Thrawn Ascendancy Book I: Chaos Rising

MEMORIES III

In nearly four years at Taharim Academy, Senior Cadet Irizi’ar’alani had built up a spotless record. She’d distinguished herself, she was well on the way to command rank and position, and not the slightest hint of scandal had ever touched her name.

Until now.

“Senior Cadet Ziara,” Colonel Wevary intoned in the voice he saved for the most heinous of offenders against Taharim’s traditions, “a cadet under your tutelage has been accused of cheating. Have you anything to say in your or his defense?”

Under your tutelage. All Ziara had done was to proctor the damn simulation exercise Cadet Thrawn had been taking.

But her name was attached to the charge, and so here she sat.

Not that there was much chance of serious consequences. Certainly the Irizi representative seated at one end of the three-officer panel didn’t look worried. At the other end of the table—

She felt a flicker of sympathetic pain. Thrawn was the one standing on the brink here, and yet the Mitth family representative hadn’t even shown up. Either he’d forgotten about the hearing or else he just didn’t care. Either way, it didn’t bode well for Thrawn’s future.

The strangest part was that none of this made any sense. Ziara had looked up Thrawn’s records, and he was already far ahead of his classmates. The last thing he needed to do was cheat on a simulator exercise.

Still, while his normal simulator scores were consistently high, most of them were within or only slightly above the academy’s high-water marks. On this particular exercise, no one in Taharim’s history had ever gotten even close to Thrawn’s score of ninety-five. There had been only one logical explanation for such a high score, and Colonel Wevary had come to it.

Ziara shifted her attention to the accused. Thrawn was sitting stiffly in his chair, his face a rigid mask. He’d already pled not guilty to the charges, insisting that he hadn’t cheated but merely taken advantage of the parameters the exercise had set up for him.

But as one of the other panel members had already said, that was exactly what a guilty person would also say. Unfortunately, too many cadets in the past had gamed the system by secretly running practice sessions with their upcoming test parameters, a cheat the instructors had countered by making sure no simulations could ever be exactly rerun. That built-in limitation meant that Thrawn couldn’t repeat his technique and prove his innocence.

Presumably, the instructors could dig into the programming and change that. But it would take a lot of time, and apparently no one thought a single cadet was worth that much effort.

Mentally, Ziara shook her head. The other part of the problem was that the records of the exercise were limited to the points of view of the three attacking patrol ships. One of the records had gone blank at the wrong moment, showing nothing of the climactic encounter, while the other two simply showed Thrawn’s patrol ship vanishing for several crucial seconds.

A practical cloaking device had been a dream of Defense Force scientists for generations. It was unlikely that a cadet simulation would have made that elusive breakthrough. At least, not without an illegal tweaking of the programming.

And yet…

Ziara studied Thrawn’s face. He’d explained his tactics to the board at least twice, and they still didn’t believe him. Now, with nothing left for him to say, he’d taken refuge in silence. Ziara might have expected to find defiance or anger there, but she could see neither. He stood alone, without even his family to support him.

In the meantime, Colonel Wevary had asked Ziara a question.

“I have nothing to say,” she said. She looked at Thrawn again.

And suddenly an odd thought occurred to her. Something she’d glimpsed in Thrawn’s record, the story about how he’d risen from an obscure family to gain an appointment to Taharim…

“For the moment,” she added quickly. “If I may beg the board’s indulgence, I would like to take the luncheon break to again consider the situation and the evidence.”

“Nonsense,” one of the other board members scoffed. “You’ve seen the evidence—”

“Given the lateness of the morning,” Wevary interrupted calmly, “I see no reason why we can’t postpone a decision until after midday. We’ll meet again in one and a half hours.”

He tapped the polished stone with his fingertips and stood up. The others followed suit, and they filed silently from the room. None of them, Ziara noted, gave either her or Thrawn a second look.

Except Colonel Wevary. The last one out, he paused beside Ziara’s chair—

“I don’t appreciate stalling tactics, Ziara,” he murmured, a hard look in his eyes. “You’d damn well better have something when we reconvene.”

“Understood, sir,” Ziara murmured back.

He gave her a microscopic nod and followed the others from the room.

Leaving Ziara and Thrawn alone.

“I appreciate your efforts,” Thrawn said quietly, his eyes still on the colonel’s empty place at the table. “But you can see they’ve already made up their minds. Your action does nothing but risk their displeasure, and possibly alienate you from your family.”

“If I were you, I’d worry more about your family than mine,” Ziara said tartly. “Speaking of whom, why isn’t your rep here?”

Thrawn gave a small shrug. “I don’t know. I suspect they don’t like one of their merit adoptives being attached to a scandal.”

“No family does,” Ziara said, frowning. He was right about that, of course.

But even merit adoptives counted as part of the family and, as such, were to be guarded and defended. If the Mitth were standing back from Thrawn at such a crucial moment, there had to be something else going on. “Meanwhile, Colonel Wevary called luncheon,” she reminded him as she stood up. “I’m going to get something to eat. You should do the same.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“Eat something anyway.” Ziara hesitated, but it was too good a chance to pass up. “That way, if they kick you out, you’ll at least have had one more free meal.”

He looked at her, and for a moment she thought he was going to lash out at her insensitivity. Then, to her relief, he smiled. “Indeed,” he said. “You have an eminently tactical mind, Senior Cadet.”

“I try,” Ziara said. “Make it a good meal, and don’t be late getting back.” She gave him a nod and headed out.

But she didn’t go to the mess hall. Instead, she found an empty classroom a few doors down and slipped inside.

An eminently tactical mind, Thrawn had said. Others had told her the same thing, and Ziara had never found a reason to disagree with them.

Time to find out if all of them were right.

The receptionist answered on the third buzz. “General Ba’kif’s office,” he announced.

“My name is Senior Cadet Irizi’ar’alani,” Ziara said. “Please ask the general if he can spare a few minutes of his time.

“Tell him it concerns Cadet Mitth’raw’nuru.”

Colonel Wevary and the others filed into the hearing room precisely one and a half hours after they left it. Neither the officers nor the Irizi rep looked at the two cadets as they seated themselves.

Which made the suddenly stunned expressions on all four faces all the more amusing when they belatedly spotted the newcomer sitting beside Ziara. “General Ba’kif?” Colonel Wevary said with a sort of explosive gulp. “I—excuse me, sir. I wasn’t informed of your arrival.”

“That’s all right, Colonel,” Ba’kif said, giving each of the men at the table a quick look. The other two officers were as unprepared as Wevary to find a field-rank officer in their midst, but their surprise was rapidly turning to proper respect.

The Irizi’s surprise, in contrast, was quickly turning to suspicion. Clearly, he’d had his own look at Thrawn’s history and suspected Ba’kif was here for a cover-up.

“I understand Cadet Mitth’raw’nuru is under suspicion of cheating,” Ba’kif continued, turning back to Wevary. “I think Cadet Ziara and I may have a way to resolve the issue.”

“With all due respect, General, we’ve examined all the evidence,” Wevary said, some stiffness creeping into his deference. “The exercise cannot be repeated with the same parameters as were in place when he took it, and he claims that without those parameters he cannot duplicate his success.”

“I understand,” Ba’kif said. “But there are other ways.”

“I hope you’re not going to suggest we reprogram the simulator,” one of the other officers put in. “The safeguards that were put in to prevent cadets from doing that very thing would take weeks to unravel.”

“No, I’m not suggesting that,” Ba’kif assured him. “I presume, Colonel, that you have all the relevant exercise parameters?”

“Yes, sir,” Wevary said. “But as I said—”

“A moment,” Ba’kif said, turning to Thrawn. “Cadet Thrawn, you’ve logged two hundred hours on the patrol craft simulator. Are you ready to try the real thing?”

Thrawn’s eyes darted to Ziara, back to Ba’kif. “Yes, sir, I am.”

“Just a minute,” the Irizi cut in. “What exactly are you proposing?”

“I should think that was obvious,” Ba’kif said. “The danger inherent in teaching via simulator is that if the simulation diverges from reality, we may not notice until too late.” He waved a hand at Thrawn. “We have here an opportunity to compare the simulation with reality, and we’re going to take advantage of it.”

“Taharim Academy is under Colonel Wevary’s authority,” the Irizi insisted.

“Indeed it is.” Ba’kif turned to Wevary. “Colonel?”

“I concur, General,” Wevary said without hesitation. “I’m looking forward to the exercise.”

The Irizi glared at him. But he merely compressed his lips and inclined his head.

“Good.” Ba’kif turned back to the board. “Gentlemen, I have four patrol craft prepped and waiting at the platform, plus an observation launch for the six of us to watch from.” He stood up and gestured toward the door. “Shall we go?”

The four patrollers were in their starting positions: Thrawn in one, three of General Ba’kif’s pilots in the others. The test area had been cordoned off, and the initial points for the exercise mapped out. The observation launch was in position, outside the combat area but close enough to see and record everything.

Ziara sat beside Ba’kif in the second seating tier, staring out the canopy past the heads of the other three officers and the Irizi. She’d pitched this to the general as an unfair charge against Thrawn, wrapping her concerns in the glow of the younger cadet’s academic record. And in all honesty, Ba’kif hadn’t seemed to need a lot of persuasion.

But that didn’t change the fact that Ziara had stuck her neck out, and there was now a fresh target painted on her forehead. Before her call to Ba’kif, she’d been peripheral to the situation, with little danger to her or the Irizi name. Now, if Thrawn failed to prove his case, her name would be right up there with his.

“Patrols One and Three: Go,” Ba’kif said into the comm. “Patrol Four: Go. Patrol Two: Go. Make sure your vectors stay precisely on track.”

In the distance in front of them, the three patrol ships began to move. Beneath them, Thrawn’s Patrol Four headed toward them. “Steady,” Ba’kif warned. “Two, increase thrust a couple of degrees. One and Three, running true. Cadet Thrawn?”

“Ready, sir,” Thrawn’s measured voice came.

Ziara felt her lip twist. Now, when her stomach was tied up in knots, was naturally the moment he picked to be cool and calm.

Or maybe it was just that space and combat were a more comfortable environment for him than a courtroom filled with officers, regulations, and family politics.

“Stand by,” Ba’kif said. “Exercise begins…now.”

The four patrol ships leapt toward each other, precisely matching the exercise’s original parameters. Thrawn cut to starboard, heading toward Three. One and Two angled toward him, closing the distance. Thrawn opened fire, raking One and Three with low-power, exercise-level spectrum laser shots. The two ships veered apart, moving out of the lines of fire, as Two headed toward Thrawn’s flank, all three targeting Thrawn with their own fire. For a few seconds, Thrawn ignored the theoretical destruction hammering at his ship’s hull and continued toward One and Three. Then, abruptly, he spun his ship around in a 180-yaw, turning his thrusters toward One and Three as if preparing to escape.

But instead of firing his aft thrusters, he threw full power to the forward ones, continuing his drive toward One and Three.

The maneuver caught all three attackers off guard. One and Three veered even farther apart, reflexively shying away from the threat of being rammed. Two, which had been intent on a flanking close-fire position, instead shot past Thrawn’s bow.

And as Two passed in front of him, Thrawn fired his lasers at its stern, simultaneously firing his rear thrusters full-power toward One and Three.

Someone swore softly. Somehow, Thrawn’s attack had killed Two’s acceleration and sent it into a slow tumble. Thrawn’s own thruster burst sent him past Two’s stern, once again leaving him a clear path for escape.

But to Ziara’s astonishment, instead of running he fired his forward thrusters, killing his speed and dropping beside Two, putting the tumbling ship between him and the more distant One and Three.

And somehow, right in the midst of that maneuver, his ship picked up the exact same tumble that his attack had given Two, precisely matching its speed and rotation as he settled in behind it.

Ziara huffed out a half laugh. “He did it,” she said under her breath. “He disappeared.”

“What are you talking about?” the Irizi asked, sounding confused. “He’s right there.”

“Not done,” Ba’kif warned.

A second later Thrawn broke his ship out of its wobble, and as Two rotated past him he fired his bow-flank and stern-flank lasers, catching One and Three squarely in their bows.

“Hold!” Ba’kif called. “The exercise is over. Thank you all; please return to the launch platform. Cadet Thrawn, are you comfortable with docking your ship by yourself?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’ll see you inside, then. Well done, Cadet.” He keyed off.

“What do you mean, well done?” the Irizi demanded. “What did that prove? It was a skillful enough maneuver, I’ll grant you, but we all saw it. He hardly disappeared the way he claimed.”

“On the contrary,” Ba’kif said, a mixture of admiration and amusement in his voice. “We only saw it because we were above the field of combat, and because we were using low-power lasers that skewed the real-world effects. The simulation, on the other hand, wasn’t so limited.” He looked at Wevary. “Colonel?”

“Yes,” Wevary said. He didn’t sound as amused as Ba’kif, but Ziara could hear the same admiration in his voice. “Well done, indeed.”

“General—” the Irizi began.

“Patience, Aristocra,” Ba’kif said.

And to Ziara’s surprise, he turned to her. “Senior Cadet Ziara, perhaps you’d be good enough to explain?”

“Yes, sir,” Ziara said, feeling like she’d suddenly been tossed into the deep end. The most junior person in the compartment, and he wanted her to give what amounted to a lecture?

Still, having an Irizi explain to another Irizi was probably the politically smart move.

“The first attack against Thrawn would have opened up his aft oxygen reserves and fuel tanks, spewing both gases into space behind him,” she said. “When he turned aft to One and Three and fired a thruster burst, those escaping gases would have ignited, temporarily blinding the attackers’ sensors.”

The Irizi snorted. “Speculation.”

“Not at all,” Wevary put in. “That’s exactly what happened in the simulation, and the reason why it happened. Continue, Senior Cadet.”

Ziara nodded. “At the same time Thrawn fired at Two’s aft thrusters, damaging them in a precisely specific pattern that not only temporarily knocked them out but also gave the ship a predictable wobble. All he had to do then was duplicate the effect with his own thrusters as he came alongside, matching the pattern and hiding behind the ship. He then waited just long enough for One and Three to turn their attention elsewhere in an attempt to locate him, then came out and fired before they could respond.”

The Irizi seemed to ponder that. “Fine,” he said reluctantly. “But what of Two’s own sensors? The simulation shows no images from that ship while the cadet is hiding.”

“The crew would have been using the flank thrusters to dampen the wobble,” Ziara said, feeling a sense of relief. The other still wasn’t happy, but he clearly realized there was no point in pushing this any further. She and her family would not, it seemed, be caught in scandal after all. “All that firing would have obscured the sensors.”

“So,” Ba’kif said. “I trust, Colonel, that this will bring an end to your inquiry?”

“It will indeed, General,” Wevary said. “Thank you for your assistance. This has been most enlightening.”

“Indeed it has,” Ba’kif said. “Helm: Return us to dock, if you please.”

And as the launch turned and headed toward the platform, Ba’kif gave Ziara a sideways look. “And a lesson for you, Senior Cadet,” he said, just loud enough for her to hear. “You have good instincts. Continue to trust them.”

“Thank you, sir,” Ziara said. “I shall strive to do so.”