No battle plan can anticipate all contingencies. There are always unexpected factors, including those stemming from the opponent’s initiative. A battle thus becomes a balance between plan and improvisation, between intellect and reflex, between error and correction.

It is a narrow line. But it is a line one’s opponent must also walk. For all the balance of experience and cleverness, it is often the warrior who acts quickest who will prevail.

—

“All ships disperse,” Admiral Gendling’s voice boomed across the bridge. “One-eighty-degree turn. Prepare for combat.”

Eli snarled under his breath. What did the overblown excuse for an admiral think they’d been doing?

But one of the Thunder Wasp’s officers, at least, didn’t seem to hear any implied slight in the order. Commander Cheno was standing stiff and tall on the command walkway, his head held high, his shoulders back. This was his chance—maybe his last chance—to shine in combat. “Turbolasers, stand ready,” he called. “Helm, bring us aft and above the Foremost. Gunners, your job is to intercept and destroy enemy fighters targeting the Foremost’s dorsal surfaces.”

A chorus of acknowledgments came from the crew pits. “Looks like he got his wish after all, sir,” Eli murmured to Thrawn.

“No,” Thrawn said.

“Excuse me?”

“He wished to meet the Umbarans in combat. But this attack is not theirs.”

“It’s coming from an Umbaran moon,” Eli pointed out, trying to filter the sarcasm out of his voice. Thrawn’s unshakable confidence still sometimes got to him. “The whole system is full of Umbarans. The Umbaran leaders aren’t screaming to Gendling that it’s not them and please don’t shoot.”

“Because they do not yet see themselves in a position of weakness,” Thrawn said. “They are watching the attack to see if we are weakened sufficiently for them to engage us.”

Eli shook his head. “How do you know all this?”

“All weapons: Fire!” Cheno called.

The Thunder Wasp’s bridge lit up with flickers of green light as turbolaser bolts shot outward toward the incoming fighters. A few of the vulture droids were hit, shattering instantly into brilliant explosions of smoke and debris. But most of them avoided the cruiser’s attack with ease.

“Fire again!” Cheno bit out. “And this time, hit them.”

“They’re too small, sir,” Weapons Officer Osgoode called back. “We’re going to have to wait until they’re closer.”

Before Cheno could answer, the vulture droids opened up with their own volley of return fire.

“Deflectors!” Cheno snapped. His voice, Eli noted, was starting to sound strained.

Small wonder. Theoretically, vulture droids should be no match for Imperial ships-of-the-line. But there were a hell of a lot of them.

The cruiser’s gunners tried their best. But they could do little against the incoming swarm. The smaller craft were too fast, too distant, and too nimble. The Thunder Wasp kept firing, but only a few of the bolts found their targets.

Meanwhile, the vulture droids’ own return fire was tearing into the Thunder Wasp’s hull, penetrating gaps in overloaded shields to destroy sensors, weapons emplacements, and a small but rapidly growing number of outer hull plates.

Eli looked at the tactical display. So far the Foremost seemed to be holding its own, but the two Raider-class corvettes were being pummeled even harder than the Thunder Wasp.

And still Commander Cheno stood on the command walkway. Unmoving. Silent.

In over his head.

Helpless.

Eli stole a look at Thrawn. The Chiss was also standing motionless, his face as impassive as Cheno’s.

But there was something about him that sent a shiver up Eli’s back. Thrawn saw something. Somewhere in all that chaos and destruction, he saw something.

Abruptly, he seemed to come to a decision. “Who here has had combat experience with vulture droids?” he called.

“I have, sir,” Hammerly called back, raising her hand.

“Turbolaser station one, Lieutenant,” Thrawn ordered.

“Commander?” Hammerly asked, looking at Cheno for confirmation.

“Go,” Cheno ordered her, his voice grim. “Secondary Sensor Officer—”

“I will take the chief sensor officer’s position,” Thrawn interrupted. “Ensign Vanto, with me.”

A few seconds later Thrawn was seated at Hammerly’s console. Eli stood behind him, trying very hard not to look as nervous as he felt. Bad enough that they were being taken apart by an attacking force they couldn’t stop. But by throwing orders around without Cheno’s approval, Thrawn had effectively usurped command. Eli’s mind flashed back to Captain Rossi and Admiral Wiskovis, and their reactions to Thrawn’s casual disregard for chain-of-command protocol. “Now what?” he asked in a low voice. “Did you already know Hammerly had been in combat?”

“I needed a reason to take her station,” Thrawn replied quietly. “I have studied vulture droids, Ensign. They do not normally fight this effectively.”

Eli looked at the display. The fighters had closed with the four Imperial ships and were swarming around them, pouring in continual fire while still largely managing to dodge the defenders’ counterattack. “Well, they weren’t designed to be very smart on their own,” he pointed out. “A few simple pre-programmed maneuvers and combat patterns, throw in huge numbers to overwhelm their targets—”

“There!” Thrawn jabbed a finger. “That group of four. Did you see it?”

Eli frowned. “No.”

“Their drive emissions suddenly increased, allowing them to speed up,” Thrawn said. “But there was no reason for extra speed. They were already evading our attack quite effectively.”

“Okay,” Eli said, frowning harder. The group Thrawn had tagged were weaving through the turbolaser blasts and coming around for another volley—

He stiffened. There it was. “I saw it.”

“Good,” Thrawn said. “Note how their combat style also changes. Instead of firing with deliberation at vulnerable spots, they fire indiscriminately whether the target point is worth shooting at or not.”

“Got it,” Eli said. The shifts in combat style were subtle, but now that he knew what to look for they were quite visible. “So what does it mean?”

“You said yourself that these droids are not clever,” Thrawn said. “Their creators assumed a given fighter would not survive long, and so programmed them to be swarming weapons.”

“So burning through their resources as fast as possible, without any long-term considerations?” Eli asked, frowning. “You sure?”

“Look at the curve of the combat pods,” Thrawn said. “The shape of the stripes, the positions of the blaster barrels. Weapons such as this not only are functional, but also incorporate the artistry of their creators. The beings who created and built these fighters believe in short, quick answers to questions and problems.”

“I’ll take your word for it,” Eli said. The explanation sounded ridiculous, but he’d seen Thrawn pull equally obscure facts out of equally imperceptible visuals. “Where does that leave us?”

“They are designed to swarm,” Thrawn said. “But they only briefly show that tactic. That leads to the conclusion…?” He paused expectantly.

“That the rest of the time they’re under direct command from somewhere,” Eli said as it suddenly clicked. “Somewhere on the outer moon?”

“They were launched from there,” Thrawn agreed. “But they are not being controlled from there. The changes occur when the fighters fly through the transmission shadow of one of our ships.”

“So if we can find and analyze all the shadows, we can backtrack to the transmitter,” Eli said with a sudden surge of hope. “And you came here because you needed the sensor station to power through that kind of calculation?”

“Precisely,” Thrawn said.

Eli felt his lip twitch as the final element fell into place. By masking his insight and revelation this way, Thrawn was hoping to pass on more of the credit to the rest of the Thunder Wasp’s crew. And, by logical extension, to Commander Cheno. One last chance for him to shine in combat. “What do you want me to do?”

“I will run the calculations and coordinate the locations and vectors,” Thrawn said. “You will watch for other shadows and mark them.”

“Right.” Eli glanced at the tactical, wincing at all the spots of red that marked major damage to the Imperial ships. “Work fast.”

The next two minutes dragged by. Eli looked back and forth across the battle, catching three more of the subtle changes that marked a fighter briefly running on its own programming. He had no idea how many Thrawn spotted in that same time period, but the Chiss turned abruptly to his board no fewer than ten times.

“Corvette down!”

Eli looked at the tactical, his stomach knotting. Where one of the Raider corvettes had been, there was now a roiling cloud of shattered metal and fire-tinged debris. “Sir?” he murmured urgently.

“Done.” Thrawn touched a final key.

And abruptly, bright yellow crosshairs appeared on the planetary display. “Commander Cheno?” Thrawn called up toward the command walkway. “I believe we have isolated the ground-based transmitter that is coordinating the attack. I recommend that you pass this information to Admiral Gendling and request he target and destroy it.”

“What are you talking about?” Cheno asked, frowning down at him. “What transmitter?”

“The one feeding tactical data to the vulture droids,” Thrawn said. “The Foremost’s turbolasers are the only ones that can reach effectively to the surface.”

“I see,” Cheno said. He didn’t, Eli suspected, but he knew better than to ignore his first officer’s advice. “Comm: Contact the Foremost. Inform the admiral that I need to speak with him immediately.”

Eli huffed out a long sigh. And with that, it was over. Thrawn had come through again, and it was over.

Only this time, it wasn’t.

“Ridiculous,” Admiral Gendling scoffed. “Even if these fighters are being controlled and haven’t simply been reprogrammed, there’s no possible way for you to have located the transmitter.”

“Sir, as I explained—”

“And I’m not about to go shooting at random into a civilian city on the strength of some mid-level officer’s wild guesswork,” Gendling interrupted. “Less talk, Commander. More fighting.”

Eli winced. In general, not shooting into a civilian population was a perfectly sensible approach to combat. More sensible, in fact, than he would have expected from a lot of Imperial officers.

But in this case, the proposed attack was hardly random, and failing to act was likely to be very costly. “Now what?” he asked Thrawn.

For a moment Thrawn stared at the tactical in silence. Then, reaching to the board again, he keyed in a new order.

And on both the sensor and tactical displays a set of moving gray wedges appeared.

“Signal all ships,” he ordered the comm officer. “The gray wedges mark the transmission shadows where the vulture droids rely on their own programming. Within those shadows they will be most vulnerable and therefore most easily destroyed.” He raised his voice. “Senior Lieutenant Hammerly?”

“On it, sir,” she called back. On the tactical, four droids flying through the Thunder Wasp’s shadow disintegrated in four bursts of turbolaser fire. “That what you had in mind, sir?”

“It is indeed,” Thrawn confirmed. “Well done.”

“All ships acknowledge our transmission,” the comm officer added. “Gunners are switching tactics.”

And with that, the tide finally began to turn.

But it was bloody. In the end, Gendling’s remaining corvette was severely damaged, nearly half its crew dead or wounded. The Thunder Wasp and Foremost were in better shape, but both ships would need time in a shipyard before they would be combat-ready again.

The vulture droids were all destroyed. The Umbarans had surrendered unconditionally. The Foremost’s stormtrooper squads were on the surface and supervising the surrender of the insurgents.

And Admiral Gendling was furious.

—

“You’re lucky I don’t bring you up on charges right here and now, Commander,” the admiral said. His expression holds embarrassment and guilt. His tone holds harshness and anger. “You do not—do not—usurp an admiral’s authority and command that way. I speak for my crew and to my crew.”

“I’m sorry you feel that way, Admiral,” Commander Cheno said. His tone holds tension, but also resolve. “I was simply trying to recapture the initiative in the most efficient way possible and save the battle. And with it, a few lives.”

“Are you mocking me, Commander?” Admiral Gendling demanded. “Because if you are, as the Emperor is my witness, I’ll take you down so hard and so fast they’ll have to scrape up what’s left of your career with a flatcake turner. Whose bright idea was it, anyway? I know you didn’t come up with any of that yourself.”

Commander Cheno’s expression remains resolved. “I ordered the information passed to the Foremost and the remaining corvette,” he said. There is a small emphasis on the word remaining. “As for the discovery of the enemy’s weakness, that was a joint effort of my bridge crew.”

With slow deliberation, Admiral Gendling turned his eyes to Thrawn. His arm and torso muscles are rigid. “Your first officer has built himself quite a reputation,” he said to Cheno. “Maybe I should ask him who came up with the transmitter idea.”

“Or maybe you should speak directly with me,” Cheno said. “As you said, the commander speaks for his crew.”

For three seconds, Gendling continues to stare. Then he turns back to Cheno. “I’ll have your career, Commander,” he said. “I’d take your ship, too, but it’s clear that some upstart half your age will do that.”

“If the upstart is deserving, more power to him,” Cheno said.

Gendling smiles with malice and pride. “This isn’t over, Commander. You can be very sure of that. I’ll see you at your court-martial. Dismissed.”

Commander Cheno is silent while returning to the shuttle. Only once aboard, and in flight, does he speak. “Well,” he said. His voice holds weariness. “It looks as if I may not be ending my career quite as quietly as I expected.”

“There is no need to protect me,” Thrawn said. “The Thunder Wasp’s log will answer all his suspicions.”

“Perhaps,” Cheno said. “Logs can be altered, you know.”

“I did not know that.”

“Not easily, of course,” Cheno said. He offers a small smile. “Certainly not legally. Doesn’t matter. As he said, you have a reputation. More to the point, he can’t really bring up all the details of this supposed breach of protocol without exposing his own ineptitude. No, he’ll satisfy himself with destroying my career and leave you and the rest of the Thunder Wasp’s crew alone.”

“That is not right or proper.”

“No, but it is reality,” Cheno said. “As I said, my career isn’t important. What’s important is the future of the Imperial Navy.” He gestures with respect and admiration. “You’re that future, Thrawn. It’s been a privilege to be your commander.”

“Thank you, sir,” Thrawn said. “I have learned a great deal serving under you.”

“I doubt that,” Cheno said. His tone holds dry humor, with no bitterness or resentment. “But I thank you. And I, too, have learned a great deal.”

—

Eli had half expected the shuttle to return empty, with both of its passengers consigned to the Foremost’s brig. To his relief, both Cheno and Thrawn emerged from the docking bay. Cheno murmured something to Thrawn and then headed toward the bridge. Thrawn watched until the commander’s turbolift car departed, then beckoned Eli to join him. “Ensign,” he greeted Eli quietly. “I presume you wish to know how our meeting with Admiral Gendling went. In brief, not very well.”

“I’m not surprised,” Eli said, wincing. The look on Cheno’s face as he left the docking bay…“I take it the commander took the brunt of it.”

“Yes,” Thrawn said. “Partly because he was in command during the battle. Partly because he attempted to shield my role in the outcome.”

“So because Gendling screwed up, he’s taking it out on you,” Eli growled. “I thought only politicians were that level of stupid and nasty.”

“I have found those characteristics in all fields of endeavor,” Thrawn said. “Has your research uncovered anything of use?”

“Maybe.” Eli handed Thrawn his datapad. “The building the transmitter was operating from is owned by a group of humans. The locals don’t know their names and can’t give anything useful in the way of descriptions. But it’s clear you were right about no Umbarans being directly involved in the attack.”

“I doubt Admiral Gendling will take that into consideration.”

“No one’s taking that into consideration,” Eli said sourly. “Since most of the unrest and turmoil was concentrated in the mining districts, Gendling’s already called for the Empire to take direct control of Umbara’s entire mining and refining sector.”

“Interesting,” Thrawn said. “Did you find any indication that Nightswan was directly involved?”

“The transmitter was run by humans,” Eli said. “That’s as close as we’ve gotten right now.”

“Still, we know that Nightswan has been involved in mining and metal smuggling elsewhere,” Thrawn said. “Tell me, how valuable are the Umbaran mineral deposits?”

“Very,” Vanto said. He took back his datapad and keyed in a few commands. “Several important ones. Key among them: doonium.”

Thrawn pondered a moment. “Is there any way to calculate a system’s success rate against smugglers?”

“You can get a rough figure, anyway,” Eli said. “You take the amount of legitimate shipping on some easily identifiable product—those Paklarn grist mollusks, for example—and compare it with the amount being sold elsewhere. The numbers are a little loose, and they obviously don’t apply to every product type. But as I said, it gives you a rough figure.”

“Understood,” Thrawn said. “Do you have that figure for Umbara? If possible, I would like it for the success rate for smugglers of rare metals or rare metal ores.”

Eli called up the relevant numbers, ran a quick mental calculation. “It’s very good,” he said. “Somewhere in the ninety percent range.”

“And the number for a comparable Imperial-controlled world?”

Eli nodded and busied himself with his datapad. “Looks like…whoa. Sixty-five to seventy percent. Though from personal family experience, I’d guess it could actually be as low as forty or forty-five.”

“It would seem we have found the reason for the attack,” Thrawn said. “The purpose for a clearly futile assault upon an Imperial force. Nightswan wished for the Empire to take control of Umbara’s mines.”

“Because it’s easier for him and his smugglers to cheat material past Imperial inspectors than past the Umbarans.” Eli huffed out a breath. “I’ll grant that it sounds like Nightswan’s brand of deviousness. But we don’t even know for sure that he was involved.”

“He was,” Thrawn said. “He is. Who else would invite me here to demonstrate his handiwork?”

Eli blinked. “He what?”

“Surely it is clear,” Thrawn said. “He set up his mollusk smuggling group in an area he knew the Thunder Wasp was patrolling. He made certain that Umbara was mentioned within the smugglers’ hearing. He knew of my interest in Clone War weaponry and made certain the name Nightswan was on at least one order.”

“Interesting,” Eli murmured. On the surface, for Thrawn to even suggest such a thing bordered on the egomaniacal.

Still, the Chiss was seldom wrong about tactical matters. And Nightswan wasn’t exactly an ordinary mastermind, either. It was entirely possible that he would do such a thing simply for the challenge of it all. “Well, if it is him, he lost this one.”

“Not at all,” Thrawn said, his voice grim. “I defeated his vulture droid attack, but winning that encounter was not his true goal.”

“The Imperial takeover.”

“Or perhaps the Imperial takeover itself was merely a step,” Thrawn said. “It may have been his final goal if he was merely a smuggler. But he is more.”

“So if he’s not a smuggler, what is he?”

“I do not yet know,” Thrawn said. “Possibly his activities are building to a political confrontation or resolution on some planet or system. Possibly he seeks vengeance or humiliation against some person or organization. But whatever his goals and motivations, he is a person of extreme interest.”

“I guess we’d better keep an eye out for him, then,” Eli said. “Sooner or later, he has to surface.”

“Incorrect, Ensign. Sooner or later, he will choose to surface.”