“I wonder if they know about plasma spheres, too,” Samakro commented.
Laknym nodded. “They do,” he said.
“You have something to say, Laknym?” Kharill spoke up.
Laknym winced. “I was just commenting on Mid Captain Samakro’s question about the spheres,” he said, looking back at Kharill. “From their formation—”
“Don’t tell me, Laknym,” Kharill interrupted. “Tell them.” He keyed his mike. “Sir, Laknym has a comment.”
Thrawn looked at the monitor. “Laknym?” he invited.
Thalias saw Laknym’s throat tighten at being suddenly pushed into the spotlight. “I believe they know about plasma spheres, sir,” he said. “Their formation is wide enough to avoid breachers, but compact enough to allow any one of them to move back to the center position in time to intercept a sphere if they wanted to protect a larger target behind them.”
“Sounds a bit heavy on the speculation,” Samakro said.
“Well …” Laknym floundered.
“But essentially correct,” Thrawn said, coming to his rescue. “Particularly because the rosette is slowly closing as we approach and the time they would need to execute that sort of blocking maneuver decreases.”
“Doesn’t that tactic assume they actually have a larger target behind them that requires protection?” Samakro asked, a little stiffly.
“Not necessarily,” Thrawn said. “Battle tactics are often so deeply entrenched that they’re followed even when a given situation doesn’t require them. But you raise another interesting point.”
“That there may in fact be a larger ship out there?” Samakro asked.
“Exactly,” Thrawn said, his voice gone darker. “In which case, now that we’re sufficiently deep to prevent a quick escape it should make its appearance.”
Thalias winced. She’d seen enough of Thrawn’s logic and deductions to know there was a good chance he was right on this one, too.
And if the hidden ship was something nasty, the Springhawk could be in serious trouble.
“Perhaps we should reconsider our own strategy, sir,” Samakro said, just loudly enough for the bridge mike to pick up. “Getting a blast profile on their missiles doesn’t do much good if we’re not around to take that data back to the Ascendancy.”
“I think we can proceed a bit longer,” Thrawn said. “Any warship that comes around the planet will offer us plenty of warning.”
The words were barely out of his mouth when a ship suddenly appeared. Not from behind the planetary disk, as Thrawn had predicted, but jumping in from hyperspace in the distance behind the rearmost of the gunboat formations.
Thalias frowned, focusing on its design. Hadn’t she seen that configuration before somewhere?
Abruptly, she caught her breath in stunned disbelief. She’d seen it before, all right. It was—
“Oh, great,” Kharill bit out from behind her.
“What is it?” Che’ri asked, her voice cracking. “Is that a Nikardun?”
“Not a Nikardun,” Kharill said grimly. “Just a problem. A big problem.”
“Breakout in thirty seconds,” Wikivv called from the Grayshrike’s helm.
“Acknowledged,” Lakinda said. She sent her gaze slowly around the bridge, checking each station in turn, making particularly sure Senior Commander Erighal’ok’sumf was at his weapons console and that all the indicators there showed green.
Some of the warriors had grumbled a bit about that—mostly out of her hearing, of course—wondering if their captain was erring way too far on the side of caution, especially for a non-combat incursion into a presumably dripwater system in the middle of nowhere. Even Mid Captain Apros had tactfully pointed out that it was extremely unlikely that a blind jump would put the ship so close to a combat situation that they wouldn’t have plenty of time for a leisurely ramp-up to full alert status.
Lakinda didn’t care about any of that. Standing regs recommended it, she was pretty sure Thrawn would do it, and whatever was at the end of this trip she was not going to let him and the Mitth show her up again.
At least Ghaloksu was enthusiastically on her side on this one. Not really surprising—Lakinda had never yet seen her weapons officer pass up the chance to give his crews a little exercise.
The hyperspace swirl faded into star-flares into stars. “Full sensor sweep,” Lakinda ordered, looking through the bridge viewport and then checking the tactical display as the sensors began filling it in. There was a cluster of asteroids nearby, but no planets or ships. “Double-check those asteroids,” she added. “Make sure nothing is lurking in there.”
“Combat range clear,” Vimsk reported from the sensors, her large hands and stubby fingers displaying an unlikely deftness as she worked the sensor station controls. “Mid-range clear. Far range continuing. Asteroids show negative for ships or platforms.”
“Acknowledged,” Lakinda said. Though the more she looked at the asteroids, the more they seemed like an excellent place to stage an ambush, should one be required. Something to keep in mind if the Ascendancy ever needed to mount a military operation here.
“Laserfire!” Ghaloksu snapped. “Bearing thirty degrees level.”
Lakinda bit back a curse as the image came up on the tactical. In the far distance, she could see the tiny flashes of laserfire glinting against the half disk of a planetary body. “Full mag,” she ordered.
The scene wavered a moment, then came back with the slight fuzziness inherent in a high-magnification image. A large ship was silhouetted against the light side of the planet, she saw, its bow facing partially toward the sun. The ships currently firing lasers were too small for even the sensor’s best magnification to resolve, but the number of shots indicated there were at least five of them. “Ship ID?” she called.
“Full ID impossible at this range,” Ghaloksu said. “But profile and emissions are compatible with a Chiss heavy cruiser.”
“The Springhawk?” Apros suggested.
“Who else would be here?” Lakinda said, feeling her eyes narrowing. What was Thrawn up to now?
Abruptly, a small explosion burst over the dark side of the planet, and the attackers’ lasers went dark. “Something went boom,” Lakinda said. “Any idea what it was?”
“Sorry, I wasn’t on it,” Ghaloksu said.
“I was,” Vimsk said, peering closely at the sensor station’s displays. “It was small. Shuttle or missile boat size.”
Lakinda looked at Apros. “Could have been one of the Springhawk’s shuttles.”
“Possible,” Apros said. “Or Thrawn may have gotten himself in the middle of the civil war the Paccosh mentioned, and he’s watching the two sides shoot at each other.”
And no doubt trying to get them to stop their war. Thrawn’s exaggerated concern for aliens and alien worlds that the Ascendancy had no business caring about was both a joke and a curse.
“Cruiser’s on the move,” Ghaloksu reported. “Heading toward origin of laserfire.”
Apros muttered a curse. “He’s going to attack them, isn’t he?”
“Could be,” Lakinda said. “Vimsk, read me his altitude. Is he inside the gravity well?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Lakinda hissed out a breath. Which meant that whatever Thrawn was doing—whether he was on the edge of violating Ascendancy standing orders or merely preparing to defend himself—a quick escape wasn’t an option.