Force Smuggler - Elementary, my dear reader! The game's afoot! Seriously, Thrawn's a challenge to write in this 'fic - I want to capture that Sherlockian behaviour of his (hence the whole chorus line of Baker Street Irregulars accompanying Watson-Pellaeon in these scenes), without really defining his underlying psychology or motivations beyond the ways he clashes with the other characters (Anakin sees him as an opponent, Jaina isn't sure what to think), and I'm never quite sure I get him entirely right...
The door to secondary command slid open, and a line of visitors marched in.
Their leader was a young man with an athletic build and short blond hair, dressed in a dark ensemble with an asymmetric cloak at his left shoulder. Behind him came another darkly-dressed man, sharp eyes darting beneath his long, untidy black hair, and a bulky cloak thrown round his torso, reinforcing the shadowed, brooding mood that he seemed to be wrapped up in, but not quite hiding the supple slightness of his physique. The rear was taken up by a female Twi'lek wearing what looked like a dancer's stage costume in black leather, accessorised with weapons.
They all had the slightly contrived look of duel-fighting young blades from Tapani or the Senex Sector, the sort of would-be cavaliers who had once dirtied the edges of the Imperial court.
And all three of them had lightsabers on their belts.
Captain Pellaeon gave a puzzled look. "I didn't expect the Imperial Inquisition," he said.
Thrawn looked as if he was about to offer a response, but he suppressed it with the twitch of an expression. "Indeed. They say that surprise is among their chief weapons." Those red eyes flickered over the three figures, finding the dark-haired boy. "Inquisitor von Urron, isn't it? I'm not sure the rest of us have been properly introduced."
The leader of the group gave a flicker of reaction, a smile, as if Thrawn had misplayed his move, and pretended to hide it with a short, ironic bow. "First Brother and Second Sister. And his name's Kyp. Kyp Durron. Perhaps your source of intelligence aren't as perfect as you sometimes think, Grand Admiral."
"Perhaps. But the loan of a shuttle full of Dark Troopers to support your mission represented a considerable act of generosity on the part of the Empire."
The young Inquisitor curled his lip, as if holding back a comment, but said nothing.
"Is there a particular reason that you're here, First Brother?" Thrawn prompted.
"You know that as well as I do, Grand Admiral." The young man had the attitude of someone who would much rather be somewhere else, though at the same time, his intense self-discipline and lean athleticism demanded Vane's attention, in a way she wondered if he was consciously aware of. "One of your agents removed a prisoner from the communications ship we recently recaptured, a Rebel pilot with Rogue Squadron. Once she's in my custody, you'll be welcome to continue your campaign against the New Republic without our interference."
"So you will be returning to the Citadel?" Thrawn asked, quietly conversational.
The Inquisitor looked at him for a moment, as if weighing what to say. "I'm not leaving here without my prisoner, Grand Admiral."
"Naturally," Thrawn nodded.
Vane glanced at the other two Inquisitors. The Twi'lek girl was posing languidly, deliberately attracting people's attention. Even Captain Pellaeon seemed to be checking her out, and Vane wondered if the Grand Admiral would regard her as artistic. The dark-haired boy was hanging back at the edge of the shadows, as if he didn't want to be too noticeable. But while they were less confrontational than their leader, all three of them were only pretending to relax. They had the practiced laziness of gunslingers, waiting for the moment to start shooting.
She looked back at the one who styled himself First Brother, and realised that he had a different lightsaber from the other two, without the distinctive curved guard fronting the hilt. She glanced at the holograms of the Skywalker weapons, noting the similarity of their design, an unspoken connection between the Rebels and this intense young Imperial.
"Perhaps you're here to attempt a trade?" Thrawn prompted, lifting one eyebrow slightly. "My agent, as you call him, was only able to bring one prisoner to Chimaera for interrogation."
The Inquisitor tensed at that. "What do you propose?"
"How about their ship? That, at least, will be useful to the Empire without significant modification."
"No, I think I might keep the freighter - it's a worthless piece of scrap, but we both know that a ship that unimpressive makes an excellent infiltration vessel. You can have the boy, and the blonde. The Wookiee too, I suppose. Use that stormtrooper braintwisting that your thug Kogo seems to like so much, or lend them to your Jedi Master out on Jomark. You won't be missing much."
Thrawn lifted his eyebrow higher, as if intrigued. "Your sister is closer to you than your brother, then?"
"Sister?" he asked, trying to laugh, but it sounded forced - and there was a sudden hardness to his gaze. Vane was struck by how dark his eyes were, like deep pools hidden in the undergrowth of an alien jungle world.
"Oh, it's really very simple, First Brother," Thrawn remarked, gesturing at the holographic images of Jedi lightsabers around his throne. "Your sister is very much Mara Jade's apprentice. She appears to be attempting to rework the tense, self-contradictory elegance of her mentor into a more traditional Jedi idiom, with less of a restrictive metropolitan rhythm. Your brother is a little careless, but perhaps that is a more studied, even philosophical, position than you believe. And as to you, you are determined to be a servant of the Force of the strictest, purest sort. But I suspect you dislike the contradiction in your identity which results from that?"
The Inquisitor's eyes flashed, molten gold igniting in their dark depths. "No more of your mind-games, Admiral. Are you really going to pretend you worked that out from our lightsaber designs?"
Thrawn seemed imperturbable. "Perhaps I simply have access to your own Imperial interrogation records, then?" he answered evenly, his gaze shifting for a moment to the Twi'lek girl beside him. "I am aware of what both of you have been through."
The First Brother glanced round at his companion, exchanging questioning expressions with her, a moment of communication Vane didn't understand. Then his dark eyes narrowed, as his attention shifted back to Thrawn. "Now you're trying to make us distrust each other."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps I understand you better than you give me credit." An imperceptible pause, and then another gesture took in the holographic display. "The identity embodied by a lightsaber is a fundamentally limited one, emphasising unsentimental aggression and a prompt deflection of opponents' attacks, and which thus seeks to encourage the aggression of others through feints and clumsy false diplomacy. Such a mindset is innately dangerous, and more easily manipulated than its practitioners believe."
The Inquisitor gave a reluctant smile. "I hope you'll excuse me if I place more confidence in my own training than your art-criticism, Grand Admiral. And I'm not leaving here without my sister." A pause. "Rebel or not, I think she's safer in my custody."
"Your custody? Or that of High Inquisitor Pasiq?"
The boy paused, frowning slightly. "That's really none of your business, Grand Admiral."
But there was an unspoken threat - perhaps an unconscious one - in the way he rested his hand on the handgrip of his lightsaber.
"Do we really need his permission, High Inquisitor?" the dark-haired boy behind him asked, his pose shifted to lean against the doorframe with folded arms, his tone surprisingly sardonic. "Why don't we just go down to the detention level and rescue her ourselves?"
"I should explain for the rest of our audience," Thrawn interjected, with the sort of smooth poise that made Vane realise exactly why he was the Grand Admiral - his ability to take command of situations wasn't limited to the battleplane. "The First Brother and the Second Sister, as they call themselves, were once members of the Rebellion, would-be Jedi like their siblings. After being captured on Kessel and sent to the Citadel on Prakith for Imperial training, they went rogue, and have been somewhat abusing their position, most recently by commandeering a squad of Dark Troopers from the Myrkr garrison, and passing off their presence here as an official mission…"
To Vane's surprise, the Inquisitor exhaled, emotion showing on his face. "Believe me, Grand Admiral. There's nothing I'd like more than to just stop having to dirty my hands with your toys. But I needed… I needed you Dark Troopers to rescue my sister, and I would really appreciate if you stopped playing games and just gave her back to me."
"Jace," the Twi'lek girl said, with what looked like genuine concern. "Should we be telling him this?"
"Kriffer already knows," the First Brother sighed. "I'm not going to do him the complement of gratifying his curiosity or resolving any puzzles, but even if Pasiq did get more than you admitted out of you, that doesn't change the fact he's figured it out, one way or another."
Thrawn nodded. "So, if I return your sister to your custody, you plan to leave the conflict altogether?"
The man who called himself the First Brother gave a wary, distrustful nod, but there was just a hint of a smile in it as well. "Something like that, yeah."
"Naturally." Thrawn's attention shifted, like a trap being sprung. "Will you be joining them, Inquisitor von Urron?"
"Why do you keep calling him that?" the First Brother asked, a snap in his tone now. "His name is Kyp. Kyp Durron."
"Indeed?" Thrawn's glance slipped effortlessly past him, to find the dark-haired young man standing at the shadow's edge behind him. "I know him as Kyprianus Freiherr von Urron zu Deyer, styled Baron d'Urron, heir-general of the Knights of Airon, a dynasty of Tionese descent with their origins in a schismatic branch of the Jedi. According to Imperial records, he was enrolled at CPI six months after the Battle of Endor, and seconded to the Citadel Inquisitorius on Prakith some three years ago. I have no reason to think that this information is incorrect. After all, the Emperor himself introduced us when he was presented at court by his late father, as I am sure he remembers just as clearly as I do myself."
The young man with the brooding look gave an unexpected smile, stood a little straighter, and acknowledged with a short, clipped nod. "Touché, Grand Admiral."
The First Brother's reaction was a flash of something between fury and disbelief, quickly hidden, but it had the force of an explosion. Vane had heard that Darth Vader could show warming twitches like that, before he started dismembering people who he didn't like with his lightsaber.
Thrawn's eyes flashed. Was that a warning gesture, too? But when he spoke, his voice seemed perfectly calm. "Perhaps you sources of intelligence aren't as accurate as you believed, Inquisitor. As I said. it is very easy to manipulate those who place too much faith in their own lightsaber."
"Kriff you."
Pellaeon and Tierce both looked like they might try to kill the young Inquisitor. Even the Noghri tensed so abruptly that the shadow he was hiding in seemed to flex and ripple. The idiotic deck officer beside Vane had to suppress a laugh.
Vane realised she had her hand tight around the grip of her belt pistol.
She realised that the three Inquisitors hadn't really left the space around the entrance during the whole confrontation, and she wondered if some of the rumours she'd heard about ysalamiri weakening Force sorcery were true. If so, that probably meant they were in the part of the room where they could still use their powers to full effect.
She glanced again at the First Brother's lightsaber, and the Skywalker weapons arranged around Thrawn's throne.
"Enough," Thrawn said. "Inquisitor, your sister will be waiting for you in the hangar bay alongside your shuttle. I have more pressing duties to attend to than the petty squabbles of some would-be Skywalkers."
Vane wondered if that was going to be enough for the lean young man with the blond hair and the distinctive lightsaber.
"Jacen." The Twi'lek girl had her hand on her companion's arm, a gesture designed to distract him and defuse the tension. If he realised he was being played, he allowed himself to be manipulated.
"We'll discuss this later," he said, turning away with a flourish of his cloak, and gesturing for his acolytes to follow. "I'm leaving here. If she's harmed…"
They disappeared out of the room, the man who Thrawn had called the Baron d'Urron offering a shrug as he took up the rear.
The Noghri watched them leave with a throat-cutting glare. Most of the other Imperials wore expressions of disbelief, or just relief.
Except, Vane noted, for the white-uniformed figure in the high-backed command chair.
"Well," Grand Admiral Thrawn remarked mildly. "That went well."