The next two days went by slowly. Ar’alani spent most of her time in her quarters studying the data she’d collected from the battle site, emerging only for meals or to roam the base looking for warriors to question. So far she didn’t seem to have run into the two who’d heard Thrawn announce his suspicions about the Bargain Hunter‘s crew, but Car’das knew it was only a matter of time before she did.
Thrawn himself was in and out quite a bit over those two days, apparently taking Ar’alani’s phony inspection order very seriously. Car’das had only a single real conversation with the commander during that time, a long late-night talk in Car’das’s quarters right after Ar’alani’s battle-site survey.
Thrawn’s fatigue and tension were evident, and when he finally left Car’das pondered long and hard as to whether the commander might have finally overstretched himself.
During those days Car’das also tried to spend more time with Qennto and Maris. But their conversations were even more depressing. Qennto was beginning to act like a cagedanimal, his broodings peppered with wild plans involving raids on the armory and storage room followed by a daring escape in the Bargain Hunter. Maris, for her part, still professed confidence in Thrawn’s honor, but even she was clearly starting to have private doubts about his ability to protect them against Ar’alani.
Something had to be done. And it was Car’das who would have to do it.
There were few preparations he could make. The Bargain Hunter was too well guarded, and anyway he had no intention of trying to fly the ungainly freighter through the entrance tunnel with Thrawn’s fighters in pursuit. But at the far end of the docking area was a long-range shuttle the Chiss seemed mostly to be ignoring. A few hours spent in the piloting tutorials of the base’s computer system, combined with his previous training in reading Cheunh symbols, and he had learned the rudiments of flying it. Later, he managed to slip aboard the shuttle without being seen and spent an hour in the pilot’s seat, mentally running through the lessons and checklists and making sure he knew where everything was located. When the time came, he didn’t want Admiral Ar’alani charging into the shuttle to find him fumbling with the wrong controls.
Getting a hold of Ar’alani’s copy of the Springhawk‘s navigational download was somewhat more problematic.
Thrawn himself provided the opening for that one, inviting Ar’alani and Thrass to a formal dinner on the second night. The cylinder the admiral had shown him was mixed in with a batch of similar tubes carrying the data she’d recorded at the battle site, and it took him several tense minutes to locate the correct one.
And with that, his preparations were finished.
He went to bed early that night, but it didn’t do him any good. He spent most of the night thinking and worrying, his sleep coming in short, nightmare-filled dozings. Like the eerie calm before the bursting of a massive storm, he knew the quiet of the past couple of days was about to end.
Midmorning on that third day, it did.
“No,” Car’das said firmly, meeting Ar’alani’s glowing eyes as calmly as he could. “We’re not spies. Not for the Republic, not for anyone else.”
“Then what precisely did Commander Mitth’raw’nuruodo mean by his accusation?” the admiral countered. “And don’t deny he said it. I have the sworn statements of the two warriors who were present at the time.”
“I don’t deny it,” Car’das said, his eyes flicking to Thrass. The syndic was standing silently a few steps behind Ar’alani, his expression harder even than the admiral’s. Perhaps he knew better than she did what a charge of harboring spies would mean to his brother’s career. “But I also can’t explain it.
Maybe he was trying to confuse the Trade Federation commanders.”
“Commanders who have apparently vanished,” Ar’alani said pointedly. “Along with an apparently intact alien warship.”
“I don’t know anything about that, either,” Car’das insisted. “All I know is what I’ve already told you: we’re merchants who had a hyperdrive accident and lost our way. Ask the rest of my crew if you don’t believe me.”
“Oh, I will,” Ar’alani assured him. “In the meantime, you’re confined to your quarters. Dismissed.”
For a moment Car’das was tempted to remind her that he was still under Thrawn’s authority, not hers, and that she couldn’t simply order him around. But only for a moment.
Turning, he stalked out of the room.
But he didn’t go to his quarters. The Chiss warriors were used to seeing him roaming freely around the base, and it hadn’t sounded like Ar’alani would make any official pronouncements to the contrary until after she’d interrogated Qennto and Maris.
He had that long to make his escape.
The shuttle was still parked where it had been the previous day. There were a few Chiss working in the area, but the time for subterfuge was long past. Striding along like he owned the place, Car’das stepped through the hatchway into the shuttle, sealed it, and headed forward.
The vessel was a civilian model, with a simpler and quicker start-up procedure than a military ship would have had.
Within five minutes he had the systems up and running. Five minutes more, and he had disengaged from the docking clamps and was making his way carefully down the tunnel.
No one followed him out. He looked around as he reached open space, half expecting to see the intact Trade Federation battleship lurking in the shadow of one of the other asteroids. But it was nowhere to be seen.
Not that it mattered. He knew where he was going, and there was no one now who could stop him. Turning the shuttle onto the proper vector, he hit the hyperdrive control and made the jump to lightspeed. The next stop, assuming he’d properly programmed in the Springhawk‘s nav data, would be the alien system where he, Thrawn, and Maris had witnessed the Vagaari attack five weeks ago. With luck, that campaign would be over.
With even more luck, the Vagaari would still be there.
Six hours later, he emerged from hyperspace to find that the battle was indeed over.
The defenders had put up a spirited defense, he saw as he eased the shuttle carefully through the debris. Blackened hulks were everywhere, floating amid bits of hull and hatch and engine. There were bodies, too. Far too many bodies.
Not that their sacrifice had done them any good. There were dozens of Vagaari ships orbiting the planet, nestled up to it like carrion avians around a fresh corpse. Most were the bubble-hulled warships they’d seen in the battle, but there were also a number of the civilian transports that had been waiting for the fighting to end. A steady stream of smaller ships weremoving in and out of the atmosphere, no doubt bringing plunder and slaves up to the orbiting ships and then heading down for a fresh load. Briefly, an image flashed into Car’das’s mind of streams of hive insects zeroing in on a dropped bit of rowel picnic salad…
A floating body bounced gently off the shuttle’s canopy, jarring him back to reality. If he had any brains, he knew, he would turn the shuttle around right now and head back to Crustai to take his chances with Admiral Ar’alani. Or else he should abandon Qennto and Maris completely and make a run for Republic space.
Swearing gently under his breath, he turned toward the largest of the orbiting warships and headed in.
Even with most of their attention on their looting, the Vagaari were cautious enough to protect their backs. The half a dozen roving fighters intercepted him before he’d covered even a quarter of the distance, and suddenly his comm crackled with melodious but evil-sounding alien speech. “I don’t understand your language,” Car’das replied in Sy Bisti. “Do you speak Sy Bisti?”