[Thrawn Trilogy] - 02(4)

“They won’t spot us.” Karrde was quietly positive. “Actually, I doubt the possibility will even occur to them. The average man running from the likes of Grand Admiral Thrawn is unlikely to stop running until he’s a good deal farther away than this.”

Are you willing to stake your life on that assessment? Mara thought sourly. But she kept the retort to herself. He was probably right; and anyway, if the Chimaera or any of its TIE fighters started toward Wild Karrde, they would have no trouble punching the engines up to power and going to lightspeed well ahead of the attack.

The logic and tactics seemed clean. But still, Mara could feel something nagging at the back of her mind. Something that didn’t feel good about all this.

Gritting her teeth, she adjusted the ship’s sensors to their highest sensitivity and checked once more that the engine prestart sequence was keyed in and ready. And then settled in to wait.

The scanning crew was fast, efficient, and thorough; and it took them just over thirty minutes to come up completely dry.

“Well, so much for that.” Pellaeon grimaced as he watched the negative reports scroll up his display. A good practice session for the ground forces, perhaps, but otherwise the whole exercise seemed to have been pretty useless. “Unless your observers have picked up any reactions in Hyllyard City,” he added, turning to face Thrawn.

The Grand Admiral’s glowing red eyes were on his displays. “There was a small twitch, as a matter of fact,” he said. “Cut off almost before it began, but I think the implications are clear.”

Well, that was something, anyway. “Yes, sir. Shall I have Surveillance begin equipping a long-term ground team?”

“Patience, Captain,” Thrawn said. “It may not be necessary, after all. Key for a midrange scan, and tell me what you see.

Pellaeon swiveled back to his command board and tapped for the appropriate readout. There was Myrkr itself of course, and the standard TIE fighter defense cloud ranged around the Chimaera. The only other object anywhere within midrange distance-“You mean that little asteroid out there?”

“That’s the one,” Thrawn nodded. “Nothing remarkable about it, is there? No, don’t do a sensor focus,” he added, almost before the thought of doing one had even occurred to Pellaeon. “We wouldn’t want to prematurely flush our quarry, would we?”

“Our quarry?” Pellaeon repeated, frowning at the sensor data again. The routine sensor scans that had been done of the asteroid three hours earlier had come up negative, and nothing could have sneaked up on it since then without being detected. “With all due respect, sir, I don’t see any indication that anything’s out there.

“I don’t either,” Thrawn agreed. “But it’s the only sizable cover available for nearly ten million kilometers around Myrkr. There’s really no other place for Karrde to watch our operation from.”

Pellaeon pursed his lips. “Your permission, Admiral, but I doubt Karrde is foolish enough to just sit around waiting for us to arive.

The glowing red eyes narrowed, just a bit. “You forget, Captain,” he said softly, “that I’ve met the man. More important, I’ve seen the sort of artwork he collects.” He turned back to his displays. “No; he’s out there. I’m sure of it. Talon Karrde is not merely a smuggler, you see. Perhaps not even primarily a smuggler. His real love is not goods or money but information. More than anything else in the galaxy, he craves knowledge:and the knowledge of what we have or have not found here is too valuable a gem for him to pass up.”

Pellaeon studied the Grand Admiral’s profile. It was, in his opinion, a pritty tenuous leap of logic. But on the other hand, he’d seen too many similar leaps borne out not to take this one seriously. “Shall I order a TIE fighter squad to investigate, sir?”

“As I said, Captain, patience,” Thrawn said. “Even in sensor stealth mode with all engines shut down, he’ll have made sure he can power up and escape before any attack force could reach him.” He smiled at Pellaeon. “Or rather, any attack force from the Chimaera.”

A stray memory clicked: Thrawn, reaching for his comm just as Pellaeon was giving the ground forces the order to attack. “You sent a message to the rest of the fleet,” he said. “Timing it against my attack order to mask the transmission.

Thrawn’s blue-black eyebrows lifted a fraction. “Very good, Captain. Very good, indeed.”

Pellaeon felt a touch of warmth on his cheeks. The Grand Admiral’s compliments were few and far between. “Thank you, sir.”