Admiral Thrawn. Not Grand Admiral Thrawn. Not the rank Thrawn was on Coruscant to be promoted to.
It could mean nothing. A simple mistake. Perhaps Thrawn's promotion wasn't common knowledge yet. Stormtroopers didn't know everything.
But it could mean Thrawn was never promoted. And something worse had happened.
Eli cleared his throat nervously.
He had to stall. Give himself some time to think. No. There was no time. He had to act. He trusted Thrawn. And Thrawn had already told him what to do.
Go to Csilla.
But Eli couldn't just leave Thrawn behind…
What if Thrawn was in trouble? Well, obviously he was in some kind of trouble, he wasn't back yet. But Eli had no idea what had happened, and even less of an idea of where to find him. Obviously he wasn't important enough to go marching up to the Imperial Palace and demand to talk with the Emperor.
Eli winced again. There are stormtroopers at the door! Do something!
He glanced around, but he knew he was cornered. They were too many levels up for him to consider escaping out the window – not to mention that breaking the glass would be really obvious to anyone waiting for him down below.
The only way out was to face the stormtroopers. Who would have blasters.
The door to the hotel room opened.
And Eli still didn't have a clue what to do.
_SWR_
Thrawn's body was still trembling in the aftereffects of the pike attack, but he tried to use the time to his advantage.
His consciousness was unreliable. One moment he'd been laying on the floor of the Throne Room, gingerly testing his face to see where he was bleeding from, the next, he was vertical again, being dragged down a dark hallway.
"I'mmmm t-tryin to ssssave the… Em..pire," Thrawn attempted to say. His voice was weak, his teeth chattering softly together. Even if the pain was still racking his body, he couldn't give up his mission. Someone had to understand. Whoever was dragging him was the last hope he had.
But they didn't respond.
Thrawn couldn't lift his head to see who they were, but he could see red. Red like the guards. Who were blindly loyal to the Emperor.
Not the Empire. But to the figure at the top.
The same man who would rule by fear.
…were they Jedi, too? Could they read his thoughts.
"Nuuugh," Thrawn murmured as he tried to focus. If they could read his thoughts, then surely he could think through why the Death Star was a bad idea better than he could speak it. But even organizing his thoughts were difficult.
"He c-c-can't….." Thrawn started, pausing to regain his breath. "Use. The Death Star. The Empire-"
This time Thrawn felt the jab in his abdomen. The electricity coursed through his body, again igniting every nerve and forcing every muscle to contract. But the hold this time was short, blessedly short. Perhaps his captors couldn't manage to hold onto him and shock him at the same time.
Thrawn was on the ground once more, his muscles spasming beyond his control, and he curled up in a ball. An involuntary moan drained from his mouth, as a penetrating coldness consumed him.
Once again, rough hands grabbed him, hauled him to his feet.
But Thrawn would stay quiet this time.
_SWR_
"Commander Vanto?"
Eli turned back to the door. The stormtroopers had overridden the lock and were standing in the doorway.
"Yeah, that's me," Eli said. He figured throwing a line of krayt spit at them wasn't going to get him anywhere.
The stormtrooper on the left looked a little puzzled. "Why didn't you answer the door?"
"You were at the door?" Eli asked, immediately going back on his no-krayt-spit idea. "I didn't hear you, I was in the refresher."
Which really wasn't a bad line.
"We're sorry for the intrusion," the other stormtrooper said. They were being professional. And Eli got the feeling that they were sincere. Whatever was going on, these two were mere pawns, not actual players. "You've been requested to go to ISB headquarters immediately to answer some questions about Admiral Thrawn."
"Has something happened?" Eli asked.
"You need to come with us." A blatant avoidance of the question. Eli felt a shiver race up his back.
"But… I mean… ISB? This late?" Eli asked.
"Come again," the other stormtrooper said, leaning forward slightly. Eli picked up on it – the soldier was detecting the slightest bit of resistance and responding to it already.
"Should I change?" Eli asked. "Not sure if they want me in uniform or not."
"What's important is getting to ISB," the stormtrooper on the left said, more sternly than the one on the right.
"Alright, alright. Sorry to hold you up. Had no idea they had stormtroopers making house calls," Eli said, approaching the stormtroopers and trying not to focus on their blasters.
"You weren't answering your comm," the one on the right said.
That Eli knew was a blatant lie.
"This thing has been acting up all night," Eli said in a false huff. "Do either of you know anything about commlinks? See, there's this little orange light that blinks every time-"
He offered the commlink to the closer of the two stormtroopers who – either due to inexperience or politeness – leaned forward to look. And without even considering the possibilities of what he was about to do, stepped forward, grabbed the stormtroopers blastered, forced his finger into the trigger well and pulled.
The idiots were always holding their weapons at waist height, and standing side-by-side, the one stormtrooper's blaster was pointing directly into the chest of the other.
The blasters hadn't been set to stun. But to kill.
"Why you-"
It turned into a quick struggle as Eli fought to retain control of the weapon. An armored elbow found its way into the side of Eli's head, but it was the wrong move. The stormtrooper had thrown too much into the strike, and Eli was able to wrest the weapon away from its owner.
At least he took the extra second needed to flip the weapon to stun before shooting him.
And then…. Eli stumbled backwards, gasping.
Oh, kriff, they sent stormtroopers to get me. Their weapons were on fire… they would have killed me if I had resisted.
And then the logical next thought-
What in all the galaxy had Thrawn done!?
There would be reinforcements coming. Eli stepped over the two crumpled figures, heading towards the door. What if there were more waiting outside? Was he really prepared for a shootout?
At least he'd had sense enough to change into civilian clothes. If he could manage to get to ground level, he would melt into the crowd and vanish.
But vanish where?
Eli winced, told himself he'd figure it out on the way, and hit the release for the door.
_SWR_
A sharp pain woke Thrawn.
He could barely lift his head. It felt heavy – unbearably heavy. His eyes slowly blinked open, and he tried to analyze his surroundings.
The floor in front of him were permacrete. Gray. Cold. Wet. The room was dark, whether because the room itself lacked sufficient light or whether it was night, Thrawn couldn't tell. What he could determine was that he wasn't laying on the ground. He was being held vertically, his eye level a meter or so off the ground. But stretching out with his senses, Thrawn got the feeling that he was alone.
He jumped involuntarily as a jolt of pain shot through his shoulders. But not from an attack – no strike had fallen on him. It was his muscles, screaming in agony. It was the same pain which had awoken him from his unconsciousness.
Thrawn closed his eyes, focusing on his body. He had to figure out what was wrong. His shoulders…. There.
His arms were bound behind his back, a binder pulling his upper arms tightly to his sides – the metal clasp tightly above his elbows. His hands were bound before him.
He tested the strength of the handbinds and another bolt of pain shot through his shoulders. It was unberable enough that he cried out.
Thrawn figured it out… why he was in such pain. There was a chain connecting the binder on his arms to a place on the wall, and its length was such that the only way to loosen the chain was to stand up. As it was, Thrawn was slumped forward, and the pain of having all the weight of his body pulling at his shoulders had become too much.
The chain was too short to let him kneel, or sit, or lay down.
Thrawn pushed against the ground, his feet weakly sliding on the ground, unable to withstand the full weight of his body.
When his knees gave out, another jolt of pain tore through his shoulders, and Thrawn cried out in earnest that time.
He only endeared another moment before his feet began wildly scrambling on the ground again, trying desperately to find leverage enough to support his body weight – to take the pressure off his arms. Because the more he woke, the more problems he realized he had.
Leaning forward like he was was putting too much pressure on his chest, too, and he was struggling to breath. His wrists were tingling with pain, as the binds were digging into nerves.
And that wasn't even to mention the injuries he'd already been dealt with the Force pikes. The burns from their ignition points were throbbing angrily under his uniform…
His uniform.
The sparkling white uniform of the rank he hadn't quite accepted was gone. He was dressed in something new… an orange jumpsuit. It was unmistakable. The uniform of a prisoner.
Thrawn growled softly.
He'd put too much faith in the Emperor. Believed the man wanted what was best for the Empire – that they even shared a similar goal. But where Thrawn wanted to rule with justice, to inspire loyalty… the Emperor had determined that was too much work. He didn't possess the personality for such a cult… and instead chose the easy path.
The path that led to the Death Star.
It couldn't be too late to do something.
Thrawn was once again struggling to keep his head up. The pain in his shoulders was slowly growing to be too much to bear.
Could he die like this?
No….
The Emperor had wanted the location of Csilla…. Thrawn was only meant to suffer now. He cringed as he realized this was merely to soften him up.
The real torture hadn't yet begun.
