The Freak Fleet 'verse: A series of stories exploring the dynamics among Grand Admiral Thrawn, Pellaeon, Covell, Parck, Niriz, Dorja, and other members of the Seventh Fleet. Legends cast in Rebels, a couple of OCs. Mix of Canon and Legends (Essentially AU). Serious, as well as not-so-serious fics. Semi-crack.
The Freak Fleet - Breaking the Ice - Of Chiss and Men - Witch Hunt - Second Chances - Chance Encounters - The Evil So Terrible It Tried To Black Out The Stars - An Unstoppable Force Meets an Immovable Object - All Roads Lead to Coruscant - Freak Fleet Files - A Kingdom of Isolation
It was Empire Day, an anniversary of the rise of the Galactic Empire, Emperor Palpatine's ascension to the throne, and the end of the Clone Wars. All planets under the rule of the Galactic Empire staged festivities and military parades with mandatory attendance, with the grandest celebrations of course being held at Imperial Center itself.
Members of the High Command have been invited along with their senior staff to Imperial Palace, and mandatory attendance applied to Grand Admiral Thrawn as well, much to the Chiss's antipathy for social gatherings and prestigious festivities.
One of the Emperor's hand-picked few could not have been possibly absent from the biggest event of the year, gritting his teeth, going as far as attending the main event at the Grand Reception Hall, engaging in the small talk with other Grand Admirals, the Grand Generals, the Grand Moffs, and anyone else who happened to held either a substantial rank or an aristocratic title for themselves, or simply happened to be in the Emperor's favor for the moment.
Since Captain Pellaeon and Colonel Covell didn't fall into the either category, they decided to take advantage of the mandatory attendance to find Commander Riza among the crowd of senior officers to ask her about her new life aboard the ISD Relentless.
Much to their dismay, her commanding officer followed them around no matter how hard they tried to dissuade him, thus they found themselves once again in the company of Captain Dorja, one of the Coruscanti snobs who had received the invitation to the Grand Reception due to his family connections. At least thanks to the Coruscanti they were admitted to one of the private booths with a balcony ten floors above the Reception Hall, watching the maze of the humans and aliens from far above.
"No wonder you are best buddies with Colonel Veers." Captain Dorja looked down at Colonel Covell with an open contempt. "Neither of you would be good enough to polish my shoes back at my family manor."
Covell might have originated from Corulag, but his pedigree hardly fit the image of a typical Core Worlder. In fact the Colonel despised everything the center of the Galaxy stood for since the ancient times of the Galactic Republic. In Covell's opinion, the Core Worlds has always kept all the money for themselves, turning the Rim Worlds into their colonies, cutting deals with indigenous populations or simply overrunning them. And he truly believed the New Order would bring the peace and prosperity to the entire galaxy, including the Outer Rim Territories, at which Dorja laughed to his face, telling him it's all about credits, Republic or Imperial.
The planet of Coruscant, renamed Imperial Center after the transformation into the Galactic Empire, held the hyperspace coordinates 0-0-0 on all standard navigation charts, and as the name and the coordinates suggested, the planet had always been the center of the trade and commerce, no matter who ruled it, as well as the home to the most influential clans of the Galactic Republic that survived even the Clone Wars and thrived again under the Galactic Empire.
Captain Dorja was a Coruscanti noble, therefore the living embodiment of everything the Colonel despised. Even taking all that into account, there was a no real animosity between the two men, not anymore. The two laserbrains simply couldn't resist throwing verbal darts at each other, neither willing to concede defeat. Both were more stubborn than an average Corellian, something that Pellaeon, a pure-blooded Corellian himself, could easily confirm.
"Good for you because we would have spat on your shoes while polishing them," Covell threw back immediately, his eyes getting a distant, dreamy look, taking too much pleasure at the thought. "Coruscanti snob."
"Nerfherder," Dorja threw back, pouring more tea into his cup, then adding the milk, stirring the tea by moving the teaspoon back and forth in an up-and-down motion. Once he was done he placed the teaspoon lengthways along the back of the saucer, held the cup by the handle and brought it up to his mouth, sitting straight, avoiding leaning forward.
Covell was watching him with his eyes narrowed, his lips pressed into a thin line, presumably debating whether it was safe in the company of Imperial Naval officers to spit out few mean words about the impossibly snobbish way the Coruscanti was drinking his tea.
Pellaeon rolled his eyes.
For the past hour, the two laserbrains had behaved so ridiculously that he had considered yanking them off their feet and smashing their heads against each other. The only reason why he didn't, the real reason why the two kept going with the charade, was because it brought a sweet smile to Commander Riza's lips, making her stifle a laugh more times Pellaeon could ever recall during her time at the ISD Chimaera.
Riza was positively beaming. She might have been behaving nothing out of ordinary on duty; serene force on the surface, always polite to people around her, a pure professional on the bridge at all circumstances. However, Pellaeon and Covell had been friends with Riza for years, or as close as to friends as the regulations allowed them to be. They knew how hollow she had been inside, and they could immediately see the turn her life had taken after she got reassigned to the ISD Relentless.
And what, or rather, who, had caused the change.
And not only her. Captain Dorja, one of the biggest assholes in the Imperial Navy (not the number one though, there were bigger assholes around, even Pellaeon and Covell had to give him a little credit) transformed into a very responsible Captain who took an excellent care of his crew.
Dorja's command style might have been controversial at first, easily mistaken for a series of acts of cowardice, but once he got the chance to prove himself, it became clear that Dorja was simply the cautious type, motivated primarily by the concern for his crew rather than for his own well being, with Relentless becoming the ship known for the lowest number of causalities in the Seventh Fleet.
Grand Admiral Thrawn, damn him to the depths of the Nine Hells, once again proved he had an uncanny ability to bring out people's hidden abilities and mold them into his perfect soldiers. Except for the tiny little detail the Chiss had missed when he made the decision to pair Dorja with Riza, giving birth to a duo that sent shivers up to the smugglers' and the insurgents' spines alike.
The Grand Admiral would have never paired them with each other had he thought of the inevitable avalanche he would trigger, for this was one of the things that violated the strange code of conduct the Chiss had. There was only one possible explanation Pellaeon could come up with, the Chiss must have assumed that their sense of professionalism would prevent them from acting upon their growing affection for each other.
"The Grand Admiral is not interested in becoming one of them," Covell snapped, his voice full of barely restrained fury.
Pellaeon realized he become so immersed in his own musings that he had missed a couple of insults the two laserbrains threw at each other. What was this about? Had the two of them lost it and reverted back to their old selves, digging up the old petty grudge? Pellaeon would have to intervene. The Grand Admiral had made himself crystal clear: he wanted all members of his senior command staff be able to work as a team.
"I'll give you that one but it appears that he needs at least their political and financial backing. Otherwise would not have spent most of the day in the company of Governor Pryce."
Ah, Dorja might have unintentionally pushed the Colonel's buttons.
A poisonous hiss escaped Covell, his lips drew back in a snarl. After the battle of Batonn, the army man had his own reasons to despise Moff Pryce and all the military governors as a whole. And after the battle of Atollon, Pellaeon joined the club.
"The Grand Admiral says that a victory and a defeat are often determined by the smallest detail," Dorja made wide a hand gesture, pointing down at the Grand Reception Hall. "Imagine how many secret doors it could have opened for him in the Core Worlds had the Grand Admiral mastered their customs to the point even the most powerful Coruscanti Clans took him seriously. Imagine if he had Kuati eating straight from his hand. The Kuat Drive Yards would be fully at his disposal."
For a moment Covell looked like he was seriously considering throwing Dorja over the railing to join the rest of his kind. Then abruptly he withdrew and crossed his arms.
Dorja continued, "I am neither a brilliant tactician like Thrawn nor a shady politician like Pryce but this is my element, Covell. I grew up among these people. No matter what you think of me, I am a Coruscanti noble. I could teach him a couple of things, you know. If anyone can beat them at their own game, it's him. I can tell because sometimes he even has me fooled. I just don't know how to get the point before I end up in a body bag for striking a serious blow to his ego."
Dorja let out a small sigh and took the teaspoon out of Riza's cup, putting it lengthways along the back of the saucer as it should have been. "You can't pour the milk before the tea, Hawkeye. Well, technically you can, just not here in the Imperial Palace. Servants of a large house poured the milk first because they used to drink from unrefined clay mugs which could crack from the heat. The nobles who drank from fine porcelain didn't."
Dorja then gave her a lopsided grin as if to let her know that it had not been meant to be a reprimand.
Oh, you are threading on a very thin ice, Dorja, though for a very different reason than you think, Pellaeon thought.
"If you are ever served tea with milk and lemon," Dorja continued his lecture on Coruscanti egalitarianism, "and don't know which blend goes with milk and which goes with lemon, drink it plainly like the Grand Admiral does. You won't give yourself away so easily."
"Is this how Konstantine chose his senior staff?" Covell retorted, giving the kettle a dubious look. The Colonel made his opinion of the custom quite clear to Pellaeon over a glass of a Corellian whiskey not long ago.
"You scrambled around like mad hellions, got your troops and vehicles on the ground and set up and then you stood around waiting for those strutting Fleet people in their spotless uniforms and nice clean ships to finish sipping their tea and finally get around to letting you loose."
Though drinking tea was a favorite past time of Imperial Naval officers, serving tea with milk and lemon was something reserved only for the Coruscanti elite. The Grand Admiral couldn't have possibly known which blend went with which, though he must have spent a considerable amount of time researching the topic.
"Among other things, yes," Dorja gave him a miniscule nod, shrugging imperceptibly, "a standard part of the screening process."
All three erupted into a gale of laughter, causing Dorja groan in annoyance, muttering something about them being nothing but mere peasants.
"You would be surprised how many powerful connections Konstantine had here on Coruscant."
Dorja was certainly right about Admiral Konstantine being essentially untouchable; while the Chiss possessed a superior sense of self-control, Pellaeon suspected that deep down the Grand Admiral wished with all his Chiss heart he could have had Konstantine's carcass ejected with the next garbage load without alienating half of the Imperial Center against himself.
"Hawkeye?" Pellaeon changed the topic, Admiral Konstantine's command style was the last topic he ever wanted to talk about. He even came up with a nickname for her?
"Oh, yes," Dorja grinned, his tone full of pride, "that's her official nickname on the Relentless. She earned it after she cleared all the targets in the shooting range in a time that placed her to the number one position among our troopers. And let's just say she didn't clear the targets by shooting them in the chest."
There was no doubt the crew of the Relentless learned their lesson. After her little trip to the shooting range there was no one stupid enough to not take the Chimaera's former executive officer seriously. Like many others on Thrawn's senior staff, she carried her sidearm with her at all times.
"Hawkeye? Karin, please don't take it personally," Covell threw her an apologetic glance, using her first name for emphasis, then he shifted his gaze back to Dorja, giving him a scorn.
"I think your Army contingent should pay more attention to their guns and less attention to their Coruscanti manners, Dorja. Commander Riza is certainly great with a blaster for a Navy officer but that doesn't make her 'Hawkeye.' If anything it makes her an above average frontline soldier, hardly a precision sharpshooter. She never made it to the hall of fame on the Chimaera."
"It's all right, Freja," Riza assured him, taking no offense at Covell's assessment of her abilities, "I told him pretty much the same."
"Who cares?" Dorja bellowed. "Everyone on Relentless likes it. I like it. And I am the Captain, period."
The Captain's word was the law aboard his ship, and Pellaeon was pretty sure Dorja would have anyone's hide if they as much as dared to contradict him on this particular point.
"Whatever," Covell capitulated, he knew too well that the Captain outranked any Army personnel aboard the Star Destroyer. "It explains so much about your Army contingent's performance during the surprise drill with Chimaera."
"I would have taken an offense had I been a ground pounder," Dorja gave him an evil smirk, his eyes gleaming. "But then, I am not."
"Well, tell your ground pounders to spend more time in the shooting range and leave drinking tea to the star gazers," Covell grunted, rolling his eyes.
"Oh, I will be sure to tell them, verbatim," Dorja retorted, enjoying their barter far too much, "including the name and an affiliation of the person who said so."
"They are welcome to come over to Chimaera to show off their marksmanship skills at any time. And to set the record straight, since I don't want it to look like I am bragging, I am not the number one sharpshooter on Chimaera either."
Covell's admission threw Dorja off guard for a moment, he had not expected a ground pounder to be able to address the limitations of his shooting skills so openly. He opened his mouth and closed it, swallowing whatever retort was on his tongue for it would have crossed the line.
Instead, Dorja took the teapot and served Covell a cup of tea in the exact same manner as he would have done for himself, adding the milk, stirring the tea by moving the teaspoon back and forth in an up-and-down motion.
Covell glowered but accepted the tea without a word, taking the cup to his lips, giving the pale brown liquid a suspicious frown, then openly scowling in disgust at the taste of the added milk.
"You really are a snob, Dorja. How come you're here with us instead of chasing the palace courtesans who would be more than willing to close their eyes and think of the Empire?" His eyes flickered between Dorja and Riza whose expression hardened. She had her eyes on Dorja, no doubt wondering the very same thing.
Dorja jerked, his body posture getting more and more rigid with each second, and he gripped the teapot so hard they could see his knuckles go pale white. Covell finally crossed the line. Pellaeon prepared himself for an inevitable emotional outburst that…
Never came.
To everyone's surprises, Dorja took a deep breath and looked down at the Grand Reception, his eyes going over prestigious sons and daughters and their striking courtesan companions, the highest ranking representatives of the Empire, the near-humans and the non-humans from clans so rich and powerful that even the Coruscanti nobles had to put up with them and take them seriously, and finally resting on Prince Xizor surrounded by his harem.
"I don't want to be a part of that world, Covell. Not any more," Dorja confessed, his voice barely a whisper. Slowly, carefully, he placed the teapot back at the table and took a moment to compose himself.
By the Nine Hells, Dorja really had changed.
"Well then, let's go somewhere else," Covell supplied immediately, watching Riza from the corner of his eyes. Her expression softened up at the confession, offering a silent support to her commanding officer.
"Somewhere they don't have tea with milk on their drink menu. You don't happen to know any seedy bars in the lower levels, Dorja?"
"What makes you think I have even been to the lower levels? You could hardly find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy!" Dorja exclaimed in horror, his eyes going wide, looking appalled at the notion.
Covell broke into an honest laughter. "Corulag moons! One day I'm taking you to Tatooine, Dorja, and I'm bringing the holocam with me because I can easily imagine your horrified expression upon seeing the real wretched hive of scum and villainy in Mos Eisley. Karin, you've been assigned to the Coruscant for a while, you don't happen to know any seedy bar down there?"
"Well, we could go to the diner I used to visit back then," Riza said awkwardly, her face warming up at the memory. She wasn't exactly fond of Imperial Center either after being transferred to clean the floor of Imperial Palace as a punishment for punching a senator's aide's son in the face.
"A diner? The kind of place where people eat meals with their bare hands?" Dorja looked at her with astonishment, as if he couldn't imagine his first officer ever going into such dubious establishment.
"How gauche."
Dork !
Covell appeared speechless for a second. "Dorja, don't try to tell me you've never eaten food with you hands. No way! I don't buy it! You may be a snob but you are still Navy!"
"Of course I have!" Dorja defended himself ferociously, an expression of hurt pride showing plainly on his face. "In boot camp!"
Pellaeon couldn't recall ever seeing Covell so stunned. This was far worse than they all thought. "Well, we need to fill the gaps in your education, Captain! Don't you agree, Karin?"
Riza was laughing so hard a tear appeared in the corner in her eyes. It might have been insubordination of the highest order but Dorja totally deserved it, and had he opted to rebuke her Pellaeon would take him aside and have a word him about behaving like number one Guerfel.
"Oh, definitely."
"You two go ahead, order a drink or something," Covell interjected, giving Pellaeon a gentle kick under the table, a clear sign to keep his mouth shut. "Comm me the address and we'll join you once we find Veers. He's as much of a Sedrian out of the water as we are."
Riza took out her comm link and dictated the name and the address of the diner into the device, sending it over to Covell. Then she straightened her the uniform and slowly got to her feet, giving both of them a polite nod, and waited for Dorja.
Before taking his leave, the Coruscanti gave them his most snobbish bow.
"You realize this makes us the Sith advocates, don't you?" Pellaeon muttered under his breath after the two finally got out of their sight. "We both know damn well it's a clear breach of regulations. We shouldn't be condoning such behavior, let alone conveniently pushing them into each other's arms."
"Yeah, I know," Covell let out a deep breath and shook his head, "Karin's had enough, though, Gilad, she deserves to be happy. I just can't understand what she sees in that clod."
"Neither do I," Pellaeon shrugged in resignation. "I guess it's one of the things between the Light Side and the Dark Side that us Force Blinds will never understand."
"Well, at least we got the green light from the boss," Covell whispered, giving him a sly conspiratorial wink, pointing at the direction of the next booth. "I'll go and have a word with Max. Tell the Grand Admiral 'mission accomplished' from me and join us later. I'll introduce you. Colonel Veers is now stationed on Corellia. He's even picked up quite a few Olys Corellisi swearwords. Figured you might be interested in hearing news from home."
Green light? Mission accomplished? Pellaeon felt a strange creeping chill in his gut as he turned his head far enough to see the single occupant of the next private booth who to all appearances seemed completely oblivious to their presence. An Ancient Corellian saying came to his mind: Saltan valoramosa n telval mord, which roughly translated into the Galactic Basic as 'Assumption is the first step into a shallow grave.'
By the Nine Hells, Freja, you got it all wrong…
A small inclination of his head had been the only indication that the Chiss was aware of Pellaeon's silent approach from behind and that he did not mind the intrusion upon his privacy after a long and tiring day spent at the Grand Reception.
"My patience has been tested today, Captain. Not only at the Grand Reception Hall."
Of course, the Grand Admiral must have heard everything. The Colonel must have been aware of the fact. Covell would have made a very lousy front line soldier had he not scanned all private booths in their vicinity for possible threats. Unfortunately, he misinterpreted the Grand Admiral's presence as endorsement.
"It was not my intention to listen in on your private conversation, Captain," the Chiss shrugged apologetically, his attention on the mass of humans and aliens ten floors below them. "It is hardly my fault that humans are incapable of carrying out their personal affairs in an appropriate tone and volume."
Still, the Grand Admiral could have chosen to step in and discipline them at any time. He hadn't. While the reason might have not been obvious to Covell, it was to Pellaeon: the Chiss might not have approved but the curiosity got better of him. Thrawn wanted to know 'Why?,' studying everything and everyone around him, believing that all thoughts were worth listening to, whether later judged to be of value or not.
"Permission to speak freely, sir?" Pellaeon cleared his throat and came to stand next to the Chiss by the balcony railing.
"Granted," the Grand Admiral reassured him in a low tone of voice, barely above a whisper, presumably an example of an appropriate tone and volume according to the Chiss. He filed it away as a mental note in case he ever needed to speak behind the Grand Admiral's back in the future.
"We can't help being humans, sir," Pellaeon pleaded. The Grand Admiral was certainly not joking when he had said that his patience has been tested today.
The Chiss scowled. "I have said so already and I am saying it again: Humans behave like extremely spoiled Chiss children in a desperate need of corporal punishment."
The present company excepted, I hope?
"Captain Pellaeon, please give me a very convincing reason why I shouldn't have Colonel Covell reassigned to trash compactor duty. Permanently."
"I'm afraid Colonel Covell operates under the assumption he's following your orders, sir," Pellaeon tried hard not to squirm. The Grand Admiral has never vented out his frustrations on bystanders, however, there were times Pellaeon had really wondered about the limitations of Thrawn's sense of self-control.
In fact, Pellaeon himself had thought Thrawn had set Dorja and Riza up on purpose, no matter how out of character it might have been for him, so convinced it must have been a part of his greater plans that he had even blurted out in front of the Chiss.
Only it hadn't been, thus when Pellaeon found out that that had not been Thrawn's intention at all, he tried to save the situation by pleading for mercy on their behalf. This time, he might need take the one for the team. After all he was as guilty as the rest of them.
"Do you realize, Captain, what you are suggesting to me? They are a captain and a first officer of an Imperial Star Destroyer. In a direct chain of a command," Thrawn had said back then.
"I believe I made myself clear that I had no such an inclination in mind when I had appointed Commander Riza as Captain Dorja's first officer, Captain," Thrawn chastised him. "I certainly do not need to explain my command decisions to any of my senior command staff. How does the Colonel even dare assume he has been acting on my behalf this evening! Preposterous!"
A corner of the pale blue lips twitched in amusement at the absurdity.
Very thin ice, indeed. Would he really overlook a breach of regulations? Would he really let it slide? Would he really pretend he never heard anything?
"Captain Pellaeon, despite what you might think, I do take your advice under consideration. I would not have asked for your opinion had I not been interested in hearing what you have to say."
"You didn't follow my advice regarding Ensign Vanto, sir," Pellaeon reminded him. They accidentally stumbled upon the young man during a surprise inspection of an Imperial Information and Supply Outpost; Thrawn had overheard him speaking about the Chiss and didn't let him off the hook until the Ensign spilled everything he knew about his people, which turned out to be nothing but campfire stories and far-fetched descriptions of Chiss supernatural abilities.
"No, I didn't," Thrawn conceded, giving him a small shrug in acknowledgment.
After their chance encounter, the poor ensign's career indeed took an unexpected turn, starting with a promotion to the lieutenant and finding himself aboard the ISD Chimaera as Thrawn's personal assistant. The Grand Admiral certainly had enough forms to fill to employ at least a dozen, how the Chiss even managed on his own until now was beyond Pellaeon's comprehension.
As much as it pained him to admit it, Pellaeon never considered himself much of a father figure, as his own son, Mynar Devis, would have no doubt agreed. He could, however, see Mynar reflected in Lieutenant Vanto so when he noticed how apprehensive the young man had been about his new role, Pellaeon took him aside and explained to him that as long as the Lieutenant performed his duty to the best of his abilities, the worst thing that could ever happen to him would be a whole day lecture about Thrawn's favorite works of art.
But then, that could have been considered a torture.
When Pellaeon had seen the innocence in the wide-eyed look, he winced internally and ventured to the gundark's lair, asking General Bittenfeld to keep an eye on him; none of the Navy men would ever dare to bully the country bumpkin but one could never be so sure with the Stormtroopers. One did not join the Stormtrooper Corps if there was an ounce of brain in them.
To much of his surprise, the General only roared in laughter and told him not to worry for he had already 'told the bucket-heads to leave the little lost bantha cub alone.' It left Pellaeon speechless; he truly prayed the General had not phrased it that way in front of the whole Stormtrooper Corps. Then again, this was General Bittenfeld he was talking about...
"Unfortunately, I must share Colonel Covell's assessment of both Commander Riza's and Relentless's Army contingent's marksmanship abilities." Thrawn continued, breaking his line of thoughts. "Had she lived up to her new appellation I would have recommended her to General Bittenfeld for a possible career path change. No, her place is on the bridge."
Thrawn seemed lost in his own musings for a while.
"Perhaps I should have a word with the General about paying them a surprise inspection or temporarily transferring his flag to the Relentless to help Dorja weed out the incompetents. While I made significant changes in the chain of command I have avoided meddling with the Army contingent's internal affairs."
"Sir, I am not sure Captain Dorja can handle General Bittenfeld," Pellaeon countered, remembering their earlier encounter; had the Chiss decided not to come down to the Officer's Lounge, the General would have reduced the freshly minted captain into a laughing stock in front of the whole Seventh Fleet.
"Don't worry, Captain. The General and I have an understanding. Captain Dorja has nothing to fear from him." Thrawn let out a small sigh. "My only regret is that I could not have allowed the General to take part in today's events in any manner as it would greatly undermine my efforts."
A smirk crossed the alien features for a fraction of a second.
Unleashing Bittenfeld on the Imperial Court? Now that would have been something. Unfortunately the Imperial Palace itself might have not withstood such a force of nature that was the General. Bittenfeld had once given his opinion of the Imperial Court devouring each other in their insidious schemes: "When a devil gets caught by a monster, I, as a human being, can only hope that they both die."
Pellaeon had held his breath that time, wondering whether the Grand Admiral would finally snap and lose his patience with the General. Thrawn only lazily turned his head in Bittenfeld's direction, his face as calm as ever, his eyes staring into a faraway distance, and casually told him that his diplomatic skills left much to be desired, and he was to be permanently banned from attending all official events held at the Imperial Center, taking the full responsibility for the General's absence.
"And perhaps I should have a word with Captain Dorja about introducing me to the unwritten rules of Coruscanti etiquette," Thrawn went on with his monologue. "He is operating under a common misconception: I have no qualms about accepting a useful idea merely because it wasn't my own."
The politics of the Imperial Court was a very different kind of a battlefield than the Grand Admiral had been used to. Thrawn, however, was a true warrior, and he was a fast learner, much faster than he let anyone else know. At the moment, Thrawn was doing a simple vanguard, a reconnaissance, a mere rehearsal of his grand schemes, whatever they might have been.
Still, Pellaeon couldn't understand how the Grand Admiral could have allied himself with Moff Pryce of all the people. Despite everything she did, despite Batonn, despite Atollon. She might have played a major role in securing the monetary funding for the TIE Defender Factory on Lothal but still…
"Captain, it is I who would have been deeply concerned had you approved of my business relations with Governor Pryce," the Grand Admiral said in an amused tone, answering Pellaeon's unspoken concerns.
Pellaeon cleared his throat.
Thrawn's uncanny ability to follow people's train of thoughts most of the time, to follow his train of thoughts in particular, was rather disturbing. Especially since Thrawn always seemed so blissfully ignorant of all the matters concerning him, of the words spoken about him, of the glances pointed at his direction. None of the dignitaries at the Grand Reception realized Thrawn had been studying them the whole time.
"Governor Pryce is motivated by malice, greed, and hunger for power. She is under the impression she can use my intellect for her own political schemes, hoping perhaps one day it could earn her the rank of Grand Moff. There is a distinct possibility she will succeed. As she is neither actively plotting against me nor are her ambitions are in conflict with my own interests, it is an alliance mutually beneficial to both."
The Chiss fell silent for a few seconds, giving Pellaeon a contemplative glance, his expression as guarded as he had ever seen, then adding: "However, one must not mistake an alliance for acceptance."
He knew the Grand Admiral couldn't have missed the sharp intake of breath from his direction, still the Chiss continued, "A warrior must choose their battles wisely, Captain, the supreme art of war is to subdue the enemy without fighting."
Pellaeon stood there, transfixed to his place, his brain slowly processing the words being said. He was a mere captain, it was all he ever wanted to be in his life. He never strove to be anything more, to become a member of the Admiralty or to get involved in the political schemes of the Imperial Court. The Grand Admiral must have been completely wasting all his time spent on teaching him the art of war for there was no way in the Nine Hells Pellaeon would ever make it past a captain.
"Now if you will excuse me, Captain, I have a private audience with the Emperor in fifteen minutes. There are certain matters of importance that need to be discussed with His Majesty." Without an acknowledgment, the Chiss walked past him, calling after him in his usual smooth, cultured voice.
"Enjoy the rest of the evening, Captain."
THE END