"Do you ever think," Thrawn asked her, "what happens when you blow up a Star Destroyer?"
"The Empire loses a little bit more of the ability to hurt people," she responded, stubbornly. She was already armoured against this line of reasoning.
"There are over thirty thousand service personnel aboard an Imperial-class ship," Thrawn said, quietly. "Conscripts, naive idealists, young people who believe sincerely in their cause, no matter how much you might disagree."
"That only makes the Empire worse," she shrugged.
"And they have siblings, former roommates, friends, home systems, senators."
"Most of whom have no more love for the Empire than I do," she responded.
"And you think they'll love you for what you do, Commander?" Thrawn is amused, a note she's not heard before.
"When the Empire's gone-" She sighs, and looks down at her boots. "We have to fight."
"But why like this?" Thrawn asks her. "Why make a system like Lothal into a battleground, why justify the actions of a woman like Arihnda Pryce?"
She wants to object that the Empire's economic exploitation of Lothal, and a thousand other systems, isn't something that can be stopped by just lying down, but she knows that's not his point. "You think we're fighting this war wrong," she says. "That's why you fight against us."
Thrawn is smiling now. The most human look she's ever seen from him. "I don't just think you're doing this wrong, Commander. I know exactly the effect you're having."
"Then how would you-?!" She bites her answer short, realising that he's baited her. Realising that asking an Imperial Grand Admiral how he would fight against the Empire is absurd... but only because the answer is already, disorientingly obvious.
"Really, Commander?" he laughs. "You still need to ask?"