“Ready and waiting, Captain.”
“Standing by for breakout,” the pilot announced. “Three, two, one.” The hyperspace swirl vanished—
And there, ten kilometers ahead, the drama stretched out in front of them.
Ship losses of this sort were rare these days, but no less horrific for all that. The excursion liner, a compact cylinder with a pair of wide D-shaped wings stretching out on opposite sides and housing the more expensive suites, was deep into the roiling upper atmosphere of the triple-ringed gas giant planet it had been cruising past. Already its wake was visible as it plowed through the tenuous gasses, the drag eroding its orbital velocity and threatening it with a death spiral into the crushing depths. A few hundred meters in front of it, trailing a smaller wake, was the Boco, straining for all it was worth to stabilize the liner.
Straining, and losing. Even without running the numbers, Ziara could see that the sheer difference in mass between the two ships would make it impossible for the Boco to pull the liner free. In fact, even adding the Parala’s tractors to the mix might not be enough.
“Senior Captain Ziara,” Thrawn’s voice came from the bridge speaker. “Thank you for your prompt response. Would you join me off the liner’s bow?”
“On our way,” Ziara said, gesturing the order to the helm. The sensor display lit up with the relevant numbers…
Just as she’d feared. “But it won’t do any good,” she added quietly. “Even together we can’t make this work. Are the passengers off yet?”
“Unfortunately, no,” Thrawn said. “By the time the thrusters failed, the liner was already too deep into the radiation and magnetic bands to launch escape pods.”
“They’re still aboard?”
“It’s all right,” Thrawn said. “The passengers and crew are all gathered in the central cylinder behind adequate shielding.”
Ziara hissed between her teeth. That wasn’t at all what she’d meant. “Did you get through to anyone else?” she asked, her eyes running down the numbers. Another hour, and even a full Nightdragon wouldn’t be able to tow the liner free.
“No one else is coming,” Thrawn said. “Please hurry. Time is short.”
“Short?” someone muttered. “More like nonexistent.”
“Just pull us parallel to him,” Ziara said, wondering what Thrawn had in mind.
“In position, Captain,” the pilot called.
“Tractors on,” the weapons officer added. “Status…no good. Liner’s still drag—”
An instant later she broke off with a startled gasp as the Parala jerked violently. “Boco’s dropped its tractors!”
“Increase thrust,” Ziara ordered, staring at the display. Not only had the Boco disengaged its tractors, but it had veered away from the Parala and was making a tight curve back toward the liner.
And as the Boco settled into position alongside the liner, its spectrum lasers flashed, blasting into the junction points where the portside luxury wing connected to the central cylinder. “Captain, he’s attacking them!” the sensor officer yelped.
“Stand fast,” Ziara said. “Ready emergency power to the thrusters.”
“But Captain—”
“I said stand fast,” Ziara snapped. “Don’t you see? He’s lightening the ship.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when the portside wing broke away, the sudden change in the liner’s mass again sending a jolt along the tractor beam line and into the Parala. The Boco was already moving to the liner’s other side, blasting away at the connectors of the starboard wing. Ziara watched, bracing herself…
The wing snapped away and disappeared into the atmosphere below. “Emergency power!” Ziara ordered. “Get us out of here.”
And as the Parala vibrated and creaked with the additional stress, the liner finally began to move away from the planet. A moment later there was another, smaller jolt as the Boca returned to Ziara’s side and added its own tractors and thrusters to the effort. Slowly but steadily, they eased the liner out of the atmosphere and the gravity well.
Fifteen minutes later, the crisis was over.
“Thank you for your assistance, Senior Captain Ziara,” Thrawn’s voice came as the two ships finally cut back on their thrusters and disengaged their tractors. “Without you, the liner would indeed have been lost.”
“Thank you in turn for your quick thinking,” Ziara said, eyeing the liner. The ship’s beautiful external wings, gone, with their fancy suites and, no doubt, the inhabitants’ fancy possessions gone with them. “A word of warning, though. If I were you, I wouldn’t expect a lot of thanks from anyone else.”
* * *
—
“You’ve never been to Csilla, have you?” Ziara asked as the shuttle headed down toward the shimmery blue-white surface of the Chiss homeworld.
“No,” Thrawn said, gazing out the viewport. “All my training and briefings took place at the Expansionary Fleet complex on Naporar.”
Ziara peered at his profile. There was a tightness around his eyes and lips. “You seem worried.”
“Worried?”
“The state of seeing large nighthunters lurking in your future,” Ziara said. “You know you have nothing to be concerned about, right? The liner owners can squawk all they want, but the fact remains that you saved eight thousand people who otherwise would be compressed mush right now.”
“I imagine anything resembling mush would have long since dissipated into tendrils of shredded organic molecules within the atmospheric currents.”
“Oh, I like that one,” Ziara said. “Okay if I borrow it?”
“You’re welcome to it.” Thrawn nodded at the planet. “No, I was just thinking. I’ve been in trouble before, but I’ve never been called to such a high-level hearing.”
“Because all the other questionable things you did were essentially military,” Ziara reminded him. “This one is essentially civilian. More important, it’s civilian connected to one of the Nine Families. That puts you on everyone’s scanners.”
“Yet you suggest I don’t need to worry?”
“No, because the passenger list included Aristocra from at least five of the other Nine Families,” Ziara said. “When pique comes to poke, five-to-one odds make a pretty decent battle position.”
“I hope it won’t come to that.” Thrawn nodded toward the viewport. “Is that Csaplar?”