Halfway to Martyrdom
Chapter Seventeen
Hammerly had no idea what was going on around her. First Thrawn dragged her down to the surface of an alien planet with him, then he told the aliens she was in charge, and now the alien base was under attack. Most confusing of all, Thrawn had stepped out of their hiding place to confront one of the attackers. Hammerly didn't know if she should run after him or protect herself. Nothing made sense anymore.
She listened for the inevitable sound of blaster shots following Thrawn's return to the main room. She didn't hear any. All she heard were words exchanged in the Unknown Regions language. Taarja. Taarja and… laughter?
Why would the attacker be laughing at Thrawn? This mission got weirder by the second.
"Should we check on them?" Naylaub whispered to her. He was hiding behind a bed on the other side of the room.
Hammerly nodded. She withdrew her blaster from its hiding place underneath her tunic. Naylaub followed a step behind her as they crept into the main room.
The first thing Hammerly noticed was Thrawn. He was sitting down. Both his rank plaque and his blaster were still stowed away in his tunic. His expression showed no sign of tension or danger. The look on his face, combined with his posture, suggested… friendliness?
The second thing Hammerly noticed were the stormtroopers. The three that had remained in the main room didn't have their weapons trained on anyone. Their visors kept flitting from the door to the intruder.
And the intruder… he was a strange one, alright. Bright yellow feathers as long as Hammerly's shin protruded from the alien's head. Without the feathery headdress, the alien was about her height. He (Hammerly wasn't sure it was a he, but she remembered from biology that male bird species typically had the more colorful plumage) had large round eyes. Their corners turned up in a large beaky smile.
"Ah, Commodore. I was just about to call for you." Thrawn addressed her in Basic. The sudden sound of intelligible words made Hammerly straighten to attention. "We are in no danger from the raiding party. This is Uingali foar Marocssa, their leader. I met him during the Clone Wars."
Oh, so she was right about him being a male. Hammerly had many questions she wanted to ask at that moment, but she decided she would wait for a private audience with Thrawn to ask them all. She extended her hand to Uingali. "A pleasure to meet you, Uingali. I am Commodore Hammerly of the Galactic Empire."
Thrawn added a few words to Hammerly's introduction, presumably a translation. Uingali took Hammerly's hand in both of his and bowed his head towards her. The tips of his feathers brushed against her officer's cap.
"Uingali is pleased to make your acquaintance. His gesture is one of great respect towards a fellow warrior." After that, Thrawn called the rest of his crew out of hiding. They all gathered in the common room once again.
"Why did he attack the base we arrived at? Does it have anything to do with us?" Hammerly asked.
Thrawn frowned. "It does, I am afraid. Uingali used to be a general in the Paccian military. He conducted many successful missions in an alliance with the Chiss Ascendancy. Yet it is my understanding that when the Paccosh's political relationship with the Ascendancy turned sour, his subclan fell from grace. Uingali was demoted from his command position; however, he still has the respect of many of his former soldiers."
"And with all due respect, sir, what does that have to do with us?" one of the troopers asked.
"When an old friend of his detected our ship in the asteroid field, he had visuals on our hull. He didn't get a complete picture, but he had reason to suspect the ship was mine." Thrawn paused. "Uingali knows my true name. You do not have to pretend around him."
Hammerly did her best to keep up with the flow of information. "Does this have anything to do with the fact that Uingali's men wear the Chimaera symbol on their uniforms?"
"It does, Commodore. That symbol is the crest of the Marocssa clan. The first time I encountered the crest was on a ring Uingali gave me. His people were under the threat of extinction; he wanted me to preserve his people's memory should their annihilation come to pass." Thrawn blinked. "Thanks to our collaborative efforts, the crisis was averted. I initially returned the ring to Uingali, but it found its way back into my hands once more when our paths crossed an additional time."
He took the ring off the armrest of his chair and showed it to Hammerly. Sure enough, it had the same twisting snake design as the Chimaera's hull. "So the Paccosh recognized the design on our ship from one of their clans. Or something that could be that."
"Indeed. They also recognized our ship from their reports on the edge of the Unknown Regions. The Paccosh are aware of the Empire's existence, though they have never met us personally before now. When they saw what could be the Marocssa subclan's crest on an Imperial ship, they knew it might be me. That is why Uingali's old friend hid our presence in the system from detection."
Hammerly blinked. "What do you mean they hid us? If they knew we were out there, why didn't they come check us out?" Why didn't they rescue us?
Uingali brayed at them in Taarja. His words flew by Hammerly's ears fast. Urgent, even.
Thrawn turned to Hammerly, then to the rest of his crew. "We need to leave. Many in the Paccian military are still on Uingali's side, but they do not wish to be caught in an act of treason. Uingali wants us to board our transport with some of his men. He will… pretend to kidnap us, then explain the rest of the situation."
"Pretend to kidnap us? This is crazy!" Naylaub protested. "I thought we came down here to get help for the ship. Why are we hostages in some alien's civil war?"
"Ensign Naylaub, I order you to comply with Uingali's demands. We shall play the role of hostages in exchange for ship repairs." Thrawn's mind was made up. Hammerly sensed there was no room for further argument.
"What do we have to do?" Hammerly asked. "Do we need to hand over our weapons?"
Thrawn repeated her question to Uingali. Upon receiving Uingali's response, he said, "our escort will have to hand their blasters to Uingali's men, but their knives are small. They will not be detected from a distance. Similarly, you may return your blaster to its hiding place. The base records do not have a complete log of our weapons. We may use this to our advantage."
Uingali's throat made a high chirping sound. At the noise, a dozen other aliens stormed in behind him. They took the troopers' blasters as Hammerly stuffed hers back down her shirt.
She trusted Thrawn's judgment. She did. But at the first sign of trouble, Hammerly was calling the Chimaera. Even if an evacuation cost them any chance of scoring alien supplies, it was preferable to becoming a prisoner of war for a conflict none of them fought in.
The bird aliens surrounded the Imperials on all sides. Uingali took the lead, and Thrawn followed right behind him. Hammerly stuck to Thrawn's side. They exited the barracks one by one, a Paccosh sandwiched between each human. After a headcount at the entrance, the aliens led them past the hole in the fence Bridger had made earlier. Hammerly began to wonder if the rebel had the right idea all along.
Hammerly followed Thrawn towards the hangar in much the same state she had left the hangar an hour prior. Surrounded by aliens speaking a foreign language. She wasn't cuffed either time, but she still felt like a captive.
As she looked around, she noticed several plumes of gray smoke emanating from the tops of buildings. Plenty of overturned crates and scattered parts. Any casual observer would believe this base had been the site of a major conflict.
And any active observer would see the signs of staging instantly.
The closer to the main compound Hammerly got, the more obvious it was that nothing had actually been broken. Messes had been made, people had run around, projectiles stuck to a few walls. But there were no injuries. Nothing had really been broken, just disassembled. After spending the last few weeks inside a real shipwreck, Hammerly knew what the aftermath of a battle really looked like. This wasn't it.
Perhaps there was some truth to Uingali's story after all. Maybe he and his attacker friends really had faked their raid on the base with inside help. But why? Why couldn't they receive a full explanation on base?
As if to answer her question, the security patrol from before swooped back over the hangar. The screech of their wings in the planet's sky reminded Hammerly of TIE fighters. One of the base's anti-spacecraft guns fired a shot into the air. It missed the leftmost patrol ship by several meters.
Was it a warning shot? Part of the show? Who was in on Uingali's plot and who wasn't? It occurred to Hammerly that not every soldier may realize their civil war was fake.
The ground of the base's hangar was deserted. Uingali's group raced the Imperials back towards the transport in which they had arrived. As Hammerly boarded, she noticed the alien crew had failed to lock the ship down in any way. Had it been their plan from the beginning to let Uingali abduct their visitors?
Was that why the base commander had promised them food and medicine? It was easy to make promises when there was no expectation they would be kept. The thought made Hammerly sick.
It was a struggle to fit everyone in the transport's passenger bay. Even with Bridger gone, the ship was past capacity. If they were planning to break the atmosphere, some people would have to be stored in the cargo crate for their own safety.
After some prodding, Naylaub reentered the cockpit with an alien "abductor" in tow. Hammerly took Thrawn's old seat directly behind him. Across from her in Bridger's old seat was Thrawn. He sat next to Uingali.
"Where are we going?" Naylaub asked. "It's not safe to enter orbit with some of you standing like that."
Thrawn translated the question for Uingali. Uingali came back with: "do not worry. We are not flying offworld. However, there may be one part of liftoff that is still not comfortable for you, Ensign."
"What is it?"
"The Paccosh in the cockpit with you. He will be pointing a blaster at your head. Rest assured the soldier has no intention of firing on you. He simply has to maintain the illusion that we are being taken against our will."
"I don't think it's much of an illusion," Naylaub grumbled.
Hammerly's comm pinged. She answered it before anyone else could react. "Hammerly here."
Woldar again. "Are you coming back to the ship? We saw the Paccosh escort you back to the hangar. What is going on down there?"
Thrawn extended his hand for the comm. Hammerly hesitated, then handed it over. "Negative, Commander. We are being directed by a Paccian escort to a secondary location. The first has been compromised by the raiding party detected earlier. We do not require any additional assistance at this time."
There was a pause on the other end of the comm. "Understood, sir. Did you ask anyone about the reactor leak?"
The reactor leak. That was the agreed upon code phrase for the mission. If their group were ever in a situation they required immediate evacuation from, all it would take was one use of the phrase. Why they had a code phrase in Basic when no one on the planet spoke that language was beyond Hammerly.
If Thrawn were really in trouble, he would say so now. Yet he did not. "There was no need to ask the question. Time is short. You will receive a full debrief at the conclusion of our mission, Commander." He ended the call without another word.
Uingali squawked from his place next to Thrawn. Thrawn nodded. "We must take off now. The Marocssa's forces need to retreat. Ensign Naylaub, if you would."
"Where are we going? No one's told me."
"Your copilot will point the way. For the sake of surveillance craft, be sure to appear reluctant."
Naylaub muttered under his breath, but obeyed. As they rose out of the hangar, Hammerly's stomach dropped. More ships. None with the Chimaera's symbol on their hull. Three looked like the security patrol that had escorted them to the surface in the first place. She didn't recognize the other two.
The ship's comm channel lit up. A sharp, high-pitched voice blared from the speakers like a siren. Hammerly had heard it on the way down too. Was that what a female Paccosh sounded like?
Instead of Thrawn translating like before, the alien in the cockpit answered the comm. Not in Taarja, but in another language entirely. Their native language, perhaps?
Whatever he said, it changed the tone of the woman on the other line. Before, she had been shrill and demanding. Now, she was quiet. Conciliatory.
Hammerly watched the alien in the cockpit shift their blaster towards Naylaub's head. The blaster was one they'd taken from the stormtroopers. To her, the message projected outside the viewport was clear: we've defeated the humans. They are our hostages. Do not approach.
The ships surrounding the base's hangar pulled back. With only the point of an alien's finger for navigation, Naylaub began their flight to another part of the planet.
Why had the other ships let them go so easily? Had these aliens threatened to kill their hostages? How sure was Thrawn that this was all an elaborate performance? Even if Uingali had accomplices on the inside, that didn't mean no one had been hurt at the base earlier.
And how did Thrawn know Uingali, anyway? What prior alliance warranted this level of trust? Hammerly didn't see their flight being over in the next few minutes, so she decided to cross a few questions off her list. "Where are we going?"
"Uingali is taking us to his subclan's headquarters. Because his subclan was evicted from the Clan Hall, they are no longer under the protection of the Paccian governance. The governance has yet to reclaim their territory by force."
"And these headquarters are on-world?"
"Yes, Commodore."
"Will we get what we need for the Chimaera from these headquarters?"
"Perhaps."
Hammerly bit back her frustration. "Were we more or less likely to get what we needed from the base, sir?"
"Under peaceful conditions, the base would be more likely to have the aid we require. As you may have guessed, Commodore, we did not arrive on Rapacc under peaceful conditions." Thrawn noticed her anger stirring. "I understand your concerns. I would not have cooperated with the man next to me if I did not believe it was immediately beneficial to us.
"You have shown faith in me thus far, Commodore. I ask you to extend your trust once again."
Hammerly crossed her arms. Her forearm brushed over the part of her tunic hiding a blaster. She sighed.
If she and the rest of the Imperial delegation were truly hostages, Uingali would have removed her weapon. He'd seen her wield it. This man had just met her, and yet he trusted her not to resist him.
"What can Uingali tell us about the civil war on his home planet, sir?"
"We shall discuss that upon safe arrival at our destination." Thrawn turned away from her. He whispered with the alien next to him. All in Taarja.
Hammerly should have followed Faro's lead. When Faro had seen how Thrawn liked to use Unknown Regions trade languages in his missions, she had taken it upon herself to learn Sy Bisti. If Hammerly knew what the aliens were saying, it would be far easier to trust them.
Otherwise, it was going to be a long ride in the transport.
The Imperial transport began its descent out of the clouds approximately one hour later. Naylaub was sick and tired of taking direction from an alien he couldn't speak with.
"No, you can't just point and grunt! I need to know where to land. Are you sure no one's following us?"
Thrawn answered Naylaub's final question. "The Paccian military officially believes that a pursuit will endanger the lives of the hostages aboard. They know that attempts to contact the ship above are stymied by the fact that only Vuando, the Empire's Chiss translator, can speak their language. They are not in pursuit."
So Uingali's men had threatened to kill them earlier. Why did Thrawn trust these aliens again?
Naylaub clearly had the same question, but he didn't ask it. Instead, he asked, "where do I land? All I see is water."
Hammerly craned her neck to look outside. She concurred with Naylaub's assessment. The transport craft appeared to be flying over an ocean. There were no islands peeking above the surface anywhere.
"Sir, I don't know about Paccosh ships, but this transport isn't designed to be submersible."
"Nor does it have to be." Thrawn turned to Uingali. Uingali stood and entered the cockpit.
Over Naylaub's objections, the alien leader adjusted the transport's comm frequency. When Uingali reached the frequency he was searching for, he snorted and brayed a quick message. Hammerly winced at the phlegm-y sound of the alien's voice.
As soon as Uingali finished his message, a large, antenna-looking platform emerged from the depths of the sea. On it was a hangar just big enough to accommodate an Imperial transport. The hangar was wrapped inside a large hemispherical dome, clear as transparisteel. Below the dome and the hangar was a thick extendable cylinder. The roundness and thickness reminded Hammerly of lifts inside a skyscraper. The whole setup rang reminiscent of the covert entrances into Tipoca City on Kamino. A location Hammerly had visited only once before the city's destruction immediately following the war.
"I guess I'm landing on that, then." Naylaub pointed the ship's steering towards the hangar, but Uingali held up a hand. The galaxy-wide symbol for "please wait."
Uingali keyed the comm on once again, this time to a different frequency. He spoke once more. This message was shorter than the one before. As Uingali cut the comm channel, the dome keeping the hangar dry began to recede.
"Yeah, I guess that's important. Now can I land?" Naylaub asked Uingali. He used hand gestures and pointing to assist with communication.
Once he got the go ahead, Naylaub brought the transport down on the submersible landing platform. He had to circle over the landing zone a few times, but the touchdown itself was smooth. Thrawn had chosen a talented pilot for their mission.
Through the transport's hull, Hammerly could hear the faint sound of ocean waves. The tides on this planet were calm, and the weather clear. It was fortunate that Naylaub hadn't had to fly this journey during a storm.
Naylaub moved to extend the boarding ramp, but Uingali intercepted him. "What's the big idea here?"
Thrawn translated for Uingali. "The dome must close once again before the platform sinks back down. There is a moment after the dome closes before breathable air flows normally because the dome's filters are in need of replacement. As a result, it violates safety procedures to stand outside the ship during the sealing and sinking process."
Hammerly's eyes widened. "We're going to be submerged, sir?"
"Yes, Commodore. Uingali took us this way so that our ship may be shielded during our time in his subclan's compound."
Or so other Imperial transports wouldn't be able to come after them. Depending on how deep this compound went, it was possible Hammerly's comm would be out of touch with the Chimaera. Hammerly didn't like this arrangement one bit.
Yet it was too late to object. Hammerly could only watch as the dome closed over their heads. The dome's walls were at least a meter thick, suggesting they were meant to withstand the pressures of the deep sea. The walls of the dome swallowed their craft like a hungry predator.
Once the dome had sealed, there were about ten seconds before the floor began to sink beneath them. Sea green water crept up the sides of the dome. Hammerly followed its trek up the walls from the transport's viewports, craning her neck to see the moment it covered their heads. The Imperials watched the process with a clear mixture of fascination and dread.
The aliens, by contrast, showed no interest in the proceedings. The event was mundane to them, as simple as riding a lift into a subterranean basement.
Their descent into the ocean was a lengthy one. Hammerly felt the change of pressure building in her head. She had to pop her ears to relieve the tension. She heard the aliens around her snort, one right after the other. A similar procedure?
Thunk. As suddenly as their submersion had begun, it stopped. Thrawn asked the Paccosh a question, then repeated their answer in Basic. "We may exit the transport. The air inside the landing platform is breathable once again."
Hammerly followed Thrawn out of the transport. Now that she could see the dome above her head, she chanced a glance upward right as a school of exotic fish swam over their heads. Even the wildlife were used to the platform's existence in their environment. When she looked directly ahead of her, she gasped.
The underwater building ahead of her looked like a miniature version of the base they'd departed. Hammerly could even see their main hangar from here; instead of spacecraft, they had submarines docked in the marina. Each boat bore the Chimaera symbol on its hull, but their designs suggested all different makers.
Thrawn asked Uingali a question in Taarja. Upon receiving his answer, he turned to Hammerly. "The submarines transport visitors to the main Marocssa compound, which is on land. The Paccosh are not seafaring people by nature, making this structure unique among the subclans. They built it after joining the Vaks on their underwater base a decade ago."
"It's a good place to hide items. Or people," Hammerly noted. Would also work for bodies.
"Indeed."
Uingali and his men returned the stolen blasters to their trooper owners. They escorted the Imperials through a hatch in the platform's floor, where the group descended down a stepladder into a partially transparent tube. The tube offered them a straight path to the building just ahead. Hammerly did her best not to think about the crushing weight of the water flowing above their heads. If this was the first time the Paccosh had built an underwater base…
They saw no other aliens on their journey into a large meeting room. The lights flickered on as their group approached rooms and shut off when movement was no longer detected. The meeting room itself was large and undecorated, with bare metal walls and a low hanging ceiling.
In the meeting room, Uingali sat at the head of the table. He gestured for Thrawn to join him at his side. Hammerly and the rest of the humans filled into the seats on Thrawn's side of the table. Two stormtroopers didn't get seats, so they assumed their station as door guards. The Paccosh sat across from them. Their eyes stayed fixed on Uingali while the humans stared at Thrawn.
"Great. Now that we're here, can we get some answers?" Naylaub asked. "Why did you kidnap us?"
For a moment, Hammerly debated censuring the junior officer. She wouldn't let him speak that way on the bridge to anyone. Ultimately she decided against the idea. "Is Uingali the negotiator we were promised at the base?"
"Perhaps he is." Thrawn turned to Uingali. The two struck up an lengthy conversation in Taarja.
Naylaub crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. The troopers' visors scanned the room, searching for stimulation of any kind. Meanwhile, Hammerly looked for ways to appear interested in the conversation unfolding next to her without understanding a word of Taarja.
As she took stock of the other Paccosh, she realized something about their body language. A few of them were following their leader's discussion with Thrawn, but most of them were imitating the humans seated across the table. All glancing around and looking bored. Their positions and posture led Hammerly to one conclusion. They didn't speak Taarja either.
Both sides were following the lead of their commander, a controversial man known for favoring an illicit alliance with the Chiss Ascendancy. The realization made Hammerly appreciate the Paccosh as individuals, if not as captors.
After a bit more back and forth, Thrawn and Uingali turned away from each other. Thrawn updated the humans in Basic while Uingali brought his own men up to speed. "Uingali didn't know our ship had any survivors when his friend informed him of the discovery. They saw the floating corpses of our fallen crewmen and dark floors of the ship. Our ship wasn't transmitting any signals into the system either. The Paccian military was about to mount a scrapping operation when we suddenly appeared above their orbit."
"So we surprised them. Why the extraction from the official Paccian military's base?"
Thrawn frowned. "As I alluded to before, the Paccosh and the Chiss were once allies. Had their alliance remained intact, we could have contacted the Chiss Ascendancy from here and used my contacts in the Chiss fleet to secure safe passage back to the Empire. Unfortunately for us and the galaxy at large, the Paccosh/Chiss alliance is no longer in force."
"What does that mean for us, sir? Can the Paccosh give us what we need to return to the Empire?"
"It's possible, but less likely. The Paccosh are fierce warriors, but their fleet is small. They do not wield a significant presence outside their own system. Not since their alliance with the Chiss Ascendancy ended. They may be able to assist us with some repairs, but they cannot offer us all that we need to return our ship to battle readiness. Perhaps more concerning, they lack the necessary resources for us to navigate back to Imperial territory directly."
"So we get what we can from them and try another system? Is that our plan, sir?" Hammerly feared something like this may happen. "We could still try the Chiss Ascendancy, no?"
"It would… not be easy to reach the Chiss Ascendancy from this system."
"Why not, sir?
"The Paccosh recently signed a peace treaty with the Grysk Hegemony and are officially neutral in the war unfolding in the Unknown Regions. In reality, they are trapped by the Grysk on all sides. Any trip to the Ascendancy requires us to traverse hostile territory." Thrawn's expression grew more dour by the second. "The Paccosh are using the appearance of a civil war to keep themselves from becoming vassals to the Grysk."
"What? Who would fake a civil war? Why?"
"The Grysk are known to instigate civil wars to install governments loyal to them. Yet in an existing civil war where they lack knowledge on who will prevail, they have a harder time installing a puppet government. The Paccosh are keeping up the appearance of a civil war for outsiders while building up their solitary defenses. The war is real to some politicians, but the military is on board with the scheme. They do just enough fighting to keep the Grysk's allies and spies from growing suspicious."
"That still seems ridiculous to me," Naylaub grunted.
"Never mind that. How does our 'kidnapping' play into the fake war?" Hammerly was doing her best to keep the facts straight.
"For one, it keeps the Grysk from coming here to eliminate us directly." Thrawn forced his eyes shut and exhaled slowly. "When the ship Uingali suspected was mine appeared over Rapacc, he suspected I may still be alive. When he received word the ship had a Chiss 'translator' aboard, he knew he had to keep word of my existence from reaching Grysk spies. I have thwarted the Grysk's plans too many times for them to pass up the opportunity to eliminate me. Our crew would not be spared from their revenge."
"Because you used the Chimaera in your missions to beat them." Hammerly nodded along.
Thrawn fixed her with a stare. "Because the Grysk are a cruel, brutal people who aren't fond of leaving witnesses to their atrocities. If they knew I was here, they would send their fleet to attack the planet."
"So an old friend of yours hid us under the sea to keep these Grysk from attacking his home planet," Naylaub summarized. "What does that mean for the rest of us, sir?"
"Uingali will enter into 'hostage negotiations' with the Paccian Governance. Once that is over, Uingali will return us to the official governance, who will provide us with as much assistance as they can to make up for the 'embarrassment' of our treatment. If we promise not to bring the Empire back to their world for vengeance, they will get our ship ready for a trip out of the system." Thrawn kept his focus on Hammerly. "He will use your name in the negotiations, Commodore. There shall be no mention of any Chiss in the reports that reach the Paccian Clan Hall, let alone the name of our ship or its true commander."
"So as payment for sitting through their fake kidnapping, they'll pay us with more aid?" Hammerly asked. "What does Uingali get out of this?"
"Other than the knowledge that the Grysk will not rain vengeance down on his home planet?" Thrawn shrugged. "Supplies he would have otherwise taken from the base earlier. Supplies that the Paccian military may then steal back in a 'skirmish' one week later. All part of the ruse."
Huh. Hammerly still didn't understand the need for a fake war. Still, the part Uingali wanted them to play in the conflict seemed easy enough. They hid Thrawn's presence from the people who would blow their ship to bits, gave their hull a new design during repairs, and plotted a course back to the Empire. "Whatever path we take leaving here, we need to make sure the Grysk don't find us."
"Indeed. If we agree to an additional mission on their behalf, Uingali will provide us with military support so that we may reach the Chiss Ascendancy."
"What does the 'additional mission' entail, sir?"
"We use our arrival in Chiss space to earn Uingali an audience with the Chiss Ascendancy. He wishes to repair the damage done to their previous alliance." Thrawn shrugged. "Uingali believes that reintroducing me to the Chiss Ascendancy will generate enough goodwill for negotiations to begin again. I do not agree with his assessment, but his assumption benefits our cause."
Hammerly didn't like the thought of running side quests for aliens. "How important is it for us to pass through the Chiss Ascendancy on our way back to the Empire? Are they on the way?"
"The Chiss Ascendancy is the only fleet in the Unknown Regions I know to be capable of escorting us safely back to the Empire. Anywhere else we stop opens us up to the possibility of a Grysk attack."
All that time in the asteroid belt, and it hadn't occurred to Hammerly that the path home would be this jagged. Until she joined Thrawn on the Chimaera, the Unknown Regions had been a total dead zone in her mind. A place devoid of civilizations and interplanetary conflicts. Even in the Chimaera's encounters with the Chiss Ascendancy, the conflict had seemed simple to her. Chiss on one side, Grysk on the other.
The Grysk wanted to conquer the galaxy and infiltrate the Empire. The Chiss wanted to contain the Grysk and enforce existing borders. It only made sense for the Empire to cooperate with the Chiss. The choice was logical when the Chimaera was standing proud among its fleet in Imperial territory. Now that it was alone and battered, being a Chiss ally painted a target on their back.
The presence of Thrawn himself threw an additional wrench into the works, yet Hammerly couldn't fault her commander for it. Not when he was the only one capable of communication in this region of space.
In the middle of their conflict sat the Paccosh. A weak regional power caught in the sights of a larger player. It sounded to Hammerly like the Paccosh wanted to help them, but it was as Thrawn had said before: "They have suffered in the past from helping ships not unlike ours. If the Paccosh offer us assistance, they wish to know our enemies will not target them for vengeance."
"So we repair the ship and travel to the Chiss Ascendancy together. Will it not raise alarms that our kidnapper is now our travel companion?"
"We will smuggle Uingali and his men aboard. Uingali and his contacts have been monitoring offworld communications. They know who the Grysk's spies are. He and I will rejoin the flagship together out of the sight of anyone who could compromise us."
Hammerly pursed her lips. "You want to undertake this additional mission for Uingali."
"I do. I believe a path back to the Empire via the Chiss Ascendancy is our best chance at survival. If it were possible to take a straight path back, I would not be suggesting this route."
"I understand, sir. Should we update the rest of the crew?"
Thrawn returned Hammerly's comm. "I suggest you inform them now."
A/N's: In honor of the Ahsoka trailer dropping, I give you... exposition!
If all my chapters are going to be this long, you may not be getting the number of updates I promised out of Camp NaNoWriMo. On the bright side, I have 1K of writing left before I hit my goal for the day, so writing for Chapter 18 begins as soon as this baby is posted.
The underwater base was inspired by the season 1 finale of Bad Batch. I wanted something that seemed out of place for the Paccosh to have. Because they're feathery, birdlike aliens, I thought it would be ironic for them to have an undersea base.
As for the politics and exposition... I tried to make it interesting. I'm sorry. But I really don't believe the Chiss would be able to maintain an alliance with another species for 20 years. Some political snafu ruined the alliance and weakened the Chiss and Paccosh's position in the war. Because Thrawn was the architect of the original alliance in the Ascendancy trilogy, Uingali believes his return will stitch their joint operation back together. There's just one thing complicating the plan:
Ezra.
Hope you enjoyed the update! Let me know what you thought in the comments, and I will be back soon.