For a moment, Thrawn watched the displays in silence. Ar’alani could see his eyes flicking back and forth: observing, assessing, calculating. If there was something else there, some weakness the Garwians could exploit, he would find it.

“Well?” the general prompted.

“I see two additional weaknesses,” Thrawn said. “But Commodore Ar’alani is right. This is something the Ascendancy must stand back from.”

“You helped us once,” Frangelic said. “Is not the situation here even more dire?”

Thrawn looked at Ar’alani. Back at the general. “The Lioaoi have certain tactical blind spots,” he said. “The first—”

“Just a minute,” Ar’alani interrupted him. The Garwian officers—all of them—were staring at Thrawn. None were watching the monitors. None were directing their defenses.

But then, why would they? The Lioaoin ships were standing well back from the defense platform, not moving forward, their effort apparently being put into defending themselves against the Garwian barrage.

“Please,” Frangelic said, shifting his attention to Ar’alani. “Please don’t stand in the way of Garwian survival.”

“Is that what I’m doing?” Ar’alani asked. Pulling out her comm, she keyed for the Destrama.

Silence. Not just no answer. Silence.

And now all the Garwian officers were looking at her.

“Commander Thrawn, please contact the Destrama,” she said. “There seems to be a problem with my comm.”

“Is there,” Thrawn said, his voice and face gone suddenly hard. He’d heard the silence from her comm, too. “General, kindly lift your jamming.”

“There’s no jamming,” Frangelic said quickly. “At our depth—”

“Kindly lift your jamming,” Thrawn repeated.

Neither his voice nor his face had changed. Even so, a sudden shiver ran up Ar’alani’s back. Silently, the general turned and made a gesture to one of the officers at the consoles. The other touched a pair of switches—

“—asking for terms for the Lioaoin Regime’s surrender,” a taut voice came over Ar’alani’s comm. “The Garwians are ignoring them. Commodore, can you hear me?”

“Yes, Commander,” Ar’alani said. “I can now, anyway. Stand by for orders.”

She muted the comm. “Nice,” she said to the general, putting as much frost into her voice as she could. “You claim you’re being raided by pirates and maneuver us into bending our protocols to assist. Then, once the Lioaoi have lost a critical number of ships, you launch an assault against—what? An old rival? A new competitor for trade or manufacturing contracts?”

“You speak as if the Lioaoi were innocents,” the general said loftily. “Not at all. You recall me speaking earlier of our five outer worlds? Once there were six.” His mouth opened in a grin. “Now there will be six again.”

“Or possibly seven?” Ar’alani asked.

“Possibly,” the general agreed. “There is one of theirs we’re most interested in.”