Bel Iblis eyed him. “And you’d like to know just what those good terms entail?”
Han steeled himself. “As a matter of fact, sir : yes, I would.”
The other smiled slightly. “You still have that underlying refusal to flinch before authority, don’t you. Good. Come on over to the headquarters lounge and I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” His smile hardened, just a little. “And after that, I’ll have some questions to ask you, as well.”
The door slid open, and Pellaeon stepped into the darkened antechamber of Thrawn’s private command room. Darkened and apparently empty; but Pellaeon knew better than that. “I have important information for the Grand Admiral,” he said loudly. “I don’t have time for these little games of yours.”
“They are not games,” Ruk’s gravelly voice mewed right in Pellaeon’s ear, making him jump despite his best efforts not to. “Stalking skills must be practiced or lost.”
“Practice on someone else,” Pellaeon growled. “I have work to do.”
He stepped forward to the inner door, silently cursing Ruk and the whole Noghri race. Useful tools of the Empire they might well be; but he’d dealt with this kind of close-knit clan structure before, and he’d never found such primitives to be anything but trouble in the long run. The door to the command room slid open-Revealing a darkness lit only by softly glowing candles.
Pellaeon stopped abruptly, his mind flashing back to that eerie crypt on Wayland, where a thousand candles marked the graves of off worlders who had come there over the past few years, only to be slaughtered by Joruus C’baoth. For Thrawn to have turned his command room into a duplicate of that :
“No, I haven’t come under the influence of our unstable Jedi Master,” Thrawn’s voice came dryly across the room. Over the candles, Pellaeon could just see the Grand Admiral’s glowing red eyes. “Look closer.”
Pellaeon did as instructed, to discover that the “candles” were in fact holographic images of exquisitely delicate lighted sculptures. “Beautiful, aren’t they?” Thrawn said, his voice meditative. “They’re Corellian flame miniatures, one of that very short list of art forms which others have tried to copy but never truly been able to duplicate. Nothing more than shaped transoptical fibers, pseudoluminescent plant material, and a pair of Goolish light sources, really; and yet, somehow, there’s something about them that’s never been captured by anyone else.” The holographic flames faded away, and in the center of the room a frozen image of three Dreadnaught cruisers apeared. “This was taken by the Relentless two days ago off the planet New Cov, Captain,” Thrawn continued in the same thoughtful tone. “Watch closely.”
He started the recording. Pellaeon watched in silence as the Dreadnaughts, in triangular formation, opened fire with ion cannons toward the camera’s point of view. Almost hidden in the fury of the assault, a freighter and what looked like a small pleasure yacht could be seen skittering to safety down the middle of the formation. Still firing, the Dreadnaughts began drawing back, and a minute later the whole group had jumped to lightspeed. The holo faded away, and the room lights came up to a gentle glow. “Comments?” Thrawn invited.
“Looks like our old friends are back,” Pellaeon said. “They seem to have recovered from that scare we gave them at Linuri. A nuisance, especially right now.
“Unfortunately, indications are that they’re about to become more than just a nuisance,” Thrawn told him. “One of the two ships they were rescuing was identified by the Relentless as the Lady Luck. With Han Solo and Lando Calrissian aboard.”
Pellaeon frowned. “Solo and Calrissian? But-” He broke off sharply.
“But they were supposed to go to the Palanhi system,” Thrawn finished for him. “Yes. An error on my part. Obviously, something more important came than their concerns for Ackbar’s reputation.
Pellaeon looked back at where the holo had been. “Such as adding new strength to the Rebellion military.”
“I don’t believe they’ve merged quite yet,” Thrawn said, his forehead furrowed with thought. “Nor do I believe such an alliance is inevitable. That was a Corellian leading that task force, Captain-I’m sure of that now. And there are only a few possibilities as to just who that Corellian might be.”
A stray memory clicked. “Solo is Corellian, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” Thrawn confirmed. “One reason I think they’re still in the negotiation stage. If their leader is who I suspect, he might well prefer sounding out a fellow Corellian before making any commitment to the Rebellion’s leaders.”