And then, suddenly, Thrawn was there, plucking Yiv’s gun from his hand and wrapping a breather mask around Thalias’s face. “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice distorted by his own mask.
“Um-mm,” Thalias said brightly as Yiv made a sort of halfhearted lunge. Thrawn evaded the attack easily, sending the Nikardun to land heavily on all fours on the deck. Thrawn gave him a hefty squirt from a tava canister of his own, setting Yiv’s shoulder symbionts into a frenzied wriggle, then turned to Che’ri. By the time he’d asked her the same question he’d asked Thalias and had the girl’s breather mask in place, Thalias’s head was starting to clear. “Data library?” Thrawn asked as he pulled Yiv’s arms behind him and fastened the wrists together.
“I think it’s that console over there,” Thalias said, marveling at how quickly and thoroughly her mind had recovered from the gas. “He also keeps a kind of questis in a compartment in the left armrest of his chair.”
“Excellent,” Thrawn said. “You get his questis. I’ll get Yiv aboard the freighter, then see what I can copy before the rest of the crew breaks through the bridge door.”
“We’re not going to destroy his ship?”
“I never intended to destroy his ship,” Thrawn said. Reaching down, he took hold of one of Yiv’s arms and levered the unconscious Nikardun up off the deck. “All I need to do is destroy him.”
“What about them?” Thalias persisted, pointing to the Nikardun crew members twitching or muttering on the deck. “Once you pull the freighter out of the viewport, won’t they all die?”
Thrawn’s face hardened. “As Yiv has already said,” he reminded her quietly. “No witnesses.”
It was, Ar’alani knew, necessary that she and Thrawn have a talk about what had happened at Solitair. But she managed to find enough excuses to put it off until they were nearly home.
Finally, she couldn’t delay it any further.
“I should have seen it,” Thrawn said, his eyes fixed on an otherwise unremarkable corner of Ar’alani’s office. “I should have seen the signs.”
“No,” Ar’alani said. “I should have. But not you.”
“Because you’re more experienced?”
“Because you don’t understand politics,” Ar’alani said. “Politics, vying for position, feuds, grudges, ledger balancing—they’re all things you’ve never gotten a solid grip on.”
“But why not?” Thrawn asked. “I don’t disagree; but it’s all strategy and tactics. Just a different form of warfare. Why can’t I read it?”
“Because the techniques of warfare are relatively straightforward,” Ar’alani said. “You identify the objective, you gather allies and resources, you devise a strategy, and you defeat the enemy. But in politics, allies and goals are constantly shifting. Unless you can anticipate those changes, you can’t prepare for them.”
“Alliances can shift in warfare, too.”
“But it takes time to move ships and armies around and reconfigure battle lines,” Ar’alani said. “You have that time to adapt to the new landscape. In politics, it’s all done with words and bits of writing. Half an hour of conversation—less than that if there are bribes involved—and everything has changed.”
“I see.” Thrawn took a long breath. “Then I need to study this form of combat. Study it, and master it.”
“That would be helpful,” Ar’alani said.
Only he never would master it, she knew. Just as some were tone-deaf to music, Thrawn was tone-deaf to the nuances and intricate self-serving dances that made up the world of politics.
She could only hope that he and his overseers would be astute enough to keep him in the military arena. There, and only there, would he be of genuine and lasting value to the Ascendancy.
* * *
—
Thurfian had had to swallow a lot of bitter quaffs during his years of dealing with Ascendancy politics. But this quaff was absolutely the worst of all.
“A Trial-born,” he said to the man facing him from the comm display. “After the fiasco with the Lioaoi and Garwians, you’re making him a Trial-born?”
“We have no choice,” Speaker Thistrian said heavily. “The Irizi are making serious overtures to him.”
“They already tried that,” Thurfian said. “He turned them down.”
“Never officially,” the Speaker said. “And that offer was just to make him a Trial-born. Now I understand they’re preparing to offer him ranking distant.”
Thurfian felt his eyes widen. “A ranking distant? That’s absurd.”
“Maybe so. Maybe not. And even Thrawn isn’t blind enough to miss the political advantages that would give him. All we can do is hope that he’d prefer Trial-born of the Mitth to ranking distant of the Irizi.”
“They’re bluffing,” Thurfian insisted. “They’re trying to maneuver us into drawing him in and tying him closer to the family. The closer in he is, the bigger the political fallout when he makes his next big mistake.”
“Maybe he won’t.”
“Won’t make a mistake?” Thurfian snorted. “You don’t believe that any more than I do. The man’s a menace. Give him enough lead time, and he’ll burn himself down. And maybe the Mitth along with him.”
“Or maybe he’ll do something that raises the Ascendancy to heights it’s never before achieved.”
Thurfian stared at him. “You’re joking, right? To heights it’s never achieved?”
“It could happen,” the Speaker said ruefully. “And if it does, we can’t afford to risk that glory shining on the Irizi instead of us.”
“With all due respect, Speaker, there won’t be any glory,” Thurfian said. “Certainly the Council isn’t looking at all this with starry eyes. They’ve already demoted him back to mid commander.”
“But they’ve also given him another ship,” Thistrian said.
For the second time in less than a minute, Thurfian felt his eyes widen. “They’ve what?”
“A full-rank heavy cruiser this time, too, the Springhawk,” the Speaker confirmed. “On top of that, there’s talk of also giving him his own combat group, Picket Force Two.”
Thurfian stared at the Speaker, a chill running through him. “Who’s doing this?” he asked, his throat tight. “Someone’s burning serious political capital here. Who?”