Thrawn Ascendancy Book 3: Lesser Evil

Even by Qilori’s standards, which were the standards of a Pathfinder who sometimes had to be in the depths of the Great Presence for ten or twelve hours at a stretch, it had been a very long day.

It had also been a chillingly instructive one. The Paccian commandos Uingali and Thrawn had sent to commandeer the Hammer had been more competent and far deadlier than Qilori had expected. But even that group paled in comparison with the heavily armed and armored troops who showed up at Sunrise two days after the ship battle. At Thrawn’s direction, and under Uingali’s command, the soldiers had descended on a small mountain mining region on the surface and quickly and efficiently demolished the Grysk forces that had been running the slave operation.

At least, Qilori assumed they were Grysks. The presence of a Grysk warship in the earlier battle was evidence that the slavers were either Grysks or one of their client species. But he would probably never know for certain. The defenders’ armor was equipped with self-destruct systems that could apparently either be triggered by the wearer or activate automatically if he was killed. What little the self-destruct left behind gave no clues as to the appearance of the beings that had been wearing the armor.

It was the logical extreme of Jixtus’s own obsession with hiding the details of his face and body. Clearly, the Grysks didn’t want their appearance known, and were willing to go to extraordinary lengths to achieve that end.

The downside to their fixation was that in the close quarters inside the mines, where the battle progressed and ultimately ended, some of the Grysk casualties came from the collateral damage of their own comrades’ exploding armor. Combined with the deadly skill and precision of the Paccian soldiers and the apparently unexpected resistance of the natives themselves, a battle that might otherwise have taken days or even weeks was over by nightfall.

For Qilori, it was a sobering reminder that, no matter how much knowledge, power, or influence the Grysks might possess, there were still some nasty surprises lurking in the Chaos.

He was sitting alone in a corner of the compound’s dining area, watching the red clouds surrounding the sun as it sank toward the horizon and trying to put some of the day’s more stomach-turning images out of his mind, when he had a pair of visitors.

“Qilori of Uandualon,” Thrawn greeted him, gesturing to the alien standing beside him. “This is the Magys. She wished to speak with you.”

“Yes, I remember you from the Aelos,” Qilori said. “How may I serve?”

For a moment the alien was silent, the dark eyes set deeply into her face over the twin jutting jaws boring into his. Out of the corner of Qilori’s eye he could see Thrawn holding perfectly still, his glowing red eyes taking in everything.

The Magys’s stare seemed to fade. “No,” she said. “He will not suit.”

“Yet he, too, is a navigator,” Thrawn said. “Does he not therefore touch the Beyond?”

“He touches, but not in a way that is useful,” the Magys said.

“What do you mean, not useful?” Qilori asked, a mix of confusion and bruised pride tweaking at his winglets. “I’ll place the navigation skills of the Pathfinders in the balance against any other navigators in the Chaos.”

“Space is not where I wish to navigate,” the Magys said. “You are of no use.”

“If he’s of no use, then we shall move on,” Thrawn said, taking the Magys’s upper arm and gently turning her away. “Apologies for the interruption, Pathfinder. You may return to your meal.”

“Thank you,” Qilori muttered, his winglets undulating slowly with uncertainty as he watched them go. What did she mean, Space is not where I wish to navigate? Where else but in space was a navigator supposed to navigate?

He turned back to his meal. But the food, which had already been rather tasteless, had now lost all interest for him. He kept at it just the same, knowing nutrition was important, as he watched Thrawn and the Magys leave the dining area and head across toward the barracks where the miners and their families were having their first evening of peace since the onset of their civil war.

“Good evening, Pathfinder.”

Qilori turned his head. Uingali was walking toward him from the other direction, four armored Paccian commandos walking close behind him. “Good evening, Uingali foar Marocsaa,” he said. “I thought the Paccosh had eliminated the enemy.”