Thrawn stared at the open doorway for an instant after Mikam had gone, then turned to Wynssa Starflare. The HoloNet star was still wearing the overalls he had diverted from ship's reserves, now stained with dirt and engine grease. Strands of dune-colored hair escaped from her misshapen mechanic's cap. With her expressive blue eyes, and the streak of soot on her left cheek, she looked vibrantly alive.
"Will he be all right?" she asked, interrupting his thoughts.
"I think so. We can't be entirely sure, because I don't know what Corlag will remember, or if anyone else saw him. Worse, saw that Piett saw him. If they go after anyone, they'll go after Piett first." But it's Mikam she cares about and laughs with, Mikam she told her family history to.
Wynssa took off the crumpled cap, releasing an untidy, golden ponytail. "Who's 'they'?"
At that moment, he wanted nothing more than to run his hands through her glorious hair. The iron self-discipline that had served him all these years helped him answer dispassionately. "Corlag and the hidebound element in the Navy brass – people who don't like original tactics, don't like younger officers like Piett with no Core ties, don't like experiments like bringing in a non-human in the Navy. I might add that seen from anyone's point of view, there's enough grounds for an accusation of mutiny, you know."
"But Corlag was going to get us killed!"
"That opinion will provide a court-martial board plenty of food for discussion."
"You take things so calmly."
He paused. "Not—always."
"I can't imagine you could ever be shaken by anything."
He took a step closer. "You are mistaken," he said in a low voice.
She glanced up at him then, and fell silent, eyes locked in his. He knew how difficult humans found it to hold his phosphorescent gaze. Somehow, he was not surprised that she would. "I promise you I'll do everything I can to spare him that," he said quietly.
A puzzled look crossed the blue eyes. "Commander Piett?"
Piett? Now it was his turn to be perplexed. "I meant Rory, of course. I understand how much he—means to you."
"Rory— Now look here, I'm very fond of Rory, he makes me think of my kid brother; somehow I think Wedge could grow up like that. But what exactly is this supposed to mean?"
The "Empire's Revenge" was lying in stationary wait behind the system's red dwarf. Still he was still sure he felt the deckplates rock under him. Could I have so spectacularly misread this situation? "You told him everything about your family and getting Corlag drunk," he said somewhat defensively.
"Yes." The blue eyes were still intent on his, but their corners crinkled now. "I did."
"You were joking as if you both thought of the same thing at the same time."
Her smile widened. "That's right. We had a good number going, Rory and I." Unexpectedly, she reached out and took his hand. "Come sit here."
The touch of her fingers was electric. His hand closed tightly on hers, and instead of yielding, he pulled her to him. "There is no time now. I'm sorry if I offended you."
"Of course you didn't offend me. In fact I would like you to watch out for Rory, because he's a friend. Yours and mine. But I want you to watch out for yourself too, do you understand?"
The slight Corellian intonation in her voice was intoxicating. He drew her nearer. "I hope I do. This time."
This close to him, she nodded silently, and broke their eye lock. He rested his other hand lightly on top of her shoulder, near a curl of blond hair, very aware that his fingers shook slightly. He could hear her quiet, regular breathing.
"Wynssa—"
"Syal."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Wynssa Starflare is a stage name. My real name is Syal, Syal Antilles."
"Syal," he repeated slowly, trying out the long diphthong, like wine in a glass. "I like it. It suits you."
"My parents were so dead set against my career that I changed it, and my agent—"
His hand moved under her chin and tipped her face upwards. "Sshhh. You'll tell me later." Their gazes locked again, but this time he bent toward her and kissed her lips, gently at first, then more passionately when she started to respond. It was like drowning, he thought, the world underwater, closed around them, silent and different and overwhelming. At some stage her arms closed around his neck, and his just found their place around her, the hollows and curves all at the right places, nestling, holding, always closer. He lost all sense of time for an instant, and the very strangeness of that dislocation brought him back to the surface, some small buoy in his mind reminding him of where they were. He whispered the new name.
"Syal."
"I—"
"I must go. I'll see you soon."
He felt, more than he heard, her assent. Letting her go was unnatural. He grasped her hand as they unwound, holding to it as to an anchor. "I cannot begin to tell you," he said in a very low voice, "how much this means to me."
Her eyes, again. Wide open, holding his. "Go, now. And come back to me."
He left.
***
Rory Mikam had stopped counting turbolifts after the twelfth opening of one or another pair of safety doors on the lift bank landing. Empty ones were not too bad, but he was getting tired of shaking his head at irritated passengers. What the frell was holding up—
No, here was Thrawn at last. His palm slammed the call panel again. "Get a move on! Piett's gonna have our heads."
"Yours. I was interrogating prisoners, remember?"
" Of all the ungrateful—oh. Uh-uh. Things going well for you, I see?"
The arrival of an empty turbolift saved Thrawn from answering; They piled into it. "Lucky nek," Mikam persevered, grinning. "She's a great gun. And easy on the eye."
Thrawn's strange red eyes glittered dangerously. Rory's grin widened. Abruptly, the other said "How can you tell?"
"How can I—" He started laughing. "You're serious, aren't you? Well, well. Never thought you'd be the one asking me something. My friend, this is the first time since you showed up in our dorm nine months ago that you don't look like you could freeze a blaster bolt from the moment you hop out of bed. Plus, the delectable Miss Starflare is obviously stuck on you. Plus, you've just spent ten minutes alone with her. How hard is it to get the hologram? Don't they ever get lucky in that place you come from?"
It was a day for firsts. Rory could have sworn Thrawn looked briefly at a loss, another expression he had never expected to see on that handsome blue face. He'd thrown the last question more rhetorically than anything, but to his surprise, his bunkmate answered. "Relationships are—more formal with us. Marriages are partly arranged. Other—relations are not very—sentimental."
None of us here knows anything about this guy, do we? Or bothered to ask. Not that I think he'd have told a thing. Mikam had a hundred questions for his new friend—yes, he's that now, funny how I'm so certain. But the turbolift had arrived at bridge level. It would have to wait.