[Thrawn Trilogy] - 01(35)

Mon Mothma looked at him, an expression of mild surprise on her face. “Yes, tomorrow. The Bimms are still waiting, Captain.”

“I know, but-“

“What Han is trying to say,” Leia jumped in, “is that I had intended at this meeting to ask for a brief leave of absence from my diplomatic duties.”

“I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Mon Mothma said with a slight frown. “There’s far too much work to be done.”

“We’re not talking about a vacation here,” Han told her, trying to remember his diplomatic manners. “Leia needs more time to concentrate on her Jedi training.”

Mon Mothma pursed her lips, throwing glances at Ackbar and Fey’lya. “I’m sorry,” she said, shaking her head. “I, of all people, recognize the need to add new Jedi to our ranks. But for now there are simply too many urgent demands on our time.” She looked at Fey’lya again-almost, Han thought sourly, as if seeking his permission. “In another year-possibly sooner,” she added, glancing at Leia’s stomach, “we’ll have enough experienced diplomats for you to devote the bulk of your time to your studies. But right now I’m afraid we need you here.”

For a long, awkward moment the room was silent. Ackbar spoke first. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and have that escort force prepared.”

“Of course,” Mon Mothma nodded. “Unless there’s something more, we stand adjourned.”

And that was that. Jaw clenched tightly, Han began collecting his data cards together. “You all right?” Leia asked quietly from beside him.

“You know, it was a lot easier back when we were just taking on the Empire,” he growled. He threw a glare across the table at Fey’lya. “At least then we knew who our enemies were.”

Leia squeezed his arm. “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go see if they’ve gotten Threepio cleaned up yet.”





Chapter 9


The tactical officer stepped up to the Chimera’s bridge command station, bringing his heels smartly together. “All units signal ready, Admiral,” he reported.

“Excellent,” Thrawn said, his voice glacially calm. “Prepare for lightspeed.”

Pellaeon threw a glance at the Grand Admiral, then returned his attention to the bank of tactical and status readouts facing him. To the readouts, and to the blackness outside that seemed to have swallowed up the rest of Pellaeon’s five-ship task force. Three-thousandths of a light-year away, the Bpfassh system’s sun was a mere pinprick, indistinguishable from the other stars blazing all around them. Conventional military wisdom frowned on this business of picking a spot just outside the target system as a jumping-off point-it was considered dangerously easy for one or more ships to get lost on the way to such a rendezvous, and it was difficult to make an accurate hyperspace jump over so short a distance. He and Thrawn, in fact, had had a long and barely civilized argument over the idea the first time the Grand Admiral had included it in one of his attack plans. Now, after nearly a year of practice, the procedure had become almost routine.

Perhaps, Pellaeon thought, the Chimera’s crew wasn’t as inexperienced as their ignorance of proper military protocol sometimes made them seem.

“Captain? Is my flagship ready?”

Pellaeon brought his mind back to the business at hand. All ship defenses showed ready; the TIE fighters in their bays were manned and poised. “The Chimaera is fully at your command, Admiral,” he said, the formal question and response a ghostly remembrance of the days when proper military protocol was the order of the day throughout the galaxy.

“Excellent,” Thrawn said. He swiveled in his chair to face the figure seated near the rear of the bridge. “Master C’baoth,” he nodded. “Are my other two task forces ready?”

“They are,” C’baoth said gravely. “They await merely my command.”

Pellaeon winced and threw another glance at Thrawn. But the Grand Admiral had apparently decided to let the comment pass. “Then command them,” he told C’baoth, reaching up to stroke the ysalamir draped across the framework fastened to his chair. “Captain: begin the count.”

“Yes, sir.” Pellaeon reached to his board, touched the timer switch. Scattered around them, the other ships would be locking onto that signal, all of them counting down together …

The timer went to zero, and with a flare of starlines through the forward ports, the Chimaera jumped.

Ahead, the starlines faded into the mottling of hyperspace. “Speed, Point Three,” the helmsman in the crew pit below called out, confirming the readout on the displays.