Тимоти Зан - Star Wars - Thrawn Ascendancy (Book I - Chaos Rising)

For the second time in less than a minute, Thurfian felt his eyes widen. “They’ve what ?”

“A full-rank heavy cruiser this time, too, the Springhawk, ” the Speaker confirmed. “On top of that, there’s talk of also giving him his own combat group, Picket Force Two.”

Thurfian stared at the Speaker, a chill running through him. “Who’s doing this?” he asked, his throat tight. “Someone’s burning serious political capital here. Who?”

“I don’t know,” the Speaker said heavily. “On the fleet side, best guess is that it’s General Ba’kif or possibly Admiral Ja’fosk. On the Mitth side—” He shook his head. “It has to be someone close to the Patriarch.”

“Could it be the Patriarch himself?”

“I would hesitate to put that name to it,” the Speaker said. “But I also wouldn’t dismiss that thought out of hand. Certainly Thrawn’s life and career have been charmed from the very beginning.”

“It’s still madness,” Thurfian said. “His failures and embarrassments still outweigh his successes.”

“I would tend to agree,” the Speaker said. “But there’s madness, and then there’s madness. I looked into Picket Two’s current assignment, and it turns out they’re working a patrol zone a fair distance past the Ascendancy’s east-zenith edge. That would put him far away from the center of Ascendancy politics.”

Thurfian ran that over in his mind. Given Thrawn’s political ineptness, that wouldn’t be the worst assignment they could give him. “It’s also on the far side of the Ascendancy from the Lioaoi and Garwians.”

“Another plus, in my estimation,” the Speaker said. “Mostly what’s out there are small nations, single-system groups, empty space, and pirates.”

“Great,” Thurfian said sourly. “More pirates.”

“But on that side of the Ascendancy, the only nations large enough to support a pirate group are the Paataatus,” the Speaker pointed out. “That means less potential for political entanglements if he goes hunting. Besides, he’s already demonstrated he can beat the frost out of the Paataatus if he needs to, and they know it.”

“I suppose,” Thurfian said. “The Council could still have sent him out there without giving him a ship.”

“Perhaps,” the Speaker said. “Still, the Springhawk ’ s hardly a major prize. There’s no glory to be had there, just the pressures and responsibilities of command. All things considered, it could have been worse.”

“Really?” Thurfian countered. Commander of a cruiser and Trial-born of the Mitth. If it could have been worse, he could hardly see how.

But it wasn’t over. Not nearly. If Thrawn rebuffed the Irizi again—and if Speaker Thistrian was right that that was a pretty foregone conclusion—it would put Aristocra Zistalmu even more solidly on Thurfian’s side. Together, they would continue their efforts to derail Thrawn’s career before he did something the Ascendancy might never recover from.

And while they were only two right now, Thurfian had no doubt that more Aristocra would join them in the days and years ahead. If there was one love they all shared, above and beyond all the family politics and squabbling, it was love of the Ascendancy.

“Look at the bright side, Thurfian,” the Speaker said into his thoughts. “Whatever Thrawn does next, at least it’ll be entertaining to watch.”

“I’m sure it will,” Thurfian said grimly. “I just hope we all live through it.”

“They’re not happy with you, you know,” Thalias warned as she set the plate of warmed yapel triangles in front of Che’ri. It was dinnertime, which was supposed to mean a proper balanced meal, but Che’ri had wanted yapels and Thalias had decided that one meal of junk food wouldn’t kill her. Heaven knew the girl had earned some indulgence. “I talked to Admiral Ar’alani before she went into the hearing. She said some of the Aristocra want to bring charges against you for putting a sky-walker at risk.”

“I know,” Thrawn said. “But that sentiment won’t go anywhere. As I already told them, I sent you and Che’ri to Primea to return the Vak fighter and deliver a message, fully expecting that you would return to Csilla on the next available transport. It was Yiv’s decision that put you at risk.”

Thalias nodded. That was true enough, as far as it went.

But at this point it almost didn’t matter. The Aristocra could be as furious as they wanted, but the outpouring of gratitude from the Vaks had pulled the momentum from the hope they could mete out any real punishment.

That, and the fact that Thrawn had delivered Yiv alive for interrogation. Thalias had no idea what the Council and Aristocra had learned from him and from the datafiles they’d pulled from the Deathless, but Yiv had struck Thalias as the sort who loved to put his own brilliance on display, even if the only person allowed to see and appreciate that brilliance was himself. She had no doubt that the records of his self-indulgence included his precise plans for the Ascendancy.

“At least you’re getting better at politics,” she said. “Between the Aristocra and the Vaks, you’re learning how to play the game.”

Thrawn shook his head. “Hardly. Ar’alani and General Ba’kif are handling the dealings with the Aristocra. As to the Vaks, that was never strictly about politics.”

“I still don’t understand that part,” Che’ri said around a mouthful of food. “Everyone said they want to see all sides of things. But then they just took our side and attacked the Nikardun when we asked them to.”

“Actually, the solution also came from the admiral,” Thrawn said. “At the last moment, she saw something that I hadn’t.”

Thalias sat up a little straighter. “You missed something?”

“I miss many things,” he said. “And I did have part of it, of course. The Vaks want to see all the various points of view—all the different thought lines—just as everyone says. But those thought lines aren’t given equal weight.”

Thalias thought back to the artwork she and Thrawn had seen in the Primea art gallery. “But you said their artwork showed the whole thought line thing,” she objected.

“True,” Thrawn said. “But if all lines were given equal weight, their art would be a scribble of confusion, with no direction or focus.”

“So they decide which thought lines they like best?” Che’ri asked.

“Which ones they like, but more important which ones they trust. There’s really nothing surprising about that. No matter what people might say, they always make value judgments of the information and opinions they receive. They couldn’t function otherwise.”

“I see,” Che’ri said, brightening. “When you showed them that Yiv had stolen your message to them—that he lied—he stopped being someone they could trust.”

“Exactly,” Thrawn said. “Even worse from his point of view, as soon as that happened everything else he’d said became suspect.”

“So all his promises and negotiations went straight out the vent,” Thalias said.

“Correct,” Thrawn said.

“So what was it Admiral Ar’alani saw?” Thalias asked.

“She’d been looking into Vak history, and saw something odd,” Thrawn said. “For all the contempt their neighbors heaped on them over the years, on the grounds that they can’t make a decision, all of those neighbors have been very careful in their confrontations to never kill a Vak in combat.”

Thalias glanced at Che’ri, saw her own surprise reflected in the girl’s face. “Really?”

“Really,” Thrawn said. “Because they knew the same thing Ar’alani realized. The Vaks value everyone’s thought lines…but when someone is killed, their thought lines are gone forever. That robs the whole of the Combine of information, and threatens the culture.”