Thrawn Ascendancy Book I: Chaos Rising

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

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 time 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.”

“I assume Ar’alani’s got a plan—”

An instant later the sky lit up as one of the two Vak ships disintegrated in a blaze of Nikardun laserfire. “Nikardun!” Ar’alani snapped again. “Do not attack! Do not attack!”

She might as well have saved her breath. There was a second laser barrage, and the other patrol ship was gone as well. “Nikardun, those were not combatants,” Ar’alani ground out.

“Maybe they weren’t before,” Kharill said, an odd tone to his voice. “But I do believe they are now.”

Samakro frowned. He was right. All around them, the Vak patrol ships that had been studiously staying away from the combat zone were suddenly on the move. In groups of three and four they were converging on the Battle Dreadnought, their missiles blazing toward the huge ship, their lasers flashing against its electrostatic barriers and digging into its hull.

“Lesson for today,” Kharill continued. “Don’t get so focused on one enemy that you end up making another one. Ready to come back to life?”

“Let’s not,” Samakro said. “Ar’alani said we were teetering on the edge of disaster. It wouldn’t look very good if we suddenly showed we weren’t.”

“Yes, I doubt the Vaks would be happy to know they were betrayed by one side and manipulated by the other,” Kharill agreed. “Then…?”

“We sit back,” Samakro said. “Try to avoid any obvious attacks.

“And watch the show.”

“What is his plan?” Yiv shouted, leaning over to slap Thalias across the back of her head. “What is his plan?”

“I don’t know,” Thalias said.

“He brings in Chiss warships to attack me,” Yiv snarled as if she hadn’t spoken. “He goads the Vaks into conspiring with them against me. What is his purpose? What is his goal?”

He reached down and dug his fingers into her hair, twisting her head around to face him. “What is his plan?”

“I don’t—” Thalias winced back as his hand slapped at her face, managing to turn just far enough to take the blow on her ear instead of her cheek. The concussion sent a spear of pain and dizziness through her whole head.

“There’s no need for that, General,” Thrawn’s calm voice said over the bridge speaker. “My plan is to put you in a box. And so you are.”

“I can destroy you whenever I choose,” Yiv bit out.

“Once you’ve moved within weapons range,” Thrawn amended. “A position I’ll note you don’t seem that eager to achieve.”

“Would you like to see your death coming more quickly?” Yiv retorted. “Helm: Increase speed.”

“I thought you wanted to bring me aboard the Deathless so that you could kill me yourself.”

“You invited me yourself to come get you,” Yiv said. “Make up your mind.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Thrawn said. “It’s already too late. You’ve spent too long here for the Vaks and your own people not to conclude you don’t wish to join the battle over Primea. Leaving now will be interpreted as an attempt to escape from me. Either way, your reputation is permanently damaged.”

“Only if there are any witnesses left to tell a tale other than my own,” Yiv said.

“Interestingly enough, I’ve had that same thought,” Thrawn said. “You have only one move left, only one way to salvage your name and position. You’ll come within tractor beam range and bring my ship aboard. I’ll disembark, you’ll transfer my companions aboard, and they’ll leave in peace.”

Yiv gave a contemptuous snort. “A long way to go, Chiss, just to take me where I planned to go in the first place. As I think about it, perhaps it would be just as satisfying to destroy you where you sit.”

“And what of my companions?”

“I told you I’d use them to show what I intended for the entire Chiss species,” Yiv said. “You’re right, it would be more impressive if you were aboard to watch their dismemberment instead of watching from your freighter.”

Che’ri gave a little whimper. It’s all right, Thalias thought urgently in her direction. It’s all right. Just hold on a little longer.

“Very well, General,” Thrawn said calmly. “If you’ve chosen to face me, so be it. I await your tractor beam.”

For a moment, Yiv remained silent. Testing Thrawn’s words for flaws or betrayal, no doubt.

But he wouldn’t find any, Thalias knew. More important, Thrawn had twisted the situation to where Yiv was angry and frustrated, and where revenge was the most important thing on his mind. The chance to bring Thrawn aboard alive and personally kill him would drive away any other considerations.

Yiv barked a command. On the main display a hazy blue line appeared, connecting the images of the Deathless and Thrawn’s freighter. Some numbers shifted, and the freighter began moving forward.

And it was time.

Thalias looked sideways, catching Che’ri’s eye. “Hostages no more,” she murmured. Turning back forward, watching the freighter moving toward the Nikardun warship, she reached her hands to her face and dug her fingers beneath the edges of her hostage makeup.

For a moment, the thick material resisted. Thalias kept at it, shifting her grip to use her fingernails as claws, noting out of the corner of her eye that Che’ri was doing likewise. Abruptly, the hard crust gave way, breaking and shredding into tiny pieces and leaving throbbing weals on the skin behind.

And with a brief rush of cool and moisture, the compressed tava mist that had been concealed inside the ridges and plateaus blasted into the air.

Thalias’s first impulse was to hold her breath. But that didn’t really do any good. The mist seeped instantly into her nostrils, the initial honey-scent quickly changing to something more like burnt sugar as the drug began to play with her senses. As the aroma changed again, this time to that of fresh leather, she could hear the sudden flurry of conversation around her growing slower, the pitch of the alien voices going deeper. The bridge itself began darkening even as, paradoxically, the indicator lights and the stars outside the viewport seemed to grow brighter.

And she could feel her mind fading.

It wasn’t like the way it felt to fall asleep, with stray thoughts and memories drifting across as she slipped into darkness. This was quicker and more complete, dulling her reason and her self-awareness even as it clouded over her thoughts. And yet, through it all, she was able to hold on to enough to see that it was all working exactly the way Thrawn had said it would.

The bridge was big, and the amount of mist the techs had been able to pack inside the makeup was limited. But even a small amount of the sleepwalking drug was enough to cause confusion and disorientation, and that was all Thrawn needed. As the mist settled around the bridge crew, Thalias saw—both on the displays and through the viewport—that Thrawn’s freighter was twisting around, breaking itself free of the tractor beam. A second later the freighter leapt forward, driving at full acceleration straight toward the Deathless’s bridge.

The Nikardun were hardly helpless, of course. Even as Thrawn sped toward them Yiv gave a slightly slurred order, and the Battle Dreadnought’s spectrum lasers blasted outward toward this threat suddenly bearing down on them. Their aim was tentative, and many of the shots flashed harmlessly into space. However, the Deathless’s bridge defenses were strong and the Nikardun only slightly impaired, and many of the shots hit straight and true.

But a barrage that would have quickly demolished an electrostatic barrier and the unlucky ship behind it simply scattered off the Republic energy shield Thrawn and Che’ri had brought back from Mokivj. The freighter came closer…closer…the defensive laserfire intensified…

And then, at what seemed like the last second, the mad rush faltered as the freighter slowed slightly. An instant after that the whole Dreadnought shook as the freighter crashed squarely into the oversized viewport, crushing the forward consoles and scattering those members of the crew from its path. Through Thalias’s dreamy disorientation she felt the sudden outflow of air through the shattered viewport, then felt the flow cut off as the customized freighter nose Thrawn had installed settled precisely into the opening, sealing off the bridge from the vacuum beyond.

Che’ri said something that sounded strangely urgent. Thalias looked over, discovering to her surprise that the girl was half standing up and hanging on to Yiv’s right arm, dragging down the weapon he had clutched in that hand. Yiv was trying to pull free, while at the same time cuffing Che’ri around the head and shoulders. A moment of thought convinced Thalias that he shouldn’t be doing that, and she got her own arms wrapped around the arm he was hitting the girl with. She had a vague sense that there was something else she was supposed to do, but she couldn’t remember what it was.

And then, suddenly, Thrawn was there, plucking Yiv’s gun from his hand and wrapping a breather mask around Thalias’s face. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice distorted by his own mask.

“Um-mm,” Thalias said brightly as Yiv made a sort of halfhearted lunge. Thrawn evaded the attack easily, sending the Nikardun to land heavily on all fours on the deck. Thrawn gave him a hefty squirt from a tava canister of his own, setting Yiv’s shoulder symbionts into a frenzied wriggle, then turned to Che’ri. By the time he’d asked her the same question he’d asked Thalias and had the girl’s breather mask in place, Thalias’s head was starting to clear. “Data library?” Thrawn asked as he pulled Yiv’s arms behind him and fastened the wrists together.

“I think it’s that console over there,” Thalias said, marveling at how quickly and thoroughly her mind had recovered from the gas. “He also keeps a kind of questis in a compartment in the left armrest of his chair.”

“Excellent,” Thrawn said. “You get his questis. I’ll get Yiv aboard the freighter, then see what I can copy before the rest of the crew breaks through the bridge door.”

“We’re not going to destroy his ship?”

“I never intended to destroy his ship,” Thrawn said. Reaching down, he took hold of one of Yiv’s arms and levered the unconscious Nikardun up off the deck. “All I need to do is destroy him.”

“What about them?” Thalias persisted, pointing to the Nikardun crew members twitching or muttering on the deck. “Once you pull the freighter out of the viewport, won’t they all die?”

Thrawn’s face hardened. “As Yiv has already said,” he reminded her quietly. “No witnesses.”