Ziara craned her neck. Barely visible in the otherwise featureless surface was what appeared to be a massive city frozen in the ice. “Yes,” she confirmed. “Capital of the Chiss Ascendancy, and once the flower-spray of culture and refinement. We’ll be landing at the spaceport on the southwest edge and taking a tunnel car westward to fleet headquarters. You won’t see that complex from up here, by the way—it’s mostly underground.”
“Yes, I know,” Thrawn said. “You say Csaplar was once a center of culture. Not anymore?”
“Sadly, no,” Ziara said. “But it really was marvelous once.”
“Odd,” Thrawn said, sounding a bit confused. “I would think that a city population of seven million would be more than enough to support both a government and the arts.”
“One would think so,” Ziara agreed, looking casually around the shuttle. Too many people. But there would be plenty of time later to tell him the truth. “But don’t worry. I’m sure we’ll find something down there to do.”
The hearing, as Ziara had predicted, was short and perfunctory. The Boadil family, which had owned the doomed liner, had sent a representative who loudly insisted that Thrawn be punished, demoted, or possibly thrown out of the Expansionary Defense Fleet altogether. Three of the five families whose members had been saved from death were also represented, countering that Thrawn deserved promotion, not censure. In the end, it all balanced out, and Thrawn ended up exactly where he’d started.
With one crucial exception. For whatever reason, for whatever obscure political favor someone owed someone else, Thrawn’s patrol ship—his very first command—was taken away from him.
“I’m so sorry,” Ziara commiserated as she and Thrawn rode their tunnel car back to the city. “I never expected the fleet to do that.”
“It’s all right,” Thrawn said. His voice was calm, but Ziara could hear the disappointment beneath it. “Considering how many millions I cost the Boadil, neither of us should be surprised by their vindictiveness.”
“You didn’t cost anyone anything,” Ziara ground out. “You didn’t take the liner too close to that planet. You didn’t ignore the engineers who warned the electronics were having trouble with the magnetic field twists. You didn’t push the engines and scramble the thrusters in the first place. If I were the Boadil, I’d be looking to nail the liner’s captain to the floor, not you.”
Except they wouldn’t, she knew, feeling the sharp edge of bitterness. The Boadil were political allies with both the Ufsa and her own Irizi family…and the liner’s captain had been Ufsa. Thrawn was the only scapegoat available for the mess, and so he’d received the full brunt of Boadil anger and embarrassment.
“Thank you,” Thrawn said. “But you don’t need to be angry on my behalf. Together we saved eight thousand lives. That’s what’s important.”
Ziara nodded. “Yes. Absolutely.”
“So,” Thrawn said, his tone businesslike again. “With my command gone, I no longer have convenient passage off Csilla. I presume the fleet will take note of that and find me transport to wherever post they next assign me.”
“Hopefully, they won’t need to go out of their way on that count,” Ziara said. “I’ve already put in a request for you to be reassigned to the Parala as one of my officers. If that’s approved, you’ll leave with me.”
“Thank you,” Thrawn said, inclining his head toward her. “I noticed a number of hotels clustered around the spaceport. I can find housing there while I await my new orders.”
“You could,” Ziara said, pursing her lips thoughtfully. The thought that had just occurred to her…
The family wouldn’t be happy about it, she knew. But right now she didn’t really care. Thrawn had been unfairly dumped on, and if she couldn’t fix it she could at least show him that he hadn’t been abandoned by the entire Ascendancy.
“But I’ve got a better idea,” she said. “We’ve got at least a few days, more likely a week. Why don’t you come to the Irizi homestead with me?”
“To your homestead?” Thrawn echoed. “Are strangers even allowed?” A muscle in his cheek twitched. “Especially strangers from rival families?”
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Ziara said. “I’m blood, and I’m an honored member of the fleet who just helped save eight thousand lives. I don’t know how far all that will take me, but I’d rather like to find out. You game to find out with me?”
“I don’t know,” Thrawn said hesitantly. “I don’t want you to get in trouble on my behalf.”
“I’m not worried about it,” Ziara said. “Did I mention that my grandfather was an amazingly passionate art collector?”
Thrawn smiled. “If I haven’t mentioned it recently, Ziara, you have a knack for seeking out and exploiting your opponents’ weaknesses. Very well. Shall we once again charge headlong into danger?”
“We shall,” Ziara said. “Besides, we’ve just survived an encounter with a malicious gas giant planet. Really, how bad could my family be?”
* * *
—
The area around the Csaplar spaceport was loud and busy, crowded with people, hotels, restaurants, and entertainment of all sorts. The Irizi homestead was about three hundred kilometers to the northeast, on the far side of the city. Ziara got them a two-person express overground tube car and they headed off.
Across the city. Not, as was usually done, around it.
She wasn’t supposed to do that, she knew. Thrawn wasn’t supposed to know the truth about the Ascendancy’s capital city—no one except senior syndics, flag officers, and the Patriarchs of the Nine Families knew the full truth—and there were plenty of tunnel car routes that would avoid the aboveground sections entirely.
But once again, she didn’t care. The fleet and Aristocra had treated Thrawn shamefully, and her lingering anger over that had awakened a peculiar but surprisingly delicious sense of defiance.
Besides, she reminded herself as they left the spaceport and headed through the buildings and parks and the maze of other overground tubes, it would be an interesting tactical exercise to see how long it took Thrawn to figure it out.
Not long at all, as it turned out. They’d crossed a little more than a third of the sprawling metropolis, and she was watching his expression closely as he stared out the viewport, when his eyes suddenly narrowed. “Something’s wrong,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Ziara asked.