Ten years, first month, and twenty-seventh day after the Battle of Yavin…
Or the forty-fifth year, first month, and twenty-seventh day after the Great Resynchronization.
(Eight months and twelfth day since the arrival).
The turbolift cabin stopped at the designated deck, and the doors parted, revealing to those inside the sight of a tall guardsman clad head to toe in blue-black armor.
"Follow me."
The voice was lifeless, devoid of emotion, and spoken through the helmet's vocoder.
Exactly as it happened when communicating with stormtroopers.
Commodore I-Gor, ignoring the 501st Legion stormtroopers on duty in the cabin, proceeded down the corridor with a quick but not hurried step that might have puzzled a casual observer, following the direction of Thrawn's guardsman.
Behind him followed four starship commanders of the squadron he had led to the rendezvous point on the Supreme Commander's orders.
Slightly behind them came five troopers clad in snow-white armor, accented with black shades of the hermetic undersuit, Dominion stormtroopers.
Commanders of the infantry units quartered on the Victories brought to the meeting.
How and why they were needed by Thrawn—unknown.
But it was assumed that a briefing was upcoming, related to the fact that the Dominion's operational groups had received orders for covert movement to the state's borders.
To points where hyperspace routes penetrated into territory controlled by Thrawn.
Why this was necessary was not explained.
But considering that all ships without exception, crewed by veterans, had departed from their stations, as well as even those starships that had only just received crews and were supposed to undergo shakedown during patrols of internal Dominion territories so that the cloned crews could refresh their skills, the matter ahead was clearly serious.
And the summons directly to the Chimaera, positioned near the Bosph sector, was an unambiguous hint that soon, very soon, the moment would begin for which the yellow alert level had not ceased on the starships for a minute.
The ship commanders would undoubtedly be assigned the actions for each of them, while the stormtroopers apparently faced instruction regarding the capture of bases or ships that Thrawn intended to seize in the course of combat operations.
Likely the same was happening with the other groups at combat stations on the borders, but for secrecy's sake, no one even discussed it over secure lines.
At one of the turns, I-Gor caught sight out of the corner of his eye that, besides the guardsman leading their small group, four more guardsmen were moving behind the officer-stormtroopers.
A peculiar way to escort officers to the immediate command.
This escort resembled a convoy more than anything.
But I-Gor dismissed the thought immediately.
Neither he nor his subordinates had been caught in anything unlawful.
Otherwise, he would have learned about it first and gutted the scoundrels before the counterintelligence on the ships could report to command.
So it just seemed that way to him.
Likely no more than enhanced security measures.
To I-Gor's surprise, their procession passed by the briefing room where Thrawn often instructed commanders before large-scale operations last year.
The commodore met the gaze of Captain Kalian, whose face flashed with surprise.
Yes, he too had realized they were clearly not being led to the conference room.
The other officers didn't bat an eye—clones, what could one expect?
They were dutiful, but no emotions from them.
A few more minutes of travel through the corridors, and I-Gor realized where exactly they were heading.
To Thrawn's quarters.
They were simply being led in a convoluted way, almost around the entire living complex on the deck.
All of it was strange.
Well, soon it would all become clear.
I-Gor remembered and would never forget the moment when Thrawn had summoned him for a meeting after the operation at the Hast shipyards.
The conversation had been heavy.
And recalling its details hurt.
But what surprised him more was that the grand admiral, cold and calculating like a droid, had shown emotion and genuine sympathy for the loss of then-Captain I-Gor's.
That conversation shattered the template so thoroughly that it took I-Gor considerable time to gather his thoughts.
Though it would be a gross exaggeration to say that anyone or anything understood Thrawn and what he did, said…
Yes, when he himself set the accents and explained—everything was perfectly simple, and one could only bite one's elbows, wondering why one hadn't thought of it oneself.
But in one thing I-Gor was absolutely certain.
Disappointment in the Empire had changed Thrawn himself.
He had become… more human, perhaps.
In a private conversation with Gilad Pellaeon, I-Gor had heard roughly the same position.
The former commander of the Chimaera had noted that throughout Operation Crimson Dawn, Thrawn was humanizing.
Which hadn't been the case with him since returning from the Unknown Regions and up to the information raid on Obroa-skai.
"Give it a couple of years, and who knows, they might even invite us to the wedding," Gilad had quipped then.
The conversation had been in a tight circle, after a meeting aboard the headquarters, when Thrawn's appearance made it clear that his "death" during the operation at Sluis Van was nothing more than another multi-move combination designed to buy time and divert the threat from the Dominion posed by the resurrected Emperor Palpatine.
The fact of how Thrawn's clone behaved, compared to the behavior of the mentally wounded Jedi clone used in the early months of the Crimson Dawn campaign, had vividly demonstrated to all ship and formation commanders the difference between the Dominion's cloning approach, using those very lizards that had been hauled out of Myrkr for months along with their cursed trees and shrubs, and cloning a Force-sensitive sentient without using ysalamiri.
As they say— it hit home.
Even those who were not clones of the "guard"—ship commanders who had been with Thrawn from the very start of the campaign.
Rumor or not, after Lennox, Reder, Pryl, and dozens of other commanders freed from captivity and recruited into service had spoken with the "guard" and learned how that dark Jedi, that raving madman, had taken control of entire ship crews and formations, when the truth about the "efficiency" of the Imperial Starfleet before and after Palpatine's death came out, the number of those wanting to drown their "worthlessness" in Corellian whiskey soared to the heavens.
Malicious tongues whispered that it was then that Tanda Pryl picked up some Jen'saarai in the headquarters corridor and dragged him to a storeroom across the entire deck, a good hundred meters one way.
But knowing Tanda—this was nothing more than dirty insinuations and typical officers' gossip.
Pryl wasn't the type to drag someone to a storeroom when she'd had her fill up to her eyebrows.
The nearest free room would suffice for her—the lady didn't mince words, acted quickly and decisively.
I-Gor, willy-nilly, was included in the officers' gossip information field, which couldn't help but arise after the lifting of the Imperial ban on personal communications between servicemen.
Yes, the ban remained, but it concerned only official activities and official information.
And personal communication— as much as you like.
This to some extent only rallied the regular fleet.
There appeared what is called "comradely elbow."
It was much calmer to go into battle when you knew who and what you could rely on.
But this very information field also became the breeding ground for rumors and gossip that spread like wildfire.
I-Gor knew full well that the tale about Pryl and the Jen'saarai had nothing to do with the aftermath of the Crimson Dawn meeting.
Counterintelligence had already traced the source of the rumors—a young comms officer from Thunderer who had somehow provided the link between Pryl's ship and the Chimaera.
It was after that that rumors about Pryl and some Jen'saarai (on a scale of wildness ranging from "Pryl tumbles with a young Jen'saarai" to "By Thrawn's order, Pryl is guarded by Jen'saarai even in her quarters") began to spread.
And malicious tongues piled on excessive fantasies.
I-Gor knew that ship counterintelligence often summoned tongue-waggers for "preventive conversations," and it had a good effect.
The officers' information field was slowly but surely clearing of windbags, returning to what it had been originally—a friendly and comradely way of informal communication.
However, cautious whispers about whether Thrawn would marry Baroness D'Asta and whether the D'Astan sector would join the Dominion as a result of a political union were virtually ineradicable.
All these thoughts raced through I-Gor's head right up until he, at the head of the procession, was halted by the guardsman at the security post near the entrance to the already familiar quarters.
Flanking the doors stood two more fully armed guardsmen.
A squad of stormtroopers dispersed through the corridors—this was hardly eye-catching.
Such security measures were implemented fleet-wide on ships after the Battle of Sluis Van.
But someone else was present here.
The grand admiral's adjutant.
Lieutenant Colonel Tierce.
Timid, shy, but more than competent adjutant, with an ordinary build hidden under his uniform jacket.
This man didn't even outwardly meet the requirements one might imagine, knowing Thrawn's demands on subordinates.
From the poor wretch Pellaeon, the grand admiral had squeezed every drop over two years, making him recall everything from hand-to-hand combat skills to the peculiarities of the drive system of the "II."
And here an adjutant-milquetoast.
However, I-Gor didn't even intend to continue his thoughts in that direction.
He simply decided for himself that since this man had served under Thrawn longer than one day, he possessed qualities that easily outweighed his timidity and plain appearance.
"Gentlemen officers," Tierce nearly stumbled on the short phrase. "P-please surrender your personal weapons to the g-guardsmen. Security service requirements."
"Now I definitely feel under arrest," Kalian grumbled quietly, but obediently rid himself of his service blaster.
I-Gor, the clone commanders, and the stormtrooper officers complied without murmur and parted with their weapons.
And the "dolls," as stormtroopers were called in the New Republic, also bid farewell to their multi-function belts.
Then they were passed through the weapons scanner, which detected absolutely nothing unusual, and only after that, passing through the dimly lit airlock where it seemed to I-Gor that during those thirty seconds of waiting in the locked room, someone had subtly searched them, all ten entered the grand admiral's quarters.
For those familiar with the layout of senior officer quarters, it would hardly be possible to recognize in the grand admiral's quarters a standard cabin.
Here, as before, holographic images of works of art were projected, the bulk of the free space occupied by a workstation ringed with monitors, and shelves with data chips.
The only thing noticeably striking from what hadn't been there during I-Gor's previous visit to this compartment of the Chimaera was that the room was furnished with modern and strictly functional furniture.
A coffee-break side table set with refreshments, surrounded by rectangular soft sofas, stood not far from the bulkhead leading to the grand admiral's private quarters.
Not the slightest sign of luxuries that someone with Thrawn's position and wealth could afford.
And yet, in essence, he was the richest sentient in the Dominion.
Among the military, certainly.
The entire state treasury belonged to him, from which he could easily take the necessary sum and replace the holograms with originals.
But the grand admiral, as six months ago, continued to profess asceticism not only in service but also in comfort.
The grand admiral greeted the entrants seated at the workstation.
His gaze of flaming eyes smoothly shifted from one of the monitors and settled on I-Gor.
"Interesting, and where is his Noghri bodyguard?" flashed through the latter's mind, but the stray thought left his mind at once.
"Grand Admiral Thrawn, sir," the officer pronounced with impeccable crispness. "Commodore I-Gor, ship commanders of the squadron, and commanders of the assault contingents have arrived per your order."
I-Gor could literally feel with the back of his head how tense his companions were and continued to gaze unwaveringly at the Supreme Commander, who rose to meet them.
At his blue skin, black hair, eyes burning with red fire, impeccably white uniform topped with aurodium counter-epaulets.
At the chrome code cylinders secured in the jacket pockets, at the matte squares of three colors on the command bar…
The possessor of all this met eyes with his adjutant, who happened to be nearby, and turned to one of the junior flag officers of the Dominion's regular fleet.
"Welcome aboard the Chimaera, Commodore," he said quietly.
Thrawn's gaze slid over the officers standing behind I-Gor.
"Gentlemen, Captain Tschel awaits you in the briefing room," the grand admiral said softly. "I request that all not belonging to the Crusader's crew vacate the quarters."
I-Gor was momentarily at a loss.
What did that mean?
But his officers asked no questions.
The eight men obediently left the grand admiral's quarters.
"Have a seat, Commodore," Thrawn gestured to one of the snow-white sofas.
On the second, opposite, he seated himself.
I-Gor followed the host's directive.
The stormtrooper contingent commander positioned himself like a silent statue beside the sofa.
"Have a seat, Colonel TC-1289," Thrawn said, leaning forward and taking a small cup of aromatic caf. "The conversation ahead will be long. Remove your helmet."
The Crusader's stormtrooper contingent commander hesitated for a moment but obeyed Thrawn's order.
"Help yourselves," the unforgettable, rich-with-overtones voice of the Supreme Commander murmured softly.
Only this resembled less an invitation to sample the caf and snacks from the Chimaera's galley.
For some reason, old legends surfaced in his head from times when ships moved exclusively across planetary water surfaces.
Various peoples had this story, telling of the beautiful singing of enchanting beings who lured sailors to rocks with their speeches and verses, then devoured them.
A cunning trap set for a trusting victim.
That was exactly how I-Gor felt now in the grand admiral's quarters.
With barely obedient hands, the man, feeling not a gram of guilt on his part, reached for the cup of caf prepared for him.
"Colonel, this concerns you as well," Thrawn stated.
I-Gor felt a trickle of sweat run down his temple.
What.
Here.
Was happening?!
By what Hutt was Thrawn deciding to "play nice" with a stormtrooper?
They were trained to kill, not chase caf.
Out of the corner of his eye, he noted that the armored hands of TC-1289 elegantly took the decorative mug.
The colonel took a small sip.
To I-Gor's surprise, the stormtrooper sitting beside him, who had stepped over hundreds of corpses, wanted by New Republic intelligence as an outright thug, was trembling finely as he brought the mug of hot drink to his lips.
The eyes stung at the slightly extended pinky on the hand managing the snow-white beverage container…
"Precisely what I wanted to confirm," the grand admiral Thrawn said with a shade of triumph, not taking his gaze from TC-1289.
"Sir?" I-Gor quietly addressed the Supreme Commander. "May I inquire what the discussion will be about?"
"Certainly, Commodore," Thrawn said, shifting the gaze of his fiery eyes to him. "Here and now, we will discuss betrayal."
And then…
The irreparable happened.
***
I-Gor's eyes widened in surprise and foreboding of the inevitable.
The sound of a shattering cup reached his ears.
Slowly turning his head toward the source of the sound, he saw that the right forearm of TC-1289 had been literally pinned to the sofa back with a long obsidian knife.
Behind Thrawn appeared the gray-skinned Noghri bodyguard, emerging from the shadows.
And TC-1289 himself was wheezing.
His neck was held in a professional grip by Lieutenant Colonel Tierce.
But this was no longer the milquetoast adjutant seen before.
Before I-Gor's eyes, Tierce transformed into a warrior who now held the professional killer without much effort.
And judging by the expression on the Crusader's colonel's face, he had clearly left his ruthlessness and composure in the past.
And an utterly frightened youth, greedily gulping air.
"Twitch and I'll snap your neck," Tierce said in an emotionless tone, with one finger movement, like a magician from a hat, extracting a narrow blade from the bracer pinned by the obsidian dagger. "You won't even squeak, traitor, before your life ends."
Now before I-Gor was a ruthless warrior with excellent physical training, who had twisted the seasoned stormtrooper like a little nuna.
And the commodore had no doubt that Lieutenant Colonel Tierce was capable of carrying out his threat with the ease and composure he described.
A fine tremor passed through his body.
I-Gor was no shrinking violet, but at the same time he perfectly understood that it wasn't time even to try demanding an explanation.
"You are unwisely refusing the beverage, Commodore," Thrawn took a small sip from his caf cup. "It will sweeten the time our conversation with you will take. Drink."
The last sounded like an order.
I-Gor obeyed it.
Explanations and questions—all that would come, but later.
Thrawn wouldn't have invited him here just to demonstrate his adjutant's lethal efficiency and then let him go.
There was something more here.
"Lately, for a number of reasons, I have become interested in cloning issues," Thrawn said unhurriedly. "We have Imperial archives at our disposal, as well as a group of specialists competent in this matter. All this allows us to assume that in the future, our past problems with replenishing clone numbers will fade into oblivion. However, I must say that in sifting through the information so kindly provided to us by the Ubiqtorate, counterintelligence stumbled upon rather impressive information about Imperial cloning projects. Have you heard anything about Arkanian Microtechnologies Corporation, Commodore?"
I-Gor cautiously shrugged.
"I've heard there's such a medical company with no small number of skeletons in the closet."
He glanced at Colonel TC-1289.
His interest, prompted by the organization's name, flared and faded, the stormtrooper's face turning back to a mask.
Composure, from beneath which fear seeped.
"And quite right," Thrawn said calmly. "They actively participated in creating the spaarti clones of the Grand Army of the Republic, and also carried out subsequent cloning orders directly from the Emperor and Darth Vader."
What was this prelude even for?
"Sir, I don't catch the connection."
"Patience, Commodore," Thrawn watched the stormtrooper-colonel's face intently, but TC-1289 had no intention of giving vent to emotions again. "There were a great many projects. Different donors, different programs. And different executors. The results were different too. For example, did you know that the colonel sitting beside you, TC-1289, is a product of a cloning operation conducted by specialists of Moraabian Corporation?"
"I've never heard of such a thing, sir," I-Gor admitted.
"Not surprising," Thrawn agreed, continuing to bore into the stormtrooper with his gaze. "Allow me to devote attention to this subject of entrepreneurial activity. Moraabian Corporation was a small but well-regarded pro-Imperial company engaged in genetic engineering work. Small staff, mostly military contracts. They assisted Arkanian Microtechnologies in at least several projects related to creating stormtrooper clones. What unites them all is the use of the GeNod cloning program. One such result is Colonel TC-1289. Another is Erv Lekauf, who for a long time served as Darth Vader's assistant. There were other donors, but they, like their clones, have perished by now."
"Except for Lekauf," I-Gor noted softly. "I've heard he serves in Imperial Space."
Thrawn shrugged indifferently.
"He is a New Order supporter, and thus useless to us, and I ordered no efforts made to recruit him."
"Thank you for the clarification," the commodore said politely. "Sir, but I still don't understand."
"At present, too small a number of clones from Imperial programs have survived," Thrawn said. "Mostly they, like Colonel TC-1289, are clones of the last experiments conducted by the Empire shortly before its collapse."
It wasn't any clearer.
I-Gor strained his wits, then realized.
"Sir, in speaking of betrayal, do you mean to point out that TC-1289 concealed his relation to an Imperial cloning program?"
"You are remarkably perceptive, Commodore," Thrawn noted. "Yes, that is precisely what I mean. When we first began cloning procedures, the entire fleet was notified that we required specialists and participants in such Imperial experiments. No more than two dozen responded, who had once been technicians or support personnel in Imperial cloning projects. TC-1289 remained silent about it."
I-Gor felt relief.
There was a quite specific reason for this remark.
Strange that Thrawn didn't know it.
Or deliberately excluding it from the equation.
"Sir, as far as I know, Imperial GeNod clones, unlike ours, do not know that they are clones," I-Gor reminded him. "Therefore, TC-1289 could not possibly report such a thing. He considers himself a human unconnected to the program."
"Are you prepared to vouch for him, Commodore?" Thrawn's fiery gaze made the words ready to burst out stick in his throat.
"The right decision, Commodore," the Supreme Commander approved. "You see, besides TC-1289's involvement in the GeNod project, there are a number of other factors that allow doubt as to his loyalty."
And this was already bad.
Thrawn didn't throw accusations lightly.
But like any sentient, even a genius fleet commander and experienced intriguer, he could be misled.
"May I learn them?" I-Gor asked.
As a responsible officer, he was obliged to stand up for his subordinates before higher command.
If there was an accusation of betrayal, there must be proof of it.
"Of course," Thrawn nodded almost imperceptibly. "Have you never wondered, Commodore, why precisely you and the Crusader the Ubiqtorate left on Tangrene, upon learning that I intended to subordinate their fleet to myself?"
"The answer is clear, sir," I-Gor frowned. "My crew and I were your supporters and intended to join your fleet. The Ubiqtorate disposed of us to avoid risking operational exposure."
The grand admiral nodded again with a barely perceptible head movement, not taking his gaze from the stormtrooper.
"Yes, that is known to me," he confirmed. "Moreover, that very circumstance was the last straw that prompted the Ubiqtorate to intend to dispose of you in that manner."
"If there were other reasons, they are unknown to me," the commodore stated.
"Moreover, I will say that no one in the Empire knew of them," Thrawn confirmed. "Nor we, until during the attack on Coruscant our slicers did not purge the New Republic special services' database."
I-Gor raised an eyebrow questioningly.
He had heard that Thrawn had obtained some important intelligence when he smashed the New Republic's First Fleet and blockaded Coruscant's orbit with invisible asteroids.
But he didn't know the details.
Nor was he interested.
"Several rather curious documents fell into our hands," Thrawn continued. "For example, the so-called Kraken List. This is a roster of subjects across the galaxy who for one reason or another must be found for a reward. Liquidated or delivered to Coruscant for trial—the task varies for the executor regarding a specific target. Did you know that Colonel TC-1289 is on this list? The Rebels intended to take him alive, accusing him of a number of crimes."
"Yes, sir," I-Gor confirmed. "For his highly effective actions against the Rebel Alliance and the New Republic, I presume."
"An assumption not based on facts is a delusion," Thrawn stated. "Officially, the New Republic never announced the reasons they wanted Colonel TC-1289 alive. But thanks to our acquisition of the entire Republican intelligence archive, including General Kraken's private records, it can be confidently stated that Colonel TC-1289 supplied the Rebel Alliance with information on Imperial actions. One of his reports—on Tangrene's security systems—led to General Garm Bel Iblis's fleet striking the Ubiqtorate base and destroying a large number of Imperial troops."
"Colonel, is this true?" I-Gor growled, looking at his immobilized subordinate.
"Lie," the stormtrooper croaked.
I-Gor was at a loss.
He couldn't not believe Thrawn—cases where he was wrong could be indexed under "margin of error."
But stormtroopers couldn't lie!
They weren't programmed that way!
Especially GeNod project clones!
"Don't rack your brains, Commodore," Thrawn advised. "The colonel is right. TC-1289 is not involved in collaboration with the Rebel Alliance or the New Republic."
"What does that mean, sir?!" I-Gor was taken aback.
What was happening at all?!
First accusations of betrayal, now exoneration?
"Exactly what I said, Commodore," Thrawn said impassively. "Colonel TC-1289 has no relation whatsoever to collaboration with the Empire's enemies."
"Then how…?"
"It's simple, Commodore," Thrawn relented and didn't take a theatrical pause. "The man sitting beside you is not Colonel TC-1289. In body—yes, but not in mind."
I-Gor wiped large drops of sweat from his forehead.
WHAT.
HERE.
WAS HAPPENING!!!!!????
TC-1289.
"I think it's worth enlightening all present on how the life path of the clone-stormtrooper TC-1289 began," Thrawn suggested. "He, like thousands like him, was born in a cloning incubation tank. The necessary data were loaded into his mind. But the thing is, TC-1289 was found entangled in wires next to the dead body of the geneticist Zyix K'zzt. He was the last to head the GeNod project until it was shut down by Emperor Palpatine's order, and the equipment hauled off to an unknown destination. Colonel," Thrawn addressed the stormtrooper. "I offer you a chance to tell your own story. If I do it, you will have no choice left."
I-Gor looked at the pale clone-stormtrooper with undisguised curiosity.
The strong-willed face of the man who had more than once led assaults and personally directed the Crusader's stormtroopers' boarding actions was now whiter than chalk.
And he was biting his lips like a girl from Taanab seeing Alderaanian wine for the first time.
"Well then," Thrawn sighed, not hiding his disappointment. "Then I will continue myself."
"No need, Grand Admiral," the "stormtrooper" squeezed out, ceasing to play the comedy. "I'll tell it all myself."
"Excellent," Thrawn smiled almost imperceptibly. "I ask you not to hold back on details and particulars. I advise against lying—in that case, Lieutenant Colonel Tierce will break your bones one by one. He won't kill you outright only because this story has intrigued me so much that I'll forgive you this once for breaching discipline in addressing a superior. After all, you are a civilian, Mr. Zyix K'zzt."
For the umpteenth time today, I-Gor witnessed a person's transformation in the same room with him.
First, the milquetoast adjutant turned out to be a cutthroat capable of handling a seasoned stormtrooper.
Then the dutiful officer—terror of the storms—in his eyes turned into a frightened bantha calf.
Next, the stormtrooper turned out not to be a stormtrooper.
And finally, the "not stormtrooper," released at Thrawn's signal, lounged languidly on the sofa, leg over leg, displaying some aristocratic behavior.
"Now I understand why the Rebel agent who had the chance to meet you in this guise spoke of your duality," the grand admiral said.
"Because breed is in the head," the stormtrooper tapped his temple with a finger. "Not in the blood, not in ruthless training—in attitude toward oneself. Sense of dignity—from there too."
"This is undoubtedly a stunning observation regarding rules of conduct," Thrawn approved. "But I am interested precisely in your professional activity, Mr. Zyix K'zzt. I want to hear answers to questions that need not even be voiced aloud."
"I'll tell you everything," the stormtrooper agreed, as if not even noticing the hole pierced through his arm. "But in exchange, I ask that TC-1289 not be declared a traitor. And since it all came out, I also request your permission to work in the Dominion specialists' cloning program."
And besides, I-Gor recalled that Tierce had pulled a stiletto from TC-1289's bracer, which he had somehow smuggled through the scanner.
"Well now," Thrawn said thoughtfully. "You are asking, then."
"I'm no suicide demanding something from you," Zyix K'zzt smiled nervously. "Just asking."
"Well, your opinion will be taken into account in making the final decision regarding his further fate," Thrawn announced.
The "not stormtrooper" smiled bitterly, understanding that at present he had no ace up his sleeve whatsoever.
Everything he could in any way tell those present, Thrawn surely knew.
The only question remaining was why he was staging this performance instead of arresting the traitor immediately, entrusting it to counterintelligence or guardsmen aboard the Crusader?
"I'll start from the very beginning, but I won't dwell on my childhood, there's little interesting there," Zyix K'zzt said. "I grew up in an impoverished aristocratic family. Studied genetics at several institutes, fascinated by the clone troopers of the Grand Army of the Republic. And utterly loyal to the New Order. I decided to devote my life to serving the Empire. For that, I studied long and diligently to please my parents and teachers. I had to work very hard, but in the end, I became a geneticist working for Moraabian Corporation."
"And your successes in genetics led to the Emperor himself taking notice of you," Thrawn prompted.
Structuring the dialogue with specific phrases, the grand admiral gently but surely steered the "not stormtrooper's" tale in the desired direction.
Lest he, despite his words, intend to recount only the key milestones of his past.
"Yes," TC-1289 confirmed. "I became an important asset for his secret cloning projects. Before me stood an important task—to create an army of clones loyal solely to Palpatine. They were to have no pangs of conscience, no hesitations. Droids in human shells, capable of executing any order. Needless to say, it was about 'dirty' work. I studied data on stormtrooper psychological preparation and processing and concluded that uniform drilling would inevitably have a selection percentage—disobedience. Palpatine said it didn't matter. As practice shows, many stormtroopers trained on Carida still overcame the ideological indoctrination and didn't see themselves as mere 'numbers.'"
"The idea of programming loyalty in the GeNod program was yours?" Thrawn clarified.
"Among others," Zyix K'zzt said. "I worked side by side with the Arkanians, who discussed that the original obedience protocols had much in common with their national methods of processing genetic experiments. But they never revealed who authored the first part of the program. I didn't know until I headed the entire project and gained access to absolutely all GeNod data."
"So you learned of Zeta Magnus's work for the Emperor," the grand admiral said.
"Yes, the program source code belonged to him. He essentially created the entire model we now call GeNod. My subordinates and I merely checked and rechecked it, made corrections, and developed security tactics. The 'patch' that GeNod clones must not know their origin and distinguish each other, speak of cloning—that was entirely our work."
"Ineffective," Thrawn noted.
"There was no such thing in Zeta Magnus's works," Zyix K'zzt stated. "He subjugated clones in a way we never uncovered."
"Well," Thrawn said. "Judging by your work on several projects, the Emperor's offer to create a personal army for his beloved played on your ego."
"And whose wouldn't it?" the "not stormtrooper" smirked. "For a New Order fanatic, the offer to work directly for the Emperor is an honor. And with it come incentives: money, influential acquaintances and friends, access to prestigious perks like elite housing, expensive escort models glittering beside you at every Imperial Reception…"
"You were simply bought like a thing," Commodore I-Gor stated with disgust.
"Who's arguing?" the stormtrooper shrugged. "I was young, ambitious, and Palpatine's attention to my person was like a drug you couldn't just get off. Imperial officials and moffs literally ate from my hand, hung on my every word—and it stroked my ego. I think it's needless to say the moral side didn't interest me either."
"What changed your worldview?" Thrawn asked.
"When my wife gave birth to our first child, a son, I looked at him in the maternity ward, took that little one in my arms, and it hit me: I was wrong," Zyix K'zzt said hauntedly. "It hit me: life shouldn't come out of a cloning vat, but from nature itself, where a being has the right to make its own decisions instead of everything being decided for it."
"The genetic cloner decided life was too precious for mass production?" I-Gor was surprised.
"Imagine that," Zyix K'zzt snorted irritably. "You wouldn't understand if you have no children."
"My son sacrificed himself to save his comrades," the commodore replied sharply. "During the battle at the Hast shipyards, he sacrificed himself and his frigate DP20's crew to save the Crusader's crew. Including you, Mr. Zyix K'zzt."
The geneticist in the stormtrooper's body drooped, guiltily averting his eyes.
"I'm sorry, sir," he mumbled. "I thought it was just rumors…"
I-Gor ignored the apology.
"Continue," Thrawn ordered.
"After the child's appearance and rethinking life, I realized my own life had been little better than that of the stormtroopers I created," Zyix K'zzt confessed. "In a sense, I was just like them: trained like a pet to be a faithful Empire servant without choice, without objections to how everything was arranged, and of course, without a second chance. I'd had such thoughts before, but they timely reminded me of 'patriotic duties,' tempted with trinkets and flattery; two things I soon learned to do without. I became ashamed of my life in the Empire's service, and so I decided to secretly join the Rebel Alliance."
"And you did so until the ISB got on your trail," the grand admiral said.
"Yes," the geneticist admitted. "I supplied the Alliance with a steady stream of information on Imperial genetic engineering projects, as well as flaws in stormtrooper programming and tactical subroutines. This allowed them to find and recruit stormtroopers on site, bolstering their ranks. Sometimes I also implanted subversive programs in stormtroopers' minds that made them act as spies or lone suicide bombers, without even realizing they were doing it."
"Very much like what Ysanne Isard worked on at Lusankya," Thrawn stated.
"My entire life was actually a fake," Zyix K'zzt said with regret. "When cautious ISB surveillance of me began, when I started finding listening devices everywhere possible, it didn't yet seem like a collapse. It got worse when it turned out my wife was actually an Imperial agent working for them. As soon as she discovered my double life, she turned me in without a second thought about the consequences."
"And how did you escape the ISB's clutches?" I-Gor clarified.
"What about your children, Mr. Zyix K'zzt?" Thrawn asked.
The geneticist-cloner merely smiled bitterly.
"They took my children from me. The elder, as far as I know, was given up for re-education as an orphan—the mother disowned him. The younger… I don't know. Couldn't find the slightest lead," Zyix K'zzt confessed. "And the escape… I sabotaged all the computers in my lab. While they were breaking down the doors, I uploaded my mind into a clone body—this body," he jabbed a thumb at his armor breastplate. "The ISB found only Zyix K'zzt's body, blaster-shot. The only thing I didn't manage was to remove the wires and mind-transfer equipment from myself and the undamaged data storage."
"The ISB deemed it a failed electronic sabotage attempt," Thrawn explained. "Dominion Security came to similar conclusions, however one of the ISB agents on site clearly noted that the equipment had been activated by the time they burst in. The others didn't confirm it, and everything was chalked up to the sabotage version."
"I was interrogated for some time," the geneticist continued. "It was quite hard because in TC-1289's mind there were immediately two entities, if you will: a soldier loyal to the Empire, and me. Thanks to my intellect, I managed to prevail, and something in between resulted."
"Do you possess the memories of both?" Thrawn clarified.
"Mostly my own," Zyix K'zzt confessed. "From TC-1289 only knowledge of weapon handling, combat skills, tactical breakdowns remained… Nothing personal. I think it's because the clone factually wasn't a personality. What makes us special, distinguishes us from each other is much more than just a set of skills tagged 'stormtrooper.' So more accurately, his knowledge was absorbed into my matrix."
"You didn't abandon attempts to continue work with the Republicans," Thrawn continued the interrogation.
"No one in the Stormtrooper Corps noticed the difference," Zyix K'zzt shrugged. "I went on assaults, commanded units, carried out missions. Thanks to my normal human mind, I did it a bit better than the rest—after all, I'm not blinkered, and I think not only about armor maintenance, weapon care, and purely tactical schemes. For some time, I exhibited duality of consciousness. Sometimes I even seemed to myself no more than another drone in the Stormtrooper Corps; other moments I was fully myself and several times contacted the Rebel Alliance, sending call signs and signals known only to me. At the meeting with the Rebel agent, I realized something was off and ceased cooperation when I learned they'd put a bounty on my head. But yes, you are quite right—I transmitted considerable intelligence to them, believing my cause just. I wanted to fight the Empire, but…"
The geneticist faltered.
"But?" Thrawn repeated.
"For the Alliance and the New Republic, I risked everything," now anger sounded in Zyix K'zzt's voice. "Family, job, way of life… I caused so much harm it's hard to imagine deliberately. And in return what? Not only did they not believe me when I told the agent that Zyix K'zzt was still alive, in the body of a high-ranking stormtrooper. No, they extracted Tangrene's defense schematics from me, then blew everything to Hutt and left pleased with themselves! And put a bounty on my head! This isn't just swinishness, it's betrayal!"
I-Gor cast a cautious glance at Thrawn.
The grand admiral sat, watching the clone-"not stormtrooper" intently, a satisfied smile playing on his lips.
Barely noticeable, but there.
One who hadn't interacted with Thrawn in moments of his triumph couldn't simply say what expression was now etched on his face.
But I-Gor dared hope he understood.
And that Zyix K'zzt was missing a key aspect from his angry speech against the Republicans.
By Thrawn's words, the Alliance had no intention of killing the "not stormtrooper," only capturing him.
Which could be interpreted as a fairly trivial "extraction" attempt, i.e., agent evacuation.
Either Zyix K'zzt was pretending, or he truly didn't understand that the bounty on his head was just for distraction.
"There's an amusing fact, Mr. Zyix K'zzt," Thrawn said. "The New Republic intended to take you alive."
"Oh," the geneticist was genuinely surprised. "And… Oh… And for what?"
"Surely to help fight Imperial clones," I-Gor supposed, pondering why the grand admiral had pointed out this small detail at all.
If one abstracted from the fact that Zyix K'zzt was a moral monster who even now saw nothing reprehensible in the fact that due to his "soul tossing," tens of thousands, if not hundreds, of sentients had died. Yes, stormtroopers, but…
Or perhaps he spoke of them as things because for the Empire they were just that.
Without mind, without personality.
Just "meat droids."
"I think yes, they intended to take you from the Empire," Thrawn continued. "But don't flatter yourself. Life on that side of the front was still expected to be short for you."
"How so?" the cloner was taken aback.
"Before you lies a datapad," Thrawn smirked. "Your file from General Kraken's archives, and the Provisional Government's resolution is there."
The cloner snatched the device greedily and began reading the lines on the screen.
"…Presumed split personality… Fawns… At other times—aristocrat… Uses Zyix K'zzt access codes… Personally acquainted with six of General Kraken's special agents…" the geneticist muttered, scanning the text with his eyes. Then he froze, rereading the same fragment. "Oh, bantha poodoo!"
"What's the matter?" I-Gor asked, looking at Thrawn, as Zyix K'zzt's hands began to tremble.
"I think our master cloner has stumbled on that part of the report about his beloved self describing the last meeting with the Republican spy," Thrawn supposed. "The botan agent clearly notes that no split personality, as it was at the first contact almost immediately after the mind transfer, is in question anymore."
"'TC-1289 appears to have bypassed his original cloning program and thus should be considered a fully sentient being,'" Zyix K'zzt said in a fallen voice.
"Which in turn means the following," the grand admiral picked up. "The Rebel Alliance, and later the New Republic, held him responsible for the actions he committed, unlike hordes of other stormtroopers who were simply mindless droids. All those actions carried out by Mr. Zyix K'zzt in Colonel TC-1289's body have been posthumously declared war crimes by the New Republic."
I-Gor couldn't hold back a smile.
"So they wanted to catch him to put him on trial?"
"For starters, I think they would have squeezed everything he knows out of him, and then yes, held a show execution," Thrawn supposed. "For war crimes, the New Republic has rather severe punishment. In the best case, Mr. Zyix K'zzt could hope for life imprisonment in some secret Republican intelligence lab, where he would labor for our enemies' benefit."
"Incredible," Zyix K'zzt shook his head. "Whatever I did… For the Empire, for the Alliance… The outcome is the same everywhere."
"For that, you are to blame solely yourselves, Mr. cloner," Thrawn stated. "Work for the Empire gave you everything, but your psyche decided otherwise. You contacted the Alliance and lost comfort, children, wife, right to freedom. No one loves traitors—the Alliance sentenced you in absentia. They would have squeezed you dry, then condemned. And to make you work for them, offered to commute the death sentence to lab work. And you would have agreed."
"Better death!" Zyix K'zzt bristled.
"Really?" Thrawn arched an eyebrow. "Then explain to me the reason you didn't surrender to either side and continued keeping your incognito, Mr. Zyix K'zzt?"
The cloner wanted to reply something but fell silent.
"I thought as much," Thrawn said.
"And… what next?" the "not stormtrooper" asked quietly.
"Depends on your answer," the grand admiral continued. "Though we are not the Empire, and not even its legal successor, crimes against Imperial citizens and its property are punished here too."
"So why all this?" I-Gor frowned. "Just give the order and he'd be shot right in the Crusader's airlock."
"All the world's a stage, Commodore," Thrawn stated. "And sentients in it—actors. I summoned your squadron not only because a battle looms, but also so our scientist-cloner wouldn't suspect he'd been found. And this meeting, the confession he ventured, has its purpose too."
"And what purpose, if I may ask?" I-Gor inquired warily, glancing between the "not stormtrooper" and the grand admiral.
"What's not to understand?" Zyix K'zzt snorted. "They're recruiting me. After Mustafar, it was only a matter of time before you followed the Arkanian trail and stumbled on subcontractors. But I comforted myself that they wouldn't find… I was wrong, regrettably."
"You mentioned Mustafar," Thrawn said, clearly interested. "What exactly do you mean?"
"The cloning facilities hauled out of there by the whole fleet," Zyix K'zzt explained. "Those are cloning vats in which Arkanian Microtechnologies created spaarti clones. When I was called to the project, they were installed on Centax-II. Apparently from Clone Wars times—the Arkanians assembled them based on remnants of Sparti cloning cylinders destroyed by the Jedi on Cartao two years before the Clone Wars ended."
I-Gor looked at Thrawn, who had narrowed his eyes almost imperceptibly.
But now even this small detail betrayed him utterly.
"You didn't know?" Zyix K'zzt gasped.
"Only suspected," Thrawn didn't equivocate. "The Imperial faction with the mad H1 clone used them to create Wookiee clones and other species. All were degenerative and with mental disorders."
"And what else would they be?" Zyix K'zzt rounded his eyes. "The facilities were made for cloning humans. All the electronics, all the 'accelerated learning' programs—everything tailored to the human genome. Try teaching a rancor to use a fork and knife—it'll go mad from it. Conflict of software and genetics—that's the main mistake of those who just turn on the machine. This isn't Kaminoan reservoirs."
"You mean you can fix them and make them work for us?" Thrawn clarified.
"I can at least try," Zyix K'zzt confessed. "I'm a geneticist, not an engineer. If there are mechanical or software glitches, it'll take a good team to sort it out."
"You'll have one if you agree to work for us," Thrawn said.
"And do I have a choice?" the geneticist was surprised.
"There's always a choice," the grand admiral noted.
"Sir, after what he did…" I-Gor began.
"The past can't be returned," Thrawn cut him off. "Especially since those were Empire-Alliance squabbles. With labor for the Dominion's benefit, Mr. Zyix K'zzt can atone. His position will of course worsen considerably—until we understand he can be trusted. But the more active and diligent the labor, the faster the atonement. I have several projects for you," the grand admiral looked at the geneticist. "First and foremost, I'm interested in how you survived the personality conflict. We've already encountered problems uploading a mind to another donor's body. There occurred…"
"Degradation?" the geneticist supposed. "Yes, there's that issue. We couldn't bypass it either. And as for creating new cloning vats—their basis is Sparti tech, no longer produced."
"Can you rid clones with 'foreign' minds of the affliction or not?" the grand admiral clarified.
"There's a Kaminoan mind-formatting program," the stormtrooper glanced at his wounded arm, as if only now recalling the knife in the forearm. "Essentially, just clear the brain of the personality, restore organic damage in the cerebrum if reversible, and a normal matrix can be uploaded. But I can't guarantee one hundred percent success."
"In that case, welcome to the GeNod-Dominion program, Mr. Zyix K'zzt," Thrawn said. "Work for the Dominion's benefit, and my intelligence will do everything possible to return your children to you."
"Thank you," the cloner brightened, gulping caf from I-Gor's cup on the table. "And, if not a secret, what did you mean by 'what I wanted to confirm' when you made us drink the caf?"
"That in a stressful situation, your true nature prevails," Thrawn stated, shifting his gaze to the caf cup held by Zyix K'zzt.
"And… what's wrong with that?" he grew concerned.
"Stormtroopers don't stick out their pinky when drinking from a cup," I-Gor said irritably, pointing to the extended finger on the "not stormtrooper's" hand. "That's part of aristocratic upbringing."
"Precisely, Commodore," Thrawn said, taking a sip from his own mug. "I think you're interested to learn the reasons I left you both for this conversation?"
"Yes," I-Gor replied.
Not just to stage this recruitment show with Zyix K'zzt, surely?
"It's simple," the grand admiral set the empty cup on the side table. "You both are part of one big trap I'm setting. And now your roles will be explained to you."