"….Eli… Eli Vanto…."
Eli came to slowly, the sound of his name like a wave pounding against his frail body, something crashing into his consciousness which he couldn't ignore. He opened his eyes.
Everything was fuzzy – he could sense more than see figures around him. The Togrutas were moving around excitably and he couldn't focus on any of them long enough to understand what was going on.
The sounds were fuzzy, too. Screams… or just… whatever it was, cheers? Eli felt it more like waves of sound rumbling against his ears and not like hearing the sounds themselves.
No… that didn't make any sense…
Eli winced, trying to clear his mind. Why was he awake?
There it was again – an echo in the dark.
"Eli Vanto!"
"This is you?" a voice, a closer one – one of the Togrutas - asked, shaking Eli's shoulder gently. "They are calling for you! You were right! They're coming to save us!"
No…
Eli didn't know why he had no desire to be rescued. All he knew was that there was a very tangible ache in his heart at the very thought of someone coming for him and he couldn't understand why.
A different pair of hands fell on him, tapping his cheek softly, calling his name – Eli only opened his eyes for a moment, but the person looming over him… It took Eli a long time to figure out why he was confused. Ah. Because it was a human.
He hadn't seen another human in a long time.
Arms wormed their way underneath him. He no longer weighed as much as he once did, for Eli couldn't detect the person struggle much when they lifted him off the ground. Eli rested his head against the person's chest. The sudden burst of motion had made Eli dizzy. He raked his fingers weakly against his saviors' clothes, lacking the strength to grip the fabric, but still hoping to find an anchor to center himself with.
Why did they have to run?
Eli tried to shake his head, but he was too weak. Slow down he thought, and then scolded himself for complaining when he was, in fact, being rescued. But still… that nagging feeling at the back of his mind. He felt miserable about all of this. But why? Why now was he so unhappy?
Eli braced himself – the temperature had suddenly gone from hot and stuffy to cold and windy. They were out of the mine. Eli could tell, reaching back to a memory from a lifetime ago – the fresh air, the wind, the sudden openness of space he was somehow aware of… he was out.
A new hand touched his face. And yet another person said his name.
"He's barely hanging on," the person holding him said. Eli could feel the person's chest vibrating with his words. Eli had no idea who the person was talking to. Opening his eyes into the smallest of slits, he winced at the stinging brightness of natural light. Fingers were touching his neck and he jerked his head pitifully. But then the collar slipped away.
He really was being rescued.
The new person was speaking to him, but Eli couldn't register any of the words. Their faces were coming into better focus now, and-
Ah! Eli cringed as he felt the front of his uniform get ripped open and torn away, exposing his chest. Hands were on him again, trying to roll him on his side. Eli attempted to curl up into a defensive ball, kicking out pathetically with his legs. Someone or something smothered his legs to the ground, but the strength to resist them ebbed away quickly. His panic, though? Strong as ever.
"Help me get this off," one of them said. "We need access to these wounds."
They were examining his injuries…
And so the rest of the uniform was stripped away, Eli's heart rate notching up at the sound of the fabric ripping. He was a little closer to wanting to live again, for he got embarrassed for himself. A soothingly cool something was pressed against his back – something that seemed to draw the heat of infection away from his body… a bacta patch?
Another figure hovered over him.
"The shuttle will be here in two minutes-"
"We might not have two minutes."
"There's a surgical team on the shuttle, it'll be fine."
And yet another hand touched him. Eli was too weak to scowl but internally he was getting irritated by all the touching.
"Are you Eli Vanto?" a new voice asked.
Why does it matter? Eli wondered. He kept his eyes closed, his lips moving, but he hadn't spoken in so long. He couldn't even heave air out of his lungs with enough force to make a sound. So he stilled himself. If he was Eli Vanto anymore, it no longer mattered to him.
"He has to be, he's the only human here," another voice said.
"Here it is. Get him on the ship. And I'll let her know we found him."
-SWR-
Thrawn couldn't help but notice Governor Pryce was much happier than normal.
Presently, he was guiding her around the newly repurposed factory in Lothal's Capital City, and her reaction was not the one he expected.
Thrawn had assumed Pryce would find his plan to defeat the Rebels unconventional. Not to her liking. Too focused on the psyche of Lothal and not enough bombs and bloodshed.
Perhaps I have read her incorrectly.
His solution was as he'd originally suggested on the Chimaera weeks earlier –the surest way to end the Rebel insurgency on Lothal was to make the locals turn on them by their own volition. Before the locals would do that, they would have to feel like they were an essential part of the Empire and not merely subjected by it.
Hence, his idea to develop an entirely new TIE fighter. One that could turn the tide against the Rebellion in the larger war, as well as be used as a project the citizens of Lothal would have the pride of building themselves. Defeat for the Rebels on both fronts.
A win-win.
Yet Pryce had nothing to say about Thrawn's plans. She had nothing to say about the factory, or the TIE or much of anything. She very well could not have taken in a single word Thrawn said. Instead, Thrawn caught her checking her commlink multiple times throughout the tour. As though expecting a call, and was afraid of missing it in the loud din of the factory.
"As you see, Governor," Thrawn finished, turning to face her as the tour had come to an end. "The construction of the TIE Defender will not only supply the Empire with ships, it will also-"
"Yes, I heard this all already, haven't I?" Pryce interrupted him.
"So you were listening," Thrawn said. "I apologize for the repetition. You seemed distracted. Anticipating a call?"
She smiled slightly to herself, as though privy to a good joke Thrawn couldn't understand, or worse, was the victim of. Either that, or Thrawn had merely become more leery and distrustful after Eli-
Thrawn stopped himself there.
"Yes, a call," Pryce said, that smile growing by a fraction. "With some rather good news."
"Better than the first steps in gaining control over Lothal?" Thrawn asked.
Pryce's smile grew another fraction, but that long-awaited-for beep at her commlink kept her from replying.
"Yes?" she asked into it. "Is it done?"
"There's… been a problem, Governor."
Pryce immediately walked away at a clip that could almost be described as a run. Thrawn narrowed his eyes, watching her leave… She is seeking privacy now, when there is a problem. Not when she first answered the call. But Pryce had misjudged Thrawn's hearing, and came to a halt at a range that would have been well outside a human's ability to hear.
But not Thrawn's.
"What do you mean there's a problem!?"
"We've arrived at the site. It… appears to have been abandoned."
"If the site isn't the correct one, interrogate the agent again!"
"Governor, the mind probe-"
"He is an agent of the ISB. He is trained on how to use mind probes. They are subjected to it in the Academy, aren't they!?"
"But-"
"No more excuses! He knows where Vanto is-"
Thrawn stood up straighter in an instant. His heart skipping a beat, a breath caught in his throat. Out of all things he imagined this call would be over, what Pryce's smug happiness was about… They are looking for him! Which meant… Eli was -
"-and you had better sift through his mind, turn his brain into jelly if you must, and get information on where to find Vanto, do you understand? I need to have a body."
body…
The pain of that word alone was just as bad as the first time Thrawn had seen the holorecording of Eli's execution… the capitulation of such unbridled joy was as severe as a knife to his chest. No…. It was wrong to hope….if only he could let the past die.
Pryce was returning. Thrawn had had far too much practice lately on wearing an emotionless face. She could detect nothing.
Which was a good thing. Because it was while they were making their exit from the factory that Thrawn stumbled upon an idea. Why would they be looking for Eli's body now, months after his execution? What had happened to his body since? Where could a body have gone? If Eli was dead, Imperial protocol alone would guarantee his body be returned to his next of kin - which, in this instance, would his parents back on Lysatra. Immediately after his death. Traitor or not.
Did this mean the ISB agent who executed Eli merely… left Eli's body at the site… no…
If the prison in which Eli had been held in was an Imperial facility – and it most certainly was, judging by the prisoner's uniform he had been wearing during his execution and the ISB agent in charge of it – then someone who was sent there to recover a body would not be surprised to find the site abandoned. It must be a different site they are talking about.
And it certainly wouldn't mean that Eli's parents ever got his body. They would have fulfilled whatever cultural burial rites their family followed, burying it or burning it.
Which means the body was moved at the time of Eli's death.
Without Imperial sanction.
But to what purpose?
There was no industry that Thrawn knew of where the use of a dead Imperial body would be worth the trouble that ISB agent was in… but the agent was in trouble. He was being interrogated. For losing Eli's body or…
If they couldn't find the body, then that meant the ISB agent did something with it. Whatever he did with it had to be worth the risk he was taking. There is nothing of comparable worth he could have done with a dead body.Which means he did something with Eli when Eli was alive.
Which means the execution was fake. A false flag.
Thrawn said nothing as he boarded his shuttle alone. And nothing still as he made the trip back up to the Chimaera. There were still pieces on the board moving against him. The game was still being played. Appearances had to be kept up.
Thrawn went straight away to his office, all outwards appearances still the beaten man. Once he was alone, the dead expression lifted. He pulled up the holomap on his desk.
Faking a prisoner's death would give one unlimited freedom in what to do with that person. They would be unaccounted for. No one would look for them. Until a body was needed… And there was only one industry Thrawn could think of where any substantial gain could be had from "losing" a person.
The search came back with a long list, but Thrawn was ready.
Slaving operations.
Thrawn plugged in the coordinates the Chimaera had been at when Eli went missing. The list shortened considerably.
A smile appeared on Thrawn's face, the first in weeks, as he settled into his chair and prepared to scour over the research at his fingertips.
The time had come to begin playing his hand in the game.