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:
But Yiv and the Nikardun were the past. This was the present; and now it was Jixtus and these Kiljis who had set their sights on Rapacc.
Unfortunately, Jixtus had also set his sights on Qilori himself.
He scowled out the viewport at the starry sky. He’d told Qilori about Thrawn hiring him to fly him to Rapacc … and yet, as Jixtus had pointed out, for the most part Chiss warships seemed perfectly capable of traveling the Chaos without Pathfinders or any other of the region’s navigators. It was a mystery that had caught Jixtus’s attention, a puzzle he’d now handed over to Qilori to solve.
The problem was, Qilori couldn’t.
He’d looked into the matter, quietly and unobtrusively, sifting through the records at his home base of Navigator Concourse 447 and talking to other Pathfinders. The obvious answer was that the Chiss had discovered some hitherto unknown group with the gift of navigation and had kept their services completely to themselves.
But the more Qilori studied the problem, the less likely that seemed. The gift was exceedingly rare, and sifting those individuals out of a species no one had ever heard of would be nearly impossible.
Which led to the more intriguing possibility that Jixtus had raised. Millennia ago, the Chiss had traveled extensively in Lesser Space, where legends said the inhabitants used computerized machines to chart their way between the stars. If the Chiss had brought such machines back with them, and if one of those machines could be captured and studied—
“Your stated time is up, Pathfinder,” Crofyp growled.
Qilori’s wandering thoughts snapped back to the present. “There are yet twenty seconds left,” he pointed out.
Crofyp growled something else, probably another reference to Qilori’s sadly unenlightened status.
Which was fine. Qilori didn’t really care what the bombastic Kilji thought about him. What he did care about was the fact that no one had let him in on the master plan. A pair of warships obviously implied expectation of combat, but whether the Kiljis were here to study, to conquer—Crofyp used that word a lot, too—or to destroy was unclear.
Maybe things like that didn’t make a difference to Jixtus or the Kiljis. But they made a huge difference to Qilori. He had no stake in what was about to happen, and he’d long ago decided he had no interest in leaving his bones floating among the debris of someone else’s war.
Fortunately, most of a Pathfinder’s time aboard ship was spent on the bridge, and most ship bridges were well equipped with escape pods. On the Anvil, the two closest were directly to either side of him, the portside one slightly closer to his station than the starboard one. But either would do in a pinch.
The sensor operator spoke up in the Kilji language. Crofyp answered in kind, and to Qilori’s ears he sounded even more annoyed than he had earlier.
Small wonder. In the distance off to the Anvil’s side, close enough to be visible through the viewport, was the picket cruiser Hammer, having arrived right on Qilori’s projected schedule.
The unintelligible conversation continued, and Qilori felt his cheek winglets twitch in cynical amusement. Crofyp was clearly trying to put off the moment when he’d have to admit to Qilori that the Pathfinder had been right. As if Qilori couldn’t see that for himself.
But it was Crofyp’s schedule, and his time to waste if he chose to do so. Qilori, for his part, was perfectly happy to extend his unplanned break.
Finally, the Kilji couldn’t put it off any longer. “The Hammer has arrived,” he growled, switching back to Taarja. “Why do we still stop here?”
“I’m merely awaiting your instructions, General,” Qilori said, choosing the Taarja word that could mean either orders or suggestions. Not in any way insubordinate, but guaranteed to rankle if Crofyp was skilled enough with the language to catch the nuance.
“Then go,” Crofyp bit out, sounding even more annoyed. Apparently, he was skilled enough.
“I obey,” Qilori said, keying the comm signal that would alert the Hammer’s Pathfinder that they were ready to go. “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.” Slipping on his headset, he reached out to the Great Presence and took the Anvil back into hyperspace.
Rapacc was what the Pathfinders called a box system, surrounded by variable electromagnetic fluxes and with the entire inner system littered with so many asteroids and other shifting masses that entry from hyperspace was limited to only a handful of vectors. Adding in the necessity for the two ships of Crofyp’s small task force to stay together, that dropped the entry points to really only one. Qilori moved the Anvil into position along that vector, feeling the Great Presence guide him through the twists and past the obstacles, sensing the other Pathfinder matching the Hammer’s path at his side. They reached the indicated end point—
Once again, the Great Presence faded from Qilori’s consciousness as Qilori pulled the ship out of hyperspace. He pulled off his headset, taking a deep breath as he looked out the viewport. There was the Hammer, right where it was supposed to be on the Anvil’s starboard flank. In the distance ahead he could see Rapacc’s sun, though the planet itself was too far away for the unaided eye to see.
Directly ahead of them, floating in place like a silent messenger of death, its weapons trained on the Kilji cruisers, was a Nikardun blockade frigate.
Qilori’s winglets flattened with shock. By all accounts the remnants of General Yiv’s battle forces had been obliterated, some of the troops and warships taken out by Yiv’s victims, others destroyed by the Chiss Ascendancy itself.
How in the Depths had this warship survived?
“Intruders into the Rapacc system, you face the Nikardun warship Aelos.” The Taarja words came over the Anvil’s speakers. “Identify yourselves.”
“I am General Crofyp of the Kilji Illumine,” Crofyp said. If he was surprised or worried by the unexpected presence of a Nikardun warship, it didn’t show in his voice. “Move aside or be destroyed.”
“Identify your purpose here,” the voice said, ignoring the threat.
“I say again, move aside,” Crofyp repeated.
“Identify your purpose here.”
“I said—”
“General?” Qilori spoke up, turning and lifting a hand for attention. “With your permission?”
“You will not interrupt one of the enlightened,” Crofyp snarled, shifting his glare from the frigate to Qilori.
“My apologies,” Qilori said. “But with your permission, I believe I can end this confrontation without violence. I know these people.”
Crofyp’s skin rippled repulsively, and it was all Qilori could do to keep his winglets still. The general’s pride, battling with his burning desire for all people to live until they could be forced into Kilji enlightenment. “You have one minute,” he said.
“Thank you.” Qilori turned back to the viewport. “Aelos, I am Qilori of Uandualon,” he said into the nav station’s mike. “Former associate of General Yiv the Benevolent, who was himself an associate of the one named Jixtus, agent and coordinator of the Grysks. General Crofyp and the Kiljis are also associates of Jixtus, which makes us all allies. There is therefore no reason for conflict.”