Lakinda sat up a little straighter. Neither Councilor Lakuviv nor Senior Aide Lakjiip had said anything about such complete comm silence.
In fact, she wasn’t even sure such an order was legal. These might be Xodlak warships, but they were mostly crewed by Expansionary Defense Fleet officers and warriors. Standing orders specified that ships of the fleet were to be open to official communications at all times except under extraordinary situations.
Not replying to a transmission was one thing. Given the current situation, she had no problem with that. Refusing to even log incoming messages was something else entirely.
For that matter, the fact that Patriel Lakooni had never shown up to be part of the conversations or planning for this mission still lurked in the dark corners of her mind. Could something have happened to her? Illness, or some other emergency? It was strange and just a little ominous.
“Farewell, then, all of you,” Lakuviv finished. “May the honor and dignity of the Xodlak family travel before you, behind you, and at your right and left.” There was a soft tone, and the transmission ended.
“Comm sealed as ordered, Senior Captain,” the comm officer called.
“Hyperdrive ready,” the pilot added. “First vector locked in.”
“And onward to glory we go,” the first officer commented as he stepped to Lakinda’s side, his voice colored with suppressed excitement. “Your force is ready, Senior Captain Lakinda.”
“Acknowledged, First,” Lakinda said, wincing again. The bridge officers had at least taken the time to learn her name. “Comm, inform the Apogee that it may jump to hyperspace when ready.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the comm officer said. Lakinda leaned forward, peering out the bridge viewport, watching as the cruiser flickered and vanished.
“Apogee has jumped,” Sensors confirmed.
“Acknowledged,” Lakinda said. “Helm, follow on my mark. Three, two, one.”
The stars became star-flares became the hyperspace swirl. “On our way, Senior Captain,” Helm said. “Vector looks good.”
“Orders, ma’am?” the first officer asked.
“Have the engineering crew continue with their work, focusing especially on the computer upgrades,” Lakinda told him. “I want reports every hour until everything is fully functional. Weapons, go down to secondary command and start running your crews through combat drills. Also hourly reports.”
“Yes, Senior Captain,” the weapons officer said. Unstrapping from his seat, he squeezed between the consoles and strode toward the hatch.
“Anything else, Senior Captain?” First asked.
Lakinda hesitated. “Yes,” she said. “Comm, you’ll alert me at once if there are any incoming transmissions.”
“You mean transmissions from Councilor Lakuviv?” Comm asked.
“I mean any transmissions,” Lakinda said. “You won’t acknowledge or reply without further orders, but you will inform me when anything comes in.”
Comm looked questioningly at First. First cleared his throat. “Those weren’t our orders, ma’am,” he said.
“I’m the commander on the scene,” Lakinda reminded him. “I can adjust or even countermand orders where I see fit.” She looked him in the eye. “Do I need to quote from the standing orders?”
First’s lip twitched. “No, Senior Captain.”
Lakinda turned back to the communications officer. “Comm?” she invited.
Comm didn’t look at all happy. But his nod was firm enough. “Understood, ma’am,” he said.
“Good.” Lakinda settled back into her seat. “Helm: time to first repositioning stop?”
“Two hours, Senior Captain,” the pilot reported. His voice sounded a little tense, but there was no hesitation in his reply. “After that, we’ll be effectively out of the Ascendancy and the jumps will be shorter.”
“Thank you.” Lakinda looked up at her first officer. “In a mission like this, First, all information is important,” she said, making sure her voice would be audible across the entire bridge. “Councilor Lakuviv said there might be efforts to subvert our mission. If there are, I want to know what they are, when they happen, and who’s behind them.”
“Understood, ma’am,” First said, sounding calmer. “That seems reasonable.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “I assume that you will be following Councilor Lakuviv’s order not to reply to such transmissions?”
“I see no reason why not,” Lakinda said. “Carry on, First.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
He moved away, pausing at each console along his path to check on the station’s status. Lakinda watched him for a moment, then turned back to her chair’s display and started her own run-through of the Midsummer’s flight and combat capabilities. If someone out in the Chaos wanted her mission to fail, they might well be willing to go beyond simply sending a few transmissions.
She had no intention of making it easy on them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
On most of the Springhawk’s voyages, Thrawn had used Che’ri and her Third Sight to navigate through the Chaos. Traveling via jump-by-jump had only been utilized for the last leg or two, and then only when Che’ri needed rest. As a result, Thalias had never participated in a prolonged jump-by-jump trip.
It was, she quickly discovered, excruciatingly boring.
Jump to a system. Come out of hyperspace. Confirm position. Move through space-normal to the departure point necessary to line up for the next jump. Recheck possible hyperspace anomalies between points. Jump to the next point on the list, which was seldom more than five or six star systems away. Come out of hyperspace. Repeat.
And repeat, and repeat, and repeat.
There was really nothing anyone could do about it. They had to follow the Watith freighter in order to get to the Vagaari base, or whatever was at the end of this game, and since Fsir had no navigator that meant traveling jump-by-jump.
Unfortunately, the expected trap might not wait to the end, but could be sprung at any of the midpoints where the victim might be expected to be less alert. If that happened, Thrawn might decide on a quick exit and would need Che’ri ready and waiting.
At least Thrawn had set them up in secondary control, where procedure and etiquette were a bit looser than on the bridge. Here Che’ri could get up and stretch her legs during their periods in hyperspace without bothering anyone. Senior Commander Kharill, again in charge of secondary command, had even relaxed his usual stiffness enough to have a cot brought in and squeezed into the back where Che’ri could take a quick nap during the longer hyperspace legs if she needed one.
Thalias’s biggest fear was that the whole journey would take longer than a few hours. If it stretched to the point where Che’ri needed a sleep period, the Springhawk would be flying at risk during the hours where their sky-walker wasn’t available.
Unfortunately, they couldn’t simply stop for those few hours, as Chiss warships sometimes did when their sky-walkers needed sleep. A delay like that would be hard to explain to Fsir, since a normal jump-by-jump could theoretically run for several days straight as long as there were enough pilots available to rotate the helm duty. Fsir would never believe the Springhawk didn’t have enough personnel to handle a round-the-clock flight, and they couldn’t afford to let him become suspicious.