“Very well.” Thrawn slipped his card into his datapad and peered at the display. “Interesting. I am to be second weapons officer aboard the Gozanti-class cruiser Blood Crow.”
“Nice,” Eli said. Gozantis were Corellian design, about sixty-four meters long, with dorsal and ventral laser turrets. They were a bit old—most were of pre–Clone Wars manufacture—but they could still hold their own alongside newer ships. Most were being used as freighters or evac ships, but some were being retrofitted with external clamps to carry starfighters or walkers, which would bring them into the front lines against pirates, smugglers, and slavers. In any role, though, a Gozanti was a good, solid ship from which to launch a career.
“And you?” Thrawn asked. “I presume you asked for a supply officer position?”
“I did,” Eli confirmed as he inserted his own data card. “Good chance I got it, too—the bigger ships are always hurting for supply personnel…”
He trailed off. What the hell?
“What is it?” Thrawn asked.
It took Eli two tries to find his voice. “The Blood Crow,” he choked out. “Aide to…Lieutenant Thrawn.”
He looked up at Thrawn, a red haze of anger dropping over his vision. “Did you do this?” he demanded.
Thrawn shook his head. “No.”
“Don’t lie!” Eli snarled. “Lieutenants don’t get aides. Ever. You set this up with the Emperor, didn’t you?”
“The Emperor does not speak to me,” Thrawn said. “Nor have I spoken with him since my first day on this world.”
“This didn’t happen by accident,” Eli ground out. “You must have said something. What was it? What was it?”
Thrawn hesitated, then lowered his head. “The Blood Crow is scheduled for duty in border sectors where Sy Bisti and related trade languages may be spoken,” he said reluctantly. “I merely pointed out that it might be beneficial to have two officers aboard who understood those languages.”
“Since they aren’t programmed into translator droids?” Eli bit out, an acid taste in his mouth.
“But I assure you I said nothing about an aide,” Thrawn insisted. “If you wish, I will refuse to accept you in that position.”
Eli looked down at his datapad, feeling the anger drain out of him. The anger, and the excitement of graduation. Thrawn could refuse, ask, or demand all he wanted. It wouldn’t do any good. Once orders were logged into the navy data system, they might as well be laser-etched into granite.
So that was that. In a single stroke, Eli’s life had been completely upended. Again.
Only now it wasn’t just his schooling. This time it was his career, so carefully calculated and implemented, that had been snatched away from him. He would enter the navy not as an up-and-coming supply officer, but as an officer’s aide. The career path most solidly guaranteed to go nowhere.
And that assumed that Thrawn was even up-and-coming himself. What if he wasn’t? What if he failed?
Because he might. In fact, the odds were high that he would. Disrespect for nonhumans might not be official policy, but it nonetheless quietly pervaded the navy. Thrawn would have to try twice as hard as anyone else, and succeed twice as often, just to stay even with them.
And when Thrawn went down, it was almost guaranteed that anyone associated with him would go down, too.
“Ensign Vanto?” Thrawn prompted. “Shall I speak with the commandant?”
“No point,” Eli said, shutting down the datapad and putting it away. “The navy doesn’t change orders just because junior officers don’t like them. When you’re an admiral, we’ll see what you can do.”
“I understand,” Thrawn said quietly. “Very well. I shall strive to achieve that rank as quickly as possible.”
Eli looked sharply at him. Was the damn Chiss mocking him?
But there was no hint of amusement in his face. Thrawn was deadly serious.
A shiver ran up Eli’s back, the ghosts of the old stories whispering through his mind. Chiss didn’t make idle boasts or promises. And once they set their minds to something, they succeeded or died in the attempt. Maybe he really thought he could make admiral someday.
Maybe he was right.
“I’ll look forward to it,” Eli said. “Come on. The orders said to be on the Corellia transport at eighteen-hundred hours. We don’t want to start our careers by missing our ride.”
There is satisfaction in defeating an enemy. But one must never allow oneself to become complacent. There are always more enemies to be identified, faced, and vanquished.
All warriors understand the need to face and defeat the enemy. Both aspects of the task can be challenging. Both can require thought, insight, and planning. Failures in any of those areas can cost unnecessary time and irreplaceable lives.
But a warrior may forget that even the task of identifying the enemy can be difficult. And the cost of that failure can lead to catastrophe.
—
Eli had occasionally warned Thrawn of the presence of politics within the navy. They’d certainly seen evidence of that influence during the Orbar incident.
Now, once again, politics had arisen that could directly affect them.
“I wasn’t able to get anything on why Captain Virgilio was replaced,” Eli murmured as they followed the procession of officers escorting the new commander, Captain Filia Rossi, on her tour of the Blood Crow. “But everyone agrees that Rossi’s very well connected. Nowadays, that’s all you need to get a command.”
“I see,” Thrawn said.
Eli grimaced. I see. That was Thrawn’s go-to answer when he didn’t want to say anything else.
There was certainly plenty that he could say.
Starting with the kind of captain Rik Virgilio had been. He’d been excellent at his job, walking the necessary balance between standing orders and flexibility. In the eighteen months Eli and Thrawn had served under him, the captain had built up a fine reputation for trapping smugglers, rendering aid to distressed vessels, and defusing potentially damaging political situations on Mid Rim and Outer Rim worlds. He’d earned the respect of his officers and crew, and highly satisfactory reviews from the governors and other political leaders with whom he’d interacted.
Equally important, certainly from Eli’s and Thrawn’s point of view, Virgilio had taken in stride the presence of an alien officer on his ship. There had been a degree of tension during the first few weeks as Virgilio tested the limits of Thrawn’s intelligence, knowledge, and ability, but once the captain learned his new officer’s parameters Eli could detect no difference in the captain’s treatment or acceptance of his second weapons officer. When the position of first weapons officer opened up, he’d raised no objections to Thrawn being promoted to that position. In fact, ship’s gossip had suggested that Virgilio might have actually recommended the Chiss for the job.
Now, without warning or explanation, Virgilio had been removed from the Blood Crow and a younger, less experienced captain brought in.
There was little that Eli had been able to learn about the new captain. Filia Rossi had graduated from the Raithal Academy twelve years earlier and had spent most of her time since then on Socorro, first on the ground, then aboard an orbiting defense platform out in the system’s asteroid belts. For the past year she’d been first officer aboard an ore freighter escort.
Now, suddenly, she’d been promoted to command of a cruiser.
It seemed obvious that the decision had been based on politics and influence rather than merit or even seniority. Still, Eli was willing to give Rossi the benefit of the doubt. It was possible that the driving force was less political status than the simple result of personnel transfers. If Captain Virgilio had been promoted to a better, more prestigious command, then someone else had to be brought to the Blood Crow to take his place.
But if that was the case, news of Virgilio’s promotion had not been passed to the Blood Crow’s other officers. Such silence from the High Command lent additional weight to Eli’s suspicions that the former captain had been retired or even quietly dismissed.