Again she backed off, taking the opportunity to gulp in a few lungfuls of air. Thrawn didn’t follow, but remained where he was.
Clearly, her preferred combat techniques weren’t working. Time to switch it up a bit. Just because she liked these tactics best didn’t mean she hadn’t been taught others. Taking one final breath, she again charged.
Only this time, instead of using the feint–attack combinations, she came straight at him, jabbing forward with both sticks, one aimed at his face the other at his chest. He blocked the first, but the second slammed into his chest protector with a thoroughly satisfying thud. She moved forward, cocking her arms to do it again.
Again, Thrawn was faster. He backed up rapidly, putting himself out of range. She took another step forward, jabbing again, and again one of the two attacks got through. One more, she decided, and she would call the match. She stepped forward—
And abruptly found herself in the midst of a flurry of flashing sticks as he leapt to the attack.
This time it was her turn to back up, cursing silently as she blocked and parried and tried to turn the attack against him. But he wasn’t giving her any opening. Her feet felt the change in the texture of the mat, warning that she was getting close to the edge.
Thrawn saw it, too. He came to a halt, allowing her to slow her own retreat before she could slam into the wall.
Another mistake. The pause was just long enough for her to take back the initiative, and once again she charged at him.
He backed up slowly, clearly once more on the defensive. But to her chagrin, her attacks were once again going nowhere as he blocked every feint and thrust.
She broke off the attack and stepped back, and for a long moment they stood facing each other. Before he lost too much of his dignity, her earlier smug thought rose back to mock her. “Is there any point to continuing?” she asked.
Thrawn shrugged. “Your choice.”
For a long moment pride and determination urged her to keep going. Common sense won out. “How?” she asked, lowering her sticks and walking up to him.
“Your sculptures show your fondness for wide-spaced combinations,” Thrawn said, lowering his own sticks to his sides. “Particularly three- and four-coil patterns. Your favorite subjects—groundlions, dragonelles, and predator birds—indicate the short attacks, hesitation feints, and aggression. The particular shape of open areas shows how you compose your feints, and the angular style suggests a spinning attack would be unexpected and disconcerting enough to slow your response.”
Which, she remembered, had been his first successful attack. “Interesting,” Ziara said.
“But what followed was equally instructive,” Thrawn continued. He raised his eyebrows slightly in obvious invitation.
Ziara felt a flush of irritation. She was the upperclassman here, not him. If there was anyone who should be reciting lessons and offering analysis, it should be him, not her.
Which was, she instantly realized, about the stupidest thought she’d ever had in her life. Only a fool passed up an opportunity to learn. “I realized you’d figured out my pattern and changed tactics,” she said. “And it worked, at least for a couple of attacks. Then you attacked, and after that I was never able to get through again.”
“Do you know why?”
Ziara frowned, thinking back over the fight…“I went back to my old tactics,” she said with a wry smile. “The ones you’d already figured out how to beat.”
“Exactly,” Thrawn said, smiling back. “A lesson for all of us. In moments of stress or uncertainty, we tend to fall back on the familiar and comfortable.”
“Yes,” Ziara murmured, suddenly noticing where she was relative to him. Well within attack range…and she’d never explicitly stated the bout was over.
The moment of temptation passed. Just because she hadn’t officially stopped it didn’t mean it would be fair to unilaterally start it up again. Thrawn had behaved honorably. She could do no less.
“And the care you put into the sculptures shows you have too much honor to play shoddy tricks against a sparring partner,” Thrawn added.
Ziara felt her face warm. “You sure of that?”
“Yes.”
For a long moment she was again tempted. Then, spinning on her heel, she stalked across the mat and returned her sticks to the weapons rack. “Okay,” she said over her shoulder as she started pulling off her sparring armor. “I’m impressed. You really think you can do the same thing with alien cultures and tactics?”
“I do,” Thrawn said. “Someday, I hope I’ll have the chance to prove it.”
Five hours after the Springhawk went into hiding, Thrawn and Thalias strapped themselves into one of the cruiser’s shuttles and headed across the asteroid cluster toward the dark space station floating in the distance.
“The journey may be a bit tedious,” Thrawn warned as they moved between the floating rocks and dust. “We’ll be using the maneuvering jets exclusively in order to avoid any thruster plumes that our adversaries might detect. That makes for a slower trip.”
“I understand,” Thalias said.
“Still, it gives us a chance to talk in private,” Thrawn continued. “How are you finding your job as caregiver?”
“It’s challenging,” Thalias admitted, a quiet warning bell going off in the back of her mind. Thrawn could have called her into his office at any point since leaving the Ascendancy if he just wanted to talk in private.
Did he know about that last-minute conversation with Thurfian, and the deal the syndic had forced on her? “Che’ri’s pretty easy to live with, but there are some things every sky-walker deals with that can be difficult.”
“Nightmares?”
“And headaches and occasional mood swings,” Thalias said. “Along with just being a nine-year-old.”
“Especially one who’s vital to the functioning of the ship and knows it?”
“Right—the horror stories of sky-walker arrogance and demands,” Thalias said scornfully. “Pure ice-cap legend. I’ve never met anyone who’s actually seen that happen. Every sky-walker I’ve known has gone the opposite direction.”
“Feelings of inadequacy,” Thrawn said. “The fear that she won’t measure up to what her captain and ship require of her.”
Thalias nodded. Like the nightmares, those were feelings she remembered all too well. “Sky-walkers are always worried that they’ll get the ship lost or do something else wrong.”
“Though the record indicates very few such incidents,” Thrawn said. “And most of the affected ships eventually returned safely via jump-by-jump.” He paused. “I presume Che’ri isn’t facing any challenges that you yourself didn’t also have to overcome?”