Abruptly, as if Thrawn had just noticed the threat coming up on his starboard side, the Springhawk made a sharp turn away from its attacker. The pursuing ship opened fire with its spectrum lasers, and a large piece of debris detached itself from the Chiss ship’s flank and fell backward. The Springhawk shifted direction, just slightly, the Nikardun adjusting its own vector to match.

And suddenly Qilori realized what was going on. The object falling behind the Springhawk wasn’t battle debris from the Nikardun attack, as he’d thought. It was, in fact, another of the Chiss ship’s shuttles.

And the Nikardun, now blasting toward the Springhawk at top speed, was about to run straight into it.

Qilori’s first horrible thought was that the shuttle would crash into the oversized bridge viewport that marked all of Yiv’s combat ships. But the Nikardun captain spotted the obstacle in time to twist the ship aside.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t time to twist it far enough. The shuttle missed the viewport to slam instead into the portside weapons cluster, wrecking that group of lasers and missile launchers and setting the ship spinning.

A second later the starscape outside the Springhawk’s viewport spun crazily as the Chiss ship did its own yaw rotation. Qilori gripped his armrests, fighting against vertigo, as the Springhawk’s movement brought the stern of the tumbling Nikardun into view. There was a multiple flash of laserfire, and the fiery yellow glow from the Nikardun’s thruster nozzles flared once and then faded as the damaged engines behind the nozzles shut down. Qilori held his breath, waiting for the salvo that would blast the helpless ship into dust.

The salvo didn’t come. Instead, the Springhawk slowed, waiting for the Nikardun’s momentum to bring it closer. The Chiss ship moved up and over, settling itself above the Nikardun’s dorsal sensor ridge, out of line from the remaining flankside weapons clusters. On the tactical, the green lines of two tractor beams winked into existence, connecting the two ships. The hazy circle of a Crippler net spun out from the Springhawk’s hull between the tractor beam projectors and wrapped itself around the Nikardun vessel, sending a high-voltage charge through the hull and eliminating the possibility that the crew might activate a scuttling system.

And as the Springhawk turned toward hyperspace, all the pieces finally fell into their pattern.

The escaping shuttle—running on automatic, Qilori realized now—had indeed been a diversion. But not for a second Chiss ship. It was just Thrawn, and he’d brought them to that particular spot because he wanted the Nikardun to chase him. This whole thing had never been about death, destruction, infiltration, or even just delivering Yiv a message. Thrawn had simply dropped by hoping to capture a Nikardun ship.

And he’d done it.

“Pathfinder?” Thrawn’s voice came from right behind him.

Qilori jerked. “Yes, Captain?” he managed.