Not Anakin, then. The future; good. “That’s rhetorical.”
“No.” Tahiri seemed to be making an active effort to learn as much as she could on this mission. “I don’t understand what options are open to you. You can’t get rid of her.”
“Why?”
“Even you can’t control the whole fleet, all the time, every day, because even a Sith has finite time. So you need as many loyal officers as you can get. If anything happens to Niathal, they’ll worry that nobody’s safe from you.”
“You’re impressing me these days, Tahiri.” And you’ll want my job. And there I was worrying where I might find a worthy replacement for Ben Skywalker. “I think Niathal is going to make a mistake. I’m just giving her the prover-bial cord with which to hang herself.”
Tahiri looked as if she were chewing the words and then digesting them, but not enjoying the taste.
“The landings on the orbital yards…. the assault force commanders are getting anxious. I can hear them on the bridge comlinks nagging Captain Nevil. They need the reassurance of times and coordinates.”
“I can’t give them that yet, but they have intelligence on the layout of the yards, don’t they?” Caedus thought of Nevil, given that he’d flung his captain against a bulkhead in the Tebut incident, and wondered just how low he’d sunk in the Quarren’s estimation. He’d have to get Nevil back on his side. “And Nevil is reassuring them?”
“Yes.”
“It’s just nerves.”
“Okay, sir.”
“Tell you what, Tahiri, “Caedus said, remembering the Jacen Solo who could get a whole hangar deck of troops cheering him, “I’ll show them that I’m not sitting here in comfort filing my nails.”
Caedus opened the locker hatch where his flight suit and other abandoned working kit was stowed. He used to look like one of his own troops; it was time to restore that comforting symbol for this task force. He slipped his black cloak off his shoulders and pulled his flight coveralls over his pants and tunic.
Caedus pressed the desk comlink. “Delta Hangar, ready my StealthX, please.” Tahiri looked as if she was expecting to follow. “Just a sortie to get a closer look. I know the kind of things they say on the mess decks. Commanders who hang too far back from the front line get awarded the Coruscant Star by the ranks. I don’t want them giving me that decoration. Ever.”
Niathal’s estimated time on station was one hour. That was ample to check out at least a couple of Fondor’s orbitals. As Caedus made his way through the Destroyer’s hatches and passages, he picked up the mood of crew members, their lack of confidence, their uncertainty, and he suppressed the anger that threatened to well up. On the hangar deck, the ground technicians seemed puzzled.
Make them believe by succeeding. You used to inspire them. It takes time to build a reputation but a second to lose it. It was just a second. Just a slip. Just a lesson.
“Time I did a recce, “Caedus said, blending back into their language and community. “I’ll never ask anyone to do what I’m not prepared to do myself.”
The StealthX dropped out of the hatch into the void and hyperjumped for the orbitals. When it fell out into realspace moments later and within striking distance of Fon-dor, it was just a small black patch of undetectable nothing that blotted out stars-so vivid, so stark from space-for an instant as it passed. Sometimes Caedus wondered if this was what it felt like to be a ghost, seeing everything so clearly yet not being seen.
As he streaked high over the first orbital, a metallic arrowhead kilometers long, he could see the outlines of Star Destroyers flanked by buildings, cranes, and webs of pipes and cables. His senses told him that living beings huddled down there waiting for an attack. Around the curve of the planet, the next orbital ahead was oriented head-on, a slab with structures extending from top and bottom. It resolved into an industrial city as he passed above it. He could observe at his leisure. Again, a workforce waited for the worst, radiating anxiety and aggression in the Force; and everywhere, on orbitals and planets, Caedus felt weapons and vessels ready to repel him. Fondor was small in galactic terms, but the whole planet was a dockyard with billions of staff. It had to be the GA’s asset again: or it had to be put out of action.
I really wouldn’t trust the Imperial Remnant to play nicely with this toy.
The Moffs had Borleias and Bilbringi. They’d be kept busy admiring those baubles for a while, giving Caedus time to restore stability and remove any temptation to step in and impose their own kind of order, just to be helpful.