Vision of the future

had to send a couple of troopers down to blow the tree off at the roots. Takes time, and you're a sitting flink until you get free.'

'Acknowledged,' Pellaeon said, easing over away from the trees. Simulated AT-AT combat, frustrating though it could be sometimes, was far enough outside his normal command duties that it was actually a form of relaxation for him.

Though of course nothing that included combat was ever truly outside a Supreme Commander's duties. The better Pellaeon understood how mechanized equipment handled on difficult terrain, the better he would know how to deploy them in future operations.

Assuming, of course, the Empire ever again had occasion to launch ground assaults. Firmly, he shook the thought away. One of the reasons for coming down here, after all, had been to distract himself from the continued and frustrating lack of response to his peace offer on the New Republic's part.

He was past the stand of trees now. Easing back on his speed, he keyed for a side view to see how Raines was handling the jungle.

Very straightforwardly, actually. Keeping an eye farther ahead than Pellaeon was doing, he was using his forward laser cannon to cut down potential obstacles well before they became a problem. A fairly noisy technique, of course, and one that gave any enemies that much more advance warning. On the other hand, AT-ATs were hardly the weapon of choice where stealth was required, and Raines's method was definitely moving him through the jungle faster than Pellaeon. Lifting his gaze, trying to stifle the reflexive impulse to watch where his AT-AT was about to step, he squeezed off a few tentative shots.

'That's the way, Admiral,' Raines said approvingly. 'Just try to anticipate where the trouble's going to be before you're too close to aim the guns where they can do any good.' Pellaeon grunted. 'Better yet, avoid using AT-ATs entirely in this situation.'

'Whenever we can,' Raines said. 'Unfortunately, troublemakers like to hide themselves in places like this and then put up energy shields over their heads. Besides, there's nothing like an AT-AT

clumping through the trees to scare the sneer off someone's face.'

There was a click from the headset. 'Admiral, this is Ardiff,' the Chimaera's captain's voice came. 'Lieutenant Mavron is on his way in.' There was just the briefest pause. 'He reports, sir, that he has a vector.'

Pellaeon felt his eyes narrow. Mavron's mission had been a long shot, one last attempt to find out something about the force that had hit them six days ago. If he said he'd found a vector... 'Have him report to Ready Room 14 as soon as he docks,' he instructed Ardiff, shutting off the simulator. 'I'll meet you there.'

Ardiff was waiting alone in the ready room when Pellaeon arrived. 'I assumed this was to be a private meeting, so I cleared the other pilots out,' he explained. 'Is this about that HoloNet search?'

'I hope so,' Pellaeon said, waving him to one of the chairs around the central monitor table and sitting down himself. 'Ah—Lieutenant,' he added as the door slid open and Mavron stepped inside.

'Welcome home. A vector, you said?'

'Yes, sir,' Mavron said, setting a datapad down on the monitor table and easing himself into a chair with the peculiar stiffness of a man who has been sitting in a starfighter cockpit for too long. 'The HoloNet relay at Horska did indeed still have their records for transmissions from this area just after that raid against us.'

'You were able to pull them all, I presume?' Pellaeon asked, picking up the datapad.

'Yes, sir,' Mavron said. 'Unfortunately, I couldn't get any names, but I did get endpoints for the transmissions.' He nodded toward the datapad. 'I took the liberty of sifting through them on the way back. The one I marked struck me as the most interesting.'

Pellaeon felt his jaw tighten as he found the lieutenant's mark. 'Bastion.' Ardiff rumbled deep in his throat. 'So it was an Imperial behind that attack.'

'There's more,' Mavron said. 'The original endpoint was Bastion; but then it got relayed a few more times and wound up somewhere in the Kroctar system.'

'Kroctar system?' Ardiff said, frowning. 'That's deep in New Republic territory. What would someone from Bastion be doing there?'

'I wondered that, too,' Mavron said, his voice suddenly grim. 'So I stopped off at Caursito on the way back here and pulled a copy of the TriNebulon for that day. If the timings are correct, a few hours after that transmission the Unified Factions of Kroctar announced that a treaty had been negotiated between themselves and the Empire. The mediator of record—well, according to Lord Superior Bosmihi, it was Grand Admiral Thrawn.'

An icy chill ran up Pellaeon's back. 'That's impossible,' he said, his voice sounding strange in his ears. 'Thrawn is dead. I watched him die.'