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Then they stood at opposite ends of the cask, silently looking down at a creature that had died more than a century ago and been buried by its friends on the moving ice of Maltha Obex. Its oval, smooth-skinned body was nearly as wide as the cask. Its slender, double-jointed limbs would not have fit inside it if they had not been neatly folded so that its clumsy-looking three-fingered hands covered its face, and its legs made a neat square-and-X below its body.

“It’s no wonder,” Eicroth said shaking her head.

“What?”

She moved to the side of the cask. “These limbs must be five or six meters long altogether—and with a cross section not more than six centimeters. A perfectly dreadful adaptation for cold. It’s amazing that this one lived long enough to die where it did.”

Drayson nodded. “I want the genetic material extracted and sequenced immediately. The general dissection can wait until that’s done.”

“Understood,” she said. “Help me move it up on the plate.”

Chapter 3

General A’baht.”

“Yes?”

“The gig from the Yakez is coming alongside. You asked to be notified.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Etahn A’baht said without looking up. “See that Commodore Carson is escorted to the flag briefing room immediately.”

“Yes, sir.”

It was the first of five such vessels expected to rendezvous with the fleet carrier Intrepid that morning, and Farley Carson was the first of the task force commanders to be piped aboard for the command briefing. The Star Destroyer Yakez was the flagship of the Fourth Fleet’s Task Force Apex, and Carson was A’baht’s sole friend among the arriving flag officers.

By President Organa Solo’s order, the Fifth Fleet had been reinforced by elements drawn from three other New Republic fleets. With the arrival of Task Force Gemstone, all the disparate elements had finally gathered in deep space outside Koornacht Cluster, and the business of forging them into a single command could begin.

That burden was to have fallen on Han Solo, but the Yevethan ambush carried out against the ferry flight and the commodore’s shuttle had left the combined fleet without its appointed leader. So far, no replacement had been announced, leaving the chain of command as it had been, with A’baht as senior commander of the forces in Farlax Sector. But Fleet Command had involved itself in the operational details to a degree that sharply limited A’baht’s command autonomy, and the selection of a new commodore seemed inevitable.

In the meantime, though, there was work to do.

“General A’baht,” said a new voice.

A’baht looked up to see Carson standing in the hatchway wearing a half grin. “Stony,” A’baht said, rising from his desk. “I thought I told my aide to deliver you to the briefing room.”

“The landing bay officer said the next gig was ten minutes behind me,” said Carson, closing the hatch behind him and easing himself into a chair. “I thought I’d take the opportunity to say hello.”

Puffing out a breath, A’baht settled back into his chair and thumbed his comlink. “Lieutenant, inform me when the others arrive.”

“Yes, sir.”

Switching off the unit and setting it on his desk, A’baht sat back and let himself smile. “It’s good to see you, Stony.”

“And you, Etahn. I hear things have been a little rough.”

“I’m glad to have you here,” said A’baht. “This is a very green fleet.”

“I doubt that your training methods have softened with the years,” said Carson. “They’ll be all right.”

“A leavening of experienced crews and battle-tested ships among them will make them better,” said A’baht. “We’ve trained them hard, but training is not the same as fighting. They got their first taste of that at Doornik Three-nineteen.”

“A bitter taste, from what reached us,” said Carson. “How did the new ships perform for you?”

“They held up well. The losses we took weren’t design-related. A couple of captains learned what not to do next time.” A’baht paused, then added gravely, “A couple of crews bought me very expensive lessons that I will probably not have the opportunity to apply.