“Sir, the Grayshrike is here,” Dalvu announced.
“Thank you,” Thrawn said, turning to the tactical display. “Samakro, stand by.”
Thalias followed his gaze. Whatever was going on out there, it was an absolute mess. The tactical showed about a dozen ships clustered together in the far distance, all of them maneuvering and firing at one another. Eight of them, mostly grouped in the center of the display, were marked with Chiss logos, while those marked as enemies swarmed around them. At the far edge of the display, a fair distance away from the battle and even farther from the Springhawk, a flashing image indicated the newly arrived Grayshrike. Even as Thalias watched, the newcomer swiveled toward the mass of other ships and opened fire on the attackers.
Thalias looked down at Che’ri. The girl was also staring at the tactical. But where Thalias felt mostly confusion, Che’ri’s expression was one of concentration and curiosity.
“Gunboats: Disengage and run,” Thrawn ordered.
On the display, the five enemy ships abruptly broke off their attack on the Chiss warships and swung around toward the planet, accelerating hard and regrouping into a cluster of their own as they ran. The Chiss behind them continued firing, their lasers joined by fire from the Grayshrike angling in from the far side.
Actually, Thalias saw now, given the way the various ships were positioned, the enemy ships would move a little closer to the Grayshrike before they passed that point and began opening up the distance again. That point of closest approach would be the cruiser’s best chance to take them out.
Unfortunately for the Grayshrike, it had been in the middle of a yaw turn toward the main battle and was out of position to give chase. All it could do was continue the barrage from its portside lasers, an attack that was now joined by a stream of plasma spheres.
But the enemy ships were still too far away and were cutting rapidly across the field of fire. Combined with their evasive maneuvering, that was keeping them mostly clear of the bombardment. Thalias winced as she watched them successfully pass the Grayshrike and continue on, wondering if all five were going to make it to safety.
But there was just too much laserfire coming in for them to dodge it forever. Seconds later, in rapid succession, three of the five were hit with killing shots from the Grayshrike and disintegrated in massive explosions. The two survivors kept going, finally passing out of range and leaving the attackers behind. The Grayshrike made one last try with another wave of plasma spheres, but the ships were going too fast and the spheres fell behind.
“Final two gunboats are clear,” Samakro announced.
“Clear the freighter, and activate thrusters,” Thrawn ordered.
“Freighter cleared, Senior Captain,” Samakro’s voice came from the command chair speaker. “Activating thrusters: now.”
Thalias twitched as the deck abruptly began shaking beneath her. “Thalias?” Che’ri gasped, her hand grabbing Thalias’s for balance.
“It’s all right,” Thrawn calmed her. “The vibration’s coming from the Watith freighter. It’s still tethered to the Springhawk, but its thrusters are now running at full power and it’s trying to get away.” The shaking continued, perhaps growing a little stronger—
“Aboard,” Samakro called, sounding a little breathless. “Hatch sealed.”
“Release freighter,” Thrawn ordered.
With a final jolt, the deck vibration vanished. Thalias peered out the viewport and saw the freighter racing away, its vector cutting across the Springhawk’s orbit as it headed toward the edge of the planet.
“Afpriuh, stand by lasers,” Thrawn ordered. He had his questis out and was tapping on it. “These spots: here, here, and here. Weave them into a general pattern of near-misses.”
“Yes, sir,” the weapons officer said, keying his board. A flurry of laser shots lanced out from the Springhawk, blazing around and past the fleeing freighter. Midway through the barrage the freighter seemed to realize it was under attack, twitching first to portside, then to starboard, then to starboard again as it tried to evade the cruiser’s fire.
“Excellent,” Thrawn said, nodding. “Continue firing, again making it look like your targeting systems are still not fully functional.”
“Yes, sir.”
The laserfire resumed. This time, as far as Thalias could tell, none of the shots had any effect.
Thrawn turned back to Thalias and Che’ri. “And now for you, Sky-walker,” he said. “Let me explain the situation.”
He waved out the viewport. “We have an abandoned freighter and two empty gunboats heading toward a collision over the planet, all of which has been carefully laid out to end with them crashing onto a specific spot on the surface. What we need to do—”
“Wait a minute,” Thalias interrupted. “You said the freighter was abandoned? I just saw it maneuver.”
“What you saw was a set of precise laser shots hitting the maneuvering jets and releasing bursts of compressed gas,” Thrawn told her. “In the short run, I expect that the Chiss warships observing the drama will see that and also assume the freighter is under power and control.”
His lips tightened. “Unfortunately, they’re almost certainly recording everything, which will allow them to carefully and leisurely examine all that has happened and all that is about to happen.”
He turned to the tactical. “It may be that those future analysts will also conclude, as you just did, that the freighter was under command at that point,” he said, his voice low and almost contemplative. “They may further conclude that the reason the two remaining gunboats are no longer running evasive maneuvers is that the Grayshrike’s failure to reach them with lasers and plasma spheres showed such maneuvering to be unnecessary. The problem is that we can’t rely on the analysts to reach those conclusions.”
He turned back. “What we need is to convince those future viewers that what happened here today—even just one aspect of it—is something the Springhawk couldn’t possibly have engineered.”
He held out a hand to Che’ri. “That’s where you come in, Sky-walker Che’ri. Come with me.”
He led her forward a couple of steps, stopping her beside the weapons officer. “This is Senior Commander Afpriuh,” he said, identifying the man.
“I know,” Che’ri said, nodding to him. “Hello, Senior Commander.”
“Hello, Sky-walker,” Afpriuh said, nodding to her.
“We’re going to try something I don’t believe has ever been tried before,” Thrawn said. “In approximately two minutes the freighter will reach a critical point in its journey. At that time it will also be nearly to the edge of tractor beam range, and our current orbit will also have moved us to a point where we’ll have a partial view of its portside flank.”
He pointed out the viewport. “What we’re going to do is attempt to use the tractor beam to turn it slightly to portside, in the direction away from the planet.”
Thalias looked at Afpriuh. The weapons officer was staring straight ahead, his profile giving no hint of his thoughts. “Is that even possible, Senior Commander?” she asked.
Afpriuh gave a small shrug. “Theoretically, yes,” he said. “It just requires a particularly narrow beam and a target point forward of the freighter’s center of mass.” He turned to look up at her. “But it also requires that we get it right on our first try.”
“Because …?”