Alliances (Star Wars: Thrawn, #2)(30)

“Easily accessible to anyone who searched for it.”

“Well, not easily,” Anakin said. “Artoo had to dig.”

“Does it seem reasonable that the Separatists would handle such critical data this way?”

“They weren’t expecting anyone except themselves to be in here,” Anakin reminded him patiently.

“Your ambassador was also not expecting intruders,” Thrawn reminded him. “Yet her messages were nevertheless encrypted.”

Anakin felt his stomach tighten. That was a good point, actually. “So what are you saying?” he asked slowly. “That this is just a cover for the real data?”

“Perhaps,” Thrawn said. “Ask your droid if there were any other navigational files in the computer.”

R2-D2 warbled a negative. “He said no,” Anakin translated.

“Then the data is accurate,” Thrawn concluded. “But the presumed destination may not be.”

“What do you—oh,” Anakin said, nodding as he understood. “The course points to Cermau, but their actual landing site may be somewhere else.”

“Exactly,” Thrawn said. “How many inhabitable systems are along that route?”

“Let’s find out,” Anakin said. “Artoo? Pull up a list of systems. Give me everything we’ve got on them.”

Minutes later, the droid had the results.

They weren’t promising.

“Eleven of them,” Anakin growled, running his eye over R2-D2’s list. “And you’ve got nothing on any of them except Batuu?”

R2-D2 grunted with some mechanical frustration of his own.

“It’s not hopeless,” Thrawn soothed. “You see that the Separatist have provided datafiles of their own.”

“What, these?” Anakin demanded, jabbing a finger toward the display. “You’ve got to be joking. ‘Batuu: home to ancient ruins and giant petrified black trees.’ ‘Umme: galaxy-class hunting.’ ‘Yakorki: wide selection of edible wild fungi.’ ‘Mokivj: ten moons, beautiful sunsets.’ ‘Plood: majestic seascapes.’ It’s like they pulled these out of travel brochures.”

“Then we’ll need to narrow down the list,” Thrawn said.

“Starting with your captive outside?”

“I doubt he knows anything useful,” Thrawn said. “He claims to be merely an engine mechanic.”

“And you believe him?”

“The scars and burn marks on his hands tend to support his claim,” Thrawn said. “Regardless, I need a larger group for the interrogation I have in mind. Perhaps the drama currently playing out near the cantina will suit our needs.”

Anakin frowned. “What drama?”

“Five beings entered the cantina after our departure and carried the bartender away,” Thrawn said. “They appear to be awaiting his return to consciousness. From their conversation I deduce they’re associated with both the group we encountered in the forest and the four beings who assaulted us in the cantina.”

“So they did call back to Black Spire to have someone deal with us,” Anakin said, nodding.

“It is not quite so simple,” Thrawn warned. “You forget they targeted you for death. The five now with the bartender are concerned about the owners of this ship, and fear their thefts have been discovered. They’re also unclear whether you and I are associated with the shipowners, your ambassador, or neither.”

“You’re right, it sounds like we need to have a chat with them,” Anakin said.

“Indeed,” Thrawn advised. “Again, it’s not quite so simple. The human I followed to this vehicle was not alone.”

“He had a friend?”

“Four friends,” Thrawn corrected. “I believe that even now they’re listening unannounced to the smugglers’ conversation as they also await the bartender’s return to consciousness.”

Anakin looked out the viewport. A ship this size…a cargo bay this size…the one who’d come back, plus the four Thrawn said were waiting for the bartender to wake up…yes, that could very well be the entire ship’s complement.

And having all the Separatists gathered together in one spot could be very handy. “How do you know all this?”

“After the battle, while you were still unconscious, I took the precaution of putting a listening device on the bartender’s clothing,” Thrawn said. “I’ve been following their conversations ever since.”

Anakin felt a tight smile tug at his lips. “And since the bartender isn’t awake yet, everyone’s just sitting around waiting and worrying out loud. And since our jamming’s still going, none of them can talk to anyone else—”

He broke off, frowning. “Wait a minute. How are you getting messages from the bartender if we’re jamming all communications?”

“My listening device does not utilize normal communication methods,” Thrawn said. “It translates speech into powerful sonic signals at frequencies far above those detectable by any known species. The signals are received by another device, which I placed on a wall near the cantina, which further translates the sound into a pattern of invisible flickering lights. The lights are reflected from nearby objects—here, the stone trees—and collected by a device on my vehicle. They’re then translated back into high-frequency sound, which is again converted to speech by my earpiece.”