mitchsharwig15 – THRAWN WILL ALWAYS GET HIS FAVORITE HUMAN BACK! ❤
Lynn Friedman-kinsey – HAHAHHHAAA I'm so glad you liked my pairing XDDDD But OMG they are just TOO cute in the novel… and honestly, there is like, no other explanation in my head as to why Thrawn would go to such lengths to keep Eli with him. Like, when they first meet, Eli couldn't have possibly displayed any sort of leadership or tactical potential, and as like literally every character points out, Thrawn doesn't need a translator. So… *kissies*
JH24 – OMG YOUR REVIEW! My heart just soared! THANK YOU! My gosh, you really got so much out of this chapter! And yeah, I went back and edited a little bit to try to explain Ezra – I just imagine him trying to puff up his chest and be more intimidating than he needed to be – though you are so totally right - is a LOT calmer and more confident when he's had dealing with Imperials in the past… eh. He'll lighten up, but you were totally right – he was really stressed maybe? *shrugs* But thank you for pointing that out!
Eli couldn't believe it. He figured his kidnappers would either realize the futility of escape and land, forfeit, give up quietly. Or either just keep going until they ran out of fuel and were then forced to land.
He quickly realized why this particular rebel cell were evading all efforts to capture or destroy them.
"You can't be serious," Eli stammered, knowing full well that they were quite serious.
Hera put the ship into autopilot, and got out of her seat.
"We're always serious," she said. "Come on, Commander."
Her words were stern, but not as biting as before. Maybe seeing the hope of escape had altered her mood. After all, it wasn't every day that two rebels went from certain defeat to escape so quickly.
The Ghost had shown up.
Eli had assumed it would engage the Imperials – and that's sort of what they were doing. The rear gun of the rebel ship was shooting back at the perusing TIEs, but just enough that they kept their distance. The front ramp of the shuttle had dropped, and – Eli felt his stomach drop – the front ramp of the Ghost had opened as well.
The gap wasn't really that far – but of course when two ships were flying side by side at a high rate of speed barely skimming the surface of a planet – any distance seemed much farther than it really was.
There was the Lasat waiting to offer a hand – Eli had to dig through his memory to remember his name – Garazeb Orrelios… When he saw Eli's Imperial uniform, he said something – impossible to tell what, with the wind and the engines roaring, but clearly not approving.
Apparently, Garazeb didn't have much of a say in what the other two decided, maybe he didn't have the same status or rank as the Jedi or the Twi'lek, because Eli suddenly felt a shove… well, it wasn't exactly a shove. It was hard to explain – it was like gravity had suddenly ceased to exist, and then a separate force had moved him from where he'd been standing on the shuttle platform over the gap, towards the Lasat.
Garazeb grabbed his arm, and flung him into the cargo bay, probably with a lot more force than needed to be. Eli rolled over once before coming to a halt – and tried to scramble to his feet in time to make one last effort to escape maybe. By the time he found his footing, Hera and Ezra were already on board, the door shutting.
"So if you weren't kidnapping me, you're doing a really awful job at it," Eli said.
"Yeah, well, we don't want to get shot down," Ezra said with a cocky grin. The kid certainly had a change of heart once they were safely aboard the Ghost.
Eli frowned, realizing that Thrawn's threat had worked in one situation, but now had him in a corner.
"Hera, are you mad!?" the Lasat roared. "What are you doing bringing an Imperial on board?"
"Like Ezra said," Hera explained. "He's our assurance that we won't get shot down."
"So instead you'll just run across the galaxy until you lose fuel," Eli said, feeling horribly awkward and out of place. He didn't know where to stand, or how to stand, or what to do really. He'd had many instances where he'd been a fish out of water – actually, that summed up the majority of his time in the Imperial Navy – but it was hard to compare with suddenly finding himself a prisoner onboard a rebel craft.
Hera began climbing a ladder – to the cockpit, Eli guessed, and just smirked, "Haven't been caught yet."
"You've never been chased by Thrawn before," Eli said. "He's not going to stop-"
But she was gone without another word. Which left Eli trailing off and feeling awkward again. Thankfully he wasn't the center of attention anymore. The Lasat went to smack Ezra upside the head, but Eli guessed with his Jedi powers, he saw the attack coming and dodged it.
"What. Were. You. Thinking!?" Garazeb roared.
"With the exception of some extra baggage, the mission was a success," Ezra answered.
Eli felt his heart lurch. They had a mission? And it had been successful!? What had they done? Planted bombs? Stole data? He didn't think they'd been at the base long enough to actually pull anything off-
"The kalikori? Hera got it?" Garazeb asked.
Before Ezra could confirm, Eli burst out laughing. The two turned to look at him, having forgotten he was there.
Eli couldn't help it. On their way to Ryloth, Thrawn had been pouring over Twi'lek art and culture. He was particularly fascinated with the way that the Twi'lek culture used art to pass on a family legacy. Of course, he would… and thankfully Thrawn had shared a bit of that knowledge with Eli.
"Just wait, you two infiltrated an Imperial base… to steal art?" Eli asked with a laugh of disbelief. "Oh, Thrawn's going to love that-"
"We've got to do something about this," Garazeb said, pointing a thumb at Eli. "Can't just have him wandering around."
"You could always let me go-" Eli tried.
A minute later, and he was locked in one of the cabins. Eli didn't even resist much. The room he found himself in was bare, with nothing he could use to surprise or attack his captors. Not like he planned to resist.
As far as he could tell, these rebels had no idea what they were going to do with him. Strange that Thrawn could have predicted them acting in a way that they themselves hadn't considered.
Eli put his ear to the door for a moment, making sure he wouldn't be heard, before retreating to the bunk and sitting down.
With a sigh, he pressed a tile on his rank plaque.
"I'm here, sir," he said into the commlink that Thrawn had cleverly installed into his plaque.