“Yes,” the boy murmured.

Thurfian studied him out of the corner of his eye. The boy might bring glory to the Mitth, the way Ba’kif thought. He might just as easily bring shame and regret. That was how the universe operated.

But either way, it was done.

Vurawn was no more. In his place now stood Thrawn.

Chapter One

There were times, Ba’kif thought distantly, when it was good for a man to stare out of the relative stability of the Chiss Ascendancy into the Chaos. It was a chance to appreciate all that the Ascendancy was, and all that it meant: order and steadfastness, security and power, light and culture and glory. It was an island of calm amid the twisted hyperspace lanes and the ever-changing pathways that slowed travel and stunted trade for all those who lived out there.

The Chaos hadn’t always been that way, or so the legends went. Once, at the dawn of space travel, it had been no more difficult to move between any of the stars than it was now to travel in the Ascendancy. But then, millennia ago, a series of chained supernova explosions throughout the region had sent huge masses tumbling at high speeds between the stars, some of them demolishing asteroids or whole worlds, others sparking more supernovas with their near-lightspeed impacts. The movement of all those masses, coupled with regions of heavy electromagnetic flux, resulted in the constantly changing hyperlanes that made any voyage longer than a couple of star systems difficult and dangerous.

But that instability was a two-bladed knife. The limitations that stifled travel and thus helped protect the Chiss from invasion also slowed recon and intelligence gathering. There were dangers out there in the darkness, hidden worlds and tyrants who sought conquest and destruction.

One of those tyrants had apparently now set his sights on the Ascendancy.

“Are you certain this is the way?” he asked the young woman at the helm of their shuttle.

“Yes, General, I am,” she said. A flicker of controlled pain crossed her face. “I was part of the team that found it.”

Ba’kif nodded. “Of course.” There was another short silence, another moment of gazing out at the distant stars—

“There,” the woman said suddenly. “Ten degrees to starboard.”

“I see it,” Ba’kif said. “Take us alongside.”

“Yes, sir.”

Their ship moved forward, steadily closing the distance. Ba’kif gazed out the viewport, his stomach tight. It was one thing to see holos and recordings of a destroyed refugee ship. It was something else entirely to look personally upon the stark reality of slaughter.

Beside him, Senior Captain Thrawn stirred. “This wasn’t pirates,” he said.

“Your reasoning?” Ba’kif asked.

“The damage pattern is designed to destroy, not immobilize.”

“Perhaps the majority of the destruction was inflicted after they plundered it.”

“Unlikely,” Thrawn said. “The angle of the majority of the shots indicates an attack from the rear.”