When Mara emerged from the 'fresher wrapped in a huge bath towel, with a second one turbaned on her head for drying her hair, she felt much better.
Only after so many days of nonstop scrubbing, scouring, soaking, and rubbing with every conceivable cleanser had she managed to wash off all the grime, the repulsive stench, and stop feeling coated in dried crusts of clone blood and chunks.
The girl, padding barefoot across the deck of her assigned cabin, collapsed onto the couch and stretched with relish.
How wonderful to get a weekend off and not worry about constantly reaching for the Force to sense who's around you.
Sometimes she even started to like being in the ysalamiri Force-nullifying bubbles enveloping the Chimaera's superstructure and aft section at present.
On the grand admiral's flagship, a lavish cabin was always ready for her—one of those usually occupied by high Imperial officials.
Any on the "guest deck" of the Star Destroyer's superstructure.
That deck was built precisely for that—to let dear Imperial posteriors feel at home in their accustomed coziness and comfort, without dwelling on trading the Imperial Palace for a warship.
No, the Flame was a fine ship, of course, but a Star Destroyer had more comfort.
That's exactly why she'd refused her own Star Dreadnought—afraid she couldn't resist holing up in the suite entirely.
The girl, immensely pleased with life and herself, touched the control panel, activating the wall panel to enjoy the soothing sound of the ocean…
"With light steam, Mara Jade."
Squealing, the Hand pushed off the floor and backflipped, ducking behind the couch back.
First thing, she checked that the towel clamps holding her makeshift garb were secure.
Only then did she slowly raise her head from cover, not peeking above eye level.
"In that position, you remind me of an infantryman in a trench watching enemy movement under fire," the grand admiral said, seated on the pristine-white couch to the left of the one behind which she cowered.
"This is my cabin!" Mara hissed.
"This is my ship," Thrawn parried, still watching the shifting ocean swells on the screen.
"You're keeping the ysalamiri on the Chimaera for this?" she asked sarcastically. "So young Force-sensitives don't know you're here?"
"Partially correct," Mara's eye twitched. "They remain to prevent Force-users from harming the ship and crew," Thrawn explained.
"Do you realize how uncouth and low it is to sit in the dark staring at a girl fresh from the 'fresher in just a towel?" Mara seethed.
Thrawn finally deigned to tear his gaze from the monitor, and his fiery-red eyes met her emerald stare.
"For starters—there are two of them on you," Thrawn said calmly. "Second, you turned off the lights yourself. Third, no one forces you to wander a warship in dishabille. That was entirely your choice. Violating regs, by the way. Fourth, my eyes were closed."
Seriously?!
No, he was seriously saying that?!
She was at fault for padding around her own suite in a towel after the 'fresher?!
Mara opened her mouth to fire back a biting retort…
And closed it.
Because Thrawn, blast him, was right—the regs required those aboard to leave the 'fresher area in attire precluding nudity.
Formally, a towel qualified, but…
"Hope nothing earth-shattering happens while I change?" Jade asked, glancing around.
Where was that little furry pest?
"Rukh is outside the door," Thrawn said, making Mara flush. "No, my business can wait while you make yourself presentable, Hand."
The girl, clenching her fists, straightened proudly and deliberately sauntered slowly to her bedroom, vengefully thinking that those fiery eyes were surely boring into her back…
Unable to resist, she turned at the threshold.
Thrawn, leg crossed over knee, stared at the datapad screen he'd brought.
Right hand propped to his forehead, blocking his eye line.
So he knew full well she'd try to catch him in a natural male glance…
And made her suspicions laughable.
"Blast it!" she blurted, slamming her palm against the metal doorframe with full force.
Thrawn didn't even react.
"I managed in two," Mara said, collapsing back onto the same couch she'd hidden behind.
She ignored that the living area now glowed with dim light.
But noted Thrawn was indeed alone.
Hm… Was this how much he trusted her?
Even Palpatine never left her alone, and she, even if she'd wanted to kill him, wasn't his equal even in dreams.
Clad in her traditional combat jumpsuit (good thing the Chimaera and Flame had spares she could shamelessly exploit), she smoothed the towel turban atop her head.
"How's your hand?" Thrawn asked, lifting his eyes to her.
"Uh…" The girl, instantly losing her belligerence, averted her gaze. "Don't know what you mean, Grand Admiral."
"Well then," Thrawn said. "As you say. Have you rested enough, or do you intend to use the full leave allotted?"
"I'm afraid I can't relax aboard this ship anymore," she said.
Take that!
Not an open jab (they wouldn't punish her for her pre-change behavior, but openly hissing at the grand admiral wasn't wise), but a clear hint.
Thrawn was smart.
He'd get what lay behind her words: that now even in her own cabin, she wouldn't be sure some grand admiral wasn't lurking in the dark to issue a new assignment.
Honestly, with Palpatine it had been simpler—he rarely gave orders in person, preserving her incognito at the Imperial court.
She could always hear his faux-concerned voice even from the galaxy's farthest edge.
"I'm sure you'll survive it," Thrawn didn't bat an eye, sliding the datapad across the transparent low table toward the girl. "Your new assignment and supporting intel."
Mara deftly caught the datapad, skimming the lines.
Tearing her gaze away, she looked at the grand admiral hoping his expression would signal the screen text was just a joke…
Yeah, she might as well try reading his stone face for lunch or breakfast.
"This isn't a joke?" she asked.
"Not in the least," Thrawn replied. "The trend of replacing moffs with clones is real and longstanding. Tyber Zann suborns the Imperial Remnants this way, dismantling the Empire's central command structure. Then suborns the Remnants one by one. The clones are obviously programmed for it."
"But Baroness D'Asta went against the Consortium's will," Mara noted. "So, they didn't program her?"
"That's the obvious conclusion," Thrawn agreed. "One curious detail—Force-sensitives can detect an 'unclear threat' from programmed clones."
Mara furrowed her brow.
"And Carnor Jax, the Emperor's placeholder, and Lord Quest, the Emperor's Hand, both are Force-sensitive," she murmured. "Feena D'Asta is part of their conspiracy."
Thrawn looked at her with interest.
Mara could practically feel him expecting her to complete the logical chain.
"Zann didn't program her because Quest and Jax could sense the threat to their plans and eliminate her," Thrawn's Hand said, meeting the grand admiral's eyes.
"I reached the same conclusion," he nodded. "He acts cautiously, with multiple redundancies. His schemes have double or triple layers, letting him stay in the shadows all these years. Quite the progress for someone not long ago into racketeering, piracy, and kidnapping, like most criminal orgs in the galaxy. A very dangerous foe, aimed at us."
"We accidentally scratched a scab, and it turned out to be a half-body-sized abscess underneath," Jade said slowly.
She understood herself that Thrawn's plan to purge pirates for seizing their Imperial assets and securing Outer Rim sectors (at least some) was needed chiefly to make the sector populations understand and embrace the Dominion.
And the bet paid off.
Barring nipped-in-the-bud revolts, the Dominion was decent overall.
Not peak Empire, but far better than most Imperial Remnants.
"So, we've lost the clone originals, the docs, and the Kaminoans don't know where the Spaarti cloning cylinders came from, who they replaced, or the odds Zann set up cloning on Kamino and at what scale," Mara said.
"In broad strokes," Thrawn replied dryly.
Uh-huh…
In broad strokes.
This was a nightmare!
Impossible to tell which remaining moffs governing their sectors galaxy-wide could be trusted, and which not!
Even Kaine could be a clone unbeknownst to himself.
No need to look far!
There was a whole list of moffs and grand moffs in filtration camps posing an "unclear threat."
And some already ID'd as clones!
How many such could lurk across the Dominion?!
It could all collapse in an instant!
"You have a plan, right?" Mara asked quietly. "We can't leave this to chance."
"We won't," Thrawn agreed. "The Zann Consortium will be eliminated. It's our direct foe at present."
"Not even Palpatine…"
"We'll need flexibility to avoid caught between two fires," Thrawn said. "For now, the Empire's attack on the Dominion is staved off only because Palpatine seeks to crush the New Republic while it's weakened. That gives us a narrow window—until Imperial Space and Pentastar Alignment forces are fully spent. After that, Palpatine will join the op and commit his own."
"And how long do we have to deal with the Zann Consortium threat?" Mara asked.
That Thrawn meant to handle Tyber Zann first was right, any way you sliced it.
Couldn't leave such a force at the doorstep—or in the rear with the Chiloon Rift.
Criminals, clones, "corpos"…
The galaxy's shadow side, mixed into a cocktail of production and Imperial sectors secretly backing Zann and evidently providing services…
Yeah, in a certain frame, Zann might even out-scare Palpatine.
Compared to his intrigues, Zann looked a model of strategic cunning.
And if allowed to fracture the Empire and suborn it, he'd be truly unbeatable.
Eradicating him would demand fleets and armies the Dominion lacked and unlikely ever would.
Fighting half the galaxy with just a dozen-plus sectors and a few distant systems under hand…
That was specific suicide.
But sitting idle waiting for Zann to execute and Palpatine to notice the Dominion would be utter folly.
So enemies swapped places.
From sideline nuisance, Zann—who already moved against the Dominion, undermining from within—became the prime threat.
Clashing with Palpatine without smashing Zann first meant the Dominion's end.
Two-front war with mighty rivals—clear failure.
Mara, no tactician or strategist, grasped it clearly.
Thrawn—all the more.
"At most, half a year," Thrawn said. "Intel provided mobilization resource data for Imperial Space and Pentastar Alignment. It'll last max five-six months, but the last two won't be victories. I've already acted to slow the Imperial advance, redirecting it to internal issues. That'll occupy them awhile—the first stage of consolidating conquests. The Imperial Ruling Council and Grand Moff Kaine will soon launch anew, but with limited success. Once they dig in on conquered worlds, not fighters. Their forces won't even suffice for current targets. Once Palpatine sees that—he'll intervene and finish it."
"Crushing Tyber Zann that way and in such short time will be practically impossible," Mara surmised.
"No unreachable goals," Thrawn declared. "This campaign won't be easy, but only victory over Zann will free our forces for solid Dominion defense. Accordingly, I've begun prep for a combination to deal serious damage to Zann Consortium forces."
No one doubted that.
Nor that Thrawn hadn't shared how deeply Tyber Zann had infiltrated galactic realities for nothing.
It could mean only one thing—the grand admiral was leading her to grasp a simple fact.
They intended to assign her a suicidal mission.
One whose outcome could decide the Dominion's fate.
Her home, to which she'd grown attached soul-deep.
And the grand admiral gently but insistently made the assignment not just a mission, but personal.
Couldn't say he failed.
"And what must I do, Grand Admiral?" Mara asked quietly, feeling chills run down her spine.
"You'll have to stick your head in a rancor's maw, drag me in behind, and survive it," Thrawn replied.
Ah, just that?
Mara swallowed the lump rising in her throat.
The grand admiral, no doubt, knew how to inspire feats.
But right now, it got very scary.
"Now to the details…"
***
Instead of the usual turbolift, the Defilers used a freight one, which delivered the whole party to the ground floor.
Fighting armed, armored foes outnumbering them and clearly with no qualms about killing detainees—pure madness.
Especially since the enemy had disarmed them, stripping simple cold weapons and tech gear, binding hands inventively so that within minutes Rederick lost feeling in them.
They were marched to the yard behind the building, and Vex nearly retched from the stench of rotting refuse.
Naturally, no one bought the little ploy—they just shoved her in the back.
The Defilers quickly herded the prisoners into an alley where an airspeeder waited.
"I think it's time to say I'm carsick," Vex said, attempting yet another provocation of the Zann Consortium elite troopers into something.
They reacted.
With a backhand to the face.
"Diversions," Vex said, spitting a knocked-out tooth onto the pavement and, for some reason, crushing it underfoot. "Repeat the acid—accuse the sepia of torment. You my new prwoteff tollsny."
"Shut it and get in," the "senior" ordered.
Two more Consortium Defilers spilled from the speeder's cab, doors flung wide.
Rederick scanned: a long run to the street, past this new pair of trouble.
Time to act now.
If loaded into the vehicle, they'd be whisked wherever, interrogated, and killed.
Rederick desperately brainstormed a plan when a few chittering Jawas on some errand of theirs appeared in the alley.
The Defilers raised weapons, but the Tatooine beggars kept advancing as if oblivious to the group.
"Halt and scram from here," the senior's vocoder ordered from among the seven Defilers.
Now both Jawas noticed them.
And began screeching something apologetic, bowing.
The Defilers tracked them with weapons, vigilance unbroken.
And, honestly, Rederick missed the moment the first Zann Consortium elite fighter hit the ground.
An instant sufficed for the agent to ID the blade hilt protruding from one captor's visor.
Then it all turned to battle chaos.
One Defiler aimed a disintegrator at Aveka, and her partner had no time to think.
Rederick body-slammed the Defiler before him; the shot missed Dunn, but the agent took a foot to the groin, elbow to the jaw, fist to the nose, yet clung to his foe with his whole body.
Vex lunged at the "senior," knocking him down.
From the alley shadows emerged both seen Jawas, who at impossible speed for them leaped beside the downed two agents-Defilers, zapping them with paralyzers.
The resisting Defilers stilled.
As did the remaining four, cut down by invisible blaster shots.
Rederick felt the plasteel ties vanish from his wrists, and he and Vex were helped to at least sitting.
A stim of painkiller hit his shoulder, easing life.
"I'm not a droid," Rederick groaned, seeing the "Jawa" reach for his face with a small gray hand.
Crunch, pain—and the broken nose snapped back.
"Better?" the "Jawa" mewled.
"Noghri," Vex exhaled, settling beside Rederick. "And here I wondered why Jawas mistook you for trash droids."
Meanwhile, another half-dozen "Jawas" appeared in the alley, deftly dragging Defiler bodies into the speeder cab, stripping and binding the two unconscious ones simultaneously.
For a moment, Rederick thought both prisoners had female faces.
Very similar to each other…
But he didn't get to look, as the captives got black hoods over heads, a sedative jab, and—while at it—several teeth pried from mouths and pocketed out of sight.
"You triggered early," Vex addressed the "Jawas." "Should've let them take us, we'd trace their handler."
"Our task is guarding agent lives," the Noghri stated in a mewling tone. "We intervened because they'd surely interrogate and kill you in the speeder. Our lord wouldn't forgive such risk."
"We'd slap a tracker on the speeder and hit them later," Rederick whined, prodding his broken, slowly swelling nose. "Risk is part of the job. If our deaths revealed more than we learned, they'd be worth it."
"The speeder's unregistered, actually," Vex said, eyeing the vehicle. "But automated. Maybe its memory holds destination coords."
"Or," Rederick eyed the prisoners being stuffed into the back seat, "we could make them talk. Which I personally doubt. No, we should've let them take us…"
But at the same time, he knew survival odds in that scenario were slim.
And tracking even a marked speeder in Smuggler's Moon traffic—you'd need to be a stealth surveillance genius.
Unlikely the Vex-Rederick "release and tail" plan wouldn't end in their pointless, inglorious deaths.
"Our lord, Grand Admiral Thrawn, gave clear orders—protect the agents," the apparent Noghri squad leader said firmly. "His will is law to our people. You were in mortal peril—we intervened. No other way."
"Clear."
"No big deal," Vex took his face in both hands, turning it this way and that. "It'll heal by the wedding, your cute mug. And scars make a man handsome anyway."
"Duly noted," Rederick rose, rubbing his hands as blood flow made them prickle fiercely. "You never mentioned the implant-beacon in your tooth."
"A girl needs her little secrets," Vex winked. "But when else do death commandos Noghri save you? They usually have different work."
"Uh-huh," Rederick grumbled. "Heard of 'em. Met 'em. And I keep wondering—if you've got these guys, why need us at all?"
"Ask command when we report," Vex suggested, running a hand over her partner's battered face. "And you know you just saved my life, right?"
"Honest— not on purpose," Rederick said. "Conscience kicked in. Thought maybe they'd rid you of me, and then…"
He didn't finish.
Vex sealed his mouth with a hot, sensual kiss.
The most exquisite he'd ever experienced.
"And don't you dare weasel out of the rest of the reward, my hero," Aveka whispered huskily in his ear. "Especially since you need help treating those battle wounds…"
Fine.
At least this was post-mission harassment.
Better agree, or she'd never let up.