'I did not refuse, my lord. I was never ordered to land there.'
'The distinction is noted,' Thrawn said dryly. 'Tell me why you chose to come here instead.'
'I wished to speak with my maitrakh To discuss my meditations with her, and to ask forgiveness for my ... failure.'
'And have you done so?' Thrawn asked, turning to face the maitrakh.
'We have begun,' she said in atrociously mangled Basic. 'We have not finished.'
At the back of the room, the dukha doors swung open and one of the tech team stepped inside. 'You have a report, Ensign?' Thrawn called to him.
'Yes, Admiral,' the other said, crossing the room and stepping somewhat gingerly around the assembled group of Noghri elders. 'We've finished our preliminary set of comm and countermeasures tests, sir, as per orders.' Thrawn shifted his gaze to Khabarakh. 'And?'
'We think we've located the malfunction, sir. The main transmitter coil seems to have overloaded and backfired into a dump capacitor, damaging several nearby circuits. The compensator computer rebuilt the pathway, but the bypass was close enough to one of the static-damping command lines for the resulting inductance surge to trigger it.'
'An interesting set of coincidences,' Thrawn said, his glowing eyes still on Khabarakh. 'A natural malfunction, do you think, or an artificial one?'
The maitrakh stirred, as if about to say something. Thrawn looked at her, and she subsided. 'Impossible to say, sir,' the tech said, choosing his words carefully. Obviously, he hadn't missed the fact that this was skating him close to the edge of insult in the middle of a group of Noghri who might decide to take offense at it. 'Someone who knew what he was doing could probably have pulled it off. I have to say, though, sir, that compensator computers in general have a pretty low reputation among mechanics. They're okay on the really serious stuff that can get unskilled pilots into big trouble, but on noncritical reroutes like this they've always had a tendency to foul up something else along the way.'
'Thank you.' If Thrawn was annoyed that he hadn't caught Khabarakh red-handed in a lie, it didn't show in his face. 'Your team will take the ship back to Nystao for repairs.'
'Yes, sir.' The tech saluted and left. Thrawn looked back at Khabarakh. 'With your team destroyed, you will of course have to be reassigned,' he said. 'When your ship has been repaired you will fly it to the Valrar base in Glythe sector and report there for duty.'
'Yes, my lord,' Khabarakh said.
Thrawn stood up. 'You have much to be proud of here,' he said, inclining his head slightly to the maitrakh. 'Your family's service to the clan Kihm'bar and to the Empire will be long remembered by all of Honoghr.'
'As will your leadership and protection of the Noghri people,' the maitrakh responded.
Flanked by Rukh and Ir'khaim, Thrawn stepped down from the chair and headed back toward the double doors. Pellaeon took up the rear, and a minute later they were once again out in the chilly night air. The shuttle was standing ready, and without further comment or ritual Thrawn led the way inside. As they lifted, Pellaeon caught just a glimpse out the viewport of the Noghri filing out of the dukha to watch their departing leaders. 'Well, that was pleasant,' he muttered under his breath.
Thrawn looked at him. 'A waste of time, you think, Captain?' he asked mildly.
Pellaeon glanced at Ir'khaim, seated farther toward the front of the shuttle. The dynast didn't seem to be listening to them, but it would probably still pay to be tactful. 'Diplomatically, sir, I'm sure it was wortwhile to demonstrate that you care about all of Honoghr, including the outer villages,' he told Thrawn. 'Given that the commando ship really had malfunctioned, I don't think anything else was gained.'
Thrawn turned to stare out the side viewport. 'I'm not so sure of that, Captain,' he said. 'There's something not quite right back there. Rukh, what's your reading of our young commando Khabarakh?'
'He was unsettled,' the bodyguard told him quietly. 'That much I saw in his hands and his face.'
Ir'khaim swiveled around in his chair. 'It is a naturally unsettling experience to face the lord of the Noghri,' he said.
'Particularly when one's hands are wet with failure?' Rukh countered. Ir'khaim half rose from his seat, and for a pair of heartbeats the air between the two Noghri was thick with tension. Pellaeon felt himself pressing back in his seat cushions, the long and bloody history of Noghri clan rivalry flooding fresh into his consciousness ... 'This mission has generated several failures,' Thrawn said calmly into the taut silence. 'In that, the clan Kihm'bar hardly stands alone.'
Slowly, Ir'khaim resumed his seat. 'Khabarakh is still young,' he said.
