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No casualties, Ar’alani reminded herself. The mission may have gone wrong — that was undeniable — and there may have been one or two (or a dozen) more hostile aliens aboard the derelict freighter than the scanners had shown, but at least there were no casualties.
So far.
The klaxons were wailing, and Ar’alani had ordered a tactical retreat back to the shuttle four minutes ago, but only now were the men and women of the survey team starting to trickle in. She counted them as they raced past her, her face grim; she kept herself pressed to the wall, only occasionally reaching out to touch a soldier’s arm and push them forward in silent encouragement as they passed.
They pounded onto the shuttle without greeting her; each one of them had their charrics out and pointed at the ground as they ran. Ar’alani glanced past them as the twenty-seventh soldier charged by, her lips tight. Twenty-seven.
One was missing.
No question who.
She turned back toward the open shuttle with her teeth gritted and grabbed the first man she saw, trying not to shake him. “Where’s Commander Thrawn?” she snapped.
The soldier glanced past her, down the alien passageway, and pointed back the way he’d come. “Diversion,” he gasped, still breathless from the run.
“Diversion? ” Ar’alani repeated. She dropped his arm like it had burned her. Of course Thrawn had stayed behind as a diversion. She was already breaking into a run by the time she checked the charge on her charric, barrelling down the passageway to where the aliens had swarmed her survey team.
She found traces of battle long before she actually found Thrawn — blast marks on the bulkheads, alien corpses, pools of coagulating blood on the deck. The sound of whistling alien weaponry reached her ears before long, and she wasn’t surprised when she rounded a corner and found Thrawn taking shelter behind an overturned table in what appeared to be some sort of open-plan galley.
His teeth were bared as he fired back at the aliens. He was sitting with his legs at an odd angle, smears of blood on the deck beneath his boots.
With a quiet hiss, Ar’alani flattened herself against the wall nearby, not revealing her presence to the aliens. When her order to retreat came through, Thrawn must have sent his men forward while he stayed back to cover them. There were only three aliens left alive now, and all of them were concentrating their fire on Thrawn. The table wouldn’t last much longer; Thrawn himself was clearly in pain, and unable to peek out from his cover without being shot. He fired almost blindly, guessing where the aliens were based off the trajectory of their blasts.
Ar’alani leaned out from the bulkhead, charric in hand, and picked them off with three rapid shots.
Silence fell.
Across the room, Thrawn stayed behind his table, gasping for breath and blinking as he listened for movement on the other side. He glanced her way after a long moment, sweat dripping from his hair and into his eyes.
They made eye contact. Ar’alani felt a swell of emotion at the open surprise and gratitude on Thrawn’s face.
And then, quite tonelessly, he said, “Thank you for the assistance, Commodore. It’s much appreciated.”
Ar’alani fought the urge to roll her eyes. She crossed the room to him in a few quick strides, checking the corners for more adversaries as she went. When she reached the table, she kneeled down behind it, careful to avoid the small pools of blood Thrawn was sitting in. He’d moved around so much while shooting that she couldn’t tell precisely where the blood was coming in.
“How are the men?” asked Thrawn, leaning awkwardly against the table to accommodate whatever wounds he had. “Did they all make it?”
“You’re wounded,” Ar’alani replied, her eyes sharp. She leaned closer to him, tentatively touching Thrawn’s leg. Then, realizing there was nothing wrong there, she lifted her hand and touched his arm instead, finding a torn spot on his uniform.
“I’m fine,” said Thrawn mildly, his face entirely blank.
“Oh, yes, I’m sure you are,” said Ar’alani, her voice dry. She’d heard all about Thrawn’s homeworld and its infamously stoic natives; there were rumors that the mothers of Rentor trained their infants not to cry within the first month of life. Supposedly, the sound of a crying baby could draw a houndpack across the icebergs from kilometers away.
“The men?” Thrawn prompted again.
“Fine,” said Ar’alani shortly. “Truly fine. They’re all on the shuttle — listen, Thrawn, are you able to walk? Where are you bleeding from?”
He lifted his left arm after a moment's hesitation, showing her the places where alien weaponry had torn through his uniform. “They’re not using energy blasts,” he said ruefully.
Meaning his armor hadn’t been able to absorb the blasts. Ar’alani studied the ripped fabric, which was soaked with blood; the skin beneath was torn as well, with a raggedness that made Ar’alani grit her teeth. She lifted the fabric of Thrawn’s uniform away from his skin as gently as she could, trying to see his wounds better. He held perfectly still, not flinching at her touch, as Ar'alani searched for any sign that the alien projectiles had lodged in his arm.
“You came back for me,” he said, his tone unreadable.
Ar’alani let go of his sleeve as if it had bitten her. “I’d come back for any of my men,” she snapped. “Don’t let it go to your head.”
Thrawn nodded at that, his face expressionless. “Of course.”
Ar’alani studied him, noting the minute ways his eyebrows twitched and his jaw flexed, and felt herself softening against her will. She touched his shoulder lightly, careful not to brush against his injuries. “Shallow wounds," she told him. "Can you stand?”
In response, Thrawn silently reached above his head and grabbed the edge of the overturned table, using it to pull himself to his feet. As he stood, he straightened his back and she saw that there were similar lacerations across his chest, and one on his hip.
At least the wounds really were shallow, Ar’alani thought with a wave of belated nausea. At least she hadn't just been saying that to keep his spirits up; knowing Thrawn, he'd probably insist on going forward with the mission even if he did have a dozen alien bullets stuck inside him somewhere. She hurried to stand before Thrawn had completely straightened, getting her charric up in case more aliens came down the hall.
“I want you to take point,” she said to Thrawn without glancing his way. She scanned the galley and nudged him toward the passageway. “I’ll cover you.”
His nodded grimly. His eyes darted from one end of the corridor to the other before he moved, crossing with admirable speed to the passageway from which Ar’alani had emerged. She followed close behind him, keeping her charric out and resisting the urge to watch Thrawn to make sure he didn’t collapse on the way.
They made their way back to the shuttle as quickly as they could, the sound of their footsteps swallowed up by the klaxons. No sooner had they ducked through the open hatchway than it started to close behind them; Ar’alani felt the vibrations of the deck beneath her feet and knew the shuttle was ready to drop.
She put a hand on Thrawn’s back, ushering him forward with her, toward the cockpit. He stilled before her touch for a moment before moving.
Inside the cockpit, Ar'alani paused to take in the lights on the console. "Everyone accounted for?" she asked.
The pilot gave her a nod.
“Then go,” she said shortly.
The pilot wasted no time; as the shuttle lurched around them, Ar’alani pushed Thrawn toward an empty seat and he sat down heavily, without complaint. His wounds must have brushed directly against the seat, but he didn't even grimace in pain. He was staring at her, a thoughtful expression on his face that Ar'alani didn't like at all.
The sound of klaxons was cut off now. In time, looking through the viewport, Ar’alani saw the alien spaceship retreating from sight.
"Commodore," said Thrawn hesitantly, almost shyly.
Ar'alani narrowed her eyes at him. "What is it, Commander?"
He met her gaze; he seemed to be studying her. After a long moment, he glanced at the pilot and then away again, biting his lip. Warring with himself over what he wanted to say, Ar'alani suspected.
She narrowed her eyes even further. "What is it, Thrawn?"
Thrawn glanced up at her beneath his eyelashes, touched one hand to the largest wound on his chest. It was an almost absent gesture. “You protected me,” he said.
There was a beat of silence. The pilot hunched his shoulders and studiously kept his eyes on the controls; perhaps he could feel the beady-eyed stare Ar'alani was giving him.
"What about it?" said Ar'alani to Thrawn, keeping her voice stiff. She willed the slight flush on her cheeks to disappear at once. "You're under my command. Of course I protected you."
"Well, I just—" Thrawn blinked at her and then shrugged, his expression changing subtly. She'd seen him do the same facial shift when he made a misstep in other conversations. "Of course. You're right."
"Well, you just what?" said Ar'alani roughly. Her hands were clenched on her thighs.
Thrawn blinked at her again. For a long moment, she didn't think he was going to answer.
"Well, I just ... haven't been rescued very often, I suppose," he said finally, his voice even yet subdued. "It was an ... intriguing experience."
"Intriguing?" Ar'alani repeated, raising an eyebrow.
Thrawn studied her. His lips quirked, but Ar'alani couldn't tell if it was a suppressed smile or a suppressed frown.
"Are you sure you mean intriguing?" Ar'alani prodded him, studying the dusting of indigo over his cheeks.
Say it, you moron, she urged him mentally.
He blinked, looked away from her in what seemed like genuine confusion. "What else would I mean?"
In the silence that followed, Ar'alani thought she very well might throttle him. As if he sensed this, he looked back at her, misinterpreted her expression (of course!), and smiled.
"Of course, I will endeavor not to put myself in such a situation again," he said. "And I very much appreciate that you personally came to the rescue, Commodore."
“I said don’t let it get to your head,” Ar’alani replied, feeling her protective urges die an ugly death inside her. She cast him the same beady-eyed stare she'd aimed at the pilot. Reckless idiot. Emphasis on 'idiot.' “You’re bleeding all over your seat,” she said.
“It’s fine,” said Thrawn, plucking at his uniform without an ounce of concern. “It will coagulate soon. And I will of course clean and disinfect the seat once we arrive.”
Rentor men. Notoriously stoic ... and notoriously oblivious.
Ar’alani was going to kill him someday.