“I’m a sky-walker,” Che’ri muttered. Thalias had no business showing Thrawn her pictures. “I see things from the sky all the time.”

“Actually, you don’t.” Thrawn paused and touched a key on his control board.

And suddenly all the lights and keys on his board went out and the board in front of Che’ri lit up.

She jerked back. What in the name—?

“There are two handgrips in front of you,” Thrawn said. “Take one in each hand.”

“What?” Che’ri asked, staring numbly at the handgrips and glowing lights.

“I’m going to teach you how to fly,” Thrawn told her. “This is your first lesson.”

“You don’t understand,” Che’ri said, hearing the fear and pleading in her voice. “I have nightmares about this.”

“Nightmares about flying?”

“About falling,” Che’ri said, her heart thudding. “Falling, being blown around by wind, drowning—”

“Can you swim?”

“No,” Che’ri said. “Maybe a little.”

“Exactly,” Thrawn said. “It’s fear that’s driving those nightmares. Fear and helplessness.”

A touch of annoyance rose above the bubbling panic. First Thalias, and now Thrawn. Did everyone think they knew more about her nightmares than she did?

“You feel helpless in the water, so you dream of drowning. You feel helpless in the air, so you dream of falling.” He pointed to the handgrips. “Let’s take some of that helplessness away.”

Che’ri looked at him. He wasn’t joking, she realized. He was deadly serious. She looked back at the handgrips, trying to decide what to do.

“Take them.”

Abruptly, she realized something else. He wasn’t ordering. He was offering.

And she really had always wanted to fly.

Setting her jaw, choking back the fear, she reached out and gingerly closed her hands around the grips.

“Good,” Thrawn said. “Move the right one to your left, just a bit.”

“To portside,” Che’ri corrected. She knew that one, anyway.

“To portside,” Thrawn agreed with a smile. “See how the positions of the stars changed?”

Che’ri nodded. Their ship had turned a little to the left, the same way she’d moved the handgrip. “Yes.”

“The display just above it—there—shows the precise angle of your turn. Now move the same lever forward a bit.”

This time, the changing stars showed the ship’s nose had dropped a little. “Aren’t we getting off course?”

“It’ll be easy enough to get back,” Thrawn assured her. “Now, the left-hand grip controls the thrusters. Right now it’s set at its most delicate level, so that a small movement translates to a small increase or decrease in thrust. Rotating the grip will change that; we won’t bother with that right now. Ease it forward—just a little—and note how our speed changes on that display—that one right there.”