Ten years and twenty-fifth day after the Battle of Yavin...
Or the forty-fifth year and twenty-fifth day since the Great Resynchronization.
(Seven months and tenth day since the arrival).
Opening his eyes, Tomax saw before him the elongated, bullet-like metal face of a medical droid.
Segmented metal arms were extended forward—the droid was sorting through surgical instruments on a tray, intricate and sharply honed.
The major tried to rise from the table, but only tasted bitter disappointment.
Hands, feet, even his torso across the chest—all were pulled tight to the cold metal panel by metal restraints.
Clearly, those who had provided him medical aid after the crash and capture did not count on the officer's good nature when he came to, insuring against the patient's rampage.
"It hurts," Tomax rasped, feeling the characteristic sensations in his legs. "Inject something against it."
"Pain is negligible," the droid stated categorically.
Raising his head, he saw his lower limbs and, with relief, laid his head back on the table.
At least he was whole.
That was already something to be glad about.
"Metal sadist," Major Bren said.
"I am a prison meddroid," the mechanism informed him. "I am not programmed for sympathy, anesthetics, or other luxuries. In our line of work, good patient fixation spares the administration unnecessary and utterly pointless expenses. Endure it. The bones will knit soon, as will the muscles."
It seemed they had never heard of traditional medical droid programming here, where a patient's suffering was the grossest and most unacceptable error.
Of course, the droid was most likely telling the pure truth, as they were not programmed for lies.
There was no pity for prisoners in prison.
This was Kessel, after all—where was a normal meddroid when even the infirmary was carved into the rock.
Tomax, furrowing his brows, raised his head again, looking around.
No, his guess was spot on—he was not in the infirmary.
He was in some cave, though, judging by the dark ends of the tunnel at his feet and the faint draft, it was more likely just a simple shaft in the depths of Kessel.
As his eyes adjusted to the light, the major could barely make out the silhouettes of guards at the very doors.
And at that moment, an icy metal manipulator hand pressed against his forehead, and the droid forcefully returned him to his original position.
"Do not move. This will hurt now. Unfortunately—not very much. You need to relax now."
This droid's logic programming was off.
Why talk about pain and ask to relax when that was the exact opposite...
His left arm jerked right under the metal hoops, erupting in unbearable pain.
Tomax, though he knew pain well, could not hold back a scream.
"Contain your biological fluids, prisoner," the droid said in the same brusque tone. "I merely reset your arm in the shoulder joint."
But Tomax, though he could see the limb was in place, could not feel it.
"Looks like you broke it worse," he complained.
"No matter," the "meddroid" declared. "You have another one."
And then such pain came that the seasoned major lost consciousness.
***
Colonel Tierce, along with an escort consisting of a dozen guards and Rukh (not to mention two squads of stormtroopers from the 501st Legion), led me and General Kaine through the administrative offices of the prison complex, which bore traces of fire and devastation.
This part of the building was clearly new and sunk below the planet's surface.
Thicker walls with reinforced filling, blast-proof doors—this was a personal bunker, built to withstand any assault.
Unfortunately, the builders had not considered that it would be attacked by fighters from the Rancor Regiment, who had apparently not been informed that this section of the administrative complex was an impregnable fortress.
We passed through a wide lobby into a vast office, more like a hall, with tall windows overlooking the barren wastes of Kessel.
In the distance loomed vast salt flats.
The giant hoses of gas enrichment plants spewed portions of oxygen, nitrogen, and carbon dioxide into the thin air, feeding the pale pink sky that barely sustained life—or a semblance of it—on this planet.
Powerful orbital shields absorbed deadly doses of radioactive radiation and gamma rays, by which the black holes expressed their neighborly affections.
Without the precious spice, no one would live not only on Kessel itself, but in this system at all.
But there was a nuance.
Or rather, more than one.
There, behind the shield of deadly radiation and gravity, lay Tarkin's secret laboratory, four Star Destroyers, four legions of stormtroopers, experimental technologies, and scientific personnel that Tarkin had meticulously gathered and nurtured for decades.
A scientific treasure trove that could be seized...
But not now.
Because nearly everyone on that base (with the exception of certain individuals) was a supporter of the New Order and would undoubtedly defect the moment the commander of the garrison there, Admiral Natasi Daala, learned that Palpatine was alive.
So there it was, seemingly within reach—just stretch out your hand and take it—but no, they would have to wait until the New Republic deigned to destroy the clone of the resurrected Palpatine.
And the latter was in no particular hurry to remind the galaxy of his existence, using the forces of the Imperial Remnants as his vanguard.
Logical from his perspective.
Since he had not called them to his ranks on Byss, he did not particularly trust them.
Therefore, he had no intention of sparing them.
On the contrary, he would squeeze every last drop from the Remnants, then remove their governments, install his own puppets, and seize a third of the galaxy at once.
The Dominion they left untouched for now—but only because we had cut the metropole off from the general Holonet network, using a captured inhabited relay from the siege of Coruscant as an information hub that received but did not pass signals from the rest of the galaxy into the Dominion network, even from the peripheral planets.
Yes, a cumbersome and inelastic communication system, but nothing better could be devised on the fly.
Contacts with peripheral planets had to be maintained via dedicated communication frequencies, through numerous protective devices and programs.
Many inconveniences, of course, but what could be done?
Total isolation would only disrupt transport and logistics chains, upending export and import policies.
On which we depended almost entirely in some areas.
The door leading to the coveted office had been blown out, and it bore numerous blaster burns.
The fighters had to storm the last bastion for the one waiting inside now.
A vile creature who, judging by the being frozen in carbonite hanging from the right doorjamb, had habits remarkably similar to those enjoyed by the late Jabba the Hutt.
Displaying sworn enemies for all to see...
An amusing way to flaunt one's own pride and vanity, borrowed from one who possessed both the will and the necessary power.
Once inside, I first noticed the massive barrel-shaped silhouette of the sentient kneeling under the guard of two guardsmen.
"Morut Dul," I identified the former bureaucrat, now the operator of this entire den into which Kessel had turned, from a hologram I had seen recently. "Pleased to finally meet you."
Without further ado, Tierce set up a folding chair behind me, on which I sat.
"Th-Th-Thrawn?" my interlocutor's eyes bulged.
Morut Dul belonged to the ribet species, squat, slick-skinned beings.
His bright green coloration and striking orange spots resembled rings of worms scurrying across his face, chest, and arms.
His skin was dry, yet so velvety and glossy that it seemed coated in slime.
His vest evoked memories of something ancient and historical.
His face twitched in an incessant nervous tic, evidence of advanced paranoia.
On the long, thick fingers of the ribet remained rudimentary suckers.
The ribet's bulging eyes resembled lanterns with narrow vertical pupil wicks—though one was already clouded with a cataract, making it look more like a poached egg than a lantern.
On the remaining eye, Dul wore a mechanical focusing device strapped with a brown leather band.
Dul fiddled with his mechanical eye for a minute—the lenses clicked and whirred quietly into place, like in an automatic camera.
He repeated the maneuver several times, as if trying to determine whether his natural and acquired organs of sight were failing him.
His blind eye rolled senselessly to the side, like a milky-white bubble on the surface of a stagnant pool.
Morut Dul.
After a prolonged scrutinizing inspection, he finally hissed joylessly but promisingly:
"Y-You can't be Thrawn?"
"Really?" I raised an eyebrow. "And why not? Who forbids it? You? Or perhaps your patrons from the Zann Consortium? Black Sun thugs? Outer Rim smugglers?"
"B-But you died at Sluis Van!!!" the ribet wailed.
"As it happens, I had unfinished business," I explained. "I had to return from the dead to complete it."
"N-No way! Zann has your corpse! I saw it myself."
Mother.
So they had indeed found and retrieved my clone's body in orbit over Sluis Van.
Though statistically impossible—incomparable search areas and sizes.
Wessiri's and Antilles's bodies were found only because they crashed into orbital sweepers somewhere on the system edge.
And quite remotely from where calculations suggested they might be.
The clone's body was considered lost.
Though Pellaeon had already received my disapproval for not finding it.
But the problem was precisely that the bodies were not where they should have been according to navigator calculations.
Who would have thought—a corpse is such a small object within the bounds of an entire star system. And one that had left the Chimaera's bridge due to decompression...
Oh.
Note the thought.
Recall the body search algorithm.
The exact position of the Star Destroyer in space is easily determined from battle holograms.
The speed of air volume release from a Star Destroyer's bridge is easily calculated.
Then, by formulas—the acceleration imparted to it.
Account for the time since the body's ejection, plug into the formula, perform the necessary math—and obtain the distance the body traveled.
And the flight vector is known too.
How interesting.
But Antilles's and Wessiri's bodies, ejected simultaneously with my clone's, were found not in the predicted space region—leading to the assumption that collisions with debris had altered their spatial orientation.
Hence, no point in searching for the clone's body.
And now I had a suspicion that Tyber Zann had decided to verify my "death" and got to the bodies first.
To throw us off, he moved the Republicans' bodies aside, leading to the conclusion that the bodies had scattered.
Clever move, one I hadn't even considered.
Bravo, Tyber—you sobered me well.
"How interesting," I stated. "It seems you're quite well acquainted with Tyber Zann."
"I-I was there a c-couple of t-times," the prisoner began to stutter even more.
"And met him personally?" I clarified.
"Y-Yes..."
"Where?"
"Eh-Etti... N-No way I'm t-telling!" Morut Dul suddenly grew bold.
"I understand—fear," I nodded. "Very well, let's discuss more pressing matters. How many former Imperial soldiers and other military personnel are in the mines?"
"N-No!"
"Wrong answer," I said.
Colonel Tierce gave a barely perceptible nod.
The guardsman behind the ribet silently seized Morut's hand and coldly severed his left pinky with a strike of the obsidian blade at the joint.
The former administrator shrieked like a wounded Gamorrean.
"When the fingers run out, my guardsmen will start cutting off other parts of you," I warned.
The ribet choked on his own secretions, unable to string two words together.
Only after losing the second finger did he come to his senses.
"On Etti IV!!!" Dul screeched. "He has a palace there!"
"On the planet itself?!"
"The former unfinished Emperor's palace!!!" the ribet continued volunteering information the present company hadn't even asked for. "He's there! Guarded by a whole army! I just mine and sell him spice!"
"And also helped Corran Horn set up the ambush during the meeting," I reminded him.
"That was Tyber's order!" Dul immediately shifted the blame. "He sent ships, said to capture officers and tech, crew to the mines."
"Why?" I clarified.
"He needed all the ships that would come here," the ribet declared. "He said unlikely more than one Destroyer would come because of the strong gravity. The fleet should suffice for the attack."
"And you thought Horn would fly away from here?"
"O-Of course not! He was to be handed to Zann too."
Curious.
"And where is he now?" I inquired.
"I-I don't know!" Dul mumbled. "He vanished as soon as one of the freighters picked up the escape pod."
So they didn't die.
At least the Terriks survived the firefight.
"Where's the freighter?"
"I-I don't know! Vanished with H-Horn!"
"What freighter?" I pressed.
"I-I don't know! A-Arrived with H-Horn!"
More and more interesting.
"One of my ships was shot down," I reminded him. "Your people took the pilot. He's not on the surface. Where is he?"
It cost the ribet another finger to answer.
"The mines! A Vulture dragged him into the mines!" Morut screamed, glancing at his bleeding limb. "Third shaft! The deepest of them all!"
"I have no doubt you have the precise coordinates of their location," my assumption was reflected in the ribet's vigorous nod.
"In that case, you should relay them to my people," I said. "And describe the quickest and safest route there."
"Y-Yes-yes," the ribet agreed. "I'll do everything."
"Good," I said, rising from the chair. "And now tell my people how to reach every sentient locked in the mines without exception, and everything else you know."
"O-Of course..."
"Colonel," I called to Tierce. "The mission for Fourth Squad changes."
"I'll inform them, Grand Admiral."
***
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