online. But for the moment…
He glanced at the tactical, did a quick distance calculation. Marginal, but it might just work. “How many breachers do we have left?” he asked, looking past the edge of the disabled ships at the Dreadnought and its mockingly big bridge viewport.
“Three,” Kharill said.
“Prep them,” Samakro ordered. “We’ll give it a few more seconds, get as close as we dare, then blast all three straight at the Dreadnought’s viewport.”
“Yes, sir,” Kharill said, a little uncertainly. “You do realize we’ve already tried that, right?”
“From considerably farther away,” Samakro reminded him. “If we get close enough, the Dreadnought can blast them whenever it wants to and the acid still won’t have time to dissipate before it reaches the viewport.”
“Worth a try,” Kharill agreed. “Okay; breachers prepped. Call it.”
Samakro counted out the seconds to himself, trying to gauge the right time to fire. Too soon and they’d be wasting their last breachers in a useless attempt; too late, and they would risk the two gunboats beside them waking up and adding their own bit of catastrophe into the Springhawk’s current mix. “Stand by to fire: Three, two, one.”
With a soft triple-jolt, the three breacher missiles blasted away, skimming past the gunboats on their way to the Battle Dreadnought.
They’d barely cleared the gunboats’ hulls when six spectrum lasers lashed out from the Dreadnought, catching the breachers and blowing them to shreds.
Sooner than Samakro had hoped. But with breachers, destruction of the missiles themselves wasn’t the last word. The released masses of acid were still in motion, the tendrils still twisting and spinning as their initial momentum continued to carry them toward their target. Unless the Dreadnought could get out of the way—and the acid was already too close for that—it was going to get hit. Samakro held his breath…
And then, almost at the last moment, one of the Nikardun patrol craft shot in from the side, braking hard to put itself directly in the path of the three incoming acid globs.
“It’s not big enough,” Kharill muttered hopefully. “It can’t block all three of them.” The words were barely out of his mouth when the Dreadnought again opened fire.
Only this time, the target was the Nikardun patrol craft in front of it. Even as Samakro felt his mouth drop open in disbelief the ship exploded, scattering debris in all directions.
And the debris cloud, unfortunately, was big enough to block all three acid globs.
“Curse it,” Kharill bit out. “These guys are crazy.”
“Springhawk, what’s your status?” Ar’alani’s voice came over the speaker.
“We’re still here, Admiral,” Samakro said. “But we wouldn’t turn down any timely aid you wanted to offer.”
“Timely aid it is,” Ar’alani said grimly. “I was hoping we wouldn’t have to go with this, but so be it. Do you remember the maneuver Thrawn used against the Paataatus when he first took command of the Springhawk?”
Samakro looked up at Kharill, found the other staring back with a sour expression. They both remembered, all right. “Yes, ma’am,” Samakro said. “When?”
“Hold behind the gunboats you flickered another few seconds, then come out and angle toward low orbit. I’ll tell you when to go dark.”
“Acknowledged,” Samakro said, wondering what this was supposed to accomplish. The Battle Dreadnought had already shown it was willing to go anywhere and through anyone—including its own people—in order to keep pressure on the Springhawk. “Azmordi, get ready…go.” With a wrenching twist, the Springhawk pitched away from the gunboats and blasted across the battlefield toward the planet below. “Stand by to go dark.” He counted out three seconds—
“Go,” Ar�
�alani ordered.
“Acknowledged,” Samakro said. Across the bridge, his officers shut off their systems, their boards going dark, dim emergency lighting coming on.
And with that, the Springhawk had become nearly as helpless as it was possible for a warship to be.
Though for the moment, at least, their imminent destruction would be postponed a bit. The firing lines from the Battle Dreadnought were currently blocked by a running battle between two of the Chiss missile boats and a Nikardun destroyer. Another few seconds, though, and the Springhawk’s vector would take it into the clear. “Captain?” Kharill prompted.
“I don’t know,” Samakro said. “Let’s see what the admiral has in mind.”
They didn’t have long to wait. “Vak patrol boat, we have a ship with critical life-support failure,” Ar’alani called. “None of our ships are close enough to offer assistance. Can any of your ships render aid?”
“Chiss warship, we are not combatants,” a Vak voice came back. “We cannot interfere in your war.”
Samakro felt his lip twist. Your war? The Chiss were trying to defend the Vak homeworld, for hell’s sake. How was that your war?
“I know, and I accept that,” Ar’alani said, apparently not wanting to get into the politics of the situation. “But under the circumstances surely you can offer humanitarian aid?”
“We will,” the Vak said reluctantly. “Nikardun warships, two patrol ships are moving to render humanitarian aid. Do not fire upon them. Repeat, do not fire upon them.”
“I confirm that, Nikardun commander,” Ar’alani added. “The Vak ships are not entering combat, but only rendering humanitarian aid. Do not, repeat, do not fire on them.”
Ahead, just off the Springhawk’s starboard bow, two Vak patrol ships were on the move, heading toward the supposedly crippled ship. “So do we continue to play dead?” Kharill asked. “Somehow, I can’t see the Nikardun standing off and courteously letting us recover before trying to stomp us again.”