Thrawn had told Thalias and Che’ri that his reading of Fsir’s crew indicated only one of the twenty-three Watith aboard had any pilot training. Theoretically, that meant a journey longer than a day would also require Fsir to suspend their jump-by-jump so that his pilot could rest, which would then give Che’ri the sleep time she needed. But as the hours dragged on, and Fsir showed no signs of stopping, Thalias wondered if Thrawn had been wrong.
Fortunately, he hadn’t. Ten hours after their departure, they reached the final leg of the journey.
“This is Senior Captain Thrawn,” Thrawn’s voice came from the secondary command room’s bridge monitor. “Captain Fsir informs me that one final twelve-minute jump will take us to the Vagaari base. I consider it likely that we’ll emerge into a combat situation. All officers and warriors stand ready.” There was a click as the comm shifted from ship-wide mode to the private link between the bridge and secondary command. “Status, Senior Commander Kharill?”
“Secondary command is ready, Senior Captain,” Kharill said. “Sky-walker is in position.”
“Acknowledged,” Thrawn said. “Hopefully, we won’t need her. Lieutenant Commander Brisch?”
“Yes, Senior Captain,” the comm officer said. “Signal sent; confirmation received. All is ready, sir.”
“Very good,” Thrawn said. “Lieutenant Commander Azmordi, on my mark: Three, two, one.”
The star-flares erupted, then settled into the hyperspace swirl.
Beside Thalias, Che’ri hunched her shoulders forward and settled her hands on the controls. Her profile looked tense, Thalias saw, her cheek muscles clenching and unclenching. At the station on Che’ri’s other side, Laknym was sitting just as rigidly at his weapons console, his eyes narrowed in concentration. He seemed to sense Thalias’s eyes on him, and turned his head. For a moment their eyes met.
And to her mild surprise Thalias realized that what she’d taken to be concern was instead a grimly eager anticipation.
Small wonder. The Springhawk was about to go into battle, likely a battle for its very life. This was Laknym’s chance to prove himself in the eyes of Thrawn and Kharill, his chance to show that he was indeed worthy of continued fleet advancement. He flashed Thalias a smile, then returned his full attention to his board.
Thalias turned back to the bridge monitor, watching the chrono count down the time to arrival. She looked at Che’ri, who seemed slightly less tense now. The timer ran to zero—
With a flash of star-flares, the Springhawk emerged from hyperspace.
“Mid Commander Dalvu?” Thrawn prompted.
“Combat range clear,” the sensor officer reported. “Mid-range … there they are, sir. Twenty fighters, gunboat size, drifting in ultrahigh planetary orbit. No power emanations detected. Far range … nothing else visible between us and the planet.”
“Did we catch them sleeping?” Che’ri whispered.
“Not necessarily,” Laknym said. “At this range, standby and complete shutdown look pretty much the same to passive sensors. They could be wide awake and just sitting back with their feet up, watching for trouble.”
Thalias peered surreptitiously over her shoulder. Speaking of trouble, if Kharill caught the civilians talking …
But Kharill wasn’t glaring at Thalias or looking ready to reprimand Laknym. His full attention was on the visual display, his eyes narrowed, his expression intense.
And in the middle of that concentration Thalias thought she could see a small smile.
“There,” Dalvu said sharply. “There they go, sir.”
Thalias looked back at the display. The silent, darkened gunboats were starting to come to life: running lights coming on, some of them drifting out of their orbits as thrusters ramped up, attitude positions changing as they turned one by one to face the incoming Chiss cruiser.
“They see us!” Fsir’s panicked voice came over the speaker. “Senior Captain Thrawn, they see us!”
“So they do,” Thrawn said. “Unfortunately for them, they have nowhere to go.”
“Don’t be a fool!” Fsir pleaded, his wheezing voice almost managing a screech. “If they send word to the base—there!” He gasped as two of the gunboats spun around and blasted off in the direction of the planet. “You must stop them!”
“There’s no base back there, Captain Fsir,” Thrawn said.
“Fool!” Fsir spat again, sounding even more frantic. “The base is an orbiting weapons platform—you can’t see it because it’s on the far side of the planet. But it’s there, and it’s horribly powerful and dangerous. If you don’t stop those fighters before they can sound the alert, neither your people nor mine will ever see another moonrise.”
Thalias felt a hard knot form in her stomach. Good tactical advice … except that the two fleeing gunboats were well to the rear of their companions. The only way for the Springhawk to get to them would be to first fight its way through the other eighteen. With all the gunboats now alert and fully powered up, even Thrawn couldn’t handle odds like that.
And then, to her amazement, she heard a sound from behind her. A rumble that sounded suspiciously like a chuckle.
She turned. The small smile she’d seen on Kharill a minute ago had become a full-grown smirk.
Was he actually glad that Thrawn was facing impossible odds?
But that made no sense. Back when Thalias had first come aboard the Springhawk, Mid Captain Samakro had accused her of being a spy, and for a long time after that she’d sensed reluctance and even hostility toward Thrawn from some of the other officers. But surely by now they’d realized their commander knew what he was doing, and that they could trust him.
Especially since a failure on Thrawn’s part here would take all their lives, including those of Kharill and any other naysayer.
The gunboats were spreading out from their orbital paths now, expanding outward toward the Springhawk like a blossoming flower. “Afpriuh, target the two closest gunboats,” Thrawn said, his voice showing no signs of tension. “Lasers only. Kharill?”
“Yes, sir?” Kharill called.
“You’ll be handling plasma spheres,” Thrawn said. “I’ll want a full spread, targeted on all but the leading two gunboats. They’ll be moving and obscured when you fire, so Laknym will have to use his best judgment.”
“Understood,” Kharill said. The smile, Thalias noted, was still there. “Laknym?”
“Ready, sir,” Laknym said confidently.
“Launch at my command,” Thrawn said. “Afpriuh, lasers on my mark. Three, two, one.”
On the visual display, the Springhawk’s spectrum lasers flashed out, spraying light and vaporized metal from the two leading gunboats. Out of the corner of her eye, Thalias saw Laknym working feverishly at his board, his eyes flicking across the displays as he set up his targeting. The two gunboats under attack tried to dodge out of the way of Afpriuh’s lasers, but they were still sluggish, and their hulls continued to boil away. They made one final attempt to dodge—
An instant later both of them exploded into roiling blasts of fire.
“Spheres: Fire,” Thrawn ordered.
Laknym’s fingers jabbed into the launch controls. Thalias looked at the visual, then at the tactical, trying to see through the smoke and expanding clouds of debris. The view cleared as the dust and fragments spread out into the darkness.
Belatedly revealing to the gunboats the plasma spheres blazing toward them.
But the enemy had apparently anticipated the Springhawk’s attack. Even before the obscuring material thinned Thalias could see that the gunboats were on the move, angling away from the incoming spheres. Only two of them were caught by Laknym’s spread, and those only with glancing blows that left them limping but still functional.