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Hera didn’t expect the sight of her old home to knock the air out of her lungs. The last time she’d seen it was half a year ago, when her family had grabbed what they could and fled into the caves with the rest of the resistance, ahead of the arrival of a fleet of Star Destroyers. Even from the caves, the resistance made it hard on the Empire, chipping away at their numbers, until only a couple months ago when a new Star Destroyer arrived to hover in low atmo over the Tann Province. Its underhull emblazoned with the design of a strange, multiple-armed creature was hard to miss. Whispers spread of an Admiral taking over Imperial operations—and it showed. The resistance hadn’t gained a meter of ground in their struggle against their occupiers since patrols turned random and a quick response force always lay in wait to deploy when Twi’leks attacked Imperial patrols. The only way to get an edge up on the enemy was to know their schedule. Which meant they had to get their hands on that schedule to begin with.
“Halt,” a distorted voice ordered. Two stormtroopers flanked the front gate of her family’s property. “What’s your business here?”
Hera, already covered in a layer of dust from her long trek, forced a bend to her shoulders. “I heard there was an open slot in the housekeeping staff,” she said. Her native accent was much less harsh than theirs. “I came to apply.”
One trooper scanned her for weapons. She had none, and was clear to proceed to the front door of her house where two more stormtroopers stood. One held a device that scanned Hera’s fingerprints and her eyes to compare against their database of known resistance members. However, Hera had never gotten caught by the Empire before, and was never added to the database. She was clear at this station, too.
Her father’s absolute selectiveness when it had come to all the resistance missions she’d been allowed on her whole life was paying out in spades now.
Two more stormtroopers, past the door, escorted Hera through the many rooms filled with such tangible memories. What a difference to see her own house as a servant. By the time she was deposited in the kitchen, Hera was hugging her arms to herself, thoroughly looking the part of a timid civilian.
“Good, a replacement just in time,” sniffed an Imperial officer. Hera had seen several humans up close during her life on Ryloth, and this one had perhaps the blandest appearance of them all. She joined a line of four other female Twi’leks facing him.
“This is to be the last of these poisoning attempts, do you hear me? From now on, disobedience will no longer be punished individually. Misbehavior by one of you will result in punishment for all of you. Dinner is to be ready by 1800 hours every day, consistently, except for the Admiral’s meal, of course, which is to be delivered first.”
The other four Twi’leks nodded with bowed heads and Hera followed along. She felt the last bit of his instruction was mainly for her benefit; the other Twi’lek staff had been here longer than she had. The pouty Imperial left them to their preparations and Hera instinctively reached out to the single blue Twi’lek there.
“How are you doing, Numa?” Hera asked.
“Surviving.” Her friend pulled her to a corner where she could noisily extract the stove pots. “I see my messages got back to the resistance?”
“My father thinks your astromech plan is solid. Does the Empire suspect anything?”
“Not a thing. It helps that someone unrelated to us attempted to poison the Admiral. Too bad for her, though. I don’t know why Cham is so worried; these Imperials aren’t smart at all. When we clean, they give us free reign of the house. We’re just not allowed into the basement where they’ve set up their command center.”
“And the command center is where the astromechs go that you want to apprehend?” asked Hera.
Numa nodded. “You’ll see them, though I haven’t determined any logical pattern in their arrivals.”
“You’ve done good, Numa,” Hera said, pulling her into a quick hug. “We’ll get into their network soon enough.”
Numa stacked the pots and carried them to the island stovetop. “Oh, and when that Captain Slavin comes back? Don’t be caught around the pots.”
Cooking portions for a couple hundred soldiers turned the large kitchen hotter than Ryloth during midday, and by the time that same human Imperial returned, Hera was pretty sure her dusting from earlier had cemented into sludge. While two Twi’leks chopped vegetables and one cleaned the dishes already used in the cooking process and Numa rotated flatbread through the wide oven, Hera found herself stirring the meatsauce in the stovepots when Captain Slavin brought a round floating droid to scan the food. It announced all pots free of contaminants and Slavin snapped his fingers in Hera’s face.
“You, new girl. Assemble a dinner tray and take it up to the third floor office.”
Hera obeyed, fighting every fiber of her stubborn nature to remain demure. It wouldn’t do to be suspected as a plant on the very first day.
Like Numa said, she was allowed to walk unescorted through the house carrying the tray of meat-stuffed flatbread up the turbolift. Sure, she passed patrolling stormtroopers and a couple extra officers on her way that looked at her like they were trying to remember every facet of her, but already it was an intriguing amount of latitude.
She knew where the office was; it was the room her father had used years ago, when he was once so close to being the senator of the planet, losing rather suspiciously to Orn Free Taa. Inside, the first thing she noticed was the family portrait—her parents and her brother at two years old—still held its place of prominence illuminating the far wall. Hera assumed that would’ve been the first thing removed. Next to it, displayed like a museum piece, was her family’s Kalikori. Her heart dropped. Luckily, the tray didn’t.
“Is that for me?” a smooth voice asked.
Hera jumped straight out of her thoughts and back into the present. She applied that same, wide-eyed stare to everything else in the office, as if seeing it all for the first time. Her focus finally landed on the only other occupant of the room. Sitting behind the desk was a blue-skinned alien in a uniform strikingly different from anyone else she’d seen that day. But also striking were his bright red eyes that seemed to scrutinize everything about her.
Hera had expected to run into the Admiral eventually, but she hadn’t expected to freeze up when she did. She’d heard so much about him from so many sources—this wasn’t what she had in mind. She expected someone older; certainly, someone with cruelty set into every line of his face. Thrawn had no lines.
She forced herself closer, setting the tray down on the desk already taken over by Imperial monitors and tech, before backing up toward the door. She added a bow as she went, the way she’d seen family servants behave growing up.
“A moment, before you go,” said the Admiral, holding up a blue hand. Hera stalled in her tracks. “What is your name?”
Hera had been determined to only stare at the floor, but she couldn’t help it; the question made her look straight at him. But unlike the kitchen Imperial from earlier, he lacked all tones of condescension.
“Numa,” she said at length, her hands finding each other for support.
The alien cocked his head. “Interesting. Isn’t there another among the staff named Numa as well?”
“It’s a common name,” Hera returned, but all the same her hands clasped tighter. She was going to beat Numa purple when she saw her again.
“Well, Numa, how is it you came to be part of the staff?”
“I-I’m no good in the mines. Too dangerous. My family is hungry and I needed work.”
His red eyes were like a beacon she couldn’t look away from, and he held her gaze. Studying her. Were his eyes actually glowing, or was that her imagination?
Hera would never hear the end of it if she was found out on her very first day. She added more droop to her shoulders, and returned her gaze to the floor.
“And what do you think of the Imperial occupation of your world?”
“I just want to provide for my family,” she said, easily the truth. “I don’t care who controls Ryloth as long as they are safe.”
The door to the office opened for the pouty Captain Slavin, and his pout deepened at the sight of Hera.
“What are you still doing here? Get back to work!” he barked. Hera didn’t waste a moment scuttling back into the hallway, away from the Admiral’s prying eyes, who even as she left said, “Slavin, please. We were having an amicable conversation.”
In the kitchens once more, Hera almost choked on the sweltering air. The other Twi’leks hurried to ready all the food in time for dinner, and Hera found Numa pulling all the flatbread from the oven.
“Please tell me you did not give them your real name!” Hera whispered at her.
“Why? It’s not like I have any identity to hide.”
“Because I gave them your name!”
Numa shot Hera a look. “What on Ryloth for? They don’t know you as part of the resistance, either!”
“I’m being careful!” Before Hera had even started out on this mission, her father had pulled her aside and told her to thoroughly decide what lengths she was prepared to go in acquiring the intel, in order to compromise nothing.
“That’s why I told you to stay away from the stove!” Numa whispered. “The Admiral does that with everyone who takes him dinner. We think he has a datafile memory or something, because he always remembers names afterwards. So don’t forget yours—well, mine, I guess. I can’t believe you used my name!”
After the dinner preparation, the staff cleaned the kitchen and the dishes, then were sent to different ends of the mansion to sweep away the tenacious dust tracked in by the troopers. Near midnight, Hera was led to a free room, her new quarters as the staff were allowed limited leave of the mansion, and only one at a time. The staff was also separated when not working, so the room she was given was all hers. It was also her brother’s old room, which hadn’t changed—hadn’t been touched—since he died. Her family had just taken to avoiding it, and now Hera couldn’t avoid it any longer.
She sat next to the bed, arms wrapped around her legs, telling herself this would all be worth it. She and Numa would help the resistance finally turn the tide in the Empire’s occupation of Ryloth. Somewhere in this house was the master roster that tracked all the seemingly random schedules of Imperial movements, and grabbing that would erase the element of surprise they had over the Twi’leks.
Tipping her head onto the edge of the bed, Hera knew they had to succeed at any lengths. It was this or nothing.
The coming days saw an exhausting repetition: Hera woke up early to slave over breakfast, then clean up from breakfast, clean the house of dust, then start on dinner, clean up from dinner, and clean the house again. The Imperial astromechs were few and far between, relaying information from the Star Destroyers that hovered over the planet to the data center located in the basement. From Hera sweeping at advantageous moments, she had a glimpse inside the command center room once, as an astromech entered. Along with many Imperial monitors and terminals were all the officers working their stations, with more than a couple of armed stormtroopers flanking the different doors. Numa was right; there was no way in as a Twi’lek; they’d have to apprehend one of the droid couriers.
Captain Slavin tasked whichever Twi’lek was stirring the stovepots with the job of delivering Thrawn’s dinner, and a week into Hera’s time as a staffer, that duty once more fell to her. It was only fair; all the other staffers had delivered dinner since her first meeting with the Admiral, so Hera compiled a tray of meat in gravy and a side of vegetables and carried it three levels up to the office. She found Thrawn standing next to his desk, in conversation with a holographic Imperial.
“Perhaps the workers would not be so intent on rebelling if mining conditions weren’t as severe. Why send Twi’leks into the most dangerous tunnels when we can utilize droids?” Thrawn said.
The holographic Imperial had a similar mocking tone to his voice, like when Slavin talked to the staff: “Is that an order, Admiral?”
“It would not bode well for you if it became one.” That threat made even Hera’s lekku shiver, and finally Thrawn noticed she was there. His tone suddenly changed to a more conversational lilt. “Commander, I will return your call in a moment.” The transmission faded and Thrawn came to collect the dinner tray himself.
Hera didn’t need to feign anything to freeze the way she did as he removed the food from her hands.
“It seems I lost track of the time,” Thrawn said, and Hera didn’t quite know if he was talking to her or himself as he set the tray on his desk. “It smells wonderful. I daresay the cuisine has improved since the attempted poisoning.”
With that bow that was becoming second nature in this environment, Hera backed up toward the door.
“A question, Numa,” Thrawn spoke up. This was only the second time they’d interacted, but already the unhurried cadance he spoke with was beginning to grate. “How much traditional Rylothian cuisine has the staff made since your arrival?”
“None. We were told not to.”
“Strange. I certainly gave no such order. What is your favorite Rylothian dish?”
Other Imperials, stormtroopers or officers, asked Hera questions, too. They usually bordered on the unrepeatable. Rhetorical questions in passing, which were easier to ignore than contest. The juxtaposition that was Thrawn was as aggravating a conundrum as his speaking style.
“Cotaf, I suppose,” she said at length. There was no reason to lie. “Blurrg meatballs in a spicy stew… it’s”—she clamped down on the smile that had spread across her face of its own accord—“good.” It was also a food she hadn’t had for the better part of a year. With the resistance living in caves, only the simplest meals were prepared. And spices weren’t part of the necessities people had brought with them when they fled their homes.
Thrawn sat at his desk. “See about adding cotaf to the menu, then. If anyone attempts to deny you, send them to me.” He said nothing else and Hera slipped out of the room, marveling at such a comparatively surreal experience with a high-ranking Imperial.
The following days called Thrawn away, whether it was to another location on Ryloth or elsewhere in the galaxy, the staff wasn’t told. But the treatment within the house changed. Previously unwanted comments muttered to the staff by stormtroopers and low-ranking officers became reasons for them to stop the women in their duties and proposition them. Captain Slavin, now the highest ranking Imperial, had the staff running in circles completing all the irrelevant tasks he suddenly needed done. Now that dinner was being delivered to him, he wanted tastier, more elaborate meals than the rest of the troops received, in addition to his laundry personally washed and pressed, as well as desiring extra steps taken in their house cleaning regimen to make it perfect for Thrawn’s return.
And yet security as a whole grew laxer. Numa, when it was her turn to personally wash Slavin’s laundry, passed along a code cylinder left in his uniform to Hera. Later that same night, when the staff had all returned to their rooms for the day—several hours past midnight—Hera snuck out of her room toward the third floor office. Darting from doorway to doorway, always on the lookout for the roving guard, turned out to be pointless. She passed no one the entire way.
Slavin’s code cylinder not only gave her access to Thrawn’s locked office, but also into the Imperial computer that sat on his desk. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as secure as the basement command center, and no master roster was listed on this network. But Hera’s persistent searching uncovered the schedule for the next expected astromechs over the coming week, down to the hours of their arrival.
The first two times were memorized as voices neared the door. All Hera could do was shut off the monitor and dive for the opposite side of the room. She wound up hunkered in a ball behind the Kalikori pedestal just as the door opened and the lights blinked on at their fullest. Hera winced.
“I’m sure the guard is just on the opposite side of the mansion, sir,” came the whine of Slavin’s voice when he was beseeching a superior. Altogether different from the pompous voice he used when he was barking orders to the staff.
“Yet I did not pass a single guard from the moment I returned,” said Thrawn. There was an edge to his voice Hera had never heard before. His anger wasn’t even directed at her and still a wave of anxiety squeezed her lungs.
“It’s… it’s a large house, s—” Slavin’s voice cut out. Hera would bet money he’d been glared into submission.
“Slavin, be more attentive,” Thrawn said. A sound came from his desk. “Do not let something as sensitive as your code cylinder out of your sight. If I find it off your person again, there will be repercussions.”
“Y-yes, sir. I don’t remember leaving it here.”
“Be of use; find what happened to the guard. Administer punitive measures for those not at their posts, harsh enough to dissuade this type of negligent behavior from repeating itself. I assume I can count on you to carry that out?”
“Of course, Admiral, I’ll get right on that.” He shuffled out of the room, and the sound that followed was of Thrawn sitting at his desk.
Hera pulled herself into a tighter ball. It was over halfway through the night shift—did he not sleep? If he caught her here, she would certainly be outed as a resistance member. All she could look forward to was not breaking under whatever torment they bent her way in order to make her betray her father; her people.
Hera ran the numbers through her head, of the next two astromech arrivals. Two days from now, at 1400 hours, and five days from now, 1100. She and Numa could certainly pull something off. Two days from now, 1400 hours; five days from now, 11—
The lights dimmed, and the door sighed closed. Thrawn’s gait, more determined than Slavin’s, receded down the hallway, and Hera flopped to the ground in an elongated sigh of relief.
She waited well after to head out herself, until the routine plodding of the lost roving guard back on their shift passed the door. It would be a quarter of an hour before the guard returned, and Hera easily stole to her room on the first floor without being noticed. It was a big house, after all.
“He didn’t suspect it was us, right?” Numa asked the next morning as they washed the breakfast pots.
“He only blamed Slavin,” said Hera. “I don’t expect we’ll get another opportunity at a code cylinder.”
“Then let’s make this astromech schedule count,” Numa said, rinsing off the last pot and adding it to the drying rack.
Hera leaned against the neighboring sink, long done with her dishes. “The first one arrives tomorrow. We shouldn’t grab it before it delivers its message because the Imps’ll get suspicious. We’ll lose whatever information it passed along, but it’ll still have stores of beneficial knowledge.”
“Unless they do a memory wipe before it leaves.”
It was Hera’s turn to give Numa that look. “This is the laziest Imperial outpost we’ve ever seen. The only reason we’re faring so badly against them is because of the Admiral. That astromech is just as good to us on its way back to the ship.”
Slavin entered the kitchen then and cried, “What’s this?! If the dishes are done, get to work in the rest of the house!”
Hera and Numa bolted for the door.
Throughout the afternoon as they passed each other during the sweeping or the window cleaning or the hallway light repairing, Hera and Numa paused to scrape together what they could of a plan.
“Wait,” whispered Numa as she polished the decorative wall tile and Hera cleaned a nearby mirror, “don’t you have an astromech from the war?”
Hera’s movements stalled at the memories. “Oh, wow. Chopper? He had this dream of becoming a pirate. Took off eight years ago; haven’t seen him since.” But she hoped he was doing well.
Dinner that night turned the kitchen especially potent. Their request for the proper ingredients had been cleared and finally supplied; cotaf spice clogged the air, burning eyes and throats, but it smelled so delicious. Hera happily stirred the meatball stew over the stove just to keep breathing in the aroma, and didn’t even mind Slavin picking her to deliver the Admiral’s dinner.
Hera could still smell it—clinging to her more so than resonating from the bowl—as she carried a dinner tray to the third floor. Her stomach growled. The staff would have to wait until the troopers had all eaten in order to scrounge what they could. If the soldiers felt like seconds or even thirds? The staff wouldn’t get dinner.
Thrawn stood at the opposite end of the room when Hera entered, hands behind his back, staring at her family’s portrait. The door already announced her presence, but if she could just tiptoe to the desk, she could set down the tray and—
“Numa, I was hoping you would be the one bringing dinner tonight.”
He hadn’t even looked her way. She didn’t feel the need to set the tray down quietly anymore; the meatballs practically bounced as she dropped it onto the desk.
“The others in the staff, their eyes never leave the floor when they deliver meals. Not one of them has looked me in the eye. They all have a permanent bow to their posture, but you—I like how you stand.”
Hera forced a slump to her shoulders and found they could go lower than she’d been carrying herself. Clearly, none of the others had a proud revolutionary leader for a father.
Thrawn finally turned to her and beckoned her with a deliberate flick of his head. She shuffled across the room, trying not to look too much at a portrait that brought back so many memories.
“I would appreciate your knowledge, as I am a visitor to your world,” he said, lifting the Kalikori from its pedestal.
Hera hugged her arms as he turned it around in his hands, the two strings of hanging blocks swaying much like lekku in motion.
“Would you educate me on this? None of the others among the Empire know what this is, nor its function.”
How cruel that her family’s greatest possession was so close, but so far away.
“We call them Kalikori. It’s a totem passed down from generation to generation. It honors all who have come before. Each parent adds something to the artwork.”
“Why is one side shorter than the other?” asked Thrawn. In his blue hands, the colors of the Kalikori contrasted nicer than they should’ve.
“One parent must not’ve added to it,” Hera said evenly. Thrawn would never know the difference, even as Hera stared at the blocks contributed from both her parents. They had included a block for her brother, though, after his death. The balancing piece that was missing was Hera’s.
“A continuous work in progress, fascinating,” said Thrawn. His gaze scrutinized the entire Kalikori, focusing on each individual piece in turn. “I find it intriguing how important the role of family is in the Twi’lek culture. You identify yourselves by your clan, the houses you carve from the mesas are few and far between but large, for the extended family to live together, and the presence of children is as venerated as the existence of elders, a highly unique—”
Hera’s stomach took this opportunity to growl, more insistent than before.
A faint smile lifted Thrawn’s mouth. “My apologies for keeping you here. Especially when I can smell the meal all the way from this distance.”
No, it was just her, exuding all the spice that had been steamed into her through the cooking process.
Thrawn returned the Kalikori to its pedestal and neared the desk, inhaling. “What a tantalizing aroma; I am eager to try it. I am surprised the kitchen staff hasn’t eaten already.”
“We’re obligated to eat last, from whatever’s left of dinner,” Hera said. Thrawn’s red eyes shot her way, disbelief plain on his face, like he was searching her for a tell that she was lying. It was beyond strange that someone who had individually changed the course in the Imperial struggle against the resistance seemingly had so little command over the practices in his own base of operations.
But Thrawn said nothing, and instead turned his attention to inspecting the five meatballs in the bowl. He hadn’t told her she could go, so Hera lingered in the middle of the room, her arms wrapped around her stomach to suffocate any future attempted outbursts.
“It’s cotaf,” Hera said, since he was bound to ask. Thrawn picked up two identical utensils from his tray, disproportionately small spoons for such long, thin handles.
“So these are the traditional Twi’lek malas that I’ve heard about. How might one use them?”
Explanation would be a waste, so Hera approached the desk. The cotaf’s aroma was far more potent closer to the bowl and her stomach was about to go on a rampage. Hera took both utensils in one hand, holding them deftly between her thumb and forefinger.
“I don’t expect to have nearly as effortless of a time with it,” Thrawn said as she clicked the shallow spoons together for emphasis.
“It’s really not that hard.” She carved into one large meatball, and the blade of the spoon cleaved through as easily as a knife. The resulting slice, squeezed between the spoons, she lifted out of the bowl in demonstration.
“It would be rude of me not to share after all that,” Thrawn said, sitting on the edge of his desk.
Hera was about to protest, but her stomach growled sooner.
“I insist,” he added, softer.
Hera needed no more prodding to devour a portion of her favorite dish. Even prepared by five stressed-out Twi’leks who only had time to eyeball ingredient ratios, the flavor transported her back to better times, when her mother was still around, and her people didn’t have to form into a resistance for their own survival. It took every ounce of Hera’s self restraint not to pick up the rest of that meatball.
“I take it the taste garners your approval?” Thrawn’s smooth voice slithered its way into her thoughts, pulling her back to the present where she found him watching her. There was nothing analytical in his gaze this time. In fact, she would rather not put a name to what she thought she saw there.
The malas sounded especially loud as Hera dropped them into the bowl. “I have to get back to the kitchen.” She doubted she would’ve stopped on her rush out the door even if Thrawn called her back, but he didn’t. If she had remained a bit longer, she would’ve been privy to Thrawn picking up the rest of the meatball with the malas like a native.
“What took you?” Numa cried as she stacked all the used pots to be washed. “All I could save you was half a cotaf—get it while you can.” She nodded to the lone plate next to the stove and Hera pounced on it.
“You’re the best, I’m starving!”
The days were catching up with her, and by the time the kitchen was clean and the night’s dust had been swept back out, Hera crashed onto her bed. She had no energy to consider exactly which direction her interactions with the Admiral were leaning before she passed out for the night.
The next morning she was reluctant to drag herself out of bed until she remembered: today was the day. Astromech: 1400 hours.
Numa shared her anticipation as they made breakfast. All they needed was to nonchalantly hover along the path from the front door to the basement and be ready to spirit away a 70 pound astromech at the drop of a helmet. What could possibly go wrong?
As Hera swept the main hallway later that morning and Numa dusted the wall lights, several officers passed on their way out the front door. Thrawn was among them, Hera realized belatedly, as she heard his voice.
“Numa,” he said to the blue Twi’lek in greeting, and then nodded toward Hera as he passed. “Numa.” The human officers accompanying him ignored her completely. Minutes later, the muted sound of a shuttle came from the opposite side of the front door. Hera and Numa exchanged glances.
A wide smile spread across Numa’s face. “The Admiral’s gone the day we need to intercept the astromech? We couldn’t ask for better timing!”
“Except that means Slavin’s left in charge.”
He had Hera shine every pair of boots he owned, Numa had to clean his room, and neither knew how to change the time on his datapad so they passed that off to the other Twi’leks. Then there was the extra cleaning chores—the balcony, the inside of the lift, the ceiling tiles—to have the house looking perfect for Thrawn’s return.
Hera scrubbed the front steps on her hands and knees as a Lambda-class shuttle landed in the courtyard and a plain-looking black astromech wheeled out, waved through the door by the stormtrooper guards.
A careless toss of her bucket of water across the stones and Hera followed it into the house. She grabbed a standing ladder from the cleaning closet and planted it in the middle of the corridor, between the door to the basement and the direction of the main hallway. Ten minutes later, when the astromech reappeared, Hera waved him away.
“Go the other way; this way’s closed for cleaning.”
The astromech gave an unsure beep but obliged, spinning and rolling the opposite way down the corridor. Hera waited until he rounded the far corner to collapse the ladder and returned it to storage. When she caught up with Numa, she found her friend had already slapped a restraining bolt onto the astromech and had plugged in a handheld device to its dome—the two piece of technology the resistance had supplied her with for this mission.
Numa looked on the verge of tears as she scrolled through the device screen.
“What’s wrong?” Hera whispered.
“They wiped it! They wiped everything! We’ve got nothing!”
So maybe this outpost wasn’t as stupid as Hera had first assumed. Hera checked the halls, finding them satisfactorily deserted.
“Okay. Then let’s get this guy up and running again before anyone notices he’s gone. We still have the next one.”
“We’ll have to intercept it before it reaches the basement,” Numa grumbled, unplugging her device from the astromech. “The Imps will suspect something’s up before we’re even done copying data.”
“That all depends on what lengths we’re willing to go to,” Hera said.
That evening, Slavin entered the kitchen mid-preparation rush to begrudgingly announce the staff could set aside dinner plates for themselves before serving the soldiers.
Thrawn returned that night while Hera swept the first floor corridors. She saw him waiting for the turbolift to arrive in the presence of two other officers. He glanced her way, and his red eyes were unmistakable, still conveying that emotion she would rather not name. But she could still feel it. And when the Imperials entered the turbolift, she was left with a traitorous blush on her cheeks. What was she doing, assuming things about Thrawn that couldn’t possibly be there? Yet telling herself nothing was there only stirred an ache of disappointment—which was absolutely the wrong reaction. She shouldn’t have been thinking about this at all, not when it was all the more imperative for the next astromech heist to go right.
The next day, Hera’s mind was engulfed in plotting how she and Numa were to most easily apprehend an Imperial droid. They only had two days before its arrival, and an overwhelming amount of scenarios to plan for.
By the time dinner rolled around, Hera monitored the flatbread in the oven when Captain Slavin entered the kitchen. Despite one of the other Twi’leks stirring the stove pots, Slavin snapped at Hera.
“You, take the Admiral a dinner tray.”
And Hera found herself once again entering the third floor office. She’d already eaten her allotted plate, luckily, to not replay that scenario.
Thrawn rose from his desk when she entered. “Ah, Numa. There you are. I have need of your expertise once more.” He took the tray from her and set it on the desk himself before steering her toward the door, one hand on her back. They passed a pair of roving stormtrooper guards—security had been doubled as punishment for their lax behavior days ago—and with Thrawn present, neither uttered a word to Hera, for once. They just saluted the Admiral and carried on.
Halfway down the hall Thrawn turned her into a room that was two or three times the size of his office. Bold tiles danced in a complex pattern across the floor, while larger swaths of color undulated along the walls, brighter than any color on the ground. It was one of the few rooms in the house with a window, and the far wall practically glowed with slanted sunlight.
“It seems this is the largest room in the house,” Thrawn said, his voice echoing in the emptiness. “I was wondering its function.”
Without the pillows and the rugs that used to be stacked here, the room lacked so much life. “It’s a meditation room.”
Thrawn looked at her with one brow cocked in the clearest betrayal of surprise yet. “But it’s enormous.”
“Because it’s a staple of our culture. Plus, when a couple of chimes are put up in the corner or the window, it doesn’t sound so big,” Hera said nonchalantly. This time she suppressed the smile that her memories were so keen to awaken before it spread.
“Would it be wrong of me to use it in another fashion?”
Hera blinked. Any other Imperial would’ve come across as condescending—because they would’ve certainly been mocking her outright—but Thrawn’s sincerity sounded like he was asking her permission. This Admiral was confounding enough to frustrate her—every common understanding and stereotype she held about Imperials couldn’t be applied to Thrawn. She couldn't account for him, which was dangerous in her father’s line of work and just irritating in hers.
She scoffed. “Don’t act like you would alter your plans around me saying no.”
Thrawn turned to her, facing her fully, and the room suddenly shrunk to just them.
“But I would,” he said, soft enough to sound intimate. “I do value your perspective. Everything I learn helps me understand your culture more completely.”
Stars, he made it sound like she was an informant of some sort. With such a shudder running down her spine, Hera backed toward the door. “Do what you want, Admiral. It’s your house now. I have chores to see to.” She paused when she reached the doorway, and looked back at him. His Imperial uniform certainly stuck out amid so much color. “Th-thanks, by the way. I assume the decision to let the staff eat first came from you.”
He inclined his head. “You’re welcome.”
Despite Numa reminding her they needed to come up with a different way of apprehending the next astromech, that evening as she swept the first floor corridors, Hera couldn’t get her mind off of Thrawn. He was nothing like the Admiral she expected. Where was the Imperial that was ten times more sinister than Slavin? How was the fate of her planet in the hands of someone who had been altogether decent to her?
The next day, Hera was once more tasked with the dinner tray. This time Slavin had to find her dusting the second floor molding, proving her assumption that the dinner task wasn’t random anymore. The third floor office, however, stood empty. The first feeling to spark in her chest—disappointment—was shamed into oblivion, and Hera set the tray on the desk and left. Two steps out the door, she heard a crashing sound from down the hallway. There weren’t any guards up here, and Hera investigated unimpeded.
She opened the door to the meditation room to see a fight of all things. Thrawn, down to a sleeveless black shirt, was dodging the swings from a droid over a head taller than himself and retaliating only with his fists. The echoes of skin striking metal filled the entire room. But, Hera realized belatedly, there were two towering sparring droids, and the other—a meter and a half away—leveled its attention on her watching from the doorway. Hera turned to run, but it grabbed her by the arm and threw her further into the room. She landed and rolled. The droid advanced on her and she popped to her feet, fists in front of her face. She ducked under its first punch. She skirted it, much more nimble than the hulking droid as it stamped around in a circle. Her path to the door was clear and Hera bolted for it. An explosion of pain bloomed from her shoulder, and with a cry, Hera skidded to the floor. Looking back, the droid remained several paces away—but its arm pointed toward her, an attached blaster smoking. It had shot her.
But her outburst was enough to grab the Admiral’s attention.
“Override code: Rukh!” Thrawn shouted. Both droids slumped into power down mode. The Admiral ran over, as short on breath as Hera was, and skin much slicker. He held a hand out, and Hera let him help her to her feet. She had already known he was fit, but she’d never been able to make out his defined muscles under his uniform. And now they glinted in front of her eyes.
“Are you injured?” he asked.
Hera blinked until the question processed in her mind. Her shoulder twinged but she wasn’t about to admit to that. “I’m fine.” Thrawn was already circling her and he clicked his tongue.
“Your shoulder is singed.”
“Still works,” she said, rotating it, clenching her teeth through the pain. “What are those things?”
“Assassin droids. My preferred fitness routine.” Thrawn fetched his coat and slid into it, refastening his belt atop it. “But let’s see to fixing your shoulder, Numa.”
He led her down the hall to his office. In the bottom drawer of the desk was a kit of Imperial first aid supplies, and Thrawn opened that up on the desk, next to the dinner tray.
“Really, I can just go find the medic,” Hera protested.
“The medic here isn’t required to see to locals, and in fact he’s far more likely to save all his supplies for Imperials only. That leaves the Twi’lek doctor which I believe is still in the town twenty kilometers north of here. You would not be afforded a mode of transportation. Though I would be interested to see what lengths you would go to in order to avoid me.”
Hera’s face flushed at that, and she was thankful to turn her back to him so he could work.
Thrawn pulled her loose sleeve back to expose her wound. He cleaned it, the mild stinging persistent enough to keep her teeth clenched.
“Why?” Hera ground out.
“I need more context than a single interrogative.”
“You’re here to subdue the planet; why are you acting nice?”
“I find no disconnect in treating the people of this planet with dignity and respect. If the Empire commands this planet, then it is an Imperial world and these are Imperial citizens—those I am sworn to protect.”
“What about those that don’t want to be citizens?” Hera asked, her chest hollow. The coolness of a bacta patch spread across her injury, with Thrawn dutifully pressing it flat.
“Their fate will be their own choice,” Thrawn said. “Those who lay down their weapons and show they have no future intent to disrupt the Imperial progress on this world will be welcome to return to their homes and the workforce.” He dropped her sleeve and packed the supplies back into the kit.
Hera turned to watch him. “And those that don’t?”
Thrawn returned the kit to its drawer. The expression he gave her was resigned. “Their leader—from what I’ve read—is sensible. If he hasn’t turned too fundamentalist since his time during the Clone War, it is still possible he will see reason and negotiate. For the safety of his people, at the very least.”
“Well,” Hera said through a dry throat, “thank you for your assistance, Admiral.” She attempted a bow as she left his office, but it didn’t come out quite right.
The next day, the day of the second astromech at 1100, the determination in Numa’s eyes blazed a dead giveaway. Even the other three staffers mentioned it as they cleaned up from breakfast.
“We need to grab that droid right as it gets off the ship,” Numa whispered. “There are two stormtroopers guarding the front door, but there will be even more if the droid makes it into the house—plus the door guards again on the way back out.”
“We need a distraction,” Hera said.
“What we need are weapons! If only we still had Slavin’s code cylinder, we could unlock the armory and blast our way out!”
“No,” Hera said, tapping into her father’s leadership. Numa hushed accordingly. “Our best bet is for the astromech to be whisked away quietly. The bigger of a head start we have, the better. We have to utilize distractions.”
“Okay. How?”
Hera looked to the other workers, clearly eavesdropping as they quietly scrubbed the counters and swept the kitchen floor.
It was the purple Twi’lek’s day to leave the mansion, and while none of the others were members of the resistance, they certainly were sympathetic. The woman had no qualms in passing a message to Hera’s father, to time an attack to coincide with the arrival of the droid at 1100. It gave them several hours of leeway.
“We don’t have access to weapons,” Hera said as she and Numa rustled through the cleaning closet, “but we have this.” She lifted a wrench.
Numa sighed. “Great, let’s just smack every Imp we pass over the head.”
“Wait for me to get back,” Hera said. She pocketed the wrench in her work apron and grabbed a broom as she left.
Her sweeping of the third floor left a noticeable dust-free line from the turbolift to the meditation room. Inside, the droids still slumped in the off position, and Hera took her wrench to the arm blaster of the droid that had attacked her. A minute later it came loose, and Hera pocketed the weapon too. Bulky, but her apron pockets were deep. As she turned to leave, the door opened for a pair of stormtroopers.
“I told you she came in here,” one said.
“This room’s off limits,” said the second. At first she thought they were going to arrest her for trespassing since there were quite a few rooms prohibited to the staff, but the way their blaster arms fell slack coupled with the swagger of their approach, she knew exactly what they had in mind. “But we’ll forget all about it on one condition.”
Her father’s words came back to her, when he told her to thoroughly decide what lengths she was prepared to go to to acquire this intel.
She was prepared for a lot.
When the stormtroopers stepped within reach, Hera yanked the weapon from her pocket and stabbed the barrel into the second trooper’s chest, in the black gap between armor plating. Electricity like a stun bolt coursed down his body and he dropped. The first stormtrooper lifted his blaster at that, but Hera was already darting for him. She forced the muzzle of his blaster aside before jamming her weapon under his helmet. With a scream and a sizzle, he fell, too.
Hera left the meditation room and ran all the way back to the first floor where Numa was doing a likewise terrible job of sweeping the entry hall. She tossed the broom and her work apron back into the supply closet.
“Here,” whispered Hera, approaching and tucking the weapon into Numa’s hand. “If anyone gets too close, this will drop them. It’s basically a stun prod.”
Numa marveled at her.
Before she could say anything else, Slavin dragged his heels into the hallway. “You two! Tell the others: do not disturb the Admiral! He’s in a particularly foul mood at the sheer incompetence of your kind on this blasted planet!”
“He’s probably mad at Slavin,” Numa whispered as the man walked off.
“He’s definitely mad at Slavin,” agreed Hera. The whine of a descending shuttle sounded from outside, and both girls grabbed each other’s hands.
“Ready?” asked Numa.
“You know the way back,” Hera said evenly. “You get the astromech out of here.”
Numa sent her a wide-eyed look. For once, the determination was gone, replaced by a hint of fear.
“When my father starts his attack, the Imps will deploy, and they’ll be looking for leadership, which means they’ll be looking to Thrawn.”
Numa’s brows slanted. “Since when have you been calling him by his name?”
Hera wouldn’t know where to even begin, so instead she hugged Numa. “Good luck. I know you’ll make it.”
Thrawn cast an annoyed look at the office door opening, but tempered at the sight of Hera standing there. He leaned—slouched practically—in his desk chair, head on one hand. Altogether unlike what Hera had come to expect from him.
“Yes?” he finally demanded. Slavin hadn’t been lying—he was in a foul mood. Hera found the door panel without looking and the overheads dimmed. Next came the click of the door locking. She approached the desk.
“What are you doing?” he asked, his voice pure curiosity. In the low light his red eyes truly did glow.
“Did you need that on?”
“I can see just as well.”
That figured.
“But again: what are you doing?” Thrawn asked as Hera rounded the desk, running a hand along its surface.
“Slavin sent me.”
The holoprojector had a silencing switch to hold all incoming transmissions from automatically appearing. Hera’s hand found that and flipped it.
Thrawn sat much straighter now, watching everything about her slow approach and not voicing a single concern. Which was good for Hera; if he’d stopped her at all, she wouldn’t have had much else by way of distraction to throw at him.
Hera wasn’t sure what was more surprising, the fact that she was being this bold or the fact that it wasn’t hard. If she didn’t look at him as the Admiral that had outwitted the resistance but as the man who had been considerate towards her, her attraction guided her steps for her. The approval in Thrawn’s red-on-red eyes certainly spurred her on.
Hera lowered herself onto his lap, straddling him, letting one lek fall over her shoulder so he could see the tip curl in anticipation. Surely he knew what it meant.
“Well,” he murmured, “we can’t disappoint Captain Slavin.”
She was expecting Thrawn to make some sort of move. But he sat still, rather like a voyeur in all of this. And then he had the gall to lick his lips—invitation enough for Hera. Her mouth pressed against his, warm and eager. A strong embrace wrapped around her, pulling her flush against him. The increasing urgency with which she kissed Thrawn, he gave back to her.
Hera ran a hand up to comb through his hair, a complete indulgence if she was being honest. It was the first time she’d ever felt hair. Stiffer than she expected. But the way he tightened his hold around her conveyed his appreciation.
In the dimness, the silent flashing of a waiting transmission on the holoprojector lit up their half of the room. Thrawn broke the kiss, but Hera turned his face from the light back to her. It was at least a moment for her to catch her breath.
“You don’t need to get that,” she whispered.
“It could be important,” he replied, just as quiet. There was such a playful lilt to his voice that the tips of Hera’s lekku curled tighter all on their own. She ran a finger along his bottom lip, a spark of gratification shooting through her to find it puffier than before.
“I’m sure someone else can take care of it.”
The incessant light finally faded, and in the returning darkness, Thrawn gently pinched her lekku tip. Hera couldn’t help it; she gasped. Then he brought it to his mouth and closed his lips around it. Even the gentlest suction turned her mind to static, and the full-bodied shudder to follow turned into a full-bodied lean against Thrawn. Her hand clenched into a fist in his hair, and she returned the suction on the closest available skin she found—his neck. His pulse hammered under her mouth, a fantastic giveaway his calm exterior couldn’t hide.
Her lekku was released from his mouth and Hera instinctively returned to his lips. At the beginning of her mission, Hera never imagined the lengths she would go to would’ve involved this—her on the admiral’s lap, feeling exactly how much he enjoyed this. And part of her wished she wasn’t enjoying it to the same extent, because this was after all the Imperial leading the enemy’s forces. Whose hands roamed her back, her neck, and then slid the length of one lek. She kissed across his face to his ear.
“Anything particular you want?”
Thrawn’s hands stalled, and he pulled back to look her in the eyes. “For this to be of your own volition, Hera, and not because of a ruse.”
She froze. All the confidence Hera was projecting plummeted like an engine-less Y-wing, and she sat on Thrawn’s lap, mind already stuttered to a halt. “...How?”
“It took a lengthy amount of digging, but it turns out political opponents unearth many hidden facts about their rivals, and hoard them for future use. Senator Orn Free Taa’s records span decades, to include a daughter of the Syndulla clan that your father kept rather private. That, and the fact that no local I’ve had the opportunity to meet, resistance or not, has been quite as bold as you.” There was a gleam of respect in his glowing eyes.
“So now what?” asked Hera.
“Now I will go inspect what damage your accomplice has wrought, and plan countermeasures accordingly.”
Hera grabbed the back of the chair and threw all her weight into pinning Thrawn to his seat. In response, he smiled. Not the faint uptick of the corners of his mouth, but a genuine smile showing his teeth.
“I see your shoulder has adequately healed.” He reached up a hand to stroke two knuckles along the lek that still hung over her shoulder, and as the responding shudder washed over her entire body, Hera didn’t even hear the office door opening.
“Admiral! We’ve been trying to get a hold of—” Slavin stopped short with his code cylinder in hand, and Hera nearly bolted from the chair. But now it was Thrawn’s turn to hold her firmly in place. They stared at Slavin as he stared at them, and by the end of it Thrawn was the only one not blushing.
“Slavin, as you can see, I happen to be busy. If you’ve run into any sort of emergency, feel free to contact Commander Faro aboard the Chimaera.”
Slavin attempted a response, but nothing intelligible came out. His stilted shuffling removed him from the office a moment later.
Hera released the chair; other Imperials were already after Numa and there was nothing she could do about that. The game was up. She slid to her feet. “I guess there’s no use in me running.”
“That is entirely on you,” said Thrawn, standing and tugging his jacket straight. “I will go inspect the situation first-hand, like I said, and if by the time I return to this office, you are still here, then I will have no choice but to have you arrested as an enemy of the Empire.” He stood merely inches away from her, towering over her as before and still looking at her with that same expression she’d refused to name before. Desire. But he refrained from acting on it. And that irked her.
“You’re an enigma, Thrawn.”
“When I find adversaries I enjoy, I do what I can to keep them around.” He looked her up and down, but from their proximity he couldn’t take in much below her lips. “I admit I have enjoyed you in a much different manner than anyone previously.”
Despite the want lingering in his gaze, Thrawn folded his hands behind his back. So Hera stretched to her tiptoes to give him one final kiss, hoping to convey every mixed emotion she didn’t have time to explain. They parted as the sound of the roving guard passed the door.
“You have fifteen minutes,” Thrawn said before leaving his office.
The room felt much cooler once he left, and Hera finally had the space necessary to think. Her eyes landed on the Kalikori displayed on the pedestal. She smiled. Numa hadn’t left the house empty handed and neither would Hera.