The animal he kills is almost three meters tall and outweighs him by perhaps as many as three hundred kilos. In ordinary circumstances, he wouldn't have killed it at all. It's too far from his shelter and he didn't come prepared with a sled to drag it back across the snow. But he had no choice; it panicked when it saw him and attacked out of pure instinct, and he could only survive if he killed it first.
He touches its flank, unmoving now but still warm. Its fur is thick but not coarse; for a moment he simply kneels there, the snow seeping through the legs of his worn-out black uniform, the knees reinforced with patches made of hide.
And then he pulls out his knife.
He makes incisions in even circles around each of the beast's hooves, slicing neatly through the pelt and, if he gauges the depth correctly, the membrane underneath which connects the flesh to the animal's muscles. Moving up, he runs one hand down its spine, searching for the right spot to bore a hole—
"Oh, come on," Ezra said, forcing his way out of the memory and opening his eyes. "I say no to learning how to tan an animal hide, so you line up an educational memory and just lecture me in your mind instead?"
"For some unknowable reason," said Thrawn from the other side of the fire, watching the pot as it boiled, "I simply can't stop thinking about tanning."
Had Ezra thought recently that Thrawn was bearable, once you got used to him? He was reevaluating that statement.
"Let's just make it a rule that I can only be trained in one thing at a time," Ezra said. "We're focusing on mind-reading for now. Maybe when I finish mind-reading we can move on to gross stuff, okay?"
Thrawn gave him a dubious look, but Ezra was already throwing himself back into Thrawn's mind, chasing down each individual strand of thought until it led him to a memory
He stands in a training room adjacent to his office, his white tunic hung up in a closet nearby. Before him stand two massive assassin droids, neither of them activated until he crosses the room and hits a timed switch on each droid's chest plate.
He's already at the other end of the training room when their eyes light up and they stir into action. They don't take long to warm up to a fight; seconds later, they are after him, one coming at him from the side and the other charging directly toward him. His eyes dart from one to the next in rapid-fire analysis, predicting which will strike him first.
He ducks just as the first droid swings for his head; its durasteel arm, thirty times stronger than the average human man and twenty-nine-point-five times stronger than the average Chiss, sweeps through thin air. Simultaneously, he throws himself forward across the floor, landing in a forward roll just to the side of the second droid's feet.
He can sense them recalibrating, figuring out their next blows before he even hits the ground. As he rolls, the first droid swivels on a pivot point in its waist, turning to face his new location. The second droid steps back, lining itself up perfectly for what could be a devastating blow to his ribs — but he dodges it again, this time swiveling away from both droids at the same time.
The first droid's arm collides with the second droid's chassis, sending them both a little off-kilter. Their next blows are fainter as a result, easier to block.
And then, through the open door to the training room, he spots an unfamiliar man walking by — someone dressed as a stormtrooper with the white insignia V-1399 on his shoulder, but without the familiar gait and body language belonging to Geyes, the trooper who wears that armor every day.
Deactivation code: Rukh, he says, and the doors slide closed behind him even as the droids power down.
"Wait," Ezra said, pulling out of the memory to glare at Thrawn. It took him a moment to realize Thrawn wasn't where he thought he was — the pot was missing from the fire pit, and when Ezra looked around, he saw Thrawn kneeling in front of the animal hide several meters away, his grotesque concoction sitting off to the side as he coarsened the skin with a rock.
"You may take over if you wish," he said, sitting back and offering Ezra the rock.
"What? Oh. Right." Ezra jogged forward a few steps and took the rock without thinking about it, his mind still stuck on the memory he'd just witnessed. "You just showed me a memory I've already seen before," he said.
Thrawn moved away, clearing the space in front of the animal hide. When Ezra didn't immediately fill his spot, he gestured at the skin. Impatiently, Ezra knelt down and started scraping at the skin with the rock, not really sure what he was doing.
"Like this?" he asked.
Thrawn nodded. "You saw my training regimen on the Chimaera," he said.
"Yeah, I guess," said Ezra. "Insane kriffing regimen, by the way. But it's the exact same one I've already seen before, because I was there when it happened. I was the trooper."
Thrawn didn't respond, letting Ezra rough up the rest of the skin.
"So did you show me that one on purpose?" Ezra prompted. "Is this just Mess-With-Ezra Day or something?"
"What precisely do you expect?" Thrawn asked, taking a seat nearby. He leaned forward to watch Ezra work, his arms folded on his knees. "You are aware I have tanned hides before in order to make winter clothes, and you know I have trained against assassin droids. Let's assume for the purposes of this exercise that you are using your Force technique to invade an enemy's mind for information, not for practice — if the enemy knows you are examining his thoughts and memories, would he not ensure you are presented first and foremost with the memories least likely to offer valuable information? In this case, information you are already aware of or memories you have already seen?"
Ezra frowned, grinding the rock as hard as he dared into the skin without breaking through to the other side. "How would an enemy know if I'm looking into his mind, though?"
Thrawn looked at him as if he were stupid.
"What?" Ezra asked. He turned toward Thrawn and cocked his arm back, threatening half-seriously to throw the rock.
"Even someone who isn't Force-sensitive can feel it when another being invades his thoughts, whether it causes pain or not," said Thrawn. His voice was smooth and nonjudgmental, as if it make up for his expression earlier. "It is not dissimilar to a physical sensation of touch."
Ezra absorbed that, turning back to his chore as he mulled it over. It was reasonable, he supposed — but still annoying. "Are you gonna do that all day, then?" he asked. "I mean, if I go back into your mind again, am I just gonna see more memories of things I've seen before?"
"Or memories which are useless to you," Thrawn agreed. "Unless you manage to penetrate my defenses and find the memories I am deliberately keeping from you."
Ezra's interest sparked at that, though he tried not to show it. He thought it over as he finished the roughing, one particular aspect of the memories standing out.
He turned to look at Thrawn over his shoulder. A smile tugged at his lips.
"You're a Chiss," he said.
Thrawn's expression went from wary to resigned.
"That's your species name," said Ezra triumphantly, "isn't it? In that last memory, you said the assassin droids were twenty-nine times stronger than the average Chiss. Why would you say that if it wasn't your species? I mean, why would you compare the droids to some random other species, right? It's gotta be you."
Thrawn regarded him thoughtfully for a long moment, then gestured for Ezra to move away from the hide. Thrawn took his place, bringing the clay pot and a handmade paintbrush with him.
"You are correct," he said, dipping the brush in the awful, watery mixture inside the pot. He spread it onto the skin in careful, even layers, slowly softening the hide. "You see — even repetitive, seemingly useless information can trigger new observations. All it took in this instance was witnessing the same event from a different point of view."
Ezra stood with his hands on his hips and scoffed. "You're just trying to cover up the fact that I extracted two things from you in one day."
Thrawn didn't bother to respond. He was already starting a second coat on the skin.
With a sigh, Ezra threw himself back into the connection. This time, he decided, he would stick to it — he wouldn't pull out until he had some new piece of information, something he could say without a doubt that he had earned.
He lies on the mattress with his boots on, staring up at the bunk overhead. His datapad is propped up on his chest, but the screen is darkened. Above him, someone — a cadet, Ezra figures, but he isn't sure how he knows the man's rank — peers down at him over the edge of the top bunk.
Are you seriously sleeping with your shoes on? the cadet asks.
You don't? Thrawn replies. There's something weird about his voice — a thick accent Ezra has never heard before twisting his words.
The cadet just makes a face.
What if an emergency occurs while you are sleeping? Thrawn asks. His Basic is definitely off; the Wesks catch on his lips and turn into Vevs. His Reshes seem to get stuck on the tongue, particularly when they show up in the middle of a word.
Then you take some time to put your boots on before you go. Do you sleep in your uniform, too?
Of course not, Thrawn says. Through Thrawn's eyes, Ezra glances down at his clothes — Imperial-issue athletic trousers, like the kind worn by all cadets during PT, and a sleeveless undershirt. Not quite a uniform, not technically, but close enough that the cadet would probably argue with him about it. He hits the power button on his datapad and lays it aside, settling down against the mattress.
His left hand comes up, closing around the tarnished pendant around his neck. A sense of — the memory flickers — a sense of something engulfs him, a subtle surge of emotion Ezra can't quite identify. What can it possibly be? Anxiety? Anger? Sadness?
Peace?
The edges of the memory started to blur, specific sights and sounds dissolving all around him. Ezra panicked, fought for control, and found himself slipping into another memory instead.
He can tell the lock is broken before he's close enough to even try the key. He approaches it slowly, but not so slowly as to give away his knowledge in case the saboteur is watching. By the time he reaches the door, he has determined there are no traps waiting for him; it's simply a broken lock, a barracks room entered by someone who shouldn't have access. He swipes his key for appearance's sake and pushes his way inside.
The room is almost entirely untouched. His and Vanto's (Vanto? Ezra wonders) beds are still made, their chairs pushed into their respective desks. This is not, then, sabotage for the nightly inspections — but there are faint heat signatures left behind on the closet doors, and it is clear the lock on Thrawn's wardrobe has been picked, and clumsily so; he can see minuscule metal filings on the carpet beneath it.
He opens the wardrobe door. On the floor are his uniform items, each one removed from its hanger and dropped carelessly on the ground. He can see the rips in them from where he stands; someone has made large cuts in each article of clothing while he and Vanto were away, but it does not appear Vanto's clothes have been similarly defaced.
The memory shifted, splintering into little pieces again, dragging Ezra forward several hours in time. He sits on the bottom bunk from the first memory, bent over a pair of black uniform trousers — part of a cadet's uniform, he realizes belatedly. He's mending them by hand; by now he has two full uniform sets hanging in the wardrobe.
I didn't know you could sew, says that other cadet — Vanto, apparently.
Yes, certainly you did, says Thrawn. The cadet's nose wrinkles, but he doesn't argue.
I guess I should've, he says, now that I think about it. But still … furs are a bit different from Imperial uniforms, don't you think? I mean, that's an entirely different skill set.
Yes. But I have mended uniforms before, Thrawn says.
Well, still … it's not right for them to do stuff like that to you. You know, if they —
The walls broke down; Cadet Vanto's voice faded away. Ezra grasped around for something deeper, something different; he swept away shards of memories that seemed too easy to grasp, abandoning them in search of something else. It felt like he was swimming in a pit of thick, drying mud — and with his clothes and boots weighing him down.
He could feel a new memory twisting in the void around him, almost close enough to touch. But when he reached for it, it seemed to recoil, flinching away from his fingertips. Like it hadn't been prepared for him. Like it didn't want to be touched.
He had to get to that memory. If it tried to avoid him, that meant it must be important — or at the very least, it wasn't part of Thrawn's neatly-organized "layer" of pre-approved memories selected for Ezra's viewing. He drew on the Force, using it to propel his consciousness deeper — and simultaneously freezing the memory in place, luring it closer and closer to him.
A flash of white light engulfed him.
You are being dishonest with me, Mitth'raw'nuruodo.
The words echo around Ezra in an all-too-familiar hiss, freezing his blood cold. He stands in a dark and unfamiliar throne room; a small holodeck is all that separates him from Emperor Palpatine. Through the blue matrix of a holographic star system, he can see the Emperor's black robes, the yellow eyes, the rows of blunt teeth shaped like gravemarkers that flash each time Palpatine opens his mouth.
With an audible click of bone scraping against bone, his knees bend and he sinks to the ground against his will. The star map looms above him and his eyes track across it as though the Emperor isn't there. Mentally, he continues their conversation as though nothing has happened, as if he hasn't been caught in a lie — allegedly caught in a lie — and forced to his knees.
His mouth is tight. He does not respond to Palpatine's claim; they have more important tasks at hand, more important topics to discuss, options to consider—
You cannot disguise your dishonesty through mere obfuscation, Palpatine says. Not from me.
His voice slices through Thrawn's thoughts, piercing deep into his mind. Pain blossoms immediately, starting at his right temple and racing down every neuron in his brain, encasing each and every nerve ending in molten ice.
It matters not, says Palpatine. His voice sounds simultaneously far away and very near. I will find the truth regardless.
I have been... says Thrawn. Each word comes out crisp and perfectly pronounced, but the pauses between each syllable betray the effort and energy it costs him to speak. Entirely honest … with you … my lord.
Still, the pain intensifies and spreads. His lungs burn as though they've been filled with glacial water; his throat tightens as if the walls of his esophagus have been lined with glass. He throws all his energy into obfuscation despite the Emperor's warning, translating recent memories back into the scrambled version of Cheunh he and Thrass used as a code when they were children, overlaying each memory with the black miasmic fog he remembers from the few times he'd been drugged or otherwise intoxicated, giving each scene a distinctive and smothering blur.
And through it all, he offers up a solution, moving quickly, acting entirely by instinct. If this plant is too obvious, there's nothing he can do about it now, and no time to come up with a better plan:
Commodore Faro's face is pinched, her cheeks flushed with anger. She is already shouting when the memory fades into existence, her words blurred and vague at first — but when she lifts a ceramic vase off a stand in Thrawn's command room and hurls it at him, barely missing his head, suddenly her words become clear.
"—an entire planet!" she says. Her voice is hoarse from screaming, cracked from emotion. Thrawn ducks when she picks up another art piece — a primitive statue this time — and throws it at him. Her aim is good. It smashes to pieces against the wall.
She's still following through on the throw when he reaches her in two great strides, taking advantage of her imbalance with a quickness she doesn't seem to anticipate. He grabs Faro by the wrists before she can destroy any more of his collection. With his free hand, he pushes her shoulder until her back is against the wall, forcing her to make eye contact with him. He can see from the twitching of her facial muscles that she resents her own anger; she knows he's manipulated her into responding this way, provoking her with precision and ruthlessness until he got the result he wanted: an outburst of uncharacteristic violence and emotion. She is ashamed of her anger, but not yet sorry for it.
"Compose yourself, Commodore," he says, voice cool. "We had no other options."
She bares her teeth, but she doesn't argue with him. Perhaps she knows it would be unwise to say what she is thinking aloud.
"The destruction of Koja is … regrettable," Thrawn allows, "but it is only a minor setback. Their technology was not sufficiently advanced to qualify them as an Imperial ally; nor were their natural resources in any way useful to an Empire at war. There are other planets — more useful planets — at our disposal. Concessions had to be made."
She glowers at him, but the aggression is ebbing out of her; her shoulders slump and Thrawn releases her wrists, allowing her to regain her military bearing.
"It doesn't sit right with me, sir," she says; rather than shrink into the wall, away from him, she pulls herself up to her full height, taking up more space in a psychological game she evidently hopes will make him back away. "I can't even begin to imagine what the report will — "
"I will handle the report," says Thrawn sharply.
Her eyes narrow; she is on the verge of arguing with him, he knows. Lowering his voice, desperate to convince her of this, he says, "It will be better for all of us, Commodore, if the Emperor doesn't know we failed…"
Darkness seeps in, swallowing up the memory like it has been submerged deep in the oceans back home. Thrawn's vision blurs as the Emperor releases his mind, but the pain does not fade away — at least, not immediately. It fades into the background, throbbing through every muscle in his body but no longer incapacitating him.
Ah, I see now, Palpatine says. His amusement is evident; his lips twitch up to reveal a glimpse of rotten teeth. Listen well, Mitth'raw'nuruodo: it will never benefit you to hide your missteps from me. I, above all others, am your ally here. I cannot mend your errors if you do not bring them to me. Do you understand?
Yes, my lord, Thrawn says. His lips are numb, his legs shaking from exhaustion. I understand.
And then, like a door slamming shut on an open room, the memory was gone.
