Per Theel couldn't believe his eyes. Mikam had returned from wherever that jerk Piett had sent him, with none other than Wynssa Starflare in tow, and he'd set the holostar in the middle of the port turbolaser gunnery crew, doing The Maker knew what, dressed up as a technician. What amazed him most was that apparently, the others hadn't recognized her. Well, it had taken him a minute or two, but the profile, and one strand of blond hair escaped from the cap, were unmistakable. That dirty dog Piett. How did he manage to nab Starflare? And why bring her to the bridge? Although it could well be that her cabin had been hit. Anything with viewports and one level down from the captain's ready-room was exposed. That sneak Mikam sure had pulled a cushy job after sucking up to Piett's pet, the blue freak. Rory was all over Starflare now, not that Per could blame him. For a brief moment, Theel had hoped that Piett and his alien buddy would get their comeuppance, but that was before Corlag banged his head against the command station and went out like a light. Drunk, they said, and he could well believe it. Still, Per felt there was something fishy there – it was too bloody convenient for Piett, for one thing. If they managed to scrape through this battle, Theel promised himself he'd go sniff around a bit. Like check out the bridge security recordings. They were theoretically ISB, but he'd long been able to slice into them. It helped quite a bit to know when the surprise inspections were planned. Yup – he certainly would have a look.
***
"You did what?"
"Got her to give Janred's second crew a hand. They were short three guys anyway after the big one hit, and she's no slouch with a router. I figured if things turned really downhill, you'd want her somewhere under your eye."
For the second time in less than an hour, Rory Mikam had managed to surprise Thrawn, something no officer on the "Empire's Revenge" had achieved in nine months. His bunkmate grinned. "She's a good sort. Parents have a refueling station somewhere in the Spine, knows one end of a tritium bar from the other, left to make it in holos at 17. Hey, did you realize she's the one who got Corlag drunk?"
Thrawn's fingers froze over the keys of the tac console, in the middle of recalculating the "Empire" 's jump coordinates. "How so?" he asked very quietly.
"Seems the Cap'n showed up in her cabin yesterday evening with a bottle and two glasses, and she got him talking and drinking for hours instead of, er, the alternative. He was still at it when the alarm rang. That a go computation you have here?"
Thrawn shook his head, resumed his work, hit a last key. "Yes. Transmitting now." He straightened up. "Inputting the jump coordinates now, sir," he called to Piett.
"Thank you, lieutenant," the first officer said, his voice not entirely free of relief. "Helm, that's a go: full power ahead, now."
They jumped.
***
Colonel Tyfas's troopers' mop-up action had turned pretty messy, Piett told himself distastefully. The pirates' ragtag boarding party – a motley assortment of species with ill-matched weapons – nonetheless fought hard and viciously, setting up explosive charges to try and break away from the stormtrooper ambush in the hangar through the bulkheads. A small party of them had actually managed to escape into the bowels of the "Empire's Revenge", shooting indiscriminately and eventually barricading themselves in a utility room with two hostages. Busy with the microjump – that had worked exactly as planned, with the "Revenge" reverting behind the reddish dying star exactly where Thrawn had predicted, taking with her only a damaged boarding pinnace which he'd promptly ordered blown out of space – Piett had at first left Tyfas deal with it. Unfortunately, things looked pretty much at a standstill now, he reflected, and he'd better find a solution fast. One of the hostages was the ship's engineer, the other one was a cadet, and he didn't dare trust the rabble inside with their lives for very long.
"Commander Janred, you have the conn", he said. "Try and get the damage assessed – we have about six hours to fix things until our friends on the "Judicator" show up. I'm off to see to this pirate incident."
"I have the conn, sir." Janred signaled to Mikam to take over his station as he sat in the bridge command chair.
"If I may, sir?" As Piett spun to leave, Thrawn stepped one careful pace from the tactical station.
"Yes, lieutenant?" I'm beginning to dread this oversmooth Coruscant voice asking "If I may, sir?" Although to be honest, it's offered mostly good advice so far.
"I wonder if you'd allow me to come with you? I might be familiar with some of the pirates' species."
Now that was probably a good idea. "Good point. Lieutenant Casrah, take over tac, will you? Come along, lieutenant Thrawn."
They reached the standoff point, some 60 levels below, as Tyfas's troops were exchanging blaster bolts with the besieged pirates. Piett and Thrawn crouched behind a hastily erected barricade made up of lockers and desks.
"Nothing new, sir," Tyfas shouted in the unnaturally loud voice of someone who'd just spent half an hour under fire. "There's food vending machines lining the walls of the room they're in, which provides them with both extra cover and sustenance. We could pull their trick again and blow a hole in one of the walls, but we'd have to pierce all the way through one of the automats as well."
"And they would have killed the hostages long before we were through," Thrawn said.
Tyfas stared at him with a look that clearly meant And who are you to interrupt two superior officers? "Colonel, this is Lieutenant Thrawn, who may speak one of the languages the pirates use," Piett said. "How many inside? What species?"
Tyfas threw another assessing look at Thrawn. "At least ten, one Devaronian, one Duros, not sure of the others."
"Who's been negotiating with you, sir?" Thrawn asked.
When you're not used to it, that accent always throws you. Piett nearly smiled at the conflicting expressions on Tyfas's face as he heard the alien lieutenant's precise, cultured voice. But the colonel was not one to be distracted long. "The Duros, if you can call shouting behind the struggling body of a hostage negotiating. They're pretty trigger-happy, sir," he said, turning to Piett. "I hope the hostages are still alive, but we haven't seen them in a little while now."
"If the Duros is in charge, he won't have killed them before referring to his leader," Thrawn said. "But he may only be the Basic-speaker of the lot. Colonel, may I ask how many of the main boarding-party you now have in custody?"
"All of the ones we haven't killed," Tyfas snorted. "That's about sixty out of perhaps two hundred."
"Where are they now, sir? And the bodies?"
Tyfas threw him a cold stare. "I ordered the bodies spaced, must be done by now. The surviving pirate scum are in an empty cargo bay, level 54, behind a forcefield, until the Captain or Commander Piett tell me what to do with them." And I'm ready to space'em the minute they say the word, his expression all but said out loud.
"They haven't been interrogated yet, sir?"
Piett admired silently the non-confrontational phrasing of the question. Left to his own devices, I don't expect Tyfas would have bothered with the niceties of an interrogation. But of course Thrawn's quite right on this. Interestingly, Tyfas himself seemed to understand the implications. "Not yet, but it can be arranged." He even sounds interested, miracle of miracles for an Army type.
"May I go see them now, sir?"
Tyfas looked from Thrawn to Piett, and the first officer nodded. "Good idea, lieutenant. In fact, I'll go with you."
***
The young lieutenant crouching on the edge of the port crew pit was definitely handsome, Wynssa thought, with that thick short chestnut hair and those green eyes. He was smiling down at her, too. "It's miss Starflare, isn't it? How are you doing here?"
Fifty-five, sixty, sixty-five, seventy, seventy-five, seventy-eight. She entered the figure into the wall router controller, as chief-gunner Rotham had shown her, then raised her eyes. "Hello, lieutenant. We must have met at one of the reviews, but I'm afraid I've forgotten your name, forgive me."
"It's Theel. Per Theel."
"Hello, lieutenant Theel. Well, nobody's actually hit me yet, so I have to assume I haven't entirely messed up."
"I don't think anyone would dare touch such a good friend of Commander Piett's, miss Starflare, so I'm confident you're safe."
"I'm sure that would be true if I knew which one is Commander Piett, lieutenant," Wynssa said pleasantly, "but as it is, you haven't quite reassured me yet." A bleep came from the controller: another inventory list had loaded up. "Which means I'd better be careful not to get on anyone's bad side down here. Nice talking to you, lieutenant Theel."