Timothy Zahn - Outbound Flight

“Jump calculated,” the helmsman called.

“Make the jump,” Kav ordered, glaring at Doriana as if daring him to argue. “Do you hear me? Now.”

“The hyperdrive does not respond!” the helmsman said, his voice bubbling with sudden panic. “It claims we are too close to a planetary mass.”

Doriana twisted around to look at the row of status boards. That was what the readings said, all right.

But there were no planetary masses nearby, or even any sizable asteroids. “Malfunction?”

“No malfunction,” Kav murmured, his voice dull and fatalistic. “Merely more Chiss wizardry.”

A fresh flicker of light caught Doriana’s eve, and he looked back out the viewports. Across the field of carnage, droid starfighters were starting to explode as too many minutes without communication passed and they began to activate their self-destruct mechanisms. Through the scattered bursts of fire, Doriana saw the Keeper suddenly lurch as the upper surface of its starboard ring half erupted in a hundred small explosions.

“Vicelord!” someone called.

“I know,” Kav said with a tired sigh. “The starfighters I ordered prepped are exploding.”

Doriana nodded, his own bitterness long since faded into a deep sense of the inevitable. The reinforcements would have been flying through the hangar bays when Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s jamming began and they went dormant.

Tumbling helplessly at high speed down a curved corridor, they would have slammed into bulkheads or storage racks or other equipment. There they’d lain, tangled and broken, while they waited for their own self-destruct chronos to run down.

“Then it is over,” Kav said quietly. Lifting his hands, he carefully removed his five-cornered hat and set it with equal care on the floor in front of him. “We are all dead.”

“It would seem so,” Doriana agreed mechanically, feeling his forehead creasing as a strange fact suddenly struck him.

With all the death and debris and charred hulks of ships floating all around them, the Darkvenge itself had yet to be so much as scratched.

He took another, longer look at the status boards.

Except for the inexplicably dormant hyperdrive, everything else seemed perfectly functional. “Or maybe not,” he added. “I think Mitth’raw’nuruodo has something else in mind for us.”

Kav snorted derisively. “And what precisely gave you that impression?”

Puzzled, Doriana turned back to find that one of thealien cruisers had suddenly appeared outside the viewports. It was hovering bare meters away from the transparisteel, its missile racks pointing in to the bridge in silent warning and clear command. “Close down the midline quad laser batteries, Vicelord,” Doriana said quietly. “Then seal the main hangar exits and shut down all the droid starfighters.” He took a careful breath. “And then,” he said, “prepare for company.”

The final turbolift door slid open, and twenty meters down the corridor Car’das saw at last the open blast doors of the battleship’s bridge.

Twenty meters of corridor lined on both sides with armed, tense-looking battle droids.

Thrawn didn’t even hesitate. He strode forward calmly, his two warriors equally sedate as they walked at his sides.

Swallowing hard, not wanting to walk that gauntlet but even less willing to cower in the turbolift car all alone, Car’das forced himself to follow.

There were dozens of droids on duty on the bridge, most of them service and monitor units seated or plugged into the various stations in the control pits. Standing in the center of the quiet activity were just two actual beings, waiting together beside the vacant helm chair: a tall Neimoidian in elaborate robes, and a more sedately dressed human male. Again, Thrawn didn’t pause, but headed down the walkway toward them. He stopped three meters away, and for a moment seemed to size them up. Then, deliberately, he swiveled to face the human.

“Commander Stratis,” he said, nodding his head in greeting. “I am Commander Mitth’raw’nuruodo.”

“Stratis does not command this vessel,” the Neimoidian said stiffly before Stratis could answer. “I am Vicelord Kav of the Trade Federation. And you, Commander Mitthrawdo, have committed an act of war.”

“Vicelord, please,” Stratis said. His voice was calm, but there was a warning edge to it. “Recriminations will serve nouseful purpose.”

“Do not think you have gained anything with your audacity,” Kav continued, ignoring him. “Even now, I could destroy you where you stand.”

He gestured, and from behind them came a sudden metallic racket. Car’das spun around, his heart freezing as a pair of droideka destroyer droids rolled into view and came to a halt just inside the bridge blast doors. They unfolded into their tripod stance, and a second later Car’das found himself staring down the barrels of four pairs of high-energy blasters.

“Vicelord, you fool,” Stratis bit out urgently. “What do you think—?”

“Calm yourself, Commander,” Thrawn soothed him.

“We’re in no danger.”

Carefully, hardly daring to breathe, Car’das turned his head. Stratis’s eyes had gone wide, his throat muscles tight as he gripped the Neimoidian’s arm. But Thrawn merely stood quietly, his face expressionless as he studied the droidekas. The Chiss warriors had their hands on their weapons, but following their commander’s lead hadn’t drawn them. “Interesting design,”

Thrawn went on. “That shimmering sphere—a small force shield?”

“Uh… yes,” Stratis said cautiously. “I assure you, Commander—”

“Thank you for the demonstration, Vicelord,” Thrawn interrupted, turning his glowing red eyes back to Kav. “But now you will send them away.”

For a long, terrible moment Car’das thought the Neimoidian was going to defy Thrawn’s order the way he’d ignored Stratis’s rebuke. The Chiss and. Neimoidian locked eyes, and for half a dozen heartbeats the bridge was silent.

And then Kav’s entire body seemed to wilt, his eyes dropping away from Thrawn’s stare as he half lifted a handtoward the droidekas. Looking back over his shoulder, Car’das watched in relief as the destroyers folded up again and rolled their way off the bridge.

“Thank you,” Thrawn said. “Now. As I asked you before: please state your intentions and those of your task force.”

“A task force that no longer exists,” Kav put in, his voice hovering between anger and dejection.

“That loss was your doing,” Thrawn countered. “All I wished was a civilized answer.” He turned to Car’das. “Is that correct? Civilized?”

“Or just civil,” Car’das told him, feeling his face warming at being suddenly dragged into the middle of the conversation. “Or polite.”

“Civil,” Thrawn said, as if testing the word against some unknown set of guidelines. “Yes. All I wished, Commander, was a civil answer.”

“Yes, I know,” Stratis said, his eyes on Car’das. “May I ask your companion’s name and origin?”

“I’m just a visitor,” Car’das said quickly. The last thing he wanted was for these people to know his name. “That’s all.”

“Not quite,” Thrawn corrected. “Car’das was simply a visitor. Now he’s my translator.” His expression hardened. “And my prisoner.”

Car’das felt his mouth drop open, and for the second time in two minutes felt his heart freeze. “I’m what?”

“You arrived uninvited in Chiss space,” Thrawn reminded him darkly. “Now, less than three months later, an invasion fleet from your people has appeared. Coincidence?”

“I had nothing to do with this,” Car’das protested.

“And we’re not an invasion fleet,” Stratis added.