Thrawn Ascendancy Book 3: Lesser Evil
- Автор: Зан Тимоти
- Год: 2021
- Язык: английский
- Год: Random House
- ISBN: 9781473596580
- Жанр: Боевая фантастика
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He held up a finger for emphasis. “I was still unborn when the assassination attempt took place. So the Patriarch decided to fudge the date of the rematching to after my father’s death but before my birth. Since my mother was now officially a ranking distant when I was born …?”
“You were born a cousin,” Thrawn said, smiling faintly. “Ingenious. I wonder what the Patriels and syndics thought about it.”
“I think they were mostly just glad to have the Patriarch still alive,” Thrass said. “Okay—your turn. The day we first met, when we were talking about Patriarch Thomoro the Tragic, you told me that some losses run too deep to ever fully heal. What personal loss were you remembering?”
Thrawn seemed taken aback. “All these years, and you still remember that?”
Thrass shrugged. “It made an impact on me.”
“It’s really not that important,” Thrawn warned.
“You’re my brother, and my friend,” Thrass countered. “If it’s important to you, it’s important to me.”
Thrawn looked away. “You say we’re brothers. I never had any others. But I once had a sister. When I was three and she was five, she simply … disappeared.”
“I’m sorry,” Thrass said quietly. Disappeared. An odd way of putting it. “Did she die?”
“I don’t think so,” Thrawn said, an odd evasiveness suddenly coming into his voice. “At any rate, the day you and I met was her starday, and her loss was weighing particularly heavily on my thoughts at the time. I hadn’t meant for you to notice.”
He gave Thrass a wry smile. “I certainly hadn’t meant for you to brood over it all these years.”
“It wasn’t brooding, really,” Thrass corrected. “More just thinking or pondering. But there must be records somewhere about what happened to her. I might be able to help you look them up.”
“That’s all right,” Thrawn said, waving away the offer. “I’ll find the time myself someday. Besides, you have all that Syndicure combat and theatrics to engage in.”
“There’s that,” Thrass conceded.
Still, just because he had other work to do didn’t mean he couldn’t find the time to look into this, as well. Or maybe he could suggest Patriarch Thooraki start an official inquiry. It was the least he could do for his brother.
Brother. Yes, he decided: That word had a proper ring to it. And just as Thrawn had never had a brother, neither had he. “Speaking of combat, does the Council really expect you and the Springhawk to find any pirates out there?”
“I don’t know,” Thrawn said. “Commodore Ar’alani’s opinion is that what the Council expects is for me to disappear from the Ascendancy for a while so they won’t have to look at me.” He shrugged. “Still, one never knows about the future.”
“No,” Thrass agreed. “One doesn’t.”
But Patriarch Thooraki knew, or at least he thought he did. Were Thrass and Thrawn really destined to do great things for the Mitth? Were they really going to be—?
He smiled to himself at the phrase that popped into his mind. Brothers-in-arms.
But really, why not? If Thooraki was right, that was indeed what the two of them had already become. The man born to be a privileged member of the family, teaming up with the promising outsider who’d been welcomed in. In many ways it echoed like an old legend brought to new life.
Thrawn was right. No one knew what the future held. But Thrass was going to give it all he could, for the honor of the Mitth and the glory of the Ascendancy. Or he would die trying.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Qilori didn’t like dealing with Chiss. Not in ones or twos, not in groups, especially not on ships that were crawling with them.
Which made being on a massive orbiting transfer station with a couple of thousand of the cursed creatures something on the order of his own version of hell.
But there was nothing for it. Schesa was a major Chiss world, right at the edge of the Ascendancy, and aliens weren’t allowed on the surface without an escort, a sponsor, or official authorization. Thrawn was gone, Qilori didn’t know anyone else here, and getting the necessary permissions would take longer than he had.
Luckily, he had neither the desire nor the need to walk among that many blueskins. All he needed was access to Schesa’s massive orbiting triad long-range transmitter, and for that the transfer station and the credit chit Thrawn had given him worked just fine.
Besides, there was something delicious about directing the destruction of a Chiss senior captain from one of the Chiss’s own stations.
“You’re fortunate you caught me,” Jixtus’s voice came over the comm booth speaker, his tone unnaturally reserved. “I was just about to continue my journey to Ornfra.”
“With all respect, sir,” Qilori said, “I think you’re going to want to go to Csilla instead.”
“And why would you think that?”
“Because Thrawn is on his way there right now,” Qilori said. “And he’s not aboard his usual Chiss warship. He’s on a Nikardun blockade frigate that was co-opted by the Paccosh.”
“Really,” Jixtus said. “And how would you know this, Qilori of Uandualon, given that your job was to guide General Crofyp and the Anvil against those same Paccosh?”
Qilori’s winglets twitched. In his excitement over delivering this news, he’d almost forgotten that Jixtus had set up the plan that Thrawn had so deftly turned into a fiasco. “The attack didn’t go as expected, sir,” he said, pulling back some of his enthusiasm. “The Paccosh had the blockade frigate, as I said. And Thrawn arrived at … an inopportune moment.”
“You’re saying two of the Kilji Illumine’s mighty warships couldn’t handle a Paccian blockade frigate and a Chiss heavy cruiser?”
“No, sir, they couldn’t,” Qilori said. He’d really forgotten how badly this had all gone. “But one of the Kilji ships did escape back to Sunrise.” He braced himself. “Unfortunately, the Paccosh and the Chiss were able to follow it.”
“And yes, to destroy it,” Jixtus said. “Did you think I wouldn’t have heard of this from the Grysk vessel that escaped that disaster?”
“I … wasn’t sure how far from Sunrise it would get,” Qilori said. “Before it had to stop for repairs, I mean. I thought …”
“You thought to deliver me news in a timely fashion,” Jixtus said, the veiled threat in his voice disappearing. “That was well done. Certainly you couldn’t have changed the course of any of those events. You say Thrawn is on his way to Csilla?”
“Yes, sir,” Qilori said, his winglets relaxing, a brief gush of annoyance coloring his relief. This wasn’t the first time Jixtus had pretended to be dangerously upset with him, and he hadn’t liked it any of those times, either. “He spent a couple of hours using the triad transmitter to send some messages, then said he needed some specialized equipment to test one of the other people at Sunrise.” He paused. Jixtus wasn’t the only one who could play to the drama, after all. “He thinks that person could be another Magys.”
“He said that?” Jixtus asked, his voice suddenly heavy with suspicion. “He said those words?”
“I don’t remember the specific words,” Qilori hedged. “But that was the intent. He said you’d wanted to find the Magys, but that others on Sunrise would do as well.”