Mitth'raw'nuruodo said.

Beside Doriana, Kav muttered something. "I'm sorry, Commander," Doriana said, throwing a warning look at the Neimoidian. "Unfortunately, I'm under orders."

"Why do you waste time this way?" Kav demanded.

Cursing under his breath, Doriana lunged for the mute control. "With all due respect, Vicelord, what do you think you're doing?"

"What do you think you are doing?" Kav countered. "They are no more than a parasite fly fluttering against a window. Let us destroy them and be done with it."

"If you don't mind, I'd first like to find out who they are and where they come from," Doriana said, summoning every bit of patience he could muster.

"We can learn that from their charred remains," Kav said, drawing himself up to his fill height. "And you are not in command of this fleet, Stratis. I am."

"Yes, of course," Doriana said, shifting quickly to a more soothing tone.

But it was too late. The vicelord had decided to take offense at the unintentional slight, and had also concluded this was a quick and easy victory ripe for the plucking. With a Neimoidian, that was a bad combination. "The time for talk is over," Kav announced. With a decisive jab of his finger, he cut off the comm channel. "Order the Keeper to launch half its droid starfighters," he called across the bridge, gesturing toward the second Trade Federation battleship. "Three groups will attack the intruders, the rest forming a defense screen around the task force. And order a transfer of command; I will control all the starfighters from here."

"Yes, Vicelord," one of the Neimoidians said. "Do we launch our starfighters, as well?"

"We will hold them in reserve." Kav looked at Doriana. "In case they have reinforcements on the way," he added almost grudgingly.

Doriana sighed silently to himself. He would have liked to find out more about this Mitth'raw'nuruodo and his Chiss before they were slaughtered.

He could only hope there would be enough wreckage left to examine.

"Here they come," Car'das said, pointing at the display. "Droid starfighters-you see them?"

"Yes, of course," Thrawn said calmly. "All vessels, pull back. Car'das, you said droids can think and act on their own. Do these droid starfighters also have that capability?"

"I don't think so," Car'das said, trying to unfreeze his mind and think as the Springhawk began moving backward. The sight of this many incoming Trade Federation starfighters was enough to rattle anyone. "No, I'm sure they don't. They're remotely controlled in groups from one of the battleships."

"Comm?" Thrawn called. "Have you located and identified their control frequencies?"

"Yes, Commander," the comm officer reported. "The control appears to be secured with a rolling encryption system. I estimate maximum range to be ten thousand visvia."

"Pull us back to eleven thousand," Thrawn ordered, turning back to Car'das. "Ten thousand visvia is approximately sixteen thousand of your kilometers. Does that sound like the correct operating range?"

Car'das spread his hands helplessly. "I'm sorry, but I don't know."

"No apologies needed," Thrawn a.s.sured him. "At any rate, we'll know soon enough."

"Enemy fighters still approaching," one of the crewers warned. "Main group is holding back."

"Interesting," Thrawn said thoughtfully. "The main body appears to be forming a defensive screen around the larger vessels. Considering his numerical advantage, this Commander Stratis seems unusually cautious."

"That's typical of the Neimoidians who build and run these things,"

Car'das told him, feeling a frown creasing his forehead. Now that he thought about it, though, Stratis's voice had sounded human, not Neimoidian. Could the Trade Federation have started selling or leasing their battleships?

"Attackers pulling back," the sensor officer called. "Reforming into an outer screen between us and the fleet."

"Apparently, we were correct about the ten-thousand-visvia range," Thrawn concluded. "Excellent."

"So what do we do now?" Car'das asked, eyeing the swarming starfighters uneasily.

For a moment Thrawn sat silently, his eyes narrowed as he gazed at the displays. "We try an experiment," he said at last. "Whirlwind: move to deployment position. Fighter Four: probe attack, course one-one-five by three-eight-one."

There were two acknowledgments, and Car'das watched as one of the other two Springhawk-size ships broke away from the group, heading to starboard, while one of the nine fighters headed off the opposite direction. "What kind of experiment?" he asked.

"With so many fighters to control, I suspect the system designers didn't have room to be overly clever," Thrawn said. "Let's see just how clever they were."

"Incoming!" one of the Neimoidians in the control pits called sharply.

"Single fighter, vector zero-four-two by zero eight-eight."

"The fool," Kav said with a snort. "Does he think us inattentive? Outer group: intercept and destroy."

Doriana watched the displays as the three groups of droid starfighters re-formed from their outer picket screen and swung to intercept the lone alien fighter. But they had barely settled into their attack vector when the intruder broke off, swinging around in a tight curve and hurrying back to the safety of distance. "Return them to patrol," Kav ordered.

"Does this Mitthrawdo not realize how badly he is outmatched?"

"Maybe all he wants is to sit back there out of range and watch us,"

Doriana pointed out. "I don't need to remind you that we can't afford to have witnesses around when Outbound Flight gets here."

"Do you suggest they are Senate spies?"

"Or they might be from the Jedi, or from Palpatine, or from someone else," Doriana said. "All I know is that no one this far from the Republic should be speaking Basic."

"He comes at us again, Vicelord," the Neimoidian at the sensors called.

"Same fighter, same vector."

"Same response, then," Kav called back, leaning forward to study the displays. "Perhaps he is trying to judge exactly how far our control extends."

"Be careful," Doriana warned. "If they figure out how to jam the signal, those starfighters will go dormant."

"And will self-destruct a few minutes later," Kav said impatiently.

"Thank you, Commander Stratis; I am familiar with my own weaponry. See-again he pulls back, no wiser than he was before."

"Unless he's a decoy," Doriana said, searching the other displays. "Don't forget the cruiser that detached itself from the group the same time the fighter did."

"I have not forgotten," Kav a.s.sured him. "But that one has merely traveled along our flank, and has made no attempt to attack or move closer."

Doriana shook his head. "He's up to something, Vicelord."

"Whatever it is, it will gain him nothing," Kav said. "Outbound Flight is not due for another nine days. That is more than enough time to choose how we will deal with this annoyance." On the display the retreating fighter suddenly flipped over and again charged in. "Vicelord-" a Neimoidian began.

"Same response," Kav cut in. But this time there was a note of satisfaction in his voice. "I see now his plan, Commander Stratis. He hopes to drain the starfighters of their fuel and then drive in unopposed. What he does not realize is that I still have all the Darkvenge's starfighters in reserve, plus half of the Seeker's."

"Maybe," Doriana murmured, his vague sense of uneasiness deepening as he watched the same scenario play itself out for a third time. Surely Mitth'raw'nuruodo could come up with something better than to just run the same simple-minded attack over and over.

And always on exactly the same vector. Was he trying to find a weakness in the droid starfighters' attack formation?

Once again the starfighters chased the intruder away. Once again, the alien ship flew out of range and flipped over for another run. The show repeated twice more, and Doriana was just checking the chrono to see how close the starfighters were to their twenty-five-minute fuel time limit when Kav abruptly slammed his fist on the arm of his chair. "I weary of this game," he said. "You-order the Keeper to move toward the aliens."

"Careful, Vicelord," Doriana cautioned as the comet operator turned to his board. "Let's not be too quick to split up the fleet."

"I have been more than patient," Kav countered. "It is time to end this.

Signal the Keeper to advance, and to launch the rest of its starfighters into shield configuration-"

"Hold it," Doriana cut in. Suddenly the scenario had changed. The fighter was again retreating with starfighters in pursuit, but this time the rest of the alien force had leapt forward, driving hard toward the gap that had opened up between them and the main task force.

"And so they make their final mistake," Kav said with satisfaction.

"Signal the starfighters to attack." The Neimoidian acknowledged and tapped at his board.

But to Doriana's disbelief the droids didn't respond. Instead, they continued in pursuit of the retreating fighter.

"Order them to attack!" Kav snapped again. "What are you doing? Call them to the attack!"

"They do not respond," the other Neimoidian called back. "Impossible,"

Kav insisted. "They cannot possibly be jamming our signal."

"They're not," Doriana said grimly. "If the starfighters weren't getting a signal, they'd have shut down and gone dormant. But they're still flying at full power."

"But they are flying away from us. How can this be?" Kav demanded in clear bewilderment.

"Never mind the how," Doriana spat. "Here they come."

"I don't believe it," Car'das murmured as he watched the droid starfighters ignore the incoming Chiss ships completely as they headed mindlessly toward deep s.p.a.ce. "How did you get them to do that?"

"The command signal uses a rolling encryption," Thrawn explained as the Springhawk shot forward past the now vanished outer defense screen. "But with so many fighters requiring signals, I knew the rotation would have to be a limited one. It turns out that there are only three separate encryption patterns for this group. I simply recorded the version the droids would be expecting next, then broadcast it to them with enough power to override whatever their masters in the battleship were trying to send."

"But how could you figure out-oh," Car'das interrupted himself as it finally clicked. "With your fighter always going in on the same vector, and the droids' command always the same come-out-of-this-formation-and-attack-the-enemy-on-this-vector code, the only part that ever changed was the encryption pattern itself."

"Which allowed us to isolate the command we wanted and duplicate it,"

Thrawn confirmed. "The secret to successful a.n.a.lysis, Car'das: whenever possible, reduce matters to a single variable."

Ahead, the nearest starfighters in the inner screen were starting to shift positions, moving from their general defense pattern onto intercept vectors. "I don't think that's going to work on the rest of them, though," Car'das warned. "They're coming from different initial formations, and there are probably entirely different codes and encryptions for them."

"That doesn't matter," Thrawn a.s.sured him. "All I needed was to get past the outer group and into closer range." He tapped a key on his board.

"All vessels: attack pattern d'moporai."

"Here they come," Doriana muttered, his fingers digging tensely into the couch cushion beside him. On the face of it, there was still no way Mitth'raw'nuruodo's pitiful collection of patrol ships could do anything against the combined might of the Trade Federation task force. No way at all.

But the alien commander had just gotten past three groups of droid starfighters without firing a shot, and that was supposed to be impossible, too. Whatever Mitth'raw'nuruodo had in mind for his next trick, Doriana had a strong suspicion he wasn't going to like it.

Yet even through his apprehension, a small detached part of him was looking forward to seeing what that trick would be. He didn't have long to wait. The incoming aliens were widening their formation now, sacrificing the protection of overlapping shields to gain extra maneuvering room. Swarms of starfighters from the nearer parts of the defense screen were breaking their own formation in response, sweeping in over a wide, three-dimensional wavefront toward the intruders. The two groups were nearly within laser range of each other .. .

And then each of the alien fighters launched a single missile.

There was a subtle flicker in the indicator lights of the Darkvenge's computer command board as the starfighters' sensor information was collected, compiled, and a.n.a.lyzed, and the proper response formulated.

The response was translated into a hundred updated commands, which were then sorted, encrypted, and transmitted back to the primitive droid brains riding in their armored casings. A sliver of a second later the starfighters responded to those commands with a rain of concentrated laserfire that blew all nine missiles into shrapnel. "A foolish waste of effort," Kav commented. "The range was clearly too great for-"

"Hold it," Doriana said, frowning at the displays. There was something still moving along the shattered missiles' lines of flight, filmy spots of nearly invisible haze that seemed to be growing larger as they sped toward the incoming starfighters. "Call them back," he told Kav urgently.

But it was too late. Even as the alien attack formation abruptly came apart, with all eleven ships shooting off in all different directions, the hazy spots intersected their target starfighter groups. There were multiple flashes of subdued light "They do not respond!" one of the Neimoidians called from the computer board. "Nine groups of droids have gone silent!"

"Connor nets," Doriana snarled, digging his fingers even harder into the cushion. Nine groups of starfighters, neatly and efficiently knocked out of action.

Out of action, but not out of the fight. Their momentum was still carrying them onward . . . and as he watched in helpless fascination, they slammed squarely into other groups that had shifted their own vectors to chase the dispersing aliens. There were more multiple flashes, this cl.u.s.ter much brighter than the last.

And suddenly the gaping hole in the task force's defensive screen no longer had any starfighters left to fill it. "This is impossible," Kav said, his five-cornered hat bobbing as he swung his head back and forth around the bridge. "How can he do this?"

"Get the rest of the starfighters into s.p.a.ce," Doriana ground out. "Now."

Kav didn't need any prompting. "Order Keeper to activate all remaining droid starfighters," he called. "They will launch when ready. And move all those already launched to intercept."

"Wait a minute," Doriana objected. "You can't leave our other flanks unguarded."

"Against what?" Kav retorted. "This is the battlefront. If we do not defend it, there will be no other flanks left to guard." He gestured across the bridge. "Obey my order."

"Here they come," Car'das murmured, wondering if Thrawn had finally sliced off more than he could serve. The Chiss had dispatched those first few groups of droid starfighters with relative ease, but tricks like that only worked once against a given opponent.

And now all the rest of those hundreds of starfighters were sweeping around the flanks of the Trade Federation fleet, heading straight toward them.

Unless that was exactly what Thrawn had been waiting for. Car'das shifted his eyes across the displays, looking for the cruiser that had slipped away from them just before the fighting started. If the main Chiss force was merely a diversion .. .

But the Whirlwind wasn't charging in from the side for a sucker-punch attack. It was still sitting quietly in s.p.a.ce, apparently being held in reserve.

He looked back at the incoming starfighters. "I hope you've got one Great Father of a shock net up your sleeve," he warned.

"We'll certainly have to consider creating such a device if we begin facing opponents like this on a regular basis," Thrawn said drily. "Tell me, what happens to these droids if their communication signals are cut off?"

"If the-? Are you talking about jamming?"

"You disapprove?"

"No, of course not," Car'das said. "But Trade Federation command signals are supposed to be unjammable. They can change frequencies and command patterns instantly-the minute you block off one part of the spectrum they just shift to another."

"And if you block the entire spectrum at once?"