Thrawn Ascendancy Book I: Chaos Rising

CHAPTER SEVEN

Qilori had never expected the Chiss named Thrawn to ever blacken his sky again. He’d certainly hoped he wouldn’t. But yet here he was, back at Guild Concourse 447, asking specifically for Qilori of Uandualon.

And a senior captain now, to boot. Qilori didn’t know a lot about Chiss military ranks and promotion schedules, but he had the distinct impression that Thrawn was younger than most Chiss who’d achieved that rank.

Considering what had happened at Kinoss a few years ago, he supposed he shouldn’t be too surprised.

“It’s good to see you again, Qilori of Uandualon,” Thrawn said as Qilori was ushered onto the bridge.

“Thank you,” Qilori said, looking around. He’d never been on a Chiss warship before, and the difference between this and his usual freighter and diplomatic cruiser assignments was like the difference from sweet to sour. Weapons boards, defense boards, status panels, multiple displays, a full complement of black-uniformed blueskins—

“Are you familiar with the Rapacc system?” Thrawn asked.

Qilori jerked his attention back from the lights and displays, fighting to keep his cheek winglets still. Rapacc. That was one of the places Yiv the Benevolent had under blockade, wasn’t it?

Yes—he was sure of it. Qilori didn’t know Yiv’s final plan, whether the Benevolent would directly annex the system or leave the Paccosh as tributaries. But either way the Nikardun were certainly already there.

What in the Great Presence’s Name did Thrawn want with Rapacc?

“Pathfinder?” Thrawn prompted.

Abruptly, Qilori remembered he’d been asked a question. “Yes, I know the system,” he said, again trying to keep his winglets steady. “Difficult to get into. Nothing very interesting once you do.”

“You might be surprised,” Thrawn said. “At any rate, that’s our destination.” He gestured to the navigator’s station. “At your convenience.”

There was nothing for it. Guild rules apart, Qilori could hardly tell Thrawn that the Nikardun would be as happy to cut a Chiss warship to ribbons as they would any other unwelcome intruder. Apart from all the other considerations, a warning like that might prompt Thrawn to wonder how Qilori knew so much about Yiv and the Nikardun, and where he’d learned it.

So Qilori would take the Chiss to Rapacc as ordered. And he would hope to the Great Presence that the system’s Nikardun overseer would take the time to pull the valuable and totally innocent Pathfinder out of the wreckage before ordering the ship’s final destruction.

He would hope it very, very much.

The bridge was quiet as Samakro came in, with only the command, helm, primary weapons, and primary defense stations occupied. Plus, of course, the alien Pathfinder sitting at the navigation station, and the two charric-armed guards standing on either side of the hatch keeping a watchful eye on him.

Mid Commander Elod’al’vumic was seated in the command chair, her fingers tapping noiselessly and restlessly on the armrest as she gazed through the viewport at the undulating hyperspace sky. She looked up as Samakro came alongside her. “Mid Captain,” she greeted him.

“Mid Commander,” Samakro greeted her in turn. “Anything to report?”

“The Pathfinder came out of his trance again an hour ago, took a ten-minute break, then went back under his headset,” Dalvu said. “He said another three-hour shift should bring us to Rapacc. We took a location reading while we were in space-normal, and it looked like we were in the right position.”

“I presume you reported all this to the captain?”

Dalvu’s shoulders gave a small twitch. “I sent him the message. Whether or not he noticed is something you’d have to ask him.”

Samakro felt his eyes narrow. A disrespectful comment that managed to be not quite over the line into something actionable.

Dalvu wasn’t the type to come up with such opinions on her own, let alone have the audacity to speak them. Apparently Kharill had been sharing his displeasure regarding the new command structure with his fellow officers. “I believe you’ll find Captain Thrawn on top of the situation,” he told her. “Hold things as is for another hour, then start bringing the Springhawk to combat status. I’ll want us at full battle—”

“Combat status?” Dalvu cut him off, her eyes going wide. “We’re going into combat?”

“I’ll want us at full battle stations thirty minutes before we reach Rapacc,” Samakro finished.

“But combat?”

“Probably,” Samakro said. “Why, did you think we had some other reason for going back to Rapacc?”

Dalvu’s lips curved in an almost-scowl. “I assumed Captain Thrawn forgot something and we were going back to get it.”

Samakro gazed down at her, counting down five seconds of silence. Dalvu’s scowl was gone after the first two seconds, and by the fifth she was starting to look distinctly uncomfortable. “I suggest you keep any derogatory thoughts about the captain to yourself,” Samakro said quietly. “His mental state is not your concern, nor is his fitness to command, nor is his authority to issue orders aboard this vessel. Is that clear, Mid Commander?”

“Yes, sir,” Dalvu said in a more subdued tone. “But…are we even authorized to fight these people?”

“We’re always authorized to defend ourselves,” Samakro reminded her. “And given the blockade ships’ reaction on our last incursion, I suspect we won’t have to wait very long on that count.”

“Yes, sir,” Dalvu muttered, lowering her gaze.

Samakro pressed his lips together, his annoyance at her reluctantly fading away. Unfortunately, she had a point. They’d been fine on their last run into the system; but that time they’d had a Nightdragon running backup. Now it was just them. “You weren’t aboard the Springhawk back when Thrawn was first in command, were you?”

“No, sir,” Dalvu said. “But I’ve heard stories of his…recklessness.”

“Best to take those with a sideways look,” Samakro advised. “Just because Thrawn doesn’t lay out his tactics in advance for everyone to see doesn’t mean he doesn’t have them. Whatever he’s got planned for today, he’ll get us through it.”

He took a deep breath and looked again out the viewport. “Trust me.”

It was time.

The shimmering disk of the Great Presence loomed large in Qilori’s unseeing eyes. The undulating rumble echoed in his unhearing ears. Reaching blindly to the hyperdrive lever at his right, he squeezed off the locking bar and wrapped his fingers around the lever. He waited until the disk filled his vision, then delicately pushed the lever forward. He waited another moment, savoring the experience one final time, then shut down the sound-blocking part of his headset.

The Great Presence vanished as a quiet hum of Chiss voices filled his ears. He pulled off the headset, blinking as his eyes adjusted to the muted bridge light, and peered through the viewport.

They had arrived.

Casually, he looked around him. All the stations were occupied, but none of the Chiss seemed to be watching him. Keeping his movements small, he reached into one of the storage pouches built into his ID sash and keyed his comm. He’d spent the last three rest periods recording a message for the Nikardun ships lurking out there and then figuring out how to tap into the ship’s short-range transmitter.

A sharp voice from the Chiss at the sensor station cut through the conversational hum. Qilori ran his eyes quickly over the displays, found the tactical one—

He felt his cheek winglets flutter. Three ships were angling in toward the Springhawk, one from starboard, the other two from behind. The markings on the display were all in unreadable Cheunh script, but he knew the ships had to be Nikardun.

His winglets fluttered harder. If the attackers had gotten his message—and if the blockade commander decided a Pathfinder was worth saving—they might go easy on their prey, at least until they’d battered most of the life out of it.

If the commander wasn’t feeling so charitable, Qilori had seen his last star-rise.

The deck gave a sudden jolt. Qilori jerked in response, fully expecting to see a flash of laserfire or a wall of flame from a missile blaze through the bridge wall. But nothing. He looked at the tactical again, frowning.

And tensed. The jolt hadn’t been a Nikardun attack, but the recoil as a shuttle separated from the Springhawk’s flank. Even as he watched, it headed toward the inner system and the planet Rapacc at an incredibly high acceleration.

He clenched his teeth. If Thrawn was hoping whoever was in there would escape, he’d already lost his gamble. The two aft pursuers veered off, accelerating in turn as they chased after the shuttle. Qilori couldn’t read the markings on the velocity/intercept curves, but he had no doubt the two Nikardun would catch the craft long before it reached Rapacc or even the relative safety of one of the asteroid clusters. They would catch it, and with a barrage of laserfire or the more delicate twist of a tractor beam they would destroy or capture it.

On the tactical, he saw that the Springhawk, its errand apparently fulfilled, was now angling away from the inner system and the fleeing shuttle. Attempting, no doubt, to clear the system’s collection of orbiting debris and reach a safe hyperspace jump-off point before its remaining pursuer could get into combat range. Qilori eyed the tactical, noting that the Nikardun had put on a burst of speed of his own.

He frowned. The remaining pursuer. The last of three Nikardun ships that had been sitting at the Springhawk’s entry point, ready to give battle.

A point that Thrawn had deliberately specified out of the handful of safe vectors available. Was it simply bad luck that had brought them to a spot where three Nikardun had been waiting?

Maybe. Maybe he just didn’t know enough about the system.

But in that case, why hadn’t he come out of hyperspace much farther out and done at least a quick recon before committing himself and his ship to this vector? At least then he might have found a way or route that would have given his shuttle a better chance of getting somewhere before it was destroyed.

A cold chill ran up his back. No, Thrawn couldn’t be that short-sighted. Not the Thrawn whose battle tactics Qilori had had the misfortune to see firsthand.

Which left only one other option. Thrawn had arrived on this particular vector because he wanted the Nikardun to attack him.

Qilori looked back and forth among the banks of displays, trying to make sense of it all. Was the Springhawk just a feint, a diversion to let the actual intruder slip into the Rapacc system unhindered? Could there be someone out there aiming for the asteroid clusters, maybe, moving stealthily in the hope that with Nikardun attention focused out here they wouldn’t be spotted until it was too late?

But he couldn’t see anything like that on any of the displays. No other ships, no other vectors, no indication of anything else in the system. Surely the Chiss would have their own vessels marked, even if they were stealthed and undetectable to the Nikardun. Wouldn’t they?

The pursuing Nikardun patrol ship put on an additional burst of speed. Qilori watched nervously as it finally reached firing range—

Abruptly, as if Thrawn had just noticed the threat coming up on his starboard side, the Springhawk made a sharp turn away from its attacker. The pursuing ship opened fire with its spectrum lasers, and a large piece of debris detached itself from the Chiss ship’s flank and fell backward. The Springhawk shifted direction, just slightly, the Nikardun adjusting its own vector to match.

And suddenly Qilori realized what was going on. The object falling behind the Springhawk wasn’t battle debris from the Nikardun attack, as he’d thought. It was, in fact, another of the Chiss ship’s shuttles.

And the Nikardun, now blasting toward the Springhawk at top speed, was about to run straight into it.

Qilori’s first horrible thought was that the shuttle would crash into the oversized bridge viewport that marked all of Yiv’s combat ships. But the Nikardun captain spotted the obstacle in time to twist the ship aside.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to twist it far enough. The shuttle missed the viewport to slam instead into the portside weapons cluster, wrecking that group of lasers and missile launchers and setting the ship spinning.

A second later the starscape outside the Springhawk’s viewport spun crazily as the Chiss ship did its own yaw rotation. Qilori gripped his armrests, fighting against vertigo, as the Springhawk’s movement brought the stern of the tumbling Nikardun into view. There was a multiple flash of laserfire, and the fiery yellow glow from the Nikardun’s thruster nozzles flared once and then faded as the damaged engines behind the nozzles shut down. Qilori held his breath, waiting for the salvo that would blast the helpless ship into dust.

The salvo didn’t come. Instead, the Springhawk slowed, waiting for the Nikardun’s momentum to bring it closer. The Chiss ship moved up and over, settling itself above the Nikardun’s dorsal sensor ridge, out of line from the remaining flankside weapons clusters. On the tactical, the green lines of two tractor beams winked into existence, connecting the two ships. The hazy circle of a Crippler net spun out from the Springhawk’s hull between the tractor beam projectors and wrapped itself around the Nikardun vessel, sending a high-voltage charge through the hull and eliminating the possibility that the crew might activate a scuttling system.

And as the Springhawk turned toward hyperspace, all the pieces finally fell into their pattern.

The escaping shuttle—running on automatic, Qilori realized now—had indeed been a diversion. But not for a second Chiss ship. It was just Thrawn, and he’d brought them to that particular spot because he wanted the Nikardun to chase him. This whole thing had never been about death, destruction, infiltration, or even just delivering Yiv a message. Thrawn had simply dropped by hoping to capture a Nikardun ship.

And he’d done it.

“Pathfinder?” Thrawn’s voice came from right behind him.

Qilori jerked. “Yes, Captain?” he managed.

“We’ll be traveling to a nearby system to hand off our prize,” Thrawn said. Said it so casually, too, as if they’d just picked up an order of groceries from the corner shop. “After that, we’ll be returning to Concourse Four Forty-Seven. Will you need rest time before we leave?”

“No, not for a while,” Qilori said. Thrawn might not sound anxious to leave this neighborhood behind, but Qilori sure as the Great Presence was.

“Good,” Thrawn said. “I trust you found the exercise interesting?”

With an effort, Qilori flattened his winglets against his cheeks. “Yes, Captain,” he said. “Very interesting indeed.”

It wasn’t easy for even a Pathfinder to requisition a ship for his own personal use. But Qilori had been at Concourse 447 long enough to build up a collection of owed favors.

More important, he had a collection of blackmail material on several key people. Between the favors and the threats, he soon found himself speeding away from the station, bound for the Primea system, capital of the Vak Combine.

Thirty-five hours later, he was there.

Primea was in the early stage of a Nikardun conquest, which meant Yiv was still greeting and meeting with planetary leaders, talking about the benefits of joining the Nikardun Destiny, and letting his orbiting warships provide a silent warning of what would happen if they refused. Qilori gave his name and the urgency of his mission to the first gatekeeper, and the second gatekeeper, and the third. Six hours after his arrival, he was finally ushered into Yiv’s throne room aboard the Battle Dreadnought Deathless.

“Ah—Qilori!” Yiv called, his cheerful booming voice echoing in the oppressive stillness of the throne room. Draped over his shoulders like living epaulets were the fungoid strands of the strange creatures he’d taken on as symbionts. His cleft jaw was open in what passed for a smile with Nikardun, but which Qilori had always thought looked more like a predator preparing to strike.

At least he was in a good mood, Qilori thought with a tinge of relief. The talks with the Vaks must be going well. “Come. Tell me what news you bring from the lips of the Great Presence.”

Qilori grimaced as he walked the gauntlet between the two lines of watchful Nikardun soldiers. Yiv was mocking him, of course, as he mocked or dismissed all who didn’t believe solely in the godhood of Yiv himself. But right now the Benevolent’s famous ego wasn’t nearly as concerning as his somewhat less famous temper.

Qilori had never brought Yiv bad news before. He had no idea how such messengers were treated.

“I bring news from Rapacc, your Benevolence,” he said, stopping between the last pair of guards in the gauntlet and dropping forward to lie facedown on the cold deck at Yiv’s feet. “News, and a warning.”

“That news has been delivered,” Yiv said, his earlier jovial manner vanishing like morning dew under twin suns. “Do you presume to waste my time with a story I already know?”

“Not at all, your Benevolence,” Qilori said, his back itching with the eyes and weapons that were undoubtedly ranged on it. “I expected you would have heard one of your blockade frigates had been captured. What I came here to add to that tale is the name of the being responsible.”

“You were the navigator on his ship?”

“Yes, your Benevolence. He asked specifically for me.”

For a long moment, Yiv remained silent. Qilori held his position, trying to ignore the creeping sensation rippling through his skin. “Rise, Pathfinder,” Yiv said at last. “Rise, and tell me all.”

With a sense of relief, Qilori scrambled to his feet. Something tapped his shoulders a short but sharp blow; hastily, he dropped back to his knees. “The Chiss came and hired me—”

“His name, Qilori,” Yiv said, his voice soft and deadly. “I already know the ship was Chiss. I want his name.”

Qilori’s winglets fluttered. “Thrawn. Senior Captain Thrawn.”

“His full name.”

The winglets stiffened in panic. “I don’t know,” he breathed. “I never heard it.”

“And you didn’t bother to learn it for me?”

“I’m sorry,” Qilori said, staring at Yiv’s feet, not daring to raise his eyes to that jovial, implacable face. He was going to die today, he knew with a dark sense of his fragile mortality. The Great Presence awaited him.

Would he be absorbed and lost forever? Or would he be deemed worthy to ride the hyperspace ridges, guiding future Pathfinders through the Chaos?

For a long moment the room was silent. “You will meet him again,” Yiv said at last. “When you do, you will obtain for me his full name.”

“Of course, your Benevolence, of course,” Qilori said quickly, fearing the hope singing suddenly through him. Mercy? From Yiv the Benevolent?

No, of course not. Yiv felt no mercy. Qilori was simply a tool that was still worth keeping.

For the moment.

“Return to your station,” Yiv said. “Guide your ships. Do your job. Live your pathetic little life. And bring me his name.”

“I will,” Qilori promised. “While breath remains in me, I will never cease to serve you.”

“Exactly,” Yiv said, a hint of his usual humor finally peeking through the blackness. “While breath remains in you.”