Thrawn stood in his office, a map of a section of Lothal projected in front of him. Three airfields had been hit by rebels in the last 40 hours, all of them planet and not spacebound. Walking around it with his hands behind his back, he regarded the locations and possible vectors of entrance and exit from the reports he had read.
"Why would they just attack planet to planet airfields?" Governor Pryce asked. "That doesn't do them any good."
"They are looking to cut off supplies to major importers," Thrawn said cooly. Could she not see that from looking at the locations? "This airfield sends food stuffs to three separate mining and factory facilities." He pointed to the first of the locations. "This one exports raw materials from a phosporium mine to the city, where it is distributed to two different locations." His finger lingered near the second indicator. "And this one," he placed his index on the third glowing, red dot, "sends doonium from the processing plant to my factory in the capital city."
"They are trying to shut down factory operations?" Pryce asked.
"It would appear so," Thrawn agreed. Though if they were truly doing that, they would have struck different, or at the very least, more airfields. They had only struck three, and the three of them didn't go to the same sector on the planet. "These, however," he continued, "were not carefully chosen. Quite the contrary, they were chosen because of their close proximity to here," he pointed to a green dot on the map.
"And what, pray tell, is that?" Pryce crossed her arms in front of her ample chest. She was wearing the tight frown that she so often sported at these meetings. It betrayed her confusion and frustration. It was that frustration that caused her to miss details that she otherwise might have picked up on. That frustration was a huge weakness that she did not even realize she touted in front of the entire world. Frustration caused sloppy thinking. She definitely wasn't thinking at the moment, Thrawn noticed.
"That, Governor Pryce," he said with a tap of his finger in the air, "is a rebel base."
Her bright blue eyes went wide. "A wha—how do you know that's a rebel base?" She squared her shoulders, trying to rein in her surprise.
"Because of the way the attacks were carried out," he said simply. "I have sent a contingency to this location to eliminate the rebel threat in that area. When they report, we will see how big of a base it was. I suspect it is a small one." He put his hands behind his back, gazing at the map still. "It may already be largely dismantled."
Pryce made a snide noise. "They won't get away so easily," she promised. "Not that we now know where they are."
"Where some of them are," Thrawn corrected. "There will be few people left in this location at this point, there is no reason for them to stay unless they are thoroughly convinced that no one knows of their location. But after having attacked all three airfields, there is too great a risk that someone will follow them back. No, I think we will find only a handful remain."
He turned finally and looked at Pryce, his gaze intent. "But a handful is all that I need."
Pryce opened her mouth to say something, but the door indicated a visitor, cutting her off.
"Enter," Thrawn called.
The door slid open and a young crewmember approached with a small box in one hand and a datapad in the other. "This arrived from the Crimson Asp, sir," he said, holding the box out. "It was marked low priority, but Commodore Faro thought you might want it immediately."
Thrawn turned off the holoprojector of the map, leaving the space it occupied empty and approached the crewman.
"And this is the art collection from the Grand Museum on Coruscant on Lothal that you ordered." The crewman held out the datapad.
Thrawn took it. "Thank you," he said, motioning for the crewman to put the box on his desk. "This will help."
"Help with what?" Pryce asked as the crewman left.
Did she truly not understand? "The Grand Museum has collections on almost all of the outer planets, artifacts dealing with art and culture. It will help me to understand the mindset of your people."
She pursed her mouth. "You could simply ask me about my people," she said in a huff. "They are my people."
"Ah, but a people's art shows many of the subconscious undercurrents that lie in the population." With the little he'd seen so far, he'd already been able to glean a great deal about Lothal culture.
Pryce did not look like she liked the answer he gave. "I will leave you to it, then," she said turning to leave. "I look forward to hearing the report about the supposed rebel base," she threw over her shoulder.
"Of course," he replied.
The door slid shut, leaving him alone again in his office.
He glanced over at the low priority box from the Crimson Asp. No doubt it was information that Viita had forgotten to give him about his experience with Thrawn's borrowed TIE's. He walked over to his desk, his boots clicking in the silence of the room, and reached for the box. No, Viita wouldn't have given it a low priority. He was too excited by the prospect of the TIE Defenders themselves, and would have wanted to have the information acknowledged as soon as possible. Even if Thrawn didn't deem the information useful.
Thrawn furrowed his brows and frowned. Then what was in the box?
He opened the lid to find a piece of yellow cloth neatly folded inside, with a datacard on top of it. He took the datacard and placed it on his desk, then removed the cloth. Unfolding it revealed an intricately laced mat, made with tiny, expert stitches. He recalled Madam Tristane using her arm to measure the ancient mariner vessel that now adorned a bookshelf in his cabin. This lace mat was the exact right size to place underneath it. The workmanship was exquisite, he admired.
He placed it gently down and plucked up the datacard. Putting it in his personal datapad, he saw it was a handwritten letter, the handwriting bubbly and free flowing. It read:
Dear Grand Admiral Thrawn,
Here is the doiled mat I promised at the end of our Snooks match. It is worked in a traditional Astarraxian shell pattern, which I thought would go well with the model of the ship that you won. I did not know your decor, so I kept it the traditional saffron yellow. Hopefully it is the right size to fit underneath the ship. You can now claim you have an original, handcrafted, piece of princess Astarraxian lace and not be lying.
I do hope that the journals that the pilots that used your modified TIE fighters provided your staff with some useful information. I did not give my brother any specific instructions to pass onto the pilots when writing things down, as I thought a freeform method might produce some knowledge that was hitherto undocumented. If it did not, then I apologize for wasting your staff's time. But maybe they found out some good gossip to make up for it.
I meant what I said when I told you that our match was the best game of Snooks that I have ever played. I am not sure if I will be able to play again, now, I think you might have ruined the experience for me. I will find it boring now. No one will be able to match you.
Your friend,
Luxsolaria Viita-Tristane
So she was the one who suggested the journals. Thrawn turned back to the lace mat, admiring the stunning workmanship. It was worthy of putting in a frame as a piece to display on its own. But he would honor Madam Tristaine's wishes, and place it under the ancient mariner vessel.