The Hand of Thrawn.
* * *
Just under a kilometer away from the fortress, shielded from view by a craggy ridge, was a deep indentation in the cliff face. Mara maneuvered the ship carefully in beneath the overhang and eased it as far back against the wall as she could. 'That's it,' she said, shutting down the repulsorlifts and feeling herself slump with fatigue and released tension. For the moment, at least, they were safe. For the moment.
From the aft seat, Child Of Winds said something. Almost intelligibly this time, but Mara was too tired to even try to decipher it. 'What did he say?' she asked.
'He asked what we're going to do now,' Luke translated. 'A good question, actually.'
'Well, for right now, we're just going to sit here,' Mara said, running a critical eye over Luke's outfit. There were a half-dozen new scorch marks where the Chiss' charric shots had made it through his defenses, and she could sense his automatic and almost unconscious suppression of the pain.
'Looks to me like you could use a few hours in a healing trance.'
'That can wait,' Luke said, gazing through the canopy at the landscape beyond the overhang, fading into the growing darkness of evening. 'My damage to their repulsorlifts won't hold them for long. We have to get back in there before they can mount an aerial search for us.'
'Actually, I don't think they'll bother,' Mara said, waving at her control board. 'For one thing, the sensors on these things seem to be pretty useless for close-order ground searches. My guess is that they'll move troops into the areas where they think we stashed our ships and leave it at that.'
'You don't think they'll worry we might get back inside?'
'And do what?'
Luke frowned. 'What do you mean?'
Mara took a deep breath. 'I mean I'm not sure we should even try to interfere with what they're doing.'
Child Of Winds made a noise like a choked-off comment. Luke glanced back at him, then turned again to Mara. 'But they're enemies of the New Republic,' he said. 'Aren't they?' Mara shook her head. 'I don't know. Just because they're in Imperial uniforms...' She sighed. 'Look. Baron Fel was in there. The same Baron Fel who turned his back on the Empire years ago when he finally recognized how corrupt and vicious things had become under Isard and some of Palpatine's other successors.
'Yet here he is, wearing an Imperial uniform again. Braintwisting is useless against a man like him—you'd ruin the fine combat edge that makes him useful to you in the first place. Something must have happened to legitimately change his mind.'
'Thrawn?'
'In a way,' Mara said. 'Fel said Thrawn took him to the Unknown Regions and showed him around... and that that was when he agreed to rejoin.'
She could feel Luke's emotions darken. 'There's something out there, isn't there?' he said quietly.
'Something terrible.'
'According to the Chiss, there are a hundred terrible somethings out there,' Mara said. 'Of course, that
She shrugged uncomfortably. 'On the other hand...'
'On the other hand, Fel knows our resources as well as we do,' Luke finished for her. 'And yet he's here.'
Mara nodded. 'He and Parck are both here. And neither of them seems to have any interest in wasting their resources in actions against the New Republic. That says a lot right there.' For a long minute the ship was silent. Then Luke stirred. 'Unfortunately, there's still one more point we have to consider,' he said. 'Bastion and the Empire. You said Parck was going to open contact with them?'
'Yes,' Mara confirmed, the quiet ache within her deepening. 'And I don't trust the current Imperial leadership to see things with the same long-term perspective that Fel does. You give them the Hand of Thrawn and they
Luke gazed out the canopy again. 'We can't let that happen,' he said quietly. 'Not with the New Republic in the
