Wutroow pursed her lips. “I trust you realize, Admiral, that we’re walking on splintered eggs here. We only have Senior Captain Thrawn’s assumption that the Vaks haven’t completely gone over to the Nikardun side. If they have, we’re going to end up fighting both of them. And unless the Vaks attack us directly, we have no authorization whatsoever to fire on them.”

“It gets worse,” Ar’alani warned, thinking back to the Lioaoi fighters she and Thrawn had seen at the Lioaoin heartworld. “If the Vaks have joined Yiv, there may already be Nikardun crews aboard Vak warships. We won’t know for sure who’s who until they open fire.”

“And until then, they can maneuver all they want, play blocker for Nikardun ships, or even range their weapons against us,” Wutroow said darkly. “Until they actually fire, we can’t legally do anything.”

“Well, maybe we’ll get lucky and the Vaks will declare war as soon as they see us coming for them,” Ar’alani said. “That would make things easier.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Wutroow hesitated. “This Republic energy shield Thrawn brought back from the edge of the Chaos. How good is it, really?”

“I don’t know,” Ar’alani admitted. “I was there for some of the tests when they were figuring out how to wire it to Chiss power systems, and it looked pretty impressive. But how strong it is, and how long it’ll last under sustained fire—” She shook her head. “No idea. I suppose we’ll find out.”

“I suppose we will.” Wutroow huffed out a breath. “With your permission, Admiral, I think I’ll run the weapons crews through one final system check. I assume you’ve made arrangements to get sky-walker Ab’begh off the bridge as soon as we arrive at Primea?”

“I’ve assigned two warriors to take her back to the suite,” Ar’alani said. “They’ll stay there with her and her caregiver until the battle’s over.”

“Good idea,” Wutroow said. “Thrawn losing his sky-walker was bad enough. If we got boarded and lost ours, too, we’d never hear the end of it.”

Ar’alani had to smile. “And if that’s the only thing you have to worry about today, Senior Captain, your life must be going remarkably well.”

“Thank you, Admiral,” Wutroow said innocently. “I do my best. With your permission, I’ll get started on that weapons check.”

With a final urging from the Great Presence, and a final twitch of Qilori’s fingers, they arrived.

“Well,” Thrawn commented as Qilori pulled off his sensory-deprivation headset. “I see General Yiv has one final surprise for us.”