Heir to the Empire

C H A P T E R 27

The battered A-class bulk freighter drifted off the Chimaera’s¹ starboard side: a giant space-going box with a hyperdrive attached, its faded plating glistening dully in the glare of the Star Destroyer’s floodlights. Sitting at his command station, Thrawn studied the sensor data and nodded. “It looks good, Captain,” he said to Pellaeon. “Exactly the way it should. You may proceed with the test when ready.”

“It’ll be a few more minutes yet, sir,” Pellaeon told him, studying the readouts on his console. “The technicians are still having some problems getting the cloaking shield tuned.”

He held his breath, half afraid of a verbal explosion. The untested cloaking shield and the specially modified freighter it was mounted to had cost hideous amounts of money—money the Empire really didn’t have to spare. For the technology to now suddenly come up finicky, particularly with the whole of the Sluis Van operation hanging squarely in the balance …

But the Grand Admiral merely nodded. “There’s time,” he said calmly. “What word from Myrkr?”

“The last regular report came in two hours ago,” Pellaeon told him. “Still negative.”

Thrawn nodded again. “And the latest count from Sluis Van?”

“Uh …” Pellaeon checked the appropriate file. “A hundred twelve transient warships in all. Sixty-five being used as cargo carriers, the others on escort duty.”

“Sixty-five,” Thrawn repeated with obvious satisfaction. “Excellent. It means we get to pick and choose.”

Pellaeon stirred uncomfortably. “Yes, sir.”

Thrawn turned away from his contemplation of the freighter to look at Pellaeon. “You have a concern, Captain?”

Pellaeon nodded at the ship. “I don’t like sending them into enemy territory without any communications.”

“We don’t have much choice in the matter,” Thrawn reminded him dryly. “That’s how a cloaking shield works—nothing gets out, nothing gets in.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Assuming, of course, that it works at all,”² he added pointedly.

“Yes, sir. But …”

“But what, Captain?”

Pellaeon braced himself and took the plunge. “It seems to me, Admiral, that this is the sort of operation we ought to use C’baoth on.”

Thrawn’s gaze hardened, just a bit. “C’baoth?”

“Yes, sir. He could give us communications with—”

“We don’t need communications, Captain,” Thrawn cut him off. “Careful timing will be adequate for our purposes.”

“I disagree, Admiral. Under normal circumstances, yes, careful timing would get them into position. But there’s no way to anticipate how long it’ll take to get clearance from Sluis Control.”

“On the contrary,” Thrawn countered coolly. “I’ve studied the Sluissi very carefully. I can anticipate exactly how long it will take them to clear the freighter.”

Pellaeon gritted his teeth. “If the controllers were all Sluissi, perhaps. But with the Rebellion funneling so much of their own material through the Sluis Van system, they’re bound to have some of their own people in Control, as well.”

“It’s of no consequence,” Thrawn told him. “The Sluissi will be in charge. Their timing will determine events.”

Pellaeon exhaled and conceded defeat. “Yes, sir,” he muttered.

Thrawn eyed him. “It’s not a question of bravado, Captain. Or of proving that the Imperial Fleet can function without him. The simple fact of the matter is that we can’t afford to use C’baoth too much or too often.”

“Because we’ll start depending on him,” Pellaeon growled. “As if we were all borg-implanted into a combat computer.”

Thrawn smiled. “That still bothers you, doesn’t it? No matter. That’s part of it, but only a very small part. What concerns me more is that we don’t give Master C’baoth too much of a taste for this kind of power.”

Pellaeon frowned at him. “He said he doesn’t want power.”

“Then he lies,” Thrawn returned coldly. “All men want power. And the more they have, the more they want.”

Pellaeon thought about that. “But if he’s a threat to us …” He broke off, suddenly aware of the other officers and men working all around them.

The Grand Admiral had no such reticence. “Why not dispose of him?” he finished the question. “It’s very simple. Because we’ll soon have the ability to fill his taste for power to the fullest … and once we’ve done so, he’ll be no more of a threat than any other tool.”

“Leia Organa Solo and her twins?”

“Exactly.” Thrawn nodded, his eyes glittering. “Once C’baoth has them in his hand, these little excursions with the Fleet will be no more to him than distracting interludes that take him away from his real work.”

Pellaeon found himself looking away from the intensity of that gaze. The theory seemed good enough; but in actual practice … “That assumes, of course, that the Noghri are ever able to connect with her.”

“They will.” Thrawn was quietly confident. “She and her guardians will eventually run out of tricks. Certainly long before we run out of Noghri.”

In front of Pellaeon, the display cleared. “They’re ready, sir,” he said.

Thrawn turned back to the freighter. “At your convenience, Captain.”

Pellaeon took a deep breath and tapped the comm switch. “Cloaking shield: activate.”

And outside the view window, the battered freighter—

Stayed exactly as it was.

Thrawn gazed hard at the freighter. Looked at his command displays, back at the freighter … and then turned to Pellaeon, a satisfied smile on his face. “Excellent, Captain. Precisely what I wanted. I congratulate you and your technicians.”

“Thank you, sir,” Pellaeon said, relaxing muscles he hadn’t realized were tense. “Then I take it the light is green?”

The Grand Admiral’s smile remained unchanged, his face hardening around it. “The light is green, Captain,” he said grimly. “Alert the task force; prepare to move to the rendezvous point.

“The Sluis Van shipyards are ours.”

Wedge Antilles looked up from the data pad with disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding,” he told the dispatcher. “Escort duty?”

The other gave him an innocent look. “What’s the big deal?” he asked. “You guys are X-wings—you do escort all the time.”

“We escort people,” Wedge retorted. “We don’t watchdog cargo ships.”

The dispatcher’s innocent look collapsed into thinly veiled disgust, and Wedge got the sudden impression that he’d gone through this same argument a lot lately. “Look, Commander, don’t dump it on me,” he growled back. “It’s a standard Frigate escort—what’s the difference whether the Frigate’s got people or a break-down reactor aboard?”

Wedge looked back at the datapad. It was a matter of professional pride, that’s what the difference was. “Sluis Van’s a pretty long haul for X-wings,” he said instead.

“Yeah, well, the spec line says you’ll be staying aboard the Frigate until you actually hit the system,” the dispatcher said, reaching over his desk to tap the paging key on Wedge’s datapad. “You’ll just ride him in from there.”

Wedge scanned the rest of the spec line. They’d then have to sit there in the shipyards and wait for the rest of the convoy to assemble before finally taking the cargo on to Bpfassh. “We’re going to be a long time away from Coruscant with this,” he said.

“I’d look on that as a plus if I were you, Commander,” the dispatcher said, lowering his voice. “Something here’s coming to a head. I think Councilor Fey’lya and his people are about to make their move.”

Wedge felt a chill run through him. “You don’t mean … a coup?”

The dispatcher jumped as if scalded. “No, of course not. What do you think Fey’lya is—?”

He broke off, his eyes going wary. “Oh, I got it. You’re one of Ackbar’s diehards, huh? Face it, Commander; Ackbar’s lost whatever touch he ever had with the common fighting man of the Alliance. Fey’lya’s the only one on the Council who really cares about our welfare.” He gestured at the datapad. “Case in point. All this garbage came down from Ackbar’s office.”

“Yeah, well, there’s still an Empire out there,” Wedge muttered, uncomfortably aware that the dispatcher’s verbal attack on Ackbar had neatly shifted him to the other side of his own argument. He wondered if the other had done that on purpose … or whether he really was one of the growing number of Fey’lya supporters in the military.

And come to think of it, a little vacation away from Coruscant might not be such a bad idea, after all. At least it would get him away from all this crazy political stuff. “When do we leave?”

“Soon as you can get your people together and aboard,” the dispatcher said. “They’re already loading your fighters.”

“Right.” Wedge turned away from the desk and headed down the corridor toward the ready rooms. Yes, a quiet little run back out to Sluis Van and Bpfassh would be just the thing right now. Give him some breathing space to try to sort out just what was happening to this New Republic he’d risked so much to help build.

And if the Imperials took a poke at them along the way … well, at least that was a threat he could fight back against.