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“Pleased to meet you, Captain Convarion.”

“And you, Minister Vorru.” Convarion’s mouth smiled, but any pleasure failed to register beyond the boundaries of his lips. “I am honored that you would deign to notice my ship and our exploits.”

Isard, wearing her scarlet Admiral’s uniform, glanced back at him with faint amusement in her eyes. “You have shown initiative, Commander, and I always notice initiative. I should like to inspect your ship, if that is possible, but first I would speak with you in private.”

“Of course, Madam Director.” Convarion bowed, then pointed to an aisle through the middle of the bone white ranks of stormtroopers. “My wardroom is this way.”

Vorru trailed behind Convarion and Isard. He noticed that Convarion matched his pace to that of Isard and that she, in reaction to this, varied her gait and caused Convarion to do the same. Convarion’s face gave no sign he noticed what was going on or if he was annoyed by it or not. He merely looked up at Isard with rapt attention on his face, not sycophantically hanging on her every word, but receiving what she said as if it were advice worthy of his most sincere consideration.

Vorru suppressed a smile as he watched Convarion operate, because he knew the man had to be trying to balance two conflicting scenarios in his head. By sending the Corrupter after the errant ships, Convarion had succeeded in ambushing an Antilles operation and scattering his forces. By Convarion’s estimate Antilles lost a half-dozen ships, including several of the Uglies, known as Deathseeds by the Twi’leks who created them. Just knowing that some Twi’leks had thrown in with Antilles was valuable information itself, and Convarion would have been due some reward for just bringing that tidbit back from his mission.

On the other hand, he had left the majority of his convoy uncovered and open to attack. Antilles had still gotten away with two ships and Convarion had destroyed another bacta freighter on his own initiative. His report had stated that the freighter was moving in conjunction with the pirates and did not acknowledge his initial hail, so he considered it hostile and destroyed it. Such decisiveness was the sort of thing Isard appreciated, but the loss of a bacta freighter was a high price to pay for it.

The hatch to the small wardroom closed behind Vorru, trapping him in there with Isard and Convarion. Vorru moved to the end of the room far from the door and seated himself at the corner of the rectangular black duraplast table that dominated the room. Convarion hovered closest to the far narrow end of the table, ready to take his place at the head of it if Isard did not wish that position for herself.

Isard remained standing just inside the hatchway and stared at Convarion. “Your discovery of the deception concerning the freighters was impressive, Commander.”

“Thank you, but it was no more than should be expected from any of our personnel. I chose to wait for all of my ships to be away because the Rebels used the tactic of misjumping ships in the case of the bacta convoy that Warlord Zsinj ambushed at Alderaan. I had to assume that same tactic might be used again. Because of Corrupter’s speed, I could arrive in synch with my ships at their destination even if I delayed leaving. I had my navigators plot the outbound vectors for my ships and noticed three were off course. We plotted possible stopping points along that route and proceeded after them. It was a fairly basic pursuit operation.”

Irritation flared in Isard’s molten left eye. “And destroying the Alazhi, was that no less than I should expect from our personnel?”

“As I explained in my report—”

“As you lied in your report.” Isard’s eyes narrowed. “Analysis of your ship’s data records show your gunners opened fire three seconds after reversion. A signal went out to Alazhi five seconds after reversion, and the volley of shots that destroyed Alazhi came eight seconds after reversion. You chose to shoot regardless of their response.