“You think they only suspect?” Thrawn echoed. He cocked his head. “Yes; point taken. Let’s remove any lingering doubts.” He keyed the comm—
And suddenly it was as if he’d lost his senses. “Alert!” Thrawn called. “I’ve found the pirates. Repeat: I’ve found them. Get out of here and report back!”
Qilori gasped. What in—? “Thrawn—?”
Thrawn keyed off the comm. “There,” he said, his voice and expression back to their usual coolness. “Now they know for certain.”
“What in the Depths did you do?” Qilori said in a strangled voice. “You’ve just painted a death mark on us. They’ll be coming after us—”
“There they go,” Thrawn said, pointing at a spot on the main display.
Qilori looked at the display in time to see a ship flicker and disappear into hyperspace. “My second ship,” Thrawn identified. “One of my colleagues is aboard, with one of yours navigating it back to the Ascendancy.” He turned the helm yoke over, and the freighter curved smoothly away from the planet. “And now, as you suggest, it’s time to leave.”
“Yes, let’s,” Qilori muttered, slumping in his chair as Thrawn ran the thrusters to full power. The patrol ships were starting to move, and as Qilori looked up at the high-orbit docking bays he saw three corsairs emerge, their own thrusters blazing as they angled toward him and Thrawn, hoping to intercept them before they could escape into hyperspace.
Either Thrawn also saw them or else he’d anticipated the response. He was already on it, shifting the freighter’s course onto a vector that would slip it past the potential trap.
But it would do him no good. The corsairs were on the move, and if there were Pathfinders aboard there was nothing Thrawn could do to prevent them from following him back to Chiss space. They would get him, and the oh-so-clever backup ship that had already left, and the Lioaoin ships would continue to attack and plunder everyone in the region.
Maybe the corsairs would try to rescue Qilori and the other Pathfinder before they destroyed the Chiss ships. Probably they wouldn’t.
But at this point, all he could do was hope. “Where are we going?” he asked as they approached the edge of the gravity well.
“Kinoss,” Thrawn said. “It’s the closest system, and there should be fast couriers there who can take our message to Csilla and Naporar.”
“Fine,” Qilori said, setting his hands on the controls. Maybe one of the two Chiss freighters would at least be able to send a message before the corsairs jammed their transmissions and then destroyed them.
Probably they wouldn’t.
* * *
—
The trance this time was one of the hardest Qilori had ever experienced. On top of the usual course intricacies was an overlaid mesh of dark and distracting images, visions of pursuing ships guided by fellow Pathfinders. He nearly lost the path more times than he cared to remember, and twice he was forced to return to space-normal to regain his connection to the Great Presence.
Thrawn said nothing during those retrenchments. Probably dreaming of glory for ending the pirate menace, or assuming the course stutters would throw off any pursuit.
The other Chiss freighter had already arrived when they finally reached the Kinoss system. Qilori could see its thrusters in the distance ahead, driving the vessel toward the planet. Even as Qilori finished rising from his trance Thrawn had taken the controls and turned to follow.
Futility. Even before the thrusters were up to full power, four Lioaoin corsairs winked into view on the aft display.
“Ah,” Thrawn said, still with that maddening calm. “Our guests have arrived.”
“I’m so surprised,” Qilori muttered.
“I doubt that,” Thrawn said. “I did some study on the Pathfinders after our first encounter. Your colleagues can track you through hyperspace, can they not?”
Qilori shot him a startled look. That was supposed to be a deep, dark secret. “That—no. Not true.”
“I think it is.” Thrawn gestured to the aft display. “The Pathfinder style was evident in the last pirate attack. I hoped you and I would arrive at the Lioaoin heartworld before those navigators were returned to their bases.”
“You wanted them to follow us?”
“Of course,” Thrawn said, as if it was obvious. “With any other navigators there would be uncertainty as to their emergence point, if indeed they were able to follow us at all. With Pathfinders aboard, I could be sure the pirates would arrive precisely where I wanted them.”
“You mean right on top of us?” Qilori retorted. He looked again at the aft display.
And felt his winglets go rigid. Where there had been four ships behind them, there were now five. The four Lioaoin corsairs he’d already seen…and a Chiss warship.
“Mid Captain Ziara, this is Junior Commander Thrawn,” Thrawn called toward the comm. “I believe your targets await you.”
“Indeed they do, Commander,” a soft female voice came back. “I suggest you continue on your present course.
“It should give you the best view of their destruction.”
“Interesting,” Supreme General Ba’kif commented as he set his questis aside. He’d read the report twice, Ar’alani had noted as she watched his eyes move back and forth across the text, the first time she’d ever seen him do that. Either he’d been trying to glean as much information as he could, or else he was stalling while he tried to figure out what to say and do about it. “You realize, of course, that stealing someone else’s ship, under any circumstance, is a serious breach of regulations.”
“The Nikardun ships attacked us, sir,” Thrawn said. “I understood that regulations permit self-defense.”
“Absolutely,” Ba’kif said. “And if you’d blown the damn thing to dust, no one would have given it a second thought. But capturing it?” He shook his head. “And you, Admiral. I know you and Thrawn have a long history, but I’m a little surprised that you agreed to be a part of this.”
“Actually, General, I made a point of refreshing my memory on the regulations before I accepted Captain Thrawn’s proposal,” Ar’alani said, mentally crossing her fingers. “There’s nothing that specifically says capturing an attacker’s ship is a violation.”
“I think you’ll find it falls under the general heading of preemptive strikes,” Ba’kif said. “Which is definitely how certain of the Aristocra will interpret it once they hear about this. Some of them might even demand the ship be returned.”