“Won’t make a mistake?” Thurfian snorted. “You don’t believe that any more than I do. The man’s a menace. Give him enough lead time, and he’ll burn himself down. And maybe the Mitth along with him.”

“Or maybe he’ll do something that raises the Ascendancy to heights it’s never before achieved.”

Thurfian stared at him. “You’re joking, right? To heights it’s never achieved?”

“It could happen,” the Speaker said ruefully. “And if it does, we can’t afford to risk that glory shining on the Irizi instead of us.”

“With all due respect, Speaker, there won’t be any glory,” Thurfian said. “Certainly the Council isn’t looking at all this with starry eyes. They’ve already demoted him back to mid commander.”

“But they’ve also given him another ship,” Thistrian said.

For the second time in less than a minute, Thurfian felt his eyes widen. “They’ve what?”

“A full-rank heavy cruiser this time, too, the Springhawk,” the Speaker confirmed. “On top of that, there’s talk of also giving him his own combat group, Picket Force Two.”

Thurfian stared at the Speaker, a chill running through him. “Who’s doing this?” he asked, his throat tight. “Someone’s burning serious political capital here. Who?”

“I don’t know,” the Speaker said heavily. “On the fleet side, best guess is that it’s General Ba’kif or possibly Admiral Ja’fosk. On the Mitth side—” He shook his head. “It has to be someone close to the Patriarch.”

“Could it be the Patriarch himself?”

“I would hesitate to put that name to it,” the Speaker said. “But I also wouldn’t dismiss that thought out of hand. Certainly Thrawn’s life and career have been charmed from the very beginning.”

“It’s still madness,” Thurfian said. “His failures and embarrassments still outweigh his successes.”

“I would tend to agree,” the Speaker said. “But there’s madness, and then there’s madness. I looked into Picket Two’s current assignment, and it turns out they’re working a patrol zone a fair distance past the Ascendancy’s east-zenith edge. That would put him far away from the center of Ascendancy politics.”

Thurfian ran that over in his mind. Given Thrawn’s political ineptness, that wouldn’t be the worst assignment they could give him. “It’s also on the far side of the Ascendancy from the Lioaoi and Garwians.”

“Another plus, in my estimation,” the Speaker said. “Mostly what’s out there are small nations, single-system groups, empty space, and pirates.”

“Great,” Thurfian said sourly. “More pirates.”

“But on that side of the Ascendancy, the only nations large enough to support a pirate group are the Paataatus,” the Speaker pointed out. “That means less potential for political entanglements if he goes hunting. Besides, he’s already demonstrated he can beat the frost out of the Paataatus if he needs to, and they know it.”