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Isard straightened up and smiled mostly coldly. “If the bacta is used up, it will have granted them health. You will take it back again.”

Convarion nodded. “It will be done.”

Vorru raised a hand. “Not so quickly, Captain, there are some special caveats for what we want you to do. First and foremost, you will be taking along with you two companies of the Thyferran Home Defense Corps and one squadron of their fliers to carry out the work that needs to be done.”

“But my Imperial troops will be much more efficient …”

“Indeed, but we want the Thyferrans to see the crimes of these worlds as crimes against them, not against Director Isard. We want the Thyferrans to get their hands dirty. If they are acting with us, they become complicit in our activities. They will make themselves targets for Antilles, which will bind them more tightly to us. By making them administer the punishment to these worlds, we give them an even greater stake in seeing that we remain here to help defend them, and we give them a reason to defend themselves.”

Convarion’s eyes narrowed. “You sound as if you truly think Antilles and his rabble can actually topple you.”

“Nonsense!” Isard dismissed that supposition with a wave of her hand. “There will come a point, however, when the New Republic considers what it is going to do about us and our control of the bacta supply. They have refrained from causing trouble so far because they are reluctant to dabble in the internal politics of worlds. To do so would split their Republic, since a number of worlds that declared independence and have joined them still have their Imperial officials in place running things. Warlord Zsinj has further distracted the New Republic, but once he has been dealt with, they will again consider us.”

Convarion nodded. “If our client states are afraid of losing their bacta supply, they will not press for the Republic to do something about us. And if the Thyferrans back us fully, the New Republic would have to stage an invasion of Thyferra to oust us.”

“Precisely.”

Vorru let Isard’s comment echo in his ears, but he was not as confident of it as her voice suggested she was. Discounting Antilles entirely was a mistake, and one Isard should have known better than to make. While Vorru believed the Antilles threat could be controlled and minimized, the only way it could be eliminated was by killing Antilles and destroying his power base. The network of contacts Vorru had in place to gather information about Antilles was just beginning to report data to him, but so far it had been useless in trying to locate Antilles or figuring out what his long-term intentions were.

Vorru opened his hands and smiled at Convarion. “So, will you follow orders and punish a world for dealing with Antilles?”

“Shoot me the datafiles on the target worlds and I will get back to you with plans for dealing with them in two days.” Convarion stood. “You may select the final target or leave it up to me, at your discretion. I would ask only one thing in return.”

Isard arched an eyebrow at him. “And that is?”

“As you said before, my initiative is limited by my mission parameters.” Convarion half-smiled. “If you want the lesson to be learned by the maximum number of people, do me the favor of defining my mission as broadly as possible.”

18

In many ways Iella Wessiri could not believe she had decided to come along on the mission after all. She understood how important it was to undertake, and how much good it might do for the Ashern cause, but at the most basic level she opposed it. It’s murder, nothing less.

When Elscol had proposed the operation, she’d used the euphemism sanction to describe what they would be doing to one of Xucphra’s higher-ups, Aerin Dlarit. Dlarit, an older man, had been appointed a General in the Thyferran Home Defense Corps. In the day-to-day operation of the THDC he deferred to Major Barst Roite, but Dlarit strutted about in his uniform at a host of social functions. Local media had shown him any number of times assuring his fellow Xucphrans that the Ashern were under control