Thrawn Ascendancy Book 3: Lesser Evil
- Автор: Зан Тимоти
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Random House
- ISBN: 9781473596580
- Жанр: Боевая фантастика
Электронная книга - «Thrawn Ascendancy Book 3: Lesser Evil». Краткое содержание книги:
“And there he goes,” Octrimo said.
Ar’alani looked back at the viewport. Thrawn’s blockade frigate was tearing at full speed across the starscape, weaving slightly as it bounced across Sposia’s upper atmosphere, heading for the planetary rim and the edge of the gravity well beyond. The Venturous was also under way, running up its drive and charging off in pursuit.
But the man-of-war was far bigger than the blockade frigate, with correspondingly more mass and inertia, and it was quickly clear that with Thrawn’s head start there was no way the Venturous would catch him before he escaped to hyperspace. Dy’lothe’s only other option was to open fire and try to bring him down.
Ar’alani looked at the sensor display. Only he couldn’t, she saw. His bow weapons cluster had been paralyzed by the Crippler net’s massive electrical jolt, and he hadn’t bothered to activate the Venturous’s shoulder weapons during the two ships’ brief confrontation. By the time those lasers could be brought to sufficient power, Thrawn would be out of range.
Wutroow crossed back to Ar’alani’s command chair. “Another thirty seconds and he’ll be clear,” she said quietly. “Until then, a breacher or sphere can still reach him.”
“He won’t fire,” Ar’alani said. “He just saw how fast and maneuverable that blockade frigate is. He’ll realize that Thrawn will be able to dodge either weapon.”
“He might do it out of spite,” Wutroow warned.
“No.” Ar’alani cocked an eyebrow up at her. “You didn’t really think he wanted to follow the Syndicure’s orders, did you?”
Wutroow frowned. “Excuse me?”
“All that legal order blather was purely for the official record,” Ar’alani explained. “Now, if Ja’fosk had given him the order, Thrawn would be in the Venturous’s brig right now. But Dy’lothe has spent way too many years in the Defense Force to be impressed by any group of Aristocra.”
“Interesting,” Wutroow murmured. “He certainly had me fooled.”
“As I said, that was the idea,” Ar’alani said. “But there were signs.”
“Such as?”
“Such as leaving his shoulder lasers powered down so Thrawn only had to disable the bow cluster,” Ar’alani said. “Such as chatting with me instead of simply tractoring in the frigate as soon as the shuttle was secured.” She gave Wutroow a small smile. “Such as trying to goad me into taking a shot at him so that he could pretend I’d distracted him long enough for Thrawn to slip out of his pin.”
“Thereby shifting some of the blame onto you?” Wutroow gave a gentle snort. “Nice of him.”
“I would have been willing to share it with him,” Ar’alani said. “And just for your private amusement, I was getting ready to fire on him anyway.”
“Admiral, the Venturous is pulling back from its pursuit,” Octrimo reported. “Looks like they’ve given up.”
“Acknowledged,” Ar’alani said. “Larsiom, signal to Admiral Dy’lothe.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Larsiom said. “You have comm, Admiral.”
“Ar’alani here, Admiral,” Ar’alani called. “My sensor officer tells me he’s observed some problem with your bow weapons cluster. Do you need any assistance?”
“Thank you, no,” Dy’lothe said. His tone was frosty, but Ar’alani thought she could hear some private relief beneath it. “Your boy Thrawn is certainly a clever one. I hope you’re happy.”
“I’ll be happy when the Ascendancy is back to normal,” Ar’alani said. “Until then, we of the military have to trust each other and watch each other’s backs. There’s a lot of darkness out there that we’re being called on to stand against.”
“As I said before, overly dramatic,” Dy’lothe growled. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a cargo of debris to deliver to the UAG.”
Ar’alani frowned. “Debris?”
“Yes,” Dy’lothe said. “Don’t worry, it wasn’t one of ours. Seems some missile tucked away inside a fake asteroid blew itself up in the Ornfra system.”
Ar’alani looked up, exchanging startled looks with Wutroow. “Was anyone hurt?”
“As I already told you, it wasn’t our debris,” Dy’lothe said. “I’ll send you the records of the incident. Dy’lothe out.”
“Venturous has ended comm,” Larsiom said.
“Hell,” Wutroow muttered. “They’re bringing the damn things into the Ascendancy now?”
“Sounds like it,” Ar’alani said grimly. “At least the Defense Force should now know what to look for.”
“They’d have already known that if they bothered to read our reports,” Wutroow grumbled.
“I’m sure some of them read them.”
“Admiral, we have a tight-beam from the surface,” Larsiom said, sounding puzzled. “It’s Supreme General Ba’kif.”
“Ba’kif?” Wutroow repeated, frowning. “What’s he doing—? Oh. Right. Thrawn.”
“Probably,” Ar’alani said. “Send it over here, Junior Commander.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Ar’alani keyed her chair’s speaker, making sure it was at the private volume setting. “Ar’alani.”
“Ba’kif, Admiral,” Ba’kif’s voice came back. “That was quite a show you put on up there.”
“We were mostly spectators,” Ar’alani said.
“So I saw,” Ba’kif said. “Still, it’s fortunate that you arrived when you did. Senior Captain Thrawn recorded a message for you before he left Sposia. Are you secure?”
“Yes, sir,” Ar’alani said. Beside her, Wutroow made a questioning rumble in her throat. Ar’alani shook her head and gestured for her to stay by the chair. “Ready to receive.”
“Here it comes.”
Ar’alani listened in silence as the message played out. “Measured by sheer boldness,” she commented when it was finished, “I think Thrawn has finally outdone himself. I take it this isn’t an official order?”
“You know it’s not,” Ba’kif said heavily. “Nor can it ever be. No, for the myriad political reasons I’m sure you’ve already thought of, this has to be completely on Thrawn’s shoulders.”
“Understood,” Ar’alani said. So even if it worked, Thrawn was going to face some serious consequences from the Syndicure. If it failed …
Her stomach knotted. If it failed, nothing mattered anyway. The Ascendancy would be doomed.
“If we’re going to do this, we’ll need to leave within the next few hours,” she told Ba’kif. “Can you get us taken off Sposia protection duty?”
“Admiral?” Larsiom called from the comm station. “Admiral, a message marked urgent has just come through.”
“I’ll look at it in a minute, Junior Commander,” Ar’alani called back.
“No, I think you’d better look at it now,” Ba’kif said, sounding distracted. “I just got one, too. You’re being recalled to Naporar.”
“We’re what?” Ar’alani said, pulling up the message.
From: Supreme Admiral Ja’fosk, Csilla
To: All Expansionary Defense Fleet Ships
Effective immediately, all ships are relieved of planetary guard duty and ordered to return to Naporar.
“Okay, that’s different,” Wutroow muttered, leaning over Ar’alani’s shoulder to read the message.
“If by different you mean utterly nonsensical, I’d have to agree,” Ar’alani said, frowning at the message. “General, does this make any sense to you?”