Alone In The Galaxy

by Purple Patch

Green, Red, Blue, Black (Part 1)

Author's Note:

Sorry, this'll have to be a two-parter. It's taking longer than I thought to pull off all six of my objectives in one chapter.
Hope the title isn't too pretentious.

Octavian Grant and the insight into his contacts should show that just because you've had a fine upbringing, doesn't make you harmless.
Mina Podia is mentioned in the previous draft of Episode III's script apparently dying on Kashyyyk. So apparently replacing Luminara Unduli.
Thought I might as well add her here.
The Tapani Resistance came down to a simple idea.
What is you took the typical Star Wars band of Rebel misfits...and made it so that, as it turned out, they really were biting off more than they could chew?
A kind of subversion of expectations.
...Now I see why JJ Abrams tries to do so many of those.

The 'Box of Screams' is my own design. I came up with an idea of a fantasy torture-device of such level that one can't even kill themselves to escape it.
...I think I need to see someone...

I'm particularly pleased by how Pipsqueak showed not just guts but brains against his captors.
Though as you can imagine, Ilitha is probably going to want to fool about with both of those things soon.
The line where he takes apart what pestage considers 'simpler' is based on a scene from The Order of the Stick.
Also, spot the reference to The Great Mouse Detective.
I'll say one very good thing about Disney's ownership. It means I can shamelessly reference their works as much as I like.

Are Thrawn and Vanto a couple?
I'm not saying.

My goal here was a difficult one.
Make Amilyn Holdo sympathetic.
She's a...let's say divisive character in The Last Jedi and while I don't really have a problem with her, others do so I wanted to have a look at her and try to come up with a reason why she's regarded as so brilliant but ends up making such a lapse in judgement.
Picture this. High credentials, expert training, moving up fast, but then something goes wrong.
But she doesn't give up. Little by little she gets to where she was before and soon enough is among the highest levels of military command.
But what went wrong still lingers at the back of her mind.
And when things go wrong, it comes back out again. Gnawing at her mind.
And she lashes out.
One of those people who gets ahead very fast but can't quite deal with it all happening at once.
I'm sure we've seen some people who are like that.
I also tried to portray an insight into such damage, trying to topical with today's problems with young mental health issues.

I know I may have made Thrawn come off as too sentimental and irrational but it is meant to be earlier in his life.
He's changed since then.

References to The Last King of Scotland.
Next part will show the aftermath of the Tapani Resistance, Ilitha's hidden techniques, Rondel getting a talking-down, Rae Sloane seeking help from someone you...don't normally ask help from.
Enjoy!

“Incredible...Never thought I’d ever see the day.”

The thin, grey-bearded Thelxion Paddox, former High Lord of House Pelagia, surveyed the plans before him and wondered if at last he may reassume his old title and the noble responsibilities behind it once again.

Having barely survived House Mecetti’s last assassination attempt that had claimed his wife and left his children missing in space, the key to his retribution looked as sweet as honey.

He stared up at the canny young forerunner of the Tapani Resistance, Andrey Volt. With his navy and bronze combat-pilot gear, his bright orange visor-goggles and spiky cyan hair, he looked a sight too outlandish to be a political pioneer and yet here it all was.

Thelxion was appearing to Andrey and his crew by hologram. His brother, Tinzen was present in the resistance headquarters however. Once an embittered drunk, crippled in the field and forgotten by most, he was now serving as one of the forerunners of the resistance, using a combination of his underground associates, former royal staff and defence-force colleagues to uncover nearly every secret that could be found on Pegalia and most of the states beyond.

Their sister, Tashiana Paddox also stood as a hologram while her husband, the defected Moff Larint Kalast stood among the crew in headquarters.

“It’s all here. Everything we need to completely overturn House Mecetti and their monopoly over the Sector.” Andrey explained bringing up the information and who had supplied it.

“Crown Prince Mimorias will bring proof of their forgery of the ancient royal signatures and testimonies, meaning the other Houses will no longer trust them. Their alliance with House Reena and Calipsa will collapse almost instantly.”

The pale young boy in rich garb and slicked white hair nodded and spoke.

“Hundreds of noble families who had safeguarded Tapani and the Republic for centuries have been wiped out at their hands. My parents preserved me for a reason. I hold the key to our enemies downfall. It’s yours now. Use it well.”

“Oh we will.” A tan girl with a bright blonde ponytail and a black-and-white striped jumpsuit under a gold jacket stood and gave Mimorias’s shoulder a tender rub “With what I’ve uncovered at the Bureaus, every member of Mecetti’s allies in all nine royal departments will have every instance of corruption and incompetence uncovered. Right before the public’s eyes.”

“Mivista ‘Mivi’ Adannu here has used her expertise in journalism to go deeper than her bosses wish.”

“Freelance is more fun.” The woman gave a grin.

“Which should also give away what he and his family did while they represented the Senate” a cadaverous Givin spoke, Daggibus Scoritoles, the former-Senator of Yahg’Dul, in hiding since Order 66 “How they broke their own sanctions and moved their own armies, whom they had the audacity to call a self-defence force, against their faraway rivals.”

“And broke many principles their people have long held dear and sowed corruption into the worlds they claimed to rule.” A thin, drab woman in a pale beige robe and a tribal headdress of twisting roots and ivy stamped a staff on the ground as she declared “Great and Ancient Alaphoe has spoken through us. The Coven will lay Mecetti’s vanities and idolatries to ash and rubble.”

“The natives of Alaphoe have lent us their unwavering service, bound in blood.” Andrey held up a scarred hand “Druidess Corji has helped us pin-point key weak-spots in the Mecetti monuments. It they fall all at once, on such a day as we have planned, it’ll be seen as an ill omen and a sign that the Mecetti’s time as undisputed rulers is at an end.”

“And then at last, their armies will be halted.” A bizarre creature with a hunch, chalk-white skin, long-pointed ears, goggle-eyes, a small trunk for a nose and a mouth of crooked teeth hobbled forward, two long spindly claws waving in front of the information “Odysseus S. Grant’s brutal slaughter of my people will be known throughout the galaxy. The veil he cast shall be torn asunder and Sefon will be free once more.”

“Vlul, the last Chief of the Sefoni, will be testament to House Mecetti’s war-crimes, before and after the Declaration of the New Order.” Tashiana explained “They have always possessed this mania for empire-building and trod heavily upon those who got in their way. The people of Tapani will see the hellish cost first hand along with the rest of the Galaxy.”

“That takes care of the royals, the ministry, foreign interests, clerical and military.” Andrei explained “Finally, to turn the public against him, we’ll be using the parade a few days from now to our advantage. Consider us the rainstorm.”

“We’ll give him a birthday he’ll never forget.” the hardy guerrilla, Carliam of Old Barong said eagerly, scars from the fires that torched his hometown still feeling fresh on his cheek “We’ve set up an ambush ready to seize the Mecetti Honour Guard troop at their changing rooms.”

“We’ll see to that, won’t we, bro?” A hulking Herglic spoke to his twin brother as Yaka and Taga, known in their smuggling circles as the Arkto-Cara Brothers, bumped fists.

“We dress in their uniforms throughout the parade then, when they reach city square, we play the footage on the holofeed across all of Procopia!”

“We’ll stash the real guard tied up in the parade floats. When Grant reveals the spoils of war, they’ll come tumbling out in his best corsets!” the tattooed wild-haired young woman once known as Grand Duchess Jilmi Maladori-Zel whooped “Then we bomb the parade with powder-paint and launch the net on him. Maybe shoot him with a defabricator dart. A lot of girls wonder what he wears under his uniform after all.”

Thelxion Paddox laughed heartily.

“I believe I’ll need to see that in person. The stuck-up silver-spoon-fed glory-hound will be crying like a baby.”

“But there is one last thing we are missing.” Tashiana Paddox spoke “House Mecetti still control the vast majority of Tapani’s wealth. If we chase them off the Sector, they may well leave us in a state of disrepair.”

“Already taken care of!” A grizzled but dashing-looking man in a weathered sepia longcoat with a spiky stripe of hair and a thick beard stood up with his hands out at his sides grandly.

The Paddox’s eyes widened. Tinzen stood and roared with laughter.

“Captain Calvyn Hune! You’re alive!”

“Can’t keep a bad joke down, as they say.” the Captain chuckled, once a henchman of House Calipsa, now a defector, a freelance bodyguard and a friend of the oppressed “And I’ve brought along some friends.”

A mighty alien lumbered in. Bright-red and speckled black, with a huge, jutting jaw filled with snaggle-teeth (A few fashioned from gold or gemstones) and three large eyes wedged under his furrowed brow. He wore the trappings of a pirate, dark and imposing, with a metal patch over his left eye.

“Damn, Calvyn! Ya’ been holdin’ out on me!” he snorted “Ya’ told me this was yer’ crew but they all look like they could buy and sell ya’ for the price a’ their haircuts!”

“Aw, you say the sweetest things.” Calvyn said sarcastically before turning to the Resistance members “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure, and I use the term loosely, to present Alonso Barkbone, Bane of the Colonies, Hero of the Poss’Nomin, Captain of the Herringbone and brother of Reginald the Scourge. With him and his trusty crew, read assorted scumbags, we have devised a plan to drain House Mecetti dry of its funds in one fell swoop.”

He brought up his own information, adding it from his holocron into the resistance database.

“We’ve been able to find a way into Palatte Mecetti, via the river-water system.”

“You’re kidding!” Mivi Annadu exclaimed “We’re actually gonna’ rob him blind, right from his own home? Raid his vault and everything?”

“No, no, his actual home has only a fraction of his accumulated riches.” Ex-Moff Kalast explained “To actually make Octavian Grant part willingly with the entirety of his wealth, we need to take from him something of much greater, sentimental worth.”

There was a pause.

“You’re not...are you?”

Calvyn Hune raised his hands with a grin.

“Quite simply, unless anyone objects, we abscond with the mother and sisters of our dear exalted Grant Admiral. We strike when they prepare to set off for the parade and sling ‘em in the Herringbone.”

“Fly them out to the Colonies border, send Grant the message, let ‘em cry in front of the holos for a bit and name the price, more than he can pay. We publicise everything through the feeds all across Tapani. If he doesn’t part with what he has, the good ladies Grant will find another buyer among the Hutt Clans.”

There was another pause.

Jilmi broke it slowly but loudly.

“Oh...my...gods...That’s awesome!”

The various members of the resistance laughed and whooped at the idea.

Tinzen raised a glass in enthusiasm.

“The final legacy of House Mecetti! Pounded at every end by horny slugs! They’ll write songs about it!”

“But what happens to Octavian himself if he doesn’t pay?” Tashiana Paddox asked.

“That’s the beauty of it.” Her husband answered with a smirk “The foundations of his wealth are built upon his old trust fund. Every noble family in Tapani has ties to him and most of them have members engaged to his sisters and other relatives. When they see him leaving the little trollops in the Hutt harems, they’ll withdraw every last investment then sue his perfectly-polished arse off before you can blink! Whichever path he chooses, he’ll have no money to speak of and nowhere to go home to...except the Empire of course.”

Thelxion nodded, working it all out.

"Who will most certainly kill him for losing them Tapani!”

“And with Tapani gone, they lose their only real hope to economically challenge Alderaan, Corellia and the other Alliance-aligned systems!” Andrey declared, holding his hand to every one of his companions one by one “With this stroke, comes more than just liberation, but a new dawn for all! And I feel I should say by now, that we could not have done this...without the Jedi.”

He beckoned to the corner where three figures in russet cloaks stood and approached.

They removed their hoods.

An elderly Quarren, a grizzled Sullustan and a female Tarisian human, olive-skinned and slender with her ruddy-coloured hair flowing in curls down her shoulders.

“Masters Sarn Vas, Whien Whulm and Mina Podia.” Andrey introduced them “It is they that brought us all here, allowing us to collect all this invaluable knowledge and unwavering strength that will allow us to beat the Empire. On Tapani and anywhere else that our fight takes us.”

Mina Podia gave a gentle nod and smile.

“We are gratified beyond words that we may aid the cause of justice.” she said “May the Force protect and guide us in our struggle.”

“Hear-hear, whatever the hell that means.” Tinzen brayed “We’re all in this now, whatever messes we end up in, we’ve got this far and we’ve further to go.” He turned to the hologram of Thelxion Paddox, putting aside the years they spent falling out with each other.

“What say you, brother? Are you in?”

Thelxion stared at the spectacle. A paradigmatic band of misfits, united as one, as mighty as the strongest storm.

Shaking his head in wonder and taking a deep sigh, a decades-long burden feeling lifted from his shoulders, he held out his hand to Andrey Volt who reached forward.

All present watched as the two figureheads came together, history being written.

Then there was a flash across the hologram. Thelxion seemed to blur.

Andrey Volt found himself reaching for nothing.

Thelxion Paddox stared at the stump that had once been his hand. His mouth opened and closed in silent horror.

He stared at the startled Resistance who were only beginning to realise what had just happened.

“Run...” he gasped “Just ru-”

Hands appeared at his shoulders, dark and clawed. They grabbed him and pulled. In an instant, Thelxion Paddox was gone and the hologram was deactivated.

“Wh-what the hell?!” Andrey yelled as there was a scream beside him.

Tashiana Paddox was reaching at nothing as those same clawed hands clasped over her mouth and pulled her out of sight. Larint Kalast stood and stared, open-mouthed in terror.

“Tash!” he exclaimed “What’s happening! Andrey, what the hell is going on?!”

“I don’t know!” Andrey Volt looked around as the lights of the headquarters began to flash and dim, turning off and on irregularly.

There came a voice, seeming to resonate across the room, low yet feminine, cold yet amused.

“Poor things...So much planning, so much imagination and wonder...and yet, it never occurred to you just how this had happened to begin with? ‘Gosh, these Mecetti fellows certainly do break the rules a lot. Wouldn’t they need someone around to make sure they got away with it? Make sure there were no bones to dig up, no tales to tell, no sign of foul-play?’ Well, of course they would...And that’s where we come in.”

Shapes appeared in the dark. Tiny green lights shone in the shadows, darting here and there and inhuman speed.

A figure stood on the stairway leading up into their hidden armoury just below the Procopia slums. He or she was tall, slender, rigid, standing before them like a gleaming iron rod. Piercing eyes as cold as Hoth stared down at the Resistance.

“I am Suzerain Loalo Ettagon...We are the Mecrosa...All your men outside are dead...And you, my dears, have just taken your first steps into a world of pain!”

“Run!” Tinzen stumbled as he shouted “Don’t try to fight them! Just run! Just-argh!”

Andrey stared in shock as the shapes in the dark struck out, grabbing the crew members one by one.

No-one could reach for their weapons before they were seized.

No-one but the Jedi.

Mina Podia, Sarn Vals and Whien Whulm took three angles and readied for battle.

“Transcend the darkness!” The Quarren yelled.

“Defy the shadow!” The Sullustan bellowed.

“Call upon the force!” Mina Podia cried as they drew their lightsabres hence and pierced the darkness.

The outlines of enigmatic, armoured fiends blinked for a moment.

Then something was thrown to the ground.

Gas? Powder?

Mina Podia suddenly found herself clutching her temples. Andrey grabbed her shoulder and drew a blaster, trying to find a foe in the shade.

Vals and Whulm drew closer to each other as they too fell, discombobulated.

“What’s wrong?! Why can’t you use the force right now?!”

“I...I cannot...There is...an evil cloud upon us. This technique, these weapons...they are completely unfamiliar.”

“It helps to keep our ways a secret...to all but the dead.”

The tall woman stepped forward slowly, drawing what looked like two bracelets from behind her belt.

“Dear me...Jedi? The Environmental Protection Bureau are going to be so angry with us...killing endangered species!”

“Away, assassin!” Mina Podia surged forward and, azure sabre in hand, faced down the approaching Ettagon. “Even impaired as you find me, you are no match for a Jedi Master!”

The side Loalo Ettagon’s lips creased in amusement. Raising her hands, the bracelets in them clicked and crackled and revealed themselves as glowing-green, electric-charged hookswords.

The lightsaber came down.

It was met by the hooks wrapping round and holding the blade still.

As Ettagon drew them down, there was a burst of sparks and a scream as Mina Podia lost her sabre and part of her hand. Like a nexu, the Suzerain pounced and delivered a ferocious flying-kick to the downed Jedi Master who was sent crashing into the darkness. The shapes re-emerged and snatched her, vanishing from sight with their quarry.

Vals and Whulm rushed to challenge Ettagon. At left and right, they locked blades. The Suzerain’s blades fluttered and danced in her hands as the lightsabres swept at air.

In moments, the Jedi were disarmed and thrown off their feet. They were snatched before they hit the ground.

Andrey Volt stared, alone in the darkness, as the assassin leader marched forward.

He drew up his gun but, like Thelxion’s hand, found it’s barrel cut off in a single swoop as a powerful hand clutched at his throat.

“No...no...” He wrestled at the arm as hard as asteroid-rock, holding him in the air a moment as Loalo Ettagon stared into his eyes “H-h-how did you get in here?! Wh-who are you?!”

The woman tilted her head and answered.

“Of all your chief concerns at present...that is not one of them...” the sides of her jaw tightened in tranquil, expertly-measured fury.

“I am the single most proficient killer in the Colonies. There have been times when I killed so many in such a short length of time that we had to fake epidemics to cover up my work. I have drawn blood for House Mecetti since I was little and have safeguarded it from its foes since I came of age...And I just heard you plan to assault, kidnap and ruin my children...”

She drew his face close to hers, her voice a serpentine hiss flecked with venom as her free hand clutched somewhere at the back of his neck, sending him into unconsciousness as the words echoed in his head.

“Young man...abandon all hope of mercy.”

A bare fraction of light shone in the eyes of Andrey Volt.

His visor was gone and he could taste blood in his mouth.

He couldn’t move.

He glanced around and struggled to take in what little was revealed of his surroundings.

His clothes were gone. He standing upright, shackled by the heels. He was in some sort of stocks. He could see his hands to his left and right.

He struggled and grunted in frustration.

Then something cut.

Something cut the skin under his armpit in a sheer metallic sliver that set him screaming.

More cuts struck at his elbow, his right middle-toe and under his left thigh.

And then he knew. He knew where he was, where the cuts were coming from and knew that he needed to stay quiet.

He had been placed in an Auditormentor, more commonly known outside Tapani as a ‘Box of Screams’.

An ancient instrument of imprisonment and torture designed by the Tritum Clan centuries ago.

It was complex in design, yet simple in practice.

It was a box, made of two layers of thin metal sheets, a narrow gap between the outer and inner layer. Inside this gap were a system of spindles which ran razor-sharp metal thread all across the box in a great cobweb of knives. Pushed against, they would not cut. But if someone was put in the box and held still, the thread would surround them, caressing every part of them.

But it would not cut.

Not until something close by made a noise.

The metal sheets vibrated to any sounded close enough to the box, causing the spindles to turn, drawing the thread across anything it touched.

Cutting. And cutting. And cutting.

The thread material was a rare and costly asteroidal metal that would draw only slight amounts of blood yet as they resonated with the rest of the box, struck as close to the prisoner’s bodily nerves as possible without severing them.

It was agony; pure, raw agony. To the point where prisoners would eventually, so desperate to escape, scream at the top of their lungs on and on, just so they would finally bleed out and die.

But one always ran out of strength long before they ran out of blood. They would be trapped, locked in a state between life and death in which only pain existed.

And that would be when they would tell the Mecrosa everything.

Struggling to keep himself from whimpering, desperately trying to turn his head to search for any of his crew, Andrey Volt prayed this was all a nightmare.

Then the voice returned.

“Look at you...Is there one thing you have done...that is good?”

Loalo Ettagon emerged, two Mecrosa Assassins at her side, garbed in armour that looked black but shone green, their faces obscured by a mask fashioned to resemble a fanged serpent’s skull with four glowing viridian eyes.

The Suzerain stood face to face with her prisoner, a flat frown across her powdered angular face.

“Did you think this was a game?” she asked, tilting her head to the side and putting on a mocking tone “‘I Will Go To Tapani and I Will Play The Bold Young Rebel With The Crowds’ Is that what you thought?”

Her gleaming grey eyes narrowed, her makeup making her appear skeletal in the shadow as her tone darkened more than the room itself.

“We are not a game, Andrey...We are real...”

She drew her hands up, her nails long and pointed like spearheads, painted chalk-white with a shiny green Mecetti Rune on each one.

“This chamber here? It is real.”

The tips of her nails tapped gently on the top of the box, just between Andrey’s neck and hands. Even slightly, the spindles turned to the motion and Andrey bit his lip hard, tears running down his cheeks as the thread cut here and there.

Loalo Ettagon craned her head forward and whispered, cold, clear and sharp as blades.

“I think your death...will be the first real thing...that has happened to you.”

And before Andrey could clearly process her words, she drew her nails hard across the box.

A metallic screech filled the room.

The spindles spun rapidly.

The threads ran fast.

Andrey Volt screamed.

And things suddenly became very real.

*

Pipsqueak trotted along beside the cantankerous Captain Feanor Rondel. Looking up with a smile, he spoke.

“Rae’s really nice.”

“Hrmm...” The captain mumbled, beginning to walk at a slightly brisker pace.

“Don’t you think she’s nice?”

“...mph...”

“And she’s really tough too. Whenever she’s around, I feel really safe.”

“...tch...”

“I bet your soldiers must be doing really well with her in charge. And I bet you’re really proud to-”

“We’re here! Stop talking! Get inside!” Feanor Rondel squawked, causing the colt to jump slightly in shock, as they reached a door.

It wasn’t a door Pipsqueak remembered entering before but then he still hadn’t seen a whole lot of the massive Dreadnought.

Giving the irate Captain an awkward glance, Pipsqueak shuffled on his hooves as he waited for the door to open.

“I was just trying to be friendly...”

Rondel rolled his eyes and booted in the code to open the door. As he turned away, he gave Pipsqueak’s hind quarters a kick.

It wasn’t hard but it hurt and Pipsqueak tumbled into a dark room with faint red lights. Getting to his hooves and shaking his head, he pouted in the captain’s direction but the door had already closed.

He could barely see his forehooves on the ground. He screwed his eyes and tried to make out anyone in the darkness.

“Hello?” he called out “Mr Tarkin? Mr Yularen? A-are you there?”

The bright red lights seemed to hit him in the face. As he stumbled back, he found his hooves leave the ground.

A huge hand had grabbed the scruff at the back of his neck and he was hoisted into the air with a cry of alarm. Thrown into a hard, jet-black chair, he caught a glimpse of the people who were in the room with him.

“Y-y-you’re not Mr Tarkin!”

“Nor have I ever been mistaken for him.” The stocky, ruddy-faced man in black and red garb said with a cruel chuckle.

Grand Moff Croesus Crodd and Imperial Vizier Sate Pestage, both with sadistic smiles spread across their gnarled, ugly faces.

Pipsqueak found himself shaking in horror, the full measure of his situation dawning on him as manacles locked his hooves to the seat.

They were fitted to keep a grown man’s wrists pinned to the arms of the seats while his own arms were locked by the main brace across the chest.

Pipsqueak found his forehooves stretched uncomfortably and kicked his back hooves feebly in fear.

“Wh-wh-what do you want?!”

“That’s a bit of a loaded question.”

Pipsqueak gave a gulp.

“L-l-look, M-mr-Grand Moff...Crodd...um...” he mumbled “I-I-I don’t really know what I’ve done to make you angry but...er...”

“No need to get too frantic.” Crodd’s smile was as becoming more frightening than the rest of him. “We’re not doing this to hurt you. We just want to run a few tests...” he pressed a few buttons on a pad next to the seat which Pipsqueak did not like the look of.

“...To determine whether you’re a ‘good’ pony...or a ‘bad’ pony.”

Pipsqueak blinked and muttered aside.

“I don't think it matters at this point but you could have just asked my mum.”

“Oh, I see we think ourselves quite amusing, young man.” the gaunt, crimson-clad Sate Pestage gave a menacing grin, showing off appalling teeth “You are forthright for one so small...but then so are a lot of people we kill. It rarely does them any good and you, you intolerable little miscreant, shall be no different. This I assure you.”

“Look, it’s not my fault! You haven’t even told me what you want!” Pipsqueak sounded more peeved than anything else “Honestly, I’m getting tired of this! I’m not from here and I don’t know how I got here so why does everyone I meet think I’m flipping hiding something?! If I knew anything, I wouldn’t be here, that’s for sure!”

He lowered his head a moment, his tone becoming gloomy, snuffling slightly.

“I’d be at home...with mummy...and then in Ponyville with Tungsten...and Ms. Cheerilee...and the Crusaders...and Dinky...” His voice began to crack as he remembered the world he felt he’d spent so long away from.

“Especially Dinky...”

“...right.” Croesus Crodd’s face was not a picture of sympathy “Well...forgive me for not wishing to know anything about your ‘Dinky’...or why you bring it up...”

“What?” Pipsqueak gave a quizzical glance “No, Dinky’s a filly. Another pony like me.”

“Good grief. Dinky. Pipsqueak. Do all parents hate their children where you come from?!”

“Never mind that.” Pestage sneered “Young man, I’m disinclined to believe you crossed a galactic barrier, if indeed that was how you came to be here, and have no knowledge of it.”

“No, I know how it happened, I just didn’t mean to.”

The Grand Vizier blinked.

“So you can travel in this manner?”

“No, Mr Pestage. I was sent here in somepony else’s manner.”

“What?” The old man was losing patience “Whose?”

“Well...that depends.”

Pestage blinked again.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Well, you need to promise me that if I tell you anything about them, you’re not going to hurt them.”

The thin, colourless lips of the Grand Vizier creased in irritation and Croesus Cross gave his dark, yellow eyes a roll.

“Do you...Do you not understand where you are at this moment?!” Sate Pestage snapped “Do you imagine that we cannot simply wring the information out of you through the careful infliction of agony if you defy us?”

Pipsqueak paused, weighed his words, then answered with a cheeky smile.

“Yes. Of course, sir...But I also remember something very important in Ogres and Oubliettes Book 4: The Leviathan’s Tears.”

“Wha...” Sate Pestage looked to Crodd as if asking if he understood any of it better than he did as Pipsqueak explained, remembering the very wise lines from one of his favourite books.

“When a pony’s tortured, he won’t tell his captors the truth. He’ll just tell them what they want to hear. If one uses violence to force an answer out of their prisoner, one can’t necessarily determine if that answer is the one they actually seek, merely the one their prisoner knows will postpone or even end their suffering. So by torturing me, or even threatening to torture me...you guarantee the possibility that I’ll just lie.”

There was a long pause.

Sate Pestage’s face had once possessed some degree of false compassion.

That was gone now. He was eying the grinning Pipsqueak particularly disdainfully, taking a deep inhalation through his vulturine nose before replying.

“You’re a wordy little bastard, aren’t you.”

“I’m just good at remembering my favourite lines.”

“I’m very swiftly growing tired of this charade. Perhaps you’ve not considered, my little friend, that I shall simply harm you on principle and that, by delivering me the truth and nothing else, you’ll earn some small degree of mercy.”

Pipsqueak’s smile faded but his voice didn’t waver.

“...I don’t think you’ll show me any degree of mercy no matter what I tell you.”

“That doesn’t seem likely, no. But wouldn’t you say it’s worth pursuing given the alternative?” Pestage’s macabre grin was guarding an enraged snarl from the back of his throat.

“Look, I’m telling you right now, I don’t know how I came here. I got dragged through a magical door or something back home and then I ended up on whatever-you-call-it...Oompah or Umbreon or something.”

“Yes, yes, but you see, young one, the part that shouts out at me there is ‘magic door’. I want to know more about this. How do your kind utilise these?”

“I don’t know.”

“...yes, you do know. And I’d suggest you tell me.”

“Why would I know anything? I don’t even know what it’s actually called.”

“Give me strength...” Sate Pestage massaged his temples “Listen! A child your age does not know how a blaster works. He may not even know it’s called a blaster! But his parents tell him not to touch it. Therefore, he doesn’t! That, in itself is knowledge! You cannot convince me that you, a member of a race that utilises this school of spontaneous galactic transportation, does not know any feasible measure of it!”

“But I didn’t utilise it at all! That’s what I’m saying!” Pipsqueak sounded more frustrated than scared “It must have been Discord.”

“Who?”

“Oh, um...he’s like a sort of...mismatch of this-and-that.”

Sate Pestage pressed a finger over his creasing brow and spoke through gritted teeth.

“You’re not getting through.”

“Well, he’s sort of a...god, I guess.”

“Right. So you have physical gods on your respective plane. Yet you cannot tell us anything to breach any waters regarding this field!”

“Well, Discord’s a god, yeah, but nopony really knows what he’s doing.”

There was another pause.

“THAT! MAKES! NO! SENSE!” The Grand Vizier’s face was going as purple and wrinkled as a prune “You have these powers given to you by a bloody deity! There is no logical reason why any member of your species, regardless of their age and upbringing, is uneducated in such a field that would cause such monumental chaos if used incorrectly! So either your kind make themselves wilfully ignorant of the very careful workings of something that could potentially cause total dimensional collapse upon themselves OR your kind guard these secrets as any creature would in such a situation. And this whole tedious exercise is your defence mechanism. And it will not succeed, I promise you. And it shall only get more painful for you the more you persist.”

“But it’s not my magic. I can’t even use magic, I’m...”

“The fact that magic, if that is indeed what it is, exists where you come from means, by simple logic, that you have some degree of knowledge of it.” The Grand Vizier interrupted “And this particular magic, the one that indeed affects us here and now, is the knowledge that I wish you to share. The idea of your kind not telling their own children of the dangers of the powers they apparently cannot keep in check is simply too stupid even for alien species. Aliens, in my experience, always seem to treasure their young. It’s often how we break them. So therefore, I am left with no other possibility. You are hiding something from us. And it needs to stop.” He leaned forward and bared his horrible teeth with an impatient grimace “Right...Now.”

Pipsqueak paused, weighing the words again.

“So wait...you’re sure that I’m hiding some sort of fact from you, about the magic that brought me here...based on what you think is the most likely scenario.”

“Naturally. Logic dictates that the simplest solution is the most probable.”

The little colt blinked and spoke slowly, as if he were a teacher educating a clueless student.

“So...let me get this straight...You find the idea that I, a small child, has some of sort of secret knowledge hidden in my brain...put there by gods...about some kind of space-travelling magic...that no-one has been able to master...to be simpler than the idea that I just don’t know anything and that I’m here by accident?”

There was yet another pause as Sate Pestage stared at the young colt. His mouth opened and closed like a fish as he stammered for a rebuttal.

“Wha...Ye....Bu....No...The...SHUT UP!” Ironically, in the torture room he’d set up specially for Pipsqueak, he was the one screaming “The whole point is if you don’t tell us anything, we will hurt you! And hurt you! And hurt you! So do you want to tell us anything at all or are you going to Keep! Being! Difficult?!”

“Wait...okay...” Pipsqueak nodded, his voice sounded more unnerved than it had been “I can tell something...something you won't have known...something no-one's ever told you...”

“Yes?” Pestage’s grin returned like a mould and he leaned forward, inches from Pipqueak’s ear. “Speak?! What had no-one ever told me?”

Pipsqueak craned his little neck forward and answered.

“...Your breath smells worse than my Great Aunt Grottie!”

Sate Pestage practically flew backwards in shock, staring with his sunken eyes at the fearless little colt who blew a raspberry at the Grand Vizier.

Grand Moff Croesus Cross raised an eyebrow and murmured in a tone that only betrayed intrigue.

“...Well...can't say anyone's ever told you that.”

Sate Pestage looked ready to burst a blood vessel as he shook with rage, his horrid teeth grinding against each other, one eye twitching manically.

The Grand Moff stood up and placed a hand on his ally’s chest, turning to Pipsqueak.

“I have to say, you’ve proven your mettle, young Pipsqueak. I am earnestly impressed. But I’m afraid that’s often the first mistake many, many of our enemies make...as well as their last.”

“You don’t frighten me, Crodd!” Pipsqueak put on the toughest voice he could.

He felt a chill at the back of his shoulder.

Something was trailing over it. Something slimy, slippery, slug-like.

No...more like a...squid.

He felt his blood run cold as he felt another similar chilling sensation across the back of his neck, then another and another and another.

Croesus Crodd gave a wicked smirk as he retorted in a level tone.

“It would seem not. But perhaps if I left you in the hands of someone who does frighten you. Someone you’ve only barely managed to escape before. Someone...like...”

“Me.”

The little colt drew back in the chair he was strapped to, his face contorting with horror as Ilitha emerged, clambering over the chair like a spider. The manic grin was stretching across her face and her sheer black eyes stared into Pipsqueak so deeply, he felt her gaze practically pass through him.

They were worse than Thrawn’s. His were simply evaluating. Hers were looking at him and helping her come up with ways she could hurt him.

Dextrously, she gripped the arms of the chair and spoke in an eerie sigh, Pipsqueak feeling her cold moist breath on his muzzle.

“You’re mine now, little nuna...All...Mine...”

*

The water organ strummed listlessly under Thrawn’s fingertips.

Music was not on his mind. The Chiss was troubled.

It did not go unnoticed by Ensign Eli Vanto.

“You alright, pal?” he said, getting up and resting his hands on the Admiral’s shoulders.

“I am...uneasy...”

“Can’t think why. You certainly showed that smug sonovabitch, Zann, what-for.”

“Not entirely. He’s escaped and that can only entail more chaos to follow.”

“You must want him dead real bad then?”

“Honestly...I wouldn’t mind him alive provided I could keep him observed.”

Eli Vanto’s hands were beginning to gently massage the back of Thrawn’s neck. The Chiss sighed and rested his forehead in his hands, his elbows on the table.

“Forgive me, my friend...I’m not at my best.”

“You need some time alone?” Vanto gave his commanding officer’s back a gentle pat “How’s about I fetch us some tea?”

Thrawn half-smiled.

“Tea would be pleasant.”

“Be right back.” Vanto gave his friend a thumbs-up with a smile and departed the room momentarily.

As silence reigned in Thrawn’s study, he pressed his knuckles to his temples as the unwanted memories came flooding back, forcible and roiling like a storm at the door.

So vivid.

The flames.

“Breathe...breathe...” the Chiss held the spluttering student by the shoulders as the dusky-haired, broad-faced boy found oxygen again. His face and hair dirtied with soot and nursing a burn on his right arm which Thrawn had applied a bacta patch to, the student looked up at the man who’d pulled him out of the blaze that had once been AEMA.

“Thank you...sir...”

“You are lucky. Luckier still that I am overlooking your foolishness.” Thrawn’s tone became stern “What is your name?”

The boy looked sheepish.

“Niriz, sir...Dagon Niriz...I’m not a straight-S student or anything.”

“Irrelevent.”

“Look, sir...I went in to find Karyn...Karyn Faro. We have to help her.”

“Miss Faro is already in the medical bay. She left the building before you did and told me to find you. This is why it is important to inform your tutors of danger before taking matters into your own hands. Do you suppose school fire drills are simple ceremony.

“I’m very sorry, sir...” The boy bowed his head and coughed some more.

Thrawn stood and nodded.

“Report to the medibay and see to those burns. Your friends are waiting.”

Dagon Niriz found his feet and departed and Thrawn turned to the dilemma his colleagues were facing.

“I’m sorry, sir. My crew have done all we can.” the gaunt, weathered and somewhat-fatherly looking maintenance officer was close to yelling as the fire crews worked their way into the ablaze academy.

“There has to be something! Anything! We can’t let it all frazzle out!” Ardus Kaine was at his least calm, his usually Tarkin-esque hair a mess under his nervous hands as he gave the officer a growl “Haven’t you got into the lower levels by now?”

“Sir, it’s an inferno down there. We can send in droids but even they’ll take at least three hours to get anywhere.”

“Bugger the droids! Use everyone!”

“Sir, the elevators are compromised and the stairs have collapsed! I’m not putting my men through that kind of danger!”

“They’ll be in worse danger if we can’t salvage anything!”

“Mr Kaine, I should inform you that we have a union and they will not ignore deaths in the workplace.”

“Listen, you miserable scarecrow-of-a-man, we-”

“Enough!” Thrawn bellowed over the din, turning to his colleague.

“Kaine, what’s lost is lost. Our much more severe worry is what may have been stolen.” He then turned to the maintenance officer and spoke as courteously as the situation demanded.

“Mr Erso, my own associates can help combatting the blaze. You have my word that your crew will not suffer danger. The floors below have a corridor system that is fully protected. The fires are strong but you should not encounter falling debris. Here.”

He gave him a holoprojector.

“Use this. Contact me if there is any danger. Therbon. Hammerly. Show him the emergency corridor to the lower levels.”

“As you wish. Everyone follow me. Don’t touch anything we don’t tell you to touch if you don’t want to lose limbs.” Therbon yelled as she and the Teaching-Assistant Rovaena Hammerly, a giant of a woman with a broad-chin, spiky blonde hair and piercing teal eyes, led the firefighters down into the AEMA underlevels, Hammerly hoisting up a burning chunk of structure in the way and tossing it aside in one hand.

‘Right...right...salvage...’

Thrawn half-paced half-stumbled through the smouldering grounds, looking for any sign of foul play while his mind fought itself furiously.

Confusion felt almost entirely unfamiliar to Thrawn.

Everything before now had worked in a completely orderly cycle. A maze of vast and intricate but perfectly correlated workings.

Now everything was a winding mess. Overgrown. Mud. Thorns. Tar. Fire.

He tensed himself, trying to shake the nonsense out of his head.

How did this happen?

Were the droids malfunctioning? No. Therbon checked. Therbon knew droids.

Were they under attack? No. Kaine oversaw the security network. Kaine knew networks.

The sudden explosion, selective and precise, could not have been natural or accidental and it would have had to come from within.

But who had anything to gain from AEMA’s total collapse?

‘Damn it all!’

None of it made sense, that was what he was finding so terrible.

He shook his head, his hair starting to hang loose over his furrowed azure brow.

He stepped on something and nearly slipped.

Something wet.

And red.

He stared, his crimson eyes turning to the floral gardens.

The Kibo flowerbed had been disturbed. A body had fallen upon them and was now half-buried under the pale, purple petals.

Thrawn rushed to it and pushed back the flowers, grabbing hold of the body’s shoulders and raising it to his eyes.

A young female human greeted his eyes. One he’d had particularly high hopes for.

Thrawn felt the muscles in his chest constrict like strings pulled taut.

“Ami...”

Amilyn Holdo, high-performer from Gatalenta, now lay in Thrawn’s arms, her head lolled back morbidly, her blue-grey eyes wide and dulled.

As Thrawn cradled her, he pulled back his hand. It felt wet, sticky. He looked at it now stained red.

Amilyn’s pretty pink bob-cut was frayed and matted by a thick mesh of blood and dirt.

As Thrawn looked closer, he saw crimson trails pouring out her ears and the corners of her eyes.

“Ami...Medic!” he yelled over the blaze “Get a medic! Now!”

“Thrawn?” Ardus Kaine approached, cantering in and crouching to stare at the spectacle “Dear stars above! It’s Miss Holdo! What the hell happened?!”

“I don’t know, she was lying in the flowerbed, she’s been struck at the back of the-”

“Thnn...”

There came a mumble and the body of Amilyn Holdo twitched and jolted in Thrawn’s arms, small mumbles and murmurs coming from her mouth as blood started to trickle from her nose.

Thrawn held her tight as Kaine summoned the emergency medivac.

“Holdo...Ami...Stay awake, understand? Don’t close your eyes. Whatever you do, do not close your eyes.” Thrawn’s blood-stained hand clasped Holdo’s. He felt her hand move, tightening around his own.

Good. She was conscious. Some response still remained.

But she hadn’t long. Her skull was definitely fractured.

“Holdo...can you hear me?”

“Thnn...Em-m...Znn...Zn...”

“What?”

“Zzznnnnnn...” Amilyn Holdo’s lips had creased to the left as she gasped through clenched teeth.

Then she coughed. Blood escaped her mouth. Her eyes were tilting back in her head.

“No! No, no, no, stay stable, Holdo! Stay with me!” Thrawn clutched her hand as he searched desperately for the medivac.

“Thrawn?” Kaine’s voice was lowered and worried.

The Chiss looked to see a band of figures, several of them in distinct robes that, to them, was akin to an executioner’s hood.

They had been discovered.

Ardus Kaine stood still and looked to Thrawn as if asking if a blaster was needed.

Thrawn, meanwhile, still busied himself stopped Holdo from going into shock.

One of the robed figures, a towering Vurk, stepped forward and spoke, his voice low and booming.

“Founders of AEMA. I am Jedi Master Coleman Trebor. Your establishment has been found to have siphoned Republic credits meant for the war effort for a project not documented by official civil records and has also been gathering resources and intel without referral or authorisation from assisting bodies of government.”

“Yes, but you see-” Ardus Kaine began but one look from the Vurk silenced him.

“It is my duty to inform you that you are under arrest for deception and conspiracy to commit illegal seizure of power. Have you anything to say?”

“Sirs! This girl requires a medic!” Thrawn barked.

“You, sir, have no authority to demand any civilian service at this time. Officially, as a non-Republic citizen, you shall not even have the right to an attorney. You will accept questioning under the Republic Security Bureau and answer us-”

“Did you not hear me?! This girl has suffered a mortal injury!”

“Interrupt me again and you shall be treated as an uncooperative suspect.”

“Master Trebor...if you please.” Another of the robed figures stepped forward. This one was a human. A man approaching middle-age with shoulder-length auburn hair and a gentle beard. Beside him was a young man, likely in his late teens, in similar colours but instead of a robe, he wore a dark tunic. His chin was broad and his hair was spiky, one strand tied into a small braid at his shoulder.

The apprentice observed the scene and spoke.

“Master, the alien’s right. This girl needs help.”

“I have to agree, my young Padawan. Master Trebor, we can’t let her die. Please allow us to heal her.”

The Vurk raised a scaly eyebrow as his mouth creased in distaste.

“Master Kenobi, she is a suspect in a crime that may be considered treason.”

“Well, she won’t be anything else if she dies.” the man named ‘Kenobi’ answered.

“The Council will not approve of this, Master Kenobi.” A Klatooinian in Jedi robes added gruffly “The force is not some treat to be showered upon the desperate like spare credits.”

“Master Gon, the council must understand that-”

“SIRS!”

All eyes turned to the Chiss who was kneeling with the pink-haired girl’s head in his lap, staring furiously at the Jedi with bright scarlet eyes.

His voice came out calmly than his expression.

“You have caught me and I deny nothing. I take full responsibility for this event and I shall subject myself to any questioning process you may deliver...but if you refuse to help this woman...I will kill something!”

Tentatively, Kenobi and his Padawan stepped forward.

“You don’t need to worry. We’ll take care of her. Anakin, hold her up by the shoulders and make sure her head is level.”

“Yes, master.” The boy, Anakin, replied and took the Chiss’s place. Thrawn stood, his breath returning in a wracked way, watching the scene intently.

Master and Padawan held Amilyn Holdo steady as the elder Jedi held his hand over the other and focussed. His hair seemed to breeze back as if a gentle breeze was emanating from his hands. His bright blue eyes seemed to gleam slightly as the Kibo flowers blew back a moment.

Kenobi’s hands moved apart slowly.

There was a gasp.

Young Amilyn Holdo fought for air, tears running down her cheeks that were, thankfully, clear.

The power of the force.

This was perhaps the first time Thrawn had seen it used for good.

“Th-Tha-Thra-Thrawn!” Holdo managed to say.

The Chiss crouched and held her hand again.

“I’m here, Holdo. It’s fine now.”

“Zann!” she choked, pressing the hand she held to her forehead in dismay as her body wracked with sobs “It was Zann!”

Thrawn was quiet. Grim recollection flowed through him. And knowledge that felt hard and cold and heavy as it reached his mind.

Betrayed.

With a sigh, he stood.

“You should be alright now, Amilyn...Forgive me. I have made a severe lapse in judgement...and brought the consequences upon those who trusted me. In one who calls himself a teacher, there is no greater crime.”

“But...sir...” Amilyn stumbled as she was picked up. Kenobi turned to his fellow Jedi.

“Master Danva? Could you help Anakin take this girl to the medical bays?”

“Certainly.” A pale man with a kindly expression and a Budunki-style ponytail took Kenobi’s place in assisting his Padawan with carrying Holdo to the medibay.

“Sir...Mr Nuruodo...” the girl mumbled “Don’t...don’t go...”

“It’s alright, Amilyn.” The Chiss said flatly “I will ensure you are looked after.”

He then turned to the flat-faced Jedi and set his expression into one betraying nothing more than mild disapproval.

“Very well...Do what you will.”

Weeks later, Holdo was standing and talking but the girl he’d known was gone.

Once she was able to unravel a complete astro-naval formation in moments, pinpointing the exact point that would chain together a blow to shatter an enemy force thrice the number of her own forces.

Now, she had been staring at the holographic naval simulator table for three minutes, her hand shaking over her pieces as Thrawn waited, a patient look hiding concern as he sat before her in his cell.

Behind Holdo, the young Padawan Anakin Skywalker wore a similar expression. Thrawn couldn’t tell what held his attention more, Holdo or himself.

The Chiss tested the waters.

“Holdo?”

The Gatalentan rose her head suddenly, eyes wide with unease.

“I-I-I-I’ve got this, Mr Nuruodo. I-I-I have. D-d-don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried, Holdo. In your own time.”

He knew the moment it happened that he shouldn’t have pushed her. Now, she was even more anxious.

She’d never done well under anxiety, this he’d noticed. Calm and composed, she was at deft and sharp as a scythe but taken out of her element and she tended to lapse in judgement. Acted too quickly or not quick enough, sacrificed too much for unnecessary gain, became too focussed on completion that she took too many risks.

Now, her element had been misplaced, locked away and hidden from her. Her attack had broken her shell, exposing her to her assembled apprehensions.

He could see it in her eyes.

At last, she moved her hand to push one of her flagships back and the fighters around it to the sides, likely preparing a primary cannon.

Thrawn’s own hand began to hover.

Was she ready for this?

He supposed it would benefit to see where she was going wrong. And she’d never liked him going easy on her.

He pressed one of the ‘Tactics’ buttons and two stored flagships and accompanying craft appeared in the left corner of Holdo’s side of the board.

Holdo’s eyes were wide but Thrawn couldn’t quite determine whether this came as a complete surprise to her or not.

She was used to this kind of tactic but did she remember how to combat it?

Her hand was shaking even harder before it darted back.

She turned the flagship to her right from the ambush to the side as a reserve, charging up a long-range cannon.

Thrawn gave a sigh and moved the ships to his left forward. On Holdo’s flank which she’d left unguarded, his starfighters and frigates drew forward and two of her flagships went down, including the one that had been charging a cannon last turn.

Holdo stopped and stared. Her mouth opened and closed.

“Wh...how...How did you...But...I saw that, but...”

It was as if something had just clicked in her head and suddenly she had no recollection of just how they’d got there.

“Holdo, you took your eye off the field itself. Your focus was too narrow, do you see?”

“But...I thought that was how you’re meant to-”

“Yes, pulling your troops around to cover the flank would have worked fine if I was on the defensive. But I wasn’t.”

“Yes but...you didn’t tell me you weren’t on the defensive...”

“Why would I?”

“I...don’t...know...” she mumbled, beads of sweat running down the side of her face “I-I-I’m sorry, sir, I-I-I can do this, I-I promise, I-I-I th-think I left something outside the classroom. W-w-we can come back to it after break, I just-”

“Holdo, we’re not in the classroom.”

“...No...I...”

She stopped. Steadily, like a machine running out of power, she slowed down and sat completely still, her eyes wide, her mouth open, her hands clasped in front of her.

Thrawn’s face creased with concern.

“Holdo?”

The Padawan moved to assist but the Chiss held up a hand.

“Don’t...I don’t think that would be wise?”

“Is she okay?”

“...no...” Tentatively, Thrawn took one of Holdo’s limp, shaking hands and spoke.

“Holdo? Can you hear me?” he asked “...Amilyn?”

“Agh!” The girl jerked back to her senses with a small cry of alarm. She stared a moment, her chest rising and falling with each heavy breath.

“Amilyn, would you like to start again?” Thrawn asked.

“I...I don’t know, I...I thought I...” Amilyn Holdo’s shaking hands seemed to paw at the side of her face as she began to weep, rocking back and forth in a fit “I used to know! Why can’t I get it right! I always used to get it right! Wh-wh-what’s happened?! I-I-I-Oh damn it! Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!” She doubled up on her seat as Thrawn stood and gently patted her back.

“I’m sorry...” she whimpered “I’m sorry...”

“It’s fine. You have time to improve, Holdo. You still did quite well under the circumstances.”

“But...before I...I could have...”

She’d never actually managed to defeat him in the simulations but she’d definitely come close. She’d even destroyed his primary flagship a couple of times.

Only two others had ever managed that even once.

And Zann...Thrawn thought it best not to mention him.

Now, it seemed, she was a long way away from that level.

“Holdo. We’ve both suffered a setback. It’s natural, practically inevitable for minds like ours. We work through them, always. To achieve greater heights.”

“But...if I was still...as good as before.” she sniffled “I...We...could have done so much by now.”

“Amilyn Holdo...” Thrawn gave a gentle smile “If it’s any consolation, things would not have been that fast even if AEMA was still standing. Success rarely arrives when expected.”

Holdo looked up, nodding quietly. She climbed unsteadily to her feet.

“I...I should go...” she murmured “Do you...You will come back, won’t you?”

“Of course.” Thrawn answered, placing a hand gently on her shoulder “In time.”

Amilyn Holdo nodded again, taking a handkerchief the Padawan Skywalker offered her and departed.

The Jedi made to follow her but stopped at the doorway.

Thrawn found him a curious fellow. Headstrong and inconsistent but not stupid. Not by any means.

Anakin Skywalker, Thrawn seemed to recall that was his name, looked at the prisoner with sincerity.

“You know...” he said “If it’s any consolation...I think you did the right thing. This whole academy thing you were making. Finest minds in the galaxy, working together, outside of all the...regulations...I’d probably do the same if I was in your position.”

“My position is not enviable, Master Jedi. But thank you all the same.” Thrawn nodded “It was far too great a risk, to be sure. Keeping it all so secret felt...exhausting after a time. And with how it all transpired, I’ve little to be proud of at this stage.”

Anakin shrugged.

“You saw inefficiency in the system and you worked against it. I’d be proud of that no matter how it ended...” He glanced down the doorway then added.

“We need more men like you in the galaxy.”

That made Thrawn smile.

“Master Skywalker, perhaps we’re not so different after all.” He gave him a friendly nod of camaraderie “Perhaps you’d make a fine teacher yourself.”

“Heh...” Skywalker chuckled “Better not let my master hear that or neither of us’ll ever hear the end of it.” He heard footsteps approaching and gave another shrug.

“I should go. Padm-er...Senator Amidala requested Miss Holdo was well-looked after...It’s been nice meeting you.”

“You too, Master Skywalker...I hope to see you again when all this is over.”

As the Jedi departed, a squad of Senate Commandoes in their gleaming indigo armour strode in.

The Captain, Argyus, Thrawn believed he’d heard him called, was not fond of him. Removing his helmet to show off his curled blonde hair that looked somewhat fox-like in those twin peaks, he spoke in his imperious tone.

“Alright. Get him up. He’s darkened these walls long enough.”

“Ah. Is it time for my trial then, Captain?” Thrawn asked as two guard hauled him to his feet.

“Past time, alien.” Argyus answered with a sneer “We’ve received word from your Ascendency or whatever you call it. Seems they’re no happier with you than we are. You’re being sent home with a note and they can deal with you however they like for all I care. But you’d better not come back.”

The memories felt cold as a corpse. Pushing them out of his body felt like burning away infected wounds.

As Eli Vanto entered with two cups of steaming tea, Thrawn pushed himself up from his desk and gave a grateful smile.

Reluctantly, he remembered the same words he gave to Kaine.

“What’s lost is lost.”

Comments

[Bronycommander]

Very nice! The start of them laughing and bump fisting, reminded me of that counter-strike scene I showed you long ago

Fun fact, as I told before, those terrorists, called Arctic Avengers, are Swedish, yet speak Russian during battle in Deleted scenes.

And where Andrey is told to run

Also, looking forward to see the next part.

Whoever messes with pip...An angry Sloane hunts them down

[Mr Dorito]

Damn those last segments with Thrawn were very deep. Wonder who else Thrawn was teaching.

Crix Madine?
Zsinj?

Maybe his academy was funded secretly by officers like Osvald Teshik and Tarkin?

[Purple Patch]

10159969
Thanks. Glad it made a good impression.
Hadn't planned on it but they are both going to appear later.

Well, Therbon and Weblin were chiefly running things but Teshik and Tarkin were likely involved.

What did you think of the Tapani torture device and Pipsqueak running logic rings around Pestage?

[Mr Dorito]

10161376
I think while barbaric, it was ingenious. Also good to see Pip showing himself smarter than he appears.

Sate Pestage, Palpatine should have a recording of the interrogation for amusement and to berate Pestage for being outsmarted by a child.

Maybe this causes Pestage to lose power leading to the rise of Coh Veshiv? Then later on, like in Legends, Veshiv is captured by Rebels who were tipped off by Pestage himself.

[Purple Patch]

10161414
That is quite close to what I have planned.
And Pipsqueak's going to get even in his own way.