“We’ll go back to your ship and get whatever luggage you need,” Haplif said as they walked together down the corridor. “Shut everything down good, because we won’t be back for a while.”
“Understood,” Qilori said, his mind spinning with possibilities. If the Chiss were using something electronic—and if the device could be stolen or copied—space travel would suddenly be opened up in a way that hadn’t been possible for thousands of years. Whoever owned such a device could dictate to the entire Chaos, gaining immense wealth and power along the way.
Except that it would be Jixtus, not him, who had that wealth and power. Qilori himself would have nothing. Not even his job.
Possibly not even his life.
He felt his winglets give one last flutter before settling against his cheeks. Yes, he would look for clues to the navigational device. But he would think long and hard before giving those clues to Jixtus. Or for that matter, to anyone else.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Thrawn had promised Captain Fsir that the Springhawk would be ready to move on the Vagaari within five days. For the first three of those days Thalias barely saw the commander as he worked with the debris analysts, held conferences with Samakro and the other senior officers, and made at least two trips across to the Watith ship. Clearly, he was incredibly busy.
It was therefore something of a shock when Thalias opened the sky-walker suite hatch late on the third day to find Thrawn standing there. “Good evening, Caregiver Thalias,” he said formally. “May I come in?”
“Certainly, Senior Captain Thrawn,” Thalias said, hastily stepping aside. “Do you need to talk to Che’ri? She’s taking a nap, but I can wake her if you want.”
“No, this isn’t about her,” Thrawn said. He stepped inside, sealing the hatch behind him. “I came to look in on your roommate.”
“But Che’ri is—oh,” Thalias said, wincing. She’d gotten so used to the hibernation chamber in her sleeping room, especially since draping a blanket over it, that she’d almost forgotten there was a living being inside. “That roommate. Are you going to—uh—”
“Wake her?” Thrawn shook his head as he walked across the dayroom and opened the hatch to her sleeping room. “No. I merely wanted to remind myself of her style of clothing.”
“Her clothing?” Thalias echoed, frowning as she followed him. “Anything in particular you’re looking for?”
“A connection between her people and the Watith,” Thrawn said over his shoulder. Stepping up to the hibernation chamber, he pulled off the blanket Thalias had put there.
For a long minute he just gazed through the canopy at the sleeping Magys. Thalias stayed where she was, afraid to move lest she break his concentration.
Finally, he stirred. “No,” he said, as if talking to himself. He put the blanket back and turned to Thalias. “I can see no connection.”
“Did you expect one?” Thalias asked, stepping out of his way as he came back to the dayroom. “We’re a long way from their world.”
“Agreed,” Thrawn said. “It was just a thought. Thank you for your time.”
He started toward the exit. Thalias was quicker, stepping between him and the hatch. “Sorry, Senior Captain, but you can’t just leave me with strange questions like that. Can’t you at least tell me what’s going on?”
“You’re not one of my officers,” Thrawn reminded her.
“No, but I’m responsible for the care of your sky-walker,” she said. “Officer or not, that makes me one of the most important people on this ship. More than that—”
She hesitated, wondering if she should tell him. The Patriarch had told her all this in confidence, after all.
Still, he hadn’t said it was to be kept a secret, at least not from Thrawn. More important, the better she could convince him she was part of his inner circle—whether or not including her had been his idea—the likelier it was that she could get information out of him instead of continually being kept in the dark. “More than that, when I was at the Mitth family homestead on Csilla a few months ago the Patriarch asked me to look after you.”
Thrawn raised his eyebrows. “Did he, now,” he said with a smile. “I was unaware I needed looking after.”
“Everyone needs some looking after,” Thalias said. “He mostly wanted me to run interference for you as best I could against your enemies.”
“I assumed lasers, breachers, and plasma spheres were my primary tools against such people.”
“You know what I mean,” she said. “Your political enemies.”
His smile faded. “Yes.” He hesitated, then gestured her toward the couch. “Very well. I can tell you some of it. Not all.”
Trying not to look too eager, Thalias settled herself on the couch. Thrawn took one of the chairs facing it, eyeing her as if trying to decide exactly how much she needed to know. “Interesting that you spoke of enemies,” he said. “I believe the Springhawk is currently in the middle of a trap.”
Thalias felt her eyes go wide. “I presume Mid Captain Samakro and the others are aware of that?” she asked, forcing her voice to stay calm.
Thrawn shrugged slightly. “They accept my word for it. I don’t think all of them see it for themselves.”
“What are they missing?”
“The battle between the Watith freighter and the three gunboats was staged,” Thrawn said. “The attackers were making a great deal of noise and fury, but they were causing only superficial damage.”
“Maybe they were trying to herd the freighter deeper into the gravity well,” Thalias suggested.
“I also had that thought,” he said. “That’s why I watched the battle a few moments before answering Captain Fsir’s call. Again, all four ships were creating an impressive show, but the gunboats’ containment box wasn’t nearly solid enough to keep an experienced captain trapped if he wanted to escape.”
“I see,” Thalias said, trying to think it through. Though if Fsir wasn’t all that experienced …
“But that was only the first part,” Thrawn said. “You saw how one of the gunboats—and only one—moved to attack us, as if they knew the Syndicure’s prohibition against preemptive attacks and were offering us the necessary excuse to fight back.”
“I wondered why you used such an odd reason for not helping him,” Thalias said. “I don’t think I’d ever heard that one.”
“You hadn’t heard it because I made it up,” Thrawn said. “If the freighter had been in genuine danger, I expected Fsir to argue the point. But he didn’t even mention it.”
“Because they already had their plan, knew it would draw us in, and stuck with it,” Thalias said, nodding.
“Exactly,” Thrawn said. “But there’s more. After the battle came Fsir’s curious and convoluted reason for not giving us the Vagaari base coordinates. That suggests he wants to control the time and place of our arrival there. It brought to mind how the navigator on the Paccian refugee ship also controlled their arrival at Dioya.”
“Yes,” Thalias said, shivering at the memory of that incident. The navigator whom the refugees had hired had deliberately steered the ship into an ambush that had killed them all. “But if this is a trap, what are they waiting for? We’ve been sitting here for three days. Surely Fsir could have called them by now and brought them down on us.” She frowned as a sudden thought struck her. “Unless they’re far enough away that they’re out of his comm range?”
“Unlikely.” Thrawn again raised his eyebrows. “Tell me why.”