THE SKY LOOKED odd this morning, Trevik of the Midli of the Seventh of the Red thought as the Queen’s entourage left the residence wing of the palace and began the short walk to the Dwelling of Guests. Perhaps it was clouds, he thought: clouds too high and too thin for his eyes to distinguish through the mists rising from the Dreaming Waters that lay to the north of the Red City.

But he’d seen the sky through thin clouds before. More likely it was something their guest had done, the chief of the thirty beings who had arrived a month ago, creatures with yellow eyes and hair the color of a storm cloud. Had their chief not said he would protect the Red City from the evil forces gathering among the stars over Quethold?

“Drink.”

Quickly Trevik lifted the ornate bowl of nectar that he held clutched to his chest. The Queen leaned toward the bowl, her embroidered robes moving in time with the rhythmic swaying of her canopied litter, her long abdomen stretched out along the litter’s couch—

“Higher,” Borosiv of the Circling of the First of the Red growled tersely from his far less ornate litter behind the Queen’s.

Wincing, Trevik stretched up his arms, raising the bowl as high as he could. The Queen drank deeply and then straightened up again, her mandibles shaking off the last drops of the rich liquid, her eyes flicking impassively across Trevik’s face.

Trevik lowered the bowl again to his chest, feeling the thudding of his heart within his torso. Being selected to act as the Queen’s bowlcarrier was the highest honor any Midli could achieve. It was as if all the Midlis on Quethold stood behind him, just as all the Circlings stood behind Borosiv. The last thing in the world he wanted was to fail, and through that failure to bring shame to his family.

“Straighten up,” Borosiv continued in the same low, grouchy voice. “Watch the Workers. Duplicate their stance.”

Trevik swallowed, a quick flush of shame flickering across his heart. He’d been told all this earlier, of course, but in the heat of the moment he’d forgotten.

Now he looked over at line of Workers carrying the Queen’s litter. There were eight of them, their torsos held nearly vertical despite the weight of the litter on their shoulders. Each Worker’s abdomen stretched out behind him, perfectly level with the ground, with his four legs moving in precise lockstep rhythm.

Swallowing again, Trevik tried to match their stance and movement. The Queen, he’d heard, was willing to give a new bowlcarrier a certain degree of latitude on his first day. But that didn’t mean he shouldn’t try his very best.

Especially since Borosiv didn’t seem inclined to give the new Midli any of that same slack.

The Dwelling of Guests was a circular building situated in the center of the courtyard. It was small, with only a modest central gathering area on the ground floor and ten small privacy rooms on the floor above. Two of the storm-haired aliens stood at the south entryway, their strange weapons held across their shoulders as they watched the Queen and her entourage approach.

It was the closest Trevik had ever been to these particular aliens, and he eyed them curiously as he and the litters drew near. They were upright beings, unlike the Quesoth but very similar to the Quesoth’s allies, the Stromma. They had two legs, a torso with no separate abdomen, and a head topped with flowing black storm-cloud hair. Humanoid, he’d heard such beings called before.

But at least their eyes were proper, multifaceted like those of the Quesoth, though they were a bright yellow instead of Quesoth’s pale blue. Perhaps their eyes were why the Queen had chosen to defy Quethold’s old alliance with the Stromma and accept the Storm-hairs into the Red City as her guests.

Or perhaps it was because of the weapons the Storm-hairs had brought with them. Weapons more compact and powerful even than those of the Stromma.

Trevik focused on the Storm-hairs’ weapons, feeling himself suddenly tensing. Along with the twelve Workers carrying the litters, the Queen’s entourage also included twelve Soldiers, and if the Storm-hairs neglected the proper greeting the Queen might well order the aliens to be disciplined. Trevik hadn’t seen the Storm-hairs’ weapons in action, but he’d heard enough stories to know that he didn’t especially want to. Especially not at close range.

Fortunately, the Storm-hairs knew the correct protocol. “Hail, O Queen of the Red,” one of them intoned as the litter came within the prescribed five paces. “We live to serve, and die to serve.”

The Queen remained silent as the aliens pulled open the doors and the group filed through. Under the circumstances, Trevik decided, her silence was probably a good thing.

The chief of the Storm-hairs was waiting in the center of the gathering area. It was the first time Trevik had seen the area since the Queen had granted them the Dwelling, and he was struck by how alien it had become. Changes in furniture were understandable—after all, the Storm-hairs weren’t built anything like the Quesoth.

But the Storm-hairs had gone far beyond simple comfort and convenience. They had redone the entire room, from the hangings on the walls to the meditation sculptures about the walkways. In fact, even the pattern of the walkways had been changed. It was as if the Dwelling had been transformed into a part of the Storm-hairs’ own world.

“Drink.”

Trevik lifted the bowl, his heart again beginning to pound. Some of the sculptures the Storm-hairs had removed had been from the Queen’s own meditation room. Would she take offense that those treasures had been taken out of sight?

Perhaps she already had. Lifting her face from the nectar bowl, she raised her voice in the high-pitched ululations of Soldier Speak.

Trevik tensed. But the two lines of Soldiers flanking the two litters didn’t surge toward the chief Storm-hair. The commander replied in the same language, and all of the Soldiers spread out across the room toward the Dwelling’s outer doors. They passed through and disappeared into the courtyard, closing the doors behind them.

“Down,” the Queen ordered.

Trevik took a step to the side as the eight Workers carrying the litter lowered it to the floor and then knelt and curled themselves over into the Worker sign of homage. Behind the Queen’s litter, Trevik heard a softer swishing of cloth as the four Workers in the rear likewise lowered Borosiv’s litter.

The chief Storm-hair bowed low, his posture almost a caricature of the Workers’ stance. “Hail, O Queen of the Red,” he said.

Trevik frowned. Was that it? Did he not also live to serve and die to serve, as did the Quesoth and even the other Storm-hairs?

“Drink.”

Hurriedly Trevik stepped back to the litter and offered the bowl. Apparently, the chief Storm-hair had indeed finished his greeting. Even more amazing, the Queen didn’t seem offended by the lack of a death-pledge. It was almost as if she saw him as an equal, the way Trevik would see his brothers of the Seventh as equals.

But that was insane. The Queen had no equals.

The Queen finished her drink and waved Trevik away. “The threat remains, O Nuso Esva,” she said, addressing the chief Storm-hair. “My Circlings have seen the flying cities, black against the stars.”

“The threat remains, O Queen,” the chief Storm-hair—Nuso Esva—agreed. “Let us take further counsel together as to how we may deal with our common enemy.

“Let us speak to the destruction of Grand Admiral Thrawn.”

The other five members of the strategy session were already waiting in the bridge conference room of the Imperial Star Destroyer Admonitor when Senior Captain Voss Parck arrived. “My apologies, Admiral; gentles,” he said as he circled the table to the empty chair at Grand Admiral Thrawn’s right. “There was a last-minute report from the Tantsor system that I thought might be relevant to our discussion.”

“Was it?” Stromma Council Liaison Nyama asked, his grasslike fur glinting in the room’s lights, his heavy brow ridges angled over his pure black eyes, his normally snide tone even more insolent than usual.

“Yes,” Parck said, long practice enabling him not to take offense at Nyama’s manner. Loud belligerence was a universal—and highly prized—quality among the Stromma hierarchy, and the species’ military professionals were no exception. “The rumored activity turned out to be nothing but a small smuggling group. The searchers found no connection between them and Nuso Esva, and no trace of actual warships.”

“And in your vision this waste of effort constitutes progress?” Nyama scoffed.

“What Council Liaison Nyama means to ask,” a younger Stromma at Nyama’s side said in a more polite tone, “is whether clearing one system genuinely narrows the search for Nuso Esva’s remaining forces, especially when so many other possibilities remain.”

“Even negative information is useful,” Thrawn said calmly, his glowing red eyes focused on Nyama. “Particularly since the probe droids we’re leaving behind after each search ensure that Nuso Esva’s forces don’t move in behind us.”

Nyama gave a throaty snort. “We know where he is,” he said, jabbing a finger emphatically downward. “What do we care where his scattered remnant cowers?”

“Because as long as he lives, they remain a threat,” Parck said. “You of all people should have learned that, Council Liaison. You were winning in the struggle against those forces until he returned to take personal command.”

“The situation there was vastly different,” Nyama growled. “The forces on Oristrom were well supplied and well entrenched. And there were a great deal more of them.” He pointed down again. “Besides, Nuso Esva isn’t going to be leaving Quethold. Not anymore. Certainly not alive.”

“Liaison Nyama makes a valid point,” Stormtrooper Commander Balkin said from the other end of the table. “Wherever his remnant is hiding, Nuso Esva surely has insufficient ships to break through our blockade.”

“Agreed, Commander,” Thrawn said. “Unfortunately, the blockade will very soon have to be lifted. There are other matters that urgently require my attention, other threats to this region and to those who have joined the Empire of the Hand.”

“The admiral is correct,” Parck seconded. “I can name at least ten such threats right now, and there will be more to come.”

“Then make an end of him,” Balkin said firmly. “The stormtroopers of the 501st stand ready to move in and bring you his head.”

Nyama snorted again. “You have no idea what you’re saying,” he said scornfully. “You’ve never faced Quesoth Soldiers in battle. We, on the other hand, have dealt with them both as allies and as enemies. They’re bigger even than the Workers—when they rear up they’re nearly as tall as you or I—and immensely strong. They’re also fiercely loyal to their Queen, obeying her orders unquestioningly and with no consideration for their own safety. And there are thousands of them within the Red City.”

“We’ve faced loyal and numerous enemies before,” Balkin said. “These will fall just as thoroughly.”

“But at a severe cost,” Nyama warned. “Are you ready to accept such losses, Grand Admiral Thrawn?”

“I don’t accept unnecessary losses of any sort, Council Liaison,” Thrawn said, his blue-skinned face impassive. “But I was unaware that you once fought against the Quesoth.”

“It was long ago, during the foolish arrogance we called our Expansion Period,” Nyama said. For once, Parck noted with interest, the belligerent voice was almost introspective. “Even with the primitive ceremonial weapons they still use, we suffered greatly before we came to our senses and made peace with them.” His nostrils flared. “As will you if you continue this path of foolishness.”

“Perhaps someone on the council can talk to the Queen of the Red,” Parck suggested. “If you could get her to see reason—”

“Queens of Quesoth make their own reason,” Nyama said. “Whatever her logic for accepting Nuso Esva into her care, she will not be moved from it.”

“Then she will suffer,” Thrawn warned.

“We all suffer,” Nyama said flatly. “Such is the way of life.”

Parck grimaced. The Quesoth would suffer, all right, like the twenty and more species that had already suffered under Nuso Esva’s reign of terror. Ever since the alien and his people—the warriors he proudly called his “Chosen”—had emerged from a still-unidentified planet in the Unknown Regions, they’d been cutting a deadly swath through peoples, worlds, and even small federations. Of all those attacked, only Thrawn had shown the skill and resolve necessary to block Nuso Esva’s expansion and, eventually, to begin driving him back.

But victory had come with a terrible cost. The Chosen fought with fanatical zeal, and forced their client and subjugated peoples to fight alongside them with the same stubbornness.

Even worse, with every forced retreat the Chosen followed Nuso Esva’s scorched-ground policy of destroying everything they couldn’t take with them, not just weapons of war but also the means for the local populace to survive through the next winter or dry spell. Millions had died in Nuso Esva’s conquests, and millions more in the aftermath of his retreats.

Including hundreds of thousands of Stromma who’d been caught in the crossfire and scorched ground when Thrawn finally succeeded in pushing Nuso Esva off their worlds. Which, for Parck, made Nyama’s attitude that much more bewildering. Didn’t he want to see his professed allies the Quesoth freed from Nuso Esva’s bondage?

“Yet our job as civilized beings is to minimize that suffering as best we can,” Thrawn said. If he was bothered by Nyama’s apparent lack of compassion, it didn’t show in his expression or voice. “I’d like to see the records of your wars against the Quesoth. With an insectoid species, even long-past battles may give us insight.”

“Those records are old and fragmentary,” Nyama said. “They would also be useless. Right now, it is Nuso Esva’s strategy and tactics that they will use.”

“He’ll indeed be devising their overall strategy,” Thrawn said, his tone thoughtful. “But as Quesoth Soldiers still use their ancient weapons, so may they also still hold to their ancient battlefield tactics.”

Beside Balkin, TIE Squadron Commander Baron Soontir Fel stirred in his chair. “Those umbrella shields they’ve got over the central part of the city are hardly ancient weapons,” he pointed out.

“True,” Thrawn conceded. “Liaison Nyama may be right. We may indeed face a conflating of disparate tactics, a mixture that will be difficult to anticipate.” He looked at Parck. “We need information, Captain. More information; better information. We’re working blind.”

“How quickly the indomitable Master Warrior stumbles,” Nyama said sarcastically.

“What Council Liaison Nyama means”—the young conciliator spoke up again—“is that timely information is of course a necessary part of combat preparation.” His eyes flicked briefly to Nyama. “He also suggests that there may be a way to obtain the information you seek.”

Thrawn’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Continue.”

Nyama grimaced. “As I’ve already said, we’ve been allies with Quethold for many generations. As a result, we have contacts among the Quesoth of the Red. Perhaps I can speak to one of them for you.”

“You already said they were unquestioningly loyal to their Queen,” Balkin reminded him. “What good would talking to them do?”

“I said the Soldiers were loyal,” Nyama shot back. “The Soldiers and Workers are barely even intelligent, let alone able to make their own decisions. I never said that was the case with the Circlings and Midlis.”

“But they’re still loyal, aren’t they?” Balkin persisted.

“I said they can think for themselves,” Nyama all but bellowed. “Are you deaf, you bald-skinned—”

“What Council Liaison Nyama means,” the conciliator interrupted hurriedly, “is that there’s a small but growing opposition to the Queen of the Red’s alliance with Nuso Esva. If we can contact them, perhaps they can obtain the information you seek.”

Nyama glared at the conciliator, but gave a reluctant nod. “Provided you want something within their capabilities,” he growled.

“What are their capabilities?” Fel asked.

“Not much,” Nyama said. “Circlings are the Queen’s advisers and upper-tier breeders. They’re the most intelligent Quesoth, but they deal in words and thoughts, not actions. Midlis are tasked with overseeing the Workers, so they’re not that intelligent. But they can be reasoned with, and can handle equipment to a limited extent.”

“The task should be easy enough,” Thrawn assured him. “All I want is for one of them to smuggle a holocam into Nuso Esva’s chambers.”

“A holocam?” Nyama echoed disbelievingly.

“Nuso Esva had little of his own artwork with him when he fled to Quethold,” Thrawn explained. “Most of what he has will be from the Queen’s collection. I need to see which pieces he’s chosen.”

Nyama snorted and shook his head. “Your obsession with art, Grand Admiral Thrawn, is more unsettling than your obsession with Nuso Esva himself.”

“His obsession with both is what drove Nuso Esva off Oristrom and gave you the freedom to be here today,” Fel said.

Nyama glared at him. But he had no answer, and everyone in the room knew it. “You have this holocam with you?” he growled, turning back to Thrawn.

“It will be ready whenever you confirm that one of the disaffected Circlings or Midlis can get it into Nuso Esva’s chambers,” Thrawn said.

“And can then bring it out again, I suppose,” Nyama growled. He stood up abruptly. “I return now to my ship and will attempt to communicate with the dissidents. How large will this holocam be?”

“Very small,” Thrawn said, holding up his hand. “The size of one joint of my finger. We can disguise it in any way necessary to facilitate entry.”

“Perhaps it could even be planted on one of the Workers or Soldiers who attend the Queen,” Parck suggested. “I understand twelve of each accompany her wherever she goes.”

“You understand correctly,” Nyama said. “I’ll inquire as to the best way to achieve this goal, and will communicate with you when I have more to say.”

With a brisk nod to Thrawn, he turned and strode from the room, the young conciliator hurrying to keep up. The door slid shut behind them, and Thrawn looked around the table. “Comments?” he invited.

“It could work,” Parck said cautiously. “The number of variables is still uncomfortably high, though.”

“And if Nyama is typical of Stromma attitude,” Fel added, “we’d better assume we’ll be tackling Nuso Esva without them.”

“They are allies with the Quesoth, after all,” Balkin murmured. “It’s not easy to make a stand against one’s friends.”

“Especially when they figure they can just stall down the chrono,” Fel said. “Two years, isn’t it, until Nuso Esva’s time in Red City runs out?”

“Yes, if Nyama’s numbers are accurate,” Parck confirmed.

“His numbers are accurate, but his reasoning is flawed,” Thrawn said. “Nuso Esva could do an enormous amount of damage to the people of the Red City in those two years. That’s not a result I’m prepared to accept.” He hesitated. “Bear in mind, too, that Liaison Nyama speaks for the Stromma council, and some of those members still blame us for the destruction their worlds suffered.”

Fel muttered something under his breath. “I suppose they also blame their surgeons for damaging bits of good tissue when they’re cutting out the poisoned rot?”

“I don’t defend their opinions,” Thrawn said mildly. “I merely state that those opinions exist. At any rate, we cannot allow the common people of the galaxy to suffer merely because their leaders sometimes refuse to face the universe’s realities.”

“Well, the reality here is that we can finally nail this son of a—that we can nail Nuso Esva,” Fel amended hastily. “We’ve got him pinned, and there’s no place he can run. And we understand how he works.”

“True.” Thrawn smiled faintly. “More important, he understands how I work.”

“Hopefully, that will be enough,” Parck said.

Thrawn inclined his head. “We shall see.”

The sky still looked odd as Trevik left the palace at the half-darklight hour and set off down the gentle slope of the city hill and across the wide ring of Circling homes. Farther downslope, beyond the Circling ring, was the Midli area of the city where his own home was located.

The sky looked even stranger over the Circling area, he noted with interest as he walked. In places, it held the same strangely muted appearance as it did over the palace grounds. But in other, small places, the sky was as bright and blue as normal. He gazed at the wonder as he traveled, trying to figure out what it all meant.

Perhaps one of the Workers would know. They were the ones who built everything in the Red City. Trevik’s brother Jirvin was overseer of one of the Worker groups that created and serviced the city’s lighting equipment. Perhaps he would know what had happened to the sky.

A whiff of air stirred from beside him, bringing with it the scent of a Circling. Automatically, Trevik stepped to the side, out of the other’s path—

A hand closed around his arm. “Walk,” the Circling ordered quietly, steering Trevik off onto a different angle.

“Where do we go?” Trevik asked, fighting to keep up with the other’s longer stride. “My home is in a different—”

“Walk in silence,” the Circling said cutting him off.

They were well within the Midli circle when Trevik noticed that the sky had changed again. Now the areas of strangeness had become a patchwork of distinct circles, their edges almost touching, with proper sky in the gaps between them. Beyond the Midli area, Trevik could see that the strangeness ended completely across the wide expanse of Worker and Soldier homes.

He was still wondering at the sight when the Circling guided him to one of the Midli homes. The door opened as they approached, and with the Circling still urging him forward, Trevik stepped beneath the lintel.

There were three other Midlis awaiting them in the house’s sharing room. Two were strangers; the third—

Trevik gasped. “Jirvin?”

“Hello, my brother,” Jirvin of the Midli of the Seventh of the Red greeted him, his voice solemn. “Please forgive the manner of your coming. It was vital that we speak to you immediately.”

“You could have simply called me on the farspeak when I reached my house,” Trevik said.

“It was equally vital that we speak to you in a manner that the Storm-hairs could not overhear,” Jirvin said. “Please; seat yourself.”

For a long moment, Trevik thought about turning and walking out. But the Circling who had brought him here had planted himself beneath the lintel. With an unpleasant sensation twitching up his legs, Trevik slowly crossed to one of the couches and lowered himself gingerly onto it. “What is it you wish to say?” he asked.

He saw Jirvin brace himself. “We believe, my brother, that the Red City stands on the brink of destruction,” he said. “We believe that the Queen of the Red has been led by deceit into allying herself with Nuso Esva.”

“Impossible.” The word burst from Trevik’s mouth without conscious thought. “The Queen is all-knowing and capable of infinite depth of thought. No alien being could sway her mind to such an extent.”

“Nevertheless, we believe that such has indeed occurred,” Jirvin said. “We further believe that something must be done to prevent the imminent destruction of our city. Perhaps even our entire world.”

Trevik stared at him. “What exactly are you saying, my brother?” he asked carefully.

“I’m saying that the being Thrawn of the First of the Chiss of the Empire of the Hand is not the great enemy that Nuso Esva has named him,” Jirvin said. “We have spoken to one of the Stromma, who has revealed to us the true natures of Thrawn and Nuso Esva.”

“And?”

“And we”—Jirvin waved a hand to encompass the entire sharing room—“have thus chosen to join ourselves with our Stromma friends. With them, and with Thrawn.”

Furtively, Trevik looked again at the doorway. But the Circling was still standing beneath the lintel, blocking any chance of easy escape. “Why are you telling me all this?” he asked, turning back to his brother.

“Thrawn urgently needs information if we are to defeat Nuso Esva and free our Queen from his grasp,” Jirvin said. “You, my brother, are the only one who can obtain that information.”

“Impossible,” Trevik repeated, the word again escaping his mouth without thought. “I’m a loyal Midli. More than that, I’m the Queen’s own bowlcarrier.”

“You’ve been bowlcarrier for a single day,” one of the other Midlis scoffed. “Don’t make it sound as if your entire past and family honor are at risk.”

“My past may not be at risk, but my family honor surely is,” Trevik insisted. “Regardless, I cannot betray my Queen in such a way.”

“She is no longer your Queen,” the Circling at the door rumbled. “She has become merely a hand tool of Nuso Esva.”

“I cannot and will not believe that,” Trevik shot back. “The Queen seeks only what is best for her people, and for all the people of Quethold.” He leveled two fingers at the Circling. “It is this Thrawn who is the enemy. I have heard Nuso Esva say so.”

“Have you heard the Queen herself say so?” Jirvin asked.

Trevik turned back to him, a quick and scathing response boiling up from within him.

Then he paused, the words unspoken. Had the Queen actually said such words in his presence? Now that he thought about it, he couldn’t remember her doing so. “It doesn’t matter,” he said stubbornly. “Nuso Esva is here, and he is the Queen’s guest.”

“He is her captor, not her guest,” the Circling said. “You would serve the Queen better by allying yourself with us than by standing idly by as he exploits her.”

“You’ve offered no proof of that,” Trevik insisted.

“You’ve offered no proof to the contrary.”

Trevik hissed. “Your challenge is useless. How does one prove a negative?”

“By taking the holocam our Stromma friends have given us,” Jirvin said, his voice low and earnest. “By taking pictures of the Queen, and of Nuso Esva, and of the artwork with which he has decorated the Dwelling of Guests, so that we may learn the truth.”

Trevik blinked. “The artwork?”

“Thrawn is able to read the hidden hearts of people through their choice of artwork,” Jirvin said. “Or so the Stromma claims.”

“The pictures will also prove that the Queen is with Nuso Esva of her own free will,” the Circling added. “If, indeed, she is.”

“If she allies herself freely with him, then we shall cease our efforts here,” Jirvin assured Trevik. “Like you, my brother, we seek only what is best for our Queen, our city, and our world.”

Trevik lowered his gaze to the floor. The Queen had accepted Nuso Esva as her guest—he was sure of it. But there was no way to prove that to Jirvin and the others except by doing what they asked. “Very well,” he said, the words stinging his throat. “Where is this holocam?”

Jirvin rose from his couch and pulled a small, flat object from one of his vest pockets. “Here,” he said, laying it across Trevik’s hand.

Trevik frowned. The device was smaller than even the smallest of his fingers. “This is a cam?”

“It is,” Jirvin confirmed. “You’ll note it has the same texture and color pattern as your official bowlcarrier vest. Once secured there, it will be invisible to even the most strong-eyed observer.”

He was right on that one, at least, Trevik had to admit. The cam would blend in perfectly. Whoever this Stromma was, he knew precisely how a bowlcarrier’s vest looked. “How do I operate it?”

“You touch the upper right corner as you arrive at the Dwelling of Guests,” Jirvin said. “The cam itself will do the rest.”

“And make certain that it faces each piece of Nuso Esva’s artwork during the time you’re in the dwelling,” the Circling added.

“I will.” Trevik drew himself up. “And I will bring proof that the Queen has indeed chosen Nuso Esva as our ally. Then will you cease this foolishness?”

“If you bring back such proof, we will cease,” Jirvin promised. “But if the proof is of her captivity under Nuso Esva’s strength of mind, then our opposition to his presence will continue.”

Trevik grimaced. How does one prove a negative? But it was clear that this was the best he was going to get. “I will bring the cam back at this hour tomorrow,” he said, rising from the couch. “And then you will cease.”

“Agreed,” the Circling said, finally stepping away from beneath the lintel. “Farewell. May you eat and sleep deeply.”

“May you eat and sleep deeply,” Trevik replied with a sinking heart.

A minute later he was once again walking beneath the strange sky, heading toward his home. Surely he was right. Surely the Queen had chosen Nuso Esva as her ally of her own free will and depth of thought.

But if she hadn’t, what did that mean for her? What would it mean for the rest of the Quesoth?

More immediately, what would it mean to Trevik if he was caught spying for Thrawn?

He had no way of knowing. But he was certain that it would not be pleasant.

Trevik slept poorly that night, and his food was equally unsatisfying. He woke early, groomed himself with extra care, and made certain he was at the palace a few minutes earlier than required. The nectar bowl was waiting for him beside the Queen’s litter in the welcoming chamber, along with the Workers who would carry the two litters and half of the Soldiers who would escort them. Borosiv arrived a few minutes later and without a word took his place on the smaller litter.

His timing was perfect, as was only proper for the Circling who was the chosen attendant to the Queen. Barely a minute after Borosiv had settled into place, the inner doors opened and the Queen strode into the welcoming chamber, flanked by the other six Soldiers of their guard. She climbed up onto her couch, and the Workers hoisted both litters to their shoulders.

And with Trevik trying not to look as nervous as he felt, the group headed out the door and across the courtyard to the Dwelling of Guests.

After all of the evening’s worry and the night’s fitful sleep, the day turned out to be a welcome anticlimax. No one spotted the cam, nestled into the pattern on Trevik’s vest, and it was easier than he’d expected to surreptitiously take the pictures that Jirvin wanted. By the time the Queen recalled her Soldiers from their defensive ring outside the Dwelling and the group returned to the palace for her midday meal, he had managed to face the holocam toward every one of Nuso Esva’s chosen artworks. After the meal, when they had returned to the Dwelling for more talk with Nuso Esva, he made sure to take a few more pictures.

There was one other big difference between Trevik’s first and second days as the Queen’s bowlcarrier. The day before, his mind had been fully occupied with keeping himself motionless and the bowl level. Today, after all those strange things Jirvin had said, he made an effort to listen to the conversation.

It was confusing. That didn’t surprise Trevik—this was the Queen of the Red, after all, along with an alien she found intelligent enough to spend hours conversing with. Their talk was probably above even the wisdom and intelligence of a Circling, let alone a mere Midli like himself.

But the parts he did understand were disturbing. There was talk of shuttles, and of the building of fighter aircraft, and of weapons that were either hidden or soon would be. There was talk of umbrella shields, and traps, and more hidden weapons.

And there was a great deal of talk about death.

But none of that was important. What mattered was that the Queen was clearly not a prisoner of Nuso Esva and the rest of the Storm-hairs.

Later that evening, as he returned the cam to Jirvin, he told his brother exactly that. Jirvin said nothing, except to reaffirm his promise that he and the others would end their opposition to the Queen if the record bore out Trevik’s own observations. His unexpected and unwanted mission finally ended, Trevik again made his way to his home.

And that night, he did eat and sleep deeply.

The recorder erupted with a bewildering cacophony of squeaks, clicks, and squealings. “Go through the Dwelling doors,” Nyama translated, his ears twitching with concentration as he listened to the recording their Circling contact had delivered an hour ago. “Surround and protect the Guests.”

There was another squeal. “We obey the Queen,” Nyama translated. There was a faint scuffling of feet, then the sound of opening and closing doors. “And they’re gone,” Nyama added, leaning back in his seat. “Everything else from now on should be in Quesoth Common Speak. Which I presume you understand.”

“We do,” Parck said, looking at Thrawn at the head of the conference table. The Grand Admiral’s glowing eyes were narrowed, his full attention apparently on the photos of the Dwelling of Guests artwork that the secret recorder had also provided. “What do you know about Soldier Speak, Liaison Nyama?” Parck asked as he keyed for a quick-search of the audio track.

The Stromma gave a snort. “Obviously, I can understand it,” he said. “What else is there to know?”

“What Council Liaison Nyama means,” the conciliator put in, “is that there is nothing more that anyone except a Quesoth Queen and Soldier can know. It is a highly secret language.”

“Yet you know it,” Parck pointed out. “So do several of our Stromma recruits.”

“Including two of my stormtroopers,” Balkin said.

“And will understanding gain you anything?” Nyama shot back. “I tell you right now that it will not. We’ve fought the Quesoth, Captain Parck. All that an understanding of Soldier Speak will gain you is the brief advantage of knowing which of your troops will be the next to die.”

“Which can also be useful,” Thrawn said, looking up from his datapad. “More important, understanding a language is the first step toward speaking or otherwise reproducing it.”

“No,” Nyama said flatly. “There’s no reproducing of Soldier Speak. Believe me, Admiral Thrawn, we tried.”

“That was a long time ago,” Thrawn reminded him. “We have resources that weren’t available to you back then.”

“There’s no reproducing of Soldier Speak,” Nyama repeated, his tone sharper this time. “Queens have a unique set of vocal cords and resonance cavities, which even Soldiers themselves don’t have. Besides that, Soldier language utilizes at least five different resonances and pitch variants, not to mention an entirely different vocabulary from Common Speak. The fourteen loudspeakers they’ve set up beneath the umbrella shield zone have to be specially designed to handle that entire range.”

“So they don’t use comlinks in battle?” Fel asked.

“Weren’t you listening?” Nyama ground out. “I said they needed special loudspeakers. No comlink ever built can even come close to handling the necessary frequency range. Their speakers are simply too small.”

“Yes, we heard you,” Fel said. “So if we can knock out the loudspeakers, we’ll cut off all communication between the Queen and her troops.”

“For all the gain that will bring you,” Nyama said contemptuously. “They’ll just continue to follow their previous orders. Most likely something simple like ‘Kill all the attackers.’ ”

“There may be other ways to exploit that sort of communications system,” Thrawn said.

Nyama snorted. “If you think that—”

“Wait—here comes more Soldier Speak,” Parck interrupted as the computer caught the language keys. He turned up the volume, wincing as the squealing sounds again assaulted his ears.

The monologue was short. “Liaison Nyama?” Parck invited.

“Nothing useful,” Nyama said. “Soldiers: escort your Queen to the Palace.”

“I thought all the Soldiers were outside,” Fel said.

“There are air vents near the ceiling,” Thrawn said, his eyes back on the pictures the holocam had taken. “They can hear her commands through those.”

But now Parck could see that the tension lines in his commander’s face had smoothed out. “You found something, Admiral?” he asked.

“I believe I may have found the solution,” Thrawn said, laying the datapad aside. “From the artwork Nuso Esva has chosen to surround himself with, I anticipate he’ll deploy most of his forces at the western edge of the city, clustered around Setting Sun Avenue.”

Surreptitiously, Parck looked at Nyama. Thrawn’s unique ability to read a species’ deepest psychological core by studying its artwork was one of his greatest strengths, enabling him to anticipate his opponents’ moves right down to their likely battlefield tactics. New allies seeing it demonstrated for the first time inevitably reacted with surprise, awe, or disbelief.

Nyama was apparently going for option three. “Brilliantly anticipated,” the Stromma said sarcastically. “Of course he’ll concentrate his forces there—that’s the only spot on the perimeter where your juggernaut heavy tanks can enter the city. Everywhere else Nuso Esva’s umbrella shields are angled at the edges to block vehicles of any size.”

“Which suggests Setting Sun Avenue is the entrance to a trap,” Balkin suggested.

“Indeed,” Thrawn agreed calmly. “Because the area won’t be guarded solely by Quesoth Soldiers. He’ll also have a number of heavy-weapons emplacements concealed along the route, waiting for our juggernauts. As our forces enter the city, he’ll angle the umbrella shields downward along the route, protecting the shields’ generators from the juggernauts’ fire, as well as preventing the tanks from straying off that path. Once the juggernauts have penetrated a predetermined distance into the city, he’ll blast the first and last ones in line, thereby trapping all the others. At that point, he can destroy them at his leisure.”

Parck nodded, a sour taste in his mouth. It was a tactic they’d seen Nuso Esva use to devastating effect in previous encounters against some of the Empire of the Hand’s other allies. “So how do we counter it?” he asked.

“We first let him think his plan is working,” Thrawn said. “That means sending the line of juggernauts in as he expects.” His eyes glittered. “But before he can launch his attack, we destroy the trap.”

“Allow me to guess,” Nyama growled. “Squadron Commander Fel and his oh-so expert TIE pilots fly in through the gaps between the umbrella shields and blast the hidden guns.”

“You scoff, but it’s actually quite possible,” Fel said. “The shields don’t overlap nearly as well as they should. There are numerous gaps between them, including at least one along one of the steepest parts of the main city hill that’s big enough to fly through if we come in at just the right angle. Once we’re in and below the level of the shields, everything but the palace and palace grounds should be wide open to us.”

“That assumes your pilots are able to insert at the necessary angle,” Nyama countered. “In the heat and flurry of battle, such precision would be impossible.”

Fel shrugged. “Impossible is Gray Squadron’s specialty.”

“And what of the laser cannons spread throughout the city?” Nyama persisted. “We gave them those cannons, Commander Fel, years before Nuso Esva’s intrusion into this region. Each cannon is twin-barreled, with rapid-fire capabilities and enough power to take out one of your vaunted TIE fighters with a single shot. And they have massive forward shield plates, which makes them nearly impossible to destroy along their own fire-lines.”

“But they have only manual targeting,” Thrawn reminded them. “And the very shields that protect them also make them heavy and unwieldy. Even Nuso Esva’s most expert gunners will have trouble with TIE attack speeds.”

“Unless the TIE is coming straight at them, as is the case with Commander Fel’s scenario,” Nyama said acidly. “No, Admiral Thrawn. Trust me: your TIE fighters will be useless in this battle.”

“Perhaps,” Thrawn said. “We shall see.”

“We shall see?” Nyama echoed. “Tell me, Admiral: if the Admonitor’s turbolasers are incapable of penetrating the shields, your TIEs certainly won’t be able to do so. What then will you have them do? Destroy the homes of the Workers and Soldiers that lie outside the shield zone?”

“We do not make war on civilians, Liaison Nyama,” Thrawn said, his voice suddenly cold and brittle. “A fact you well know.”

For a second Nyama’s antagonism seemed to waver. Then, his natural Stromma leadership attitude reasserted itself. “Then what will they do?” he demanded.

“As Commander Fel has already stated, there are gaps between the shields,” Thrawn said. “While the juggernauts move into the city, the TIEs will be shooting through those gaps with the goal of demolishing one or more of the shield generators.”

“Generators that are protected by the very shields they create?” Nyama scoffed. “You can’t hit the generators unless you’re already beneath the shields.”

“Unless it happens that a gap between two shields opens up a targeting vector to a third,” Thrawn pointed out. “I admit the probability is low, but as Commander Fel pointed out, the coverage is not as good as it would have been if Nuso Esva had had more shields available. And if such an attack succeeds, the TIEs will be in position to take full advantage of the situation. But no, the downfall of Nuso Esva’s plan will not be our TIE fighters, but our stormtroopers.”

“Your stormtroopers?”

Across the table, Balkin stirred at the implied slight against his forces. Thrawn’s hand twitched a warning, and the other subsided.

“Nuso Esva will have instructed the Queen to array the bulk of her Soldiers along Setting Sun Avenue to prevent a sortie from the juggernauts,” the admiral said. “We’ll therefore send a small stormtrooper force into the city southwest of the main assault, angle up toward the juggernaut line’s southern flank, and attack the avenue’s shield generators from behind.”

Nyama shook his head. “Nuso Esva will not sit idly by and let that happen. Nor will the Queen of the Red. The Soldiers lining the attack route will simply turn around and swarm against the stormtroopers.”

“Of course they will,” Thrawn said. “When that happens, the stormtroopers will retreat, drawing them still farther from the juggernauts and the shields.” He smiled slightly. “And when they’re too far back to respond, the stormtroopers inside the tanks will emerge, cut their way through the remaining Soldiers, and destroy the shields.”

Nyama snorted. “And all this against Quesoth Soldiers? You have far too much confidence in your humans, Admiral Thrawn.”

“The stormtroopers of the 501st consist of humans and nonhumans,” Thrawn reminded him calmly. “Including a number of your own people.”

“Not anymore.” Abruptly, Nyama stood up. “I’ve heard enough. The Stromma council will not risk its warriors in this mad attack. Particularly not an attack against our allies. I hereby withdraw all of them from Imperial service, effective immediately.”

Beside him, the conciliator’s mouth dropped open in clear disbelief. “What Council Liaison Nyama means—”

“Council Liaison Nyama means exactly what he says,” Nyama interrupted. “Give the orders, Admiral Thrawn. Or I will give them for you.”

For a long moment, the room seemed to quiver with the silence of approaching death. Nyama loomed over the still-seated Thrawn like a grass-covered mountain, his black eyes hard, his mouth set at an angle that warned against argument.

Thrawn stirred. “Very well, Council Liaison,” he said. “If you don’t wish to assist in freeing your allies from bondage, your people will be ordered to your carriers.”

“What I don’t wish is for my people to die for nothing,” Nyama ground out. “And it will be for nothing. In two years Nuso Esva and the remnant of his Chosen will find themselves masters of a deserted city. If at that time you still insist on having your vengeance, we will gladly march in alongside you and sing a song to your honor as you destroy him. But I won’t waste my people in a useless and futile battle.”

He glared at the conciliator, as if daring the younger Stromma to dare try to soften his words. But the conciliator had learned his lesson, and remained silent.

“Nuso Esva can do a great deal of damage in those two years,” Parck said. It wasn’t a particularly politic thing to do, he knew, speaking words of contradiction to a Stromma council liaison. But he had no intention of letting his commander take the full brunt of Nyama’s contempt alone. “And there are manufacturing facilities below Red City that he might use to devastating effect. Are you willing to simply stand aside and watch all that happen?”

“The Queen of the Red invited Nuso Esva into her city,” Nyama said, sending an acid-edged glare at Parck. “Whatever happens now is on her head, and upon the heads of her people.”

He turned back to Thrawn. “I return to my shuttle, Admiral Thrawn. I expect all Stromma under your command to be assembled at the Admonitor’s hangar bay within the hour.”

“I’ll give the order,” Thrawn said.

Nyama held the admiral’s gaze another two seconds, then stepped away from the table and strode from the room.

The conciliator stood up, his face pained. “Admiral—”

“Go with your superior,” Thrawn said, his face impassive.

The younger Stromma looked helplessly at the others around the table, then nodded and left without another word.

“Well,” Fel said into the silence. “That went well.”

“Hardly unexpected, though,” Parck agreed heavily.

“True.” Fel cocked an eyebrow at Thrawn. “You do know, Admiral, that I wasn’t exaggerating about the size of that gap. You come in at the wrong angle and graze one of those shields, and it’ll blow off that section of wing and give you enough spin to send you spiraling straight into the ground.”

“I have full confidence that you and your pilots will make it work, Commander.” Thrawn turned to Balkin. “As I also have confidence that you and your stormtroopers will do their part.”

“We will, Admiral,” Balkin said quietly.

“So the plan’s still on?” Parck asked.

“It is,” Thrawn confirmed.

Parck felt his lip twitch. “I have spoken to some of the other Stromma who understand Quesoth Soldier Speak,” he said. “They say that even if we’re able to record enough of the Queen’s orders during the battle, it’ll be impossible to pick-and-stitch the words together to create counter-orders of our own.”

“My Stromma trainees say the same thing,” Balkin confirmed. “There’s some kind of pitch rhythm in the subharmonics that a set of randomly stitched words won’t be able to match.”

“We shall see,” Thrawn said. “Are there any other thoughts or concerns?”

Parck looked around the table. No one seemed inclined to say anything more. “Then you’re dismissed,” Thrawn said formally. “Make your final preparations, then get your forces fed and to sleep.”

His eyes glittered. “Tomorrow, at midmorning, we attack.”

It was not in the nature of Imperial stormtroopers to hide themselves from view. Their entire attitude and training, not to mention their gleaming white armor, tended in exactly the opposite direction.

Nevertheless, stormtrooper Lhagva of the Stromma contingent was trying to stay out of everyone’s sight.

For the first hour he succeeded, running a quiet path between the Admonitor’s main trooper kitchen area and the equipment storage facility, choosing a route senior officers seldom traveled unless they had a reason to be there. He kept an ear cocked as he strode silently along, listening for loud voices and stern, determined footsteps.

He was ten minutes into the second hour when his luck ran out. Rounding a stack of safety-webbed crates, he ran smack into Line Lieutenant Dramos Sanjin, perched casually on the saddle of a Mobquet reconnaissance swoop.

“Stormtrooper Lhagva,” Sanjin said with an air of clearly artificial casualness. “You seem to have missed the order that all Stromma aboard the Admonitor were to report to the Number Three hangar deck for disembarkation.”

“My apologies, Lieutenant,” Lhagva said, striving for the right mix of surprise and chagrin. “I’ve been having trouble with my hearing lately.”

“Really,” Sanjin said. “You didn’t seem to have any trouble with Commander Balkin’s order to report to the practice range earlier this afternoon.”

Lhagva grimaced. Sanjin had him, and there really was no point in carrying on the charade any longer. “I heard a rumor that all the Stromma were being taken off in advance of the attack,” he said. “I wanted to stay.”

“You feel entitled to ignore orders you don’t feel like obeying?”

“You need me, Lieutenant,” Lhagva said, painfully aware that he was walking on extremely thin stone here. “Puriv and I are the only ones in the assault force who understand Quesoth Soldier Speak. We’re the only ones who can give you any advance warning of what the Queen of the Red is ordering her forces to do.”

“Yet Puriv left the Admonitor as ordered,” Sanjin said. “Are you saying he doesn’t have the same loyalty to the unit that you do?”

“Puriv has a family, and a strong family honor that he must uphold,” Lhagva said. “Disobeying his orders would shame them all.”

“Whereas you’re an orphan who has no one to shame?”

“I’m an orphan who will dishonor no one but myself,” Lhagva corrected. “I’m willing to accept that shame.”

“Stromma discipline can be harsh,” Sanjin warned. “Imperial discipline can be even worse.”

“I understand,” Lhagva said. “Discipline or discharge me as you must, Lieutenant. But I beg you, don’t do either until after tomorrow.”

Sanjin studied Lhagva’s face. “You feel that strongly about this battle?”

“The Quesoth are Stromma allies,” Lhagva said. “More than that, I spent two years in the Stromma diplomatic enclave at the edge of the Black City. I like these people, and I don’t want to see them destroyed.”

“And you think that likely?”

“If Nuso Esva isn’t stopped, it’s the only possible outcome,” Lhagva said. “If he succeeds in holding the Red City, it’ll be only a matter of time before he also takes the White City, then the Black City, and then the entire planet.”

“And you want to see him stopped.”

“Yes, sir, I do.”

“Even at the risk of your own life and honor?”

“I’m an Imperial stormtrooper, Lieutenant,” Lhagva said. “I live or die at the pleasure of my superiors and my commander.”

“And if it pleases those same superiors for you to sit this one out?”

Lhagva swallowed hard, wishing he could read Sanjin’s face. But human expressions were always so hard for him to penetrate. “Then I will resign my commission and accompany my former unit to the surface as a civilian,” he said. “Stowing away aboard the transport if need be.”

For a dozen heartbeats Sanjin just gazed at him. “This hearing problem of yours,” he said at last. “Comes and goes, does it?”

It took Lhagva a moment to figure out what Sanjin was talking about. And there was a strange look the human’s eye…“Yes, sir, it does,” he said. “As I said earlier—”

“Sounds serious,” Sanjin cut in. “You’d better report to the medical bay. I’ll let the Stromma liaison officer know that you’ll be remaining aboard until the diagnostic droids have come up with a reading and a course of treatment.” He cocked his head. “I’m sure you’ll be ordered to remain in the bay until the assault transports have all launched at midmorning tomorrow.”

“Hopefully, my hearing will be functional when that order is given.” Lhagva bowed his head. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Sanjin warned. “Better yet, don’t thank me at all. If we’re both still alive this time tomorrow Captain Parck will probably flay both of us alive. That is, if Commander Balkin doesn’t get to us first.” He gestured. “Get to the medical bay, and then get some rest. One way or the other, tomorrow is likely to end badly.”

It was midmorning, and Trevik was once again holding the nectar bowl at the Queen’s side when one of the Storm-hairs came unexpectedly into the Dwelling of Guests with an urgent report.

The forces of Grand Admiral Thrawn had left the star caravan and were moving toward the edges of the Red City.

“Excellent,” Nuso Esva said with an almost eager satisfaction in his voice. “All is prepared?”

“All is prepared,” the other Storm-hair confirmed.

Nuso Esva turned to the Queen. “Your forces are also arrayed as I ordered, O Queen?”

Trevik’s eyes flicked sideways to the Queen’s litter. The Queen’s Soldiers, as Nuso Esva had ordered? Had ordered?

Such blatant effrontery should have earned Nuso Esva words of sharp rebuke, possibly even death at the hands of the Soldiers standing their usual guard outside the Dwelling. But to Trevik’s even greater surprise, the Queen made neither response. “They are so arrayed,” she said instead. “You are certain your weapons can stop the invading forces?”

“They will do more than simply stop them, O Queen,” Nuso Esva said with grim satisfaction. “Today is the beginning of your final dominion over this world.”

Again, Trevik looked sideways at the Queen. But this time, his surreptitious glance was accompanied by a surge of unpleasantness that curled through him like a plume of black smoke. What did Nuso Esva mean by dominion? In two years the Queen of the White would arise, the air would change, and the Queen of the Red would die. The Circlings would go into hibernation in the lower citadel of the palace, where they would arise and breed a new Queen when their part of the cycle came again. Once the citadel had been sealed, the Midlis, Soldiers, and Workers would start the long journey to the White City; there, those who survived the ordeal would join in with the Queen of the White’s offspring. Eighteen years later, the Queen of the Black would arise, and the cycle would begin anew.

But the Queen of the Red—the current Queen of the Red—would still be long dead. What could Nuso Esva possibly mean by speaking to her of dominion over Quethold?

Trevik had no idea. He also had no doubt that, whatever the meaning, he wasn’t going to like it.

The eight transports put down at the edge of the Red City, landing in a widely spaced semicircle in the fields just outside the outermost ring of Worker homes. The arrangement of the semicircle was typically Thrawn, Fel saw as he and his three squadrons of TIE fighters flew cover over the landing site. Setting Sun Avenue, the road that led due east into the city, was the designated entry point, and Fel had known commanders who would have automatically centered the force on that vector so as to provide maximum flanking cover to the main thrust.

But Thrawn did things with a bit more subtlety. This semicircle was centered instead on a creek that flowed west-southwest across the city, crossing the line of transports about half a kilometer south of Setting Sun Avenue. The gently sloping banks of the creek offered another wide entry point, one that a clever and unconventional commander might choose to exploit. It was certainly a tactic Thrawn might use, and one Nuso Esva would surely anticipate.

Sure enough, Fel could see movement now in the inner parts of the city, the Midli and Circling areas protected by Nuso Esva’s umbrella shields. Some of the Quesoth Soldiers who had been deployed there were leaving the center city and moving down the hill along the creek-bed toward the handful of natural strongpoints on the banks.

Fel smiled tightly. Nuso Esva didn’t know that most of the transports arrayed against him, including the one positioned along the streambed, were just for show.

“Commander Fel?” Thrawn’s voice came through Fel’s helmet comlink.

“No resistance so far, Admiral,” Fel reported. “I have Soldiers redeploying to the stream, but so far everyone’s staying well back inside the shield zone.”

“Any of the laser cannons in evidence?”

Fel took a moment to glance at his fighter’s compact tactical board, wishing briefly that he was in his usual TIE interceptor with its better instrument array. But of course, the newer, sleeker interceptor wouldn’t have worked nearly so well with this particular mission. “Nothing visible,” he said. “Shall I make a pass across the larger holes in the shield array and see if I can draw some fire?”

“Not yet, Commander,” Thrawn said with that mixture of respect, patience, and amusement that Fel had noted the Grand Admiral always seemed to use with him. “Are we intercepting any of the Queen’s orders yet?”

“Negative on that, too, sir,” Fel said. “We’re probably still too far out to pick up anything from the loudspeakers.”

“Stay on it,” Thrawn instructed him. “I want to know the minute you start hearing Soldier Speak. Armor Commander?”

“Armor Commander,” said a flat nonhuman voice coming into the circuit.

“Are the juggernauts ready?”

“They are.”

“Deploy juggernauts.”

Fel turned his fighter into a tight curve back toward the transport that lay across Setting Sun Avenue. The access door slid up into the curved top of the vehicle and a juggernaut rolled into view, twenty-two meters’ worth of weapons and heavy armor, moving a little awkwardly on its ten wheels as it maneuvered itself onto the road. It had stabilized itself and started toward the city when the second tank appeared, following in the track marks of the first. It, too, made it onto the road just as the one behind it emerged into view.

Fel nodded to himself and turned into another curve back toward the city. If the first three juggernauts had made it out all right, he had no doubt that the remaining six would do likewise.

Meanwhile, his TIEs had another job to do. “Gray Squadron, form up around me,” Fel called into his comlink. “Blanket sweep over the city. Let’s see what sort of holes we can find to shoot through.”

The fourth of the nine juggernaut tanks had emerged in the distance when Lhagva’s squad rolled out of their transport on the first of the attack force’s three A-rack carriers.

The A-rack was a simple device, one that Lhagva was told had been adopted from one of Thrawn’s other liberated worlds. It looked very much like an A-frame, fold-up clothing roller of the type he’d seen being pushed or pulled along busy walkways back in his own home city’s garment district. The A-rack, though, was much sturdier than those, with oversized wheels, a top-mounted E-Web/M heavy repeating blaster, a center-mounted engine, and enough room on each side for five stormtroopers to stand facing outward. With the pair of cramped seats in the center section for the driver and gunner, the carrier could transport a full stormtrooper squad quickly and efficiently across medium-rough terrain.

The downside, which Lhagva always thought about when he rode one of the things, was that it also left the squad bunched close together and thus vulnerable to ambush.

But so far the enemy here hadn’t made any such moves. The houses the three A-racks rolled past were showing no signs of life, not even the occasional furtive peek by a curious face at any of the windows. The Workers were apparently all out of the city as usual for this time of the morning, laboring in the fields, forests, and mines stretching out beyond the urban area.

As for the Soldiers, most of those Lhagva could see from his angle were gathered in clumps along the juggernauts’ line of travel a few hundred meters to the north. Their backs were to the incoming A-racks, with no indication that they were even aware that three squads of stormtroopers were coming toward them from the south. It was as if Thrawn had completely blindsided Nuso Esva and the Queen of the Red.

Lhagva didn’t believe it for a minute.

“Tighten it up, troopers,” Sanjin called from the A-rack’s gunner’s seat. “Things are about to get hot.”

Lhagva shot a quick look upward. They’d reached the outer circle of Midli houses, and the sky above them had gone dark and shimmery as they passed beneath the edge of the city’s new patchwork of umbrella shields. From this point on, Commander Fel’s TIEs would be unable to provide the stormtroopers with any cover fire.

Readjusting his grip on his BlasTech E-11 blaster rifle, Lhagva returned his attention to the houses and open areas on his side of the A-rack. Whatever Nuso Esva was planning, he knew, the battle was about to begin.

“Excellent,” Nuso Esva said, his lips curled back, his faceted yellow eyes intent on the line of eight large monitors the other Storm-hairs had set up in the Dwelling of Guests gathering area. “Thrawn is nothing if not always precisely on schedule.” He gestured to one of the monitors. “Observe, O Queen. Here come his soldiers.”

The Queen leaned closer toward the image. Surreptitiously, Trevik did the same. The white-armored soldiers were heading northward through the southwestern part of the city, riding on three bouncy and fragile-looking metal frameworks. On one of the other monitors, larger, more substantial vehicles were rumbling into the city along Setting Sun Avenue.

And just like the soldiers, the large vehicles were moving in a straight line. Trevik didn’t know much about tactics, but even to him that seemed foolish.

It apparently seemed that way to the Queen, as well. “I will order my Soldiers to attack,” she said, picking up the special farspeak that rested beside her armrest, its wires snaking across the room to the connector in the wall. “They will make short work of them.”

“Not yet,” Nuso Esva said, holding out a hand. “Not yet.”

Trevik flinched. The outstretched hand was a signal of command, a gesture Trevik had used many times when overseeing Workers and one that he’d received in turn from senior Midlis and occasional Circlings.

No one ever used such a gesture toward the Queen of the Red. Ever. The very thought of such a blatant insult was both fantastic and outrageous.

Yet once again, the Queen gave no indication of such outrage. “Then when?” she simply asked.

“Be patient, O Queen,” Nuso Esva said. To Trevik’s relief, he lowered the discourteous hand again to his side. “The enemy fighter craft are about to make their first attempt to enter through my trap. When they do, my soldiers will open fire with the blaster cannons I set up in concealment—”

“The guns my Workers set up in concealment,” the Queen corrected him.

Nuso Esva’s eyes might have glittered with new fire. Trevik wasn’t certain. “The cannons your Workers set up,” he amended coolly. “Once they open fire, destroying or scattering the fighter craft, the cannons that I”—he inclined his head—“the cannons that your Workers set up along Setting Sun Avenue will destroy the first and last juggernauts in line. Then you will order your Soldiers to destroy the stormtroopers. All is as I predicted.”

Nuso Esva turned his eyes on Trevik. “Exactly as I predicted,” he added.

“Yes,” the Queen said, and out of the corner of his eye Trevik saw her turn to him. Automatically, he lifted the bowl as he likewise turned to face her.

But to his surprise she didn’t drink. To his even greater surprise, she continued to stare at him. “O Queen?” he asked, not knowing what else to say.

“Nuso Esva of the First of the Storm-hairs did indeed predict all,” she said. “You, Trevik of the Midli of the Seventh of the Red, have betrayed me.”

Trevik froze, a horrible flood of fear and shame exploding inside him. She knew. She knew about his brother Jirvin and the others who’d been in the house that evening. She knew about the cam Trevik had brought into the Dwelling of Guests. She knew that Trevik had given that cam to his brother, who had then given it to the enemy Thrawn.

And Trevik knew that he was dead. The Queen would call in her Soldiers from outside, and they would kill him—

“Calm yourself, O Queen,” Nuso Esva said calmly. “You’re frightening him. At any rate, it’s hardly betrayal when his actions are a deliberate and necessary part of a plan.”

“His actions may have been a part of your plan,” the Queen said, still staring at Trevik. “But in his hidden heart, the Midli committed treason against his Queen.”

“We thought he was controlling you,” Trevik breathed, finally finding his voice. “I was told he was controlling you.”

“No one controls a Queen of the Quesoth,” the Queen said darkly. “It is she who controls.”

“Which you should have realized from the beginning,” Nuso Esva said. “How else do you think that Circling was actually willing to pretend to treason? He acted that way under his Queen’s orders so that he could persuade you to take the pictures I wanted Thrawn to have.”

Trevik tore his gaze away from the Queen’s stare. “To persuade…,” he began weakly.

“Pictures of these,” Nuso Esva said, waving a hand toward the walls of the gathering area. Even with his alien face and voice it was impossible for Trevik to miss his deep and malicious satisfaction. “Artwork carefully selected to lead our oh-so-clever Grand Admiral to exactly the wrong conclusions about my strategy.”

Trevik could feel his breath coming in short, painful gasps. Jirvin had also said that about Thrawn, that in artwork he could read the hidden hearts of people. Trevik had accepted his brother’s word, but he had never truly believed it.

Now, as he felt Nuso Esva’s triumph wash over him, he knew that it was indeed true.

“You don’t believe it, of course,” Nuso Esva continued. “No one does. But rest assured, Thrawn is able to perform such magic. The Queen’s own confidant and ally stayed aboard the star caravan long enough to confirm it.” This time, his eyes definitely glittered. “Before he pulled all of your Stromma allies out of the battle.”

“Which he would still have done without this Midli’s betrayal,” the Queen said.

“Calm yourself, O Queen,” Nuso Esva said again. “Let us watch and savor the defeat of our enemy without these petty distractions. There will be plenty of time later to execute this Midli and his friends if you so choose.” He turned back to the monitors. “Besides, I daresay Thrawn will have another trick or two waiting behind his back. Watch—and see how I anticipate and destroy each of them.”

The sixth of the nine juggernauts had passed beneath the edge of the umbrella shields, and the stormtrooper force was nearly halfway to its target flank, when the order finally came. “Commander Fel, you may initiate your attack pattern,” Thrawn said. “Let us see what exactly we have facing us.”

“Acknowledged, Admiral,” Fel said, turning his fighter into a smooth arc back toward the western part of the city. Thrawn’s assumption had been that Nuso Esva would close off the entire umbrella shield array except in the western areas of the city. But even 90-percent-sure assumptions needed to be checked out, and Fel’s TIEs were the logical ones to do it. Especially when they had nothing better to do anyway.

As usual, Thrawn had been right. Gray Squadron’s sweep had confirmed that the rest of the city was completely covered, with gaps not even big enough to drop an MSE droid through. Only in the western sector, where Nuso Esva had set his traps, was there anything Fel could use.

With the juggernauts and stormtroopers now in harm’s way, it was time for the TIEs to persuade Nuso Esva to start springing those traps.

As it turned out, the onetime warlord didn’t need any persuading. Fel was passing over the lead juggernaut and starting to make his turn when the city below him erupted with laser cannon fire.

“Evasive!” Fel snapped, twisting his fighter around as a bolt came through one of the shield gaps and burned past his portside wing. Not that his pilots really needed the warning. “Target those lasers and destroy.”

He was cutting dangerously low across the forest of umbrella shields when he spotted the swarm of Quesoth Soldiers appearing from concealment in the ring of Workers’ houses directly behind Lieutenant Sanjin’s stormtroopers.

The first warning was a burst of Soldier Speak from a concealed loudspeaker a few blocks away. “Soldiers in concealment,” Lhagva called out in translation. “Rise and attack the white-armored invaders.”

“Vec six!” one of the other stormtroopers snapped, pointing his E-11 back toward the edge of the umbrella shield zone. “Looks like—must be a hundred Soldiers, coming out of the Workers’ houses.”

Lhagva felt his mouth go dry. A hundred Soldiers, against thirty-six stormtroopers. Not good.

“Got another hundred fifty at vec three,” someone else put in tautly. “I guess they don’t want us heading toward the palace.”

“Lucky we didn’t want to go in that direction anyway,” Sanjin said with his usual calm. “Here comes the vec-null contingent.”

The words were barely out of his mouth when the western half of the city suddenly exploded with laserfire as a dozen concealed laser cannons opened up against the TIEs flying overhead.

“About time,” Sanjin shouted over the noise. “A-racks, stop; gunners, grab the E-Webs. Kicker, find me some useful real estate.”

Lhagva turned from the large insectoid beings closing on their rear, their short swords and heavy maces glinting in the shield-muted sunlight, and peered across the landscape in front of them. There was the vec-null contingent, just as Sanjin had said: another hundred or more Soldiers who had left their places along the juggernauts’ insertion route and were heading toward the stormtroopers.

And that was a direction Sanjin’s assault force had been hoping to go in.

Lhagva looked to the west. So far, that area was still clear of Quesoth. If Sanjin gave the order, and if they turned the A-racks and pushed them to the limit, they could probably get back out from under the umbrella shields and into TIE cover ahead of all three groups of Soldiers.

But that would mean running. And Imperial stormtroopers never ran. Not when they had a job to do.

Not even when they were outnumbered ten to one.

“Kicker?” Sanjin prompted.

“Yes, sir,” a stormtrooper from one of the other squads called back, his eyes on the portable sensor looped over his shoulder. “One of the shield generators is in there.” He pointed at a modest house just ahead and to the east. “Next nearest is over there,” he added, pointing to another house to the northwest. “That enough, or do you want one more?”

“Two should do us,” Sanjin said, looking back and forth among the incoming groups of Soldiers. “If we can wreck both generators, it should open the sky enough for the TIEs to get under the rest and access the whole city. Squad three, take the eastern house. Squads one and two, you’re with me in the other one.”

There was another burst of Soldier Speak from the nearby loudspeaker. “North and east Soldiers, converge northeast at weapons site; defend and attack from there,” Lhagva translated. “South Soldiers, follow your current track.”

“What does she mean, weapons site?” Sanjin asked. “A weapons cache, or one of those laser batteries?”

“I don’t know,” Lhagva said. “The term could apply to either.”

“A laser battery would make more sense,” Sanjin decided. “New plan: squad three to eastern house, squad two to northwest, squad one with me. We’ll go to ground somewhere, wait for them to tag the weapons site for us, and try to get in. Smoke grenades; two per enemy force. Everyone ready? Grenades: go.”

The grenades had just hit the ground when, in the distance, the rearmost juggernaut lumbering along through the city exploded.

In the dim light filling the Admonitor’s ground-tac center, a second display flared unnaturally bright and then went dark. “Juggernaut One has been hit,” General Tasse reported. “Cam out; telemetry data … it’s still moving, but just barely. Another hit like that and it’ll be as dead in the mud as Juggernaut Nine.”

“Acknowledged,” Thrawn said.

Parck stole a sideways look at the admiral. Thrawn was standing in front of the tac board, his eyes sweeping methodically across the myriad displays and status readouts. To all outward appearances he seemed as calm as always.

But Parck knew better. The Grand Admiral’s campaign against warlord Nuso Esva had been a long and bloody one, a road littered with betrayal and destruction, new allies and barely thwarted genocide. Now, at long last, Nuso Esva’s end was finally in sight.

At least, all indicators pointed in that direction. The once-proud conqueror was trapped on Quethold, with limited resources, no more than thirty of his most loyal followers, and only a single medium-sized ship buried away out of easy reach in one of the mines north of the Red City. The remnants of his once-powerful battle fleet were scattered across probably a million cubic light-years of space, where they would, presumably, wither and die once Nuso Esva was no longer there to command.

And yet…

Parck ran his eyes over the tac board again. Preoccupied with the stream of reports from the scouts searching for Nuso Esva’s remaining ships, he’d been somewhat out of the data loop for the planning of the Red City attack. There were undoubtedly a few pieces of Thrawn’s plan that he didn’t know.

But as he gazed at the turmoil being presented on the boards, he could feel an unpleasant sensation starting to tingle between his shoulder blades.

The Admonitor had six squadrons of TIEs aboard, yet Thrawn had chosen to deploy only three of them. He had over three thousand troopers available, not even counting allied forces, yet had sent only three squads of stormtroopers against the Red City’s Soldiers. The line of juggernauts now under heavy attack was even more of a gamble.

And Liaison Nyama had been right about the number of Soldiers that Nuso Esva had available. The observers and sensors were registering at least four thousand of them, two thousand along the juggernauts’ route, a few hundred attacking the stormtrooper squads, the rest arrayed in a defensive line between the palace and the transports. How could Thrawn have so badly underestimated his opponent’s strength?

Or had he? Could it instead be that this long, wearying war against Nuso Esva had so blunted the Grand Admiral’s tactical prudence that he was determined to defeat his enemy with the absolute minimum force possible?

Had this become personal?

The thought sent a fresh shiver up Parck’s back. Four years earlier, Emperor Palpatine had traveled to Endor burning with hatred for the Rebel Alliance. Four years before that, Grand Moff Tarkin had similarly made the attack on Yavin a matter of personal vengeance.

Both men had died at the scenes of their hoped-for triumphs, their certain victories snatched from their fingers. The Rebel Alliance had survived, and had gone on to turn much of their Empire into the so-called New Republic.

Parck had always assumed Thrawn knew better than to let emotion cloud his military judgment. Could he have been wrong?

“Patience, Captain.”

Parck jerked out of his thoughts. “I’m sorry, Admiral?” he asked carefully.

“You’re worried,” Thrawn said, his voice low enough to assure that his words would be for the senior captain’s ears only. “Worried about the operation”—He looked sideways at Parck—“and by extension, worried about me. But observe.”

He pointed to one of the tac display’s city overlays. Scattered amid the bright red spots marking Nuso Esva’s laser cannon positions and the muted yellow dots of the umbrella shield generators were a dozen glowing blue lights. “The Queen’s loudspeakers,” he said identifying them. “The sensors in the TIEs, the juggernauts, and the stormtrooper A-racks are all listening for the distinctive sound of Soldier Speak. Every order she gives her troops brings us that much closer to our final thrust.”

“Yes, sir,” Parck said, trying to filter the doubt out of his voice.

Apparently, he hadn’t filtered out all the doubt. “Patience, Captain,” Thrawn said with a faint smile. “Patience.”

“As I anticipated,” Nuso Esva said, his voice brimming again with satisfaction. “You note, O Queen, that as the smoke clears the white-armored invaders are no longer anywhere to be seen?”

The Queen made a grotesque sound Trevik had never heard from her before. “True Soldiers would not flee a battle,” she said.

“Nor have these,” Nuso Esva said. “They’ve merely taken refuge in some of the homes, most likely the two or three nearest that contain shield generators. They no doubt hope to destroy or disable the generators before they’re overwhelmed by the approaching Soldiers, thereby allowing the fighters overhead to enter your city. Hoping their deaths will not be useless.” His eyes glittered. “But of course, they will.”

Trevik gazed at the monitor, feeling an unexpected and discomfiting surge of sadness for the invading soldiers. From the earlier speech between the Queen and Nuso Esva he gathered that humans were like the Stromma, where each member had the same free choices that Quesoth Midlis and Circlings possessed. Unlike Quesoth Soldiers, the white-armored attackers were not bound irrevocably by their orders, and therefore could have retreated to safety when they saw the numbers arrayed against them.

Yet they had not. What kind of leader was this Thrawn, that his people willingly gave up their lives at his command?

“The shield generators must not be damaged,” the Queen said, lifting her mike. “I will send more Soldiers.”

“No need, O Queen,” Nuso Esva said. “I have anticipated this move, and have prepared for it. No, keep your Soldiers where they are. The real battle will take place at the line of juggernaut vehicles. You see how the rearmost has already been disabled, blocking the rest from retreat? As soon as the one in the forefront has likewise been stopped, your Soldiers can move against the true prize.”

“Yes, I see,” the Queen said again. “You didn’t say that two of the nine would be destroyed.”

“I told you sacrifices would be necessary,” Nuso Esva said. “In this case, the loss of two assures that we can capture the other seven intact.”

“And seven will be enough?”

“More than enough,” Nuso Esva said. “I’ve seen the strength of the Red City’s lower citadel. I doubt that the White City’s defenses will be any greater. Seven juggernauts will be more than sufficient to break through the barriers.”

“The White City?” Trevik asked, the words coming out before he could stop them. “What? Break the barriers? What is this madness you speak of?”

“The old ways are at an end, Trevik of the Midli of the Seventh of the Red,” the Queen said, her voice as calm as if she were asking for a drink of nectar. “Why should I accept death for myself and my city merely because the Queen of the White has arisen?”

“But—” Trevik stared at her. “But the old Queen always dies when the new Queen arises and the air changes. It’s the way of the world.”

“You’re a naïve fool,” Nuso Esva said scornfully. “A Queen—a true Queen—doesn’t simply sit back and accept the way of the world.” He held out his hand toward Trevik, his fingers closing into a fist. “A true Queen grasps the world by the throat and squeezes her own destiny from it. Understand?”

“No,” Trevik said, the sheer shock of it draining all emotion from him as if a vein had been cut. “But I do understand one thing: the Queen of the White cannot arise if the Circlings of the White are dead.” He looked at the Queen. “If they are murdered.”

“It’s a matter of survival,” Nuso Esva said. “Survival of the strongest. That’s how the universe operates, Midli. I have no doubt that the Queen of the White, if given this same choice, would take the same action.”

“It will serve all of us,” the Queen said. “Including you yourself, Trevik of the Midli of the Seventh of the Red. No more will you and the other Midlis and Circlings need to travel long distances to a new city, many of you dying along the way. You will remain here, in familiar surroundings, living out your lives in your own homes.”

“And when you die?” Trevik asked.

The Queen smiled. “I will not die,” she said, an unpleasant edge to her voice. “Without the changing of the air, I will live forever.”

All living things die. Trevik wanted to say that.

But he couldn’t. Not directly to her face.

Not to the Queen of the Red, who was supposed to be the leader of her city, and the steward of all the Quesoth.

She had betrayed them. She had betrayed them all.

But he couldn’t say that, either.

“When will this happen?” he asked instead.

“When the battle is over and Thrawn has lost, he will leave,” Nuso Esva said. “He’ll have no choice. His defeat here by primitives will severely damage the reputation that holds his fragile coalition together, and he and his star caravan will need to travel to other conflicts to take personal charge of those battles. Once he’s gone, we’ll take our newly captured vehicles to the White City. The Queen of the Red will become the Queen of Quethold”—his eyes glittered—“and I will have free access to the industrial facilities beneath the White City. There I will construct vehicles in which I and my Chosen may leave this world and once again carry the war to my enemies.”

Trevik nodded, his heart sickening within him. So that was what it came down to. Quethold was to be sacrificed, its stability and the lives of its people lost, so that the Storm-hairs could continue their thirst for conquest among the stars.

And there was nothing he could do to stop it. The Queen had revealed her own thirsts, and there was nothing a mere Midli could say that would change her mind. Nor was he a Soldier, who might fight the Storm-hairs on her behalf.

No, all Trevik could do was stand with his nectar bowl, and watch and listen.

And hope that, somehow, Grand Admiral Thrawn would be able to win.

Quesoth Soldiers were about as primitive a group of combatants as Lhagva had ever come across. They didn’t wear armor, they didn’t use blasters or even projectile weapons, and their tactics seemed limited to swarming their enemies in an attempt to overwhelm them with sheer numbers.

But their natural chitinous hides were tough enough to shrug off even a blaster bolt or two unless they were hit squarely in a vital organ, and they wielded their short swords and maces with incredible strength. And they definitely had the numbers for their chosen strategy.

It was also quickly clear that they weren’t going to give up the laser cannon emplacement they’d been ordered to defend. Not while any of them was still able to fight.

“Flanking left,” Sanjin called over the scream of the stormtroopers’ blasterfire. “Lhagva, Shrinks—go.”

“Right.” Lhagva squeezed off one final shot through the sleeping room window of the house in which they’d taken refuge, then turned and sprinted out the door, down the hall, and into the gathering room, one of the other stormtroopers right behind him.

They were just in time. The Quesoth surge had overwhelmed the three stormtroopers guarding that approach, and a small knot of Soldiers had made it all the way up to the window. Even as Lhagva skidded to a halt and opened careful fire over his comrades’ shoulders, one of the Soldiers leaned in and slammed his mace hard across Bragger’s arm. The stormtrooper fell with a muffled curse, and the Soldier started to climb in through the gap.

And fell backward out of sight as Shrinks opened fire from Lhagva’s side with the E-Web/M from their A-rack. Between the two of them, they drove back the attackers.

Bragger was back on his feet by the time the two newcomers reached him. “You all right?” Lhagva asked.

“Arm’s probably broken,” Bragger said calmly as he shifted his E-11 to his left hand and rested the muzzle on the windowsill. “I’ll be fine.”

Outside, the loudspeaker was blaring Soldier Speak again. “Lhagva?” Sanjin called.

“Soldiers of the Setting Sun and Soldiers of the defense: attack and capture the armored vehicles,” Lhagva translated. “They must have gotten the lead juggernaut stopped.”

“Sounds like it,” Sanjin said. “I hope they like what they—”

“Hold on,” Lhagva interrupted him as the Soldier Speak continued. “Kill the crews and all the white-armored invaders inside.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Sanjin said with a grunt. “Break time over, troopers. Get back to work.”

“Flanking right!” someone warned.

Lhagva fired one last shot through the window at the swarm of Soldiers and then turned back toward the doorway. “I’m on it,” he called.

“There they go,” General Tasse reported tightly, pointing at one of the displays. “Coming out of concealment … must be two thousand of them.”

“The defensive line’s on the move, too,” one of the others said. “Another fifteen hundred at least. Looks like a few of Nuso Esva’s personal troops are in there with them.”

Tasse grunted. “Looks like Nuso Esva’s decided we don’t have anything left in the transports we can throw at him, so he’s retasked his defense line,” he said. “Figures the more bodies he throws against the juggernauts, the faster he can batter his way in.”

Parck winced. Nuso Esva was certainly right on that count. Thirty-five hundred Soldiers with maces would make quick work of even a juggernaut’s hatch.

“Admiral, two of the umbrella shields are down,” a lieutenant called from the tech board. “Southwest sector.”

So Lieutenant Sanjin’s stormtrooper contingent had come through.

“Can the TIEs get in through the breach?” Parck asked.

“No, sir,” the lieutenant said. “The adjoining shields are angled downward like the ones at the city’s outer edge. They’re too low to permit any vehicle entry.”

“As expected,” Thrawn said calmly. “Nuso Esva is nothing if not thorough. What’s Lieutenant Sanjin’s status?”

“He reports two down,” Commander Balkin reported. “The rest are holding for now.”

“Order them to continue pressing on the laser cannon emplacement,” Thrawn said. “The longer Nuso Esva thinks we’re following his script, the longer it will take him to react to the genuine breach.”

Parck frowned. “Following his script?”

“Of course,” Thrawn said, frowning as if it was obvious. “Why else did you think I let him arrange the art in the Dwelling of Guests and then make it sound like I needed to see it? I wanted him to think that he’d manipulated our operation and had it under his control.”

Parck felt a smile twitch at his lips. He should have known it was something like that. As Thrawn had said, Nuso Esva understood him. Or thought he did. “When do you plan to leave his script?”

“Right now.” Thrawn pointed at the tac board. “The fourteenth loudspeaker has just been located.” He keyed his comm. “Commander Fel, you may begin your run. Good luck.”

“Acknowledged,” Fel said, baring his teeth in a tight smile. Finally. “Gray Squadron, into your positions. Stent, on me.”

He swung his TIE around, listening with half an ear to the chorus of acknowledgments from his pilots as he eyed the cityscape below. Considering some of the traps Nuso Esva had set in the past, he reflected, this one was almost simple. A single opening in the umbrella shield coverage, apparently there by accident, big enough for a TIE fighter to slip through if it came in at just the right vector. And on the same vector, a heavy twin-barreled laser cannon lurking in concealment, ready to blow apart an unwary pilot.

But as was also typical of Nuso Esva, the laser cannon wasn’t there solely to seal the flytrap. The TIE pilots had had plenty of time to map the shields and weapons emplacements in that zone, and Fel had spotted at least eight other, smaller openings in the barrier nearby that the lasers could fire through. Even if an approaching pilot veered off the flytrap vector in time to survive the gunners’ first shot, they would have several other chances to finish the job as he flew away. Assuming, that is, the gunners were fast enough and good enough.

Time to find out just how fast and good they were.

By the time Fel had brought his TIE onto the flytrap vector, Stent was in position, forming up fifty meters behind Fel off his starboard wing. Stent was a Chiss, one of Thrawn’s people, who had severed ties with his homeworld in order to come out here and serve the Grand Admiral. He was also one of Fel’s best pilots, which was why Fel had chosen him for this job.

And the two of them were going to get only one shot at this. Kicking his TIE to full power, jinking back and forth as much as he could while still maintaining his insertion vector, Fel headed in.

He’d closed to within a hundred meters of the flytrap opening when he spotted the telltale twitch of the laser barrels as they made their final targeting lock. Instantly, he did a final twitch of his own, jinking his fighter hard to starboard. The lasers flashed, the dual bolts sizzling past his canopy.

With a burst of fire and shattered metal, his portside wing burst into flame.

Twisting the yoke hard over, Fel spun away to starboard. His momentum was carrying him straight toward the unyielding patchwork of umbrella shields below; twisting around again, he pulled up sluggishly out of his dive.

And as he did so, he flew directly across one of the laser cannon’s other firing gaps.

He tensed with anticipation. But Thrawn had been right. The gimmicked wing and its fake fire damage made Fel look fatally wounded, and Nuso Esva’s gunners weren’t going to bother with a fighter that would likely crash within seconds anyway. Certainly not when they had a much more interesting target coming their way.

Because while Fel had been fighting his burning craft, Stent had lined up onto the flytrap vector and was heading in.

Fel continued his turn, losing altitude and fighting to keep his wobble from getting out of control, all the while wending a twisting path toward the flytrap opening. He finally straightened out into a course more or less level over the city and perpendicular to Stent’s own current vector. From Fel’s new angle he could see that Stent was coming in at full power, with the same evasive maneuvering that Fel had been trying when the laser cannon opened up on him. Alternating his attention among Stent, the flytrap opening, and the ground, Fel flipped up the protective cover on the add-on section of his control board and braced himself.

For an instant he thought Stent had left it too late, and that Nuso Esva’s gunners would nail him for sure. But at the very last second the Chiss pulled up, arcing off his approach vector just as the laser cannon fired. The bolts burned across his TIE’s belly as he twisted up and away, clawing for altitude as he passed across one of the cannon’s other firing gaps. The cannon spun around, firing through the gap, again just a shade too late, then swiveled to another angle as Stent continued past the emplacement and across another of its firing gaps.

And for the next three or four seconds, as the gunners furiously tracked Stent’s apparently random-motion retreat, taking shot after shot through firing gap after firing gap, the flytrap opening was completely unprotected.

As usual, Nuso Esva had been clever. The size of the flytrap had been carefully tailored to allow insertion from but one direction.

Yet also as usual, he hadn’t been clever enough … because he’d assumed that the intruder would be a whole TIE fighter, a cockpit/body equipped with the standard pair of large, hexagonal solar wings jutting out on both sides.

Smiling grimly, Fel pressed the button beneath the open safety cover.

And as the explosive bolts blew across the wing connectors, ejecting both wings to tumble to their destruction against the umbrella shields below, he deftly slid the cockpit section of his TIE sideways through the flytrap opening.

Nuso Esva’s gunners must have instantly spotted their fatal error. But it was already too late. Even as they tried to bring the cannon around again, Fel rotated on his repulsorlifts and fired a close-in double burst from his own laser cannons. The bolts shattered the emplacement’s rotational platform, leaving the weapons frozen in place, pointed uselessly at the sky.

Then, flying low over the houses, dipping and dodging where necessary to avoid the umbrella shields’ edges, Fel began blasting the houses where those shield generators were located. The rest of Gray Squadron was right behind him, dropping through the ever-widening hole and joining in the task of systematically peeling open the nice secure lair that Nuso Esva had built for himself.

And as the rest of his squadron continued their destruction of the shield generators, Fel shifted to his own special assigned task. Flying widely across the edge of the city, he began eliminating the Queen’s communication loudspeakers.

All of them, that is, except one. For that one, Grand Admiral Thrawn had something special planned.

“There is trouble,” the Queen said.

For a few seconds Nuso Esva ignored her as he continued to jabber on his private farspeak in his incomprehensible alien language. Trevik braced himself, wondering what the Queen would say or do at this latest insult to her.

But she sat quietly on her litter, waiting with eerie patience for Nuso Esva to finish his other conversation. The alien talk ended, and Nuso Esva jammed the farspeak back into his belt. “There is trouble,” the Queen repeated.

“Nothing that can’t be handled,” Nuso Esva growled, his voice barely within the limits of civility. “As soon as your Soldiers breach the juggernauts—”

“There is trouble,” the Queen said again, much more emphatically. “Enemy aircraft fly free over my city, destroying the homes of Circlings and Midlis. You said that would not happen. You said that could not happen.”

Nuso Esva seemed to gather himself together. “Calm yourself, O Queen,” he said, more politely this time. “The fighters may have breached the outer parts of the city, but there’s another angled rim to the shield array farther in. That edge will keep them out of the palace grounds and away from us.”

“Yet they have entered my city,” the Queen persisted. “You said they would not. You lied.”

“They won’t be there for long,” Nuso Esva said. “Unlike the primitive cannons my Chosen have been forced to work with, the juggernauts’ weaponry is equipped with computerized sensor targeting capabilities. Once we’ve gained control of them—”

One of the Storm-hairs by the monitors called something in the alien language. “The hatches are breached,” Nuso Esva announced. “Now watch as I destroy the enemy fighters.”

Trevik looked at the monitors. One of them showed an image that bounced dizzyingly while the Storm-hair carrying the holocam ran behind a group of Soldiers through the jagged metal edge where a hatch had once been. The Soldiers rushed inside, spreading aside out of the view of the cam.

Suddenly the image went still. Very still. For a pair of seconds it showed a view of a compact metal chamber, empty except for blinking lights, softly glowing displays, and some sort of small, round-topped metal object at the far end. Abruptly, the image spun around, paused, spun around again, paused again—

Nuso Esva spat something vile sounding. “No,” he bit out as he snatched up his farspeak. “No!”

“What is it?” the Queen demanded. “What’s happened?”

Nuso Esva ignored her, snarling more of his alien speech into his farspeak. The image on the monitor began bouncing again as the Storm-hair with the cam raced to the end of the metal chamber and stopped beside the round-topped metal object. There was a close-up view of the lights and monitors—

“What has happened?” the Queen bellowed.

Trevik shrank back in terror. Never in his life had he heard the Queen shout that way. Never had he realized she could shout that way.

Nuso Esva barely even took notice. He continued snarling into his farspeak, his free hand gripping the weapon belted at his side. Around the room, the other Storm-hairs also had their hands on their weapons. Trevik tensed, waiting for the Queen to shout again.

But she remained silent. A moment later, Nuso Esva lowered his farspeak, his yellow eyes glittering with fury. “The juggernauts have no crews,” he bit out. “No crews, and no soldiers. Their drivers are nothing but droids. Mechanical Workers.” He hissed something vicious sounding. “And there are no weapons. All have been removed.”

For a long moment the gathering room was silent. Trevik kept his eyes on Nuso Esva, afraid to look at the Queen. “Then you have failed,” she said at last.

“I haven’t failed,” Nuso Esva, turning his head back to the monitors. “The juggernauts are useless to us? Fine. There are other targets that will serve.” He looked back at the Queen and gave the gesture of command. “Order your Soldiers to the transports waiting on the ground outside the city. They are to capture the vehicles and kill everyone aboard.”

“Do the transports hold the weapons you claim will bring you victory?” the Queen countered. “Or do you simply seek a means of deserting Quethold and escaping back to the stars?”

“Don’t waste precious time with foolish prattle,” Nuso Esva spat. “Give the order.”

“I cannot.” The Queen pointed toward the monitors. “The loudspeakers have been silenced. There is no way for my voice to reach my Soldiers.”

“What?” Once again, Nuso Esva twisted his head around toward the monitors. “So,” he murmured bitterly. “We see now Thrawn’s true strategy. He draws the majority of the Soldiers to the juggernauts, where they will be useless to me, then destroys the means by which they could be ordered elsewhere.”

He turned back to the Queen. “But as always, his strategy is flawed. If your voice cannot travel to the Soldiers, then you, O Queen, must do the traveling.” He gestured toward the Workers crouched beside the litter. “Order your Workers to their places. We travel at once to the juggernauts.”

Trevik felt his eyes go wide. “You cannot order the Queen into battle,” he objected.

“Silence, traitor,” Nuso Esva said, not even bothering to look at him.

“Perhaps Trevik of the Midli of the Seventh of the Red is not the true traitor here,” the Queen said darkly. “Perhaps it is you who are the traitor, Nuso Esva of the First of the Storm-hairs. You promised us victory. You promised me eternal life. You have broken faith on both.”

“You wish eternal life?” Nuso Esva countered. “Then go to the juggernauts and order your Soldiers to attack the transports.”

The Queen gestured in refusal. “No.”

And then, suddenly, Nuso Esva’s weapon was out of its sheath and pointed directly at the Queen. “Give your Workers the order,” he said, his voice deathly quiet. “Or die.”

The sole remaining loudspeaker was less than two hundred meters from the stalled juggernauts and the thirty-five-hundred Soldiers standing stiffly alongside them. Fel eyed them warily as he settled his TIE into a defensive hover above the support platform, wondering if they would decide they should take some action against the shuttle that was even now lowering a pair of techs onto the platform beside the loudspeaker array.

But they didn’t. They’d been ordered to attack the juggernauts, they’d done that, and they were now waiting for further instructions.

“Patience,” Fel murmured toward them.

There was movement by the crushed hatch of one of the juggernauts, and two of Nuso Esva’s Chosen stepped outside, their yellow eyes glinting in the sunlight. One of them pointed at Fel, and they raised their blasters.

Fel nailed them both with a single shot. Again, the Quesoth Soldiers did nothing.

Fel gave the rest of the juggernaut hatches a quick check, then did another scan of the area to make sure more of the surviving Chosen weren’t rushing to the attack. As Thrawn had ordered, he’d left this particular loudspeaker intact, merely severing the control, power, and communications cables that led to it. That meant the techs not only would have to set up the special Soldier Speak message Thrawn had prepared, but would also have to splice in power from the shuttle’s generators.

With Sanjin’s stormtroopers still battling for their lives against their own clump of Soldiers, Fel hoped the techs would hurry.

Two streets away, another pair of the Chosen were warily approaching. Fel rotated his TIE a few degrees in that direction and waited for them to come out of cover.

And then, abruptly, the loudspeakers came to life below him, filling the air with a volume and intensity that he could feel right through the lower hull of his TIE as Thrawn’s message blared across this part of the city. The message ended and began to repeat.

For a moment nothing happened. Fel held his breath…

And then, all at once, the Soldiers by the juggernauts began to move. Flowing along the ground, more like a dark fluid than a collection of individual beings, they headed up the hill toward the palace.

The Soldiers had once again pressed their way to the house’s windows, and Sanjin and the remaining stormtroopers had pulled back to one of the inner rooms to make their final stand when Lhagva heard the faint sound of the loudspeakers over the noise of blaster bolts and the thud of maces and swords. He frowned, wondering at the bizarre message—

And then, without a word, the Soldiers lowered their weapons. Turning, they filed quickly back through the doors and the holes they’d battered in the walls, heading out into the city.

Leaving the stormtroopers panting in the middle of an empty room.

Sanjin found his voice first. “What in the void was that?” he demanded.

With an effort, Lhagva worked some moisture into his battle-dried mouth. “You didn’t hear the loudspeaker, did you?”

“No, I think I was getting clubbed with a mace at the time,” Sanjin said, rubbing gingerly and ineffectually at the side of his helmet. “These things don’t block that kind of blow nearly as well as I’d hoped. What happened? Did the Queen surrender?”

“I don’t think so,” Lhagva said. “It sounded like something Thrawn set up.”

“I thought you couldn’t fake Soldier Speak,” one of the others said as he dropped to his knees beside a fallen stormtrooper, his field med-pac in hand.

“He didn’t,” Lhagva said. “It seemed to be just a straight recording, taken right from the Queen’s mouth.”

“Which said?” Sanjin prompted.

“Go through the Dwelling doors,” Lhagva translated. “Surround and protect the Guests.”

“But isn’t that an order for the Soldiers to protect Nuso Esva?” one of the stormtroopers objected. “How’s that going to help us?”

“Because,” Sanjin said, and Lhagva could envision the other’s grim smile behind his helmet, “Nuso Esva doesn’t know that.”

Nuso Esva was still pointing his weapon at the Queen when one of the other Storm-hairs suddenly chattered in their alien language. Nuso Esva barked something in return and took a step forward. “What did you tell them?” he demanded. “What orders did you give your Soldiers?”

“I gave no orders,” the Queen said. “I cannot give any—”

“Don’t lie to me!” Nuso Esva thundered, taking another step forward. “An order was given. You’re the only one who can give such orders.” He took another step toward her. “And now they’re all coming here,” he continued, his voice suddenly quiet. “Why are they coming here, Queen of the Red?”

“I don’t know,” the Queen said. “When they arrive, I will ask them.”

Nuso Esva snorted. “No. You won’t.” Abruptly, his weapon spat a blaze of fire, and without a sound the Queen slumped over.

Dead.

Trevik gasped, his body stiffening as he stared in disbelief and horror at the Queen’s lifeless form. This wasn’t the way Queens of Quethold died. It was never the way Queens died. Dimly through the hiss of blood roaring through his ears and brain he heard the sound of more blasterfire…

“You. Traitor.”

Trevik jerked his head around. Nuso Esva was staring at him, his weapon pointed directly at Trevik’s face.

And only then did he realize that there were bodies of dead Quesoth all around him. The Workers, Borosiv of the Circling of the First of the Red—all of them were dead.

All of them had been murdered.

“You’re going to take a message to Thrawn for me,” Nuso Esva said, his voice grim and defiant.

And yet, beneath the alien warlord’s determination, Trevik could somehow sense a bitter-edged melancholy. There were four thousand Soldiers marching on the palace, and he knew that his own death marched alongside them. “Tell Thrawn that he may think he’s won,” Nuso Esva continued. “But with my death, his own will not be far off. My followers are still out there, and they’re more numerous than he can possibly imagine. No matter where he goes, no matter where he tries to hide, they will find him. You’ll tell him that.”

With a supreme effort, Trevik forced words into his mouth. “I will tell him,” he promised.

For a moment Nuso Esva held his position. Then, at last, he lowered his weapon. “Go,” he ordered.

Trevik was at the edge of the palace grounds, weaving his way through the lines of incoming Soldiers, when the Storm-hairs opened fire behind him.

He had reached the waiting group of white-armored humans when the Storm-hairs’ firing came to an abrupt end.

Parck looked up from the report. “So that’s it,” he said.

“That’s it,” Thrawn confirmed. “One of the bodies in the Dwelling of Guests was positively identified as his.”

Parck nodded, feeling a strange weariness stealing over him. After ten years of sporadic combat, slippery escapes, and unlikely victories across the Unknown Regions, warlord Nuso Esva was finally, finally dead. “What now?” he asked, setting the datapad aside.

Thrawn shrugged slightly. “There’s little we can do for the Quesoth except aid in rebuilding the damage to the Red City,” he said. “But they should be all right. Historically, there have been several instances when Queens have died prematurely. Sometimes that induces the next Queen to arise ahead of schedule; sometimes the affected city has to limp on alone until the regular time of arising. But whatever struggles the Red City ends up going through, the people of Quethold will survive. That’s what’s important.”

“Yes,” Parck agreed with a shiver. Especially considering what that Midli, Trevik, had told them about Nuso Esva’s plans for the planet. He could have destroyed everything, and might even have gotten loose to spread more of his poison across the Unknown Regions.

But he hadn’t. He was dead, and it really was over. “Actually, Admiral, I meant what were we going to do now,” he said.

“You and the Admonitor will be heading back to the Chaos Triangle to begin cleaning up the legacy that Nuso Esva left behind,” Thrawn said. “As for me, I can now finally turn my attention to an even more pressing problem than Nuso Esva. Namely, the restoration of the Empire.”

Parck winced. Thrawn had returned only occasionally to Imperial space since Palpatine’s death. Those trips had usually been short, had always been shrouded in secrecy, and had invariably left the Grand Admiral frustrated by the growing disorder there. Between the incompetence of its own leadership and the steady military pressure from the New Republic, the Empire had shrunk to barely a quarter of the size it had attained under Palpatine’s rule. “You may have trouble persuading them to accept your help,” he warned. “Some of their recent experience with Grand Admirals hasn’t been all that positive.”

“There’s someone there I can contact,” Thrawn assured him. “Captain Gilad Pellaeon, currently in command of the ISD Chimaera. I worked with him before, back when Nuso Esva made his one incursion into Imperial space.”

“Yes, I remember,” Parck said grimly. “Candoras sector. I also remember that it was shortly afterward that Nuso Esva launched the Braccio campaign and ended up nearly destroying half a dozen species.”

“Your recollection is correct,” Thrawn said, frowning slightly. “Your point?”

“That Nuso Esva was a vengeful son of a space slug,” Parck said. “I don’t expect his followers to be any less so. It may not be a good time for you to reintroduce yourself to Imperial politics.”

Thrawn shook his head. “Don’t worry, Captain. Whatever followers Nuso Esva has left are few and scattered. Without his leadership, they’ll slink back into the shadows where they belong.”

“Perhaps,” Parck said. “It still might not be a bad idea for you to take a few additional precautions out there.”

“Your concern is touching,” Thrawn said. “Again, you have no need to worry. Captain Pellaeon is a competent commander, and he’s made the Chimaera into one of the finest warships in the fleet.”

“What I meant—”

“And I’ve also made arrangements to have a bodyguard accompany me when I return to the Empire,” Thrawn continued. “Whatever vengeance Nuso Esva had planned, or thought he had planned, it will never reach me.”

“I hope not.” Parck took a deep breath. He still didn’t like this, but he knew better than to argue when Thrawn’s mind was made up. “With your permission, Admiral, I’ll go begin preparations to contact Captain Pellaeon and return you to the Empire.” He smiled slightly. “To your Empire.”

“Thank you, Captain,” Thrawn said quietly. “And don’t look so glum. This isn’t just the end of Nuso Esva.”

He smiled tightly. “It’s also the beginning. The beginning of victory.”