“But what if there was provocation?” Thurfian asked. “Specifically, what if there were rumors that the Paataatus were allying with a large pirate group to attack us? At the very least, the Syndicure and Council would want someone to go out and investigate such a possibility.”
“Are there any such rumors?”
“Actually, there are,” Thurfian said. “Nothing all that solid at the moment, I admit. But they’re there, they’re strengthening, and they’re definitely provocative. I imagine that with a little effort we could boost their credibility.”
“That’s fine as far as it goes,” Zistalmu said, eyeing him closely. “How do we persuade the Council to send Thrawn?”
“I doubt they’ll need much persuasion,” Thurfian said, feeling a smug smile crease his lips. “It turns out the alleged pirates are a group he’s already faced off against. Specifically, the Vagaari.”
Zistalmu opened his mouth. Closed it again without speaking, his presumably reflexive dismissal of the idea morphing into something more contemplative. “I thought he’d already destroyed them.”
“He destroyed one group of them,” Thurfian corrected. “But who’s to say there aren’t more lurking in the shadows?”
“That was certainly one of his most mixed-result exploits,” Zistalmu mused. “He captured that gravity-well generator the researchers are still trying to figure out, but then lost the big alien ship from Lesser Space before anyone could get a look inside.”
“And lost a respected Mitth syndic along with it,” Thurfian growled. All Chiss lives were important, but the fact that Syndic Mitth’ras’safis had been a Mitth automatically meant his disappearance wouldn’t mean as much to an Irizi like Zistalmu.
It was supposed to be different when the one who’d been lost was kin, though. It still rankled Thurfian that Thrawn would so casually throw away the life of one of his own family members.
“Yes, of course,” Zistalmu said. “A sad day, indeed. You knew Syndic Thrass, didn’t you?”
“Mostly just in passing,” Thurfian said, feeling slightly mollified. At least Zistalmu had the grace to acknowledge the Mitth loss. “I oversaw the transportation and commerce office back then, while he worked directly under the Speaker.”
“I understand he was close to Thrawn?”
“So I’ve heard,” Thurfian said. “I’m not sure I ever saw them together, though. Syndicure and Expansionary Defense Fleet circles don’t overlap very much.”
“Hardly at all, in fact,” Zistalmu conceded.
“But to return to the point, what the Council and Syndicure will remember most is the gravity generator Thrawn brought back,” Thurfian said. “We can hint that if they send him out there again, the same lightning might strike twice.”
“Hopefully with technology that will be a bit easier to crack,” Zistalmu said. “You have a plan for getting this enhanced rumor started?”
“There are some pathways I can use that won’t lead back to me,” Thurfian said. “That part is key, of course. You’ll want to find some similar pathways of your own.”
“So that if it explodes in our faces instead of Thrawn’s, you won’t take all the blame?”
“So that we have two different credible sources to present to the Council and Syndicure,” Thurfian said. “One story is an unfounded rumor, and we already have a few of those. Two independent stories from Chiss sources are a pattern worth paying attention to.”
“I hope so.” Zistalmu paused. “I trust you see the possible flaw in your plan?”
“That he’ll succeed yet again?” Thurfian scowled. “I know. But once the Nikardun have been destroyed, that will be the end as far as any real danger to the Ascendancy is concerned. A Paataatus-Vagaari alliance may not be much of a threat, but it’s all we have to work with. And surely between the two of them they can handle a single Chiss warship.”
“If the Council sends him alone,” Zistalmu said. “All right, I’ll see what I can do about getting some rumor pathways set up. Let me know when you’re ready so that we can coordinate the revelations. You have any idea when Thrawn is due back from the Vak Combine?”
“Not really,” Thurfian said. “Ar’alani is committed to finishing the job, and there’s no way of knowing how long that will take. Especially since what she finds may require her task force to make a side trip or two to clean out other Nikardun nests. The point is that we have time to get this moving in the proper direction.”
“Let’s just make sure we do it right,” Zistalmu warned. “If we let people get too comfortable, he’ll continue to skate along while they all forget him, after which his next disaster will catch everyone by surprise.”
“Don’t worry,” Thurfian assured him. “We’ll do it right. And this time, we’ll do it permanently.”
Only they probably wouldn’t, Thurfian conceded glumly as he left Zistalmu and headed out of the March of Silence. People saw what they wanted to see, and too many of the people in authority chose to remember Thrawn’s successes and ignore his failures. Thurfian was certainly willing to give this latest attempt a try, but he suspected it would end the same way as all the others.
What they needed was a new approach. He and Zistalmu were trying to hit Thrawn with a hammer, but Thrawn was too big and the hammer was too small. They needed a new angle with which to hit him.
Or they needed a bigger hammer.
Syndic Thurfian had held a certain degree of power. Syndic Prime Thurfian held a little more. But he realized now that neither of those positions gave him enough.
It was time to try something new. It was time for Syndic Thurfian to become Speaker Thurfian.
By the time he reached his office he had the outlines of a plan. Speaker Mitth’ykl’omi, he knew, was considered to be a vital part of the Mitth political structure.
It was time for Thurfian to make himself equally indispensable.
“There,” Haplif of the Agbui said, pointing through the scout ship’s viewport at the half-lit planet in front of them. “You can’t see the damage from here—”
“I see it quite clearly,” the veiled being seated beside him said calmly in that exotic voice of his, that strange mixture of rasping and melodic wrapped up inside an obscure accent. “It extends across the entire planet, I presume?”
“It does,” Haplif confirmed. He’d never seen Jixtus without his cloak and hood, his gloves concealing his hands, his black veil covering his face. He had no idea what the creature looked like.
But that voice would stay with him forever.
“Then you can add this to your list of successes,” Jixtus said. “Well done.”
“Thank you, my lord,” Haplif said, squinting a little. Now that Jixtus mentioned it, there were indeed subtle signs of the global destruction down there. The clouds on the sunlit side, which would be glistening white on an untouched world, were here laced with gray and black from the fire and blast debris thrown up from the vicious civil war he and his team had engineered. On the night side, the clusters of city lights that had once shone cheerfully in the darkness had all but vanished.
Haplif smiled to himself. The near-total destruction of an entire world, and it had all been accomplished in barely six months. Six months.
Yes. He was that good.
“I understand a single refugee ship escaped.”
Haplif scowled. Trust Jixtus to take the shine off a crowning moment. “Only temporarily,” he said. “The Nikardun are taking care of it.”