Easing down onto her knees, she began to search the body.
—
“Still no response from Pryce or Gudry.” Yularen’s voice came from the Chimaera’s bridge speaker. “Have you received anything?”
“Not since Agent Gudry’s transmission confirming the shield had been sabotaged,” Faro said. “I assume you also have the necessary triggering code?”
“Yes, but I’d rather not use it until and unless we give them up as captured. Or dead.”
Eli looked forward along the command walkway. Thrawn was standing by the forward viewport, his hands clasped behind his back, unmoving as he gazed at the planet below.
The admiral hadn’t had much to say since his return from that clandestine visit to the Creekpath area. Eli had received a private communication from Yularen as Thrawn was returning to the ship, but the message hadn’t said much except that questions about the admiral’s motives or strategies had been satisfactorily answered.
Satisfactorily for the colonel and ISB, maybe. Not so much for Eli. The fact that Thrawn had returned safely from Batonn had relieved a lot of his concerns and stress. But the matter of the vulnerable cruisers still hung over the situation like a dark nebula.
Especially since Eli had now proved, at least to his own satisfaction, that Admiral Kinshara had been right about the insurgents sneaking ships off Denash.
It hadn’t been just a few ships, either. His estimates, gleaned from the lists of spare parts and equipment shipments that Kinshara had retrieved from the captured base, indicated there were no less than thirty midsized ships lurking somewhere nearby. All of them armed, all of them ready to pounce.
Even for an Imperial Star Destroyer, a force of thirty armed ships wasn’t to be taken lightly. In a situation like that, the Chimaera needed its screening vessels close at hand.
Only it didn’t have them. The three cruisers were still sitting in their private little circles of isolation, far distant from the Chimaera, each half cocooned with supply ships and repair barges. The two frigates were useless, having been sent by Thrawn to high observation duty in case Nightswan attempted to bring new weapons or personnel to his ground forces.
Eli had reported his findings to Faro, who had responded by emptying the Chimaera’s hangars and doubling the TIE fighter sentry screen around the planet. But the TIEs couldn’t begin to cover everything, and the nearest warships that could respond to a call were over thirty hours away. By the time any aid could arrive, the battle would be over.
Eli looked at the tactical, feeling his stomach knot up. Every ship of the 96th was vulnerable. But there was only one that truly mattered. If Nightswan’s thirty lurking ships took out the Chimaera, the whole system was open to them. If they didn’t, they’d already lost.
The Chimaera wasn’t just a target. It was the target.
“Colonel Yularen, what is your troop status?” Thrawn called.
“We don’t have enough for an encirclement, Admiral, but we can probably mount a solid punch-through,” Yularen said. “I should also mention that Gudry’s report of an unknown number of gunships and skim fighters has the ground commanders a bit worried.”
“Once the shield is down, those fliers should not be a problem,” Thrawn assured him. “The Chimaera can descend to effective firing distance within three minutes, more than enough time to deal with combat aircraft of that size.”
“We’ll probably need that support, sir.”
“You shall have it,” Thrawn said. “Before all the troops are committed to battle, I want you to separate out a special-duty squad for me.”
“Yes, sir. Their mission?”
“Once the battle begins, I want them to make their way to the house of Governor Pryce’s parents,” Thrawn said. “If she and Agent Gudry were compromised, they might have taken refuge there.”
“Understood, sir,” Yularen said. “Actually, we may not need to wait for the battle to get under way. If I’m reading the maps and images correctly, the house is far enough out from the center that we should be able to slip a squad in whenever we want.”
“That was also my conclusion,” Thrawn said. “But the situation on the ground is often more complex than it appears from orbit. How long will it take the squad to reach the house?”
“Give me fifteen minutes to cut out a squad and prep them,” Yularen said. “Probably thirty more to slip them through the outer picket line and make their way inward. Forty-five minutes, an hour at the most.”
“Good. Proceed.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And inform the commanders that they are to ready their troops,” Thrawn added. “If Governor Pryce and Agent Gudry are not at the Pryce home, and if we have not otherwise heard from them by then, we will assume their mission has failed and proceed accordingly.”
“Yes, sir,” Yularen said.
“Captain Faro?”
“Admiral?” Faro replied, taking a step down the walkway.
“Prepare the Chimaera for combat,” Thrawn said. “I expect enemy forces to appear at any moment.”
“Yes, sir.” Faro gestured to the crew pits. “Turbolasers stand ready. Shields at standby power.”
“Shields at standby, sir,” a voice acknowledged.
“Turbolasers at—” a second voice began.
“Incoming!” the sensor officer snapped. “Midsized ships—ten—incoming on vector one-ten by eighty. Range, one hundred thirty kilometers.”
Eli turned to the tactical, his throat tightening. The ten ships had jumped out of hyperspace thirty kilometers behind the Shyrack and were heading straight toward it, accelerating to attack speed as they came. Exactly as he’d feared. “Admiral—the Shyrack—”
“Incoming!” the sensor officer cut him off. “Eleven more midsized on vector—”
“Two more groups incoming,” the secondary sensor officer corrected, her voice tight. “This one also eleven vessels. Admiral, they’re targeting the cruisers.”
“I see them,” Thrawn said, his voice like glacial ice.
Then do something! The words screamed in Eli’s brain. The three attack squadrons hadn’t yet opened fire, but the respite would only last another few seconds. Another twenty kilometers, and their blaster cannons would cut through the defenseless cruisers like a fruit knife through a demi-husk.
And once they’d destroyed the cruisers, there was nothing between them and the Chimaera.
Eli gazed at the display, his mind beating furiously at the situation, trying to find a way out. But there wasn’t one. The Chimaera was too deep in Batonn’s gravity well to jump to lightspeed. With the main drive still on standby, it would take nearly ten minutes to climb to the necessary distance. There were no ground-based weapons that could assist, and Batonn had no orbiting weapons platforms. All that remained was for the Star Destroyer to sit here and slug it out with the enemy ships.
Was that Thrawn’s plan? To make the attackers waste energy on the cruisers, possibly burning out some of their weapons in the process, then hope that the Chimaera’s armor and weapons would be enough to hold them off? Certainly the admiral couldn’t want the newcomers joining Nightswan and his insurgents on the ground—was this his way of making sure they stayed in space and out of Nightswan’s reach until the Creekpath battle was over?
A motion caught Eli’s eye, and he turned to see Thrawn walking back along the command walkway. Not hurrying, as if he were concerned about being too close to the viewport when the attack began, but with the measured tread of a man secure in his plan and his command.
He paused beside the comm section of the crew pit, almost as if it were an afterthought. “Signal the ground commanders,” he ordered. “The units on the west and north may open fire on the Creekpath insurgents. But they are to remain on the edges of the complex—harassment fire only—until the shield is down or until I give further orders.”
“Yes, sir.”