Eli jerked his head around. One of the instructors stood in the lab doorway, his fists on his hips, his expression thunderous as he glared at the cadets around the table. “I assume you all have authorization to be in here?” he growled, striding toward the table.
“Cadets Orbar and Turuy are running a test, sir,” Thrawn said, standing up and turning to face the instructor.
The other man came to an abrupt halt, his own eyes widening. Enough reaction, Eli thought darkly, to show he’d been in on Orbar’s scheme. “Lieutenant,” he breathed. “I…what about him?” he asked, nodding toward Eli.
“Cadet Vanto is my translator,” Thrawn said calmly. “Where I go, he must necessarily accompany me.”
The instructor’s lip twitched. “I see. I…very well, Lieutenant. Carry on.” He spun on his heel and beat a hasty retreat.
Thrawn watched him go. Then, very deliberately, he turned back to the table and gazed down upon the others. “There is no guaranteed winning hand, Cadet Orbar,” he said quietly. “I suggest you not forget that. Cadet Vanto, I believe we are finished here. Good evening, Cadets.”
A minute later, he and Eli were back out in the reflected light of the planetwide city surrounding them, walking along the path leading toward Barracks Two. “Well, that was fun,” Eli commented, wincing at the slight shaking in his voice. Would he never get used to confrontations? “So you knew he was going to pull that?”
“You yourself suggested his tactic this afternoon,” Thrawn reminded him. “The timing was the only challenge.”
“The timing?”
“If I had brought out my insignia plaque too soon, he might have been able to warn off his confederate,” Thrawn said. “If I had waited until after the instructor’s appearance, he could have disciplined me for being improperly uniformed.”
“Or could have challenged your right to wear it,” Eli pointed out. “You’ve never worn it before.”
“Because I am both officer and cadet,” Thrawn said. “It is a unique situation, which leads to unique opportunities.” He smiled slightly. “As well as confusion and uncertainties among our opponents. What did you learn tonight?”
Eli wrinkled his nose. That Orbar and Turuy were jerks to be avoided in the future? True enough, but probably not what Thrawn was going for. “Anticipate your enemy,” he said. “Figure out what he’s doing, then try to stay a step ahead of him.”
“A step ahead, or to the side,” Thrawn said, nodding. “When an attack comes, it is usually best to be out of the target zone if possible, thus permitting the energy of the assault to be dissipated elsewhere.”
“Yes, I can see how that could be handy,” Eli said drily. “Though I guess you can’t always choose—”
And without warning Thrawn put his hand on Eli’s shoulder and gave him a violent shove to the side.
Eli’s comment ended in a startled squeak as his legs hit the knee-high hedge bordering the walkway, the impact and his momentum sending him sprawling over the barrier onto the decorative crushed-stone strip on the other side. The squeak turned into a grunt as his arms and shoulder took the brunt of the impact. He shoved himself back up to a sitting position, wincing as the gravel dug into his palms. What the hell—
He stiffened. Three hooded men had suddenly appeared, surrounding Thrawn.
And as Eli stared in disbelief, they moved in for the kill.
—
For that first stretched-out second, Eli’s mind refused to believe it. Things like this didn’t happen on the Royal Imperial Academy grounds. They just didn’t.
But it was happening. Right in front of him.
The first mad charge seemed to have hit a little off center, probably because Thrawn’s action in shoving Eli over the hedge had similarly pushed the Chiss a meter in the opposite direction. But the assailants were quick. They were back on track now, and were converging on the Chiss.
And as Eli watched in disbelief and horror, they attacked.
The standard Academy curriculum included a unit on unarmed combat. Unfortunately, with Thrawn’s studies focused exclusively on technology and navy protocol, he hadn’t been given any time in the combat dojo.
And it showed. He was doing his best to fend off his attackers, but his defense consisted mainly of trying to push them away, ducking away from their attacks, dodging so that they couldn’t all come at him at once, and trying to protect his face and torso.
But it wasn’t enough. Defense alone was never enough. He needed to start adding in a few counterattacks, to make an effort to reduce the odds against him. Right now he was in a battle of attrition, and no matter how much stamina he had he would almost certainly run out of strength before his attackers did.
And then, unbidden, a thought slipped in at the edge of Eli’s mind.
This could be the end of all his problems.
It was a horrible thought. A gruesome thought. And yet, it was startlingly compelling. If Thrawn was so badly injured that he couldn’t complete his training, he would have no choice but to drop out. The Emperor’s grand experiment—whatever he’d hoped to accomplish by bringing the Chiss into the navy—would have failed. There would be nothing left to do but take Thrawn back to his exile planet and leave him there.
And Eli would be free.
The Strikefast was long gone, of course. But he could grab a transport to Myomar, paying for it out of his own pocket if he had to, and be back on track at the Academy there within a week. Surely Commandant Deenlark wouldn’t want him to stay at Royal Imperial once Thrawn was gone, any more than Eli himself wanted it. Back on Myomar; back in his proper career path; back to his life.
One of the attackers got in a solid punch to Thrawn’s lower torso, sending the Chiss down to one knee.
And a flood of shame abruptly flowed over Eli’s soul.
What the hell was he thinking?
“Hey!” he shouted, pushing himself up into a crouch. As he did so, he dug his fingers into the crushed stone beneath him, ignoring the flickers of pain as the sharp edges dug into his skin. “Hey, you! Bright eyes!”
Two of the three turned to face him—
And with all his strength Eli hurled two handfuls of gravel straight at their faces.
He hadn’t really expected it to work. But it did. Both attackers howled in pain, belatedly throwing up their hands against the hail of stone. Eli leaned down and dug his hands into the ground again, wondering if he could get another volley into the air before they could recover and respond.
Because if he couldn’t—if they jumped the hedge and got to him first—he was in serious trouble. Thrawn was still down on one knee, unable to help, and two-to-one odds would be more than enough to take Eli down.
Too late, it occurred to him that the assailants had learned their tactics lessons all too well. Splitting the enemy force in two parts and demolishing them one at a time was a classic approach to warfare. They’d successfully focused their efforts on Thrawn, and now they were going to do the same to Eli.
Only they’d miscalculated. Even as the two attackers started toward Eli, the helpless, all-but-demolished Thrawn leaned toward the man standing over him and slammed his forearm with muscle-paralyzing force into the man’s thigh.
The man gasped a startled curse, nearly falling as he clutched at his injured leg. His two friends spun back to him, their drive toward Eli wavering as their focus was suddenly split between their two targets. Eli cocked his arms for his next salvo of gravel—
“Hey!” someone shouted from nearby.
Eli turned to look. Five cadets had emerged from one of the buildings and were racing toward the fight.
That was enough for the attackers. They turned and hurried away into the night, the man Thrawn had hit in the leg supported on either side by his two companions.
“Are you all right?”
Eli blinked away the sudden sweat trickling into his eyes, his body shaking with aftershock. Was it over? “I’m fine,” he told Thrawn, climbing unsteadily over the hedge. Strangely enough, his voice wasn’t trembling at all. “You?”
“My injuries are minor,” Thrawn said, easing carefully to a standing position.