Another warble came from the scope: they were clear of the Interdictor’s gravity shadow. “Go!” Luke shouted to Artoo.
And with a second, even more nerve-wrenching electronic scream from behind him, the sky ahead abruptly turned to starlines.
They’d made it.
For what seemed like a small eternity Thrawn gazed out the viewport, staring at the spot where Skywalker’s X-wing had been when it had vanished. Surreptitiously, Pellaeon watched him, wondering tautly when the inevitable explosion would come. With half an ear he listened to the damage control reports coming from the Number Four tractor beam projector, carefully not getting himself involved with the cleanup.
The destruction of one of the Chimaera’s ten projectors was a relatively minor loss. Skywalker’s escape was not.
Thrawn stirred and turned around. Pellaeon tensed—“Come with me, Captain,” the Grand Admiral said quietly, striding away down the bridge command walkway.
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon murmured, falling into step behind him, the stories of how Darth Vader had dealt with subordinates’ failures running through his mind.
The bridge was uncommonly quiet as Thrawn led the way to the aft stairway and descended into the starboard crew pit. He walked past the crewers at their consoles, past the officers standing painfully erect behind them, and came to a halt at the control station for the starboard tractor beams. “Your name,” he said, his voice excruciatingly calm.
“Cris Pieterson, sir,” the young man seated at the console answered, his eyes wary.
“You were in charge of the tractor beam during our engagement with the starfighter.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Yes, sir—but what happened wasn’t my fault.”
Thrawn’s eyebrows arched, just a bit. “Explain.”
Pieterson started to gesture to the side, changed his mind in midmotion. “The target did something with his acceleration compensator that killed his velocity vector—”
“I’m aware of the facts,” Thrawn cut in. “I’m waiting to hear why his escape wasn’t your fault.”
“I was never properly trained for such an occurrence, sir,” Pieterson said, a flicker of defiance touching his eyes. “The computer lost the lock, but seemed to pick it up again right away. There was no way for me to know it had really picked up something else until—”
“Until the proton torpedoes detonated against the projector?”
Pieterson held his gaze evenly. “Yes, sir.”
For a long moment Thrawn studied him. “Who is your officer?” he asked at last.
Pieterson’s eyes shifted to the right. “Ensign Colclazure, sir.”
Slowly, deliberately, Thrawn turned to the tall man standing rigidly at attention with his back to the walkway. “You are in charge of this man?”
Colclazure swallowed visibly. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“Was his training also your responsibility?”
“Yes, sir,” Colclazure said again.
“Did you, during that training, run through any scenarios similar to what just happened?”
“I … don’t remember, sir,” the ensign admitted. “The standard training package does include scenarios concerning loss of lock and subsequent reestablishment confirmation.”
Thrawn threw a brief glance back down at Pieterson. “Did you recruit him as well, Ensign?”
“No, sir. He was a conscript.”
“Does that make him less worthy of your training time than a normal enlistee?”
“No, sir.” Colclazure’s eyes flicked to Pieterson. “I’ve always tried to treat my subordinates equally.”
“I see.” Thrawn considered for a moment, then half turned to look past Pellaeon’s shoulder. “Rukh.”
Pellaeon started as Rukh brushed silently past him; he hadn’t realized the Noghri had followed them down. Thrawn waited until Rukh was standing at his side, then turned back to Colclazure. “Do you know the difference between an error and a mistake, Ensign?”
The entire bridge had gone deathly still. Colclazure swallowed again, his face starting to go pale. “No, sir.”
“Anyone can make an error, Ensign. But that error doesn’t become a mistake until you refuse to correct it.” He raised a finger—
And, almost lazily, pointed.
Pellaeon never even saw Rukh move. Pieterson certainly never had time to scream.
From farther down the crew pit came the sound of someone trying valiantly not to be sick. Thrawn glanced over Pellaeon’s shoulder again and gestured, and the silence was further broken by the sound of a pair of stormtroopers coming forward. “Dispose of it,” the Grand Admiral ordered them, turning away from Pieterson’s crumpled body and pinning Colclazure2 with a stare. “The error, Ensign,” he told the other softly, “has now been corrected. You may begin training a replacement.”
He held Colclazure’s eyes another heartbeat. Then, seemingly oblivious to the tension around him, he turned back to Pellaeon. “I want a full technical/tactical readout on the last few seconds of that encounter, Captain,” he said, all calm business again. “I’m particularly interested in his lightspeed vector.”
“I have it all here, sir,” a lieutenant spoke up a bit hesitantly, stepping forward to offer the Grand Admiral a data pad.
“Thank you.” Thrawn glanced at it briefly, handed it to Pellaeon. “We’ll have him, Captain,” he said, starting back down the crew pit toward the stairway. “Very soon now, we’ll have him.”
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon agreed cautiously, hurrying to catch up with the other. “I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.”
Thrawn raised an eyebrow. “You misunderstand me,” he said mildly. “I mean that literally. He’s out there right now, not very far away. And”—he smiled slyly at Pellaeon—“he’s helpless.”
Pellaeon frowned. “I don’t understand, sir.”
“That maneuver he used has an interesting side effect I suspect he didn’t know about,” the Grand Admiral explained. “Backfiring an acceleration compensator like that does severe damage to the adjoining hyperdrive. A light-year away, no farther, and it will fail completely. All we have to do is make a search along that vector, or persuade others to do our searching for us, and he’ll be ours. You follow?”
“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said. “Shall I contact the rest of the fleet?”
Thrawn shook his head. “Preparing for the Sluis Van attack is the fleet’s top priority at the moment. No, I think we’ll subcontract this one out. I want you to send messages to all the major smuggling chiefs whose groups operate in this area—Brasck, Karrde, Par’tah,3 any others we have on file. Use their private frequencies and encrypt codes—a little reminder of how much we know about each of them should help ensure their cooperation. Give them Skywalker’s hyperspace vector and offer a bounty of thirty thousand for his capture.”
“Yes, sir.” Pellaeon glanced back down the crew pit, at the activity still going on around the tractor beam station. “Sir, if you knew that Skywalker’s escape was only temporary …?”
“The Empire is at war, Captain,” the Grand Admiral said, his voice cold. “We cannot afford the luxury of men whose minds are so limited they cannot adapt to unexpected situations.”
He looked significantly at Rukh, then turned those glowing eyes back on Pellaeon. “Carry out your orders, Captain. Skywalker will be ours. Alive … or otherwise.”