They looked a sorry lot behind the shimmering forcefield, some standing, most dejectedly sitting – for a few, it was difficult to tell the difference – on the durasteel deckplates, some obviously wounded, all guarded by twelve armed stormtroopers. Tyfas wasn't taking any risks, Piett judged. He could tell a couple of Duros, a Barabel, two Twi'leks, a Rodian, but there were many more species he'd never encountered before. There were even a handful of humans, not overly prepossessing. The stormtrooper sergeant at the door came to attention, and he nodded imperceptibly at Thrawn to take over. I wonder how he's going to handle this.
"Good day, sergeant. Could you get me some of the prisoners here? The human in the corner, the first Duros there, that Rodian, the Bimm in yellow, and the Dug."
"Yes, sir – er, what's a Dug, sir?" the sergeant's electronically-modulated voice asked.
"That chitinous creature seated next to the injured Twi'lek. Shackle them individually, send four men, please."
"Yes, sir."
Interesting. So that's what Bimmisaari natives look like. And Thrawn could tell the... Dug was seated, which wasn't obvious, to say the least, from his – her? – strangely articulated members.
Soon enough, the five prisoners were brought limping out of the containment field to stand before them. The Dug especially must've been in bad shape – even if you didn't know the species, it was obvious he – it? – was favoring one side heavily.
"Thank you, sergeant. Space the others. We don't need that scum."
Piett held his pace by dint of an almost superhuman effort. The prisoners didn't. The human's face went slack-jawed in alarm, then swiveled to the penned-in group. The Rodian took a step forward, to be restrained by the nearest stormtrooper, while the others around the cargo bay armed their weapons. Good reflexes, Piett thought. I'll have to commend Tyfas. The Dug and the Duros edged closer together, chattering rapidly. Only the Bimm remained silent. Maybe it didn't speak Basic.
"Na ta diva di wonga," the Duros started urgently. "Espensi na gotga ta chura!"
"Te haka na chura wa hoki," Thrawn replied in a space-cold voice. "Ta fissa!"
So Thrawn spoke fluent Huttese, did he? A rimworlder himself, Piett was nevertheless unable to detect any trace of an accent. Talented sonovanek. Yup, he'd gotten their attention all right.
"Don't think you can stall me," he was saying in Huttese. "We've jumped. Your fleet is far away. We've killed most of your party. You're more expensive to keep than droids, and you're less reliable. I can get all the information I need from you five. Why should I keep the others?"
The Duros started to answer, but the human pirate interrupted him in Basic. "Since when does the Empire employ non-humans? They're just using you to trick us."
"That assumes you still have something I can trick you of," Thrawn said in smooth Basic. "Don't flatter yourself."
He raised his hand as if to summon the rest of the stormtroopers. The Dug hissed something incomprehensible, and Thrawn's hand froze in mid-air. The alien lieutenant answered a few words in the same hissing tongue, then turned to the sergeant, pointing at the Bimm, the Rodian and the human. "Sergeant. Call up an escort for these three pirates here, have them locked up in the main brig. Have four of your troopers get me the other Duros in there" – a nod at the containment field – "and shackle him to his friend here and the Dug. I'm going to need them and the troopers for a little time. Don't space anyone until I return."
***
Well, well. So it wasn't Piett who'd ordered Mikam to bring Wynssa Starflare to the bridge. That, or the holostar was keeping it quiet to avoid problems with Corlag, which was always a possibility. Still, Per Theel thought, this opened interesting new lines of thought. He cast a quick look around the bridge. Hmmm. Piett and the freak had both vanished someplace. High time I went and had a chat with my pal Rory.
***
In the shelter of the makeshift barricade, Colonel Tyfas considered the small group led by Piett and Thrawn doubtfully. "Nothing's much changed this end, sir. What do you want me to do?"
Piett half-turned to his junior officer. "This one's lieutenant Thrawn's baby, Colonel. He has – I assume – a plan."
Thrawn nodded, then walked to the stormtrooper holding the first Duros's binders. He wound the plasteel lead around his left wrist, then, pulling his blaster from his side-holster, nudged the shackled Duros toward the half-blocked entrance to the besieged utility room. He stopped about mid-way, still shielded by the Duros's body, and shouted out something which got answered by a blaster bolt. Immediately, the Duros started yelling.
"What's he saying, sir?"
"No idea," Piett said, "but at a guess, it would be 'stop shooting'."
It had worked, too. From the utility room came a voice in the same unknown language, then the screech of some heavy piece of metal being moved, and finally one of the pirates appeared, shielding himself behind a young human in olive-green uniform whose hands and feet were tied. The pirate was a Duros armed with a laser machine-gun.
"That's cadet Lynan, sir," Tyfas whispered.
Thrawn said something which got the Duros pirate shouting back furiously. Eyes closed, the young cadet looked very scared, as well he might, Piett thought. Thrawn's voice replied on the same even tone he'd used from the beginning of the incident. He'll have to tell me what this was all about. The sibilants went back and forth, and finally, the besieged Duros released the arm that half-choked Lynan, and gave a shove in the young cadet's back that almost threw him to the ground.
"Come to us, cadet," Thrawn called out in Basic. "You're being exchanged for this character here."
Sure enough, he'd released the Duros's lead. In the dead silence that had fallen on the scene, the two prisoners shuffled slowly toward one another, their legs hampered by their respective bonds. At a sign from Tyfas, two troopers stepped out to help Lynan as soon as the exchanged Duros vanished inside the utility room. The kid was shaking badly, Piett saw, which honestly couldn't be held against him. "Nice job," Tyfas conceded, assessing Thrawn with alert eyes. "What did you tell them? What next?"
"What I said so far doesn't much matter, sir, it's what the Duros prisoner I just sent in will tell them – that we're about to space all the survivors save a couple. He's obviously either their leader or the deputy of the Dug we have here. I'd give them ten minutes to get that message, then we can start negotiating again."
***
"Hey, Rory."
Mikam raised his eyes. Theel had sauntered from the relaying comm station to the weapons station Rory had temporarily taken over from Lieutenant-Commander Janred. Strictly speaking, they were still under orange alert conditions, but the atmosphere on the bridge had considerably relaxed after the microjump. Stationary behind the system's red dwarf, the "Empire's Revenge" had powered down to conduct a thorough check of the damage undergone in the recent battle, and as many repairs as could be undertaken outside a proper shipyard. At every station, checks had been run, and whoever had completed his had practically nothing to do until they powered up again. He could see two of the sensor techs having a quiet game of traveling sabacc, throwing a dice in a transparent cube to simulate the randomizer; and Casrah was reading a datapad. Mikam yawned – they'd only slept a couple of hours, after all.
"Hi, Per. Everything okay your end?"
"Sure. Say, how did you manage to hook up with Wynssa Starflare? What's she doing with the gunnery crew?"
"Hook up— Hey, Per, I wish," Rory said, thinking fast. "Piett worried that her quarters were too exposed. He sent me to get her here."
"Ah?" Theel said, looking hard at his bunkmate. "Now that's funny, she just told me she doesn't even know which one of us is Piett."
Kreth. "Well, she's a holo actress, whaddya expect? For all I know, Corlag told Piett to do it, and he farmed it out to me."
"Could be," Theel said in a tone that sounded all but convinced. "Frelling convenient for Piett that Corlag ain't here. He gets the command chair, the holostar, and the blue sidekick."
I so don't like where this is going. "Corlag was drunk as a Drall and he practically fell down on me. If you'd locked him in a bedroom with Starflare, he wouldn't have been able to get to first zone."
"Yeah, well, Corlag's been under the weather before. Never stopped him until now. So what I'm saying is, it's prakking convenient, know what I'm sayin'? And if ISB finds out bloody alien-lover Piett rigged this somehow, Piett can kiss his rank squares goodbye."
Frell. "In your dreams, Per. Wasn't Piett doing the drinking, it was Corlag. Dunno how you can rig that."
"Oh, I'll find out somehow," Theel said. "Trust me, I will."