The Last Command (42 page)

“A minor one only,” Thrawn said. “These were composed some time ago, before he joined the Rebellion. Still, they provide useful insights into his character. As do those,” he added, gesturing to his left. “Artwork once chosen personally by our Corellian adversary.”

Pellaeon looked at them with new interest. So Senator Bel Iblis had picked these out himself, had he? “Where were these from, his old Imperial Senate office?”

“Those were,” Thrawn said, indicating the nearest group. “Those were from his home; those from his private ship. Intelligence found these records, more or less accidentally, in the data from our last Obroa-skai information raid. So the Rebels continue to edge toward our trap, do they?”

“Yes, sir,” Pellaeon said, glad to be getting back to something he could understand. “We’ve had two more reports of Rebel support ships moving into positions at the edge of the Draukyze system.”

“But not obviously.”

Pellaeon frowned. “Excuse me, Admiral?”

“What I mean is that they’re being highly secretive about their preparations,” Thrawn said thoughtfully. “Quietly detaching intelligence and support ships from other assignments; moving and re-forming sector fleets to free capital ships for service—that sort of thing. Never obviously. Always making Imperial Intelligence work hard to put the pieces together.”

He looked up at Pellaeon, his glowing red eyes glittering in the dim light. “Almost as if Tangrene was indeed their true target.”

Pellaeon stared at him. “Are you saying it isn’t?”

“That’s correct, Captain,” Thrawn said, gazing out at the artwork.

Pellaeon looked at the Tangrene holo. Intelligence had put a 94 percent probability on this. “But if they’re not going to hit Tangrene… then where?”

“The last place we would normally expect them,” Thrawn said, reaching over to touch a switch on his command board. Tangrene system vanished, to be replaced by—

Pellaeon felt his jaw drop. “
Bilbringi?
” He wrenched his eyes back to his commander. “Sir, that’s…”

“Insane?” Thrawn cocked a blue-black eyebrow. “Of course it is. The insanity of men and aliens who’ve learned the hard way that they can’t match me face-to-face. And so they attempt to use my own tactical skill and insight against me. They pretend to walk into my trap, gambling that I’ll notice the subtlety of their movements and interpret that as genuine intent. And while I then congratulate myself on my perception” —he gestured at the Bilbringi holo— “they prepare their actual attack.”

Pellaeon looked at Bel Iblis’s old artwork. “We might want to wait for confirmation before we shift any forces from Tangrene, Admiral,” he suggested cautiously. “We could intensify Intelligence activity in the Bilbringi region. Or perhaps Delta Source could confirm it.”

“Unfortunately, Delta Source has been silenced,” Thrawn said. “But we have no need of confirmation. This
is
the Rebels’ plan, and we will not risk tipping our hand with anything so obvious as a heightened Intelligence presence. They believe they’ve deceived me. Our overriding task now is to make certain they continue to believe that.”

He smiled grimly. “After all, Captain, it makes no difference whether we crush them at Tangrene or at Bilbringi. No difference whatsoever.”

The lopsided-helix shape of the seed pod hovered a meter and a half in front of Mara, practically daring her to strike it down. She eyed it darkly, Skywalker’s lightsaber held ready in an unorthodox but versatile two-handed grip. She’d already missed the pod twice; she didn’t intend to do so a third time. “Don’t rush it,” Skywalker cautioned her. “Concentrate, and let the Force flow into you. Try to anticipate the pod’s motion.”

Easy for him to say, she thought sourly; after all, he was the one controlling it. The pod twitched a millimeter closer, daring her again….

And suddenly, she decided she was tired of this game. Reaching out with the Force, she got a grip of her own on the pod. Briefly immobilized, it managed a single tremor before she jabbed the lightsaber straight out, stabbing it neatly dead center. “There,” she said, closing down the weapon. “I did it.”

She’d expected Skywalker to be angry. To her mild surprise, and not so mild annoyance, he wasn’t in the least. “Good,” he said encouragingly. “Very good. It’s difficult to split your attention between two separate mental and physical activities that way. And you did it well.”

“Thanks,” she muttered, tossing the lightsaber away from her toward the bushes. It curved smoothly around in midair as Skywalker pulled it back to land in his outstretched hand. “So is that it?” she added.

Skywalker looked over his shoulder. Solo and Calrissian were hunched over the protocol droid, which had stopped complaining about Wayland’s terrain, vegetation, and animal life and was instead complaining about what crunching through that stone crust had done to its foot. Skywalker’s astromech droid was hovering nearby with its sensor antenna extended, running through its usual repertoire of encouraging noises. A couple of steps away, the Wookiee was rummaging through one of their packs, probably for some tool or other.

“I think we’ve got time for a few more exercises,” Skywalker decided, turning back to face her. “That technique of yours is very interesting—Obi-wan never taught me anything about using the tip of the lightsaber blade.”

“The Emperor’s philosophy was to use everything you had available,” Mara said.

“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me,” Skywalker said dryly. He held out the lightsaber. “Let’s try something else. Go ahead and take the lightsaber.”

Reaching out with the Force, Mara snatched it away from his loose grip, wondering idly what he would do if she tried sometime to ignite the weapon first. She wasn’t sure she could handle anything as small as a switch, but it’d be worth trying just to see him scramble away from the blade.

And if, in the process, she happened to accidentally kill him…

YOU
WILL
KILL
LUKE
SKYWALKER
.

She squeezed the lightsaber hard.
Not yet
, she told the voice firmly.
I still need him.
“All right,” she growled. “What now?”

He didn’t get a chance to answer. Behind him, the astromech droid suddenly started squealing excitedly.

“What?” Solo demanded, his blaster already out of its holster.

“He says he’s just noticed something worth investigating there to the side,” the protocol droid translated, gesturing to his left. “A group of vines, I believe he’s saying. Though I could be mistaken—with all the acid damage—”

“Come on, Chewie, let’s check it out,” Solo cut him off, getting to his feet and starting up the shallow slope of the creek bed.

Skywalker caught Mara’s eye. “Come on,” he said, and started off after them.

There wasn’t very far to go. Just inside the first row of trees, hidden from view by a bush, was another set of vines like the ones they’d had to occasionally cut through the last couple of days.

Except that this group had already been cut. Cut, and then bunched up out of the way like a pile of thick, tangled rope.

“I think that ends any discussion as to whether someone out there is helping us along,” Calrissian said, studying one of the cut ends.

“I think you’re right,” Solo said. “No predator would have bunched them up like this.”

The Wookiee rumbled something under his breath and pulled on the bush in front of the vines. To Mara’s surprise, it came away from the ground without any effort at all. “And wouldn’t have bothered with camouflage, either,” Calrissian said as the Wookiee turned it over. “Knife cut, looks like. Just like the vines.”

“And like the clawbird from yesterday,” Solo agreed grimly. “Luke? We been getting company?”

“I’ve sensed some of the natives,” Skywalker said. “But they never seem to come very close before they leave again.” He looked back downslope at the protocol droid, waiting anxiously for them in the creek bed. “You suppose it has anything to do with the droids?”

Solo snorted. “You mean like on Endor, when those fuzzball Ewoks thought Threepio was a god?”

“Something like that,” Skywalker nodded. “They could be getting close enough to hear either Threepio or Artoo.”

“Maybe.” Solo looked around. “When do they come around?”

“Mostly around sundown,” Skywalker said. “So far, anyway.”

“Well, next time they do, let me know,” Solo said, jamming his blaster back into its holster and starting back down the slope to the creek bed. “It’s about time we all had a little chat together. Come on, let’s get moving.”

The darkness was growing thicker, and the camp nearly put together for the night, when the wisps of sensation came. “Han?” Luke called softly. “They’re here.”

Han nodded, tapping Lando on the back as he drew his blaster. “How many?”

Luke focused his mind, working at separating the distinct parts out of the overall sensation. “Looks like five or six of them, coming in from that direction.” He pointed to the side.

“Is that just in the first group?” Mara asked.

First group?
Luke frowned, letting his focus open up again. She was right: there was a second group coming up behind the first. “That’s just the first group,” he confirmed. “Second group… I get five or six there, too. I’m not sure, but they might be a different species from the first.”

Han looked at Lando. “What do you think?”

“I don’t like it,” Lando said, fingering his blaster uneasily. “Mara, how well do these species usually get along?”

“Not all that well,” she said. “There was some trade and other stuff going on when I was here; but there were also stories about long, three-way wars between them and the human colonists.”

Chewbacca growled a suggestion: that the aliens might be joining forces against them. “That’s a fun thought,” Han said. “How about it, Luke?”

Luke strained, but it was no use. “Sorry,” he said. “There’s plenty of emotion there, but I don’t have any basis for figuring out what kind.”

“They’ve stopped,” Mara said, her face tight with concentration. “Both groups.”

Han grimaced. “I guess this is it. Lando, Mara—you stay here and guard the camp. Luke, Chewie, let’s go check ‘em out.”

They headed up the rocky slope and into the forest, moving as quietly as possible among the bushes and dead leaves underfoot. “They know we’re coming yet?” Han muttered over his shoulder.

Luke stretched out with the Force. “I can’t tell,” he said. “But they don’t seem to be coming any closer.”

Chewbacca rumbled something Luke didn’t catch. “Could be,” Han said. “It’d be pretty stupid to hold a council of war this close to their target, though.”

And then, ahead and to their left, Luke caught a shadowy movement beside a thick tree trunk. “Watch it!” he warned, his lightsaber igniting with a
snap-hiss
. In the green-white light from the blade a small figure in a tightfitting hooded garment could be seen as it ducked back behind the trunk, barely getting out of the way as Han’s quick shot blew a sizable pit in one side of the trunk. Chewbacca’s bowcaster bolt was a split second behind Han’s, gouging out a section of the trunk on the other side. Through the erupting cloud of smoke and splinters the figure could be seen briefly as it darted from the rapidly decreasing cover of its chosen tree toward another, thicker trunk. Even as Han swung his blaster to track it, a strange warbling split the air, sounding like a dozen alien birds—

And with a roar that was part recognition, part understanding, and part relief, Chewbacca swung the end of his bowcaster into Han’s blaster, sending the shot wide of its intended target. “Chewie—!” Han barked.

“No—he’s right,” Luke cut him off. Suddenly, it had all come together for him, too. “You—stop.”

The order was unnecessary. The shadowy figure had already come to a halt, standing unprotected in the open, its hooded face shaded from the faint light of Luke’s lightsaber.

Luke took a step toward it. “I’m Luke Skywalker,” he said formally. “Brother of Leia Organa Solo, son of the Lord Darth Vader. Who are you?”

“I am Ekhrikhor clan Bakh’tor,” the gravelly Noghri voice replied. “I greet you, son of Vader.”

The clearing Ekhrikhor led them to was close, only twenty meters or so further along the vector Luke had started them on in the first place. The aliens were there, all right: two different types, five of each, standing on the far side of a thick fallen tree trunk. On the near side stood two more Noghri in those camouflaged outfits of theirs with the hoods thrown back. Propped up on the log between the two sides was some sort of compact worklight, giving off just enough of a glow for Han to pick out the details of the nearest aliens.

It wasn’t very encouraging. The group on the right were a head taller than the Noghri facing them and maybe a head shorter than Han. Covered with lumpy plates, they looked more like walking rock piles than anything else. The group on the left were nearly as tall as Chewbacca, with four arms each and a shiny, bluish-crystal skin that reminded Han of the brownish thing they’d had to shoot off Threepio their first day here. “Friendly-looking bunch,” he muttered to Luke as their group moved toward the last line of trees between them and the clearing.

“They are the Myneyrshi and Psadans,” Ekhrikhor said. “They have been seeking to confront you.”

“And you’ve been driving them off?” Luke asked.

“They sought to confront,” the Noghri repeated. “We could not permit that.”

They stopped just inside the clearing. A rustle ran through the aliens, one that didn’t sound all that friendly. “I get the feeling we aren’t all that welcome,” Han said. “Luke?”

Beside him, he felt Luke shake his head. “I still can’t read anything solid,” he said. “What’s this all about, Ekhrikhor?”

“They have indicated they wish a conversation with us,” the Noghri said. “Perhaps to decide whether they will seek to give us battle.”

Han gave the aliens a quick once-over. They all seemed to be wearing knives, and there were a couple of bows in evidence, but he didn’t see anything more advanced. “They better hope they brought an army with them,” he said.