—
Nightswan was waiting at the appointed place when Thrawn arrived. “I understood you would wait until my arrival,” Thrawn said.
“I got bored,” Nightswan said. His voice holds a casual dark humor. His body stance holds tension but also weariness. His facial heat is heightened with a low level of caution. “Besides, I was curious to see if you’d told me the truth.” He gestured toward the stars above them. “Even now you could kill me and there would be nothing I could do to stop you.”
“You are no use to me dead or captured.”
“So you said,” Nightswan said. “I assume you’re calling on me to surrender, and to persuade my followers to surrender as well?”
“Interesting that you should call them followers,” Thrawn said. “When we first met, you were merely a consultant. You hired out your tactical skill to those who would pay, without thought of consequences.”
“You make me sound quite the amoral mercenary,” Nightswan said. His voice holds acceptance and agreement. His body stance holds tension, but also a subtle admission that the assessment is accurate. “But you’re mostly correct. Though I’d like to point out that I did save your life during the Dromedar hijacking.”
“How so?”
“I persuaded Angel to take that buzz droid back aboard his ship with you and the other prisoners,” Nightswan said. “I was pretty sure you had something in mind for it, and I wanted it to be available to you.”
“Why?”
Nightswan shrugged. “I’d told him to deliver all of you to the drop point. But I suspected he was going to kill at least you and the other Imperials. I couldn’t stop him on my own, so I had to hope you were clever enough to survive if you had the tools. Hence, the droid.”
“Thank you,” Thrawn said. “Allow me to point out in turn that, had you not, I had a second droid already moored to the hull.”
“Ah. Of course you did.” Nightswan’s smile holds irony. “So much for playing the card of appealing to your sense of obligation.”
“I find obligations are not a stable basis for a relationship,” Thrawn said. “Perhaps it is different in the Mining Guild.”
Nightswan’s eyes widen. “Not really,” he said. His tone holds disbelief and rising fear. His arm muscles tense as his body stance shifts to an escape posture. “How did you know?”
“You knew mining and metals,” Thrawn said. “You noticed the disappearance of doonium more quickly than was likely for one not familiar with metals and the metal marketplace. You also spoke of the Thrugii asteroid belt to Commander Vanto, which supports many Mining Guild operations.”
“I knew that was a mistake the minute I said it,” Nightswan said. He shakes his head, his body stance relaxing from escape mode to acceptance of defeat. “So how much do you know?”
“I know that a group observed the rising confusion in the Empire’s metal markets and broke from the guild in an attempt to manipulate that confusion for their own gain. I know that several members subsequently left and went their separate ways. I presume you were one of those.”
“Yes.” Nightswan’s expression now holds a cautious calmness. “The chaos in metal prices was hurting a lot of small businesses, shipbuilders in particular. I joined the group hoping we could siphon off enough from the navy’s demands to help them out.” His lips compress, his expression holding frustration and a brief flash of anger. His facial heat rises briefly, then subsides. “When I discovered they were simply selling our stolen metals back to the Empire through the black market, I left.”
“And joined instead with insurgents?”
“Not then,” Nightswan said. “Not until much later. Most of the people I worked with at first were just ordinary citizens who’d been hurt by the Empire and couldn’t get any redress. Justice costs money, and stealing and smuggling metals like doonium was the most efficient way to generate that money.”
“Doonium and tibanna gas?”
Nightswan smiled. “I wish I could have seen your expression when you found out I’d pulled that one off. Part of that one, anyway.” His expression and body stance hold memory and thoughtfulness. “Come to think of it, that was probably the first time I worked directly with an insurgent group. The first time I knew I was working with one, anyway. Ground-based, though, with no ships, or I wouldn’t have had to hire Angel and his Culoss crazies.”
“They will not bother the galaxy ever again.”
“Yes, I heard,” Nightswan said. “After that…I don’t know. For a while I straddled the line, still mostly just helping out innocents but also working with occasional insurgents when they popped up. I thought about going back to the Mining Guild, but by then they’d gotten wise to the group I’d left with and turned the Empire loose on them. You can guess the result.” He smiled. “Or don’t have to guess because you already know.”
“I do,” Thrawn confirmed. “So you no longer had anyone to turn to but insurgents?”
“Oh, I could have made a comfortable life for myself without them.” Nightswan purses his lips, his expression holding sudden dread. “But then I started hearing rumors. Stories about something nasty the Empire was up to out in the middle of nowhere. The project that was sucking up all the doonium, iridium, and other metals that they were yanking out of the markets. I heard about whole planets being strip-mined. The old Thrugii facilities I used to work are still officially under Kanauer Corporation control but are now effectively an Imperial operation. I started getting curious.” His lips compress. His expression holds regret. “Sometimes it’s a very bad thing to be curious.”
“It is never wrong to be curious. But it can sometimes be dangerous. This project you seek. Do you wish to stop it?”
Nightswan frowns, his expression and body stance holding suspicion. His facial heat again rises. “Why? Are you in charge of protecting it?”
“No.”
“You probably should be.” His suspicion is fading. “If they really want to protect it, that is. Would I stop it? I don’t know. I suppose I’d first need to know what it is, so I could judge whether or not it’s worth all the chaos it’s causing. Why do you ask?”
“Because I, too, am interested in the project. I would like to hear what you have learned.”
“Sure.” Nightswan waves a hand toward Creekpath. His expression holds sardonic humor. “Take off that uniform, come join us, and I’ll tell you everything I know.”
“You know I cannot do that.”
“And I can’t give up information that someday might be vital to these people,” Nightswan said. “Obligations, you know.”
“Yet you also have a higher obligation to greater ideals,” Thrawn said. “Tell me about Cyphar.”
“Cyphar?” Nightswan’s frown holds surprise. “What about it?”
“You claim obligation to the people of Creekpath,” Thrawn said. “The money you would have obtained from the Cyphar pre-spice smuggling operation would have purchased weapons and supplies for them. Yet you deliberately used the same seashell technique I had seen before in the hope that I would notice and destroy the operation.”
Nightswan shakes his head. His expression holds both resignation and admiration. His arm muscles relax, indicating he no longer expects combat on any level. “Sometimes I forget how good you are,” he said. “Other times, I’m glad of it. You’re right, I set that one up hoping you’d bring it to a crashing halt. I’ve seen what spice does to people, and I wanted no part of it.”
“Yet you worked with them.”
“Under false pretenses.” His voice holds bitterness. “They told me they were being squeezed between the Afes and the Cyphar government and couldn’t get the Empire to pay attention to them. By the time I found out what they were really smuggling I was already on the ground and couldn’t bow out without risking a blaster shot to the head.”