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:
Apparently, the suggestion that the Kiljis were in fact Jixtus’s masters had just been another of Thrawn’s lies.
Qilori had spent a lifetime of navigating aliens through the Chaos, most of whom had treated him like the hired servant that he was. He’d seen Nakirre’s level of self-importance in many others, the most recent being General Yiv’s Nikardun and Haplif’s Agbui. Both species had challenged the power of the Chiss Ascendancy and both had broken against it.
Maybe this time it would be the Chiss who would find themselves breaking before a greater force.
Jixtus finished his conversation. “The fleet stands ready,” he said, switching back to Minnisiat. “You, Pathfinder, will take us on an in-system jump to the planet.”
Generalirius Nakirre stirred in his seat. “Vassal One can do that.”
“The Pathfinder will do it,” Jixtus said, his tone making it clear that there would be no further argument. His veiled face turned briefly to the Kilji leader, then back to Qilori. “Pathfinder?”
“Yes, sir,” Qilori said. “Shall I send the jump coordinates to your other ships?”
“The fleet will follow in its own time,” Jixtus said. “I will first speak alone with the Chiss. I’m curious to see if Thrawn will offer me two alien lives as you predicted.”
Qilori’s winglets stiffened. He’d hoped Jixtus had forgotten about that conversation, or at least had put aside the threat he’d appended to Qilori’s fumbling theories about Thrawn’s strategy. “Yes, sir,” he managed. “In-system jump is ready.”
“Execute,” Jixtus ordered.
Bracing himself, Qilori keyed the helm. A flicker of stars, and the planet Sunrise loomed dark and all but dead.
A fitting backdrop, Qilori thought as he stared in stunned disbelief at the utter devastation that had now appeared in front of them.
Qilori had expected to find Thrawn and his allies ringed by the force the Ascendancy had sent to detain him. The number of vessels was the first surprise, with nearly thirty warships visible, ranging in size from gunboats to the Nightdragon he’d warned Jixtus about.
But they weren’t in any battle array. Nor were they even standing defiantly against Thrawn. They were dead.
All of them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Qilori let his gaze sweep slowly across the scene, winglets undulating in horror and revulsion. The warships were everywhere, some drifting in more or less stable orbits, others in the more extreme hyperbolic paths that would in hours or days end their existence in fiery crashes on the planet’s surface. None of them was showing any signs of internal activity. The Whetstone’s sensors indicated that most of their reactors were still providing power, but that power was minimal and slowly fading. Battle debris was scattered everywhere, with some of the larger ships trailing thin tendrils of smoke. One of the gunboats off to the side was slowly turning, the light from the distant sun glinting off torn hull plates, its own trail of smoke long and thick and twisting in a bizarre expanding corkscrew shape that surrounded it. The smoke glistened in the distant sunlight as if it was more of a drifting metal slurry than simple vaporized debris, and he wondered briefly what kind of weapon could have generated such a cloud. A couple of ships showed spots of flickering flame where broken oxygen lines fed into laser damage. Whatever had happened here, the Whetstone must have just missed it.
“Move us,” Jixtus ordered. “I wish to see it all.”
“Move closer,” Nakirre repeated. As if, Qilori thought, the Kilji’s orders or presence aboard his ship truly mattered anymore.
The thrusters activated, sending the Whetstone past the edge into Sunrise’s gravity well. All the ships must have likewise been deep in the well, Qilori noted with a quiet ache, with no hope of escaping into hyperspace. No wonder all of them had died where they stood.
“The ships still exude the heat of life,” the vassal at the sensor station said. “The bodies aboard continue to cool.”
“A few hours at the most, then,” Qilori said. Did that explain what he’d seen while nestled within the Great Presence? Had Pathfinder Sarsh been trying to escape the carnage of battle in a ship whose hyperdrive had first sputtered and then failed completely?
“So Thrawn refused the order to surrender,” Jixtus said, a mix of satisfaction and disappointment in his voice. “I thought he might.”
“Why would he do such a thing?” Qilori murmured.
“He’s always considered himself unbeatable,” Jixtus said. “Now, here, his luck finally drained away.” He gave a sound that was half snort, half chuckle. “And as the Ascendancy spirals toward its doom, so these Chiss have engaged and destroyed themselves and each other. Sunrise and its people are ours.”
“So it would seem,” Qilori said, his eyes still fixed on the wreckage. Jixtus could invoke comparisons all he wanted, but to Qilori the whole disaster was still inexplicable. How could such a thing have happened?
A glint caught his eye: A small asteroid in the near distance, drifting just outside the field of wreckage, had reflected a ray of sunlight. There were probably a dozen of the rocky objects out there, he saw now, their sizes ranging from that of gunboats all the way down to that of single-person escape pods. Probably strays from the asteroid cluster the sensors showed in the near distance behind them. As if nature itself had observed the battle and sent representatives for a closer look.
He frowned, throwing a longer look at the cluster. A tight-knit group of rocks like that, within sensor and comm range of the planet and close enough for a quick in-system jump, would offer perfect cover for an observation post.
And in fact, now that he was focusing on it he thought he could see some faint glints of reflected light.
But the Whetstone’s sensors showed no sign of movement or energy readings out there. If someone had indeed set up such a post, the battle had apparently ranged far enough to take it out as well, leaving only dead ships or scrap behind.
Or else the glints were coming from metal deposits in the asteroids, and all the rest was Qilori’s own nervous imagination.
“There,” Jixtus said, jabbing a finger toward the viewport. “Those two ships close in to the planet. Did I just see laserfire between them?”
Qilori shifted his attention from the asteroids and the wrecked ships and peered in the direction Jixtus was pointing. Beyond the corkscrewing smoke trail were two ships drifting along together, neither of them under power. Both were ships he recognized: the Chiss Nightdragon Vigilant and Uingali Foar Marocsaa’s stolen Nikardun blockade frigate Aelos.
And as Qilori watched, feeling an odd sadness, a small, useless flicker of laserfire did indeed flash between the two derelicts.
“Take us over to them, vassal,” Jixtus ordered, shifting the jabbing finger to the Kilji at the helm. “And you, vassal”—he pointed at the comm station—“send a broadcast signal calling for survivors.”
“Do as he orders,” Nakirre muttered.
“A signal is already coming in,” the comm vassal said, keying his board.
“Is that you, Generalirius Nakirre?” a voice came tentatively from the speaker, the words half buried in the crackle of a damaged transmitter.
“It is,” Nakirre confirmed. “Is that you, Senior Captain Thrawn?”
“It is I,” the other said, and this time Qilori was able to recognize his voice.
But it was no longer the voice of calm confidence and borderline arrogance that had always been the mark of this particular blueskin. Thrawn’s voice was wounded, dismayed, lost. His schemes, his plans, his self-assurance—all had come to nothing.