The freighter churned through light-years, while Mara Jade sat bored in the pilot's seat.
She had to admit that in the past, she'd had long-drawn-out missions with uncertain prospects, but this one...
Knowing that spare parts for an Executor-class Super Star Destroyer were being sent to the Quelli sector was one thing, but figuring out exactly where was another.
She had spent a considerable amount of time scouring the systems of the sector under one cover or another, trying to find a trace of the freighters carrying the precious cargo.
But she had to admit defeat — this tactic hadn't worked. If the freight haulers and cargo ships were indeed heading to the Quelli sector, they vanished there without a trace.
Thrawn's Hand had been unable to find anything, even remotely resembling a place where these ships might have found a haven, in any run-down spaceport within the sector.
In situations like these, when one door closes, you should crawl in through the ventilation.
So Mara made the simplest and most logical decision — she returned to Wohai, tracked one of the ships carrying cargo for the Quelli sector, and then sent the freighter's crew to rest in an escape pod on a busy hyper-route.
And now, by her calculations, the ship was already moving within the boundaries of the Quelli sector. At the same time, she noted a curious point — the ship's course, provided to the crew by a mysterious client — seemed to follow the Parlemian Trade Route, but veered off somewhere towards the New Territories. Most likely, the course led into the depths of the sector, to some secluded spot, an uninhabited system, or even a space station in the middle of interstellar void, where the freight haulers would transfer their precious cargo to other starships.
A very ordinary and effective method, by the way.
Putting her feet up on the instrument panel, the girl enjoyed the solitude.
The freighter was terribly slow; a class-four hyperdrive made itself known. So the journey was not exciting, tedious, but Mara spent her time wisely, training those skills she had managed to forget. Of course, she lacked a live opponent, but in the future, she intended to correct that shortcoming.
In her time as the Emperor's Hand, she could always turn to instructors or droids to practice certain techniques. Now, with this... it wasn't so simple.
However, the girl did not despair. She didn't like or want any special treatment for herself, so she preferred to make do with what she had here and now.
You get used to the good things quickly. And losing it all hurts.
Mara had already had that experience in the past. Twice, in fact.
She didn't want to tempt fate a third time.
The girl scooped up some ice cream from the container and sent it on its way.
Everyone has their little pleasures...
The girl's body jerked forward, but the safety harnesses prevented her from taking a trip around the cockpit.
The fabric bit into her combat suit, but the little box of ice cream tore from her hands and did what Thrawn's Hand, taught by bitter experience, had protected herself from.
A cream-colored mass, for which one could, in fact, kill, spread across the cockpit's viewport.
But what was visible beyond the bounds of the defeated ice cream made her tense up.
An Immobilizer 418 cruiser, two Corellian DP20 gunships, and an impressive-sized Super Transport XI model... An ordinary combat group for ambushing transport ships lacking escort protection.
A trap.
Or something more? After all, the enemy hadn't even launched fighters; the ships were in a waiting formation, not an ambush...
Either their commander was a pompous fool, or he didn't even imagine that ships pulled from hyperspace could attack him.
The intercom came to life.
"Freighter 'Bantha Spit'," yes, the previous owner of the ship had serious problems with imagination. "This is Lieutenant Lon Donell, Imperial Armed Forces. Your destination has been changed. You will deliver the turbolaser cargo to another point. Transfer control of your navigation computer."
Mara felt herself grow sick.
Lon Donell?
So this 'Immobilizer' was the 'Detainer', which had been causing trouble across the galaxy for the last two years.
A petty Imperial warlord who made a living stealing ships from the New Republic, for which he had been 'honored' by being placed on Coruscant's enemy lists. There was even a bounty on his head, if she remembered correctly...
Yes, that's right.
Fifteen thousand credits.
"Bantha Spit," this time the voice was demanding. "I repeat — grant access to the navigation computer!"
"Yes, of course," Mara used a voice emulator to conceal her gender. These rebels might know the gender composition of the beings on the ship.
The girl transmitted the access codes to her ship over the directed channel.
So, she was going to be dragged 'on a leash'.
She wouldn't know the coordinates of the destination. She wouldn't be able to transmit them to Thrawn either. And if she tried to contact anyone now, it meant the 'boys in white' would definitely be paying a visit.
Mara noted that her ship's computer had switched to remote control. That was it; navigation was no longer under her command.
The girl watched as the group pulled another couple of freighters out of hyperspace next to her ship. Apparently, Lieutenant Donell was not just waiting for her ship today.
The formation of the enemy starships changed.
Now they clearly intended to get out of here.
Now it was time to act.
Having made sure her ship would be last in the enemy's formation, Thrawn's Hand made her way to the escape pod.
Changing the broadcast frequency to the required one was not a big problem for her. Neither was editing the flight log to indicate data that the crew had supposedly left the ship in escape pods before departure.
Wherever these starships were heading, by the time they got there, the 'Chimaera' would already receive the signal and reach the pod. A short encrypted message would clarify the situation.
And after that, Grand Admiral Thrawn himself would follow the trail of whoever was trying to build themselves a Super Star Destroyer.
And woe to them if their goals didn't align with those of the ruler of the Dominion.
Well, for now...
Mara, immediately after the starship entered hyperspace, climbed into a camouflaged smuggler's hideout built into the ship's deck and waited.
* * *
Ysanne Isard leaned back in her chair, cracking her knuckles with satisfaction.
"Everything is going as planned, Colonel Wessiri," she said, looking at the commander of the TIE Defender squadrons sitting before her. "Are our charges ready?"
"Yes, Director," the pilot replied. "They've mastered the hardware as excellently as always."
"In that case, arrange transport to send them to the recruitment site," Isard ordered. "Immediately after that, prepare the base for evacuation — move all personnel and property to the destroyer. Destroy all traces of our presence."
"Understood," the officer said. "Destroy the 'defector' X-wings and astromechs?"
"Correct," Isard replied.
"The prisoners?"
"All except Himron — eliminate them," Isard said calmly. "We'll leave Molo here as a reminder to my clone. Along with a few surprises."
The colonel nodded silently, then looked at the woman sitting before him:
"A reminder of what?" he finally decided to clarify the hidden meaning of the director's phrase.
"That she is merely a clone," a sardonic smile appeared on Isard's lips. "And will always be a few steps behind the original."
Colonel Wessiri left the office, keeping his unspoken comment to himself.
* * *
"Analysis complete," Executor Sedriss said, lifting his gaze from the dissected corpse.
"And the result?" Blackhole's hologram expressed absolutely nothing. In the literal sense of the word — the face was absent as a given. Not even a face mask was visible. Just the tiresome holographic figure.
"Contrary to expectations, this is the original," Sedriss said. "None of the cloning criteria were confirmed."
"Interesting," Blackhole's emotionless voice expressed as much interest as the wind might have for the fertility problems among the Cerenians. "So the assumption that the Grand Admiral was trying to deceive us is not confirmed?"
"I am only saying that the real Octavian Grant was destroyed aboard the 'Reaper'," Sedriss winced. Blackhole's manner of playing with words irritated him. But, even without being versed in the intricacies of diplomacy, the Executor understood that he shouldn't agree with his interlocutor's words. At least for the reason that they didn't correspond to reality. "I do not believe that Thrawn, as intelligent a military man as he is characterized, could not have foreseen such an outcome when transporting a prisoner."
"Possibly," Blackhole agreed. "But Thrawn is not all-knowing and cannot foresee everything. He is a genius in his own way; it's hard to deny that fact — the results speak for themselves. But, like all geniuses, he is prone to making mistakes, trusting in others. Based on the testimony of Grand Moff Kaine, the failure was on the part of the stormtroopers escorting the prisoner. For which they received a well-deserved punishment — death."
"I am not personally acquainted with Thrawn, but his planning implies a lack of alternatives for the enemy," Sedriss noted. "He should have anticipated the mistake of the stormtroopers, who are so blatantly incompetent."
"They are stormtroopers," Blackhole remarked. "After Endor, they get worse every day. There's nothing reprehensible in that. Unless you have evidence of malicious intent on the part of Grand Admiral Thrawn."
"Only my suspicions," Sedriss retorted. "An Executor of his level should have ensured the clarity of the transfer procedure..."
"Do you wish to report your suspicions to the Emperor?" Blackhole inquired in the same completely devoid of emotional weight tone.
"No," Sedriss quickly backed down.
"That's what I thought. It is not for you to say what an Executor should calculate — all possible outcomes of a planned operation," Blackhole declared. "Your failure at Honoghr forced the Master to reveal himself prematurely to Ardus Kaine, in order to influence Thrawn and directly point him in the direction of action."
Sedriss remained outwardly calm.
But inside him, a flame of rage burned.
Yes, the operation he intended to involve Han Solo in, to discredit the New Republic and simultaneously deprive Thrawn of the Noghri's support, not only deprived him of the opportunity to report directly to the Emperor but also led to his subordination to Blackhole.
After all, the one hiding behind the holograms had a direct line to Byss.
While Sedriss was merely an executor of Palpatine's will.
And if he was ordered to probe the defenses of the New Republic, manipulating the Remnants and petty warlords, and also eliminate the most influential pockets of resistance, then he would do what he must.
Blackhole was the one who pointed him at the targets.
Until the operation to restore the Empire began, this chain of command would be maintained.
"I have already offered my apologies to the Master..."
"And after that, you decided to act on your own and botched the operation to capture Skywalker on Polis Massa," Blackhole continued. "Is there any excuse for sending an Elite in your place on that mission?"
"I was investigating Vjun," Sedriss snapped, trying not to betray his true emotions. "And I found evidence that Thrawn did not destroy the Inquisitor Obscurial and the 'acid-trooper' stormtroopers loyal to Vader."
"I've already told you that aspect is unimportant," Blackhole stated. "The Emperor has no objection to Thrawn gathering petty warlords under him or destroying them. It only makes the campaign's progress easier. As long as he weakens the New Republic — he is useful. As long as he clears the galaxy of rebellious warlords — he is useful. That is why the Master orchestrated his return from the Unknown Regions."
'Orchestrated', of course, is putting it strongly. It was simply that beings loyal to the Emperor made sure that true information about the state of affairs in the Imperial Remnants fell into the Grand Admiral's hands.
The Emperor, characterizing Thrawn, said that he was one of the smartest, but at the same time, one of the most dangerous beings the Empire had ever known.
Sedriss took the master at his word. And when he saw that the Chiss was capable of inflicting enormous damage even with small forces, to be honest, he even began to respect him.
But he didn't trust him.
"What will be your further instructions?" Sedriss inquired.
Honestly, he would have gladly sent one of the Elites into the Dominion to find out Thrawn's plans.
But now that the Inquisitor Obscurial was in his hands, it wasn't certain that an adept of the Force penetrating the border would go unnoticed.
Not to mention that Sedriss still doubted the diligence of Vader's former servant and the candor of the thirteenth Grand Admiral. A vague inner unease indicated that Thrawn was not as simple as Blackhole wanted to see him.
For some unknown reason, Sedriss did not believe the data that Mara Jade, though she survived the torture on Vjun, had died in a bacta chamber.
He couldn't explain his antipathy towards Thrawn, but he was sure that he was not candid in his actions.
"It is necessary to oversee the execution of the Master's orders regarding the production of equipment at the enterprises of Lady Valles Santhe and at Incom Corporation," Blackhole said.
'And what are you doing?!' Sedriss thought angrily.
Besides the fact that Blackhole had purged critically important data from the Emperor's treasury before Thrawn reached Wayland, Sedriss had no idea what Blackhole had been doing all this time, other than parasitizing the remnants of the Ubiqtorate.
But he wasn't going to ask either — at least for the reason that he knew the fate of those who had done so before him.
They were sent to Wayland, 'forgetting' to inform them about the mad Guardian of the mountain — the clone of Jedi Master Joruus C'baoth.
Yes, they achieved the goals set before them, albeit at the cost of their own lives.
But isn't that the point of serving the Emperor — to be ready to sacrifice oneself so that he may once again bring peace and order to the galaxy?
What are the lives of a few servants in the scale of a galactic-scale plan?
Critically important information was destroyed, and now Grand Admiral Thrawn, instead of a supposed journey into the Deep Core to spread his power over the ships that had fled there, was waging an active campaign against the New Republic.
By not allowing them to build up their armed forces and stabilize the economy, the last Grand Admiral was undermining the very foundations of democracy's existence. This was entirely in line with the Master's plans.
After all, he hadn't even expressed any interest in the Dominion Thrawn was creating. As if he wasn't bothered at all by the fact that one of the most effective commanders was building a militaristic state on the fringes of the galaxy...
Sedriss understood that he did not enjoy the same trust from the Reborn Emperor as Darth Vader did, and therefore was not privy to the details of Palpatine's plans. After the failure with Solo, even less so.
However, even in his short period of service to the Emperor, he had come to understand that the Emperor trusted absolutely no one. And even the most loyal of his servants did not possess the full scope of information.
This included a complete lack of understanding of what kind of equipment was being produced for the Master. The projects were classified, but overseeing their production was necessary.
And if about Incom, Sedriss at least knew what was happening there — he had personally placed a secret order with the Master for Howlrunner-class fighters — then what Santhe Technologies was doing was a complete unknown to him.
And one shouldn't think that even if he flew to Lianna for an inspection, it would lift the veil of secrecy in any way. Everything would be kept to general phrases and nothing more.
"I can handle this task fairly quickly," Sedriss declared. "It would be more useful to know my next assignment."
"You will get it when you have completed the current ones," Blackhole stated. "Because there is a certain nuance with Santhe — she must be attacked by the New Republic, so that upon the Emperor's return, Lianna will side with the Emperor and be one of his loyal suppliers of military equipment."
As if anyone in their right mind would dare to resist the will of the Reborn Emperor and his fleet.