“Your sculptures show your fondness for wide-spaced combinations,” Thrawn said, lowering his own sticks to his sides. “Particularly three- and four-coil patterns. Your favorite subjects—groundlions, dragonelles, and predator birds—indicate the short attacks, hesitation feints, and aggression. The particular shape of open areas shows how you compose your feints, and the angular style suggests a spinning attack would be unexpected and disconcerting enough to slow your response.”

Which, she remembered, had been his first successful attack. “Interesting,” Ziara said.

“But what followed was equally instructive,” Thrawn continued. He raised his eyebrows slightly in obvious invitation.

Ziara felt a flush of irritation. She was the upperclassman here, not him. If there was anyone who should be reciting lessons and offering analysis, it should be him, not her.

Which was, she instantly realized, about the stupidest thought she’d ever had in her life. Only a fool passed up an opportunity to learn. “I realized you’d figured out my pattern and changed tactics,” she said. “And it worked, at least for a couple of attacks. Then you attacked, and after that I was never able to get through again.”

“Do you know why?”

Ziara frowned, thinking back over the fight…“I went back to my old tactics,” she said with a wry smile. “The ones you’d already figured out how to beat.”

“Exactly,” Thrawn said, smiling back. “A lesson for all of us. In moments of stress or uncertainty, we tend to fall back on the familiar and comfortable.”

“Yes,” Ziara murmured, suddenly noticing where she was relative to him. Well within attack range…and she’d never explicitly stated the bout was over.

The moment of temptation passed. Just because she hadn’t officially stopped it didn’t mean it would be fair to unilaterally start it up again. Thrawn had behaved honorably. She could do no less.

“And the care you put into the sculptures shows you have too much honor to play shoddy tricks against a sparring partner,” Thrawn added.

Ziara felt her face warm. “You sure of that?”

“Yes.”

For a long moment she was again tempted. Then, spinning on her heel, she stalked across the mat and returned her sticks to the weapons rack. “Okay,” she said over her shoulder as she started pulling off her sparring armor. “I’m impressed. You really think you can do the same thing with alien cultures and tactics?”

“I do,” Thrawn said. “Someday, I hope I’ll have the chance to prove it.”

Chapter Six

Five hours after the Springhawk went into hiding, Thrawn and Thalias strapped themselves into one of the cruiser’s shuttles and headed across the asteroid cluster toward the dark space station floating in the distance.

“The journey may be a bit tedious,” Thrawn warned as they moved between the floating rocks and dust. “We’ll be using the maneuvering jets exclusively in order to avoid any thruster plumes that our adversaries might detect. That makes for a slower trip.”