“You mean right on top of us?” Qilori retorted. He looked again at the aft display.

And felt his winglets go rigid. Where there had been four ships behind them, there were now five. The four Lioaoin corsairs he’d already seen…and a Chiss warship.

“Mid Captain Ziara, this is Junior Commander Thrawn,” Thrawn called toward the comm. “I believe your targets await you.”

“Indeed they do, Commander,” a soft female voice came back. “I suggest you continue on your present course.

“It should give you the best view of their destruction.”

Chapter Eight

“Interesting,” Supreme General Ba’kif commented as he set his questis aside. He’d read the report twice, Ar’alani had noted as she watched his eyes move back and forth across the text, the first time she’d ever seen him do that. Either he’d been trying to glean as much information as he could, or else he was stalling while he tried to figure out what to say and do about it. “You realize, of course, that stealing someone else’s ship, under any circumstance, is a serious breach of regulations.”

“The Nikardun ships attacked us, sir,” Thrawn said. “I understood that regulations permit self-defense.”

“Absolutely,” Ba’kif said. “And if you’d blown the damn thing to dust, no one would have given it a second thought. But capturing it?” He shook his head. “And you, Admiral. I know you and Thrawn have a long history, but I’m a little surprised that you agreed to be a part of this.”

“Actually, General, I made a point of refreshing my memory on the regulations before I accepted Captain Thrawn’s proposal,” Ar’alani said, mentally crossing her fingers. “There’s nothing that specifically says capturing an attacker’s ship is a violation.”

“I think you’ll find it falls under the general heading of preemptive strikes,” Ba’kif said. “Which is definitely how certain of the Aristocra will interpret it once they hear about this. Some of them might even demand the ship be returned.”

“Without its crew?” Thrawn said. “That might be a bit awkward.”

Ar’alani felt her throat tighten. More than just a bit awkward, given that the Nikardun crew was gone because they’d committed mass suicide minutes before the Chiss boarding parties breached the hatches. For a while she’d rather hoped it had at least been a combination of murder and suicide, with perhaps the officers under orders to slaughter their warriors before taking their own lives. That would have indicated that it was only a few of the Nikardun that were that fanatical. But the medic team had concluded that all the deaths had been self-inflicted.

What kind of compulsion and dominance did this Yiv the Benevolent hold over them that they would willingly go to such violent extremes?