“It won’t look good if they have to wait for you to show up,” Disra warned. “This is supposed to look like one of Thrawn’s casual-omniscience tricks.”
“Kindly do not lecture me on the subtleties of my own plans,” Tierce said coldly, manipulating the tracklines across the starfield. “It’ll be a bit tight, but I think we can manage it.”
“Yes,” Disra said as he looked over the numbers himself. “I’m still not wild about this plan, Tierce. We have no idea how the New Republic will react”
“Of course we know,” Tierce said patiently. “I’ve already explained all of that to you.”
“You’ve given me your guesses,” Disra corrected. “But that’s all they are. Guesses.”
“If you’re not willing to take some risks, you shouldn’t have started this scheme in the first place,” Tierce said, his voice chilling a few degrees. “It’s still not too late for you to back out if you’ve lost your nerve.”
Disra glared at him. “It’s not a question of my nerve, Major,” he growled. “It’s a question of not taking unnecessary risks to achieve our objective.”
Tierce met his gaze evenly. “This one is necessary, Your Excellency,” he said. “Trust me. Now, we’ll need an Interdictor Cruiser, too,” He lifted his eyebrows slightly. “And we’re on something of a tight schedule here.”
With an effort, Disra swallowed back the rest of his argument Tierce hadn’t sprung this new scheme on him until after his return from Yaga Minor, and he still wasn’t sure how the Guardsman had talked him into it. But if they were going to do it, they had blazing well better do it right. “Fine,” he growled. “Get out of my chair and I’ll issue the orders.”
CHAPTER
16
“Well, General,” Admiral Pellaeon said, leaning back in his seat as he accepted a small glass of Kareas brandy from the other, “How are things at Yaga Minor?”
“About the same as always, Admiral,” High General Hestiv said, waving at the distant planet centered in his office viewport as he poured a little of the brandy into his own glass and sat down again behind his datacard-strewn desk. “Very quiet.”
“I understand there’s been some recent unrest among segments of the Yagai population,” Pellaeon said.
“Completely negligible,” Hestiv said, waving a hand in dismissal. “Actually, since the overwhelming majority of the populace is completely loyal, they mostly take care of the handful of dissenters themselves. The only time we normally have to lift a finger is to protect the dissidents from overzealous loyalists.”
“Allowing you to take the moral high ground.”
“Exactly,” Hestiv said. “It makes for a refreshing change from our usual image among aliens.”
“Yes,” Pellaeon murmured, sipping his drink. “A pity the Emperor didn’t work harder at that kind of public relations himself twenty years ago.”
“A pity someone who wasn’t so insanely blind with power didn’t overthrow him while there was still time,” Hestiv countered, an edge of bitterness in his voice. “There must have been hundreds of competent administrators or Fleet officers who could have kept the Empire alive.”
Pellaeon felt a catch in his throat. “There was one, at least,” he said quietly.
Hestiv’s lip twitched. “Yes-Grand Admiral Thrawn. I’ve always regretted the fact that I never had the chance to meet him.”
For a moment the two men sat in silence. Then Hestiv cleared his throat. “But I don’t suppose it gains us anything to count the might-have-beens,” he said. “That was the past, this is the present; and I presume, Admiral, that you’re here to discuss the future.”
Pellaeon took another sip of his drink. “Yes,” he said, watching the other closely. “To put it bluntly, the war against the New Republic is over, and we’ve lost. In my professional military opinion, it’s time to talk peace.”
The muscles around Hestiv’s eyes tightened. “You mean surrender.”
“I’ll be negotiating for terms,” Pellaeon said. “If I do a proper job, I think we should be able to keep most of what we have.”
Hestiv snorted. “Such as it is.”
“We still control over a thousand inhabited systems,” Pellaeon reminded him mildly. “Would you prefer we allow the New Republic to whittle that number down further before we accept the inevitable?”
“The New Republic’s in no shape to do much whittling at the moment,” Hestiv said. “It looks to me like they’re poised to go for each other’s throats, not ours?’