“A problem?” She shook her head. “No. It’s just…I’ve never seen aliens as people before. Not like Chiss are people. I’ve always thought of them as something lesser, something closer perhaps to highly intelligent animals. Some friendly, some harmless, some dangerous.” She eyed him. “I suppose you’ve always seen them for what they are?”
“You mean as people?” Thrawn shook his head. “Not really. I see the people, certainly. But their personhood is seldom at the top of my thoughts.”
“Then how do you see them?”
His eyes swept the crowd, and Ar’alani thought she could see a hint of both thoughtfulness and sadness in his face. “As possible allies. Possible enemies.
“Assets.”
* * *
—
The group was nearly to the Solitair planetary security center when the racket of emergency alarms suddenly filled the air over the Creators’ Market. “What is it?” Ar’alani shouted over the noise.
“Solitair is under attack!” Frangelic snapped, breaking into a dead run. “Hurry!”
The alarms had been silenced by the time the three of them reached the underground situation room beneath the building. “Security Chief Frangelic, reporting for orders,” Frangelic called as they hurried toward a small group of Garwians standing in front of a large display wall. The three Ruleri, Ar’alani noted, were also present, conversing together off to one side beside another, smaller set of displays. The screens were of course labeled with Garwian script, which made them unreadable to her.
But there was no mistaking the reason for the alarm. The main viewscreen showed two Lioaoin ships coming in toward the planet. Even as Ar’alani watched, they reached firing range and the nearest of Solitair’s orbiting defense platforms opened up with lasers and missiles.
“Security Chief,” one of the officers greeted Frangelic tensely as Ar’alani and the others came up to them. Up close, she now recognized him as a general who’d been at one of their earlier meetings, though she couldn’t recall his name. “Commodore Ar’alani; Senior Commander Thrawn.” He gestured to the displays. “As you can see, the quiet talks we’d envisioned between our two peoples have been violently interrupted.”
“Indeed,” Frangelic said grimly.
“We were afraid this would happen,” the general continued. “With our forces off defending our five outer worlds, the Lioaoi have chosen this moment for a surprise attack. You helped us once, Commodore Ar’alani. Can you also assist us in repulsing this new aggression?”
Ar’alani shook her head, feeling a sense of helplessness. The woman up there in the Creators’ Market, diligently sewing her historical clothing…“I’m sorry, General, but we can’t,” she said. “By all standard protocol, we shouldn’t even be in your situation room.”
“You are our guests, and such guests must be protected,” the general said. “If the invaders break through, you could be in the same danger as our own helpless citizens.”
“There’s little likelihood of that,” Thrawn assured him. “Your defense platforms should be more than adequate to protect you from two warships.”
“What if there are more lying in wait?” Frangelic countered. “Anything you can tell us about our attackers could spell the difference between survival and utter destruction. Please.”
For a moment, Thrawn watched the displays in silence. Ar’alani could see his eyes flicking back and forth: observing, assessing, calculating. If there was something else there, some weakness the Garwians could exploit, he would find it.
“Well?” the general prompted.
“I see two additional weaknesses,” Thrawn said. “But Commodore Ar’alani is right. This is something the Ascendancy must stand back from.”
“You helped us once,” Frangelic said. “Is not the situation here even more dire?”
Thrawn looked at Ar’alani. Back at the general. “The Lioaoi have certain tactical blind spots,” he said. “The first—”
“Just a minute,” Ar’alani interrupted him. The Garwian officers—all of them—were staring at Thrawn. None were watching the monitors. None were directing their defenses.
But then, why would they? The Lioaoin ships were standing well back from the defense platform, not moving forward, their effort apparently being put into defending themselves against the Garwian barrage.
“Please,” Frangelic said, shifting his attention to Ar’alani. “Please don’t stand in the way of Garwian survival.”
“Is that what I’m doing?” Ar’alani asked. Pulling out her comm, she keyed for the Destrama.
Silence. Not just no answer. Silence.
And now all the Garwian officers were looking at her.
“Commander Thrawn, please contact the Destrama,” she said. “There seems to be a problem with my comm.”
“Is there,” Thrawn said, his voice and face gone suddenly hard. He’d heard the silence from her comm, too. “General, kindly lift your jamming.”
“There’s no jamming,” Frangelic said quickly. “At our depth—”
“Kindly lift your jamming,” Thrawn repeated.
Neither his voice nor his face had changed. Even so, a sudden shiver ran up Ar’alani’s back. Silently, the general turned and made a gesture to one of the officers at the consoles. The other touched a pair of switches—
“—asking for terms for the Lioaoin Regime’s surrender,” a taut voice came over Ar’alani’s comm. “The Garwians are ignoring them. Commodore, can you hear me?”
“Yes, Commander,” Ar’alani said. “I can now, anyway. Stand by for orders.”
She muted the comm. “Nice,” she said to the general, putting as much frost into her voice as she could. “You claim you’re being raided by pirates and maneuver us into bending our protocols to assist. Then, once the Lioaoi have lost a critical number of ships, you launch an assault against—what? An old rival? A new competitor for trade or manufacturing contracts?”
“You speak as if the Lioaoi were innocents,” the general said loftily. “Not at all. You recall me speaking earlier of our five outer worlds? Once there were six.” His mouth opened in a grin. “Now there will be six again.”
“Or possibly seven?” Ar’alani asked.
“Possibly,” the general agreed. “There is one of theirs we’re most interested in.”