Ten years, one month, and five days after the Battle of Yavin…
Or forty-fifth year, first month, and five days after the Great Resynchronization.
(Seven months and twenty-five days since the Arrival.)
The Cinimal were described as "graceful and intolerant."
In the past, about a hundred and forty years ago, this alien race had conquered the planet of the Langhesi, leading to a mass exodus of the locals from their homeworld.
The natives, known throughout the galaxy as unmatched masters of biotechnology, had become so rare that there were practically no mentions of them anywhere.
As if they had all vanished from sight.
Well, except for that one elder who now sat to the right of Mara, his eyes bulging, afraid to move.
But, unlike the present ruler of the Cinimal, he behaved so as not to provoke anyone, heaven forbid.
But the ruler of the invaders, whose "gods reject biotechnology" but, for some strange reason, condone slavery and piracy, didn't look "graceful" at all.
Sweat was streaming down the Cinimal's face, and fear was frozen in his eyes.
He didn't look "intolerant" either.
Look how quickly he shut up.
Though… what other options did he have, when a purple lightsaber blade was hovering a few centimeters from his face.
In the past, Mara Jade had seen this kind of reaction often.
Too often.
But those had been Imperial officials, not representatives of other races.
And they had all been sentenced by the Emperor himself.
But now…
"Honored Hand," the Cinimal ruler said slowly, carefully choosing his words, "could you please stop displaying such an obvious and lethally dangerous technical novelty in front of me."
"Certainly, Ruler," she said sternly. "Right after you sign the document condemning the activities of Cinimal slavers and pirates."
"Perhaps it would be easier for him if you stepped off his work desk, Honored Hand," the Langhesi representative said almost inaudibly.
Mara shifted her gaze down to her feet.
For a moment, she admired her slender legs, sheathed in the fabric of her combat suit, which smoothly transitioned into light but sturdy boots.
Under which lay, pressed down by her weight, the Cinimal ruler's working documents.
Including the draft decree she had just mentioned.
Ah, what was there to say, she was standing directly on the said document, insolently stamping the text with her sole.
Awkward.
"Have you studied the text of the decree, Ruler?" she asked.
"Y-yes," the Cinimal's fat chin wobbled.
Yeah, "graceful."
Like a sarlacc, almost.
"I see no reason not to sign the document," Mara continued, not moving an inch.
"Your actions are humiliating our authority!" the Cinimal squeezed out, squinting against the acrid sweat dripping from his shaggy eyebrows. "We joined the Dominion with love and joy! And now your war machines and soldiers are on our streets, our military base is under occupation, and your ship is in orbit! We haven't done anything! Yes, our ancestors drove the Langhesi from the planet, but many years have passed! We have moved away from that policy! We no longer engage in the slave trade. And we don't engage in piracy! You are mistaken!"
Mara sighed. Copious sweating in such situations was normal. Passionate justifications and rationalizations were also par for the course.
"You haven't listened to what I told you," she said. "The Dominion could have turned a blind eye to the disappearance of one transport starship a month and a half ago, writing it off as lost. We could have even ignored the disappearance of three more such starships at the beginning of last month. But your pirates captured an entire convoy of worker droids and construction materials."
"What do I have to do with these raids?" the ruler exclaimed in a half-demanding, half-sycophantic voice. He had apparently decided that her hesitation indicated an unwillingness to kill him. "I have put all my effort into correcting the sins of my ancestors. My people have lived in peace for thirty years. Poor, yes, but in peace. We have left our past in the past! I swear to you by our gods, we have searched for the Langhesi many times to apologize and ask them to return to their homeworld. But the government knows nothing about any pirates! If they are acting in our people's name, I have nothing to do with it! This is some kind of mistake, I assure you!"
Mara knew he was stalling for time.
But that worked in her favor.
The Hand needed grounds to bring the planet under full Dominion control.
And what was happening now was in her interest.
"This is not about a mistake, Ruler," she cut him off. "It's about the beacons embedded in our transport starships and their cargo, which your dim-witted underlings failed to find. And they safely delivered all the loot to the planet. Do you want me to be more specific? To the northern plateau, into the caves, where the pirate base is located. Pirates who were once your own military. As it happens, I was in a good mood yesterday, so after tracking your raider, we took prisoners instead of burning it with turbolasers. And the captured pirates told a great deal. Which completely matched the intelligence our counterintelligence had gathered on you. The only thing you can do in this situation is to condemn the actions of the pirates and slavers, and also declare that the southern continent is the exclusive territory of the Langhesi people, who were driven from their homeworld by your ancestors. I promise that signing these documents will grant you mitigating circumstances at trial."
"At least let me see confirmation of your authority," the Cinimal pleaded.
He didn't agree for nothing.
The pieces on the board were already set.
Time to begin.
So, onto the stage comes a bit of arrogance, spite, and swagger, to make the provocation succeed.
"My documents and seal are right under your nose," the red-haired beast replied imperturbably. "I provided the code cylinder with my credentials to you, your guards, and the entire government. And Grand Moff Ferrus confirmed them. I think the Star Destroyer in orbit and the regiment of stormtroopers from the 501st Guard Legion bearing the name 'Thrawn's Fist' should have finally convinced you of the legitimacy of the papers I gave you."
"F-fine," the Cinimal muttered. "I'll just get my writing implements and..."
His hand reached for the stationery set.
Mara didn't follow it with her eyes.
She relied on the Force.
And so she reacted instantly when, instead of a fountain pen, the Cinimal ruler grabbed a flimsi knife and tried to stab it into her leg.
Furthermore, she could perfectly sense the fighters of the ruler standing behind the false door.
That was why she performed a backward somersault, not without pleasure crushing the ruler's jaw and shattering his teeth with a kick.
The massive table, carved from a single piece of marble, was T-shaped.
And Mara easily took a similar position on the long side of the table, parrying the first shot fired at her face.
This happened the moment the armed guards emerged from the hidden door behind the ruler.
She felt the Langhesi representative immediately drop under the table, taking cover from the fire.
He wasn't wounded, but terrified.
"Well, that was completely unnecessary," Mara sighed, seeing that the Cinimal fighters had aimed a heavy repeater at her.
She wasn't even planning to fight a rapid-fire weapon.
She was far more interested in the fact that, under the cover of several guards, the Cinimal ruler intended to escape.
So she simply grabbed the deadly close-quarters weapon with the Force, tore it from the enemy's hands, breaking his fingers in the process, then threw her lightsaber, slicing both the repeater gunner and the three remaining fighters into two equal halves.
At the same instant that the weapon returned to her hand, the door to the reception room was breached and stormtroopers appeared in the doorway, led by an officer.
They were fast — everything that had happened in the office since the attack on her had taken only about five seconds.
And the door was strong. It only looked wooden; in reality, it was metal.
"The Cinimal ruler attacked me," Mara explained to the officer. "He is subject to prosecution. Declare to the locals that, due to the treacherous actions of his government, the Langhesi system is being placed under the direct administration of the Dominion. Declare a curfew. Order all local military personnel to remain in their barracks and surrender their weapons. Disobedience means death. Ensure the safety of the Langhesi delegation. And inform the Chimaera that we are establishing a planetary blockade until all resistance to lawful authority is eliminated."
"Yes, ma'am," the officer said, spotting the hidden door. "Should I send commandos after the ruler?"
Right.
Immediately after she'd let him get away?
"That's my mission," Mara stated. "Carry out your orders."
"Yes, ma'am," the officer saluted.
He left two stormtroopers in the office, then began issuing orders over the comlink, coordinating the actions of the armored soldiers.
Mara, meanwhile, jumped down from the table and helped the terrified Langhesi representative to his feet from the floor.
After dusting off the humanoid, she gave him an encouraging smile.
"Everything will be fine," she said. "We will return your planet to you."
"I beg you — no unnecessary bloodshed," the Langhesi nearly sobbed. "We don't want genocide."
"No one does," Mara sighed. "But the Cinimalls have been making 'nice eyes' at us for too long, while simultaneously sending pirate raids on our convoys. Those who don't take up arms will live."
"May their gods have mercy on them," the Langhesi sighed.
Mara, satisfied that everything was under control here, slipped into the hidden passage, pushing the Force ahead of her to find her target and avoid potential traps.
The last thing she needed was to let Thrawn down.
Again.
She liked being the Hand.
She'd seen that Shadow Guard.
It sent shivers down her spine.
No, she definitely didn't want a demotion into their ranks.
She hadn't worked like crazy for so long, training with everyone Thrawn had assigned as her mentors, just for that.
Enough screw-ups.
Only victories were needed.
* * *
The conference room on the Chimaera was unusually empty today.
Besides myself and Lieutenant Colonel Tierce, who habitually combined the roles of adjutant and bodyguard, there was no one else from the Dominion in this section.
But sitting opposite was a representative of the humanoid Langhesi race.
A Dynast, if I understood his title correctly, currently the highest-ranking political leader exiled from his home planet, which was currently under the belly of a Star Destroyer.
Setting aside their red hair, four-fingered hands, and lack of lips, noses, and ears — they were basically people.
"The negotiations are dragging on," the Langhesi said anxiously.
"Diplomacy is not a fast business, Dynast," I said meaningfully. "I assure you, everything will be exactly as we discussed. Your people will return to their home planet."
"Those who haven't completely lost themselves in the galaxy yet," the sentient sitting across from me said bitterly.
"As soon as the opportunity arises, the Dominion will begin searching for your people's diasporas," I assured him. "First, let's settle matters with the Cinimalls, and then we'll start bringing your compatriots home."
"Thank you," the humanoid said awkwardly.
"For what?" I asked, genuinely surprised.
"You're at least trying to give us our home back," Dynast explained. "No one else, since the migration began, has been this kind to us."
"I'm grateful for your flattering assessment of my work," I said. "But I must remind you that the entire Langhesi will not belong to your people. The largest continent, inhabited by the Cinimalls, will remain theirs. Your people will be given the second, smaller one. Perhaps it would be worth consulting the Dominion's database of habitable, unoccupied worlds again to eliminate any possible future complications?"
"We lived on that continent which will become our home again," the Langhesi smiled (presumably it was a smile). "Your scouts showed me holographic recordings of our cities... What's left of them, of course. It's painful to look at those ruins, but we'll rebuild everything over time. For our descendants. I am grateful for your offer to give us an entirely new world, but it is excessive. Our population on Langhesi, even in the best of times, never exceeded a few million. And now there aren't even a few thousand. Others may be found, but that's speculation. Our scientific mind advises against relying on that. That's why we don't want to occupy an entire planet — it's not rational. And to huddle somewhere else... Why not do it in our homeland then?"
There was a certain logic here, without a doubt.
Yes, it differed somewhat from what I was used to, but I shouldn't forget that I was dealing with non-humans too.
The Langhesi, like the Kell people who had vanished from the galaxy, and also the extragalactic conquerors, the Yuuzhan Vong, the Langhesi could shape and give new forms to life.
They worked with biotechnology, and despite the calamity that had befallen them almost one hundred and forty years ago — their homeworld was conquered, and their race enslaved by the Cinimalls, who considered their technology a sin against their gods — they continued their science.
Because of this conquest, the Langhesi began a mass migration across the galaxy.
They specialized in producing unique pets for the wealthy of the Galactic Republic.
And the Galactic Republic.
When our scouts found the few Langhesi diasporas on some worlds of the Galaxy (through the feedback loop of orders for valuable pets), we had to work hard to arrange a personal meeting between us.
And it took almost another month to convince them to cooperate on the projects for which we had practically no specialists.
This included the study of Ithorian pollen, which, as I knew from the future I was aware of, decomposed Yuuzhan Vong technology.
This included the study of alien technologies discovered on Bimmiel and Lorrd.
And this, finally, included work with the cloning cylinders.
We don't just need specialists from this field — they are essential.
Because currently, simple technicians, working from instructions left over from the Empire, are handling clone production.
You can, of course, use an automatic single-shot rifle without knowing its construction or understanding what the switches and mounts are for.
But a weapon is far more effective when it falls into the hands of a specialist who knows how to set the firing mode to "three-round burst" instead of "single shots," understands how to properly mount the sight, and if they can also 'attach' an under-barrel grenade launcher with optics and show how to use it without shooting themselves — that's a complete success.
But there was something else I needed from the Langhesi.
"The Dominion will provide all possible assistance in rebuilding your cities," I promised. "I hope you haven't forgotten the condition of our tacit agreement, Dynast?"
"It will be an honor for my people, Grand Admiral," he stated. "To study foreign biotechnologies and develop countermeasures against them... The latter is new to us, but we will manage."
"And the work with the cloning cylinders?" I clarified.
"I reviewed the data your adjutant provided me," the Langhesi stated. "The 'Spaarti' technology is new to us, of course. But not difficult. We can maintain those cylinders."
"And recreate them?" I inquired.
"Any biotechnology can be created," the Langhesi declared. "With mechanisms, of course, it's more difficult. Especially those produced at the 'Spaarti Creation.' But we will work in that direction, without a doubt. The second ones, however..."
He was talking about the trophies from Base X1.
Cloning cylinders unlike anything we had seen before.
No specifics, only guesses.
"Your specialists correctly identified the common foundation," the Langhesi said. "It is indeed Arkanian cloning technology. Very old. Some of my subordinates dealt with similar cloning cylinders during the time of the Clone Wars."
"Your people worked for the New Republic?" I asked, surprised.
"No," Dynast cut him off. "Some of our diasporas worked on Saleucami, hired by Count Dooku."
So that's how it was...
During the Clone Wars, Darth Tyranus, also known as Count Dooku, the leader of the Confederacy of Independent Systems, experimented with cloning warriors who could stand against the Jedi.
The Morgukai warriors, from the Nikto race, were meant to be excellent fighters and Jedi killers.
But the Republic buried that project, flooding the underground laboratory with lava.
When we retook Saleucami from the "Zann Consortium," we searched those tunnels hoping to find the cloning laboratory.
Unfortunately, no luck.
For once, the Republic made sure there was no chance of recovery.
And I'm still wondering how many cloning cylinders were destroyed.
"So what can you say about these cloning cylinders?" I inquired.
"This is very old technology," Dynast stated. "The base is Arkanian cylinders. But we found many spontaneous modifications. Parts from Spaarti cylinders, from Kaminoan installations. It seems they were damaged in the past, and in the absence of spare parts, they were repaired with analogues. Unfortunately, this affected the quality of the clones produced. They are short-lived, psychologically unstable, aggressive. I can say that the creator of this invention managed to shorten the clone production time, but I don't know by exactly how much yet."
"Less than a year?" I clarified.
"A month, or thereabouts," the Langhesi explained. "I need to study this technology more to understand it. However, allow me to give you some advice. If you need clones that won't go insane at any moment — don't use this technology. Otherwise, you'll get physically intact duplicates with underdeveloped internal organs, problems with the nervous system and brain. Such duplicates are dangerous and unpredictable."
The Wookiee clones my soldiers fought during the operation against X1 came to mind.
Chilling.
"Thank you for the advice, Dynast," I said.
"You're always welcome, Grand Admiral," he said.
Well, a specialist's opinion is always good, of course.
But, as they say in domestic medicine?
Two doctors, two opinions?
We need more specialists who can tell us what the stormtroopers gave their lives for — dangerous junk or if there's still a chance to restore these 'creations' to at least some acceptable state.
* * *
I wonder why the most cunning scoundrels always set up their secret lairs and escape routes underground?
Probably for the same reason womp rats hide deep down.
But they can't escape righteous retribution.
Mara sensed an ambush waiting for her ahead.
One guard emerged from cover and fired at her.
But he missed.
Mara swung her lightsaber swiftly, and the energy blade, igniting with a characteristic hiss in the total darkness, covered her and deflected both shots into the wall.
Two more guards immediately joined the first shooter.
The hapless gunners kept firing.
Mara deflected all the shots with her blade, sending them back into the chest of each attacker.
To be safe, the girl waited until the guards lay lifeless and silent on the floor.
Then, she quickly moved inside the shelter, gripping her lightsaber in both hands in a defensive stance.
Just in time: the Cinimal ruler, in a final desperate burst, rushed up the ramp of a luxurious yacht, firing a blaster at her on the run.
She didn't even have to strain — he missed.
With a single leap, augmented by the Force, the girl landed on the ramp.
Using the same method, she grabbed her opponent and hurled him out of the ship.
The Cinimal cursed, swearing at her in every way, trying to crawl away from her and the still-lit weapon.
The girl caught up to him in an instant.
For a long second, Mara held the tip of her blade at the traitor's throat. His hand had frozen a centimeter from his backup weapon, and his face had gone pale and twisted with helpless rage.
"For the record," Mara said in a level tone. "Innocent people never run and never try to kill a plenipotentiary representative of the Dominion."
A grimace of fury appeared on the Cinimal's face.
Only now did she notice he was wearing a voice band around his neck, transmitting speech through a vocoder directly from his vocal cords.
How satisfying that she had robbed him of the ability to speak.
"You will not win," he croaked. "You can kill me — a hundred like me — but your Dominion will still fall. Just as your vaunted Grand Admiral could not escape death. If not at the hands of the New Republic or someone else, then the Dominion will be torn apart by those who helped us restore our glorious heritage." The Cinimal glared at her furiously. "And where will you be then, you arrogant little agent? Your power will end, your patrons will die, just as Thrawn died. And you have no friends anyway." The ruler, seeing that he was no longer threatened, got up, then extended an open palm to her. "I can help you. I will be your friend. Spare my life... leave me in my former position, send a false report to your Grand Moff, and when everything around you starts to crumble, you will find a safe refuge here... I know how to appreciate talents like yours."
"And what about the Langhesi?" Mara gave him one last chance.
"You just gave me a good idea," the Cinimal's eyes lit up with greedy fire. "I wasn't lying when I said I was looking for them. Lately, there have been many connoisseurs of biotechnology in the galaxy, interested in the Langhesi's work. We'll lure them back to their homeland, capture them — I'll prepare our passive society, rejecting our former merits, over a year or two — and we'll get rich on this! I'll share with you — it's mountains of money! More money than all those who inherit from Thrawn ever had or ever will have. They're about to tear each other's throats out. The strong leader is dead, and the mongrels will try to grab their bone. With your help, we can get seriously rich! All you have to do is say everything is fine here — and you'll have a whole palace here!"
Mara simply moved her wrist slightly, and the blade sank into the Cinimal's shoulder, making him scream in pain.
Then, with a light motion, she slashed the collar with the vocoder, without touching the traitor's throat.
She deactivated her weapon, then didn't deny herself the pleasure of kicking the prisoner in the head, knocking him to the floor.
"And now, off the record," she said, leaning down so the stormtroopers rushing into the open hatch of the secret hangar wouldn't hear. "The Grand Admiral is alive. He never died. But you, you rancor-barf spawn, bought into what was happening with such enthusiasm that I can't catch you fast enough. You're neither the first nor the last," she looked into the ruler's eyes, now wide with horror, "who decided to play your rotten little game to someone else's tune. Don't worry, I'll relay your proposal to the Grand Admiral personally. I'm sure he'll be interested in who instilled such confidence in your future in you. But they didn't tell you what that future of yours would be like."
The girl paused for another moment, not taking her eyes off the terrified Cinimal ruler.
Stormtroopers of the 501st ran up to her.
"The residence is secured, ma'am," the sergeant reported. "Only the pirates in their lair and the ruler's personal guard, along with a few of his advisors, offered resistance. They have all been captured and arrested. The population is bewildered but has made no attempt at armed resistance. Grand Moff Ferrus has already made an official address. Civil unrest has been avoided, for now. What are your orders?"
"Transport him to the Chimaera," Mara said quietly, not taking her eyes off the terrified Cinimal, who was beginning to realize how badly he had miscalculated with the restoration of his "heritage." "Guard everything here until counterintelligence operatives arrive. They'll handle the rest themselves."
"Yes, ma'am."
Deactivating her lightsaber, she saw a skimmer that had brought the stormtroopers to the hangar hatch.
"I'm borrowing this," she told the sergeant, who didn't even try to object.
Then, turning her back on yet another case of an attempt to destabilize the state, the girl left the secret hangar.
* * *
Along her entire route, Mara encountered about fifteen sentients.
Including the guards of her Flame and the stormtroopers guarding the Langhesi spaceport.
The Hand boarded her starship, sealed the hatch, then sent the ship into orbit, transmitting her identification signals via a directional beam to the duty officer.
She didn't want to be shot down by her own people.
She sat in the cockpit long enough to enjoy the view of the beautiful Chimaera, whose guns, small craft, and escort corvettes were establishing the blockade while transports, like from a cornucopia, rained down to the surface with soldiers of the 501st Legion.
They had their work cut out for them, restoring order to a planet whose government had been persistently pushed towards unnatural actions by someone.
Especially since the Cinimalls, as had been correctly noted, had moved away from their past.
After conquering the planet Langhesi, they had indeed caused the migration of the native population, who were now lost in the galaxy.
But the Empire, as far as Jade knew, had in its time exterminated practically all the Cinimal pirates, forcing the rest to adopt a peaceful policy.
Obviously, with the Empire's collapse, revanchists had come to power, making a clever move — they allied with the Dominion to avoid problems.
And at the first opportunity, they decided to act to really cut loose.
Only the first of the cargo ships was manned.
The pilots were a loss, of course, but nothing could be done about it.
The rest of the starships captured by the Cinimal pirates were controlled by droids.
That was how they managed to uncover the entire network of secret pirate bases scattered across the sector.
At the moment, the "Red Star" squadron was carrying out the cleanup, while Grand Admiral Thrawn, through his Hand, had put an end to the current situation.
The population would be informed of everything that had been happening behind their backs.
Several Langhesi diasporas across the galaxy had been found and accepted the invitation to return home, provided peace and security for the displaced persons were guaranteed.
She wanted to believe that the remaining Cinimalls truly rejected their past and did not intend to harm the local population.
However, as Mara understood it, a governing body from the Dominion would arrive shortly.
And along with them, a military unit would be stationed in the system to keep an eye on order for as long as necessary.
Mara was already sitting in her cabin at the computer, compiling her report, when the ship's computer informed her that the automatic landing had been completed.
The Chimaera's tractor beam operators had landed her ship on the now-empty deck of the main hangar.
Cracking her neck, the girl headed for the entry hatch, unlocked it, and went to the galley, where she started brewing some caf.
But she couldn't find the sweetener anywhere.
"Is the Hand of our lord Thrawn alone?" At the same moment this question was asked, a limb covered in dark gray fur appeared in her field of vision. And in its grasping little paws was the very sweetener she was looking for.
"Rukh, I have two questions," Mara said firmly. "First: were you hiding on my ship the whole time I was on the mission?"
"Ask the second question, Hand of our lord," Rukh said with a chuckle as she snatched the container of sweetener from his fingers.
"You little weasel," she said without malice. "What, missing Pellaeon and your sabacc games?"
"The Captain was a good player," Rukh mewed. "But I will have my revenge."
"I can't wait to see the Vice Admiral's guards kick you all the way across his flagship," Mara grinned, turning to the counter with two mugs of steaming caf. "Fine. Good afternoon, Grand Admiral."
"Hello, Mara," Thrawn gave a slight nod in thanks for the mug of caf she handed him. "I hear you completed the assignment."
"Mission accomplished," Mara reported, noticing out of the corner of her eye that Rukh had, obviously deliberately, pulled fruit marshmallows from her locker.
After which he traditionally retreated into the shadows, where he clearly began devouring the sweets.
She thought she was starting to understand Vice Admiral Pellaeon.
She'd had a very long, heart-to-heart conversation with him when it became known that Thrawn had been killed at Sluis Van.
Seeing that broken man, who seemed to be trying to pull himself together but was suffering from the emotional wound of loss, Jade couldn't just toss her red mane and walk off into the sunset.
She had promised to serve the Dominion.
And so she continued to serve.
And oh, how fervently she had wanted to meet the Grand Admiral when he made contact.
It was a good thing for him that he wasn't Force-sensitive and didn't know how much she wanted to dig her long nails into his neck...
She just still hadn't decided what she would do next — strangle the one who so cold-bloodedly played with human destinies, or break down crying from the realization that he was alive after all.
Because no matter how much she assured herself it was just a job, the Force told her otherwise.
She had grown attached to the sentients.
Just as Pellaeon had grown attached to Thrawn.
How she clung with all her claws to Karrde and his gang.
Well, not quite the same.
This ran much deeper.
You could say that Thrawn, Pellaeon, even that little bastard Rukh (and the cookies too?! Damn you! She paid three hundred credits for that! "Alderaanian Delicacy"! A gourmet treat!) — it was something like a family.
A very strange family, of course, one that wouldn't pass any DNA test in a division of inheritance, but…
"Rukh reported that you did splendidly," Thrawn continued.
"So you were watching after all," Mara said, squinting her emerald eyes as she looked at the corner of the cabin where the Noghri was munching cookies.
"I would say 'keeping an eye,'" Thrawn declared. "As I do with all the Shadow Guards. You are too valuable to simply leave you alone against an enemy."
"So I've been reduced to these butchers?" Mara drummed her nails on the tabletop.
"The caf is excellent," Thrawn stated suddenly.
"From Garki," the girl explained.
"We'll have to arrange a purchase," Thrawn said as if nothing had happened, taking another sip. "Well?"
Mara sighed.
"As expected, the Cinimals didn't start pirating on their own initiative. No, of course their government had the idea to shake things up, but from their ruler's words I understood that they have some patrons. During our last meeting, he spoke so confidently about the collapse of the Dominion, saying that his patron allies would also have a hand in it, that I got the idea — could it be the Zann Consortium?"
"An interesting hypothesis," Thrawn agreed. "And what is it based on?"
Despite the Grand Admiral's face remaining an impassive mask, Mara immediately felt that the Chiss was actually smiling reservedly but favorably.
As if she had just expressed something that aligned with his own thoughts.
"The logic is simple," replied the red-haired beast. "Zann hates you. You took one factory from him, blew up another. You gave his fleet a good thrashing. Besides, as far as I remember, the Emperor said that it was you who uncovered Zann's scheme for arms trading at the Imperial Military Academy. And then, shortly before Endor, you lured his fleet into a trap. So I think he would certainly be able to put effort into destroying your legacy. Moreover, his methods — acting from within, relying on radicals ready to oppose authority — are quite in his style. But that immediately raises several problems."
"And what problems?" Thrawn clarified.
"We need to find out from the Cinimals when and how Zann's envoy arrived. If it was after the announcement of the border closure, then our defensive structures are not as effective as we'd like. If before, then counterintelligence failed and an enemy liaison infiltrated our territory. And possibly a saboteur as well."
"Or else," Thrawn continued, "it's possible that the Cinimal criminals had contact with the Zann Consortium earlier and have a dedicated communication system that doesn't work through the common HoloNet relays."
"A pulse transmitter?" Mara clarified.
"Exactly," Thrawn agreed. "And perhaps something else unknown to us. Tyber Zann, if indeed it is his doing, stole many secrets from both the Empire and the Rebel Alliance in the past. By acquiring the Eclipse, he gained access to the Emperor's secrets, and who knows what the Emperor might have hidden from the public in his personal vaults. Furthermore, counterintelligence interrogated one of Tyber's pawns, and he reported that Zann established his residence on the site of the Imperial Palace in the Corporate Sector. We should not exclude that there might also have been various innovations and its own treasury there."
"I'd bet that's exactly it," Mara pursed her lips. "Palpatine had a habit of embedding his secrets during construction, not after completion. When the same contracting organization does it, it's quite easy to accomplish. After escaping Coruscant from Isard, I once tried to infiltrate the construction site of Palpatine's palace in the Corporate Sector, but found it abandoned. The workers and equipment had suddenly pulled up stakes and departed in an unknown direction."
"That's very reminiscent of what happened with the best Kuat engineers after the Zann Consortium's attack on the Eclipse," Thrawn said thoughtfully, taking another sip.
"So there will be a new assignment for me?" Mara inquired.
"As always," Thrawn replied promptly. "But later. First — rest and prepare. The matter will not be simple."
How interesting…