“Early in the war, in other words,” Pellaeon said, swallowing hard. The early clones-or at least those the fleet had faced-had been highly unstable, both mentally and emotionally. Sometimes spectacularly so … “And you deliberately brought this thing aboard my ship?” he demanded.
“Would you rather we have brought back a full-fledged Dark Jedi?” Thrawn asked coldly. “A second Darth Vader, perhaps, with the sort of ambitions and power that might easily lead him to take over your ship? Count your blessings, Captain.”
“At least a Dark Jedi would have been predictable,” Pellaeon countered.
“C’baoth is predictable enough,” Thrawn assured him. “And for those times when he isn’t-” He waved a hand at the half dozen frameworks encircling his command center. “That’s what the ysalamiri are for.”
Pellaeon grimaced. “I still don’t like it, Admiral. We can hardly protect the ship from him while at the same time having him coordinate the fleet’s attacks.”
“There’s a degree of risk involved,” Thrawn agreed. “But risk has always been an inescapable part of warfare. In this case, the potential benefits far outweigh the potential dangers.”
Reluctantly, Pellaeon nodded. He didn’t like it-was fairly certain he would never like it-but it was clear that Thrawn had made up his mind. “Yes, sir,” he muttered. “You mentioned a message to Team Eight. Will you be wanting me to transmit that?”
“No, I’ll handle it myself.” Thrawn smiled sardonically. “Their glorious leader, and all that-you know how Noghri are. If there’s nothing more … ?”
It was, clearly, a dismissal. “No, sir,” Pellaeon said. “I’ll be on the bridge if you require me.” He turned to go.
“It will bring us victory, Captain,” the Grand Admiral called softly after him. “Quiet your fears, and concentrate on that.”
If it doesn’t kill us all. “Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said aloud, and left the room.
Chapter 5
Han finished his report, sat back, and waited for the criticism to start.
It was a very short wait. “So once again your smuggler friends refuse to commit themselves,” Admiral Ackbar said, sounding more than a little disgusted. His high-domed head bobbed twice in some indecipherable Calamarian gesture, his huge eyes blinking in time with the head movements. “You’ll recall that I disagreed with this idea all along,” he added, waving a webbed hand toward Han’s report case.
Han glanced across the table at Leia. “It’s not a matter of commitment, Admiral,” he told the other. “It’s a matter that most of them just don’t see any real gain in switching from their current activities to straight shipping.”
“Or else it’s a lack of trust,” a melodic alien voice put in. “Could that be it?”
Han grimaced before he could stop himself. “It’s possible,” he said, forcing himself to look at Borsk Fey’lya.
“Possible?” Fey’lya’s violet eyes widened, the fine cream-colored fur covering his body rippling slightly with the motion. It was a Bothan gesture of polite surprise, one which Fey’lya seemed to use a lot. “You said possible, Captain Solo?”
Han sighed quietly and gave up. Fey’lya would only maneuver him into saying it some other way if he didn’t. “Some of the groups I’ve talked to don’t trust us,” he conceded. “They think the offer might be some sort of trap to bring them out into the open.”
“Because of me, of course,” Ackbar growled, his normal salmon color turning a little darker. “Haven’t you tired of retaking this same territory, Councilor Fey’lya?”
Fey’lya’s eyes widened again, and for a moment he gazed silently at Ackbar as the tension around the table quickly rose to the level of thick paste. They had never liked each other, Han knew, not from the day Fey’lya had first brought his sizable faction of the Bothan race into the Alliance after the Battle of Yavin. Right from the start Fey’lya had been jockeying for position and power, cutting deals wherever and whenever he could and making it abundantly clear that he expected to be given a high position in the fledgling political system Mon Mothma was putting together. Ackbar had considered such ambitions to be a dangerous waste of time and effort, particularly given the bleak situation the Alliance was facing at the time, and with typical bluntness had made no effort to conceal that opinion.
Given Ackbar’s reputation and subsequent successes, Han had little doubt that Fey’lya would ultimately have been shunted off to some relatively unimportant government post in the New Republic … if it hadn’t happened that the spies who discovered the existence and location of the Emperor’s new Death Star had been a group of Fey’lya’s Bothans.