[Thrawn Trilogy] - 02(92)

Han shook his head. “He made his mistake at Sluis Van, Lando. He won’t make another one. Bet you the Falcon he won’t.”

Lando clapped him on the shoulder. “Come on, buddy, brooding about it won’t help. We’ve got two days to kill. Let’s go break out a sabacc deck.”

The Grand Admiral read the dispatch twice before turning his glowing eyes on Pellaeon. “You vouch for the reliability of this report, Captain?”

“As much as I can vouch for any report that doesn’t originate with an Imperial agent,” Pellaeon told him. “On the other hand, this particular smuggler has fed us fifty two reports over the last ten years, forty eight of which proved to be accurate. I’d say he’s worth believing.”

Thrawn looked back at the reader. “Endor,” he murmured, half to himself. “Why Endor?”

“I don’t know, sir,” Pellaeon said. “Perhaps they were looking for another place to hide.”

“Among the Ewoks?” Thrawn snorted derisively. “That would be desperation indeed. But no matter. If the Millennium Falcon is there, then so is Leia Organa Solo. Alert Navigation and Engineering; we leave immediately fur Endor-“

“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon nodded, keying in the orders. “Shall I have Khabarakh brought up from Nystao?”

“Yes. Khabarakh.” Thrawn said the name thoughtfully. “Note the interesting timing here, Captain. Khabarakh comes back to Honoghr after a month’s absence, just as Solo and Organa Solo head off on secret errands to New Cov and Endor. Coincidence?”

Pellaeon frowned. “I don’t follow you, sir.”

Thrawn smiled thinly. “What I think, Captain, is that we re seeing a new degree of subtlety among our enemies. They knew that the return of a survivor from the failed Kashyyyk operation would catch my attention. They therefore arranged his release to coincide with their own missions, in the hope I would be too preoccupied to notice them. Doubtless when we break Khabarakh, we’ll learn a great many things from him that will cost us countless man-hours to finally prove wrong.” Thrawn snorted again. “No, leave him where he is. You may inform the dynasts that I have decided to permit them the full seven days of public shame, after which they may perform the rites of discovery as they choose. No matter how useless his information, Khabarakh may still serve the Empire by dying painfully. As an object lesson to his race.”

“Yes, sir.” Pellaeon hesitated. “May I point out, though, that such a drastic psychological fragmentation and reconditioning is well outside the Rebellion’s usual operating procedure.”

“I agree,” Thrawn said grimly. “Which implies all the more strongly that whatever Organa Solo is looking for on Endor, it’s considerably mote vital to the Rebellion’s war effort than mere sanctuary.”

Pellaeon frowned, trying to think of what might be on Endor that anyone could possibly want. “Some of the materiel left over from the Death Star project?” he hazarded.

“More valuable than that,” the Grand Admiral shook his head. “Information, perhaps, that the Emperor might have had with him when he died. Information they may think they can still retrieve.”

And then Pellaeon got it. “The location of the Mount Tantiss storehouse.”

Thrawn nodded. “That’s the only thing I can think of that would be worth this much effort on their part. At any rate, it’s a risk we can’t afford to take. Not now.”

“Agreed.” Pellaeon’s board pinged: Navigation and Engineering signaling ready. “Shall I break orbit?”

“At your convenience, Captain.”

Pellaeon nodded to the helm. “Take us out. Course as set by Navigation.”

Through the viewports the planet below began to fall away; and as it did so there was the short trill of a priority message coming through. Pellaon pulled it up, read the heading. “Admiral? Report from the Adamant, in the Abregado system. They’ve captured one of Talon Karrde’s freighters. Transcript of the preliminary interrogation is coming through now.” He frowned as he glanced down to the end. “It’s rather short, sir.”

“Thank you,” Thrawn said with quiet satisfaction as he pulled up the report to his own station.

He was still reading it when the Chimaera made the jump to lightspeed. Reading it very, very carefully.





Chapter 17


Mara had never been to the Abregado-rae Spaceport before; but as she walked along its streets she decided it deserved every bit of the rock-bottom reputation it had worked so hard to achieve.

Not that it showed on the surface. On the contrary, the place was neat and almost painfully clean, though with that grating antiseptic quality that showed the cleanliness had been imposed from above by government decree instead of from below by the genuine wishes of the inhabitants. It seemed reasonably peaceful, too, as spaceports went, with lots of uniformed security men patrolling the streets around the landing pits.