Vision of the future

Disra searched his memory. 'I don't think so.'

'She currently works with the smuggling chief Talon Karrde,' Tierce said. 'But at the height of the Empire, she was one of Palpatine's best undercover agents, with a title of Emperor's Hand.' Emperor's Hand. The Hand of Thrawn. 'Interesting possibility,' Disra said thoughtfully. 'But if the Hand is a person, where has he or she been all these years?'

'Gone to ground, too, perhaps,' Tierce said. 'The second possibility's even more intriguing. Remember that above all else Thrawn was a master strategist. What could be more his style than to leave behind a master plan for victory?'

Disra snorted. 'Which after ten years of Imperial reverses would be totally useless.'

'I wouldn't dismiss it quite so quickly,' Tierce warned. 'A strategist like Thrawn didn't see battle plans solely in terms of numbers of warships and locations of picket lines. He also considered geopolitical balances, cultural and psychological blind spots, historical animosities and rivalries—any number of factors. Factors which could very likely still be exploited.' Absently, Disra rubbed his hand where Tierce's kick had jammed the blaster painfully against the skin. On the face of it, it was absurd.

And yet, he'd read the history of Thrawn's accomplishments. Had seen the record of the man's genius. Could he really have created a battle plan that could still be used ten years and a thousand defeats later? 'What about that five-year campaign I found in his files?' he asked. 'Was there something in there I missed?'

'No.' Tierce shook his head. 'I've already been through it. All that is is a rough outline of what he was planning to do after the Bilbringi confrontation. If the Hand of Thrawn is a master strategy, he hid it away somewhere else.'

'With Captain Niriz and the Admonitor, you think?' Disra suggested.

'Perhaps,' Tierce said. 'Or else the ultimate victory lies with a person called the Hand. Either way, there's someone out there who has something we want.'

Disra smiled tightly. Suddenly, it was clear as polished transparisteel. 'And so in order to lure that someone into the open, you've decided to parade our decoy around a little.' Tierce inclined his head slightly. 'Under the circumstances, I think the risks are worth taking.'

'Perhaps,' Disra murmured. 'It assumes, of course, that it wasn't all just a load of tall talk.' The corner of Tierce's lip twitched. 'I was aboard the Chimaera with the Grand Admiral for several months, Disra. Before that, I watched him from the Emperor's side for nearly two years. Never in all that time did I hear him make a promise he wasn't able to carry out. If he said the Hand of Thrawn was the key to ultimate victory, then it was. You can count on it.'

'Let's just hope whoever's holding the key comes out of hiding before Coruscant gets nervous enough to take action,' Disra said. 'What do we do first?'

'What you do first is get ready to welcome the Kroctari back into the Empire,' Tierce said. Placing Disra's blaster on the table, he pulled a datacard from his tunic and set it down beside the weapon. 'Here's a brief rundown on the species in general and Lord Superior Bosmihi in particular,' he continued, starting toward the door. 'It's all the data we had on board, I'm afraid.'

'It'll do,' Disra said, stepping to the table and picking up the card. 'Where are you going?'

'I thought I'd join Captain Dorja in escorting the delegation from the hangar bay,' Tierce said.

'I'm rather looking forward to seeing your negotiation skills in action.' Without waiting for a reply, he stepped through the door and was gone. 'And to seeing whether or not the Royal Guardsman and con man still need the Moff?' Disra muttered aloud after him. Probably. But that was all right. Let him watch—let Flim watch, too, if he liked. He'd show them. By the time the Kroctarian delegation went home, both of them would be absolutely convinced that Disra wasn't just some tired old politician whose brilliant scheme had somehow gotten away from him. He was a vital part of this triumvirate, a part that was not going to simply fade into the background. Especially not with a guarantee of ultimate victory almost within their grasp. He had started this; and by the Emperor's blood, he would be with it to the very end. Sliding the datacard into his datapad, he tucked his blaster away into its hidden holster and began to read.

* * *

There were no planets visible from the bridge of the Imperial Star Destroyer Tyrannic. No planets, no asteroids, no ships, no stars. Nothing but complete, uniform blackness. Except for one spot. Off to starboard, barely visible within Captain Nalgol's view, was a small disk of dirty white. A tiny sliver of the comet head the Tyrannic was riding beside, peeking through the ship's cloaking shield.

They'd been flying like this for a month now, completely blind and deaf to the rest of the universe outside their insular existence.

For Nalgol, it wasn't really a problem. He'd pulled duty on one of the Empire's most distant listening posts when he was a cadet, and the mere fact that there was nothing outside to look at didn't bother him. But not all of the crew were as tough as he was. The vids and combat practice rooms were getting triple duty these days, and he'd heard rumors that some of the probe ship pilots were being offered huge bribes to take a passenger or two on their trips outside the darkness. At the height of the Empire's power, Star Destroyer crews had been the elite of the galaxy.