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A Bad Case of the Blues
By Colleen Winters |
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A cool draft meandered down the long stone corridor.
Recessed lights provided cold illumination and glimmered off the stone
floor, which was polished to a mirror sheen. The sound of pumps and other machinery
contributed a steady background noise. A small oval of
dim bluish light appeared, midway up the corridor wall. The oval
expanded rapidly until it was about five feet in height. A group
of four curious creatures sprang out of this portal one after the other,
gasping as if they had been running for some time. The last one caught
his toe in the opening and sprawled his length on the stone floor with
a muffled curse.
"Hey! Why so clumsy? Get up an' help
us close this portal before the Duergar jump in after us!" Their
leader glared out of narrowed green eyes at her fallen follower.
A generalized scramble ensued to close the magical
opening. Four pairs of hands waved mystical signs and four voices
muttered incantations.
"This is much harder than it ought to be!
Our magic feels weaker here." cried the one with dark brown fur.
"Well then, try harder! If ya slack off now
they’ll have ya for a new fur coat!"
Thus encouraged, the group growled a final spell
in unison and the blue oval shrank and finally disappeared with a soft
pop. The participants sank down to rest, leaning against the wall.
"Do you know, Tip, I don't think we're in Kansas
anymore." The speaker scratched his head then ran his fingers down
his long muzzle. "Look at me! I'm half human and half fox,
and it doesn't feel as if I'm going to be able to shift into either form
very easily. I'll bet you any amount of money that we're not in our
own universe."
"Huh! You win the bet. I can tell just
from the feel that we're far from our home territory." Tip Blue Fox
rose to her feet and inspected her body carefully. At least all of
the parts appeared to be attached where they belonged. On her home
world of Earth the magical fox had two forms. One form was that of
a blue fox and the other a fox-tailed human child that seemed to be 10
years of age. Tip was a kitsune and changing shape was as natural
to her as changing clothes was to a normal human being. The kitsune
had lived a few centuries and had done quite a bit of cross-dimensional
traveling. She had long since learned that the rules of magic shifted
depending upon which universe one occupied. In some dimensions shape
changing became difficult and the visitor had to put up with whatever shape
that particular universe thought belonged to one. This universe seemed
to think that she and her kitsune companions ought to look like bipedal
fox/hominid hybrids, with fox-like heads, more or less humanoid bodies,
and long, bushy fox tails.
Tip grinned around a mouth full of pointy teeth
and said, "I wonder if we’re in the Xanadu universe? These bodies
look like the right type for that dimension."
"I don't know about that. What about all this
high-tech stuff that I can hear surrounding us? Xanadu is a high
magic, low-tech zone," said Toddy, a red fox sporting a pair of well-worn
denim cutoffs.
Tip pondered this statement for a moment.
"Good thought, Toddy. I think you're right. Sounds like we
ought to do a bit of exploring and scope out where we are." She gestured
to her companions. "Come on, let's get going. This doesn't
look like a resort area, so I suppose we ought to be a bit cautious.
But you never know, we may stumble onto something valuable."
Her companions climbed to their feet. After
a brief consultation they sorted out their marching order and began to
proceed quietly down the hall toward the source of the noise throbbing
around them.
The small group walked for some time, pausing every
now and then to hide themselves when the tramp of marching feet came too
close. Fortunately, the network of hallways through which they walked
was full of alcoves and niches containing things they could hide behind.
They were so good at this that they never caught sight of the marchers.
The mechanical noise drew them onward until finally they opened a set of
metallic sliding doors and looked out onto an amazing scene.
"My Goddess! What in the name of Inari are
they manufacturing here?" Tip exclaimed in a low voice. She
moved into the vast chamber and leaned on its balcony railing. Her
friends entered behind her and spread out along the catwalk. The
view was spectacular - an enormous room, apparently hollowed out from the
heart of a mountain - yawned before them. The walls were of rough-hewn
stone. Tier upon tier of tall glass cylinders lined the walls of
the cavernous chamber like the layers of a great wedding cake. The
cylinders bubbled quietly. For the moment, no one appeared to be
in attendance. Tip gathered her companions and spoke quietly.
"I don't think I like the look of this spread. It smells like a secret
military base. Let's poke around and try to see what's going on.
Carefully now, we don't want to be seen. I've got a bad feeling about
this whole thing."
The fox people filtered quietly into the chamber
and quickly vanished among the cylinders. Tip trotted along the catwalk
until she found a ladder leading downward. The ladders were spaced
at regular intervals, offset so that a clumsy person could not tumble all
the way to the bottom of the chamber. Soon she had managed to climb
down several levels.
She paused to examine one of the large glassy tubes.
It was taller than the average human being and was filled with some sort
of viscous fluid. The cylinders on the upper most level had not appeared
to contain anything, but the cylinders on this level were occupied.
Tip stared through the glass at what appeared to be a nearly grown human.
The person in the cylinder was a man with brown hair and a high-bridged
nose. Tip looked at the adjacent cylinder. It too, was occupied
by a man with brown hair and a high-bridged nose. So was the next
cylinder, and the next. Tip felt the short hairs rise on the back
of her neck and she bared her teeth in a silent snarl. A noise from
somewhere to her right caught her attention. Farther down the maze
of cylinders a door was opening and she could feel the subtle change in
air currents. With silent speed Tip climbed the various gangways
upward, following the scent of her companions. With quiet gestures
she collected them. From below came the sound of voices.
"Quick! We've got to find some kind of bolt
hole," Tip said.
The small troupe moved quickly and fairly quietly
as they searched for the nearest exit from the chamber. Kuro, the
young samurai who was in the lead, waved urgently and pointed to a small
door inset between what appeared to be an enormous pair of pumps.
Tip cocked an ear. She could still hear the voices from below but
they did not sound as if they were angry. So far, she assumed, their
intrusion had not been discovered.
"Go ahead Kuro, and check it out. If no one
is in there give us the high sign. If it's occupied try not to get
into a noisy fight."
Kuro nodded, drew his short sword, opened the door
just wide enough to admit his slender body, and disappeared into the unknown
room beyond. Tip and her friends waited, trying not to make noise
and trying also to ignore the things growing in the cylinders around them.
Something touched Tip's shoulder and she repressed
a scream as she realized the hand belonged to Kuro. He nodded to
her and gave her a thumbs up sign. With a sigh of relief Tip motioned
to her friends. In single file they followed him out of the chamber.
Once the door had closed behind them they found themselves in a narrow
corridor dimly lit by small lamps set into the walls.
"This way," Kuro said. "There doesn't seem
to be anyone here."
"I hope not," Tip said. "Let’s walk fast,
OK? We'd have to fight anyone one at a time in this narrow space."
Almost on the heels of her statement, Tip heard
the distinctive sound of a door opening somewhere ahead of them, followed
almost immediately by the tramp of boots. Desperately the group plunged
through the closest door and found themselves in a small room containing
several statues and one cylinder. The fox people looked about frantically.
"I don't see a back door!" Toddy cried.
The red hair on his head was standing up in alarm.
"They're coming closer!" Kuro hissed urgently
with one ear pressed to the door. Tip eyed the statues and snapped
her fingers.
"All right everybody, it's glamour time! When
in doubt hide in plain sight."
The kitsune gathered together not too far from the
bubbling cylinder. They murmured spells frantically.
"Is it working?" Kon had to ask. The brown
fox fingered the hilt of his Bowie knife nervously.
"It better. Feels like it is."
A moment later the door slid open to admit a tall,
skinny old man dressed in long brown robes. His hair and beard were
long and gray, and his eyes held an unhealthy gleam. He was accompanied
by someone who looked very much like a scientist, dressed in a lab coat
and clutching a small handheld computer on which he scribbled notes with
a stylus. The old man moved immediately to stand in front of the
cylinder. Rubbing the medallion hanging about his neck he smiled
and chuckled unpleasantly.
"He's growing well, don't you think? How soon
until he can be decanted? I look forward to beginning his training
as my faithful servant." The sound of his voice made Tip's teeth
hurt.
"He is growing very well, Master C'baoth.
He requires a little more time, perhaps two or three days at most."
The scientist looked at the old man with an anxious expression.
The old man's bushy eyebrows puckered into a fierce
scowl and the scientist edged away from him, obviously afraid. Master
C'baoth ignored the man, reserving his deadly look for the occupant of
the cylinder. "Soon, soon, you will be mine, to do with as I please,"
he gloated. "Soon I will have the pleasant work of altering your
mind to hold only my thoughts. Once I take you outside, away from
these cursed Force-dampening Ysalamiri, your mind will be open to mine."
Turning to the scientist he added in an imperious tone, "You will
inform me the minute he is ready."
"Of course, Master."
"Good, good," he crooned. His eyes were full
of madness. "The Grand Admiral will have ample time to regret not
acknowledging my power and greatness from the start." A sudden realization
made him smile. "Of course, this version will never have the will
to have any regrets."
Master C'baoth's eyes left the cylinder and focused
directly on the statue standing nearby. He did not know it, but it
was a very nice replica of a North Coast totem pole, complete with grimacing
faces. For a moment his scowl deepened.
"Look at this ugly thing! The late Emperor's
taste in artwork was almost as bad as the Grand Admiral's. I will
make sure his clone will have no time to waste on such nonsense."
With an awful chuckle, Master C'baoth and his scientific
flunky left the room. For a long moment nothing moved, then with
a groan, the "ugly" statue fell apart into its component members.
Kon and Kuro moved to take up guard positions near the door while Tip and
Toddy stretched cramped muscles.
"That old geezer has to be the creepiest guy I've
seen in a long time!" Toddy exclaimed to the group in general.
"So these guys under glass are clones, eh? I'm sure glad I'm not
the guy in this tube! He must have really hacked off the old creep.
Did you hear the way he was ranting on?"
"Yeah, some useful info there. So who is the
guy in the cylinder?" Tip approached the object in question and peered
through the glass. At her low whistle Toddy asked, "Well? Who
is it? Anybody we know?"
"Whoever he is, he's not human."
"Not human - y'mean, he's got tentacles or something?"
"Uh-uh, body's human enough, but his skin is blue.
Kind of a nice shade, if I do say so myself."
Toddy stepped up to the glass and stared for long
moment. "How about that? He looks like a Gamilon! Do
you suppose he's one of Leader Desslok's bastards?"
Tip scrambled up the slick glass of the cylinder
and began to poke around among the tubing and wires protruding from the
cover at the top.
"I don't care who he is. I'm not leaving him
for that creepy dude to play with. Annie wouldn’t approve of leaving
someone to the tender mercies of an Evil Wizard. I can hear her now:
‘Tip, we’ve GOT to rescue him!’" Tip managed a fair imitation of
the voice of Ann Coppre, Oxford librarian, were-unicorn, and honorary "Mom"
to this pack of semi-immortal tricksters. Toddy smothered a
laugh.
Tip’s companions watched from below as she struggled
to find a way to open the cylinder. Tip tugged and fussed to no avail.
Finally, she said. "Kuro, get over here and cut me an opening in
this thing. There's no obvious way to get this top off. I think
it requires some sort of special key."
Kuro left his post at the door and approached the
cylinder, drawing his short sword as he came. It was a Japanese wakizashi,
a single-edged sword. The light sparkled off its keen edge.
He looked through the glass at the man inside and nodded.
"I will cut an opening through which we can pull
him." Kuro stepped back and held his sword in a two handed grip,
then he paused as a thought occurred to him. "Didn't that scientist
say this man still needed three more days to grow? Won't taking him
out now cause him harm?"
"Leaving him here for that geezer to experiment
on would be more harmful. There are worse things than just dying,
you know," Tip said. Her expression was serious. "Cut him out
of there and do it quickly. I feel that we're running out of time."
Kuro nodded, and assumed a ready stance with his
sword. A moment later his blade became a blur of motion. A
high pitched scream of sound made the kitsune wince. This noise was
followed immediately by the gush of liquid from inside the container.
A large oval chunk of glass worked itself free from the walls of the cylinder
and fell to the floor where it shattered. A long blue arm dangled
from the opening and twitched spasmodically. The fox people ran forward
to pull the man from his artificial womb. He was a tall man and it
took all of them to extract his body and carry him to one side away from
the spilled fluid and broken glass.
The kitsune watched as the blue humanoid coughed
up a quantity of liquid and began to breathe raggedly. For some time
he lay curled on his side on the floor, then with jerky movements he began
to struggle to sit up. Once he had managed that task he coughed a
few more times, rubbed at his eyes, then opened them and looked about.
His hair was black with bluish highlights, and at the moment it was plastered
wetly to his head.
The kitsune made little murmurs.
"Oh, look! He has red eyes! Do you suppose
he is part oni?" Kon asked. He stared at the man in fascination.
The object of his attention did indeed have glowing red eyes with neither
white nor pupil. For his part, the man looked at the kitsune with
a mixture of bewilderment and surprise.
"Who - what are you? You aren’t Imperial crewers!"
"All right! You can talk! That makes
things much easier," Tip said, ignoring his questions. "Do you know
who you are?"
The man sat up straighter, with an expression of
injured dignity. "Of course. I am Grand Admiral Thrawn, of the Imperial
Fleet." He looked down at himself and glanced around at the room
and at his strange companions. He scraped at some of the oozy residue
still sticking to his shoulder. His expression became almost unreadable
and his glowing red eyes narrowed. "The Pilirian fever. One
of the crew members must have brought it aboard after our last planet fall.
That explains the hallucinations. I must be in the Chimaera's
sick bay."
Tip moved a little closer to the man and spoke in
an encouraging tone. "No, you aren't sick. You are in the middle
of some sort of secret cloning facility. We just pulled you out of
that cylinder over there." Tip pointed at the damaged tube.
"There's a creepy old guy here who has really big plans for you, an' none
of them are good. He wants to make you into some sort of mindless
slave. We figured you needed a rescue."
The Grand Admiral looked in the direction she indicated.
His red eyes widened in recognition. "A Spaarti cylinder! Then
I must be on Wayland. But how?" His brows knitted in concentration
and his angular face became grim as an awful conclusion slowly dawned.
"I'm a clone, a clone of my - myself. I'm not on the ship - I'm inside
the facility on Mount Tantiss. Joruus C'baoth - this is his doing!
Somehow he has managed to clone me. I've been a fool, believing I
could control him."
"Actually, it’s your original who was the fool.
You’re just an innocent victim, at least so far." Tip explained helpfully,
doing her best to stand in for Ann. That clarification didn’t seem
to make the clone of the Grand Admiral feel much better. He wrapped
his arms about his shoulders and tried to suppress a shudder. He
was unsuccessful and soon he was shivering steadily. The black-haired
kitsune watched this with concern.
"Tip’san, the Admiral needs some clothing, and quickly.
We are below ground and the air is always chilly. He is still wet
and could catch his death before long," Kuro said. The young samurai
was, as always, practical.
"Point taken, Kuro’kun, but this
place doesn’t exactly look like a Wal-Mart, and my magic still feels off.
I bet… it won’t…" At this point she pulled out a grimy handkerchief and
waved a furry hand over it. The hanky sparkled, grew into a lovely
pale evening gown, then immediately collapsed into a pile of ashes.
"Woops! I knew it!" Tip shook the ashes from her hand.
"Good thing I didn’t waste my nice shirt on that." From where he
sat, Thrawn thought that the strange alien’s shirt looked anything but
‘nice’, covered as it was by dirty handprints and unidentifiable smears.
Much to his horror, she removed her shirt, wadded it up, and handed it
to him.
"Here, dry off with that. The inside’s cleaner
‘n the outside. C’mon you guys, lend him something before he freezes
solid." Thrawn accepted the shirt dubiously.
"But this…" he murmured.
"Ah, don’t worry about messing it up! It’s
had worse stains on it before!" Tip chuckled.
"I’m sure," he replied faintly, and began to scrub
at his wet and freezing skin.
After some effort, the Admiral managed to dry himself.
He looked up from this task to find that the creature with black fur was
offering him the short robes that he’d been wearing. The alien was
barely half his height but the loose robes offered the best coverage of
their clothing. He excepted it with a nod and the small alien gave
him a bow which managed to be incredibly formal in spite of the fact that
he now wore only a loin cloth, his natural fur, and sandals. The
Admiral shrugged his way into the robes and secured it around his waist
with the sash. The strange clothing barely answered the demands of
modesty and he tugged at the short hem unhappily. "Not exactly Imperial
standard," he said with a small, dry smile.
"Nice try, Kuro, but I think were going to have
to find him something more substantial to wear," Tip said. She wandered
beside the door, scanning the walls as if searching for a cupboard or closet.
"I wonder where they keep the supplies in this place?"
Scarcely had the words left her mouth than the door,
which had been left unguarded in all the excitement, slid open to admit
three storm troopers in white armor. These strode into the room and
halted in surprise to see the strange occupants and the damage.
"Look how the gods provide!" Kon cried with
delight.
"Well, well. If it isn't Larry, Moe, and Curly!"
The storm troopers whirled about at Tip's shout, then began to slip helplessly
in the puddle on the floor. Arms that had begun to grab for weapons flailed
the air helplessly. With a regal gesture Tip said, "Go get 'em, boys."
Thrawn watched as the three smaller aliens swiftly
overwhelmed their larger opponents. Within moments they were merrily
stripping the bodies of their gear and armor. The alien named Kuro
sorted through the piles of stuff and soon returned to the Admiral with
an armful of clothing. The Admiral examined the offerings. These
were the one-piece bodysleeves for the storm trooper’s armor. Kuro
also had gathered gloves and boots. Working quickly, he returned
Kuro’s robes and began to pull the new clothing on, grateful that it was
still warm and shuddering at the fact. At least the trooper's bodysleeve
was stretchy enough to fully cover his longer limbs. He observed
the other aliens, red, blue, and brown respectively, tying up the troopers.
"You did not kill them?" he asked curiously.
With some proper Imperial-issue clothing and a blaster at his hip he felt
much less vulnerable, in spite of being in the bowels of what was basically
a death trap.
"Nah, we’re predators. We don’t kill unless
we have to - or unless we’re hungry." The red haired one answered.
He gave the nearest trooper a nudge with his foot. "I ain’t that
hungry right now." He gave the Admiral a curious look from under
canine eyebrows. "Are you hungry?"
"No! Not for something like that." Thrawn
felt somewhat sick at the concept of feasting on raw storm trooper.
He looked at his diminutive companions, who were just waist-high to him.
"What sort of people are you? I do not recall seeing anyone like
you during all my years of service to the Empire. Or rather, my original
has no memory of an alien race like yourselves." Thrawn found it
difficult to think of himself as having two separate existances.
The very thought made his head hurt.
Tip nodded at the Admiral as she finished gathering
up whatever items she had decided would be useful. Around her waist
she had fastened a utility belt belonging to one of the storm troopers.
"We're new to this part of the galaxy. You're
not the only one who wouldn’t recognize us. We're called kitsune.
Perhaps fortunately there ain’t very many of us, at least not in this universe."
The Admiral considered this information in silence.
Although he could think of many reasons why a group of aliens might be
infiltrating an Imperial secret base, the fact that they were willing to
risk whatever mission they had had to rescue him made them allies, at least
for the foreseeable future.
"Don't you want any of this armor?" the one called
Kon asked.
"No, I am a little too tall for the standard armor,
and I prefer keeping the range of motion I have without it. The bodysleeve
will do until I can find a proper officer’s uniform." Gathering his
legs under him he rose to his feet. He wobbled only a little.
He was indeed several inches taller than their storm trooper captives.
Clad in the form-fitting black bodysleeve he made an impressive figure.
"We need to be able to get you out of here."
Tip rubbed her hands together thoughtfully. "Do you know enough
of the layout of this place to help us? I don't think it will be
good for you if that creepy old geezer discovers you’re loose."
The Admiral nodded. Kneeling down, he began
to trace out a map on the floor. "I believe we are currently in one
of the mid-level rooms inside the Emperor's treasure house. There
will be a very large facility for Imperial starships on the lowest level.
I estimate that will be about 10 levels below where we are now. I
am not positive of today's date, but if all continued according to the
memories of my predecessor, this facility should be staffed by several
thousand storm troopers. I estimate our chances of successfully reaching
the shuttle bay level at 1 in 1,000."
One of his listeners whistled aloud at his last
statement. Tip merely shrugged.
"I don't care about the odds. Just show us
the way and we'll do the rest. The big thing is to avoid that evil
wizard. We've got magic, but I'm not sure it would be strong enough
to take care of him."
"He is not evil wizard, he is a dark Jedi called
Joruus C’baoth, and that is trouble enough for all of us," Thrawn said.
"Fortunately, this facility is full of Force resistant creatures called
Ysalamiri which my predecessor collected and placed here partly to protect
the minds of the growing clones and partly to nullify the power of the
Jedi. We will be relatively safe as long as we remain inside their
sphere of influence." The Admiral thought for a long moment then
continued. "Now that I think of it, I am sure C’baoth was able to
turn the minds of many of the personnel here in this facility by somehow
luring them outside where he could use his dark powers on them."
"Dark Jedi!" Tip stared at the Admiral in
disbelief. Her mouth hung open, then with her fist she gave herself
a good thump on the head. "We’re in the Star Wars universe!"
The other kitsune snickered and Toddy answered,
"Duh! Whatever gave it away? The storm troopers? How
many times have you seen the trilogy?"
Tip glared at them. "What do I look like?!
An expert? I don't spend all of my time in front of the TV like some
people I know!" Geesh! Now I’m really starting to sound like
Annie! Tip thought with chagrin.
"Ha! You're just pissed because we figured
it out first!" said Toddy.
"Yeah! Toddy is an expert! He's seen
the whole thing a hundred times!" Kon declared proudly. The
Grand Admiral listened to the mysterious exchange, hoping that eventually
someone would say something understandable. Their language sounded
like Basic, but was so idiosyncratic that sometimes he wondered if they
were talking in a foreign tongue.
"Okay, bright boy, if you’re so smart, tell me how
to get us down to the shuttle bay without getting shot up by storm troopers
or hexed by that evil Jedi."
Toddy looked blankly at Tip. "I don't know
- this place wasn't shown in the movies. I bet one of the books might
have covered it, but I wouldn't know about that part of this universe.
I don't read very much."
"Right! Unless you can think of something
useful, how about keeping your trap shut?" Tip gave him a deadly
glower and the red fox subsided a bit.
"Sounds like Annie, only ruder," he muttered.
"Don't you people have any discipline?" Thrawn
asked. His face was set in lines of austere disapproval. The
entire group of furry bipeds turned on him with looks of true innocence.
He felt his heart sink as he saw their obvious non-comprehension.
"Never mind. I already know the answer." Touching the blaster
at his side he nodded at the door. "Shall we go?" He decided
that it would have been pointless to discuss such things as ‘chain of command’
and order of march with them.
"Wait! Wait!" Toddy whispered loudly,
"I just had an idea that might work!"
"Well then, spit it out," Tip said.
"Our glamour! It worked on that dark Jedi
before! It's easy for us to do and works even in this universe."
"Good going! I'd forgotten already about that."
Tip looked at the Admiral and said, "We’re capable of casting a field of
illusion around ourselves. We call this glamour. We used it
before we cut you out of that tube. That Jedi you called C’baoth
looked right at us and didn't see us. I’d like you to walk in the
middle of our group. That way you'll be protected by the illusion
we project."
"And what sort of illusion will you use? I
would not recommend masquerading as storm troopers or as regular Imperial
staff. An officer might then try to give you orders and that would
cause … complications," Thrawn said.
"Don't worry about that, we're very good at this.
We have an all-purpose spell which we call ‘mind your own business’.
People see something innocuous, something in which they have no interest.
Works great."
"If it works. You forget this place is mostly
inside a Force-free bubble."
"You missed our earlier illusion. Trust me,
it works! Besides, this ain’t the Force, it’s magic!
"Ah, that makes everything clear." The sarcasm
was lost on his listeners. Thrawn gave it up, knowing that he had
little choice but to trust to the skills of his strange rescuers.
So far, they had managed pretty well. He drew in a deep breath and
readied himself for what he assumed would be an eventual fire fight.
Come on, we'd better get going." Tip lined
everyone up with Kuro and Toddy in the lead, the Admiral in the middle,
and Kon and herself behind him.
"Everyone ready? Let's go. Remember,
if you gotta talk, do it in a whisper. The spell can cover some noise,
but let’s not push it." She nodded at Kuro, who triggered the door
release. The hall facing them was empty. The group of adventurers
moved out into the corridor, closing the door behind them to hide their
captives from casual view. They set off at a brisk walk, their footsteps
echoing softly as they moved.
*****
Shir Kinoha glared across the expanse of the shuttle
bay flight deck, mad at the universe in general and at Imperial scientists
in particular.
This is typical of the Imperial bureaucracy, she
thought angrily. Choosing me out of all the other fighter pilots
aboard my ship to be a cloning template, a signal honor, arranging to have
me fly here along with the best of the best the Imperial starfleet has
to offer, all to bequeath our superior genetics to the glory of the Empire,
only to be rejected! And on such an absurd pretext! Still fuming,
Shir glared at her datapad as if she could stare a hole through its surface.
Her eyes focused at last on the text and she was able to read that her
ship would be cleared for launch within the hour. The ship was an
Imperial shuttle, a far cry from the TIE fighter that she normally piloted.
Her mood lifted as she took in the sleek lines of the ship. This
particular model could hold 20 people comfortably and was capable of hyperdrive.
It could take her anywhere in the galaxy. Right now, however, the
only place she wanted to be was back with her comrades aboard the Chimaera.
Touching the datapad she registered her acceptance
of the proposed departure time. Shir was mildly surprised at how
promptly the ground crew had turned her around, but then again, she supposed
that the people in charge here did not want her hanging about wasting their
supplies when she could be spending the time left to her destroying the
enemies of the Empire.
"Ephemeral, indeed!" she growled. "What do
they know about anything? As if they truly expect the clones they
are growing to have a really long life span." With a snort of disgust
she thrust the small datapad into a pocket in her tunic and began to walk
out into the cavernous hangar bay toward her shuttle. As she approached
the ship she admired the three graceful wings that swept out from the body
of the craft. Two of the wings were folded up for landing, but that
did nothing to hide the ship’s fine lines. Its passenger ramp had
been extended for boarding but she ignored it for the moment to walk around
the shuttle, eyeing the exterior for any flaws, drips, or other damage.
When her pre-flight inspection had been performed to her satisfaction,
she walked toward the ramp. A movement flickered in the corner of
her eye and she turned to see a cargo handler droid trundling along towing
a pallet of supplies.
"You there, where do you think you’re going?"
Her voice was brusque.
The handler halted and produced a whirring sound
as it turned its domed head and focused its lenses on her. "This
is a cargo of data cores, emergency supplies, and food stocks for this
ship. I'm to put it in the cargo bay, ma'am."
"Very well, but you'd best be quick about it.
I’m to leave within the hour." The droid puttered off, trailing a
string of electronic beeping noises. Shir had scarcely placed her
feet on the ramp before she noticed yet another handler droid, similarly
laden, following hard on the heels of the first. It paused to look
at her but she only waved it on. "Hurry up, your friend has gone
on ahead of you." Without bothering to watch it she ran briskly up
the incline and into the interior of the shuttle. The comforting
smell of the ship, compounded of plastene, warm metals, and lubricants,
settled around her as she moved forward into the cockpit. This was,
more than anything for her, the scent of home.
The cockpit area was a good deal more plush than
that of her TIE fighter. Shir sank down into the pilot's seat with
a frown. The cushioning felt far too soft for her taste. She
raised her view to the instrument panel and all minor annoyances were banished,
dispelled by the sheer joy of getting to play with all the latest high-tech
the Empire had to offer. She cracked her knuckles happily, strapped
in, then began to tap at the keyboard and read the displays.
"Full charge on all weapons systems. Hyperdrive
and sublight systems at nominal. Main and backup controllers online."
With the unconscious ease of long practice, she followed her strict mental
checklist. The minutes passed unnoticed at she worked. Finally
she checked a set of indicators. "All access ways show clear.
Now closing all cargo and passenger ramps." The indicators shifted
from red to green. "Cabin pressure now at normal, oxygen normal."
Satisfied with the readings from the cockpit, she
touched a button on the keypad built into the arm of her chair. A
soft beep sounded. "Tantiss Mountain control, this is the Imperial
shuttle Sharpness. Request clearance for takeoff, destination:
rendezvous with fleet command stardestroyer Chimaera." With
crisp military efficiency the reply sounded in the cabin.
"Shuttle Sharpness, we show you green across
the board. You are cleared for takeoff."
Her hands were already powering up the sublight engines as she replied,
"Permission acknowledged, launching now."
Her receiver gave her the controller's farewell. "A good journey
Sharpness."
"Aye, control." She closed the connection
before speaking further. "Any journey will be good if it gets me
away from this place." Smoothly she piloted the shuttle through the
open space of the hangar bay, lifting to clear a row of TIEs. An
enormous set of metal doors had begun to slide open to permit her craft
egress. Looking ahead she decided that the gap was wide enough for
her ship, and with a happy smile she punched the speed control. The
shuttle spurted forward eagerly in response and shot through the opening
with inches to spare. Touching the controls, she rotated the wings
into their deep space configuration. A steady pull on the joystick
sent her ship into a steep climb. The color of the sky shifted quickly
from planetary blue to space black. The Tantiss Mountain facility
shrank into insignificance in the landscape below. She turned her
eyes toward the stars and prepared to forget this episode of her life.
An urgent beeping from the communicator demanded
attention. She stabbed at the button and instantly heard the strained
voice of the controller.
"Shuttle Sharpness! Abort your takeoff
and return to the base immediately! Acknowledge!"
With a frown of concern she asked. "Tantiss Mountain control,
what seems to be the problem? Is there an emergency?"
"Never mind! You must return at once!"
The controller sounded almost frantic.
"Certainly, I will..." Shir became aware of
several things simultaneously. The first was that there was a person
or persons standing behind her. The second was that something small,
hard, and cold was being pressed into the side of her head. The something
had the unmistakable feel of a standard issue Imperial blaster. She
rolled her head slowly to the right, bringing her unknown passenger into
her field of vision. Grand Admiral Thrawn stood by her side holding
a blaster in one hand. With the other he signaled for silence.
Her immediate impulse was to leap up and salute, but, since she had strapped
herself in, the effort came to naught. The communicator shrilled
at her and she started, every muscle jumping, then forced herself to relax.
She placed her finger over the comm button to reply, looking to her superior
for some sign. When the Admiral nodded she touched the button and
spoke carefully.
"Mountain control, we are experiencing technical
difficulties, return at this time is impossible." She cut off the
communicator before any response could come through. The Grand Admiral
was out of uniform but he was unmistakable with his pale blue skin and
red eyes. Those eyes were fixed at disturbingly close range on her
own. Now that she actually had a moment to think, the sheer shock
of having the commander of the entire Imperial fleet here in her ship unannounced
made her feel sick. For a moment she concentrated on the instruments
before her and fought down a sudden unfamiliar wave of nausea and dizziness.
When she was finally able to expand her focus, the Grand Admiral had seated
himself in the copilot’s station beside her. He still held the blaster
but it was no longer pointed directly at her.
"Sir, your pardon sir, is there a problem below?"
She managed to sound quite calm.
"Oh, yes. And with your help Lieutenant …,"
Thrawn paused pointedly.
"Kinoha. Shir Kinoha, sir."
"Lieutenant Kinoha, I hope to set things to rights
on Wayland."
She had multiple questions waiting to be asked,
but she was too well-trained to break discipline and blurt them out.
Shir finally asked the obvious in polite tones.
"What are your orders, sir?"
"The first task is to remove ourselves from Wayland,
the faster the better." His angular face showed concern as he continued.
"The Jedi master who was once our ally has decided to seize power for himself.
He is extremely dangerous. We need to get clear of the system as
quickly as we can."
"Master C'baoth!" Shir exclaimed. "I'd
heard some rumors from the crew below, but I wasn't there long enough to
really see anything out of order."
"He does not seem to have suborned your will at
least," the Admiral observed.
The pilot looked disturbed at the thought.
"Please kill me at once if he has."
"I do not believe such an action is necessary.
Carry on, Lieutenant." The Admiral put his weapon away.
For some moments Shir busied herself with the controls.
"Sir, we're coming out of the primary orbital envelope of Wayland."
She indicated the shuttle's main display. "The cruiser Draklor
is moving on an intercept course. Do you want me to rendezvous with
them?"
"No, I have reason to believe the commanders may
have been affected by C'baoth. Evade them and jump to hyperspace
as quickly as you can. What was your original destination?"
"Tangrene sector space. Once there I was to
receive the decrypt of the Chimaera's current location."
"That will do for now. It will give us some
time to plan."
Noticing the 'us' in his statement, Shir took a
moment to glance into the back of the cockpit. What she saw made
her try once again to leap out of her seat.
"What - what are those?" she gasped,
utterly forgetting the military etiquette she had been following so well.
To her surprise the Grand Admiral chuckled.
"That was my first reaction as well."
Now that they had been noticed, the four furry creatures,
none of them more than two-thirds of her height, moved up closer.
They either sat on the deck or on the row of seats directly behind the
pilot's area. The one with blue fur leaned companionably over the
back of her seat.
"Hi. We’re kitsune. We're here on vacation,"
she said.
"The hotel room service was terrible," a voice from
behind said. This was followed by laughter.
"What?" Shir shot a concerned look at the
Admiral. "What are they saying? Do you understand them?"
"I'm beginning to get used to them," he said.
After some reflection he continued for the confused lieutenant's benefit.
"They are our allies."
"Yup. We're friends, you betcha!" The
speaker's red-furred face split in a wide, sharp-fanged smile. Then
the blue one leaned closer, causing Shir to twitch backwards.
"Well, you're as nervous as a Thoroughbred on speed."
"Better make that an Akhal-Teke."
The one with brown fur reached forward and carefully gathered up a swatch
of loose hair which had escaped from the long braid in which Shir had put
it up. The hair was a very dark pewter color over laid with a brilliant
metallic sheen of silver. Before Shir could begin to question her
strange passengers about the unknown terminology they were using, the one
with blue fur said, "Hey! You’re a female type person! Since
when did the Empire start hiring women?"
"What?" Shir gave her questioner a fierce
frown. "Since before my time. Generations of my people have
been in Imperial service."
"Really? So what do you do normally?
Program computers? Push papers?"
When the Grand Admiral made no response to the questions
himself, Shir managed to say in almost normal tones. "I fly TIE fighters.
I've been doing so for eleven years."
"TIE fighters?!" The entire group suddenly
gathered around to look at her with awe and wonder. The one with
black fur patted her on the shoulder and made little bowing motions.
"Sugoi desu nee! How very splendid! Samurai
desu!" Shir ignored them in favor of the information which had
popped up on her tactical display. This new data showed a definite
change for the worse in their situation.
"Admiral! The assault cruiser Dagger
is inbound and is coordinating an intercept course with Draklor.
We will be within effective range of their tractor beams in …" She
checked the readout. "…Eight minutes."
The Grand Admiral leaned forward to check the display
and nodded. "How long until we can jump?"
"Too long, sir. Permission to use extraordinary
measures?"
"Permission granted."
Shir sketched him a quick salute.
"Will you take the controls, sir? I've something
in mind that I learned back in flight school, but I need to make some quick
mods."
"Certainly, Lieutenant." He checked the tactical
display again. "I do hope they are very quick modifications?"
"Aye, sir. You have the con." Shir released
her harness, then wowed her audience by plunging head first onto the deck,
removing an access plate and nearly disappearing under the forward control
console. All the kitsune could see of her was her black-clad legs
and boots. From inside the panel came soft tinkering noises, then
a loud exclamation.
"Need anything?" Kon asked helpfully at the opening.
"Yes, I need this." Shir bent her wiry frame
double in the cramped space and drew from the top of her boot a long, slender
knife. She immediately vanished again into the equipment.
"Four minutes until intercept." The Grand
Admiral's voice was calm, as if he were announcing the weather. From
below deck came a shredding sound, followed by a brief shower of sparks.
"Ha! Got you! You gods-forsaken piece
of..." The rest of the phrase was unintelligible.
"Three minutes."
Shir slithered out of the access with her knife
in one hand and a bundle of wires in the other. Her hair was disheveled,
but her eyes held a merry sparkle. Clutched in her teeth were three
wire segments with brightly marked bulges in their middles. These
dangled from her mouth like so many alien cigars. She tossed the
wires in her hand away, returned the blade to her boot and strapped herself
back into her seat.
The Admiral eyed her prizes. "Those appear
to be the hyperdrive safety inter-locks."
"Yes sir, they are," she answered around the objects.
Her fingers danced easily over the console. "This is a trick I had
from Baron Fel while he was still teaching at the Academy. We're
going to do something that is difficult but possible, at least in theory."
"And does this ever work?" Thrawn asked, concern
and curiosity vying for possession of his voice and face.
"Funny, I never thought to ask him that."
Shir gave a final entry to the computer, which sounded an alarm in response.
"Hushup!" she growled and punched a key. The alarm cut off.
When she looked ahead it was to see the Draklor looming far too
close for comfort on their planetary horizon. The Dagger was
also coming into range.
"One minute. The con is yours, lieutenant
Kinoha."
"Holy Amida! Look at the size of that thing!"
Toddy pointed at the Draklor.
"It's only a cruiser, the stardestroyers are much
larger. Go strap in and hang on, it's going to be a little rough
for a while."
"How rough is rough?" someone asked as they all
found seats.
"All the safeties for the hyperdrive have been removed.
Normally a ship can't jump to hyperspace while within a planet's gravity
well. I assume we're going to try a series of quick skips.
This should boost us past the cruiser's effective tractor area and into
deeper space," the Admiral answered.
"Cool! Does it work?" Kon wondered out
loud.
"Well, the failures would have had their component
molecules scattered from one end of the system to the other, so it is hard
to say if it works," Shir replied.
"Good grief, lady! Don't you care if you live
or die?" Tip asked.
"No. Should I?" Shir said. Her
face held a peaceful, untroubled expression.
"Ten seconds," Thrawn added.
"Hold on. This is the fun part!" With
a happy grin, she punched a last button on the console and the program
she'd hastily entered began to run. The ship's hyperdrives pulsed,
then pulsed again. To the observers aboard the cruisers, the shuttle
flickered, then winked out, vanishing from screen and scope.
*****
To the people inside the shuttle, it felt as if the
entire galaxy was trying to careen through their veins. Normally,
hyperspace was a phenomenon kept at a comfortable distance outside the
ship. Now, however, it tore through them, trying to snatch them everywhere
at once. The effect was awful, unendurable.
Thrawn came to his senses aware that people were
groaning all around him. The chronometer read ten minutes past the
intercept time. His pilot had tried her best to curl up into a ball
in her seat. As he watched, she unfolded herself and with stiff,
jerky movements checked the screens and her instruments. Much to
his surprise, the shuttle was managing quite well. The starfield
ahead was clear and empty of any pursuit. Shir made a series of hacking
coughs, then cleared her throat and said, "Well, that wasn't so bad was
it?"
From behind came the voice of Tip, speaking in a
manner which mimicked the voice of a commercial starliner attendant.
"Thank you for flying Crashscade Scarelines. We are pleased that
you survived our flight. Please retrieve all body parts from the
overhead bins before disembarking. Be sure to recommend us to all
the relatives you hate, and remember our motto: 'we fly by night!'"
Thrawn smiled but held in a laugh for fear of what it would do to his unsettled
stomach.
"Now I know what ‘deus irae’ means," groaned
Toddy. When he got blank stares from the Imperials, he explained,
"It means ‘wrath of the gods’. It’s Latin or somesuch old language."
"I thought you said this was going to be fun?" said
Kon.
"But it was! At least for the ship," Shir
said.
"Lady, are you from ‘The Planet of Crazy Teenagers’?"
Tip asked.
"No, I’m from Harlek. Actually, we do call
our world ‘The Land of the Young’." Shir spoke while looking ahead.
"I’ve got a clear jump to hyperspace with a course set for the Tangrene
sector. Permission to jump, sir?" she asked.
"Granted." Thrawn answered.
"Hey, wait! We’re not gonna do another of
those brain-bending jumps, are we?" Toddy asked in sudden concern.
"No, of course not," Shir replied calmly.
"The scrambling effect only happens if we jump out of a nearby gravity
well. We should be quite comfortable this time."
"Okay, if you say so," said Toddy.
Shir touched the controls and the stars ahead blurred
into long lines then vanished as the ship made the jump to hyperspace.
A comforting cloudy grayness replaced the ebony sky of space.
When nothing horrible happened, Kon asked.
"Got anything to eat in this place?"
"I believe so," said Shir, "Assuming you are able
to eat anything after all that jumping." She unfastened herself and
rose from her seat with a minor wince. Looking at the Admiral she
asked, "Sir?"
He waved a hand. "Dismissed, Lieutenant."
As the pilot turned to go, he added, "And Lieutenant, good work."
Some color returned to Shir's face and she saluted sharply, turned and
marched off briskly.
"Come along, food service and crew areas are this
way. We've a three-day hyperspace transit until we hit Tangrene,"
she called to the kitsune.
"Three days! I always thought hyperspace was
instant travel anywhere?" Toddy asked.
"Oh no, it can take days or weeks ship time before
you reach a destination. It all depends on how far you're going and
what route you are following."
"So," Kuro said. "I wonder if there are any
books on the subject?"
"We have plenty of information in the ship's databank
I'm sure. What's that?!" She exclaimed as a knee-high brown
predator thing bounded by her down the passageway. It skidded to
a halt in front of them and bounced up and down excitedly.
"Look, look! I've got my magic back!
It's all back, Kuro, can't you feel it?" Kon exclaimed.
"Ah, so I can." Kuro looked at his hands and
flexed his black, furry fingers. As Shir watched in fascination,
his hands glowed softly and became more human, as did the rest of him.
Finally Kuro looked very much like a human child with straight black hair,
brown eyes, and a long, brushy tail.
"This is better, ne?" he asked
Tip, who, Shir noticed, had also assumed a more human shape.
"Can all of you change shape? What is your
true form?" This question came from the Admiral, who had quietly
followed the group into the interior of the ship.
"We kitsune are shape shifters, but our original
shape is that of the fox. Like those guys." Tip pointed to
Kon and Toddy who were now wrestling on the deck.
"How very interesting," the Admiral said as he moved
around the two of them. Shir led the way toward the ship's galley.
Kon and Toddy broke off their play to follow along.
"The Mryn of the planet Resar were reputed to be
excellent shape shifters," she said.
"This is true, but the Mryn were only pets.
These are Jedi," Thrawn replied.
"Since when have we become Jedi?" Tip asked with
a scowl. When Thrawn did not answer, she thought about it as she
watched the pilot coax something that looked like food and drink from various
items of equipment.
"Our magic barely worked while we were on the planet
Wayland near all those Force-blocking critters. It returned once
we left. I wonder if it does mean that much of our magic in this
universe comes from the Force? I'll have to think about that one."
Kon trotted up and resumed a humanoid shape.
He accepted a plate of food and sat down cross-legged to eat. "Does
this mean we gotta get light sabers? I'll bet Kuro would like that,
but I think they're pretty darn dangerous," he said while munching.
"I would not recommend that unless you had taken
proper training with the sword, my friend. It would not do to have
you accidentally removing the limbs from innocent bystanders or from yourself,"
said Kuro.
Shir handed around food to everyone who looked as
if they could eat. For herself she fixed a mug of hot chama tea.
She gave the Admiral the same, realizing that he probably felt no better
than she did. When it looked as if he was able to drink that without
becoming ill, she silently served him some bread. This he managed
to eat, although she noticed he took his time about it.
*****
The small crew settled into the routine of the ship.
This meant waking and sleeping in regular cycles to mirror the time kept
by all Imperial crews. It also meant time spent in study. Kon
and Toddy were interested in all of the technical advances available in
this universe, especially hyperdrive equipped ships. Once Tip had
learned how to use the ship's computer to access the vast records kept
in Imperial databases, the Admiral kept her busy searching for items of
interest to himself. When he was not studying hyperdrive technology
along with his friends, Kuro occupied himself in teaching Shir the finer
points of fencing with the Japanese sword. He had managed to make
a passable katana for her, sized for her taller frame and longer reach.
When they practiced together they used the blunt versions of the sword
called shinai. Shir proved to be an excellent student, learning at
a fantastic rate of speed. Her fine learning ability did not seem
to include deducing that the person she assumed was the Grand Admiral was
in reality a clone produced by the Tantiss facility.
On the second day, while watching one of their practice
sessions, the Admiral asked, "Lieutenant, why were you returning
to the Chimaera? Weren't you sent to Wayland to be a cloning
template?"
Shir withdrew from the match with a bow and lay down her practice weapon.
"Yes sir, I was. But the scientists at the facility rejected me when
they learned that I was Harlekki. They said I was too old."
"Too old?" The Admiral put down the datapad
he had been reading and rose to his feet. He beckoned to the pilot.
"Come here, Lieutenant." She obeyed at once, crossing the space in
the main cabin to stand before him at attention. "At ease," he said.
Reaching out his hands he turned her head gently right and left, looking
minutely at her face. Her skin was uniformly smooth and had the unblemished
elasticity of youth. Under the day-phase lights her hair had even
more of that unusual metallic sparkle. "How old are you, lieutenant?"
"I am 21 Standard years of age, sir."
He frowned. "I do not understand the reasoning
of the scientists. Your home world has been a loyal part of the Empire
for as long as I can remember. I have seen people like yourself aboard
the Chimaera. They all had the same sort of metallic hair.
They were also, if memory serves me, excellent fighter pilots."
Shir squared her shoulders proudly. "Yes,
sir, Captain Pellaeon took on crew members from our world as often as he
could. He prized our service."
The Admiral looked thoughtful as he considered the
information she had given him. "Your planet has some interesting
customs. I remember seeing TIE fighter crew members with long red
ribbons tied in their hair before we were to begin a combat mission.
The good captain acted as if they were simply part of some quaint colonial
custom. I felt that he was perhaps withholding the full story from
me. I never had time to pursue the matter. Will you explain
it to me now?"
"The Az-hara, the red ribbons, indicates that the
wearer intends to die."
"They announce the desire to commit suicide?
The few Harlekki I have seen did not strike me as being prone to the despair
that fuels an act of self-destruction."
"No, sir. It is not an act of despair, but
instead part of the natural order of our lives. Those who wear the
Az-hara will die in a short time, whether they will or not."
The Admiral favored his pilot with a keen look.
"I do not remember the people with ribbons as looking particularly aged.
Were they ill, then?"
"No, sir, not so. It is just the way of our
people when they have reached the end of their time." Under the intense
stare of the Grand Admiral, Shir felt compelled to give him the entire
story, which was not something ordinarily shared with non-natives.
Drawing a deep breath she recited, "My people, the Harlekki, are a registered
human variant. We colonized our original home world sometime after
the fall of the Sith Empire. The technology of the time was not advanced
enough to tell our people that the new world on which they lived gave off
mutagenic radiation. This radiation radically altered our genome
to the point that our people began to die in great numbers. What
children were born during this time were terribly altered. Alarmed
by this unforeseen disaster, our scientists commenced a massive program
of research. The cause of our mutation was discovered. Since
there was nothing to be done about the radiation, we decided to move our
colony to another world in the same system. This is the world we
call Harlek. Our scientists then devoted every effort to the building
of genetic engineering facilities which were used to stabilize the genome
of the surviving population. This engineering was successful and
resulted in the people we are today."
"So what is the problem? You look fine to
me," Tip asked. She, along with Kuro, had been following the story
with great interest.
"I do not think there is any problem at all, but
not everyone in the Empire thinks the same way. We are different,
although the differences are not easily detected," she nodded at Tip and
touched her head, "Except for the hair."
"You said once that your planet was called ‘The
Land of the Young’. On our world we have a land of legend which is
named the same. In the Gaelic tongue, it is called ‘Tir Nan Og’.
In this land is said that the people who live there never grow old," Tip
said.
"The same could be said of us," Shir said with a
smile. "We do not live long enough to suffer the ravages of old age.
We consider it a fair trade."
The Admiral’s glowing red eyes watched Shir intently.
"Please go on with the story of your people. Before she could continue,
he added. "But first, tell me: how long is your average life
span?"
She looked at the floor for a moment as if the debating
the answer internally. This was the very thing that had denied her
a chance at being a cloning template and the rejection still smarted.
Then she met the Admiral's eyes directly and continued. "None of
us Harlekki live beyond the age of 30 Standard years. We are born
in the normal manner of human beings, but we grow at a much faster rate.
We are attending school by age two. We are fully mature by the time
we are five. We have had our children by the time we are ten.
After that, a number of choices become available to us. We can raise
the children of our clan, we can attend advanced school to become scientists,
engineers, or doctors. We can take holy orders and join a monastery.
Or we can join the service of the Empire. Since we are by nature
a military society, many of us choose the latter option. It is considered
a highly honorable path to follow for the remainder of one's life."
"Huh, you’ve got the life span of an Akhal-Teke
as well as the coat color," Tip mused aloud.
"Excuse me?" Shir looked confused.
"They’re these neat riding animals from our world.
Very pretty, good for riding into battle, and their life span is about
30 years."
"Do continue," Thrawn prompted, ignoring Tip.
"Those of us who take service go by choice into
those branches of the military that allow us to fight. Assuming the
average Harlekki joins at age 13, we can give up to 17 years to the Empire.
Many of the fleet captains, like our Captain Pellaeon, are aware of our
superior learning speed and reflexes and deliberately pad their TIE fighter
crews with our folk. This works out very well. When we are
Called, we tie the red Az-hara in our manes, notify our wing commander,
who gives us an expendable ship, and then we go forth and die in battle.
It is very symmetrical."
"Called? You mean you know when you are about
to die?"
"Yes, the gods Call us. While no one knows
exactly how long they have, everyone hears the Calling when it happens,
so there is no mistake."
"And this happens when you turn thirty years old?"
"No, sir. It can happen at any time, but usually
from age 25 onward. I do not recall anyone from Harlek actually reaching
thirty years of age."
"And what if you do not have an expendable ship
available? What do your people do on your home world? Surely
they do not all go and seek death in battle?"
"Oh no, of course not. At home one would again
tie the Az-hara in their hair, go to the local temple, hold a ceremony
where one disposes of one’s possessions, and then one dies. The body
is burned in a later ritual."
"You kill yourselves?" Kuro asked matter-of-factly.
"No. When you are Called, at the proper time
you let your spirit out." Shir made a throwing away gesture.
"You know, you just… go. That’s how it’s done."
"Not on most planets." The Admiral said.
"Thank you, Lieutenant." He paused a beat, then asked, "I am
curious as to how your people manage to plan for the future with such a
compacted lifetime?"
"What future?" Shir asked curiously. We do
not have the word in our own language, except for one that means ‘tomorrow’,
and even that is rarely used. We exist in the now. The future
takes care of itself."
"Oh, gods!" Tip swore softly as she watched Shir
resume her practice with Kuro. "An entire planet of Carricks!"
"Of what?" Thrawn asked.
"He’s a friend from home. He’s got no sense
of time an’ no sense of fear. It’s bad enough he and his kin are
like that. I can’t imagine a whole world full of people the same
as him."
"The People with no Future," Thrawn said.
He kept his voice low. "My predecessor was obsessed with planning
ahead. Before starting a campaign, he would control every variable
that could be controlled, and calculated the risks, benefits, and probabilities
of all other variables not otherwise controllable. I have his memories.
Living entirely in the now seems impossible." He closed his eyes.
"People with no future," he repeated, as if trying to gain some understanding
of such an alien concept. "That phrase could describe myself as well,
unless I make at least some attempt at planning."
*****
Late in the evening of the second day the Admiral encountered
Kon and Toddy in the ship's galley. They had prepared something
which looked like stew and were sharing it out as he approached.
Without a word Kon filled a third bowl and handed it to him. He sat
down at the small round table and tried the food. It was actually
tasty, which was surprising, because Tip had warned him that kitsune were
not terribly good at cooking. They ate in silence for some moments,
which gave him the time to notice that his smaller companions were not
only in human shape (not counting their tails) but were eating with proper
utensils and not with their hands. Just as he was about to congratulate
himself on getting the wild creatures to behave with something like proper
decorum, Toddy spoke.
"You're an alright guy!"
Confused by this strange non sequitur Thrawn
had to ask. "Whatever do you mean?" He had a feeling he would
not enjoy the enlightenment that was sure to follow.
"I mean here you are sharing close quarters with
a pretty gal and you haven't even tried to touch her." Toddy gave
him a wink and a smile.
His companion frowned and said. "Don't give
him a hard time! After all, he's only two days old."
"Yeah, but his original must have been over forty
years old, he must know something about how everything works."
Thrawn was so appalled he could scarcely think of
anything to say in reply. Finally he managed to choke out a short
statement. "Military regulations forbid that sort of fraternization
between ranks."
"I've never known that to slow down anyone."
Toddy said with a chuckle, "Not humans nor elves."
"Leave him be. He's not exactly a human, perhaps
his people are seasonal breeders?" Kon said.
"I hadn't thought of that. We foxes breed
in the spring, so do many critters on our planet. Are your people
like that?" Toddy asked.
Thrawn sucked in a deep, exasperated breath. "My
people..." The Admiral stopped his diatribe before it was fairly
started as he realized he had no memory of what his people
did. Frowning, he turned his thoughts inward and still found nothing.
A light film of sweat layered his skin as he searched for any sort of memory
earlier than his years of Imperial service. Still nothing.
He had no memory of mother or father, of home world, or of childhood, not
even the echo of a memory. Pure, cold fear gripped his heart, a sensation
he was quite sure his original had rarely felt. "My memories are
incomplete. My entire early life is missing. What else am I
missing?" Thrawn propped his head in his hands, trying to find some
scrap of memory. Still nothing. The kitsune looked at him with
concern, all joking set aside.
"We don't know. We took you out of the cylinder
two or three days early. We had to do this because we didn't know
when that crazy old man would realize that we were there to mess up his
plans. We figured we had no time to waste. It was a risk, but
we didn't want him to get started with you." Kon said.
He looked at them through his fingers and with an
effort of will sat up, forced his hands down to the tabletop and made his
heart slow to something resembling a normal beat. Their rescue had
obviously disrupted the downloading of memories, but he could not argue
with their logic. His memories concerning C'baoth were only too clear.
The Jedi had been untrustworthy and dangerous. He would have been
unable to resist the Jedi’s dark power had he been left on Wayland to finish
maturing. "I understand you did what you thought was right.
I am grateful for the rescue. But I fear I cannot answer your question
about my people. The memories of my predecessor are unclear as well.
I think he spent his energies in the service of the Empire and thought
of little else."
Kon patted his arm consolingly. " Try not
to worry about it. There are an awful lot of people who would like
to forget their past. Look at the bright side, any memories you make
will be yours alone. And that includes any memories of love -- if
and when you choose to make them."
Here Toddy gave the Admiral a very nice smile.
"And if things aren't working, we're just the people to see! We're
the familiars of the goddess Inari. She's in charge of everything
having to do with the harvest and fertility, so don't worry about anything.
If you got a problem, we can fix it. We do love spells, too!"
"Thank you, I will keep that in mind." Struggling
to contain a near-hysterical urge to either laugh or scream, he rose and
left them, reflecting that the truncated memories of his original provided
no experiences to prepare his clone-self for the situations he now had
to deal with.
*****
After three days of travel, they popped out of hyperspace
on the edge of the Tangrene sector, a standard Imperial operating procedure.
This maneuver would give them time to receive the encrypted position of
the fleet, without attracting too much attention from the rebels, who doubtless
had a presence in the system. As they sailed past the outlying planets
of the system, the two Imperials waited impatiently for the ship's computer
to decode the information they had received. After the last of the
message had scrolled by, Shir looked at the Admiral.
"The bulk of the fleet has gone to Bilbringi.
The Chimaera will almost certainly be there. I can make the
calculations for the jump and we can rendezvous with the fleet within 24
hours. What are your orders, sir?"
The Grand Admiral looked out of the forward viewports
at the distant lights of a deep space manufacturing facility. For
some time, he gave no answer. Shir worked with the computer, entering
the coordinates for the jump to what she assumed would be their eventual
destination.
"I have the coordinates laid in sir, permission
to make the jump to hyperspace?" Her hand rested over the jump control.
"No, Lieutenant. Continue on our present course.
I wish to inspect the system. I understand it has received some damage
from rebel saboteurs."
The Imperial pilot glanced at her superior officer
with some surprise. "With respect, sir, I thought you wanted to rendezvous
with your flagship as soon as possible?"
The Admiral turned on her a forbidding expression.
"A rendezvous with Chimaera is undesirable at this time."
Shir looked thoroughly confused.
"Why would you not want to return to Chimaera?
That's your command ship, you do not often leave it. Actually, how
did you get to Wayland with no one knowing, not even a rumor?..." Her voice
trailed off as she thought of something too terrible to say out loud.
Hesitantly, she said. "The scientists at the Tantiss
facility. They didn't. They wouldn't!"
"Would and did," said Tip. The Admiral watched
her narrowly, but said nothing.
"But, but who - the Grand Admiral surely wouldn't
authorize such a thing unless he wanted an heir for some reason?" Shir
said.
"I'll give you three guesses, and the first two
don't count," Tip snorted. Thrawn spoke before Shir could fill the
gap with any further questions.
"No, my predecessor had no memories of ordering
any such thing." He spoke with a bitter smile. "I find it the
height of irony that he was actually planning to clone C'baoth, the author
of our difficulties."
"He beat you to it," Tip said, ignoring his unhappy
expression. "Got to give the crazy old coot credit. Now you've
got a couple of bad problems." She held up two fingers "Two of the
biggest are: C'baoth is still out there, and so is your original.
I'd bet Thrawn prime will be just thrilled when you show up."
"Why wouldn't he be?" Shir asked. The TIE
pilot was lost. "It's like having a son or brother. Why would
he mind?"
"Kid, you haven't read much history, have you?"
Toddy asked. Toddy had read very little history himself, but he had
seen I, Claudius many times.
"No, who has the time for that?" Shir said, making
a careless shrug.
"People in power don't usually want to share with
their relatives. History is full of nasty examples of fratricide,
parricide, you name it -cide," said Toddy. "Take the Roman Empress
Livia, she murdered half her family: her husband, her children, her in-laws.
I think she went through some of her grandkids as well. She didn't
care who she killed as long as she could keep control of her Empire."
"Actually, given the way a lot of upper echelon
Imperials behave and think, I guess that your original would be more likely
to view you as a potential stock of spare parts than as a partner of any
sort," Tip mused out loud. She looked at the Admiral, whose face
had gone tight with inner concentration. "Am I right?"
"Perhaps," Thrawn replied in a strained tone.
"When viewed as a separate being from myself, I am forced to admit that
dealing with him would be problematic at best, which is why I am reluctant
to rejoin the Chimaera without proper preparation."
"What you mean is, if we're lucky, he'll kill us
all quickly," Tip said. Thrawn made a gesture of assent.
"Well, what's to be done then? If we traipse
in and he has us all shot what's the good in that?" Kon sounded offended.
"You're forgetting the interrogation part," Tip
said.
"Merciful Kannon! I
had forgotten that bit with the Princess! Cripes!!" The listening
Imperials had no idea what Kon was referring to. They remained blissfully
ignorant of the fact that a large slice of their recent history was considered
fictional entertainment by the inhabitants of a world a universe away.
"And you’re forgetting another important thing which
I forgot to list earlier," Tip added.
"And that is?" the Admiral asked.
"What is the Lieutenant here to do? She knows
now that you are a clone of the Grand Admiral. Where do her loyalties
lie? You're the Grand Admiral’s double, not the real thing," Tip
pointed out objectively.
Thrawn looked steadily at the only other representative
of the Empire present in the ship. "If you want to be absolutely
accurate, I suppose you could consider me Imperial property." He
still wore at his side the blaster he had acquired from the storm trooper
on Wayland. He could touch it unseen with the fingers of his right
hand. Shir herself was unarmed. She sat as if frozen in place,
her face a study in conflicting emotions. Finally her expression
smoothed and she spoke calmly.
"You must excuse me, sir. I am no politician
and you already know my opinion of Imperial scientists. With respect,
I must state that I do not believe what I have heard." Dropping her
eyes, she continued rapidly. "Unless I can see both yourself and
the other standing side-by-side, I must believe the evidence of my own
senses. Unless it is proven otherwise, you are the Grand Admiral,
and I will obey whatever orders you care to give. Sir." She
heaved a great breath as if glad to get the whole statement out.
She lifted her chin and looked straight out the viewport. "You can,
of course, demand my life whenever you require it."
Thrawn relaxed his grip on the butt of the blaster.
Relief lifted his mood. I should have known: the crew aboard
Chimaera
had a reputation for loyalty to their commanding officers. "I do
not require it today, Lieutenant. What I do require is that you set
a course for Dankara, the midpoint between here and Bilbringi. That
will give us time to collect more data and plan for what I hope to be a
smooth return to the forces of the Empire. You have the con."
"Aye, sir." Shir replied, returning with gratitude
to the mundane task of flying the starship. Thrawn rose and left
her to her work. His escort of kitsune followed in his wake.
*****
"Well, one problem down, only two to go," Tip said cheerfully.
The Grand Admiral looked down at her.
"Why are you troubling yourselves with this?
Now that you can use the Force, or your magic, or whatever it is, you can
return to your own dimension, I assume. It is only Lieutenant Kinoha
and myself who must plan for the problems of the immediate future.
You need not put yourselves at risk." The Admiral had folded his
arms across his chest and drawn himself up to his full height. He
radiated a formidable cool formality. The small group of kitsune
all straightened their postures automatically. After hearing his
statements, they gathered into a close knot and held a brief discussion
in low voices.
Finally Tip said. "Here, Kuro, you do the
explanations. You're the best at this sort of thing." Kuro
stood forth from the group, and paced himself forward until he faced the
Admiral at close range. With his arms at his sides he gave him a
formal bow from the waist.
"Admiral, we saw to your birth. We also helped
to arrange your escape from Wayland."
"Yes, that is true," Thrawn said cautiously.
"In our culture this means we have responsibility
for your life. To abandon you to a terrible fate would be dishonorable."
"And how do you know my fate would be terrible?
Can you see the future?"
"No, we do not normally see the future. But
it requires no great skill to foresee what would occur if you were to fall
into the hands of either the dark Jedi or your original. We feel
an obligation to see you well started on your life's path." Kuro
paused for a moment. The other kitsune all nodded at him to go on.
"Can you tell us why you didn't kill Lieutenant Kinoha the minute she discovered
your presence aboard this ship? You can fly this type of ship yourself."
"We would never have evaded the cruisers without
her skills," Thrawn said evenly.
"But you didn't know that at first. You took
a great risk. Why did you spare her life?"
"She's a loyal Imperial officer. I do not
spend my people’s lives unnecessarily."
"Based on our knowledge of high-ranking Imperials,
we sense your original would have done so without regret. Do you
know Admiral, that ever since your birth you have been diverging from your
original, making memories you do not share with him, making your own decisions?"
"Of course, that is inevitable, but it has no bearing
on this situation." The Admiral looked as if he were reluctant to
continue the conversation, but Kuro pressed on.
"Your pardon, but it does. You spared her
life because you're not an asura. You have good ki, the ki
of a human being."
"Please explain, you are using words which I do
not understand."
"An asura is a creature less advanced than a human,
it lives in the lower dimensions. It is a hungry spirit with no conscience.
These type of beings sometimes manage to inhabit the bodies of humans.
We can always tell when this happens because of the way the person behaves.
Sometimes it happens that human beings behave so badly during the course
of their lives that they become asuras inside. This means that they
have become lower than animals. Your ki is your breath, your
heart, your spirit. It is the power that lives inside." Kuro
patted his chest. "We can tell that you have a good spirit, and so
you are a human being. We honor you for this and feel obligated to
give you what help we can."
The Admiral frowned at him. "I am, as I understand
it, an alien. I am a member of a humanoid species, but I do not know
if we are related to humans or not."
"That’s just legal niceties. You’re talking body.
We’re talking spirit. What Kuro says is still true, no matter who
your parents were or what species you are," Tip said firmly.
"How strange that you seem to know what I am, and
I do not."
"It’s cool. Self-knowledge is the most difficult
to acquire. When you’ve lived as long as us, it’ll be much easier
for you."
Thrawn permitted himself to be distracted by her
statement, deciding that the current conversation was far too uncomfortable.
"And how long is that?"
"Me, I’m over 400 years old. Kuro is maybe
300. Kon and Toddy are just kids, they’re both over 100."
"Four hundred years?!" he exclaimed, "I would need
several lifetimes to achieve that!"
"Been known to happen," Tip chuckled, following
with the others down toward the crew lounge area. She had to trot
to keep up with his long strides.
The Admiral gave up trying to talk sense to his
entourage. Their speeches about obligations based on the state of
one's spirit were utterly outside his own base of knowledge. The
Empire did not support the teaching of religious philosophy and consequently
he had little experience with dealing with such concepts, except as purely
intellectual knowledge absorbed during his studies of psychology.
What his own people believed was lost in the blank areas of his memories.
He said with some asperity as he went, "Fine. Do whatever you think
is right." The kitsune leaped about happily and cavorted in the passageway.
"See! See! This is why we know you're
worth the trouble!" They galloped off, leaving Thrawn as deeply mystified
as ever as to what they thought was so wonderful.
*****
"So, what next?" Tip asked some hours later.
She had been patiently watching the Admiral reading datapads and making
notes. Now it seemed as if he had surfaced for air and a cup of tea,
so she decided to ask her question at this opportune moment.
"What next?" Thrawn asked, repeating her question.
He stared abstractedly at some of the notes he had made.
"Yes. It's not as if you can just return to
the Empire, is it? Are you going to join the Rebellion?" The
lines of the Admiral's face hardened as he considered her query.
"Join the Rebellion? That is out of the question.
You forget to whom you are speaking. Both Lieutenant Kinoha and myself
are loyal Imperial subjects."
Tip continued undaunted. "You may be loyal,
but you’re dead people if you return. You said yourself you had no
legal status, and the good Lieutenant will be branded a traitor for assisting
in your escape. Why not join the Rebellion? They've accepted
lots of former Imperials into their fellowship."
The Admiral shook his head negatively. "The
Empire brought stability to the galaxy! Everyone knew their place
in the Imperial hierarchy, everything was in order. The Rebellion
promises nothing but chaos. We need control, not disorder!
How could anyone reasonable want chaos?"
"Imperial order? Everything in its place?
You are the person with no place at all, or worse yet, if you took your
place in the Imperial order, you would die." Tip saw that the Admiral
was either not listening to her or did not want to hear what she was saying.
His expression settled into stubbornness.
"I cannot join the Rebellion. I will not throw
in my lot with people who have destroyed the forces of order in the galaxy."
Tip threw back her head and laughed merrily, much
to his amazement. When she caught her breath she said. "Well,
this is really rich! The gods have such a sense of humor!"
"How so?" Thrawn asked, wary of the answer.
"You were rescued by four adherents of chaos, that's
how! It's too funny!" She went off again into gales of laughter.
"Adherents of chaos?" he asked cautiously.
"You are not under the command of anyone?"
Tip wiped her streaming eyes. "Oh, no.
No one commands us. The gods themselves despair of our obedience!"
"Then your rescue of me?"
"We ended up on Wayland purely by accident.
Don't get me wrong, once we found out your predicament, we couldn't just
leave you to your fate. Perhaps our arriving there was the work of
the gods, but no one gave us any order." Tip looked at him out of
green eyes. Her pupils were vertically slit, he noticed. With
a smile and a shrug she said, "For someone who’s into order, you're in
strange company."
"I'm learning to live with it," he said stiffly.
Gathering up his datapad he moved through the room toward the passage leading
to the crew quarters. "I'm retiring for the night, good evening."
"Nighty-night, Admiral," Tip said. Once he
was gone, she added, "You're learning mighty fast. We may not make
a rebel out of you, but who knows?"
*****
He was looking at a planetary viewscreen aboard his
old command ship, the Admonitor. It showed the alien landscape
of the world below. The equally alien inhabitants moved about in
their clusters of villages, going about their daily business. They
were bulky, with four heavy limbs for walking and a set of lighter arms
which they used to manipulate objects. In his memory was the image
of their strange artwork, which he had been unable to understand.
What he did understand was that they refused to acknowledge the supremacy
of the Empire, and that was not allowed. Calmly, he gave the order.
"Commence bombardment. Stop only when they offer unconditional surrender."
The order was acknowledged. As he watched, the viewscreen began to
show lances of brilliant green fire beginning to rain down on the planetary
surface. A village took a direct hit. The buildings melted
and ran like wax, their occupants vanishing into vapor. The bombardment
went on and on. The ground based camera which fed images to the viewscreen
melted. Thrawn switched to watching the tactical display. The minutes
crawled by into hours.
A staff member said, "Sir, do you wish us to go
on? Our sensor scans show no life forms remaining below."
He replied evenly, "Suspend the bombardment, log
the planet as no longer of interest to the Empire." With a twinge
of regret for the alien stubbornness that had brought him to this action,
he left the bridge. The pain struck him almost immediately,
searing like a lightning bolt, shredding his nerves, agonizing in its intensity.
He doubled over, too surprised to scream, at least at first. The
pain continued, and he realized that it was not really his own pain, but
the pain of others. Others whose lives had just come to a sudden
and horrible end. He could feel everything, their thoughts, emotions,
physical sensations. Their alien thoughts he could not understand,
but the rest needed no interpretation. He threw himself down on the
steel deck trying to escape the agony but it was no use. He kept
hoping a crew member would find him and at least carry him to sick bay,
but the hall remained empty. He was alone with three million deaths.
After what felt like an eternity Thrawn sensed that
someone was approaching and managed to open his eyes. He squinted
through a film of tears and sweat, trying to see. An old man of medium
height and build walked briskly up the corridor and stopped before him.
His outline shimmered. He had a neatly trimmed gray beard, long robes,
and his expression was peaceful. He looked down at Thrawn who, still
in the throes of anguish, was unable to stand. His face became concerned
and he knelt down and said, "This is not right, you are the wrong one.
This is not for you. Give me your hands." The Admiral thrust
out his hands stiffly and the stranger grasped them and pulled him to his
feet. The pain cut off as if someone had thrown a switch and for
a moment Thrawn allowed the old man to hold him up. At last he was
able to stand without help. He tried to speak, but his rescuer took
him by the shoulders and said, "This is not part of you, you are dreaming
and you need to wake up soon."
"Dreaming?" Thrawn thought his voice echoed
oddly in the emptiness of the corridor.
"Yes, time means nothing here, and some things are
best learned through experience. But this particular lesson is not
meant for you." His expression became compassionate. "Wake
up now, but before you go, child of the Grand Admiral, remember this, the
Force is with you."
Thrawn jerked upright, his mouth open in a silent
cry. Around him was his berth aboard the Sharpness, which
was still in night phase. The hum of the ship was normal, no one
else stirred. The transition from one reality to another was so abrupt
that for some time he just sat and re-grouped, breathing hard.
The Force, he thought, the Force is for
Jedi and enemies of the Empire, what has the Force to do with me?
He shivered in the still air, his skin wet with sweat. Dragging up
the coverlet, he wrapped it around his shoulders. His right arm ached
and he massaged it with his left hand as he thought. All that
talk about spirits that are good and evil must have provided fuel for my
dreams. My first nightmare, he corrected himself. Thrawn
frowned as he realized that the memories he had inherited gave no indication
that his original had ever experienced such a thing. What is the
difference between myself and my original? In spite of my lack of
his earliest memories we share practically all the ones that should be
important. By all logic we should be the same. He lay back
in his bunk and began with singular concentration to search those shared
memories. His predecessor’s recollection of the encounter with the
aliens was similar in every respect to that of his dream except that his
original had suffered no pain whatsoever from his act of destruction.
Thrawn found in those memories a sense of vague regret over the loss of
irreplaceable artwork, nothing else.
He felt nothing. All those deaths and he
felt nothing. Why do I feel when he did not? the Admiral stared
into the darkness. No immediate answers surfaced to his questions,
although it did seem to him that the kitsune had been correct in saying
that he was different from his original. The ache in his right arm
had settled into a sort of dull numbness. Does this difference
make me weaker or stronger? he wondered. In the Empire only stronger
mattered. Thrawn found the realization disturbing, but before he
could pursue the thought further he drifted back into sleep.
The dawn alarm awoke him with a start. He
rose, suppressing a groan at the many small pains that promptly attacked
every muscle in his body. The pain was worse on his right side; even
his tongue felt sore. If this is what typical nightmares are like
I would rather do without them, he thought with a grimace. Moving
gingerly he cleaned up and dressed, then moved out into the ship in search
of an analgesic.
The memory of his dream stayed with him and his
active mind worried at it, looking for meaning. He poked at his breakfast,
watching Shir eat her own morning meal with enthusiasm. The Harlekki
was in a fine good humor, the prospect of action filling her with cheerful
energy. The old man who spoke to me of the Force, could he have
been a Jedi? he wondered. The Admiral took a sip of hot tea,
rolling the liquid to the left side of his mouth, since the right remained
stubbornly sore. What did he mean when he said my nightmare was
a lesson, and the lesson wasn't for me? If not for me, then…
"Admiral’sama, do you feel all
right?" Kuro asked. The samurai was a keen observer.
"Yes, but I think I may have an… obligation to my
predecessor."
"An obligation?" Several voices asked together.
"What sort of obligation?"
"Isn't it proper to give a warning to someone who
may be facing a terrible danger?" The painful dream-memory nagged
at the back of his mind.
"I suppose so, although you've got to understand
that while you may warn someone, that doesn't mean they’ll heed your advice,"
Tip said. She gave the Admiral a shrewd glance. "Are you having
a premonition about your original?"
The Admiral finished his tea and tossed the cup into the disposal unit.
"I'm not sure, I just feel that time is moving quickly." He looked
at the lieutenant, who promptly rose to her feet and made him a sharp salute.
"It is a short jump from Dankara to Bilbringi, Lieutenant. Is the
ship ready to see some engagement?"
"The Sharpness is ready and at your command,
sir," she replied formally. The two Imperials moved forward to the
flight deck where they settled themselves and prepared for the transition
to sublight.
*****
They arrived at Dankara on time, performing a sweep
of the system perimeter that enabled them to intercept and decode the latest
Imperial communications. The incoming news was strange, the fleet
was engaged at Bilbringi and something irregular was occurring at Wayland.
"What is happening? Did the rebels locate
the cloning facility?" asked Shir, squinting at the quickly scrolling decrypt
of Imperial ship traffic on her screen. "It sounds as if they're
fighting down there. Were they expecting trouble?"
"They should be fighting at Bilbringi. I have
memories of beginning the preparations for a large engagement with the
Rebellion," the Admiral said, as he also watched the decrypt stream by.
"I, or he, was not expecting anything unusual to happen at Wayland, unless
my predecessor was successful in his other plan?" He speculated aloud,
then stopped as he realized that everyone was looking at him.
"What other plans?" asked Tip. Her blue tail
had bushed out considerably.
"He was trying to implement a plan to keep C'baoth
busy and entertained," Thrawn said, half-distracted by yet more ops reports
scrolling by. The incoming reports from Wayland were starting to
sound more and more disorganized, whereas the ones originating from Bilbringi
were in proper military form.
"Entertain a dark Jedi?" Toddy looked at him
with disbelief. "What would it take to entertain someone like him?"
"Young Jedi and Jedi children to train and mold
in his own image," Thrawn said reluctantly. Even as he spoke the
words he could feel how repugnant such an action would be, both to himself
and to his listeners. Having nearly been the victim of C’baoth’s
attentions had given him a different perspective from that of the original
Admiral.
"What!? Whose kids? What Jedi?" Kon
said sharply, beating Tip to the punch.
"Ah, I recall my original was planning on giving
him the twin infant children of Leia Organa Solo. Also Organa Solo
and Luke Skywalker themselves, if he could manage it."
The kitsune groaned in unison. Shir turned
on them a curious expression.
"What is wrong? I'll admit kidnapping is not
normal Imperial S.O.P., but..."
"Are you kidding?! Giving a crazy evil Jedi
a bunch more Jedi is like throwing fuel on a bonfire! However, now
that I think about who your original planned on grabbing, I'll just bet
that now he's reaping the whirlwind," Tip said.
"He's doing what?" Shir asked.
"If you sow the wind, you shall reap the whirlwind,
it's a quote from our home world. It means when you plan bad, stupid
stuff, you usually get to suffer the consequences."
"So how do you know when an action is bad before
you suffer the consequences?" the Admiral asked, looking at Tip with a
strange expression.
"I'm probably not the one you should be asking,
but the ones who could give you a really good answer ain’t here, so I’ll
give you my answer." She thrust a finger at Thrawn’s chest, poking
him with enough force that he could feel it. "You’ve gotta listen
to your innards. When you want to do something and just thinking
about it makes your heart hurt, or when you know it will make you feel
good and others feel rotten, then what you want to do is probably bad.
Of course, I’m assuming you have any feeling for anyone other than yourself.
Some folks never feel pain, so they figure nobody else feels pain either
and they go around wreaking havoc until someone removes them from the universe."
Tip waved her hands in a fluttering motion. "It's not always possible
to get through life without hurting or inconveniencing people, but the
gods demand that you behave as honorably as possible. They see everything
you do. If you can manage to do more good than harm in your life,
then you’ve done well indeed."
"And where do you stand on the balance sheet you
have just defined?" Thrawn asked. He found the idea of godly cosmic
scorekeepers too strange to believe.
Tip gave him a thoroughly cheezy smile before she
answered. "Let's just say that we kitsune try to do more good than
harm, but given our natures, it's a good thing that we automatically go
to the Torii heaven when we die, being as we're beloved of the goddess
Inari and all."
Before the Admiral could ask for a definition of
'heaven', Kuro said. "The Torii heaven is one of the lower circles
of heaven, or the afterlife; the Buddha lives in the highest heaven with
the gods, but kitsune do not usually go there."
"It's just as well, Nirvana sounds like a pretty
dull place, an’ what are you gonna talk about with a Bhoddisatva, anyways?"
Toddy said. As usual, their answers gave the Admiral a copious supply
of new questions to replace the one he had just asked, but his train of
thought was effectively derailed when Shir exclaimed over a new decrypt.
"Sir! The Tantiss facility reports heavy internal
damage, but they are unable to say what precisely is happening."
"I imagine Luke Skywalker and his family are on
Wayland now, which means the facility will soon be completely destroyed,"
Kuro said.
Thrawn and Shir both looked at the small warrior.
"Why do you assume they will be successful? And how are you so sure
it is them?" the Admiral asked.
Tip answered for him. "Law of the Universe.
You do enough bad deeds and the universe tries to balance it out.
Your original has been trying to snatch Leia's cubs and you think they'll
ignore the danger in letting it go on? These aren’t passive people,
y’know."
"Yeah, there's nothing more dangerous than a new
mother with cubs. When her children are threatened, watch out!
And this mom is a Jedi and her brother is a Jedi. You think they
would just let the threat continue without doing anything? Leia and
her family will be all over C'baoth like a cheap suit!" Kon said, snapping
his fingers.
"It's a good thing we got you out of there.
Since your original has been trying for some time to grab Leia's kids and
send them to Wayland, into the clutches of a dark Jedi, and the Emperor's
cloning facility is there, then you can bet your last credit that Skywalker
and his whole gang of friends will go there. Which means," Tip paused
to crunch on a bread stick which she had thoughtfully brought with her
from the galley. "Mount Tantiss is toast."
Shir gave the blue-haired girl an annoyed glance.
"Toast?! What's that? You people always talk so funny," she
objected. Tip swallowed her mouthful of food.
"Toast is toast. Bread cooked crunchy, sort
of like this stuff." Here she snapped another breadstick by way of
illustration. "How about fried? Exploded, destroyed, utterly
demolished? Take your pick, Skywalker is Destruction, Inc."
"Do you mean to say he can destroy the facility
single-handedly?" Thrawn asked. He did not want to believe that such
a feat was possible, but in his memory was the knowledge that Luke Skywalker
had managed somehow to destroy the Death Star.
"Him and his friends, yes. You gotta understand,
Skywalker is the 'Sword of the Gods', if he's near anything bad or evil
it’s going to be destroyed, more likely sooner rather than later."
Thrawn scanned the decrypt which had come in during
their conversation. "I must concede your assessment was correct,"
he said gravely. "Transmissions from Tantiss control have just ceased
with no further explanation." The group sat in silence. Tip
decided the Imperials really did not need to hear "I told you so" at this
particular moment and she slapped a quick hand over Kon's mouth when it
looked as if he was going to say it.
"What is happening at Bilbringi?" Shir asked.
"If we've lost the Tantiss facility, should we go and help our people at
the shipyard engagement?" The Admiral sat quietly, looking out the
forward viewport with a very odd look on his face. "This shuttle
is well armed, and far better shielded then my TIE fighter, we could render
effective assistance," she added eagerly.
"There’s still the problem about running into the
original Admiral," Tip reminded her.
"We... may no longer need to worry about him," Thrawn
said. His voice sounded distant and strained.
"Eh? Why not?" Tip asked. She
moved forward the better to be able to see his face.
"Because someone just now stabbed him. Here."
He rubbed at the center of his chest with his left hand, the corners of
his mouth pulled down in pain. He closed his eyes and hunched forward,
speaking with difficulty. "He is dying."
Shir turned sideways as far as the straps of her
seat would allow her and caught at the Admiral's sagging shoulder.
"Sir! What is happening?" When she received no immediate response,
she began to pull at his sleeve in alarm. "Admiral! Wake up!"
Tip sprang up into Thrawn's lap and began to shake
him, none too gently, and shouted urgently, "Hey! Don't go there!
Don't follow him! You're here! You're alive!" The others
joined in, sensing the peril of the situation.
As if from a far distance, Thrawn could hear people
shouting. Their voices echoed as if they were calling down a deep
shaft. Somewhere nearby a dark pit yawned, pulling at him.
The voices sounded familiar and he realized that they were the voices of
people whom he considered friends. They were frantic with worry.
With a great effort he pulled himself toward them and opened his eyes.
The interior of the shuttle came into focus, as did the faces of his companions.
The attraction of that deep pit faded. "There's no need to shout,
I can hear you." To his surprise, his voice sounded almost normal,
if somewhat quiet, "What is the matter?"
"We thought you were gonna leave us!" Tip exclaimed.
"Not yet. Although I do owe you some thanks
for recalling me to my duties." He sat up, drawing a deep, steadying
breath. "Lieutenant, take us to Bilbringi. The fleet needs
our support, and now, with care, I believe we may be able to approach Captain
Pellaeon."
"That's assuming him and his ship survive the fight
with the Alliance," Tip said.
"Exactly." Thrawn spoke shortly, his red eyes
narrowed. "Lieutenant Kinoha, prepare for a hot fire encounter.
For the duration of the upcoming engagement you have command. You
are the only one of us with current small fighter combat experience, so
I will defer to you in this. I will leave the control of the ship
and the fighting to you once we arrive. It is of paramount importance
that the Chimaera remain functional." He gave her a polite
nod. "The Sharpness is at your command, Lieutenant."
"Sir," Shir acknowledged, watching the elapsed time
indicator count down toward their exact departure time for Bilbringi.
She had been busy while the Admiral had been speaking. Now she touched
the controls and the stars became streamers of light as they jumped to
hyperspace.
"ETA to Bilbringi 10 minutes, sir." She cast
a glance back at the kitsune. "All of you strap in. The decrypts
indicate a massive battle near the shipyards. We’ll come under fire
the minute we emerge from hyperspace. Admiral, I will need you to
track the ship's energy output and shielding."
Shir felt her pulse accelerate in pleasant anticipation
of battle. "Everyone secured?" she asked. At the affirmative
responses from the kitsune, she added, "Now for the fun part."
"Hey! Didn't you say something like that the
last time? Right before that awful jump?" Kon asked suspiciously.
"Speaking of which, did you ever put back those
inter-locks?" Thrawn asked, managing to sound only mildly curious.
"Certainly, sir. I put them back three days
ago." Shir dropped her eyes to the control panel in front of her.
"I did, however, take the liberty of adding a cutout circuit and switch."
Tip craned over the pilot’s shoulder. Sure
enough, a new rocker switch had been wired into the surface of the control
array.
"Oh brother!" she sighed. Tip liked adventure
as much as the next kitsune, but she didn't really enjoy the sensation
of being ripped apart and re-assembled that unshielded hyperspace tripping
out of a gravity well gave her. Looking at the Grand Admiral, Tip
could see that his thoughts must have turned in a similar direction.
Her dire misgivings were interrupted as the Lieutenant began what sounded
like a ritual litany, chanting phrases and adjusting controls while checking
the corresponding readouts.
"All systems nominal. Energy consumption nominal.
Power nominal. Oxygen levels normal. Shields at 100 percent
on auto. Now charging the turbolasers." Shir clicked over a
sequence of switches and a deep hum was added to the constant soft background
noise of the ship's engines. "The ship is secured for battle.
Entering Bilbringi real space - now." The stars streamed by, then
snapped into place.
"The fleet?" asked the Admiral, looking at the forward
tactical display.
"Dead ahead, sir. Our fleet is in the thick
of it, all around the shipyard."
"Looks like a kicked hornet's nest," Tip observed,
watching random clouds of small fighters swarming around the larger capital
ships. The big ships were throwing what looked like lightning bolts
of violent colors at each other.
"I've found the Chimaera," Thrawn said, tapping
a display on the screen. "She's holding off several rebel assault
frigates."
"And a boatload of little fighters!" Toddy interjected.
"Yes, let's give her a hand, shall we?" the Admiral
said. He leaned forward a little, looking intently at the tactical
display.
Before the lieutenant could answer him, she yawed
the Sharpness suddenly, avoiding the red bolts of energy spewed
at her by two B-wing fighters.
"What in the name of space was that?!" Tip
shouted, ducking by reflex, even though she knew it would do no good.
Shir did not bother to answer but instead pulled the shuttle around in
a screaming turn which caught their pursuers by surprise. The smaller
fighters overran their target and shot ahead of the shuttle. Shir
pulled the ship out of the completed turn, firing immediately. First
one, then another of the fighters burst into expanding clouds of fiery
gases.
"Good shooting!" Toddy cried in genuine admiration.
"The Red Baron couldn't do a better job!"
Although Shir could not understand the entire reference,
she did understand the complimentary tone. The Harlekki smiled briefly,
then her face returned to its intent expression and she turned the ship
toward the distant embattled form of the Chimaera.
"That was just a warm up," she said. "Hold
tight, the main course is coming." A moment later the truth of her
words was proven as they were pursued by a small mob of Alliance fighters
as they flew toward their objective. Unfortunately, the pilots of
those fighters had made the assumption that the shuttle was being handled
by an ordinary Imperial pilot. They expected the craft to surrender
after a few warning shots. Instead, they were immediately attacked
by someone who flew the shuttle as if it were a TIE fighter. As soon
as she had blasted a hole through the surrounding fighters, Shir punched
the ship's engines and dashed ahead of the survivors.
"That's five down," Kon said, "Only 10,000 more
to go."
"I do believe Shir'san is willing to cut her way
through all of them," Kuro observed.
"Our Lieutenant does not believe in subtleties,"
Thrawn said. The face of his pilot was calm and showed no sign of
stress. Rather, she seemed to be enjoying herself. She gave
no indication of having heard their commentary. Adjusting the trajectory
of the ship she aimed the Sharpness directly at the Chimaera.
"Quickest route is usually the best," she said.
"How are the shields?"
"Still at maximum power. We've suffered no
damage so far." The Admiral checked the tactical display. He
raised his head to see their goal growing larger ahead. He touched
the communicator and was rewarded by a loud burst of static. He cranked
the volume down, frowned for a moment, then said, "Battle jamming.
I expected this, but it makes boarding the Chimaera much more difficult.
We cannot dock unless she makes an opening in her shields for us to enter."
"Well then, we shall just have to keep busy out
here until we are noticed and signaled docking clearance." Shir grinned
happily, rolling and looping the ship in a maneuver that on Earth would
have been called an Immelman turn. Two more fighters blossomed into
red flowers of destruction.
"Some shooting, ne?" Kuro said.
"Y'know, it just occurred to me that those ships
she's shooting down so neatly belonged to the Alliance. You know,
the good guys?" Tip said quietly to her companions.
"Uh-oh! So should we be cheering?" Toddy asked
in some concern.
"Well, I guess since they're trying to blast our
butts out of existence I suppose it's okay to cheer for now," Tip decided.
"Do you have a problem?" The Grand Admiral
asked them politely, turning in his seat so he could get a better view
of them. Watching the Harlekki ply her trade, he was chagrined to
discover, was a gut- and nerve-wrenching experience. Lieutenant Kinoha,
having no fear of death to act as a brake, flew like a thrice-scalded mynock
and fought like a starving rancor. Thrawn concluded that it was quite
one thing to read accounts of dogfights, or even to experience them in
simulation, and quite another to have to go along for the ride with no
way to control the outcome. After observing the kitsune's pale faces,
he wondered if the only person who could fly co-pilot to a Harlekki was
another Harlekki. The only one who seemed to have any appreciation
of the moment was Kuro, and even he seemed to want to be doing something
other than sitting passively. The brief conversation between the
aliens offered at least a moment's distraction for Thrawn. Shir continued
working her way closer to the Chimaera. At this point it would
have taken a physical blow to catch her attention.
"You mentioned something about the Rebel fighters?
Are you now wanting to claim loyalty to them?" He favored Tip with
a cool expression. Tip was not fooled.
"You know better'n that! We didn't get through
all that mess with you to betray you now. I just noticed we'd hit
what our ‘mom’, Annie, would call a ‘moral gray area,’ where we feel one
group is righter than the other, but we're helping what she'd call the
wrong side." Here she paused and gave him a wink and a shrug.
"Lucky for you guys we kitsune were made to inhabit gray areas! So
don't worry about us." Tip looked past the Admiral out the forward
viewports. "Instead, I'd worry about that big cruiser!" she cried,
ducking down and shrinking into her fox form.
The Admiral made himself face forward. Sure
enough, straight ahead, an enemy star cruiser loomed as they arrowed in
toward it. For an instant the urge to grab the controls away from
Shir was almost overwhelming, but some other feeling held him back.
Behind him he could hear the kitsune gasp as they rushed on in a collision
course. Finally, the Rebel fighters peeled off their pursuit, and
at that instant Shir pulled the ship away in a hairpin turn, so close to
the cruiser that Thrawn could see the startled faces of the ship's crew
through the viewports.
The lieutenant finished looping the ship around
into a firing position behind one of the fighters, blowing it into oblivion.
She followed this maneuver with another tight loop which brought her around
into a head-on course with the second fighter.
"I can't believe it! We're playing chicken
in outer space!" Kon cried, clapping his hands over his eyes.
"We've taken some hits, shields are now at 80 percent."
The Admiral spoke calmly to his pilot. With scarcely a pause he asked,
"What is chicken and how do you play it?" He was trying gamely
not to lose his breakfast, and rather envied the kitsune their ability
to freely display their emotions. Shir, thoroughly enrapt in combat
mode, remained oblivious to their side conversations.
"AAUGH!" cried Tip. The scream was muffled
through her paws. "How can you ask that?! We're playing the
game right now!" She curled herself up into a quivering blue ball
of fur.
"First one to flinch is the chicken!" Kon said,
watching with wide eyes.
Thrawn felt the Sharpness lurch, as the ship
endured the lash of fire from the cruiser. When he dared to open
his eyes, he discovered they were sailing into a patch of space momentarily
clear of the enemy. Automatically he checked for the status of the
ship's shields, then he looked at the tactical display for the whereabouts
of the Chimaera. They were tantalizingly close.
"We're almost there. Shields?" the lieutenant
asked.
"Forward shields at 40 percent, the rest are at
20 percent," the Admiral answered.
"That will do," she said, "A quick dash. We'll
hardly need our shields for that. Once we reach Chimaera we'll
have plenty of protection."
Shir heeled the ship over and boosted the engines
for the last short run to the Chimaera. They were making excellent
progress when without warning, the Chimaera shimmered and vanished
into hyperspace. In the space of five seconds the rest of the Imperial
battle fleet likewise disappeared, leaving the small group in the shuttle
quite alone.
"Well, damn!" Tip said. The kitsune was open-mouthed
in astonishment. "Where the heck did they go?"
The Lieutenant uttered a string of colloquial obscenities
in her own language. The Grand Admiral gazed wordlessly at the space
formerly occupied by the flagship of the Imperial fleet. Finally
Shir ran out of curse words and spoke in Basic.
"They've abandoned the battle! The loss of
Mount Tantiss and the death of their Grand Admiral may have been too much
for them and so they have followed the procedures he trained them in.
The entire fleet has jumped to some secure Imperial position to re-group."
Shir ran her fingers restlessly over the controls. "I was briefed
on several safe jump points, but my information is now over seven days
old. Captain Pellaeon is no fool, he would not use those old points
for fear Rebellion spies may now have knowledge of them. Admiral,
do you know where the fleet has gone?"
Thrawn sat stiffly in his seat, his face set in
a grim frown. "Like yourself, I have memories of a number of rendezvous
points considered relatively safe for the Imperial fleet. Unfortunately,
up until very recently, my predecessor had planned this entire engagement
with victory in mind. I have no memory of any one site in particular
bei