The Unknown Regions, 9 ABY
Ezra Bridger ran his hand over his face, feeling the raw, smooth skin where his beard had been. Thrawn had insisted on his grooming, and although he had been permitted to keep his hair long, Thrawn's regulations forbade facial hair. The shearing had been painful due to the embedded mats, and Ezra felt a twinge of resentment penetrate his anxiety about the looming operation as he glanced around the bridge of the Chimaera. The crew dutifully avoided making eye contact with him, instead treating Ezra as if he did not exist. He sat in an uncomfortable metal chair beside the Admiral's plush command chair, waiting impatiently as the crew guided the ship through its prescribed course, knowing soon that he would receive a dose of the drug he had long craved and long resisted. His last exposure had led to death and destruction, and he suppressed a shiver at the memory of Lin's smoking, blackened body dumped unTaila moniously into a burial pit.
"Admiral on the bridge," a crisp voice called.
Ezra pivoted to look behind him as the entire crew rose to their feet in unison. He glanced at the crew, noticing an ensign shoot a fleeting, indignant glance at him. Belatedly, he rose to his feet as Thrawn approached with Lieutenant Torris walking by his side carrying a locked case. Ezra's gaze fell on the case, and a palpable wave of eagerness arose in him.
Thrawn walked past him without sparing a glance, and he paused above the dual command bays where the crew awaited his orders.
"Time to arrival," Thrawn called.
Commodore Brandt replied with military precision, "We arrive in 30 seconds, Admiral. The con is yours."
"Prepare to disengage the hyperdrive as prescribed," Thrawn ordered.
Ezra waited, counting down the seconds as Thrawn gazed at the mottled blue tunnel roiling around them. Torris turned his head to the side, glancing askance at Ezra before returning his focus to the space before the ship. At thirty seconds, the mottling faded into lines, which shrank back into stars. A vast field of billowing pink, red, and orange gasses sprawled ahead of them – the limits of the previous explorations to chart the space between Zelphi and the edge of the known galaxy.
Thrawn turned toward Ezra and nodded. Ezra, recognizing the cue, settled himself into his chair and rolled up his sleeve. Torris approached and set the locked case on a table that arose beside Ezra's chair. He keyed in a code, and the locking mechanism released. Torris pushed the top of the case back, and Ezra caught a glimpse of a syringe containing a shimmering blue-purple liquid. Despite his reluctance and fear, the eager desire flared and sparked inside him, and he sat up straighter, anticipating the rush.
"Ezra Bridger," Thrawn declared. "We now prepare for the final leg of our voyage home. As agreed, you will guide the ship on the last leg, using Third Sight to enhance your vision. Upon the successful completion of your task, I will – as promised – release you from your service, free to go whichever way you will."
Thrawn paused, then said quietly, "Do you agree to these conditions?"
"I do," Ezra confirmed. Thrawn gazed down at him, his expression inscrutable. Ezra did not bother to attempt to read what was behind the gaze, knowing that Thrawn's ability to mask his emotions exceeded even that of the Jedi Masters of old.
"Lieutenant Torris, if you please," Thrawn said, and Torris removed the syringe from the case and checked the dosage. He rubbed an antiseptic wipe over the skin below Ezra's deltoid, and shook the muscle with his free hand to stimulate the blood flow. Moments later, Ezra felt a stinging pinch, followed by a painful burning sensation spreading through his arm.
Several seconds had passed when Ezra's vision went black. In place of sight, his awareness expanded exponentially, creating the impression that his awareness had expanded at unimaginable scale, revealing the entirety of the universe in the palm of his hand. He exhaled audibly, his own voice reverberating through the cosmos as a profound ecstasy coursed through his veins.
Ezra, the ship awaits your command.
The voice drew his focus back to the bridge, and he had a sense of Thrawn nearby, not in a corporeal form, but a white-blue essence amidst many other mottled essences, suffused with a tense eagerness. His focus drifted past the bridge of the ship and the coursings of bodily functions, blood flow, and currents of nervous system activity to the sprawling fields of interstellar gas expanding beyond the space. He directed his consciousness through the clouds, finding safe corridors threading chaotic storms. He reached his hand forward, taking manual control of the Chimaera, and he activated the hyperdrive with his thumb.
He felt himself as if soaring through the reaches of space. A storm of nascent stars beckoned ahead, but Ezra gracefully dodged the storm, following a clean, empty corridor of naked space as it weaved through the chaos of the Unknown Regions. The minutes stretched into hours, and Ezra settled into a graceful dance through the obstacles strewn before them, marveling at each as they passed with the full fabric of the Force coursing through his fingertips and into his soul. He felt with a mere suggestion that his essence could leave his body and become a part of the fabric, yet separate from the fabric. With this drug – this feeling – he could be Master of all.
But before he could entertain the thought, he felt a threat growing. The Force screamed to him Stop! He pulled the Chimaera out of hyperspace, and before him, unsuspecting, sat a fleet of familiar, angular cruisers. He opened his eyes, and through the explosions of neural activity emanating from his own brain, he saw the angular cruisers of a Grysk task force scrambling into defensive formations at the unexpected arrival of an unknown combatant. Ezra estimated that they were outnumbered, twenty-to-one.
Grand Admiral Thrawn's voice, amplified and urgent, shouted, "Shields up, adopt defensive posture. All systems full alert. Prepare for attack!"
A flurry of controlled fear followed as the ship's crew obeyed the order. Throughout the ship, the fear spread, and Ezra knew that many men and many Zelphinians were now preparing for combat, the imminence of their death a gnawing question in the back of their minds as adrenaline and cortisol flooded their bodies.
"Admiral," Ezra said, feeling his voice reverberating as if it existed from outside of him.
Thrawn turned toward Ezra, and Ezra said, "If I may?"
Thrawn cocked an eyebrow, but nodded, curious at what Ezra would do. Ezra rose from his chair and drifted toward the front of the bridge. As the Grysk cruisers settled into their offensive formation, Ezra could feel their intention to open fire emerging. It would be moments before they would attack, which would destroy the Chimaera in a matter of minutes. Ezra reached deeper into their awarenesses, feeling their cold, brutal desires and intentions overcoming their initial surprise. He also felt the energy surging in the cores of each ship, and with the suggestion from his mind, the core of the flagship's energy source began to glow hotter.
"Admiral, I'm reading an energy surge from the main ship. It looks like it's about to-" The officer's report died as a blinding flash washed over the bridge. As the flash subsided, a fireball expanded from the Grysk flagship, ripping through the ships surrounding it. The fireball consumed half of the ships in the fleet, sparking a dozen secondary fireballs as the surrounding ships exploded. The rest of the ships tilted off course, trailing flame as their steering systems went offline. The Chimaera shuddered as the shockwave passed, although the energy from the wave produced no damage – only turbulence.
After a moment of stunned silence following the cessation of the turbulence, Thrawn called, "Open fire!"
Ezra felt the turbolasers erupt from the Chimaera, and more explosions followed as the fire from the Chimaera tore through the disabled Grysk ships. One of the Grysk ships that had taken minimal damage was now coming about. Ezra felt the ship's inhabitants' desperate intention to open fire, and he reached out with his thoughts. He felt the nervous system responses coursing through their alien bodies, which burned with stress and terror. He felt the sources of the stress and terror emanating from their minds, and as his awareness expanded further into the crew, he thought, sleep.
The ship lost its bearing as its systems fell offline. Ezra had the sense of the ship's crew asleep, the ship listing as it went off-course. He heard Thrawn's order to shift firing onto the cruiser, and he felt the explosion ripple through the Force, sending concentric disturbances outward until they dissipated into the emptiness of space.
As the explosions from the Grysk fleet subsided, Ezra felt the last of the Grysk lives subsiding along with the explosions. The fear among the crew morphed into stunned disbelief as they realized that, nearly as fast as their enemy had appeared, it had been destroyed - brutally and efficiently.
Ezra turned toward Thrawn and felt the man's surprise and shock. Beneath it, he felt something else emerging, and he recognized his fear. Ezra felt the power he wielded, and his old hatred of the man emerge anew. A smile twisted on Ezra's face, and his voice booming throughout the bridge, he said, "Consider us even."
"Yes, Ezra, your debt has been repaid." Thrawn affirmed. "Stand down and allow Torris to administer the antidote."
Ezra felt Torris moving beside him. Ezra's smile deepened as he said, "I don't think so."
Torris flew across the bridge, slamming into the viewport. He crumpled to the ground, unconscious, his antidote skittering out of his hand into the command bay below.
"Bridger!" Thrawn called.
"I think," Ezra mused, "That it's time to reconsider our bargain."
"Stand down now!" Thrawn ordered, but Ezra sent a tendril of thought through the bridge, and he felt each of the crew fall asleep in their chairs. Several stormtroopers collapsed onto the ground, asleep. Only Thrawn remained.
"This is for Lothal," Ezra growled.
Thrawn felt himself lifted off of the ground, and he gasped for breath as he clutched at his throat. As he rose into the air, Ezra walked forward, smiling at Thrawn's agony. He watched with amusement as Thrawn pulled his hands away from his throat and keyed in a code on his wrist device – as if anybody can help you now, Ezra thought, laughing to himself.
As Thrawn completed keying in the code, Ezra felt a wave of cold wash over him. The vast expansiveness he felt permeating him and surrounding him vanished, leaving him with a powerful nausea and intense pain in his head. His vision began to radiate aura, the precursor of a migraine. Ezra collapsed to the ground, and he felt the floor shake as Thrawn also fell to the ground. As Ezra curled inward at the pain surging through his body, he heard boots on polished floor approaching. A pair of hands pulled him roughly onto his back, and Ezra squinted past the aura obscuring his vision to see Thrawn aiming a blaster in his face.
Ezra reached out with the Force, willing the energy field to wrap around Thrawn's throat and constrict his trachea. But as Ezra sought for the connection, he felt only a blank absence - an empty nothing. He strained, seeking for the power to destroy his enemy, yet nothing came to him. The Force had abandoned him.
Through the aura, Ezra saw Thrawn smirking. "Well, well, well. It would seem the Force is not with you, after all."
"What did you do to me," Ezra grunted through the pain.
"Truly, I owe it all to you," Thrawn purred, his voice rich with mockery. "Your adventure in the cave on Zelphi – remember? Where you allowed half of my men to die while you binged on Third Sight?"
Ezra grunted against a wave of debilitating pain surging through his skull.
"When we went to recover the drug, Lieutenant Torris made an interesting discovery – a mineral ore that appears to neutralize the Force within its sphere of influence," Thrawn explained. "A fascinating substance. On its own, it has – oh, say a two-foot radius in a 20 gram concentration. But thanks to Lieutenant Torris's diligence and my ingenuity, we excite the molecules, blocking off the Force for meters."
Ezra pushed himself up onto his hands, hoping to return to his feet. As he moved, another wave of pain surged through his head, and he wretched, bile and vomit spilling from his mouth. Thrawn took a step back to avoid being contaminated by the vomit.
"Disgusting," Thrawn growled. "Without the Lieutenant's antidotes, I'm afraid the side-effects following a sudden negation of the drug will be extremely painful. Pity you knocked him unconscious."
"Stop it!" Ezra pleaded.
"What? And allow you to murder me?" Thrawn asked, his mockery deepening. "I am grateful, Ezra. You brought us to within sublight distance to the edge of the galaxy. But more than that, you've provided a solution to a problem that has long vexed me. Whether it's the Emperor, yourself, or Vader, those who wield the Force present an unaccountable, unpredictable element. And I cannot abide unpredictability."
Thrawn smiled and added, "We no longer require your services."
Ezra reached out, and the strain flared the agony in his skull. He curled inward, warding off the savage pain welling in his head.
"But I am a man of my word. I promised I would set you free, and free I shall set you." Thrawn purred. He raised the blaster and leveled it at Ezra's face. Ezra looked up, and through the aura, he saw a ring of blue light rush toward his face.
Commodore Brandt awoke with a start, and he gazed around him in alarm at the shifting and grunting as the rest of the crew emerged from its slumber. The Grand Admiral stood before the viewport, his hands behind his back, gazing upon the wreckage of the Grysk fleet drifting in space before the Chimaera. Brandt arose to his feet and took a few tentative steps, his bootsteps echoing across the silent bridge.
"Ah, Commodore," Thrawn said conversationally. He turned from the viewport toward Commodore Brandt and said, "Please notify sickbay to bring a medic team to attend to Lieutenant Torris. His injuries do not appear severe, but he will require treatment."
"Sir?" Brandt replied. Thrawn tilted his head, and Brandt, recognizing the order, relayed the Admiral's order into his commlink. Upon receiving acknowledgement from the medical staff, which also appeared to have been asleep, Brandt turned back to Thrawn, thirsty for answers. He glanced at Ezra's unconscious form on the ground, then back to Thrawn.
"Admiral?" Brandt repeated.
"Commodore Brandt, Ezra Bridger betrayed us. He attempted to use his power to disable the crew and murder me. Thanks to Lieutenant Torris's discoveries, I have neutralized him. He will cause no further trouble," Thrawn reported.
Brandt gazed down at Bridger, noticing the odd angle that the Jedi's limbs had settled into.
"Focus, Commodore," Thrawn muttered as the rest of the crew came to. Many of them were also gawking at Ezra's body, and Commodore Brandt snapped into attention, detaching from his curiosity as a show of discipline. The crew noticed, and they too also snapped to attention.
"Ensign, please run a scan for habitable planets in the area. When you find one, please place Bridger on a shuttle and send him to that planet. Rig the ship's hyperdrive to self-destruct upon reaching the planet. Bridger shall remain sedated until that time," Thrawn ordered.
The Ensign snapped into action, and the rest of the crew returned to their tasks as well. In the commotion, Commodore Brandt stepped to the Admiral's side and whispered, "Why not kill him, sir?"
"I gave my word," Grand Admiral Thrawn said softly, his eyes narrowed in the closest thing to a display of disgust and contempt that Brandt had yet witnessed.
Brandt glanced toward Bridger and watched as a pair of stormtroopers dragged him away. He registered the surprise at the Admiral's actions. He had never suspected Thrawn to be one to take things personally, but then again, Ezra's actions had led to the death of half of the crew, which included some of Brandt's personal friends. Brandt allowed himself a brief, but savage surge of pleasure, knowing that Ezra would wake up marooned, lightyears away from anybody who cared for him.
"If there are no further inquiries, Commodore," Thrawn said, interrupting Brandt's musings. "Please send scanning crews to assess the wreckage of the Grysk fleet. I would like to see if there is any salvageable technology. In particular, look for databases, navigation units, and readouts on technology. If the crews are unable to decipher their technology, order them to err on the side of over-collecting."
"Yes sir," Brandt said, but he hesitated, sensing that the Grand Admiral had another order to issue.
"And then, Commodore," Thrawn whispered, "Prepare the crew for the voyage home."