The spaceport of the city of Jedha, which had the same name as the moon it was on, was not particularly busy. The two Vagaari children saw that only a few ships were taking off and even fewer were landing as their shuttle spiraled toward its future landing site.
The com console chirped to announce an incoming call. Bearsh pressed a button and unlocked the channel. Unintelligible chatter reached the little ears of the two Vagaari.
"My name is Bearsh and with me is my cousin Marasha. We are refugees from the Elysium region," he said in Minnisiat.
The man on the other end of the line was talking to someone else in his language. They had to wait a while, then a new voice sounded in the trade language they were familiar with - with a similar accent in which the human had spoken to the Miskara a day ago. "This is spaceport control for the moon Jedha. Identify yourself, tell us your species and the purpose and duration of your stay!"
"Our shuttle number is XZZ 135. My name is Bearsh and with me is my cousin Marasha. We are war refugees from the Geroon people and seek asylum."
"Don't you have any family names?" the voice asked back.
"No, that's not common among our species," Bearsh replied.
"Do you have anything to declare?" came over the loudspeaker.
Bearsh thought hard. "I'm sorry, what?"
"Whether you have something that you need to declare for import or for which you need to pay import fees?"
"For what do you have to…" he thought about what the official had said, "… declare import?"
"For precious metals such as aurodium or platinum, credits in sums over ten thousand or for works of art of greater value," the official explained.
"No, we don't have anything like that," Bearsh said.
"How old are you?"
"I'm twelve and my cousin is ten."
"So still minors. You should know that our orphanages are overflowing. Maybe you should try your luck somewhere else," said the officer, not particularly pleased.
"Do you know anyone we can do some work for? We are very diligent," Bearsh tried to avoid this untenable possibility.
For a moment there was silence on the other end of the line.
"Hmmm, I would have to take a look at you first," the officer said in a cold tone. "Then I will know who to trust with you."
"Then could we land over there where that red freighter is? There would still be enough space there," Bearsh returned to his original concern.
"Tell me, what kind of backwoods people are you Geroons?" mocked the official. "Everyone knows that there is exactly one runway for every spaceship. Just imagine, the red spaceship is about to take off and you are in its way."
Bearsh shrugged. "Then it would just fly past us. It's certainly not the first time he's flown."
The officer laughed. "I see you still have a lot to learn. You can dock on runway 16."
"Where is that?"
"There's a big 16 in numbers. Don't you see them?"
Bearsh flew over the spaceport area. Yes, there were signs, but he didn't know the meaning.
"Now just say you can't read Aurebesh numbers either!"
"We learn quickly."
"There is a vertical line on the left. To the right of it is an upper horizontal line and a square underneath."
"I see it, thanks!" Bearsh replied, lowering his shuttle to begin its landing approach.
He looked at the wall, where, in addition to the weapons mounted there, there were also two comlinks stowed away.
"Do you have a comlink yet?" he asked his cousin.
Marasha shook her head.
Bearsh reached over, grabbed a comlink, and handed it to her. "Just in case we get separated. We have exactly two minutes to synchronize the devices and transmit the numbers."
The reception committee at runway 16 consisted of two humans who first looked at the strange shuttle from which the two Vagaari children emerged.
"I've never seen a spaceship like this before," the one they had spoken to on Minnisiat said in Basic to the other immigration officer.
"Now let's see if everything is okay with your ship," said the official before Bearsh could even open his mouth and squeezed himself into the pilot's chair at his six-foot-five.
"One can see the cables down there. Why wasn't the floor replaced?" the officer asked reproachfully.
"The ship is well armored on the outside and nobody steps in that corner anyway!" Bearsh defended his ship.
"What about the thermostat displays for humidity and oxygen?" the officer continued.
Bearsh pointed to the corresponding buttons "They're here!"
"Something is flashing!" complained the officer.
"The lamp is just broken, so it's always blinking, but the oxygen was there the whole trip," Bearsh replied. "As I said, we fled a war zone. We were shot at and didn't have time for a proper system check. Otherwise we would have been pulverized before take-off."
Curiosity entered the officer's blue eyes. "Who shot at you?"
"The Vagaari."
Marasha raised her eyebrows. Both her mouths let out an astonished two-part whistle.
"I don't know it any more than I know your species," the officer muttered, seemingly disappointed. "Then come with me."
"What about our ship? How long can this stay here?" Bearsh asked, trying to suppress his fear of losing something.
The officer in a friendly manner placed his light pink hand on his shoulder. "It can stay here until we find suitable accommodation for you. Now let's go to the lounge where we will fill out more forms with you."
The two officers chatted in Basic as they led the two Vagaari children into a large, bright room where other passengers were already waiting. Marasha saw people from many species that she had never seen before. There were people who didn't scare her too much anymore, as they didn't seem to know the worlds they had told them about. A few green and blue humanoids with no hair, but with two huge head tails that went down to their waists, were standing at a counter and were probably consuming alcoholic drinks. A reptilian, tall man with a sharp-toothed mouth and several weapons on his hip was sitting on a comfortable upholstered couch and reading a newspaper. Then there were two beings who were just as brown-skinned as the Vagaari. They had three eye stalks on their faces and a powerful mouth, which suggested a vegetable ruminant diet. And all these different species were peacefully gathered in this hall, without bothering each other or even talking loudly. Marasha found the harmony in this room very relaxing and hoped it would stay that way, at least for the foreseeable future.
The second officer, a blonde with green eyes, presented some forms to fill out. Since the forms were written entirely in Basic, his colleague had to translate them for the two children before the other one filled them out in Basic. It took some time, but finally it was done.
"Have you eaten something decent yet?" asked the blue-eyed official in a friendly manner in Minnisiat.
"We ate some food bars, but we could use some now."
"Do you eat meat?"
Both nodded.
After half an hour a very tall waiter arrived who also had no hair but several cheek tentacles speckled yellow-brown like the skin of his face and hands. He brought a large tray with all kinds of food on it, most of which the two Vagaari enjoyed.
When the meal was finished, a green humanoid woman sat down at their table, who had head tails just like the people at the bar.
"Let me introduce, Kuvuta Pindi," the officer said. "She works as a foster mother for children from various species. She will take care of you and make sure that you learn Basic properly first."
"What species are you, madame?" Marasha asked the Minnisiat woman.
"Unfortunately she doesn't understand Minnisiat," the official explained. "But it's better that way so that you can learn Basic more quickly. And she's a Twi'lek."
"Where are you taking our ship?" Bearsh asked the Twi'lek, and the officer translated.
"A friend of Mrs. Pindi will get it and put it in a safe place for you," the officer promised.
Bearsh and Marasha looked at each other.
"It all seems to be about relationships here," Marasha said suspiciously to her cousin in the Vagaari language. "It's funny that we don't even get his name given when we're supposed to fill out forms for every bit of shit."
"We don't know the man anyway," replied Bearsh. "And when the time is right, we'll take the ship back."
Her right mouth twisted into a doubtful expression. "If it's still there then."
He took her hand. "Then we'll just get a new one. With Basic we can fly every ship here."
She smiled at Bearsh. Why hadn't she thought of that straight away?
Kuvuta Pindi smiled at the children and gestured for them to come along. "Come with me," she said in Basic. And so Marasha and Bearsh learned their third word in Basic.
༺༻
The Twi'lek led them to a glider, which first flew them through the city of Jedha, a chaotic-looking collection of small and medium-sized houses. On the streets there were many vendors selling goods and food, and occasionally you would see simply dressed but very distinguished-looking people getting credits simply for telling people something important. The glider stopped in front of a solid stone house with small windows and a well-secured gate. When they entered, they saw two human children who were busy in a corner freeing a kind of lentils from their pods by beating them with straw brooms in order to then put the empty pods into a waste container.
They climbed a flight of stairs. Two children of the same species that Kuvuta Pindi also belonged to, came towards them from above. They carried a large basket of laundry downstairs.
"Very good, Ysca and Tsvala," the green Twi'lek praised the two of them. "Once you've hung up the laundry, you can pull weeds out in the garden. I'll see you in the drawing room for dinner."
She went with the children into a room where there were four beds. "Elka and Ysca and Tsvala live here. You will sleep here, Marasha."
She went with them into the next room. "Charky, Trev and Sidoo sleep here. And you will be the fourth in the group," she said so slowly that Bearsh could at least guess the meaning of her words.
Kuvuta went with the children into a room where there was a large holovid screen. "You two have some free time now, while I'm watching my favorite series," the green Twi'lek announced and activated the screen.
A prologue appeared in a foreign script that, Bearsh noted, was not Aurebesh. Then people from Kuvuta's species appeared, talking to each other, doing dramatic things and occasionally singing and dancing. Marasha and Bearsh looked at the screen in disbelief and shook their heads, then turned away to explore the house and meet the other children.
Evening came and the children set about preparing dinner without Kuvuta having to do much. They sat down in the drawing room at a large table surrounded by sixteen chairs. Four of them remain free, Marasha noted. She wondered how long the children had been here and, more importantly, how long they would stay. The door to the saloon opened and a green man entered. He was at least a head and a half taller than Kuvuta Pindi and had a lipless mouth. His eyes were glowing red, reminding Marasha of the eyes of the Chiss. However, the man's eyes were crossed by a jagged line - probably the pupils of his species, whereas Chiss had pupils like Vagaari or humans.
"May I introduce?" Kuvuta said. "My friend Dool Pundar. He's Neimoidian," she said to Marasha and Bearsh.
After Dool Pundar sat down, everyone grabbed a bite and enjoyed it. There was a freshly baked loaf of bread already sliced, along with cheese, fruit and vegetables unlike anything Marasha and Bearsh had ever known.
"He looks like a real guy!" Bearsh said in his language to Marasha, who was sitting on the other side of the table, whereupon Kuvuta shot him a warning look from her light green eyes.
Marasha also looked at the Neimoidian. Her eyes rested on the blaster he had on his hip. She nodded to her cousin.
"We only speak Basic here at the table!" Kuvuta admonished the two newcomers.
Then she uncovered a bowl that had been sitting closed on the table. A rather strange smell emanated from it, which reminded Marasha of something rotten.
"You don't have to look like that," Kuvuta said, noticing Bearsh's doubtful look. "Neimoidians really like to eat things like that."
Charky, who was the same species as the newspaper-reading reptilian in the spaceport lounge, let out a hiss that was probably a laugh, then everyone started eating.
After they had finished eating, the Neimoidian indicated that he wanted to speak to the two new arrivals alone.
They went into a side room in which stood a droid of humanoid form, which was silver and clearly different in shape and demeanor from those that Marasha and Bearsh had seen in the Miskara's throne room. Marashas narrowed her eyes and instinctively sought proximity to her cousin, who also seemed uncomfortable in the presence of the silver droid.
"Hello, I am C4PX, protocol droid," he introduced himself in Minnisiat. "I master six million communication models as well as the language of binary loadlifters and moisture vaporators."
"Is he armed?" Bearsh asked in Minnisiat.
The droid translated.
Dool Pundar laughed out loud at the question. "Have you had any bad experiences with droids?" he asked the Vagaari children.
"The enemy had droids with them when they attacked our people," Bearsh explained.
"What did those droids look like?" asked Dool.
"Like humanoids, but yellowish with those narrow snouts and blasters in their hands. The others were smaller and three-legged with round shields."
"Where did this happen?" asked Dool Pundar, very interested.
"That was in the Crustai sector. There were also Chiss ships there and another Republic ship," Marasha blurted out – also in Minnisiat, earning her a glare from Bearsh.
"Crustai doesn't tell me anything now," said Dool, his expression signaling helplessness. "You are really lucky to have escaped that war. It could be that Vice Lord Siv Kav, a fellow species of mine, was sent there. He and many of his droids never returned from a recent mission. The timing could be right."
"What was Siv Kav's mission?" asked Bearsh.
"I don't know," Dool replied. "But I'm sure Nute Gunray knows. He is the viceroy of our people. But since he started working with certain people, I prefer to go my own way."
"Who are these certain people?" Marasha asked.
"Young lady, not everyone involved in this even knows that. These people are hiding their faces and because of them many of our people have already died, not to mention the material damage." His voice now sounded bitter. "They promise a lot of things, but they ask far too much for me to be able to rely on getting out of there in one piece. Nute Gunray sees it differently. Or he can't do anything else. But it does not matter. We make a living here and that has to be enough."
"How do you make a living?" Bearsh probed.
"I trade and transport goods," the Neimoidian replied in a way that made Bearsh sit up and take notice.
Bearsh looked at the blaster dangling from the Neimoidian's slim hip. "Seems pretty dangerous."
"The area is rough and you can't trust everyone," Dool explained. "There are pirates around."
"What are pirates?" Marasha asked.
"People who attack other people's spaceships or even entire planets and steal goods there in order to benefit themselves," explained Pundar.
"I'm good with a blaster and could give you a hand," Bearsh offered.
The Neimoidian patted him on the shoulder. "Until you have learned enough Basic, you and your cousin will stay here! Your ship is quite interesting. Do all of you Geroons' children fly alone at such an early age and can use a blaster?"
Bearsh stuck out his still small chest. "We learn this pretty early," he explained confidently. "You know, the pirates."
Marasha smiled mischievously.
"The ship you came in was also well armed. You Geroons must be a brave people," said Dool approvingly.
Bearsh suppressed the impulse to ask about his ship. Instead, he thought about what he could and shouldn't say to the Neimoidian.
"But what about you, young lady?" Pundar changed the subject. "What can you do?"
"I…" she pressed something. "I still go to school, so I went back then, yesterday. I can sing."
"Then sing something to me, Marasha!" Dool asked her.
Marasha sang in two voices with both mouths. After a while, Bearsh joined in with their melody, so they sang in four voices.
Dool Pundar closed his red eyes in ecstasy for a while. "Beautiful!" he said. "You two could earn a lot of credits with that."
"Do they also accept skrillas here?" Bearsh asked his new protector.
The Neimoidian raised the nictitating membranes that spanned his eyes. "I have never heard of such a currency. You two need to tell me more about your world when you get a chance."
Bearsh and his cousin looked at each other. They knew that they had to coordinate well so as not to reveal their true identities.
"And now to your opening question, Bearsh," Dool returned to the droid in the room. "This is a protocol droid trained to conduct communications, teach languages, and assist in negotiations. He would never even touch a blaster on his own, unless he is forced to. But it goes against his programming and he would also be a lousy shooter."
Marasha exhaled carefully at this answer. She looked at her cousin and saw him relax as well.
"I brought C4PX with me so that you can learn Basic with him, in addition to the work that Kuvuta has for you," Dool continued. "It's not often that children arrive here who don't yet know Basic. So be diligent and don't disappoint us."
"Do you have children of your own?" Marasha asked, looking at the room in which Kuvuta had to stay with the other children.
"No," Dool replied with a short laugh. "My species lays its eggs in hives where brood workers care for them until our larvae hatch. But Twi'leks are viviparous. At least she hasn't gotten pregnant from me yet." He laughed again. "So far she hasn't gotten pregnant at all. So I guess she's loyal to me."
After dinner the children went to wash themselves and then went to their bedrooms to go to bed for the night. Marasha lay in her new bed and heard the soft snoring of Tsvala and Elka. Ysca, on the other hand, slept soundlessly. Suddenly she thought of her siblings, with whom she had previously shared a room. Porsha also snored softly because she mostly slept on her back. And her younger siblings Desh and Virash had slept in a small double bed. The gentle vibration of the floor in the large ship had once lulled Marasha to sleep as her mother read or sang to Desh and Virash until they finally fell asleep.
But this house, this room was immovable and the children in the room with her felt... no, it was she who didn't belong here... and yet it had to be that way. From outside she heard the muffled voices of Kuvuta Pindi and her Neimoidian partner through the door. Her parents used to talk the same way beyond their bedroom. And now here she was, lost as one of only a few survivors of her people. It occurred to her that the children of the slaves on the Vagaari people's ships might have felt the same way, but for the most part they had had parents... on another ship somewhere, perhaps, but at least within reach, while she and Bearsh had been orphaned. Tears silently streamed from her eyes... and eventually she fell asleep.
The next morning, around six o'clock, a bell rang, which made an unpleasant sound in Marasha's ears.
"Get up, sleepyhead!" called Elka, the human girl, shaking Marasha's shoulder.
Not that Marasha wasn't used to getting up early from her previous school routine. After yesterday's long day, made even longer by the time difference between Jedha and the Crustai sector, plus the excitement of escaping the Chiss, she could have easily used another three hours of sleep. So she got up, trotted into the washroom, washed and dressed.
After breakfast together, Kuvuta went back to their four-person room with Marasha. "What does your bed actually look like?" complained the Twi'lek.
All other three beds had been properly shaken up and put back together. Kuvuta picked up Ysca's pillow and there lay her pajamas neatly folded into a square.
"And where are your pajamas?" she asked Marasha reproachfully.
The girl being addressed let her purple eyes wander behind the headboard of the bed in which she had slept. There, Marasha's pajamas lay carelessly crumpled on the floor, while her blanket was still piled on the bed in the shape she had left it.
The Twi'lek's green eyes filled with reproach. "Didn't you ever make your bed at home, Marasha?"
"Our Pashvi always did that. She always cleaned up when we were at school or kindergarten," replied the young Vagaari. "And she cooked food."
"Your Pashvi?" Kuvuta asked.
"That was the name of their species."
Kuvuta paused for a moment at this answer, then she knew in which direction it would be worth digging further. "How much did she get paid for that?"
Marasha considered. "As far as I know, she got room and board."
"Was she on vacation?"
Marasha chewed her lower right lip. "What is vacation?"
"When you go to another area for a while to relax and be relieved of all the responsibilities you normally have."
"We don't know anything like that," said Marasha, uncomprehending.
"So the Pashvi was always with you, never with her family at home?" Kuvuta probed.
Marasha became uncomfortable with these questions. "She was always there. Even before I was born. I don't remember her ever being away."
A half-smile appeared at the corner of Kuvuta's mouth. "So what did your mother actually do?"
"Mother took care of the children."
"When you were at school or kindergarten?" Kuvuta asked pointedly.
"Then she would chat with her friends or go to the seamstress to choose fabrics for new dresses and have them tailored to her body. Or with such pregnancy and birth preparation rituals. I…" she paused a bit in her story, "… had three younger siblings."
"So she was just a housewife and mother."
"No!" Marasha objected forcefully. "My mother, along with other women, organized the logistics when we went on trips to purchase needed goods. And she organized the recruitment and assignment of workers to specific tasks. She and her friends took turns and supported each other in organizing these things."
"And these friends had Pashvis too?"
"Them or Frunchies."
"Then you Geroons are keeping slaves," Kuvuta Pindi stated in a way that didn't necessarily suggest a new accusation.
Marasha let this statement hang in the air without saying anything.
"Well, whatever," Kuvuta snapped her out of her embarrassment. "You will do your own things here, just like the other children. And you will learn to cook food."
Marasha and Bearsh spent most of the day apart from each other, except for the Basic lessons with the protocol droid, which lasted exactly four hours every morning. They spent the rest of the day doing housework or running errands outside the house, applying their newly learned Basic.
On the afternoon of their second day in their new home, the two Vagaari children went into the courtyard of the house, where there was a small playground. Charky, the Trandoshan, was throwing a ball to Sidoo, a human child, and the other boy caught it. Marasha and Bearsh sat on a bench to watch them and chat:
"It's strange that Kuvuta and Dool live together like a married couple," Marasha said to her cousin. "Why doesn't he take a wife from his species or she take a husband from the Twi'leks? Then they could have children of their own, but these conditions are," she searched for an appropriate word, "strange."
"Good for us. At least for now," Bearsh replied darkly. "I'm more interested in what Dool meant when he said that no children come here who don't know Basic. Does that mean that at some point they'll pass us on to someone else and new children will come here?"
"Hmmm, maybe they can find foster parents to look after them until they grow up? Foster parents from the children's species?" Marasha suspected.
"But who does something like that unless they want to take us as slaves like we do at home?" Bearsh objected. "And anyway: We worked all day today! Actually, at least the other children should go to school!"
Marasha looked at Charky, who had just caught the ball with his small but strong hands. "Right, I noticed that too. Maybe it's the weekend here and school starts later."
"If new children keep coming here like we do, then at some point this house would have to burst at the seams. I'm telling you, they have something planned for us. Why do you think Dool asked you what you could do?"
Concern appeared in her purple eyes. "That could mean that one day we could be separated. We have to find a way to stay connected. Do you think our home comms will work here if we're too far apart?"
"We'll stay here long enough to figure out how to communicate with each other over long distances here. Then we locate a dead mailbox and leave messages there."
"That's how we do it," she agreed.
༺༻
Bearsh and Marasha have been in Kuvuta Pindi's house for half a year now. The Twi'lek's Neimoidian friend rarely visited. He was there today. He had brought his girlfriend a copper-colored headdress, which she was very happy about.
The two Vagaari children had now noticed that the children in the Kuvuta house not only did simple housework, but also did work for strangers in the city, such as shopping and running errands. Ysca and Tsvala, the two Twi'lek children, washed laundry for other people, which meant that they had to move more than five times a day between the washing machine room in the basement of the house and the attic above the second floor, where the laundry dried, shuttled back and forth. For all these useful services, Kuvuta collected credits from customers, which she used to maintain the house and clothe and feed the children. What she did with the rest of the credits she had earned, and according to Bearsh's guess there must be a remainder, the Twi'lek kept to herself and none of the children dared to ask about it.
In addition to the obligatory basic lessons, Marasha had also learned some Twi'leki from the protocol droid, so that she could occasionally practice their language with her foster mother and watch the soap opera that Kuvuta liked so much, with her.
"Are your holo-films mostly about relationships?" Marasha asked her foster mother one day.
"What did you usually watch?" the Twi'lek asked back.
"Well, action movies."
"If you're big enough, you'll be allowed to do that too."
Marasha finally remembered the question that had been bothering her for a long time whenever she saw Kuvuta sitting in front of the holo-screen. "Why does the Holo-Net actually have such poor image quality?"
"How come? "The picture on the Holo-Net is good," the Twi'lek wondered.
"But it's not sharp!" Marasha objected. "It's way too grainy, the colors have no depth and there's no 3D effect at all. Actually, the image should be exactly as if this scene were happening in front of us in the flesh."
Kuvuta raised the fine, black arches of her tattooed eyebrows. "Where is there something like that?"
"At our homeworld," Marasha said. "We had a VIS system there. Don't you know this here?"
"VIS system? Never heard of it," came back from the Twi'lek's red-painted mouth. "What does VIS mean?"
Marasha realized she had made a mistake. "It means Vid Image System," she lied, proud that she had replaced the word Vagaari with something more innocuous in time.
"You Geroons are a strange people," said Kuvuta. "You fly sloppy ships, you let other peoples drive you away, but your holovision screens are the best, right? If you had set your priorities differently back then, you would probably still be at home."
"Sorry, I didn't mean to be arrogant," she tried to reassure the Twi'lek.
Kuvuta waved her off and went back to her soap opera. At that moment, Marasha's comlink, which no one in the house knew except Bearsh, chirped. It was the signal she had been waiting for.
"What was that?" asked the Twi'lek.
Marasha looked around as if she too was searching for the cause. "What?" she asked indifferently.
"Oh, it doesn't matter," grumbled Kuvuta, who obviously cared more about her soap opera.
Marasha left the lounge and crept into the attic where so many people's laundry was drying. Ysca and Tsvala had been given the afternoon off, so no one would bother them up here.
"It's finally here!" said Bearsh solemnly and took out his comlink where he had saved the recording six months ago.
He pressed a button and the diamond-shaped device came to life. Marasha and Bearsh could see the razor-sharp image of the human and the Chiss leaning over the transparent rescue orb. In the sphere itself, they could see a side view of the human who called himself Jorj Car'das. After lying in the zero-g plastic bubble for a long time, the traitor had changed to a side position that was obviously more comfortable for him, so that they had a good view on his liberators from below. Marasha enjoyed the sharp image and smiled, thinking about the relatively poor image quality of the holo-net further down in the living room. This comlink was a piece of home!
"Are you all right?" they heard a pleasant voice in Basic ask.
The speaker of these words was the Chiss.
"Yes, Commander, thank you," the traitor replied in a quieter voice, distorted by the layer of the sphere. "I gather it all worked as planned?"
"Yes," the Chiss confirmed with a certain sadness in his voice. "For the most part."
The human bent down to his fellow species. "Car'das? What are you doing here?"
Marasha could see that the human from outside the sphere had green eyes. She remembered that his complexion was slightly paler than Car'das's from her physical visit to the command ship of the lost Vagaari fleet.
"Luring the Vagaari into my trap, of course," the Chiss commander replied. "Or had you forgotten that the Chiss don't engage in preemptive attacks?"
Bearsh's face contorted as if in pain. Marasha saw him utter a silent curse as he continued to listen. And that curse was Thrawn!
"I see," said his human companion. "So those spy accusations you were throwing around aboard the Darkvenge were nothing but smoke? Something to cover you in case the whole thing fell apart?"
"It was for protection, yes, but not for me," the Chiss replied, gesturing to maneuver the force back into the hallway of the flagship. "It was to protect Admiral Ar'alani, the officer commanding the transport that arrived an hour ago to take the freed Geroon slaves back to their world."
"And who couldn't afford to be even unofficially involved in any of this," the green-eyed human said, nodding. "But who could make sure to look the other way at all the right times, leaving you and Car'das to take the blame if anything went wrong."
"Never mind the blame," Car'das interjected. "What happened with Outbound Flight? I saw the starfighters take off after it."
Bearsh and Marasha looked at each other. Flight project. So that was the name of the white colossus!
"We were forced to go further than I'd hoped," the Chiss commander said.
"How much further?" Car'das asked.
"They're dead," Thrawn replied. "All of them."
"There wasn't any choice," said the person next to him. "C'baoth was using his Jedi powers to try and strangle the Commander. There was no other way to stop him."
"Did you ever even give them the chance to just leave and go home?" asked the human in the sphere.
"Yes," the commander replied shortly.
"More than just one chance," his human companion added forcefully. "More than I would have offered them. And if it matters any, I was the one who actually pushed the button."
They saw Car'das grimace. "You're sure there aren't any survivors?"
"The Dreadnaughts were taken out by radiation bombs," the human outside the sphere reported. "We haven't actually sent anyone over yet to check, but if the commander's weapons stats are accurate there's no way anyone could have lived through that."
"So you got what you wanted after all," came back to the fellow species from within the sphere. "You must be happy."
The human at Thrawn's side looked away. "I wouldn't say I am happy."
The connection dropped and Bearsh turned off the comlink again.
"So there are three," Bearsh said darkly. "That commander named Thrawn, who wanted to destroy us, his front man Car'das..."
"...and the green-eyed man who wanted to see the flight project destroyed," Marasha finished her cousin's sentence.
"Even if the green-eyed man probably doesn't have a single interest in us Vagaari, he is still an important source of information, who might be able to help us if he tells us."
A question mark bloomed in Marasha's purple eyes. "What did he mean when he said he was the one who pushed the button?"
"Commander Thrawn was choked by this..." he searched for the name, "... C'baoth and then the green-eyed man pressed the button and the choking stopped," Bearsh summarized what he had understood.
"Then why couldn't someone from us just press a button, when our people was under attack?"
"Why did the flight project have to paralyze our fleet and not the Chiss fleet?" Bearsh countered acidly. "Thrawn knew so much more than we did – through this Car'das. It appears that Thrawn and this C'baoth had a falling out after they destroyed our fleet. Thrawn was being choked and then…" he thought about it, "… no, it wasn't just any button. That was the attack order that Thrawn couldn't give because he was being choked!"
"Now that you mention it…" she replied in agreement. "And I was wondering why the green-eyed man expects such gratitude for simply pressing a button. It might be interesting to find out what kind of ship this Darkvenge is," Marasha suggested.
"Perhaps Dool Pundar knows something about it if one of his compatriots was down there at the time. But we'd better leave that question for another time," decided Bearsh. "It would be more interesting for you to find out what exactly the Jedi Force is."
"So that's what they call it here," she replied thoughtfully.
"This C'baoth apparently strangled not only Thrawn from the distance of his ship, but also the commanders and officers on our command ship - my father on his ship," Bearsh took a deep breath, "... and on the other ships. So that's why they were lying there with no visible injuries! This C'baoth seems to have been a master of what you only have a rudimentary mastery of and felt on our command ship, cousin. You said back then that there must have been at least twenty of his kind on the white ship to accomplish something like that."
Something glowed in her purple eyes. "If there are more people like this in the Republic, it should be easy to find out about them."
"Then our next tasks are clearly assigned," Bearsh concluded the inventory. "I'll take care of the Darkvenge, maybe of this Thrawn and the other two if I can find anything about them. And you explore the Jedi Force."
They sealed their further course of action with another handshake, then left the attic to go back downstairs to the others.
Author's note: The three-way conversation between Thrawn, Car'das and the other person comes in a modified form from the novel "Outbound Flight" by Timothy Zahn (2006).
The Twi'lek Kuvuta Pindi, the Neimoidian Dool Pundar and the Trandoshan Charky are characters from the comic: The Clone Wars - Strange Allies (2011) by Panini.
From here on, my imagination takes over this story completely for a longer period of time, incorporating familiar things here and there.
