He turned back to the Queen. “But as always, his strategy is flawed. If your voice cannot travel to the Soldiers, then you, O Queen, must do the traveling.” He gestured toward the Workers crouched beside the litter. “Order your Workers to their places. We travel at once to the juggernauts.”
Trevik felt his eyes go wide. “You cannot order the Queen into battle,” he objected.
“Silence, traitor,” Nuso Esva said, not even bothering to look at him.
“Perhaps Trevik of the Midli of the Seventh of the Red is not the true traitor here,” the Queen said darkly. “Perhaps it is you who are the traitor, Nuso Esva of the First of the Storm-hairs. You promised us victory. You promised me eternal life. You have broken faith on both.”
“You wish eternal life?” Nuso Esva countered. “Then go to the juggernauts and order your Soldiers to attack the transports.”
The Queen gestured in refusal. “No.”
And then, suddenly, Nuso Esva’s weapon was out of its sheath and pointed directly at the Queen. “Give your Workers the order,” he said, his voice deathly quiet. “Or die.”
The sole remaining loudspeaker was less than two hundred meters from the stalled juggernauts and the thirty-five-hundred Soldiers standing stiffly alongside them. Fel eyed them warily as he settled his TIE into a defensive hover above the support platform, wondering if they would decide they should take some action against the shuttle that was even now lowering a pair of techs onto the platform beside the loudspeaker array.
But they didn’t. They’d been ordered to attack the juggernauts, they’d done that, and they were now waiting for further instructions.
“Patience,” Fel murmured toward them.
There was movement by the crushed hatch of one of the juggernauts, and two of Nuso Esva’s Chosen stepped outside, their yellow eyes glinting in the sunlight. One of them pointed at Fel, and they raised their blasters.
Fel nailed them both with a single shot. Again, the Quesoth Soldiers did nothing.
Fel gave the rest of the juggernaut hatches a quick check, then did another scan of the area to make sure more of the surviving Chosen weren’t rushing to the attack. As Thrawn had ordered, he’d left this particular loudspeaker intact, merely severing the control, power, and communications cables that led to it. That meant the techs not only would have to set up the special Soldier Speak message Thrawn had prepared, but would also have to splice in power from the shuttle’s generators.
With Sanjin’s stormtroopers still battling for their lives against their own clump of Soldiers, Fel hoped the techs would hurry.
Two streets away, another pair of the Chosen were warily approaching. Fel rotated his TIE a few degrees in that direction and waited for them to come out of cover.
And then, abruptly, the loudspeakers came to life below him, filling the air with a volume and intensity that he could feel right through the lower hull of his TIE as Thrawn’s message blared across this part of the city. The message ended and began to repeat.
For a moment nothing happened. Fel held his breath …
And then, all at once, the Soldiers by the juggernauts began to move. Flowing along the ground, more like a dark fluid than a collection of individual beings, they headed up the hill toward the palace.
The Soldiers had once again pressed their way to the house’s windows, and Sanjin and the remaining stormtroopers had pulled back to one of the inner rooms to make their final stand when Lhagva heard the faint sound of the loudspeakers over the noise of blaster bolts and the thud of maces and swords. He frowned, wondering at the bizarre message—
And then, without a word, the Soldiers lowered their weapons. Turning, they filed quickly back through the doors and the holes they’d battered in the walls, heading out into the city.
Leaving the stormtroopers panting in the middle of an empty room.
Sanjin found his voice first. “What in the void was that?” he demanded.
With an effort, Lhagva worked some moisture into his battle-dried mouth. “You didn’t hear the loudspeaker, did you?”
“No, I think I was getting clubbed with a mace at the time,” Sanjin said, rubbing gingerly and ineffectually at the side of his helmet. “These things don’t block that kind of blow nearly as well as I’d hoped. What happened? Did the Queen surrender?”
“I don’t think so,” Lhagva said. “It sounded like something Thrawn set up.”
“I thought you couldn’t fake Soldier Speak,” one of the others said as he dropped to his knees beside a fallen stormtrooper, his field med-pac in hand.
“He didn’t,” Lhagva said. “It seemed to be just a straight recording, taken right from the Queen’s mouth.”
“Which said?” Sanjin prompted.
“Go through the Dwelling doors,” Lhagva translated. “Surround and protect the Guests.”
“But isn’t that an order for the Soldiers to protect Nuso Esva?” one of the stormtroopers objected. “How’s that going to help us?”
“Because,” Sanjin said, and Lhagva could envision the other’s grim smile behind his helmet, “Nuso Esva doesn’t know that.”
Nuso Esva was still pointing his weapon at the Queen when one of the other Storm-hairs suddenly chattered in their alien language. Nuso Esva barked something in return and took a step forward. “What did you tell them?” he demanded. “What orders did you give your Soldiers?”
“I gave no orders,” the Queen said. “I cannot give any—”
“Don’t lie to me!” Nuso Esva thundered, taking another step forward. “An order was given. You’re the only one who can give such orders.” He took another step toward her. “And now they’re all coming here,” he continued, his voice suddenly quiet. “Why are they coming here, Queen of the Red?”
“I don’t know,” the Queen said. “When they arrive, I will ask them.”
Nuso Esva snorted. “No. You won’t.” Abruptly, his weapon spat a blaze of fire, and without a sound the Queen slumped over.
Dead.
Trevik gasped, his body stiffening as he stared in disbelief and horror at the Queen’s lifeless form. This wasn’t the way Queens of Quethold died. It was never the way Queens died. Dimly through the hiss of blood roaring through his ears and brain he heard the sound of more blasterfire …
“You. Traitor.”
Trevik jerked his head around. Nuso Esva was staring at him, his weapon pointed directly at Trevik’s face.
And only then did he realize that there were bodies of dead Quesoth all around him. The Workers, Borosiv of the Circling of the First of the Red—all of them were dead.
All of them had been murdered.
“You’re going to take a message to Thrawn for me,” Nuso Esva said, his voice grim and defiant.
And yet, beneath the alien warlord’s determination, Trevik could somehow sense a bitter-edged melancholy. There were four thousand Soldiers marching on the palace, and he knew that his own death marched alongside them. “Tell Thrawn that he may think he’s won,” Nuso Esva continued. “But with my death, his own will not be far off. My followers are still out there, and they’re more numerous than he can possibly imagine. No matter where he goes, no matter where he tries to hide, they will find him. You’ll tell him that.”
With a supreme effort, Trevik forced words into his mouth. “I will tell him,” he promised.
For a moment Nuso Esva held his position. Then, at last, he lowered his weapon. “Go,” he ordered.
Trevik was at the edge of the palace grounds, weaving his way through the lines of incoming Soldiers, when the Storm-hairs opened fire behind him.
He had reached the waiting group of white-armored humans when the Storm-hairs’ firing came to an abrupt end.