Thrawn Ascendancy Book 3: Lesser Evil

All right. Punishment. Death by torture. Clarr raiders. A Defense Force blackdock in an edge-of-nowhere system. A lonely system, out of the way, with virtually zero chance that anyone would happen by.

And then he had it. “The hijackers can’t risk any of the Stybla crew dying,” he said, turning back to Thrawn. “But they also can’t hold them aboard their ship, at least not for long.”

“Why not?”

“Because kidnapping from another family carries the same punishment as killing them.”

“Exactly,” Thrawn said, the anticipation in his face replaced by approval. “So why would they be here at Glastis Three?”

“They can’t just park the crew out in space,” Thrass said. “If they don’t make it back in time after they make their deal, the crew will run out of air or food and the hijackers will face full Clarr law. But they also can’t just turn them loose, because then the alarm will be given and they’ll have the Defense Force and every family patrol ship in the region looking for them.”

He gestured out the viewport. “So they find an empty system to park the cargo ship where nobody’s likely to stumble across them. But they also need a system that’s not quite empty, so that there’s someone they can call afterward to come out and rescue the crew when they’ve finished selling the stolen goods.”

“Very good,” Thrawn said. “One small addition: The hijackers won’t want to risk calling or having any other direct contact with the blackdock.”

“So they’ll put the cargo ship in an elliptical orbit,” Lappincyk spoke up suddenly. “Disable their drive and their comm and put them in a long orbit that will take a few days to get close enough for the blackdock to spot them.”

“That would work,” Thrass agreed. So simple, really, once it was explained. “Of course, that assumes the hijackers are smart enough to think of it.”

“They are, and they will,” Lappincyk assured him. “Three hundred years ago, the Clarr defeated a numerically superior Irizi force using this exact maneuver to drift one of their warships in close. It was a Clarr triumph, and a blood will certainly be familiar with it.”

“As are you, obviously,” Thrass commented. “A three-hundred-year-old battle. You Stybla certainly keep up with things.”

“Three hundred twenty, if we want to be precise,” Lappincyk said. “As I once told you, we compensate for our lack of influence and successes by keeping track of everyone else’s.”

“I remember,” Thrass said. “So they’re out here somewhere. How do we find them?”

“That would indeed be the next question,” Thrawn said, pulling out his questis. “There are a mathematical infinity of possible curves to choose from, and depending on how long they planned for the cargo ship to be incommunicado the orbit could extend a considerable distance out into space.”

“Any chance the sensors on this ship are good enough to just brute-strength find them?” Thrass asked.

“Unfortunately, no,” Lappincyk said. “This is a close-in patrol ship, and not designed for extensive survey work.”

“So what’s the plan?” Thrass asked, watching Thrawn working at his questis. “Start looking and hope for the best?”

“Fortunately, many of those possible courses can be eliminated,” Thrawn said. “If they came from Sposia on the easiest course, they’ll have arrived twelve degrees below the ecliptic plane. They also won’t have gone very far from their entry point, lest their drive emissions be spotted by the blackdock crew. A Vivan cargo ship carries three weeks’ worth of life-support supplies, so they won’t have set its course to bring it into the blackdock’s view any later than that.”

“What if they don’t bother with any of this?” Thrass asked, an unpleasant thought suddenly occurring to him. “What if they just dump them in deep space somewhere between stars? Without bodies, the Clarr won’t be able to prove there were any killings.”

“Not true,” Lappincyk said. “Clarr law specifies that if a person is missing for over a year they can be presumed dead. If Patriarch Lamiov can prove to his satisfaction that this gang hijacked the Stybla ship, those missing crew would automatically add the further charge of murder.”

“So a three-week drift at the most,” Thrawn said. “Probably no more than two.” He made one final calculation, then tapped his questis. “They should be within the region marked.”

Thrass looked at the overview display, now showing a hazy green region of space around them. “Still a lot of territory to look at.”

“Let’s see if we can narrow it further,” Thrawn said. “Senior Aide Lappincyk, may I have control of the comm?”

“Give me comm control,” Lappincyk called to the bridge crew as he unfastened a mike from the bulkhead behind Thrawn’s head and handed it to him. “What exactly do you have in mind?”