And in the midst of those meetings, for possibly the first time since Samakro had welcomed Thrawn back aboard the Springhawk, his commander had shown actual surprise.
Definitely a day for the books.
“No,” Thrawn said firmly even as he and Samakro walked to the chairs in front of Ba’kif’s desk. “I don’t believe it.”
“It’s just a rumor, and an unfounded one at that,” Ba’kif reminded him as he circled the desk and lowered himself into his own chair. “Evaluating rumors is part of the Expansionary Defense Fleet’s job, after all.”
“Though this one may not qualify as unfounded,” Samakro pointed out. “The Aristocra said their sources on this are usually reliable.”
“I don’t care how reliable they usually are,” Thrawn said. “It’s simply not possible. The Paataatus would never ally themselves with the Vagaari pirates, certainly not against the Ascendancy.”
“From a strategic point of view—” Samakro began.
He broke off at a small gesture from Ba’kif. “Why not?” the general asked, his eyes on Thrawn.
“The Paataatus aren’t going to attack us,” Thrawn said flatly. “Not for at least a generation.”
“Which for them is what, twenty years?”
“The range is usually given as seventeen to twenty-five,” Thrawn said. “My point is that the decisive defeat Admiral Ar’alani delivered last year will keep them from any actions against the Ascendancy for at least that long.”
“Maybe the Vagaari have something else in mind,” Samakro suggested. “Something to their mutual benefit that doesn’t involve the Ascendancy.”
“Such as?” Thrawn asked.
“That’s what you’re being sent out to investigate,” Ba’kif said. “Mid Captain Samakro is right, Senior Captain, and there’s no use kicking against the wall. The Council has made up its mind, the Syndicure supports their decision—a rare enough occurrence all by itself—and that is that.”
For a moment Thrawn was silent, his eyes lowered to his questis. Presumably looking over their orders. Possibly looking for a loophole. “If I may, General?” Samakro asked.
Ba’kif inclined his head. “Of course.”
“I’ve looked over the accounts of Senior Captain Thrawn’s last confrontation with the Vagaari,” Samakro said. “I noticed those records are, shall we say, incomplete.”
“Incomplete in what way, Mid Captain?” Ba’kif said, his eyes now holding steady on Samakro’s.
“That’s the question, sir,” Samakro said, choosing his words carefully. Pressing a senior officer on documents that had obviously been deliberately edited was a risky thing to do, and the more sensitive the excised material, the riskier it got. But if the Springhawk was going up against these people, he needed to know the full story. “Specifically, does the Syndicure perhaps have other, more personal reasons for us to take another crack at the Vagaari?”
“You mean is some family’s reputation on the line?”
“I’m thinking more that some family’s profits may be on the line.”
Ba’kif glanced at Thrawn. Samakro followed the look, but there was no reaction there that he could see. “I take it you’ve been listening to rumors,” the general said. “May I ask which ones?”
“Mostly the one about an artificial gravity-well generator,” Samakro said. “A device Senior Captain Thrawn took from the Vagaari that can pull a ship out of hyperspace as if it had run close to a stellar or planetary mass.”
“Interesting rumor,” Ba’kif said, his voice not giving anything away. “You’ll recall what I said a moment ago about testing such things?”
“Yes, sir.” In other words, the general wasn’t going to confirm anything. Samakro hadn’t really expected him to. But Ba’kif’s reaction—or, rather, complete lack of one—spoke all too clearly. “Because if a rumor like that was true, the Syndicure and Council might be sending us out there hoping we’ll be twice lucky.”
“Again, an interesting supposition,” Ba’kif said. “Just bear in mind that your primary task is to learn whether or not the Vagaari are returning to this area, and if so whether or not they’ve allied with the Paataatus. Anything else you might happen upon—” He gave a sort of half smile. “Well, you’ll be the ones on the scene. Use your own judgment.”
“Yes, sir,” Thrawn said for both of them. “What about Sunrise?”
“Sunrise?”
“Our name for the Magys’s world,” Thrawn said. “Are you going to send the Grayshrike back to investigate?”
Ba’kif huffed out a breath. “The Council isn’t exactly thrilled by the thought of sending a major warship that far from the Ascendancy,” he said. “Neither is the Syndicure.”
“I was under the impression that exploring distant regions and searching for potential threats was the centerpiece of the Expansionary Defense Fleet’s charter.”
“It is,” Ba’kif said. “But your, shall we say, enthusiasm in identifying and confronting General Yiv has made certain of the Aristocra nervous about sending too many forces outside the Ascendancy and leaving its own worlds less than thoroughly defended. Even bolstered by the Ruling Families’ private fleets, the Defense Force is thought by many to be stretched too thin.”
“I don’t find that assessment valid,” Thrawn said.
“Nor do I,” Ba’kif said. “But valid or not, the opinions of the Syndicure carry a certain amount of weight.”
“I understand,” Thrawn said. “Hence the blackdock?”
“Come now, Senior Captain,” Ba’kif said with an odd mix of innocence and reproach. “You imagine dots and connecting lines where none exist.”
Samakro frowned. What in the world were they talking about?
“My apologies,” Thrawn said, inclining his head to the general. “I understand the Vigilant is scheduled to return to those last Nikardun bases for more data.”
“It is,” Ba’kif said. “The Syndicure has also made it clear they don’t want Admiral Ar’alani going any farther out than that.” He gestured. “As for you and Mid Captain Samakro, you have a mission of your own to prepare for. Dismissed, and good luck.”
A minute later Samakro and Thrawn were back in the corridor, heading toward the shuttle docking area. “What was all that about the blackdock?” Samakro asked as they walked.
“The Grayshrike is undergoing repairs in Csilla Blackdock Two instead of one of the bluedocks,” Thrawn said.
“Yes, I know that,” Samakro said. “The facilities there were available and the bluedocks were backed up with other work. What does that have to do with the Syndicure?”
Thrawn glanced casually around. “Only that with the Grayshrike that much farther out from Csilla, it won’t be nearly as noticeable when it heads away on its next mission.”
Samakro stared at him. “You’re not serious. They’re going to—?”
“The Syndicure doesn’t control the Expansionary Defense Fleet,” Thrawn reminded him. “All they can do is advise, encourage, and make trouble.”
“Especially the latter,” Samakro said, his stomach tightening. If and when they found out the Council and Ba’kif had effectively ignored them and sent Lakinda back to Sunrise, they would undoubtedly drop several layers of that trouble on all of them.
And if Samakro was to connect dots and lines that weren’t there, he might suspect the Vigilant would be joining the Grayshrike once they’d cleared the Ascendancy’s borders. Something else for the Aristocra to scream about down the line.
Theoretically, Ba’kif at least was immune from Syndicure wrath. But that didn’t mean some group of syndics might not set themselves the personal goal of making his life so miserable that he would be forced to resign.
Worse, there was the possibility that one or more families could be persuaded to fully join in that pressure. If that happened, Ba’kif’s days as supreme general would be short indeed.
“We need to know who that Battle Dreadnought was, Mid Captain,” Thrawn said, his voice going grim. “And who in this region they’ve allied with.”
“I’m not arguing, sir,” Samakro said. “Just worrying about Lakinda. She and the whole Xodlak family have a lot of politics going on at the moment.”
“Lakinda will do fine,” Thrawn said. “Politics aren’t supposed to be part of Expansionary Fleet missions.”
“Of course not,” Samakro said. “Speaking of alliances and missions, I don’t suppose you can confirm that rumor about the Vagaari gravity-well trap? I’d like to have a better feel for what we might be getting into.”
“You know I can’t do that,” Thrawn said. “That said, you may be right about the Syndicure looking to profit from our investigation.”
“Profit’s always a good motive, sir, yes,” Samakro agreed.
But money wasn’t the only thing that brought covetous gleams to Aristocra eyes. The fact that both the Mitth and their Irizi rivals supported the Springhawk’s expedition had already raised warning flags in his mind.
Did those two families know more than the rest of the Syndicure about what was going on out past the Paataatus, something that perhaps made it worth a temporary alliance? Were they hoping for new technology they could use directly or fashion into a bargaining chip?
Or were the Irizi simply jumping at the chance to get Thrawn out of the Ascendancy for a while, and had somehow talked the Mitth into going along? That was also a motive he could understand.
“But I wouldn’t worry about it,” Thrawn said. “The Vagaari were severely beaten down the last time we met. Whatever’s going on out there, I don’t anticipate any major surprises.”
Councilor Lakuviv gazed at the Agbui brooch nestled in his palm, a chill running through him. “You’re sure?” he asked Lakjiip, cursing the quaver in his voice. “They’re sure?”
“They are,” the senior aide said, and Lakuviv cursed the calmness in her voice. A mere functionary shouldn’t be calmer than the official she served. “The silver-colored wires are pure nyix.”
“Pure nyix,” Lakuviv murmured, rubbing his thumb distractedly across the cold metal strands. “How is this even possible?”
Lakjiip shrugged. “The metallurgist at Vlidan who ran it couldn’t tell me.”
“He couldn’t tell you?”
“Oh, he made noises about alloys and temperings and annealings,” Lakjiip said. “But the bottom line is that he can’t figure out how the Agbui pulled it off—”
“I don’t mean how they physically did it,” Lakuviv cut her off irritably. “I mean who in the Chaos has such an abundance of nyix that they can waste it on jewelry?” He shook the brooch for emphasis. “And then offer it for such an absurdly low price?”
“I don’t know,” Lakjiip said, her own calmness starting to fray a little at the edges. “You’re right about the price, though. I was told that the nyix in this one piece is worth at least a thousand times what Haplif told me they would be selling them for.”
Lakuviv clenched his teeth. A thousand times. In what version of reality could the Agbui sell these things so cheaply? “Have they started selling them yet?” he asked.
“I don’t think so,” Lakjiip said. “When I last talked to Haplif a few days ago, he said they wanted to stick to their spice sales first while they decided whether or not the local market could handle their jewelry.” She gave Lakuviv a twisted smile. “He was concerned that their prices might be too high.”
“Too high?”
“I’m just telling you what he said.”
“Yes, of course,” Lakuviv said, looking at the brooch again. “You found out about this just today, I assume?”
“Actually, it was two days ago,” Lakjiip said. “You were—”
“Two days?” Lakuviv cut her off. “And you’re just telling me now?”
“You were working on that petition to the Patriarch of the Irizi family,” Lakjiip said evenly. “As I recall, you said you didn’t want to be disturbed for anything less than a declaration of war.”
Lakuviv ground his teeth. Fine; so he had said that. She should still have gone past the words of the order and focused on the intent. “Next time a thunder-maker like this comes to hand, feel free to ignore my orders,” he said. “Never mind. Three things we have to do. First: For now you and I are the only ones who know about this. Plus the metallurgist,” he added. “We need to talk to him.”
“I already have,” Lakjiip said. “Fortunately, he’s Xodlak, so I could invoke the family secrets protocols. He won’t say anything.”
“Good,” Lakuviv said. “Second: We keep an eye on the Agbui. If they even look like they’re going to put these things on the market, I want to know about it. And third, I want you to go to Haplif and invite him here for a little get-together.” He glanced at his chrono. “Probably too late to do so today without arousing suspicion, so make it tomorrow.”
“Yes, sir.” Lakjiip hesitated. “There’s one other thing, Councilor. I don’t know if it qualifies as a thunder-maker—”
“Get on with it,” Lakuviv growled.
“Do you think it’s possible that the Agbui are refugees?” Lakjiip asked.
Lakuviv blinked. “What on Celwis are you talking about? They’re not refugees, they’re cultural nomads. Now get moving—we have to get on this right away.”
“I know that’s what they said,” Lakjiip said, making no attempt to move. “I ask because when I went to check on them yesterday afternoon, Rancher Lakphro told me about an incident that was bothering him. It seems his daughter scared one of the Agbui midagers with a brass-tooth sealer.”
“Scared her how? And what does this have to do with anything?”
“Scared her into dropping on her face on the ground,” Lakjiip said. “The reason it’s important is that I made a copy of the sealer sound and spent most of yesterday evening running it through a waveform comparison. It turns out that the sound is a softer version of a flat-blast artillery shell.”
“That’s absurd,” Lakuviv said, frowning as he tried to revive an old memory. Like most unofficial conversations, the details of his first meeting with Haplif had blown away like smoke. But hadn’t he said…? “They told us they’d been traveling for the past thirty years.”
“Exactly,” Lakjiip said. “So how could one of their midagers even know what an artillery shell sounded like? Let alone demonstrate such a violent response to it?”
Lakuviv tapped his chin, trying to think. “Could they have stopped near a war zone? Or even landed in the middle of one?”
“And didn’t instantly pack up and get out?”
“Yes, yes, good point,” Lakuviv conceded. “An interesting mystery, but a mystery for another day. Right now”—he held up the brooch—“this is what’s important. We need to find out how the Agbui are working this metal, and why it’s so cheap they can make jewelry out of it.”
He squeezed the brooch tightly. Nyix. The rarest known metal in the Chaos, a vital component of the alloy used to create the incredible toughness of a warship’s hull. Only three mines of pure nyix existed in the whole of the Ascendancy, with a handful of other areas offering diffuse seams or single threads. With nyix, a species could conquer and defend; without it, they could only cower and appease. With it, a family could rise to status and power with a speed and sureness nearly unrivaled in Chiss history. Without it, they might stay in the background forever.
But even that lucky family would need to be led. Led and guided by a single individual.
“And most important,” he added to Lakjiip, “we need to find out exactly where they got it.”
The first thing Thalias saw when she opened her eyes was the coffin lying against the wall beside her bed.
It wasn’t actually a coffin, of course, but merely the compact hibernation chamber where the Magys was being held in dreamless sleep until Thrawn could figure out what to do with her. The display lights on the monitor panel confirmed the alien was alive and well in there, and with no immediate danger to her life.
But the chamber was the same cylindrical shape as a coffin, and its occupant really only barely qualified as alive, and Thalias’s mental image of a coffin remained.
She tried not to look at it as she gathered her clothes and started dressing. Sometime this morning, if the Springhawk was still on Thrawn’s schedule, they would leave the relatively smooth volume of hyperspace in which the Chiss Ascendancy nestled and head out into the Chaos. When that happened, she and Che’ri would be summoned to the bridge to begin the journey to the Paataatus hive-home of Nettehi.
Thalias wasn’t exactly sure what Thrawn intended to do there, all alone with a single warship. But it wasn’t her job to know. Her job was to work with Che’ri to get him there as quickly and safely as possible.
She looked furtively at the hibernation chamber as she got her shoes on. Heading into danger…but at least once she had Che’ri on the bridge she wouldn’t have to worry about the girl finding out about this monstrosity hidden in their suite. She straightened her tunic, walked to the hatch, and tapped the release.
And as the hatch slid open she saw, too late, that Che’ri had taken up position right at the edge of the hatchway and was looking straight into Thalias’s sleeping room at the hibernation chamber.
“No!” Thalias bit out, trying to grab the girl’s shoulders, hoping to turn her around before she saw too much.
Too late. Even as Thalias stepped out into the dayroom, she saw Che’ri’s eyes go wide and her mouth drop open. “What’s that?” the girl asked, ducking away from Thalias’s hands and pointing into the sleeping room.
“Something you aren’t supposed to know about,” Thalias said tartly, ushering Che’ri back with one hand as she closed the hatch behind her with the other. “Back. Come on, shoo.”
“I knew there was something in there,” Che’ri said, obediently backing away. “What is that?”
“A storage compartment,” Thalias improvised. Which was true enough, if somewhat misleading. “What were you doing hanging around my—? Oh,” she said as it suddenly hit her. “You used Third Sight, didn’t you?”
“Well, you wouldn’t let me see it,” Che’ri said, a little defensively. “I knew you and Senior Captain Thrawn had put something in there. So when I knew you’d be coming out in a couple of seconds…” She gave a little shrug.
“You got into position to see inside as soon as I opened up,” Thalias said with a sigh.
“Well, you shouldn’t try to keep secrets from people,” Che’ri said, her tone going from defensive to accusing. “That’s not nice.”
“It’s not my secret to tell,” Thalias said. “If I could have told you…” She let the sentence trail off.
“You would have?” Che’ri asked. “Or you wouldn’t have?”
Thalias sighed. It really wasn’t her secret to tell. And yet, in an odd sort of way, it was.
But either way, now that Che’ri had a handle on it, she wasn’t going to let go until she had the full story. And it wasn’t like they could lock her away in the suite or something. “Come on, let’s sit down,” Thalias said, gesturing toward the couch. “We’ll talk, unless you want breakfast first.”
“I can wait,” Che’ri said, bounding over and plopping down on the couch, all eagerness now that she was going to get her way and hear a secret. “What’s in it?”
Thalias sat down at the other end and braced herself. How did you explain something like this to a ten-year-old? “It’s not a what,” she said. “It’s a who. It’s the Magys.”
Again, Che’ri’s eyes went wide. “The Magys? The Magys?”
“Yes,” Thalias said. “She’s the alien who came aboard—”
“I know who she is,” Che’ri interrupted. “We saw her on the bridge when we were down in secondary command.”
“That’s right, we did,” Thalias said, nodding. “You remember we went to her world, and it was pretty badly wrecked.”
“By a war,” Che’ri said, her exuberance fading a little.
“Right,” Thalias said. “Well. The way the Magys’s people do things is that if they think there’s no hope for them—no hope at all—they…they make a decision to do something called touching the Beyond. It’s supposed to let them join with something—people in Lesser Space call it the Force—that will let them start healing their planet.”
“Okay,” Che’ri said, frowning. “So that’s why she’s in there?”
“Not exactly.” Thalias braced herself. “You see, what they have to do to touch the Beyond is…die.”
Che’ri drew back. “You mean they kill themselves?”
Thalias nodded. “Yes.”
“But…” The girl waved a hand helplessly.
“No, that’s not how the Chiss do things,” Thalias said. “But different peoples and different cultures…people sometimes do things in different ways.”
“But what if they make a mistake?” Che’ri asked. “Or change their minds?”
Thalias felt her throat tighten. “They can’t change their minds,” she said. “Once it’s done, it’s done.”
Che’ri inhaled sharply. “Is that why Thrawn locked her up? Because she was going to…do that?”
“Yes,” Thalias said. “We put her in my sleeping room because it would be out of the way, and no one but me would see it.” She felt her lip twitch. “No one but us. So you need to keep this a secret from everyone except—”
“Wait a second,” Che’ri interrupted, frowning. “You said the Magys is in there? Just the Magys? But there were two of them—” She broke off, her expression going rigid. “Did he…?”
For a moment Thalias was tempted to lie. It would be so much easier, and Che’ri didn’t need to carry the additional burden.
But as she gazed into the girl’s stricken eyes, she knew it would be useless. Truth always came out in the end, and hiding it now would only make it worse later. “Yes,” she said gently, reaching over and taking Che’ri’s hand. “I’m sorry.”
“Why didn’t you stop him?” Che’ri asked, her eyes going wet with tears.
“It happened too fast,” Thalias said. “There was no way anyone could stop it.”
“Not even Senior Captain Thrawn?”
“He was given incorrect information,” Thalias said. “On top of that, he probably assumed they would need weapons or tools to do it. I know I would have thought that. But the Magys’s companion didn’t. He didn’t need anything.”
“How did he do it?”
Thalias shook her head. “We still don’t know. Anyway, like I was saying, the only ones aboard who know about this are Senior Captain Thrawn, Mid Captain Samakro, you, and me. You need to promise you won’t say anything to anyone else. All right?”
“All right.” Che’ri looked down at the deck. “Can I have breakfast now?”
“Of course,” Thalias said, squeezing her hand once and letting go. “Meat-striped fruit squares all right?”
“Sure,” Che’ri said, still staring at the deck.
Silently, Thalias stood up and headed to the food prep area. The girl had her answers now, or at least she had the facts. Hopefully, she wouldn’t think to ask any of the deeper questions.
The Magys had ordered her companion to die. She’d taken that decision from him—that last, final decision anyone could make. The aliens clearly considered that an acceptable thing to do. Thalias, coming from Chiss culture, didn’t.
But wasn’t that exactly what she and Thrawn had done to the Magys herself? Hadn’t they taken the right of decision away from her by forcibly sedating her and locking her into hibernation? From her point of view, hadn’t they violated her rights? It was a troubling question.
Especially since it was Thalias who’d first come up with the idea.
She felt her stomach tighten around the emptiness there. What if the Magys was right, that her people were gone and that the two hundred still on Rapacc faced nothing but loneliness, solitude, and lingering death? If the Beyond truly was an alternative, didn’t she have a right to make the decision that her Chiss captors had now taken from her?
Still…
What if they change their minds? Che’ri had asked. It was a question Thalias had wrestled with, and presumably Thrawn had as well. Because, really, all they’d done was postpone the Magys’s decision until they could gather more evidence, one way or another, as to her world’s fate.
And if it turned out to be as the Magys herself already believed, Thalias and Thrawn would have to stand by and watch her make the decision to die.
Thalias wasn’t ready for that. She could only hope that, somehow, they could find a reason for the Magys and her people to live.