FicWad

Revan Maloch has been observing the interaction between Jorj Car'das - the young and fairly new to the game smuggler and navigator of the Corellian light freighter Bargain Hunter - and Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo of the Chiss Ascendancy with growing fascination and hope for just over two and a half months when he finally gets his chance to intervene in the unfolding of events in such a way as to begin to redirect the flow of actions and circumstances towards an end that will preserve Mitth'raw'nuruodo's mind and will and honor uncorrupted by the touch of the Sith Lord Sidious. Car'das - a slender young man in his early twenties, young enough to still be growing into the last of his height and, therefore, understandably still just a little bit shorter than average height, with a thick mop of unruly black hair crowning a face more expressive and interesting than it is classically handsome, his strongest feature being a pair of dark brown eyes that have not yet lost either their soulfulness or their bright curiosity in other things and beings, though it is his deeply resonant, almost menacingly dark and somewhat gravelly voice that most often lingers the longest in other beings' memories - is one of those rare humans whose talent within the Force lies almost entirely outside the realm of known and accepted abilities for Force-sensitives as catalogued by the Jedi. He has no real talent for the wielding of brute mental forces that the Jedi have, either for any of the various forms of telekinesis that help make the Jedi such preternaturally superb warriors or for most of the many variations on telepathy that are used for the various mind tricks and projections that the Jedi so often employ to protect themselves, rather than falling back upon outright violence. His talent, instead, lies mainly with the suppleness and adaptability of his own mind. If he had been born on a world frequented by the Fallanassi instead of on Tralus, in the Corellian system, and then raised mostly on Corellia itself, Car'das likely would have been adopted and trained by the Adepts of the White Current in their illusionary and microscopically reality-altering tactics.

Instead, Car'das is entirely untrained in the ways of the Force, which is a bit of a pity, as he potentially could have been a powerful Force-user, given a patient and persistent teacher. Regardless of his utter lack of training and complete lack of knowledge as to the extent of his own talents, though, the inherent subtle strength of Car'das' mind has still made it slightly more difficult for Revan to learn how to both consistently touch and unobtrusively influence that mind towards certain thoughts and actions. Happily, the extra effort required to learn how to combat that natural extreme suppleness of thought has also given Revan a far greater understanding of Car'das' overall character. Car'das has led a somewhat hardscrabble existence and considers himself something of a worldly-wise cynic, a persona that he often goes to great lengths to adopt to disabuse others of the notion that he is unworldly or a soft-touch in any way, but Revan knows that the young man is actually still something of an idealist at heart, someone who is looking for someone or something larger or greater than himself to believe in, dedicate himself to, and then follow to the death, if necessary. Thus, even though he admires Mitth'raw'nuruodo's intelligence and even his more duplicitous cleverness immensely, it nevertheless wounds Car'das deeply every time the Chiss does or says something that seems, to Car'das, to contradict or invalidate some part of his concept of the Chiss warrior's honor. Mitth'raw'nuruodo's very real honor and the way that he consistently keeps finding ways to either redeem himself in Car'das' eyes or to eradicate all sense of real dishonor even for his most apparently deceitful actions is a little bit like receiving proof of a deity after years of nothing but scornful silence and doubt. Though he continues to hold a part of himself in reserve, out of a growing fear of being disappointed by the discovery of the Crahsystor's frailty, the longer Car'das knows him, the greater his attachment and the stronger his personal sense of loyalty to Mitth'raw'nuruodo grows.

In truth, if it weren't for the fact that Car'das so obviously has a crush on Captain Dubrak "Rak" Qennto's first mate, co-pilot, and not quite girlfriend, Maris Ferasi, Revan would be sorely tempted to suspect that Car'das is suffering from a bad case of hero-worship for the exceptionally charismatic "Thrawn," as the ruggedly handsome (Mitth'raw'nuruodo is graced with classically handsome features for a human or near-human male - high, sharp cheekbones; a proudly straight nose; a chiseled, square jaw; a strong, deeply cleft chin; an almost surprisingly full, sensitive, sensuous mouth; large, wide-spaced eyes beneath a broad intelligent brow rising to a thick shock of blue-black hair showing just the slightest tendency towards a wave - that, in combination with his height and broad-shouldered physique, could quite easily turn many heads, among humans as well as other near-humans) and extremely young (the Force Commander is not even two full standard years older than Car'das himself, though not even Maris Ferasi, whose hero-worshiping crush on Thrawn is just as painfully obvious as Car'das' is for her, suspects that the Crahsystor is actually most of a year younger than she is) Chiss Commander has long since given his human "guests" the right to call him. As it is, though, Revan instead understands that, while most of Car'das' fascination for Thrawn stems from the fact that a part of him recognizes in Thrawn someone who could be worthy of absolute dedication, the rest of his preoccupation is based solely on the fact that Car'das likes Maris so much that, even though the whole idea of her having a crush on Thrawn makes him nervous because he knows that Captain Rak essentially considers Maris to be his woman and Rak hasn't exactly been the most reasonable person since their detainment by Thrawn's squadron, he wants to understand exactly what it is about Thrawn that draws her to him.

Maris Ferasi, while a reasonably intelligent and fairly strong-willed young woman, has no Force-sensitivity to speak of, or else Revan might have been tempted to focus some of his attention upon her, for the openness of her mind (as proven by her frank admiration and growing affection for Thrawn, utterly uninfluenced by the way he looks or the fact that he is a Chiss and she is a human from Teyr) if nothing else. But her ability to be selectively blind, in combination with her lack of Force-talent, makes her less than ideally suited for Revan's purposes. Still, he can understand at least some of Car'das' fascination with the woman. An undeniably beautiful young lady barely twenty-five standard years old, Maris is petite (just barely over one and a half meters tall) and small-boned but with curves enough to sorely tempt a Hutt on the lookout for another dancer, with silky smooth honey-colored skin, long, straight auburn hair so dark that it appears black unless she is standing in very bright, direct light, a lovely, heart-shaped face with high cheekbones, a strong, sharp, stubborn chin, a small but full bow-shaped mouth, and large, expressive eyes so dark that they also often seem to be black.

As smart and as beautiful as Maris is, she could have easily made a much safer life for herself by settling down on any planet in the Colonies (or perhaps even on one of the prestigious Core Worlds, if ambition had given her sufficient motivation). Instead, a peculiar mix of political idealism and personal naivete had combined during her term at the local university to drive her into a life of semi-serious activism that had culminated in her meeting and falling in love with a rakishly good-looking and sometimes charming Corellian captain and generally profitable small-scale smuggler over half a dozen years her elder, who had convinced her that smuggling is a good way to make a statement against the greedy and inept bureaucracies of the Republic's member systems, with all of their dozens of unnecessary fees, service charges, and flat-out prohibitions. A good part of Car'das' fascination with Maris springs from a romantic daydream of saving the young lady from said Corellian smuggler - a not very serious ambition that Captain Dubrak Qennto would very likely dismiss with a hearty laugh if he were told about it. Maris has been with him for just over three standard years, during which time she has turned down over a dozen serious and entirely proper offers of marriage from various of their more affluent and respectable customers (not to mention the hundreds of other less formal but no less real offers of a far less reputable nature), so Qennto can perhaps be forgiven for dismissing Car'das (and just about anyone else who might come along looking to take Maris away from him, for that matter) so cavalierly.

A bluffly good-looking man on the cusp of his thirty-second birthday, Rak Qennto stands two meters tall in his well-broken-in boots when he bothers to stand up out of his habitual slouch and is in good physical shape for one who isn't a warrior. With tanned skin that's only a little bit paler than the natural amber-colored hue of Maris' and slightly overlong, thick, wavy hair that's a true black to her black-seeming auburn, beneath the fringe of which a pair of shockingly dark blue eyes most often can be seen to be laughing out at the rest of the galaxy at large, the Captain of the Bargain Hunter is the kind of man who can command attention without even trying, a fact that is likely aided in part by the kind of slightly higher than normal sensitivity to the Force that can often be found in both the luckiest and most highly skilled of smugglers and merchant traders and the more charismatic community leaders or small-time politicians who get elected on sheer presence and personability alone. It's not nearly enough talent to warrant the kind of training and effort that goes into the making of a Jedi Knight, but it's enough to lend the man a glow in the Force that Revan would find distracting if not for the presence of Jorj Car'das, who is both so much stronger in the Force and so much better suited for his purposes. Car'das, unlike the cynical Quennto, still has the flexibility of mind and spirit to be able to choose to wholly embrace a new pathway in life, unlike his utterly set in his ways Captain, who cannot even bring himself to fully embrace the opportunities offered by the appearance of Thrawn and the Chiss in his life.

Car'das had been with the Bargain Hunter for just barely six standard months before the fateful jump into the Unknown Regions that brought them to the attention of Thrawn and his Chiss warriors: just enough time for the apparent glamour of smuggling to take a sharp downturn in personal appeal as the less savory (and more patently dangerous) aspects of the business became more familiar and for his adolescent adoration of Maris to start to mellow into a deeper and more meaningful attachment as his understanding of her character became deeper. Revan could not have purposefully brought Car'das into contact with Thrawn at a more perfect time even if he had tried to do so. The young Corellian still has all the resiliency of early youth, even without the added flexibility of mind and spirit that his sensitivity to the Force gives him, and he is already actively starting to want more in his life than he can get by working for Qennto (or any other smuggling operation, for that matter). Add in the ever so slightly romantic idealism that lies buried at the heart of him and an increasing desire to be part of something both larger and greater than himself, and Jorj Car'das is essentially a ticking time bomb, ready to explode in any direction if only given sufficient prompting and direction. Unsatisfied with his life and filled to the brim with unused potential, the only thing that Car'das has been lacking is a reason that he can hold onto. Even before meeting Thrawn, he had been all but ready to simply throw it all over and start again. And now that he has met Thrawn, Car'das' determination to do something with his life and to make something of himself has rapidly reached a point of critical mass. Revan hasn't even needed to intervene for this to happen. Car'das is not at all unintelligent, though he isn't exactly well educated. It's a simple enough matter, to see and compare the way Thrawn behaves and the way it naturally draws others to him with the way that Captain Qennto acts and the less than honest means he employs to keep Maris bound to him.

Car'das' growing wish to emulate Thrawn rather than Rak Qennto is, thus, entirely the result of his own observations. Still, it's the increasing (if still largely unconscious) need that Car'das feels to understand Thrawn well enough to be able to emulate the parts of him that are the most highly admirable and noble, in combination with a growing desire not to ever prove a source of disappointment for Thrawn, that finally gives Revan his opening. The need to please another is always a good motivational source Wanting to understand someone well enough to be able to deliberately model oneself after that person and thus become more pleasing, in turn, to others (including the person being imitated), though, is an even stronger source of motivation, one that a Force-sensitive being like Revan can use like a key to gain access to even the most guarded person's deepest, most private thoughts and feelings and then wield like a sword, using it as a goading mechanism to direct subsequent thoughts and feelings towards very specific actions and to block or counter any distracting ideas or counterproductive urges that might try to come along. And because Revan is, after all, only helping to expedite certain of Car'das' own thoughts and feelings by giving them a little added impetus and providing small guiding nudges to their direction - in essence helping Car'das to become more like himself and get closer to fulfilling his potential by removing certain extraneous distractions and the occasional less than well thought out and less than nobly inclined, instinctively self-promoting or self-preservative or simply self-centered impulses - he can rest easy in the knowledge that he is not truly overriding the young man's right to self-determination, since all he is doing is providing knowledge that Car'das already possesses and insights that he might have come to on his own, given more time and quiet to sit and think things through. He isn't actually forcing the Corellian to do or to say anything that he doesn't want to, so he isn't interfering with his free will.

Others might be tempted to view such justifications as sophistry or the splitting of hairs, but to Revan the distinction is both obvious and important. Having been a Dark Lord of the Sith, he knows better than to try to force someone to behave or believe in a manner that runs contrary to that being's will or innate character. Such blatant tampering not only inevitably breaks or ruins the person who is being manipulated thus, it also acts as an insidious poison, eating away at and corrupting the core values and beliefs of the person who is doing the forcing. A great deal of the philosophy behind the general rule against Force spirits and other entities of the Force interfering outright in the lives of individual living, material beings revolves around the core knowledge of the subtle but inevitable progress of that corrosion. Revan admires the young Chiss Commander and his people a great deal; yet, while he is willing to stretch the bounds of what is considered acceptable by the majority of the other Force spirits, he is not so foolish as to be willing to run the risk of falling away from the Light and the life-loving properties of the Force. It is a high, dangerous, and exceedingly narrow pathway that he treads, in deliberately choosing to intervene in the lives of mortal, material beings, which is precisely why so few Force spirits choose and are subsequently allowed by their fellows to follow through on such decisions. But he is utterly convinced that, so long as he is careful to never overstep the bounds of Car'das' or Thrawn's or anyone else's own specific natures, he will be able to walk that path and help guide the ones he has chosen to aid and protect to better and more personally rich future. So when Sidious' agents, in their distinctive Trade Federation battleships, make their appearance on the outermost fringes of the furthest boarders of Chiss space, Revan recognizes his chance and he seizes it without hesitation and runs with it for all he's worth.

Reaching and influencing Thrawn through the Force is both as simple and as difficult as it is to put a piece of cloth into a river in full raging spate to wet it . . . and then to use that piece of cloth to redirect the river's course. Thoughts can be directed into his mind through the Force, but unless their insertions are superbly timed, consist of ideas that he would have thought of himself eventually anyway, and are either sensible enough to prompt him to action immediately or else sufficiently startling to divert enough of his attention away from whatever course of action he might've been about to take, they will only flow right back out of his immediate consciousness again. The best results, with Thrawn, generally come from taking advantage of one or more of three personal traits: his meticulous need to gather as much information as he can before making a decision or taking an action; his tendency towards workaholic behavior; and his surprising need (for a member of a race of sentient beings who have taught themselves to embrace the notions of noninterference with other beings and violence being permissible only as a defensive result to offensive action that has already been taken against them) to protect not only his own people but also those beings who live peacefully within the vicinity of the Chiss Ascendancy and offer up no harm to any others from any threat that might come against them - including threats from beings like the Vagaari, who may not have yet done anything overt to harm the Chiss themselves. Thus, it's fairly easy to keep Thrawn busy with his own people, gathering as much information about the warships that have exited hyperspace on the far fringes of the Crustai system, until virtually the last moment before work must begin on putting together a force to answer the possible invasion, and then to place the need to have Car'das and only Car'das along on such a flight squarely center in the forefront of his mind.

Which is exactly why, in the small hours of the night, Car'das startles out of a profoundly deep sleep to find a pair of glowing red eyes hovering above him in the darkness. "Who is it?" he gasps, only half awake yet, as he jerks upright on his bed, heart pounding rapidly.

"Thrawn," the familiar but oddly grim, oddly curt, voice of the Commander comes back at him through the darkness, sounding rather less than reassuring. "Get dressed."

One carefully timed skillful touch from Revan upon his sleep-fuzzed mind, and, "What's happened?" Car'das demands, his earlier surprise transmuting into honest concern as he pushes off the blanket and swings his legs over the edge of the bed.

Already making his way back across the room - his progress trackable in the darkness because of the retreating gleam of his red eyes - Thrawn quickly and flatly replies, "One of my scouts has reported a group of unidentified vessels in the area," his voice as harshly clipped and cold as Car'das has heard it since his acknowledgment of the living shields of the Vagaari and his inability to do anything to save those beings. "Quickly, now - we leave in thirty minutes."

Another gentle tendril of Force energy results in another, even greater (much larger than would've been expected) flood of adrenaline. And Car'das, hearing that steely voice while his body jolts and jitters with shock and stress, remembers the sick horror of his own realization that there was, indeed, nothing that could be done to save the beings trapped within those transparent bubbles as living shields, as well as the paralyzing terror of nearly losing Commander Thrawn to the Vagaari's furious salvo when the Chiss relieved them of their gravity well projector, and the look of silent sorrow and unremitting determination on Thrawn's face, afterwards, during the semi-confrontation with his elder brother, Syndic Mitth'ras'safis. Thrawn had first demanded to know why the Chiss leave their backs turned while millions of other beings are forced to suffer under the deprivations of creatures such as the Vagaari when the Chiss could've been protecting them and then quietly declared that, while Thrass must, of course, do whatever he feels is right, he doesn't know the Vagaari like Thrawn does, and so Thrawn will do whatever is necessary to defeat the Vagaari, irregardless of the cost - a cost that, considering all of Thrass and Thrawn's talk of being born as commoners and Thrawn's earlier explanation to Car'das and Maris about being not just a merit-adoptee but also a Trial-born member of the Eighth Ruling Family (meaning that Thrawn might possibly be deemed worthy enough to be matched permanently to the Family and could perhaps even be granted the position of ranking distant, which would tie his descendants and bloodline into that of the Family), would likely fall most heavily on Thrawn himself. And then Car'das is springing to his feet, almost tearing his nightclothes in his haste to get them off so that he can get himself properly dressed and join Thrawn on the Springhawk as soon as humanly possible, absolutely determined to be there with Thrawn so that he can at least try to take as much of that burden of cost upon himself as he can.

Forty-five minutes later, when the Springhawk clears the tunnel of Picket Force Two's headquarters in the Crustai system, departing from that large asteroid with its artificially induced slow rotation and flying out beyond the boundary of the surrounding small asteroid field to make the safe jump to lightspeed, a grimly determined Jorj Car'das is and has been aboard the ship for the past twenty-three minutes, waiting and worrying under the watchful unseen eyes of Revan Maloch. And when the Springhawk finally makes the jump to lightspeed only after Car'das has managed to count no fewer than eleven other Chiss ships (including two more /Springhawk/-size combat cruisers) forming up around and behind them, Revan doesn't even have to reach out with the Force for another gentle prod to coax Car'das into speaking out. As soon as the jump has been laid in, Car'das turns to Thrawn and asks, voice quiet but intent and serious, "Is this more Vagaari?" even as the starlines melt into the hyperspace sky.

"It doesn't appear to be," is Thrawn's response, the extra stress placed upon the word appear causing Car'das' eyes to narrow thoughtfully. Before he can do more than begin to open his mouth for another question, though, Thrawn continues to speak, explaining, "The ship designs are entirely different. I wanted you aboard to see if you can identify them."

Unable to keep himself from grimacing in consternation, Car'das sighs and, half shaking his head, replies, "You might have done better to bring Qennto instead, then. He's a lot more knowledgeable about those things than I am - mostly because he's been able to travel more extensively and see more than I have."

The warning elicits a slight flicker from behind Thrawn's eyes of some emotion that passes too swiftly to be properly identified (though a gentle touch in the Force from Revan guides Car'das' mind towards the proper identification: chagrined dismay), his mouth tightening perhaps a fraction before his features smooth back out into the same icily calm and detached repose that had been upon his face during most of the encounter with the Vagaari. "I thought it best to leave both him and Ferasi behind," is Thrawn's eventual, carefully worded response. "I've sensed certain . . . problems there."

Car'das winces, grimacing again, before he can stop himself. "You're right," he has to admit, remembering both the way that Maris' eyes had shone, the day that Admiral Ar'alani and Aristocra Chaf'orm'bintrano had come to take possession of the Vagaari treasure vessel and Thrawn had still taken the time to sit with them for another language lesson, when she had gazed so raptly upon Thrawn as he described, in a melodious flow of Cheunh words, the flat with the carved edging that depicted a landscape with darkness growing upward from the lower corner, and the unreasoning black fury of Rak when Admiral Ar'alani had placed both the vessel and its contents under prescribed seal. Rak Qennto had been ready to kill Admiral Ar'alani, even though she clearly outranked Thrawn and there had been nothing that Thrawn or anyone else could do to keep her from sealing the Vagaari vessel and its treasure against a claim of possession. Car'das would prefer not to think how badly Captain Qennto might react if he actually started to believe that Thrawn were actively trying to (in Rak's words, regarding the Admiral's actions with the treasure vessel) rob him by taking Maris away from him. Wincing again, he deliberately pushes that cable system of conduit worms aside by asking, "So where exactly are these invaders?"

"Why do you call them invaders?"

Intending to say that he'd just assumed they were invaders, based on Thrawn's behavior now and the way he'd acted when they went after that Vagaari gravity well projector, Car'das manages to get as far as, "Well, I - " before the hardness of Thrawn's voice penetrates and he flounders to a stop, unable to think of anything to say and staring blankly at Thrawn's perfectly composed and utterly closed-off blue face. Possessed suddenly of an inexplicable but impossible to ignore bad feeling (at which Revan's smile widens into a pleased grin) and fearing that he has somehow misread both the situation and Thrawn entirely, Car'das hesitantly offers, "You said that the unidentified vessels were spotted nearby and, after the talk you had with your brother, I just assumed that those ships were in Chiss space." Frowning worriedly, he then asks, "They are in Chiss space, aren't they?"

"The charter of the Expansionary Defense Fleet is to observe and explore the region around the Chiss Ascendancy," is Thrawn's extremely uninformative response. "That's all we intend to do today."

And Revan, still smiling, reaches out with the Force and offers Car'das the following unsettling observation: Which is pretty much exactly what Thrawn said about the Vagaari attack.

Car'das obligingly all but groans in response, the beating of his heart all but doubling, so strong is his worry. Seeking more details, so he'll have a better idea of just how much trouble Thrawn is trying to bring down on himself, he nervously asks, "How long until we get there?"

"Approximately four hours," Thrawn replies, voice so even as to give away nothing. "In the meantime, I've had a combat suit prepared for you, one with more armoring and self-sealant capabilities than your suit from the /Bargain Hunter/. Go below and put it on. The armorer will assist you."

If anything, Thrawn's response only raises more questions, since, when they went after the Vagaari, it had taken six hours to arrive at the battlefield. Even though the jump they're in the process of making now is shorter, since Car'das has no real idea of what way they're heading or even how far or in which direction (or directions, as is also probable, as far as Car'das knows) from the Crustai systems the actual borders of the Chiss Ascendancy extend, he has no real way of accurately gauging whether or not they really are headed somewhere outside of Chiss space. The fact that Thrawn has deliberately brought him along to investigate the unidentified ships would seem to suggest that they're something so alien in design to the Chiss that Thrawn has good reason to suspect that Car'das will be able to identify them. But if they're not Vagaari ships and if they're heading away from Chiss space . . . unfortunately, that doesn't leave a whole lot of options open that don't involve the possibility that the invaders might be someone either from the Republic or one of the other few political entities that exist alongside the Republic in what Car'das thinks of as known space. In fact, that explanation makes the most sense, given Thrawn's frigid and closed-off demeanor. But it's also a possibility that makes Car'das' blood run cold with fear, because the only beings from that part of the galaxy who have any real reason to be moving outside of or beyond the established hyperlanes are smugglers who are trying to avoid legitimate stops and tariffs as a way to maximize profits (and smugglers wouldn't have enough ships to merit as many combat cruisers as Thrawn is bringing with him) and legitimate members of one or the other of the merchant guilds who're trying to open up new lanes of trade and commerce. And if those unidentified ships belong to someone like the Commerce Guild or the Trade Federation . . . Car'das' stomach knots so tightly that it cramps, at the thought. Mind numb with horror, he finds himself nodding as though Thrawn has made a request (even though the words were phrased as an order) and automatically turning to head towards the armory.

Revan, still smiling and well pleased both with himself and with the obliging manner in which both Thrawn and Car'das are responding to his small little mental nudges and Force-aided suggestions, silently follows along behind him, unseen by any being or device upon the ship, content to wait and watch while the small changes he has successfully set into motion begin to gather enough force and momentum that they will hopefully gain enough power to help sway the course of future events away from the most probable (and damaging) of all of the possible future pathways governing the meeting between Thrawn and Sidious' tools.

It ends up taking Car'das and the armorer most of the first three hours to get the suit fitted correctly, and a fourth hour is spent in running him through and checking out all of its many features. Once that's all finished, though, Car'das finds the suit quite comfortable to wear, even though it's noticeably heavier than the simple vac suits he's more accustomed to wearing. His true source of discomfort is not from the suit, though, but rather from the endless loop his brain seems to be stuck on. Though he's spent the entire time in the armory wracking his brain, trying to come up with some other explanation for both Thrawn's chilly attitude and Car'das' inclusion on the mission to investigate the unknown ships, he can't come up with another reason that fits the situation half so well as the one he doesn't want to have to deal with, and so of course his mind has become fixed on the notion that he's on his way to a meeting with a fleet of droid-packed Commerce Guild or Trade Federation vessels. Heart sinking within him, he finally has to give up his futile mental circling and return to the bridge, where he finds that, in his absence, Thrawn and the rest of the bridge crew has also donned their combatsuits.

"Welcome back," the Commander greets him, running a coldly gauging eye over his new suit. "We're nearly there."

Car'das merely nods silently, woodenly, and moves to his usual place beside the other's command chair. Letting the clipped comments of the bridge crew wash over him, he allows his eyes to roam across the displays and status boards as he waits. In what seems like no time at all, the time count has gone to zero, and then they are once again back among the stars.

"Where are they?" he asks then, anxiously peering through the viewports at the stars and a very distant sun.

"There," Thrawn replies, voice as quietly calm and even as ever as he gestures with a directing hand a few degrees off of the starboard bow. "Sensors: magnify."

The main display obediently ripples and steadies, and then -

- Car'das catches his breath, his chest suddenly squeezing painfully tight against his heart. In the center of the display is a horrible, terrifying, half anticipated but no less impossible sight: a pair of Trade Federation battleships.

"You recognize them?"

For a moment Thrawn's question doesn't register. Shocked beyond hearing, Car'das continues to stare at the image, his eyes tracing along the curved split-ring configuration of the ships and up the antenna towers that distinguish Trade Federation battleships from simple freighters. Eventually, though, his brain catches up with what he is seeing and, seeming to take that as a sign that it can begin to process other information again, belatedly relays the question, forcing him to tear his eyes away from the awful sight. And it is then that he once again finds the Chiss Commander gazing up at him from the chair with a hard and knowing expression on his face . . . and, as he had known once, very soon after first meeting the Commander, Car'das again knows without a doubt that it would be fatal to lie. "Yes, I do," he therefore agrees, marveling at how calm his voice sounds. "They're battleships from a group called the Trade Federation."

"Members of your Republic?"

Car'das hesitates for a moment, torn between the obvious but only partially true response and a more complex but more truthful reply, before finally admitting, "Technically speaking, yes. But these days they seem to be largely ignoring our laws and directives." He has to force himself to continue to meet Thrawn's gaze, then, which sharpens upon him and seems to gain a palpable weight of force, pressing in upon him with a compulsion to speak only the full truth and to admit at once to any duplicity on the part of Car'das and his companions if he must do so in order to speak that full truth, even though doing such would immediately condemn him and his companions. Desperately holding on to the knowledge that he has no knowledge of any such duplicity and wrapping himself in it as if with the folds of a comforting blanket, Car'das makes himself stand up straight and hold that powerful gaze while he half declares and half asks, "But you already knew where they were from, didn't you?"

"The hull markings follow a similar pattern to those on the /Bargain Hunter/," Thrawn immediately admits, the pressure of his gaze slackening perhaps a trifle in the face of Car'das' determination to maintain eye contact. "I thought there was a reasonable chance that they were from your Republic."

"They are," Car'das nods, "but they don't represent the Republic itself," he then hastily adds. "The Republic doesn't have any army of its own."

"So you've told me," Thrawn agrees, his voice abruptly once again bitterly cold. "You also told me that your Republic doesn't condone slavery."

"That's right; we don't," Car'das agrees cautiously, confused by the sudden apparent switch of topics.

"Then why," Thrawn demands, voice and gaze alike so cold that they could make winter on Hoth seem like a warm and temperate climate, "did I find evidence of slavery aboard the ship that was pursuing you?"

The rings of tension around Car'das' chest tighten down a few more turns, at that. He's been among the Chiss for so long that he's actually managed to forget all about Progga and the reason why the Bargain Hunter first came into contact with the Chiss in the first place, and the realization of that, as well as of his own growing level of self-identification with the Chiss, make it very hard for him to catch his breath. "I also told you there were some cultures in our area that do keep slaves," he finally replies, fighting all the while to keep his voice steady and to keep from physically cringing back away from Thrawn. "The Hutts are one of them. The Rights of Sentience in the Galactic Constitution outlaws slavery within the Republic, but the Republic has no real armed forces of its own, aside from the Jedi, and we don't interfere in the government or culture of other political bodies. Maris could explain this better - she's had a lot more schooling than I have - but I swear to you that the Galactic Republic doesn't practice or condone slavery."

"And the Trade Federation?" Thrawn only demands, his voice hard and unyielding as ice.

"No," Car'das immediately avows. "Well, not that I've ever heard of, anyway. They're so heavily into droids that they probably wouldn't know what to do with biological slaves if they had them. And that," Car'das adds, nodding towards the display, "could be a serious problem for us right now. Because each of those battleships carries over a thousand droid star-fighters, not to mention a few thousand battle droids and the landers and carriers to move them around."

"Then this is an invasion force?" Thrawn asks, eyes narrowing to blazing red slits, voice and body both suddenly gone dangerously still.

Car'das flinches before he can stop himself, recoiling instinctively from that quiet fury. "I don't know," he admits, not bothering to hide either his misery or his confusion over the situation. "I don't think so, not with only two of them."

"But they could be here to attack us."

"I don't know why they're here," Car'das instantly insists, trying and failing to ignore the sweat gathering around his collar. It's one thing to listen to Thrawn talk about preemptive strikes against vicious conquerors like the Vagaari. It's something else entirely to stand by and watch him mentally lumping the Trade Federation and maybe even the entire Galactic Republic into that same odious category. While the Trade Federation might actually at least be partially deserving of such categorizing, given what Car'das knows of them and their ruthless pursuit of higher profit margins at any and all costs, the Republic itself certainly doesn't deserve such a shamefully execrable label. Unfortunately, Car'das has no more idea how to convince Thrawn of that than he does of how he could possibly explain how the Trade Federation both is and is not under the rule of the Republic. So what he finally does is to spread his hands wide in a helpless gesture and ask, "Why don't you ask them?"

A faint smile creases Thrawn's face at that. "Yes. Why don't we?" he asks in a quietly musing tone, one blue-black eyebrow twitching upwards in a questioning manner. Then, without waiting for a reply, he swivels his chair around towards his crew. "Communications: identify their main command frequency and create a channel," he orders, voice brisk with command. "These people speak Basic, I presume?" he asks without bothering to look back at Car'das.

"Yes," Car'das hesitantly agrees, once again frowning worriedly, because surely Thrawn can't possibly mean to try something as potentially tricky as hailing what might or might not be an unfriendly force in a language that he's barely had enough time to learn the basics of . . . can he? "They'll also have protocol droids aboard that can translate Sy Bisti," he adds, trying to be helpful without actually seeming to doubt the Chiss Commander or his plans in any way.

"Thank you," Thrawn acknowledges, voice and manner still distant but at least no longer as blisteringly furious or cold as they have so recently been, "but I'd prefer to see their reaction when they're hailed in the language of the Republic."

"Ready, Commander," the comm officer calls before Car'das can even begin to organize his thoughts enough to come up with any kind of coherent reply.

Thrawn immediately taps a key on his board. "This is Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet," he declares, voice even and firm, his Basic as flawless as if he has had years to become familiar with the language instead of only mere weeks. "Please identify yourselves and state your intentions."

***

Barring the occurrence of an actual miracle, Revan is quite certain that he could not be more pleased with the way his plans are progressing. Between Thrawn's outright distrust of the Trade Federation, Car'das' own doubts as to the intentions of their representatives in Chiss space, the very real threat that Thrawn might judge the entirety of the Galactic Republic a threat to the Chiss Ascendancy based on the Trade Federation's actions here, and Car'das' increasingly frantic need to find a way to separate the Trade Federation and their ilk from the rest of the Republic in Thrawn's eyes, the odds of Thrawn taking Kinman Doriana's claims regarding the universal danger of the Jedi seriously enough to agree to a holocomm meeting with Sidious are almost visibly shrinking by the minute. A few more gentle prods and suggestions sent to Car'das, and the man will be reciting the whole unsavory history of the Naboo debacle, including not only the way in which two Jedi and one Force-sensitive child managed to essentially single-handedly defeat an entire droid army and liberate an unjustly occupied planet but how they had to defeat an actual Dark Lord of the Sith in order to accomplish it . . . and how the presence of a Sith on Naboo has been taken, by some, as a sign that the occupation of Naboo had been planned by that evil sect of Dark Force adepts as part of some larger scheme to destabilize peace in the galaxy and threaten both the rule of the Republic and the continued existence of the Jedi Order as a whole. And once that has happened, even if, through some as yet unknown miraculous power of persuasion, Doriana manages to convince Thrawn to agree to the holocomm conference with Sidious, Sidious and his arguments won't stand a chance of persuading Thrawn to side with him. In short, events are unfolding as felicitously as could ever be expected, among the Chiss. And as for how things are going on the Trade Federation battleships, well . . . with a self-satisfied smirk, Revan turns his attention away from the Springhawk and towards the Trade Federation battleship Darkvenge.

Kinman Doriana is a small man (barely 1.68 meters in height, in bare feet) nearing the fourth decade of his life with the gift of knowing how to make himself appear even smaller than he is, when he wishes to escape the notice of others. He is, as other beings generally express it, an unobtrusive, drab little man: short and neat and entirely ordinary medium-dark brown hair; unremarkable brown-tinged tan skin; a pleasant enough but utterly commonplace slightly round face; a tendency to wear sturdy and entirely forgettable brown clothes in his role as an agent of Lord Sidious; and a deliberately forgettable brown mien. Aside from his startlingly expressive and beautifully colored dark green eyes (which he often disguises on his jobs for Sidious with muddy brown lens, though he has not, in his role as Commander Stratis, felt the need to do so), Doriana looks so much like a wholly harmless and ineffectual minor clerk, except for the sharpness of his eyes (regardless of their color), that others simply tend not to notice the pure animal grace and utter silence with which he so often moves. A teenager still when Palpatine of Naboo brought Doriana along with him to Coruscant after Palpatine's election to Senate some twenty-five years previously, Doriana has been an agent of the Sith Lord Sidious since shortly after that relocation to Coruscant. And he has, though he does not know it, been having his Force-potential snacked upon as if it were a tray full of hors d'oeuvres at a buffet table by that same Sith Lord for almost all of the twenty-seven years Doriana has been attached to Palpatine of Naboo as an aide. Once he had been strong enough in the Force that, if his highly traditional parents had only bothered to have him tested for his potential, he would have been considered a strong candidate for the Jedi Order and taken to their Temple on Coruscant for training. Thanks to Sidious, though, Doriana has not once had a Jedi even so much as look at his askance for either his power in the Force or his lack of training in all of his twenty-five standard years on Coruscant.

It is a measure of the hold that Sidious has upon Doriana that Revan cannot tell if the man would believe a Jedi even if a Master as venerable and wise as Yoda himself were to confront the man and tell him, in no uncertain terms, that an amoral and evil adept of the Force has been slowly but steadily draining him of his power in the Force. The fact neither impresses Revan (who became a Dark Lord of the Sith and then conquered most of the known galaxy as Darth Revan solely out of an effort to gather together enough power to forge a political body that would be able of withstanding the threat of an invasion by the True Sith - a threat that he was later able to stave off through other, less dark and personally corrupting means) nor causes him to feel the least bit of pity for Kinman Doriana, though. Doriana chose this fate, not because he believes in the goals of the Sith Lord or is so hungry for power that he would be willing to do anything to keep himself in comfort, but instead because he so thoroughly enjoys the excitement of what he thinks of as the game of traitorous double-dealing, whereby he thinks he betrays his public master, Palpatine, in order to serve Sidious. He became Sidious' willing tool not out of a desire for power (which he had already been well on the way to being able to amass under Palpatine's patronage), but rather out of sheer boredom with his safe and tidily respectable life. Doriana is loyal to Sidious not because he believes in the Sith Lord's power or his plans for the galaxy, but rather because he is addicted to both the adrenaline rushes and the ever-present chance to engage in intellectual sophistry that accompany service to Sidious. In short, Doriana is a man so morally small that he simply enjoys being able to get his jollies off on the various secret missions and acts of sabotage and deceit and espionage Sidious requires of him. If a warrior of the Light had approached him before Sidious had managed to with the possibility of becoming a true double-agent - someone who acted as a willing tool for Sidious while in fact working for the Republic and the Jedi - Doriana likely would have agreed to the job with just as much gleeful relish and just as much self-centered thoughtlessness. That is how selfish and fickle the man is.

Thus, Revan allows himself to derive a certain amount of eminently satisfied pleasure from watching a sleep-mussed and plainly rattled enough to be at least a little bit genuinely frightened (though his sleep-puffed and creased face is folded into the shape of a half-angry and half-petulant frown, the swift darting of his wide gaze gives him away, as does the furiously rapid beating of his heart) Kinman Doriana as he hurries through the open blast doors onto the bridge of the /Darkvenge/, still fumbling clumsily and inelegantly with the sash and belt of his unremittingly plain dark brown tunic. "What's this about an attack?" he demands, his voice breaking embarrassingly on the final word (with a bit of help from Revan, who thoughtfully reaches out through the Force to flood Doriana's system with a little bit more of the adrenaline he so often craves so badly) as he crosses the walkways to where the Neimoidian Trade Federation Vicelord Siv Kav is standing in front of his command chair.

"Soothe yourself, Commander Stratis," Kav merely replies with mock concern and a malicious glint in his red eyes, waving an expansively dismissive hand. "It is not as serious as was first thought."

"This is Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo of the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet," a deep, calm voice declaims melodiously from the comm speaker beside the Vicelord's chair. "Please identify yourselves and state your intentions."

"He has been repeating that message for ten minutes," Kav says, not bothering to hide his contempt. "But then, what else can he do?"

It takes Doriana a few heartbeats to remember that he is technically known to the scant nonmechanical crew of the Neimoidian Vicelord's ships only as Commander Stratis (though the Vicelord himself had, with a bit of uncomfortable spying, managed to discover Doriana's true identity just before their departure from Yavvitiri Spaceport), so discombobulated is he by having been so unexpectedly roused. When he does remember, he hurriedly demands, "Explain!" all but growling at the Neimoidian in his anger - both at himself, for hesitating, and at the situation, for causing him to forget himself, however momentarily. And at the Neimoidian himself, of course. After being hauled out of bed in the middle of a sleep cycle by loudly blaring and terrifyingly loud alarms, Doriana is in no mood to put up with Neimoidian smugness - especially not if that smugness is uncalled for. "You can start by telling me who he is."

"How should I know?" Kav merely demands irritably in response. Then, making another scornful, dismissive gesture, he adds, "But he is a braggart beyond anything I have yet seen." All but rolling his enormous eyes to show his disgust with the self-declared Chiss Commander, the Neimoidian seats himself in his throne-like command chair and, with an irritatingly grandiose flourish that makes Doriana have to grit his teeth tightly together to keep from making a caustic comment (he has been dragged out of bed for /this?!/), reaches out to touch a control, causing a tactical overlay to appear on the main display. "Behold," he then declares, waving his long fingers grandly. "He dares to threaten us with three small cruisers and nine fighters. Most likely they are pirates with a sense of bluff as large as a Dug's pride."

The message repeats, the voice as serene and unwavering and musical as ever. The speaker, whoever or whatever else he might be, clearly is utterly unperturbed by the apparent gap in tactical power - a gap that seems staggeringly obvious, to Doriana. The force that has been assembled to deal with Outbound Flight consists of two huge Trade Federation split-ring battleships, six armed Techno Union /Hardcell/-class transports, and seven Trade Federation escort cruisers, all of them filled to capacity with droid starfighters, battle droids and droidekas, and transports for the droids. It's an awesome collection of firepower, quite possibly the largest assembled in one place since the fiasco at Naboo. Considering the fact that, against even the weaponry of the six brand-new Dreadnaughts that make up /Outbound Flight/, they should have no trouble carrying the day, logically they possess more than enough firepower to crush the self-proclaimed Chiss Commander's much smaller force with the ease of a man swatting a fly. Yet, while a bluff would make a certain amount of sense under other, more familiar circumstances, there is something about that voice - the sheer sense of strength of it, maybe, or perhaps that oddly musical quality to the speech that isn't exactly an accent but nonetheless still marks the speaker out as belonging to a different cultural group than any of the many such groups that Doriana is personally familiar with - that makes Doriana doubt very much if Kav's reading of the situation is correct, logical though it may seem. Hesitantly, trying to feel his way towards a solution not only to the immediate problem of Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo's much smaller force but also the sudden feeling of growing unease gathering in the pit of his stomach, Doriana deliberately makes his face calm and then quietly points out, "I hear no threat in that message, Vicelord. All I hear is a local asking what we're doing in his territory."

"The threat is implied, Commander Stratis," Kav immediately counters, once again making a sweeping, overblown gesture with his long-fingered hands towards the display. "It is built into all warships, as much a part of them as weapons and shields."

Resisting the urge to frown, Doriana looks first at the tactical and then at the corresponding telescope display. Even knowing where the ships are, it is incredibly hard to pick them out of the starfield behind them. So the ships have superb stealthing, which means that Kav is at least partially right - they /are /warships, after all. Suppressing his irritation over that, he shrugs and offers, "Maybe he's got more firepower hanging back in reserve."

"No," Kav immediately assures him. "We have done a complete sensor scan of the entire area. Those twelve ships are all there are."

"This is Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo - "

"Shall we consider this an unscheduled drill?" Kav asks as the message continues to play in the background.

Frowning thoughtfully, Doriana suggests, "Let's try talking first," coming around to sit down on the couch beside the Neimoidian. One the one hand, the fact that the self-proclaimed Mitth'raw'nuruodo can speak Basic might very well mean he's a pirate with some familiarity with some of the outer reaches of the Republic. However, it could also possibly mean that the message is part of a trick by a person or persons unknown meant to smoke out the truth about the Darkvenge's mission. Either way, talking should gain him enough information to be able to rule one or the other possibility out. Nodding decisively at the thought, Doriana orders, "Open a hailing channel."

"Open."

Without bothering to wait to see what Kav thinks of his plan, Doriana reaches over to Kav's station and keys the proper control. "I greet you, Commander Mitth'raw'nuruodo," he declares, stumbling a bit over the unusual glottals at the name's section breaks. "This is Stratis, commanding Special Task Force One."

"My greetings in return, Commander Stratis," Mitth'raw'nuruodo's voice comes back, with the kind of smooth immediacy that suggests the self-named Chiss Commander has been patiently and expectantly waiting for just such a response to his hail. "Please explain to me the purpose of your task force."

"We intend no harm to you or your people," Doriana immediately declares. "But I'm afraid the details of our mission must remain confidential."

"I'm afraid in turn that your reassurances are insufficient," is Mitth'raw'nuruodo's even and calm but utterly implacable response.

Beside Doriana, Kav mutters something that he can't quite make out but which has the feel of either a curse or an insult or perhaps both. "I'm sorry, Commander," Doriana replies, throwing a warning glance at the petulantly frowning Neimoidian in an attempt to command his silence. "Unfortunately, I'm under orders."

"Why do you waste time this way?" Kav demands, completely ignoring both the warning and the look.

Cursing under his breath, Doriana lunges hastily for the mute control. "With all due respect, Vicelord, what do you think you're doing?" he snarls the instant he's managed to hit the proper key.

But, "What do you think you are doing?" Kav immediately counters with an angry scowl of his own. "They are no more than a parasite fly fluttering against a window. Let us destroy them and be done with it."

"If you don't mind, I'd like to find out who they really are and where they come from, first," Doriana snaps, summoning every bit of patience he can muster to keep from shouting at the Neimoidian's high-handed arrogance and potential idiocy, if the increasing sensation of uncertainty and even dread currently plaguing him is anything to go by (and he will trust his own instincts, however illogical, over those of a Neimoidian any day of the week).

The Neimoidian decides to take umbrage at his tone, though. Drawing himself up to his full height, he declares, voice icily cold, "We can learn that from their charred remains. And you are not in command of this fleet, Stratis. /I /am."

"Yes, of course," Doriana agrees, shifting quickly to a more soothing tone, hoping that he might be able to bring Kav around if he adopts a more flattering tone.

But it's already too late. The arrogant, self-important Vicelord has apparently not only decided to take offense at the unintentional slight, but has also already concluded that the Chiss Commander's comparatively tiny force represents a quick and easy victory ripe for the plucking. With a Neimoidian, that's a very bad combination. And sure enough, with a haughty tilt of his head, Kav pompously announces, "The time for talk is over." Then, with a decisive jab of his finger, he cuts off the comm channel. "Order the Keeper to launch half its droid starfighters," he then calls across the bridge, gesturing toward the second Trade Federation battleship. "Three groups will attack the intruders, the rest forming a defense screen around the task force. And order a transfer of command; I will control all the starfighters from here."

"Yes, Vicelord," one of the Neimoidians immediately replies. "Do we launch our starfighters, as well?"

"We will hold them in reserve." Kav looks over at Doriana then, eyes narrowing. "In case they have reinforcements on the way," he almost grudgingly adds.

Doriana sighs silently to himself. He would have liked to find out a little bit more about this mysterious Mitth'raw'nuruodo and his Chiss before they were slaughtered, if for no other reason than to assuage his own curiosity and banish the growing feeling of unease (as if he's overlooked something obvious and will be made to pay for it later) currently tying his stomach in knots. Given Kav's response to the situation, though, he's quite sure that the best he can hope for now is that there will be enough wreckage left to examine. It is essentially impossible to sway a Neimoidian who has made up his mind about something. Cowardly creatures they may be, but Neimoidians are also powerfully stubborn. Kav would likely rather die than run the risk of losing face before his subordinates among the crew by publically backing down from the fight, now that he's made his intentions known on the subject. Doriana can't even try to change his mind, because to do so would accomplish nothing but to render the Vicelord furious and alienate him further, which would not only put the true objective of the mission at risk but also run the risk of incurring Sidious' displeasure. Which means that, practically speaking, he can do nothing else now but bite his tongue, sit back, settle in, and enjoy the show, for however long as their unscheduled drill lasts.

With a slight mental shrug, Doriana resolves to do just that - and to find a way to make Kav pay for the loss of information on the Chiss later, when their job is over and he and his Lord no longer have a use for the Neimoidian. And because he has, all unknowingly, been drained of so much power within the Force by that Sith lord, he is as wholly unaware of the gleeful chuckle that this decision elicits from the carefully watching Force spirit as any other non-Force-sensitive being might have been, not even the earlier sense of uneasy discomfort that the oddly melodious sound of Mitth'raw'nuruodo's tranquil voice had inspired in him bothering him as he leans back against the cushions and raises his gaze expectantly towards the display, waiting and watching for the first blows in what he is certain will more closely resemble a slaughtering or an extermination than an actual battle . . .

***