Leia frowned. “Aren’t they likely to wonder about that?”
“No. I explained it was part of the same malfunction that caused the transmitter problem.”
There was a low rumble from Chewbacca, and Leia looked down to see the Wookiee’s eyes glaring impotently up at her. Fully alert again, but without enough motor control yet to do anything. “We’ve cleared outer control,” she told him. “We’re heading down to-where are we going, Khabarakh?”
The Noghri took a deep breath, let it out in an odd sort of whistle. “We will go to my home, a small village near the edge of the Clean Land. I will hide you there until our lord the Grand Admiral leaves.”
Leia thought about that. A small village situated off the mainstream of Noghri life ought to be safely out of the way of wandering Imperials. On the other hand, if it was anything like the small villages she’d known, her presence there would be common knowledge an hour after they put down. “Can you trust the other villagers to keep quiet?”
“Do not worry,” Khabarakh said. “I will keep you safe.”
But he hesitated before he said it:and as they headed into the atmosphere, Leia noted uneasily that he hadn’t really answered the question.
The dynast bowed one last time and stepped back to the line of those awaiting their turn to pay homage to their leader. Thrawn, seated in the gleaming High Seat of the Common Room of Honoghr, nodded gravely to the departing clan leader and motioned to the next. The other stepped forward, moving in the formalized dance that seemed to indicate respect, and bowed his forehead to the ground before the Grand Admiral.
Standing two meters to Thrawn’s right and a little behind him, Pellaeon shifted his weight imperceptibly between feet, stifled a yawn, and wondered when this ritual would be over. He’d been under the impression they’d come to Honoghr to try to inspire the commando teams, but so far the only Noghri they’d seen had been ceremonial guards and this small but excessively boring collection of clan leaders. Thrawn presumably had his reasons for wading through the ritual, but Pellaeon wished it would hurry up and be over. With a galaxy still to win back for the Empire, sitting here listening to a group of grayskinned aliens drone on about their loyalty seemed a ridiculous waste of time.
There was a touch of air on the back of his neck.
“Captain?” someone said quietly in his ear-Lieutenant Tschel, he tentatively identified the voice. “Excuse me, sir, but Grand Admiral Thrawn asked to be informed immediately if anything out of the ordinary happened.”
Pellaeon nodded slightly, glad of any interruption. “What is it?”
“It doesn’t seem dangerous, sir, or even very important,” Tschel said. “A Noghri commando ship on its way in almost didn’t give the recognition response in time.”
“Equipment trouble, probably,” Pellaeon said.
“That’s what the pilot said,” Tschel told him. “The odd thing is that he begged off putting down at the Nystao landing area. You’d think that someone with equipment problems would want his ship looked at immediately.”
“A bad transmitter isn’t exactly a crisis-level problem,” Pellaeon grunted. But Tschel had a point; and Nystao was the only place on Honoghr with qualified spaceship repair facilities. “We have an ID on the pilot?”
“Yes, sir. His name’s Khabarakh, clan Kihm’bar. I pulled up what we have on him,” he added, offering Pellaeon a data pad.
Surreptitiously, Pellaeon took it, wondering what he should do now. Thrawn had indeed left instructions that he was to be notified of any unusual activity anywhere in the system. But to interrupt the ceremony for something so trivial didn’t seem like a good idea.
As usual, Thrawn was one step ahead of him. Lifting a hand, he stopped the Noghri clan dynast’s presentation and turned his glowing red eyes on Pellaeon. “You have something to report, Captain?”
“A small anomaly only, sir,” Pellaeon told him, steeling himself and stepping to the Grand Admiral’s side. “An incoming commando ship was slow to transmit its recognition signal, and then declined to put down at the Nystao landing area. Probably just an equipment problem.”
“Probably,” Thrawn agreed. “Was the ship scanned for evidence of malfunction?”
“Ah :” Pellaeon checked the data pad. “The scan was inconclusive,” he told the other. “The ship’s static-damping was strong enough to block-“
“The incoming ship was static-damped?” Thrawn interrupted, looking sharply up at Pellaeon.
“Yes, sir.
Wordlessly, Thrawn held up a hand. Pellaeon gave him the data pad, and for a moment the Grand Admiral frowned down at it, skimming the report. “Khabarakh; clan Kihm’bar,” he murmured to himself.