Enhanced Interrogation Methods

Chapter 2: Interrogation

Thrawn blinked as the candle's flame extinguished, its light and heat fading together from his vision. When he opened his eyes once more, Faro's gaze remained on him. With the overhead lights in his office dimmed, Thrawn's eyes were the most prominent lightsource for her. Her stare would be intense were it not so empty.

Faro had never looked this vacant before. Thrawn swallowed his creeping discomfort for what he had just done. Best to get on with it. "Now that your mind is asleep, I will ask you questions. You won't have to think about them, and there's no need to remember what I say. Simply give me whatever answer lands on your lips when I ask something. Do you understand?

She nodded languidly. "Yessir."

"You don't have to call me that right now." Thrawn had to watch his words here. He didn't want to say anything that would remind Faro of her identity as a soldier lest it trigger her acute sense of protocol. If she didn't see Thrawn as her commander, she may be more open with him.

"Okay. What should I say instead?"

"That doesn't matter." Thrawn dismissed the question, surprised by how easily Faro let it slide. "How do you feel right now?"

"Good. I haven't been this loose in... weeks." Faro hesitated when she tried to recall how long it had been. She broke her gaze with Thrawn until he asked her to resume it. "I… I like the feeling. I guess I don't really mind your trance candle."

"You were aware of my candle's properties?" Thrawn asked.

"I think so. I think there's a cult that uses those candles. The Empire found the cult and put people in prison for running it. I read the article years ago. It gave me nightmares about some terrorist using a candle on me so I'd betray the Empire. Then I'd go to prison too." Her brow furrowed as she recited the story. "But what are the candles called? I forgot."

Thrawn didn't want to dismiss all of Faro's questions. "Ilia. The substance that gives you this feeling is ilia."

Faro frowned, then shrugged. "I thought it was something else… Okay."

Perhaps there was another name for it in the Empire. When Thrawn first encountered the drug, the Ascendancy knew it as ilia. He tried to remember the official Imperial name for the substance, but it didn't come to him. He hadn't needed it to smuggle some onto his ship, so what did it matter?

Speaking of what mattered… "You used to be afraid of entering an ilia-induced trance, yet you barely struggled with me. Why are you more cooperative now?"

"Because I know you're not a rebel. You had nothing before the Empire found you. Vanto told me you were abandoned by your people and would have spent your whole life alone if the Empire hadn't shown up. You love your job because you don't have anything else in life, and aiding a rebellion would mean you lose everything a second time." The words flew off Faro's tongue with ease. "I also want you to trust me. I know you wouldn't drug me if you thought a normal command would work, so you must not trust me enough for whatever it is you want." Faro pouted as she spoke. "I wish you trusted me. I know I blew my chances when we first met, but I'm trying to impress you."

Thrawn blinked at Faro's approximation of his motivations. Her assumptions regarding his loyalty to the Empire were fair given the information she had. If most of his soldiers thought like her, Thrawn was in good shape. When it came to her more specific assertion, however, Faro overlooked a few key details. "You think my mistrust of you is why you're here?"

"Isn't it?" Faro tilted her head, expression unguarded in its confusion. "You wouldn't drug me otherwise. Whatever you want, I'm here. I've surrendered."

"You have," Thrawn admitted. "It was easy to overtake you given your recent exhaustion. Why has your health been suboptimal as of late?"

"Stress." Faro's mouth said she wanted to continue, but her vocal cords disagreed. Her voice caught off after one word.

Thrawn let his eyes bore into hers, offering Faro a chance to continue. She twitched, but her expression remained placid. He would have to deepen her trance if he wanted the full answer. "I am aware you've had much on your mind, but that part of you rests now. When your mind is asleep, the remaining tension you carry is a weight on your subconscious. One you can feel on your shoulders, your chest, your legs…" Thrawn watched as Faro reacted to his suggestion. Her body remained limp, but now it was pressed into stillness. Not a comfortable predicament at all. "It may not be painful, but that weight is preventing you from relaxing fully to me. If you let me lift the weights away, you would feel even better."

He smiled at her again. It had an encouraging effect on Faro when he smiled at her on the bridge. It ought to be the same here. "Do you want to feel better?"

"Yes." The world slipped out faster than 'stress'.

Thrawn widened his grin at her answer, triggering an anomalous flash of heat across Faro's face. "Then I need you to cooperate with me. The words that rise to your lips at my questions are the weights floating to the surface of your being. Every time you give me your unabridged, uninhibited answer to a question, I lift one weight off your person. This continues until all the weights are gone. Then you will feel entirely weightless and perfectly relaxed. Do you want to feel weightless?"

"I do, yes." Her nods took on a desperate edge. "Please. I've been wound up for weeks."

Thrawn returned one of her nods. "Your shoulders are incredibly heavy right now. I see how the weight lingers."

"They are. Please, si- um. Please help me." Faro's eyes begged him for relief, giving Thrawn an unexpected sense of satisfaction.

Or maybe not so unexpected. Thrawn did care for his subordinates. He did everything he could to make sure they saw him as a calm, fair, steady hand leading them to victory. When his crew trusted him, they performed well on duty and rested easily off shift. Faro turning to him for help bore a passable similarity to that dynamic, if not an exact one.

A direct approach hadn't worked, so Thrawn took a detour from the knowledge he desired. "What do you normally do to relax?"

"It depends. Sometimes I go to the cantina with Hammerly. Vanto used to come too, but he's gone, so we've been inviting the new commander. Woldar, that is. But I don't do that a lot because I don't want to get drunk all the time. I never drink much when I'm there. Sometimes I do work out after shift, but not as much as I should. And when I lay down to sleep, I… I-" her throat caught on the answer. Thrawn prompted her to continue. "It's embarrassing to tell you about."

"Nothing you say is embarrassing right now. It's your mind that normally decides what should be kept inside. That part of you is fast asleep, remember?"

Faro remained concerned. "Are you sure it's okay?"

"Completely sure," Thrawn reassured her. He felt himself leaning towards her again and had to pull away once more. This interrogation did not require close proximity. He needed to stop behaving as if it did.

"I-" her voice escaped as a whisper. "I touch myself. Not every night, but more often than not. It- I haven't been with anyone in a long time, and it's easy to fall asleep after I… finish."

Thrawn needed a second to interpret that. Touch herself? What was so embarrassing about brushing a hand against her own arm, or stroking her own leg, or-

Oh, the sex. It was a sex thing. Humans referred to masturbation as touching oneself at times. They devoted so much of their language to the topic of sex that Thrawn was never able to keep track of all the terms. "That isn't unusual. You don't have to hide details like that from me. Not when you're in this state."

"Really?"

"Of course not. It's completely natural. I know not every culture discusses self-pleasure openly, but it's exceedingly common, especially for soldiers on deployment."

Faro bit her lip. She didn't act like a weight had come off her chest. "I've been trying to stop, but it's such a habit when I lay down to sleep. I feel like I'm fighting myself every night."

Thrawn's shoulders drooped. If this was why Faro's physical state had been suboptimal lately, he almost wished he hadn't pried. "Why are you attempting to stop? Has the practice stopped being beneficial for you?"

"There's that, yeah. I don't like having addictions. I've kicked my caf habit before. I can kick sex too."

Thrawn had no idea what humans defined as a sex addiction. He knew of men from his time on the Blood Crow who had used their privacy in the shower every day to expel semen. He assumed such men existed on the Chimaera as well. It didn't sound like Faro was anywhere near as fond of her fingers as these men had been. Even if she was, why would it be a problem? Female humans made less of a mess than males did in orgasm. Cleanup couldn't be that much of a hassle.

Well, the ilia wouldn't last forever. He might as well ask. "Why do you want to expel this particular habit from your routine? Why now?"

"I… liked to imagine things when I touched myself. Lately, the things I've pictured have been um, unhealthy. Perverted. Wrong." Faro squinted her eyes shut and shook her head. "So I'm quitting."

"I'm confused. Don't all sexual activities require some amount of perversion?" How far did Thrawn want to dive into this? Was he on a tangent or his way to the truth? Each passing statement made it harder to tell.

"Not like this. Ever since I walked in on you exercising, it's crossed a line." Faro's eyes bulged in distress. "I can't- I shouldn't think of you like that. It's not right. But every time I try to remember something else, I just circle back."

Oh, so this did have something to do with Thrawn. He'd been correct after all. Still, he wanted to make sure he understood Faro correctly. "That night, when you departed my quarters in a hurry after our miscommunication. What went through your mind in those moments?"

Faro gulped. "Well at first I was just impressed. Some senior officers let themselves go once they get a high rank, but you must score great on your PT exams. Then I felt bad because I don't train as intensely as you do. That got me thinking about how you'd definitely beat me in a sparring match, which made me imagine how I'd feel pinned to the ground underneath you. And the way it made me feel is… not what I expected."

Thrawn furrowed his brow, then undid it when he saw it caused Faro alarm. The downside of having a tranced Faro fixate on his eyes was her intense reaction to any emotion he conveyed. For once, Thrawn was not grateful for how well Faro understood his mannerisms. "How did you expect to feel in that hypothetical?"

"Ashamed of myself, especially if you won quickly. Maybe scared too. I saw how intense you got." Her eyes shone with a layer of water over the corneas.

"I would never intend to frighten you if we fought together." In a case like that, Thrawn wouldn't be sparring only to win. He would be more interested in how Faro approached the challenge and looking for ways she could improve her abilities. "You shouldn't be concerned I would harm you."

That did not assuage her. "I wasn't frightened at all. I was ashamed, but not for the right reasons."

She was talking around the subject. How she still did that in a deep trance that rewarded her for telling the truth was beyond Thrawn, but no matter. He would pry the truth out of Faro yet. "Why were you ashamed, then?"

Faro tried to keep the words in her mouth again, but they all spilled out at once. "Because I thought being forced to lay under you was hot. I knew it was wrong, so I left. But then when I laid down to sleep at night it just… it got worse."

Well. That did explain why Faro's behavior had changed around Thrawn. She felt her perception of him had entered inappropriate territory, so she acted overly formal to compensate. "That is why you have no wish to be alone with me."

It wasn't a question, yet Faro answered like it was. "Yes. Seeing you like that made me question my motives for why I did anything else with you. The truth is… I never cared about art before I met you. I still don't. I'm sure your… method helps you think about strategies, but there's a good chance I'll never use it myself."

Her comments about art were unexpectedly hurtful. "You didn't wish to study art to improve as an officer. Why did you agree then? To pacify me?"

"To get close to you. I didn't know that's what I was doing at first, though. I thought I stared at you because you're an alien from a race I've never heard of, not because you're…" she swallowed, "handsome."

She said that like a condemnation. Like it was the worst thing she could possibly think about Thrawn. He felt his own throat tighten at the thought. "I am attractive by most every standard of the word. What does it matter if you've noticed?"

"Because… it's never going to happen. Because my taste in men is terrible. The last man I was with thought the ideal date was flying as recklessly as possible with me in the passenger seat of his ship. He didn't even let me copilot."

Thrawn raised an eyebrow. "Was he a pilot himself?"

Faro nodded. "A squadron leader. He threw a hissy fit when he found out I was being promoted above him, so we broke up. I don't know what he's been doing since. He transferred before you arrived."

Something didn't make sense about her story. Faro's command post on the bridge crew limited her interaction with the Chimaera's various pilots. Her promotion to commander may mean she ranked above this man, but it didn't place her in charge of him. Thrawn failed to see how abuse of power accusations could arise from this arrangement. The Empire was strict with their protocols, certainly, but they didn't regulate across crews.

Perhaps it was simpler than that. Perhaps this pilot disliked the way his companion's career had eclipsed his own. Well if he'd cared so much, he should have put more effort into flying effectively than he did denigrating the achievements of others.

"Have you had many relationships with insecure, egotistical men?"

"A few," Faro confirmed. "After the last one, I knew the navy would always be my greatest love. I want what I want and I can't make allowances for a man who can't keep up." She sighed. "Most of my relationships start when the two of us are on equal terms, or I'm just behind him. It's only a competition if the guy wants it to be; if the man I'm with advances before me, I don't get angry. But the second I pass him, I must have been using him to get ahead or cheating the system somehow. It's ridiculous."

Thrawn considered Faro's new revelations in context with her statement of arousal from before. A striking similarity emerged. "You're attracted to power. In all its forms."

"That's one way to say it." Faro shrugged, though her shoulders folded in when she finished. "Most people just call it ambition."

And so the conflict was clear: Faro wanted ever greater power for herself, but the only men capable of catching her interest were those who could overpower her in some way. Her personal goals meant that even if she started with a man powerful relative to her, his power would diminish over time in relation to her own, thereby reducing his appeal. If the man she'd attracted held matching preferences in that he wanted a powerful woman who would submit to him, then he would see her ascension in military rank as a threat to his dominance. Then it was only a matter of time before one of them ended the relationship. More likely the man would in this case; existential threats tended to express themselves faster than a mere loss of interest.

Thrawn could see how Faro's relationships would be prone to arguments, but they weren't as terrible as she made them out to be. "Your past experiences have made you unwilling to act on any attractions you may feel."

"Yes. That, and you're an- you're my commander. I get accused of cheating the system enough as it is. Anyone who heard me proposition my commander would assume I did it for a promotion, not because I'm actually interested in you. You might even think the same thing."

Would he? Perhaps at first, but not for long. Thrawn believed Faro should have a good enough understanding of his leadership to know that he recommended subordinates based on the work they did, not anything that occurred off shift. He failed to see how promoting someone in exchange for sex was any different from doing the same thing for political favors, and Thrawn despised the latter practice. He hated the way politicians had been able to interfere with the careers of Thrawn's allies and could not in good conscience behave a similar way.

That said… it was odd to hear someone like Faro confess she was attracted to him. Thrawn had fended off his share of honey traps during his Imperial days. If the women expressing interest in him hadn't been his enemies (or agents thereof), they tended to be like the collector he'd met three months ago at an art auction in that they only wished to sleep with Thrawn for the sake of posterity. Taking the only Chiss in the entire Empire to bed ought to be a novel experience by this woman's estimation, and she was nothing if not a collector of the novel. Needless to say, Thrawn refused to humor her fetish.

Thrawn sighed. He was doing a poor job of keeping his interrogation on track. "Are those all the reasons for your changed behavior as of late?"

"Yes. I thought my imagination running wild that night was just a one time thing. We all get intrusive thoughts sometimes. They don't represent our true selves. But the idea… it never went away. It changed settings sometimes. Maybe some other details would shift. The constant was always you… on top of me and moving for a full occupation, which I would… surrender to." She pinched her face in disgust.

Thrawn tried and failed to stop his mind from imagining the same thing. In doing so, he returned to Faro's original scenario, the one in which he had just pinned her to the ground in a sparring match. Both their heartbeats would be elevated, and her rapid exhalations would be hot on his face. He would see Faro's cheeks flush, first from exhaustion and the embarrassment of defeat, then from their physical closeness.

Upon realizing how their bodies were touching, her pupils would grow wide. Thrawn would not have harmed her in their duel, only subdued her. Thrawn would linger above Faro longer than their duel required, shocked by how pleasant her form felt against his own. Subduing an enemy in battle or tending to one who was injured… those were the only times Thrawn had felt the body heat of another being over the last decade.

Faro was not Thrawn's enemy. She was not injured or unconscious. Not since joining the Empire had he touched someone for as long as he was holding her now.

He ought to mind. He ought to pull away and allow Faro to return to her feet. Then he could continue as normal and lecture her on how to improve in hand to hand combat. He ought to be a good commander, one who didn't put his personal needs ahead of the mission.

Thrawn did none of those things. Just once, he allowed himself to be selfish. He shifted his weight further onto Faro and captured her lips in his own. Faro sighed into his mouth, indulging his recklessness with every bit of ground she ceded. The process moved quickly from there, encouraged from the bottom every bit as much as it was mandated from the top.

Did this imaginary scenario appeal to him? Certainly not. Thrawn ignored the flares of heat from a part of his own body. He shifted his gaze up a fraction to keep contrary evidence from reaching his field of vision.

One matter that surprised him was how vividly he remembered the ways of pleasure. One of Thrawn's bitterest regrets about leaving the Ascendancy was leaving his longtime companion behind. He knew terminating their relationship indefinitely was the kindest thing he could do under the circumstances, but he secretly wished she went about her days thinking about him just as much as he avoided thinking about her. Because any thought of sex called the shadow of his lost companion to the surface, Thrawn relegated all his memories of the subject to a dusty corner of his mind.

It was for the best that he did so. Upon first arriving on Coruscant, Thrawn had come to the conclusion that no one he met in the Empire would be an acceptable replacement for the woman he'd left. There wasn't a being alive more who could more perfectly be his partner than Admiral Ar'alani.

As he grew busy with his duties as a soldier, Thrawn didn't think of her as often as before. He wasn't sure when he'd stopped comparing every female soldier he met to her, but he'd had to lest they all fall short in his estimations of them. Until this moment, Thrawn had never consciously weighed his conception of Faro against his memories of Ar'alani.

The comparison remained unfair, but Thrawn noticed a few key similarities. Most of them arose in the eyes of the two women. The women's eyes may not resemble each other in color or shape, but both possessed a depth that seemed to see people and situations for what they really were, not the superficial attachments people placed upon them. To eyes such as those, Thrawn was not just a commander to impress or a cadet to defend, but the layered microcosm that Thrawn encountered himself every time he attempted introspection.

The power of that insight was what had drawn Thrawn to Faro in the first place. He believed that ability made her an officer worth encouraging, one he would be glad to see advance in rank. He hadn't thought there was anything else buried in his intentions.

A horrible thought crossed his mind then. He could tell Faro to sate her curiosity while she was still in trance. She wouldn't have a clear memory of it, but a sense of satisfaction would remain long after the ilia left her system.

Two words, and those full, parted lips would rest on his. Thrawn knew she would do it. He knew she would do a lot of things if he asked her to now.

He also knew that he would never forgive himself if he allowed their time together to go beyond interrogation. If Faro ever grew wise to what Thrawn had done, their relationship would shatter beyond repair. Thrawn would never be able to help her become the officer he knew she could be. Helping Faro here would only harm them both in the long run.

To Thrawn's embarrassment, some of his intentions conveyed themselves without words. Faro asked, "are you going to kiss me?"

Thrawn shook his head soundly. "Not when your mind is asleep. If I were to kiss you, every part of your body would need to allow it."

"Oh." Her chin lowered a fraction. "My brain will never say yes. Once I get my thoughts under control, everything will be back to normal. I promise."

"You can't control all your thoughts. Not perfectly. No one alive has mastered that ability." At least, Thrawn never had. Despite his best efforts.

"You think so?"

Thrawn nodded. "Even so, your control over your behavior is better than most soldiers I've encountered. I don't think you need to restrict yourself so drastically in dealings with me. You may not remember telling me when this is over, but what you have confessed will be no secret within yourself."

Faro rested her chin in one hand. "I just don't get it. I've never been attracted to an alien before. It's not right. I don't know how humans can feel this way. Why would any species seek out sex with another if it has members of its own to copulate with?"

Thrawn hadn't been sure if their conversation would reach this territory, but he should have predicted it. He'd never had a specific problem with Faro, but he was no stranger to soldiers from her homeworld. Kohmbra had a disproportionate presence in the Empire's military and was uniquely unabashed in its ideal of creating a "human paradise" superior to everywhere else in the galaxy. Any other sentients who once roamed the planet had either been deported or exterminated seven centuries ago in campaigns their art celebrated. Only humans had the right to live and work on their planet today, and interspecial unions were banned from existing in both practice and media.

Despite those prevailing tenets of her native culture, Thrawn knew Faro was proud of her home planet. He'd never discussed Kohmbran culture with her before lest it breed conflict between them. He ought to avoid addressing it now. "What is there not to understand? I've seen our fellow men admire Twi'lek dancers on numerous occasions. Their appreciations are not aesthetic in nature."

"Yeah, I've seen it too. I asked Commander Nerric about it a few days ago. I know he has some holovids of… that." Faro gestured towards Thrawn with her other hand. "He said something about a mix of the familiar and exotic being what people liked. All the important parts for sex are the same from a human to a Twi'lek. The parts are just blue… or green, or, um, orange. It's different enough to intrigue, but not so different that sex can't…" she swallowed, "technically happen."

But it shouldn't happen, or so went the implication. Thrawn didn't miss it. He didn't appreciate the stinging sensation it left in his heart, nor did he acknowledge it. "Nerric's interpretation of purely sexual desire is a possible one. Do you ever act on pure lust or idle fantasy?"

"Never."

"Then you have no reason to concern yourself. The drivers of your behavior lie beyond what images your mind conjures for you to consider before losing consciousness." Thrawn forced his facial muscles to soften despite the newfound pain he was in. "I trust you to make sound decisions. You should trust your own control. Whatever you need to do to release tension at night is nothing anyone ought to be worried about."

"But… the problems caused by your species-"

"There is no problem with my species. The problem lies within you," he interrupted her, tone harsher than intended.

Faro shrank back, eyes flickering back to life. Thrawn relaxed himself first, then talked her back into a sedate trance. Once he had done so, he said what he'd meant to say before, "if all that concerns you are your sexual curiosities, acting alone in your quarters is a safe way to explore them. When one is frightened of a possible threat, it can grow beyond proportion in their mind. I think you are letting your anxieties loom larger than they ought."

"You think so?"

"I do. If all you are worried about is attraction, then those sensations are fleeting. They don't lead to lasting companionships. For the rational minded, they won't have the power to lead you into a wrong decision." At that, Thrawn leaned back once more in his seat. "You have nothing to fear."

Faro nodded at his reassurances, but didn't fully accept them. He hadn't succeeded in bringing her to weightlessness, it seemed.

Thrawn wished he could. He wished he could rub every wrinkle of tension out of her body until the skin was smooth under his fingertips. Smooth, inviting, and eternally warm. He could see her warmth now, the way it radiated out from below her abdomen in a way that suggested…

In a way that suggested nothing that was his business. Thrawn could see the intelligence returning to Faro's eyes. He knew she would be awake soon. "If those are all your fears, then you may close your eyes. When you wake, your mind will be alert once more. You'll be ready to face your anxieties head on. No longer will you need to deprive yourself of sleep or step skittishly around me. You will be free to return to your art lessons so they can make you a better commander. Do you understand me?"

Faro nodded, eyes already drifting closed. Thrawn didn't have to say much else to prompt them. He watched as his first officer slept off the last effects of the ilia. When she woke in earnest, she may discover a mild headache or slight dizziness, but nothing that wouldn't disappear the next morning. One exposure to ilia did not leave humans with lasting symptoms of any kind. Hence why Thrawn used it.

Now that the wax from the candle was cool, Thrawn put both it and the lighter back in his drawer. He turned the overhead lights back up to half brightness, the way he had it most often when Faro visited him alone. Nothing but the faint smell of citrus remained from their interrogation.

He was reading reports on his datapad when Faro came back to full consciousness. She started when she realized where she was. "Sir?"

"Good evening, Commander." He put his datapad down. "I suggest you finish your rest in your own quarters."

"What happened?"

Thrawn offered a shortened version of the truth, "I noticed you had been resting suboptimally as of late. Since insufficient rest causes one's work to suffer, I thought to offer you a remedy. As I was describing to you a way to relax, you fell asleep in your chair."

Faro shifted back and forth, embarrassed. "I wish you had woken me, sir."

"I had no pressing need to do that. My recent demands are part of the reason your health has declined. I look forward to your full recovery, Commander." Thrawn caught her eye one last time. He wanted to know if his suggestions would lead to anything. "Will you be able to rest tonight, Commander?"

Faro opened her mouth with one answer, then paused to consider another. She shifted once again, thighs rubbing against each other in a way that made her freeze with her eyes wide. "I… I think I will."

"I'm glad to hear it." Thrawn smiled innocently, as if he knew nothing of what was going on. "You are dismissed, Commander."

"Thank you, sir." She left as quickly as she could without running.

Not that Thrawn wanted to stick around either. He had some self examinations he wanted to complete tonight.

A/N's: This chapter was more difficult than anticipated to write. I knew what I wanted to include in it, but I didn't know the order of events. I shifted sections around more than once before I arrived at this version of the interrogation. It's still not everything I imagined, but it's serviceable. I want to move on.

Despite my frustrations, I still hope you enjoyed this. Thanks for reading and for all the feedback you've provided!