Alliances (Star Wars: Thrawn, #2)(13)

“I might be of more use inside,” Thrawn offered. “My eyes see a slightly different spectrum than yours.”

“I’d rather you check out here,” Anakin said firmly. Even this close to the ship he couldn’t sense Padmé’s presence, which meant she was either not there, already dead, or critically close to death. He needed to get inside and find out which, and he wasn’t in the mood to argue the point. “You can have Artoo to help,” he added. Looking back at the tree where the little droid was hiding, he raised his voice. “Artoo?”

There was a twitter of acknowledgment, and R2-D2 rolled into view. Giving a small burst from his jets to fly over a fallen log, he settled back onto his wheels and rolled awkwardly across the uneven ground toward them. “I’m going inside,” Anakin told him. “You and Commander Thrawn look for clues out here.”

There were all sorts of reasons why Padmé might have changed the key code on her ship. Luckily, she hadn’t. A minute later Anakin was inside.

He checked out the most likely places first: galley, sleeping chamber, control cabin. Then, lightsaber in hand, senses alert for trouble, he went methodically through the entire ship.

No Padmé: dead, injured, or alive. No signs of attack, or indications that she might have had to leave the ship in a hurry. The escape pods were still in place, and hadn’t been activated or prepped. The comm showed that she’d sent two messages, but with the obligatory encryption overlay he couldn’t read them.

His sense of anxiety, which had abated somewhat with the discovery that his beloved wife wasn’t lying dead in her ship, was growing again as he finally stepped back outside. Padmé had apparently left the ship under her own volition. But where had she gone?

Thrawn and R2-D2 both turned to him as he joined them at one end of the clearing. “Any news?” Thrawn asked.

Anakin shook his head. “No one inside. No signs of accident or violence. Her computer’s nav log shows she came straight here from Coruscant.”

“Your ships maintain the data of your travels?” Thrawn asked, frowning.

“Sure, if you don’t wipe the nav computer after you arrive,” Anakin said. “Why, don’t yours do that?”

“We use a different navigational method,” Thrawn said. “Yes, of course you would have records.”

“Yeah,” Anakin said. Odd comment. “There were also two messages in her outgoing file, but they’re encrypted and I can’t read them.”

“Her personal message records are encrypted?”

“It’s a diplomatic ship,” Anakin reminded him. “Nothing an ambassador does or says is truly personal. Transmission records are routinely encrypted in case the ship is intercepted—we don’t want the Separatists reading our messages.”

“Yes; the Separatists,” Thrawn said. “The origins and driving force behind this Clone War are still somewhat opaque to me.”

“And we’re not going to discuss them now,” Anakin said firmly. “Did you find anything?”

“There’s no damage to the ship’s exterior,” Thrawn said. “No indications of fuel loss, sensor failure, or other problems that might have forced a landing. Also no detectable blood or torn clothing.” He indicated the ground in front of them. “You spoke of an informant. Was he local, or was he also traveling to Batuu?”

“She,” Anakin automatically corrected. “And yes, she was traveling here. Or had traveled here. I’m not sure of the timing.”

“Have you details of her ship?”

“Not really,” Anakin said. “Artoo, did Padmé ever mention the kind of ship her handmaidens used?”

There was a short pause as R2-D2 searched his datafiles. Then, with a warbled affirmative, he leaned forward and projected a holo of a small ship onto the ground. “That’s it,” Anakin told Thrawn. “He says it’s a Nomad Four, a civilian version of the Seltaya military courier ship.”

“What is the scale?” Thrawn asked. “And may I see the underside?”

“Artoo?” Anakin prompted.

The image flipped over, and a scale crosshatch appeared over it. “Yes,” Thrawn murmured. “Do you see these marks?”

He pointed to the ground at his feet. If he squinted, Anakin decided, he might imagine he could see a wide depression there. “Are you saying that’s the mark of a Nomad’s landing skid?”

“Yes,” Thrawn said. “Furthermore, do you see the grass within the mark?”

“Yes,” Anakin said. It looked like all the other grass around them. “And?”

“Note the darker color in the veins on the undersides of the leaves,” Thrawn said. “I believe the leaves were crushed in a ship’s landing, beginning their return to full life only when it departed.”

“Any idea how long the ship was here?”

“No,” Thrawn said. “But from the regrowth pattern, I estimate the ship left approximately one week ago.”

“You’re an expert on Batuu plant life now?” Anakin asked, frowning. That seemed suspiciously convenient.

“I knew the Nubian ship had been in this area,” Thrawn said calmly, pulling a small flat box from the back of his belt. “I also know that plant life can offer clues. I therefore loaded all the details that were available on this region’s plants into my recorder before leaving my ship.”