She looked at the map, at the clusters of enemy stars closing in around the Ascendancy. Suddenly her own uncertainties, comfort, and self-respect didn’t seem nearly so important anymore. As for Che’ri, Thalias could only do her best to explain it to the girl.
“I don’t know how to be a hostage,” she said, turning back to Thrawn. “But I’m ready to learn.”
Thrawn inclined his head to her. “Thank you,” he said. Stepping to the desk, he touched a key. “Admiral, this is Thrawn. Caregiver Thalias has agreed to accompany me. Can you inform Sky-walker Che’ri and make arrangements for someone to take over her care when we reach Solitair?”
“I’d like to tell her myself,” Thalias put in. “It might be easier coming from me.”
“That’s reasonable,” Ar’alani said. “Do you have someone you’d recommend to take your place?”
Thalias hesitated. Most of her time aboard the Vigilant had been spent with Che’ri or on the bridge. Who did she know well enough to entrust with such a responsibility?
Especially since it needed to be someone of stature and respect if the girl wasn’t going to see this as Thalias handing her off to the first person she ran into along the corridor.
Really, there was only one person who fit both criteria.
“Yes,” she hedged. “May I think about it a little longer?”
“Of course,” Ar’alani said. “Che’ri should be finished with this run in half an hour. I want you on the bridge at that time with your recommendation.”
“Yes, Admiral.”
“I’ll see you then. Ar’alani out.”
Thrawn keyed off. “Do you know who you’ll ask to take care of her?” he asked as Thalias headed toward the hatch.
“Yes,” she said over her shoulder. “But I’m not sure the admiral will approve.”
* * *
—
The admiral, Ar’alani thought sourly, very much didn’t approve.
But she’d agreed that Thalias could choose Che’ri’s caregiver, and she was bound by personal honor to follow through on that promise.
Besides which, Thalias’s arguments and reasoning made sense.
Che’ri was curled up in one of the oversized chairs, right where Ar’alani had left her, when the signal and Thrawn’s instructions finally arrived from the surface. “I’m back,” she announced cheerfully as she crossed the suite toward the girl. “Did you get some sleep? Are you hungry?”
“I’m okay,” Che’ri said, her voice soft and weary.
Ar’alani frowned, studying the girl’s face. When she was Che’ri’s age, she remembered a tendency to go all dramatic when she wanted something, or felt she was being treated unfairly, or just felt like getting some attention. But there was something in Che’ri’s expression that told her none of those were the case here. “Are you upset that Thalias left you?”
Che’ri’s lip twitched, enough to show that Ar’alani had hit the mark. “She said she had to go,” she muttered. “She wouldn’t tell me why.”
Ar’alani nodded. “Yes, that always drove me crazy, too.”
Che’ri looked up, frowning. “You were a sky-walker?”
“No, but I was once ten,” Ar’alani said. “Grown-ups were always whispering and keeping secrets. I hated that. But sometimes it’s necessary.”
Che’ri lowered her gaze. “She’s going into danger, isn’t she? Captain Thrawn’s taking her, and they’re going into danger.”
“Oh, there’s danger everywhere,” Ar’alani said, trying to sound casual. “It’s not a big deal.”
It was, she realized too late, the exact wrong thing to say. Suddenly, without warning, Che’ri’s eyes welled up with tears, and she buried her face in her hands. “She’s going to die,” she gasped between sobs that shook her whole body. “She’s going to die.”
“No, no,” Ar’alani protested, hurrying forward and dropping to one knee beside the frightened girl. “No, she’s going to be fine. Thrawn’s there, too, and he won’t let anything bad happen to her.”
“It’s my fault,” Che’ri moaned. “It’s my fault. I yelled at her. I yelled at her, and now she’s going to die!”
“Easy, easy,” Ar’alani soothed. “It’s okay. When did you yell at her?”
But even as she asked the question, the obvious answer popped into her mind. The long farewell and explanations that had taken place in the privacy of the sky-walker suite. Thalias’s manner and posture as she and Thrawn had headed to the shuttle, a manner which Ar’alani noted at the time seemed unusually subdued even given the gravity of the upcoming mission. Che’ri’s refusal to come out of her sleeping room when Ar’alani first came to the suite to check on her after the shuttle left.
Ar’alani had put it down to nerves on both sky-walker’s and caregiver’s parts. Apparently, however, their farewells had been a lot more fiery than she’d realized.
And now the girl had worked through her anger and tumbled off the other direction into fear and depression and guilt. “It’s okay,” Ar’alani said again. “People yell at each other all the time. It doesn’t mean they don’t care for each other.”
“But I told her I hated her,” Che’ri sobbed.
“She’s not going to die,” Ar’alani said firmly, gingerly resting her hand on Che’ri’s shoulder. “Saying something doesn’t make it happen.”
“I didn’t mean to yell.” Che’ri sniffed, the crying fading a little as she lowered her hands. “I just wanted some graph markers. So I could draw. But she said she didn’t have any, and couldn’t get any before she left, and I said Ab’begh has them and that she was a terrible momish—” She covered her face again, and the sobbing resumed.
Ar’alani patted her shoulder gently, feeling like a fresh recruit on her first training mission. She would take a battle against multiple enemies any day over trying to soothe a terrified child. “Listen to me,” she said, wincing at the command tone of her voice. “Listen to me,” she tried again, this time trying for gentleness. “This isn’t like books or vids. This is real life. Just because someone goes off on a mission right after they’ve had a fight doesn’t mean they’re going to die.”
Che’ri didn’t answer. But Ar’alani thought she was crying a little less hard.