Thrawn Ascendancy Book 3: Lesser Evil

The summons to Sposia had been quick and abrupt, and had given Supreme General Ba’kif barely enough time to close down his office in an orderly way and get across Csaplar to the landing field just outside the city. The scout ship he’d requisitioned was ready, one of the five that were always kept on fifteen-minute readiness for senior Defense Hierarchy Council officers, and twenty minutes later he was out of Csilla’s gravity well and into the mesmerizing swirl of hyperspace.

It wasn’t the way Ba’kif liked doing business. Many of his colleagues, in fact, would never move this quickly for anything short of all-out war.

But the summons had come directly from Stybla Patriarch Stybla’mi’ovodo’s office, and the Patriarch had said it concerned Senior Captain Thrawn, and that was all Ba’kif needed to know.

Lamiov was waiting outside the massive door of Vault Four when Ba’kif finally finished with the rigorous Universal Analysis Group security protocols. “Supreme General,” the Patriarch called in greeting as Ba’kif walked across the entry chamber, doing his best to ignore the silent guards standing their impassive watch over the Ascendancy’s most secret base. “Thank you for coming.”

“It’s always a pleasure to visit the UAG, Your Venerante,” Ba’kif said as he reached the other. “Mind you, a bit more warning would have been appreciated.”

“Trust me, you had only about ten minutes less than I got,” Lamiov said. “Senior Captain Thrawn was playing this one even closer than usual.”

“Does it have anything to do with why he’s so late back from whatever the Xodlak, Erighal, and Pommrio were involved in?”

“Is he that late?” Lamiov asked, frowning. “I was under the impression that those family ships only arrived a day ago.”

“True enough,” Ba’kif said. “But the Springhawk had a sky-walker, and the family ships didn’t. By all rights, Thrawn should have been here at least a day or two ahead of them.”

“Interesting,” Lamiov murmured. “Maybe he stayed at Hoxim to take a closer look at the freighter crash site.”

Ba’kif gave a little snort. “You do realize you’re rattling off details that only the Council is supposed to have, right?”

“Really, Supreme General,” Lamiov said drily. “If you haven’t figured out by now that the Stybla have our own special information sources, you really have no business in your current seat of power. Seriously, though, you’re going to love this one. Shall we go take a look?”

“After you,” Ba’kif said, falling into step beside Lamiov, peripherally noting that the nearest guards stirred slightly as the two men walked the rest of the way to the vault door. Early in the UAG’s existence, Ba’kif had been told, there’d been some thought in the Syndicure of removing family ties from all of its personnel, as was routinely done with senior military officers, and for the same reason of hopefully eliminating family politics.

Ultimately, it was decided that such an action would draw too much unwanted attention to the facility, and the idea was dropped. As a compromise, though, UAG uniforms didn’t include any family identification, neither the family crests of the Nine and the Forty nor the stylized names used by the Ascendancy’s other, lesser families. Here at UAG, in theory, all were equal.

Still, Ba’kif suspected that most if not all of the guards on Vault Four were Stybla. Lamiov would have seen to that.

Given that a new alien artifact had just arrived, Ba’kif had fully expected the large receiving area at the front part of the vault to be crowded. He wasn’t prepared, though, for just how crowded it actually was.

Part of that was the sheer size of the artifact: a four-meter-long lattice of white metal ribs that looked like a section of some giant sea monster’s torso skeleton. A dozen techs were hovering around it, taking readings and measurements or attaching leads to other analysis devices. Two senior UAG staff were also in the mix, one of them overseeing the work, the other working busily with his questis.

Standing off to one side, silently watching all the activity, were Senior Captain Thrawn and Mid Captain Samakro.

Both men looked over as Ba’kif and Lamiov walked up to them. “Patriarch Lamiov; Supreme General Ba’kif,” Thrawn said in greeting. “You honor us with your presence.”

“You honor us with yet another intriguing device for our collection,” Lamiov said. “Go ahead and tell Supreme General Ba’kif what you’ve brought.”

“Yes, Your Venerante.” Thrawn shifted his attention to Ba’kif. “During our search for remnants of the Vagaari pirates, we encountered an alien freighter that was supposedly being attacked by three gunships. We subsequently determined that the battle had been staged for our benefit, and that the scenario was merely the first step in a trap.”