Star Wars.

The Hand of Thrawn Duology.

Specter of the Past.

by Timothy Zahn.

CHAPTER 1.

Slowly, silently, its lights faint glitter of life amid the darkness, the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera glided through s.p.a.ce.

Empty s.p.a.ce. Oppressively dark s.p.a.ce. Long, lonely light-years from the nearest of the tiny islands that were the star systems of the galaxy, drifting at the edge of the boundary between the Outer Rim worlds and the vast regions of territory known as Unknown s.p.a.ce. At the very edge of the Empire.

Or rather, at the edge of the pitiful sc.r.a.ps of what had once been the Empire.

Standing beside one of the Chimaera's side viewports, Admiral Pellaeon, Supreme Commander of the Imperial Fleet, gazed out at the emptiness, the weight of all too many years pressing heavily across his shoulders. Too many years, too many battles, too many defeats.

Perhaps the Chimaera's bridge crew was feeling the weight, too. Certainly the sounds of activity going on behind him seemed more muted than usual today. But perhaps it was merely the effect of being out here, so far from anywhere at all.

No, of course that had to be it. The men of the Chimaera were the finest the Fleet had to offer. They were Imperial officers and crewers, and Imperials didn't give up. Ever.

There was a tentative footstep at his side. "Admiral?" Captain Ardiff said quietly. "We're ready to begin, sir."

For a moment Pellaeon's mind flashed back ten years, to another very similar moment. Then, it had been Pellaeon and Grand Admiral Thrawn who'd been here on the Chimaera's bridge, watching the final test of the prototype cloaking shield Thrawn had recovered from among the Emperor's trophies inside Mount Tantiss. Pellaeon could remember the excitement he'd felt then, despite his misgivings about the insane Jedi clone Joruus C'baoth, as he watched Thrawn single-handedly breathing new life and vigor back into the Empire.

But Mount Tantiss was gone, destroyed by agents of the New Republic and C'baoth's own madness and treason. And Grand Admiral Thrawn was dead.

And the Empire was dying.

With an effort, Pellaeon shook the shadows of the past away. He was an Imperial officer, and Imperials didn't give up. "Thank you," he said to Ardiff. "At your convenience, Captain."

"Yes, sir." Ardiff half turned, gestured to the fighter coordinator in the portside crew pit. "Signal the attack," he ordered.

The officer acknowledged and gestured in turn to one of his crewers. Pellaeon turned his attention back to the viewport&mdash Just in time to see eight SoroSuub Preybird-cla.s.s starfighters in tight formation roar in from behind them. Cutting tight to the Chimaera's command superstructure, they pa.s.sed over the forward ridgeline, raking it with low-power blaster fire, then split smoothly out in eight different directions. Corks.c.r.e.w.i.n.g out and forward, they kept up their fire until they were out of the Star Destroyer's primary attack zone. Then, curving smoothly around, they swung around and regrouped.

"Admiral?" Ardiff prompted.

"Let's give them one more pa.s.s, Captain," Pellaeon said. "The more flight data the Predictor has to work with, the better it should function." He caught the eye of one of the crew pit officers. "Damage report?"

"Minor damage to the forward ridgeline, sir," the officer reported. "One sensor array knocked out, leaving five turbolasers without ranging data."

"Acknowledged." All theoretical damage, of course, calculated under the a.s.sumption that the Preybirds were using full-power capital-ship turbolasers. Pellaeon had always loved war games when he was younger; had relished the chance to play with technique and tactics without the risks of true combat. Somewhere in all those years, the excitement had faded away. "Helm, bring us around twenty degrees to starboard," he ordered. "Starboard turbolasers will lay down dispersion fire as they make their next pa.s.s."

The Preybirds were back in tight formation now, once again approaching their target. The Chimaera's turbolasers opened up as they came, their low-level fire splattering across the Preybirds' overlapping deflector shields. For a few seconds the opponents traded fire; then, the Preybirds broke formation again, splitting apart like the fingertips of an opening hand. Twisting over and under the Chimaera, they shot past, scrambling for the safety of distance.

"Damage report?" Pellaeon called.

"Three starboard turbolaser batteries knocked out," the officer called back. "We've also lost one tractor beam projector and two ion cannon."

"Enemy damage?"

"One attacker appears to have lost its deflector shields, and two others are reading diminished turbolaser capability."

"Hardly counts as damage," Ardiff murmured. "Of course, the situation here isn't exactly fair. Ships that small and maneuverable would never have the kind of shields or firepower we're crediting them with."

"If you want fairness, organize a shockball tournament," PeIlaeon said acidly. "Don't look for it in warfare."

Ardiff's cheek twitched. "I'm sorry, sir."

Pellaeon sighed. The finest the Imperial Fleet had to offer . . "Stand by the cloaking shield, Captain," he ordered, watching the faint drive glows as the Preybirds regrouped again in the distance. "Activate on my command."

"Yes, Admiral."

There was a sudden flare of drive glow, partially eclipsed by the Preybirds themselves, as the enemy kicked into high acceleration. "Here they come," Pellaeon said, watching as the single glowing dot rapidly resolved itself into eight close-formation ships. "Lock Predictor into fire control. Stand by cloaking shield."

"Predictor and cloaking shield standing by," Ardiff confirmed.

Pellaeon nodded, his full attention on the Preybirds. Nearly to the point where they'd broken formation last time . . . "Cloaking shield: now."

And with a brief flicker of bridge lighting, the stars and incoming Preybirds vanished as the cloaking shield plunged the Chimaera into total darkness.

"Cloaking shield activated and stabilized," Ardiff said.

"Helm, come around portside: thirty degrees by eight," Pellaeon ordered. "Ahead acceleration point one. Turbolasers: fire."

"Acknowledged," an officer called. "Turbolasers are firing."

Pellaeon took a step closer to the viewport and looked down along the Chimaera's sides.

The faint blasts of low-level fire were visible, lancing a short distance out from the Star Destroyer and then disappearing as they penetrated the spherical edge of the Star Destroyer's cloaking shield. Blinded by the very device that was now shielding it from its opponents' view, the Chimaera was firing wildly in an attempt to destroy those opponents.

Or perhaps not quite so wildly. If the Predictor worked as well as its designers hoped, perhaps the Empire still had a chance in this war.

It was a long time before the Chimaera's turbolasers finally ceased fire. Far too long.

"Is that it?" he asked Ardiff.

"Yes, sir," the other said. "Five hundred shots, as preprogrammed."

Pellaeon nodded. "Deactivate cloaking shield. Let's see how well we did."

There was another flicker from the lights, and the stars were back. Mentally crossing his fingers, Pellaeon peered out the viewport.

For a moment there was nothing. Then, from starboard, he spotted the approaching drive glows. Seven of them.

"Signal from Adversary Commander, Admiral," the comm officer called. "Target Three reports receiving a disabling hit and has gone dormant; all other targets have sustained only minimal damage. Requesting orders."

Pellaeon grimaced. One. Out of eight targets, the Chimaera had been able to hit exactly one. And that great feat had required five hundred shots to achieve.

So that was that. The wonderful Computerized Combat Predictor, touted by its creators and sponsors as the best approach to practical use of the cloaking shield, had been put to the test. And to be fair, it bad probably done better than simple random shooting.

But it hadn't done enough better. Not nearly enough.

"Inform Adversary Commander that the exercise is over," Pellaeon told the comm officer.

"Target Three may reactivate its systems; all ships are to return to the Chimaera. I want their reports filed within the next two hours."

"Yes, sir."

"I'm sure they'll be able to improve it, Admiral," Ardiff said at Pellaeon's side. "This was just the first field test. Surely they'll be able to improve it."

"How?" Pellaeon retorted. "Train the Predictor to be omniscient? Or simply teach it how to read our enemies' minds?"

"You only gave it two pa.s.ses to study the targets' flight patterns," Ardiff reminded him.

"With more data, it could have better antic.i.p.ated their movements."

Pellaeon snorted gently. "It's a nice theory, Captain, and under certain controlled situations it might even work. But combat is hardly a controlled situation. There are far too many variables and unknowns, especially considering the hundreds of alien species and combat styles we have to contend with. I knew from the beginning that this Predictor idea was probably futile. But it had to be tried."

Well, then, we just have to go back to mark zero," Ardiff said. "Come up with something else. There have to be practical uses for this cloaking shield device."

"Of course there are," Pellaeon agreed heavily. "Grand Admiral Thrawn devised three of them himself. But there's no one left in the Empire with his military genius."

He sighed. "No, Captain. It's over. It's all over. And we've lost."

For a long moment the low murmur of background conversation was the only sound on the bridge. "You can't mean that, Admiral," Ardiff said at last. "And if I may say so, sir, this is not the sort of thing the Supreme Commander of Imperial forces should be talking about."

"Why not?" Pellaeon countered. "It's obvious to everyone else."

"It most certainly is not, sir," Ardiff said stiffly. "We still hold eight sectors-over a thousand inhabited systems. We have the Fleet, nearly two hundred Star Destroyers strong.

We're still very much a force to be reckoned with."

"Are we?" Pellaeon asked. "Are we really?"

"Of course we are," Ardiff insisted. "How else could we be holding our own against the New Republic?"

Pellaeon shook his head. "We're holding our own for tie simple reason that the New Republic is too busy right now with internal squabbling to bother with us."

"Which works directly to our advantage," Ardiff said. "It's giving us the time we need to reorganize and rearm."

"Rearm?" Pellaeon threw him a quizzical frown. "Hare you taken even a cursory look at what we're working with here" He gestured out the viewport at the Preybirds, disappearing new beneath the edge of the Chimaera's hull as they headed for tie Star Destroyer's hangar.

"Look at them, Captain. SoroSuub Preybirds. We're reduced to SoroSuub Preybirds."

"There's nothing wrong with the Preybirds, sir," Ardiff said stubbornly. "They're a quite capable midsize starfighter."

"The point is that they're not being manufactured by the Empire," Pellaeon said. "They're being scrounged from who knows where-probably some fringe pirate or mercenary gang And they're being scrounged precisely because we're down to a single major shipyard and it can't keep up with demand for capital ships, let alone starfighters. So tell me how you plan for us to rearm ourselves."

Ardiff looked out the viewport. "It's still not yet over, sir."

But it was. And down deep, Pellaeon was sure Ardiff knew it as well as he did. A thousand systems left, out of an Empire that had once spanned a million. Two hundred Star Destroyers remaining from a Fleet that had once included over twenty-five thousand of them.

And perhaps most telling of all, hundreds of star systems that had once maintained a cautious neutrality were now pet.i.tioning the New Republic for membership. They, too, knew that the outcome was no longer uncertain.

Grand Admiral Thrawn could perhaps have breathed the remaining sparks into an Imperial victory. But Grand Admiral Thrawn was gone.

"Have the navigator plot a course for the Bastion system. Captain," Pellaeon said to Ardiff. "Send transmissions to all the Moffs, instructing them to meet me at Moff Disra's palace. We'll leave as soon as the Preybirds are aboard."

"Yes, Admiral," Ardiff said. "May I tell the Moffs what the meeting is about?"

Pellaeon looked out the viewport at the distant stars. Stars that the Empire had once called theirs. They'd had so much . . . and somehow it had all slipped through their fingers. "Tell them," he said quietly, "that it's time to send an emissary to the New Republic.

"To discuss the terms of our surrender."

CHAPTER 2.

The Millennium Falcon's console gave a final proximity beep, jolting Han Solo out of a light doze. Uncrossing his arms, he stretched tired muscles and gave the displays a quick look. Almost there. "Come on, Chewie, look alive," he said, giving the Wookiee beside him a couple of quick slaps with the back of his fingertips.

Chewbacca came awake with a jolt, rumbling a question. "We're here, that's what," Han told him, widening his eyes a second to clear them. Getting a grip on the hyperdrive levers, he watched the timer count down. "Stand by the sublight engines. Here we go."

The counter went to zero, and he eased the levers forward. Outside the Falcon's canopy, the mottled sky of hypers.p.a.ce turned to starlines, which collapsed into stars, and they were there. "Right on target," he commented, nodding toward the bluish-red planetary half circle ahead of them.

Beside him, Chewbacca growled. "Yeah, well, it's always crowded around Iphigin," Han said, eyeing the hundreds of tiny drive glows moving around the planet like some crazy multrille dance. "Main transfer point for this sector and at least two others. Probably why Puffers set up the meeting for here-you don't start shooting if some of your own stuff might get in the way."

Chewbacca growled in annoyance. "Well, excuse me," Han apologized sarcastically.

"President Gavrisom, then. Didn't know you were such a big fan."

There was a beep from the comm. Slapping a ma.s.sive hand at the switch, Chewbacca roared out an acknowledgment.

"Hey, Chewie," Luke Skywalker's voice came over the speaker. "You're right on schedule.

The Falcon must be running smoothly for a change."

"Nothing broken but the comm switch," Han grumbled, throwing a scowl at the Wookiee.