Thrawn Ascendancy Book 3: Lesser Evil

Thrass was seated at his new desk in the Syndicure office complex, skimming a report on crop projections for Sharb’s northern hemisphere, when a data cylinder came sailing over the privacy divider on his left and landed on the desk. It bounced twice, then rolled to a halt beside his computer display.

“Did I make it?” one of the other syndics asked, popping her head into view over the divider. “Where did it land?”

“There,” Thrass said, pointing to the cylinder and frowning at her. “If you were trying for my desk, yes, you made it. And?”

“And what?”

“And what is it?” Thrass asked, picking up the cylinder and peering at the side. The only labeling was a Defense Hierarchy Council sequencing number.

“Part of the autolog record from the Expansionary Defense Fleet patrol cruiser Parala,” she said. “Syndic Thurfian wants it analyzed.”

“Don’t we have techs for that sort of thing?” Thrass asked, holding the cylinder out to her.

“Yes and no,” she said, making no move to take it. “Thurfian doesn’t want anyone below syndic rank even knowing he has it, let alone that we’re digging into it. And you know the saying: Last hired, first mired.”

“Right,” Thrass said, suppressing a grimace. And since he was the latest addition to the elite group of Aristocra who made up the Syndicure, he was the one who caught all the mud-slog work. Whether that work fit into his official responsibility sphere or not.

In this case, decidedly not. His current job was overseeing Mitth agricultural interests and coordinating with other families’ farming and crop distribution systems. The Defense Force and Expansionary Defense Fleet were watched by Thurfian and one or two others, who oversaw military activities and could, in extreme cases, offer support from the Mitth family’s own modest fleet of warships. “Anything in particular he’s looking for?” Thrass asked, sliding the cylinder into his computer’s reader.

“He thinks someone aboard the ship pulled some kind of scam,” she said. “Illegally fed assistance and information to a merchant-hub station at some alien planet.”

“Wait a minute,” Thrass said, frowning. “Illegally fed—?”

And then, abruptly, it clicked.

The Expansionary Defense Fleet warship Parala, stumbling into a pirate attack against a Garwian merchant-hub station at Stivic four months ago. The pirates, who’d been steadily beating down the Garwian defenses, suddenly getting caught by an unexpected Garwian tactic and subsequently being destroyed or driven off. First Officer Mid Captain Roscu, insisting to the Council and the Clarr Speaker that someone aboard the Parala had violated standing orders against Chiss intervention in the affairs of other nations. The ship’s commander, Senior Captain Ziara, insisting in turn that no one aboard her ship had done anything wrong, and that they’d merely observed the battle from a distance.

And standing squarely in the center of the controversy, Fourth Officer Senior Commander Thrawn.

“Yes, that’s the one,” the other syndic confirmed, correctly interpreting Thrass’s reaction. “Have fun, but be quick. Thurfian wants a report before lunchtime.”

“Understood,” Thrass said, wincing as he opened the datafiles. The only reason he’d noticed this event in the first place was that Thrawn and Ziara were both mentioned in the report. Now, it appeared, they weren’t just mentioned but were up to their necks in it.

Or, more likely, it was Thrawn who was up to his neck, and Ziara was once again trying to pull him out.

Ideally, this should have been a purely military matter. But just because the Syndicure wasn’t supposed to meddle in fleet business didn’t mean they didn’t occasionally invite themselves in. In this case, Roscu’s complaint had gotten the Clarr involved, and now Thurfian had responded by hauling in the Mitth. If the questions dragged on long enough for the Irizi to notice that one of their own—Ziara—was also involved, they could soon have a full three-family growzer jump-pile on their hands.

In this case, though, it wasn’t clear as to how those piles would line up.

Family sides with family. That had been the number one unspoken rule of life for millennia, since well before the earliest days of star flight and the establishment of the Chiss Ascendancy. But it didn’t take much scratching beneath the surface of such platitudes to realize things were rarely that simple.