The gym was a vast Navy-grey cavern under glaring lighting. None of the frills of her smart Coruscant health club, but enough machinery and weights to keep Corlag's men in trim. As she'd hoped, it was empty at this late hour. In the changing-room, Wynssa quickly slipped into her leotard and legwarmers, tied up her hair, and snapped on her heart-rate monitor. Oh the bliss of it. Just a workout, no socializing, no endless dinners or dratted reviews. Back in the main room, she stretched for a few minutes, then, having eyed the track and stepper, picked the exercise tribike. She set the gravity on Corellian values, 5% heavier than the ship's standard, and set off for a warm-up at a brisk RPM. Twenty minutes later, she had worked up a nice sweat, a 110 pulse, and her spirits had shot up like a TIE Interceptor, Corlag a distant memory. Time to go hang from a bar or two. She climbed off the bike and made a beeline for the far wall, mopping her face and neck with her towel--
--and almost collided with another late exerciser lifting weights. Blast. It was too much to hope that she could be alone. She mumbled an apology, tossing the towel around her neck, and stopped in her tracks when she identified the weight-lifter. "Lieutenant--Thrawn, yes? Now where had you vanished all this while?"
He looked at her with enough cool deliberation to surprise her, then set down his weights into the notches of their cross-bar. "There are 37,000 of us on the 'Empire's Revenge', Miss Starflare. You may not have met all of us yet."
Was he making fun of her? She flushed and returned his look steadily. He was wearing khaki shorts and a singlet, showing the long muscles of a runner. His pale-blue skin was smooth as a marble statue. Out of uniform he definitely looked more alien. "There's only one of you in the officer corps, lieutenant, and I have seen enough officers in the past five days to man a Golan space station, I can assure you," she said tartly.
It was really no more than a twitch of his lips, but she caught it, and grinned. "Ah, that's better! For a moment I really thought you disliked me enough to avoid me."
Now Thrawn did look taken aback for an instant. "You are very... direct, Miss Starflare," he said eventually.
"Bantha by the horns, that's my motto." She couldn't believe she'd just said that. Now what in stars' name is the matter with me? Light-headed from the extra oxygen already? They were standing close to the fixed bar, and stepping back, she sprang up, on her toes, to grab it and hang straight, feeling her spine stretch blissfully, vertebra by vertebra. I must have been a hawkbat in a previous life. "So, lieutenant, were you? Avoiding me?"
He was staring at her with interest now. "Yes."
She nearly let go of the bar. In an instant, he was under her, ready to grab hold of her. That close, she could see the top of his short but thick blue-black hair, a few centimeters from her waist. "I'm all right," she said, swinging lightly to prove it. He took one step back and she let herself drop to the floor. "Nice technique. First startle the target, then pick her up."
He did laugh at that, a short sound that didn't quite seem in character. "I would say you have the tactical advantage of me, Miss Starflare."
"You're doing it again."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Lobbing the zoneball back at me."
"Do I?"
"I asked about your world and you got out of answering by guessing my accent. Now instead of telling me why you're avoiding me, you butter me up with some nonsense about tactical advantage."
"Butter you up," he repeated unhurriedly, as if considering the words and their meaning literally, and she felt herself blush, blurting out: "It's an expression."
"I gathered as much," he said with a slight smile of those thin, well-defined lips. "Very well, Miss Starflare: I was advised by one of my superiors to stay away from you."
"To stay away from-- "
"You are the Captain's guest. I was given to understand that he would not appreciate your taking an interest in me. For whatever reason," he added before she could voice an objection.
Stay away from her. What did that idiot Corlag think? She recalled having mentioned the non-human junior officer to him two days before, almost in passing. She couldn't remember his answer now.
"But what a nerve!" she spluttered.
"Yes, was it not?"
She had almost nothing to compare it to, yet his tone struck her. It sounded--almost flippant, and completely out of character. Again. He must have caught the narrowing of her eyes, because he smiled again, and it was a very different smile from the first, crinkling the corners of those strange glowing red eyes. "Don't encourage me on the path of self-indulgence, Miss Starflare. No, I didn't especially like it, but this is the Imperial Navy, not a holiday resort. It doesn't owe me a social life -- just a military career."
"And are you getting that?"
He considered her for an instant, then set to choosing another set of weights. "Oh, yes. I really have no cause to complain."
She looked on as he slid the additional weights on either side of the crossbar, then stepped under it and started lifting them above his shoulders in a smooth motion. He was a magnificent athlete, deceptively lean; he hardly showed the effort the movement obviously required. She waited until he'd finished ten extended lifts and set the crossbar back into its durasteel trestle before she asked quietly:
"Why this Navy career? Wouldn't your own world need your talents more than the mighty Imperial machine?"
His eyes glittered at that, and instinctively she took a step back. "My...world...is... not... interested," he spat out, grabbing the heavy weighted crossbar again and jabbing it above his head almost without pause for several minutes. When he finally set it down, a fine sheen of sweat shone on his face and his bare shoulders. Embarrassed, Wynssa silently handed him her towel. He took it reflexively, dried his face and neck, then stared down at the drenched terrycloth, seemingly sliding back into the cool, unflappable persona she'd seen on the bridge. "I'll have this washed and sent back to you. I apologize; I shouldn't have used it."
"Don't worry about this. It's the ship's, not mine. I--I'm the one who should apologize."
He looked at her from slightly narrowed eyes. "No. No, you said nothing wrong. On the contrary, you were quite perceptive. And right, of course. My world thinks it has no use for me, Miss Starflare, and so I had to pursue a military career by other means in order to be one day of service to them. When the Imperial Navy found me, in fact, I was in exile."
"You had left?"
"I had been banished. To an uninhabited planet."
Her eyes widened: "Alone? With -- no ship?"
He simply nodded.
"My stars! How long?"
"Five years. I was... rescued by an Imperial Star Destroyer."
"That was fortunate."
"Oh, I... assisted fortune somehow. But yes, I could not have made them stop on the planet if it hadn't been on their route; that was indeed lucky."
She wondered what "assist Fortune" could have meant, and if he realized what a heroic figure he cut--the abandoned soldier on his solitary rock, now turned into a model naval officer of another civilization. "I would have gone mad," she said with conviction.
"You--"
"Alone to survive on a deserted planet, with an almost certain chance of having to spend the rest of my existence there?"
"That world actually had interesting resources -- minerals, a rich vegetation, a good atmosphere. It was my hope that some colonists might eventually come to claim it."
"You simply won't accept to be called a hero, lieutenant, is that it?" she asked lightly.
He smiled at that: "Holodramas require heroes, Miss Starflare. All I had to do was stay alive."
"And 'assist' Fortune."
He cocked his head to consider her: "Again, at the risk of repeating myself--you are extremely perceptive, Miss Starflare."
"Wynssa."
He seemed to hesitate, then extended his hand in an oddly formal manner: "Wynssa. Very well. Please call me Thrawn."
She took his hand and shook it firmly. "You realize that I won't resist asking you why you'd been exiled, do you?"
He smiled slightly: "A very long story, mis-- Wynssa. I don't think I could tell it in less than the time required for, say, dinner."
So much for all that "stay away from her" business. "No need for that," she joked. "It's now obvious to me you must have been guilty of arrant recklessness."
His face froze for an instant, and when he spoke, his voice was space-cold: "But how clever of you, Wynssa. It was indeed recklessness."
She looked at him wordlessly. The intensity of his answers was almost disturbing – as if half the words were booby-trapped. A change from my usual conversations in the holo business, surely. Still, it upped the stakes unexpectedly. She now had a choice – diffuse the tension with another, lighter pleasantry, or let open the floodgates of his reminiscences. She had enough experience to know that he was ready to confide in her. And to realize that, in what seemed to be his current self-flagellating mood, he might afterwards regret it.
Better tone this down a bit. At least for now.
"Lieutenant, I don't—"
"Thrawn."
"Thrawn, I don't know—what —you did to set yourself against your people. But somehow, I have a feeling you'd do it again today, if you found yourself in the same situation."
He stood silent for an instant, absently folding the towel. "You're taking issue with the word 'reckless'."
She nodded, and smiled. "Yes. Yes, I suppose I do. I'm guessing you tend to be hard on yourself."
"No more than others," he said quietly. "And certainly no more than necessary. Do you do stage work, Wynssa?"
She stared at him in surprise at the sudden change of subject. "Do I—?"
"Theater. You're precise. You pay attention to words."
He was quick, she had to give him that. "Yes, I do. Or did – holos seem to take more and more of my time these days." She grinned. "And they pay a lot more."
"In that case, I hope you won't be too disappointed by the technicians' mess I was hoping to take you to."
She had meant to steer the conversation back to a safer pitch, she reflected, so why did she now feel disappointed?
Thrawn threw her a shrewd look. "Second thoughts, Miss Starflare?"
Am I so transparent? "No. If you don't. When did you have in mind?"
He smiled, but did not take the bait. "Tonight would be a bit late. How about tomorrow, 19:00?"
"You're a fast operator once you've made up your mind, aren't you?"
He inclined his head slightly, with an odd formality. "It's always good tactics."
And how's that for a deadpan? "Very well, tomorrow it is. How shall—"
"It's not that easy to find – the "Revenge" is a large ship. I could meet you here, and escort you."
Well, that would take care of one problem – her suite was distressingly close to Corlag's ready room. Still—
"I would also suggest that you dress more – neutrally than when you visited the bridge. If such a suggestion doesn't offend you."
She had to laugh at that. "And where would we be if it did? Now let me guess, you'd want me to wear technician's overalls? Possibly with a cap?"
"You understand me so well, Miss Starflare."
When he grinned like that, he looked very human after all, she reflected. "The thing is, I'm not sure I've packed something that will look enough like your standard Imperial mechanic's outfit."
"That's what quartermasters are for." He looked at her appraisingly. "Why don't you hang on to your locker's key overnight? When you come in tomorrow evening, you'll find the overalls inside and you can change here."
And that would take care of any question as to her whereabouts; she'd already established an exercise routine in the few days she'd been on board "Empire's Revenge." "That's very clever," she said.
"Very simple."
"And you're not worried someone will track the missing overalls to you?"
"Not unless they're looking for a sliced line of code which could, or could not, have been a request form."
She threw up her hands. "With this kind of ingenuity just to organize a dinner date, I wonder that you're not a general already."
She'd sat down on the exercise mat to unhook her zoneball sneakers, but looked up when no answer was forthcoming. The alien lieutenant hadn't moved and was considering her with those strange glowing eyes. "That's for tomorrow night's conversation," he finally said.