The office was smaller than Arihnda would have guessed, not much bigger than the medium-sized desk and full-wall data card shelves filling most of the space. Behind the desk sat a harried-looking middle-aged man. “Who are you, and what do you want?” he growled.
“My name is Arihnda Pryce,” Arihnda said, stepping inside and glancing at the name plaque on the desk. Alistar Sinclar. “You have a problem, Mr. Sinclar, and I have the solution.”
Sinclar blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I just spoke with Nariba,” Arihnda said. “Your employee at desk three. She’s not very good at her job. She’s rude and insulting; and worst of all, she isn’t helpful. Between you and me, she needs to be fired.”
“Does she, now?” Sinclar said. “I hardly think you’re in a position to make that kind of judgment.”
“No, but you are,” Arihnda said. “That’s where my solution comes in. Hire me to replace her.”
Sinclar raised his eyebrows. “Your credentials?”
“I worked for the past two years in Senator Renking’s assistance office in Bash Four,” Arihnda said. “And I was very good at my job.”
Sinclar pursed his lips. “Working for a senator is a bit insular—”
“I’ve dealt with angry landlords, angry tenants, reluctant employers, and panicky job-seekers,” Arihnda continued. “Also union bosses, would-be union bosses, striking miners, strike-breaking miners, angry men and women who wanted to tear up my office, low-level criminals, high-level criminals, and politicians from the rawest hack to the most entrenched fossil.”
She stopped for air. From the look on Sinclar’s face, he probably hadn’t heard anyone throw quite this depth of a list at him before. “Really,” he said, a bit lamely.
“Really,” she assured him. “But don’t take my word for it.” She nodded toward the main office behind her. “You have eight empty desks out there. Let me work the rest of Ascension Week for free. After that, you can decide for yourself which of us you want to keep.”
Sinclar smiled. “You are brash, aren’t you?”
“I am,” Arihnda agreed. “But I’ve been told that it isn’t brashness if you succeed.”
“Interesting point.” Sinclar stood up and offered his hand across the desk. “You’re on, Ms. Pryce. Take desk eight. Let’s see if you’re as good as you think.”
No one can say where his path will take him, even for the duration of a single day. More difficult still is to see where one’s path will intersect that of another warrior.
A warrior must always be alert for such meetings. Some are generated by happenstance, and those may be benign. But others are arranged with purpose. Those must never be underestimated.
Fortunately, there are always signs. Before any trap is sprung, it must be prepared and primed and armed. If one reads the signs properly, the pattern of the attack will be clear.
But one must always remember that launching a trap is easier than defeating it.
—
The smugglers had been escorted aboard, scowling or cursing, and sent one by one into the brig. Commander Alfren Cheno stood by the brig’s outer hatch, fingering a large grist mollusk shell. “Shells,” he said flatly. “They were smuggling iridium inside shells.”
“Yes, sir,” Eli said. Cheno was an old-school type, having risen to the peak of his ability as captain of the Thunder Wasp. He was probably destined to end his career aboard it, or another ship just like it.
Given the captain’s age and upbringing, Eli had feared that he would show either the prejudices of Moff Ghadi’s patronizing mouthpiece Culper or the disdain of the Blood Crow’s Captain Rossi. Instead, Cheno had taken Thrawn’s assignment in stride, though with a certain degree of quiet yet unmistakable misgiving. But over time the Chiss had slowly won him over with his ability to see through the clutter to the heart of whatever matter they were dealing with.
Still, the commander had never lost his ability to be dumbfounded. Which was what made moments like this so entertaining.
“They were taking the stolen iridium from the mines to an old surplus underwater transport, sir,” Eli explained. “Possibly Gungan; we still haven’t positively identified the vehicle. They then transported it to a group of fishing boats where they formed it into small disks and hid them inside the shells for shipment offplanet.”
“The discrepancy in weight didn’t give the show away?”
“There wasn’t any, sir,” Eli said. “The disks were small, and grist mollusk meat is unusually dense. They had the whole thing down to a science.”
“Mm.” Cheno puckered his lips. “Dare I ask who tumbled the scheme?
“Do you really need to, sir?”
“I suppose not,” Cheno said. “Fine. How did he do it?”
As recently as a year ago, Eli mused, when he and Thrawn had first come aboard the Thunder Wasp, it had hurt a little to have to explain how Thrawn had pulled off the most recent of his long string of miracles. Now Eli was so used to it that it was almost fun. Rather like being the assistant of an illusionist who knew the secrets of how the tricks worked.
Which wasn’t to say that he would ever be able to pull off the tricks himself. But he was becoming surprisingly okay with that. “It was the makorr, sir,” he said. “One of the local water predator species. Captain Thrawn noticed that they were unusually active near these particular boats. Something seemed to be drawing them.”
“That mysterious lure being free food,” Cheno said, nodding understanding. “The smugglers had to get rid of the mollusk meat to make room for the iridium, and they simply dumped it overboard.” He shook his head. “It’s really quite simple once you see it.”
“Yes, sir,” Eli said. Illusionist’s assistant…“Most things are.”
The hatch slid open, and Thrawn appeared. “Captain,” Cheno greeted him. “Our guests all packed away for the night?”
“Yes, sir,” Thrawn said. “They seem somewhat bewildered, though.”
“Good,” Cheno said. “I like bewildered prisoners. Gives them something to think about besides escape. Speaking of packing, I understand we have more antiques on their way?”
“Yes, sir,” Thrawn said. “My apologies for not informing you sooner.”
“No problem,” Cheno said. “What is it this time? Another piece of hyperdrive ring?”
“No, sir. A piece of a buzz droid and a section of an attack weapon I believe was called a vulture droid.”
Cheno grunted. “Clone Wars matériel again,” he said, eyeing Thrawn closely. “Something about that era that interests you?”
“In point of fact, sir, everything about that era interests me,” Thrawn said. “May I continue to store the items in the aft hangar bay?”
“Absolutely,” Cheno said. “Mind you, if we ever get those new TIE fighters they keep promising us, we’ll need to come to some other arrangement. But until then, I see no reason why the space can’t be yours.”
“Thank you, sir,” Thrawn said. “With your permission, I will go and see about getting them properly stowed.”
“Of course,” Cheno said. “Carry on, Captain. Ensign.” With a nod to each of them, he turned and headed toward the bridge.
“Would you walk with me, Ensign?” Thrawn invited, gesturing in the direction of the unused hangar bay.
“Certainly, sir,” Eli said as they headed out. “Bewildered, you say?”
“They are angry at the manner in which they were captured.”
“I’ll bet they are,” Eli said. “Maybe the next group will be smart enough to save up the mollusk meat and dump it in bits and pieces the whole length of the way back to port. That way they won’t draw a crowd.”
“Excellent,” Thrawn said.
Eli frowned. “What’s excellent?”
“Your growing aptitude for the art of tactics.” Thrawn handed him his datapad. “What do you make of this?”
“What is it?” Eli asked as he took the device. It was hardly tactics to see the stupid moves a group of overconfident smugglers had made. As Cheno had said, everything was obvious in hindsight.
“A listing of the prices of various Clone War artifacts in various antiques shops, surplus stores, and salvage yards over the past three years.”
Eli frowned. “You mean all the way back to when you started collecting them on the Blood Crow?”