Qilori felt his winglets quivering. He’d never anticipated he might need to communicate surreptitiously with the Benevolent on this trip, and so had never set up a tap into the freighter’s comm system. How could he warn him that Thrawn was goading him from here to keep him from anticipating the attack that would come from a completely unexpected direction?

“Pathfinder Qilori.”

Qilori jerked. “Yes?”

“You seem upset,” Thrawn said. “You’re possibly thinking I have another force prepared, waiting for the proper time to launch its attack?”

Qilori’s winglets flattened. How in the Depths did he do that? “I have no idea one way or the other,” he said diplomatically.

“But you know how it could be done, don’t you?” Thrawn persisted. “Even given the altered coordinates that you substituted for the ones in Yiv’s original message.”

“I don’t—” He broke off as Thrawn turned those glowing red eyes on him. “It’s not my concern.”

“Come now, Pathfinder, don’t be so modest,” Thrawn said. “You and I understand, even if many of Yiv’s victims don’t. For a long time he’s been using the Pathfinders’ ability to locate each other through hyperspace to coordinate his attacks.”

“No, of course not,” Qilori protested reflexively. “Direct cooperation with a military force would be a blatant violation of Navigators’ Guild rules.”

“And would likely lead the guild to eject the Pathfinders from its organization?”

Qilori swallowed hard. “It could happen,” he admitted.

“Not just could,” Thrawn said. “You’d prefer, then, that I keep that knowledge to myself?”

Qilori glared at him. “Of course,” he ground out. “What’s your price?”

Thrawn turned back to the viewport. “The price,” he said, “is for you to forget everything you see from this point on.”

“Fine,” Qilori said.

It was a simple enough promise, he told himself. Yiv would probably also want him to forget today’s events, and he had a long history of obeying the Benevolent’s orders.

“And as to your earlier fear,” Thrawn continued, “there’s no need for me to launch any attack. The battle for the Vak Combine is taking place over Primea, and has left Yiv with only two options. One: He can stay here and attempt to destroy me, thus giving the impression that he’s hiding from the battle. Two: He can leave to bolster his forces, and thus appear that he’s running from me.” He gestured toward the Deathless. “Even now he attempts to decide which of those scenarios will damage his reputation less.”

“It will be interesting to see which way he goes,” Qilori muttered.

And really, there would be no question of Thrawn keeping that potentially devastating knowledge about the Pathfinders to himself. Not once he was dead.