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“So are you coming?” Thalias asked.
Borika didn’t reply but instead looked at a report on her questis and frowned. They were forecasted to have a cold snap in the next week, and they needed to prepare. She tapped a few things to put in an order to purchase more blankets for the girls and a few tarps to cover some of the crops.
“Borika.”
She sighed and finalized the order before she looked up at the other woman.
“I haven’t made a decision.”
“I leave for Csilla in less than two hours.”
Borika pursed her lips but didn’t say anything.
Thalias frowned. “I know you’re concerned but I promise you everything will be fine. Whether you remember him or not, he definitely remembers you and will be overjoyed to see you. And aren’t you curious?”
Well, she had her there. Borika sighed again. “I’ll go pack.”
Thalias grinned. “Good. Besides, he’s either getting demoted a rank or two and is going to need a pick-me-up or is getting a commendation and will want to celebrate. I have a feeling either way he’ll be extra excited to meet you after this trial.”
“The Syndicure has further decreed that in two days’ time, you will be taken from Csilla to an uninhabited but life-supporting world, where you will remain for the remainder of your days.”
The words rang out around the room, people gasping and murmuring in surprise.
Borika shifted a little nervously in her seat. She glanced over at Thalias, who had one hand over her mouth. Her other hand was tightly gripping the upper arm of some senior captain who looked like he would launch himself over the railing if she hadn’t grabbed his sleeve so tightly.
Thalias hadn’t wanted her to come to this.
“The first time you see your brother shouldn’t be while they’re reading off a list of his crimes, it’ll soil your opinion of him,” she’d said, crossing her arms and frowning.
“There’s not anything he’s done I don’t already know about,” Borika had retorted, rolling her eyes. “And I think I’d feel better if I got to see him before we officially meet.”
Thalias had shrugged and let her tag along. Now though, her stomach twisting in knots, Borika wished she would have listened.
She studied the man’s face. Her brother . She’d seen pictures of him before, of course. After the first time Thalias had visited the ranch, she’d looked up everything she could about Senior Captain Mitth’raw’nuruodo. She’d seen holos of him in various news reports and his official CEDF portraits. When she’d shown his images to her husband, he’d told her the resemblance between them was striking. But she could never see it for herself. He looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t see how his face matched the one she saw in the mirror.
Here, however, seeing him in front of her, she saw it as clear as day. The way he held himself when he walked into the room to face his sentencing. The oh-so-subtle way his jaw clenched as they read his crimes, the way he held his arms behind his back to keep from moving them nervously. How he twitched away almost imperceptibly when the Admiral touched him to remove his honor chains. All of these little quirks and things that either she did too or that she had managed to train herself out of long ago.
The tone and cadence of his voice when he spoke were also so similar to how she spoke, how she really spoke. She wondered if it was genetic or an accent from where they’d grown up. And although his voice was even and calm, she could hear the hurt and anger there. It was exactly how she sounded when she dealt with her higher-ups in the Seekers program, when they weren’t providing the girls with the support they needed. That she had needed. When they only asked and asked of her with almost nothing in return.
She knew too well the crimes he’d committed and the danger he’d put the Ascendancy in. The danger he’d put sky-walkers in. However, despite everything, she found herself almost rooting for him.
As they escorted him from the room, he avoided eye contact with the observer’s gallery. Borika understood why, yet she longed for him to look her way, to make eye contact with her so she could give him some kind of reassurance.
Why would he be reassured by you? He doesn’t know you.
Shortly after Thrawn left the room, a man stood up and also began to leave. Supreme General Ba’kif, Borika thought, recognizing him. She knew he’d been Thrawn’s superior and one of his biggest advocates. And yet he hadn’t been on the council trying Thrawn to defend him. She shot him a hostile glare.
She stepped through the door and looked around.
“He said he was going to a bistro,” Ba’kif had said when she’d cornered him a few hours after the trial. “Apologies, I don’t know which one.”
Years ago when Syndic Mitth’ras’safis had come to visit her he’d mentioned meeting her at a bistro he liked if she was ever on Csilla. She’d never taken him up on the offer but she remembered the name of it. It was a long shot, but she had read about Thrass and Thrawn’s close relationship and figured this would be the best place to check. Maybe he wouldn’t even be here and then—
But no, there he was. Eating a platter of cheese triangles and playing a game of tactica against himself.
She ordered some caccoleaf and then sat down at a table in the corner behind him so he couldn’t see her watching him.
The other things Ba’kif said kept replaying in her head.
“Wait, are you his—”
“I’m involved with the Seekers program, yes. And there are some conversations I need to have with him before his exile regarding one of our sky-walkers he had close contact with.”
Ba’kif paused and studied her. She hadn’t expected him to be aware of her relation to Thrawn, but somehow he seemed to know.
“Ask him your questions if you find him,” he said after a long pause. “But I’d implore you not to give him any more of a reason to stay. He’s been through enough.”
“I know he’s been through enough,” she’d snapped and turned to leave. But that warning stayed with her.
Don’t give him any more of a reason to stay.
Maybe this was a bad idea. In two days he would have to leave the Ascendancy forever, and if he really missed her as much as Thalias said, she didn’t need to give him false hope by waltzing back into his life right before his life as he knew it ended. It would be selfish. Almost everything she did was for the Ascendancy and Borika hardly ever did anything selfish like that.
So she surprised even herself when before she knew it she was standing next to Thrawn’s table and saying in her Oolian accent “Would you like an opponent?”
Thrawn glanced up from his game to look at her. His expression barely faltered, but in spite of that, Borika was able to read him again. She saw a flicker of recognition and shock in his eyes.
There was a long pause where he didn’t say anything. Then he blinked twice.
“Forgive me, for a moment I thought you were someone I knew. Thank you, but I can play solo.”
Borika shrugged. “Suit yourself, but when you play by yourself you always lose.”
The corner of Thrawn’s lip twitched slightly. “Or you always win.”
“But if a win is guaranteed, is it really a win?”
“Fair point,” Thrawn said. He gestured at the seat across from him, inviting her to sit. Borika held up her hands.
“Don’t feel like you’re obligated just because I bested you in an argument. If you want some peace, I can leave you alone.”
Thrawn’s lip twitched again. “I would hardly call that besting me .” His face softened and his eyes unfocused a bit. “But maybe the company of a stranger would be nice.”
Borika sat down and propped her elbows on the table, folding her hands in front of her and peering over them at the tactica board.
“It’s been a while since I’ve played, do you think you could refresh my memory on the rules?”
Borika studied his face as he explained what the various pieces could do and the different goals of the game. Thrawn’s face lit up as he spoke, although his eyes seemed filled with distant memories.
He gave Borika the first turn, and after careful consideration, she moved one of her pieces.
“I noticed they have your picture up,” Borika said, pointing at the small holo of two Chiss behind the counter. “Do you come here a lot?”
Thrawn shook his head. “Not as often in the past year or so. I’m not on Csilla very much.”
“Why do they have your holo then?”
“We once stopped this place from being robbed. They like to give us free cheese platters whenever we come in.” He nodded towards the cheese tray. “You’re welcome to some if you’d like.”
Borika inclined her head in thanks and then popped a cheese triangle into her mouth.
“Who was the other man?” She asked, knowing perfectly well it was Thrass. She’d read all she could find about their close friendship, but she was still curious to hear it from him.
Thrawn hesitated for a moment. Borika was reminded of a time just a few months ago when a woman was asking her intrusive questions about herself, things she had never told anyone except for her husband. But she also remembered how it was sort of a relief to tell a relative stranger these things.
“Thrass. He was my… brother. We used to come to this bistro and play tactica whenever we could.”
Borika nodded. She suddenly felt guilty for interrupting his game. “I heard about what happened to Syndic Mitth’ras’safis on the news.” She briefly considered reaching out to touch Thrawn’s hand but decided against it. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Thrawn’s head jerked up and he looked her in the eyes as if her words surprised him. She wondered how often he’d heard someone offer him condolences after Thrass’s death.
“Thank you,” he said after a moment, looking away again.
After that, they played in silence for a bit, moving the pieces around the board. Thrawn was very good at tactica, Borika had to give him that.
He made a move with one of his stingflies and Borika broke the silence again to tell a story about when Bomarmo had accidentally hit a stingfly nest on the ranch.
Thrawn listened intently to her story like she was telling him about an epic battle. Once she finished, he asked a few questions about the ranch. She couldn’t tell him everything of course, but she told him as much as she could, painting a picture of the home that she loved so much. She didn’t know why she was telling him, she didn’t generally give out personal information like this to a relative stranger. But she felt the need to tell Thrawn about her day-to-day life.
She asked him questions in return about what he did, and she was able to coax out of him a few stories of actual battles.
“Forgive me, I’m not as familiar with military tactics as you. But wouldn’t it have been easier to fire continuous spectral lasers and then send the breacher missiles?” she asked after he told her one of his stories.
“No, because the breacher missiles take time to reach the destination and burrow into the target. In this instance there would have been too much of a delay.”
“But what if you’d sent them in bursts?”
Thrawn paused to consider before shaking his head. “It still wouldn’t have been as effective because…”
They discussed and argued back and forth a bit about this topic. Once the debate settled, Thrawn brought up a story she’d told about feeding the packbulls and proposed a more efficient way to do it. Then they argued about that for a bit. Before she knew it, Thrawn was making the winning blow in the game.
“You’re quite good at this for having not played in a while,” Thrawn complimented her.
Borika smiled to herself. You’re supposed to let your little siblings win, she thought. The thought was playful, but it suddenly filled her with a great longing.
“Thrawn,” Borika said, realizing as soon as she said it that he’d never given his name. “There’s something I need to tell—”
“Don’t,” Thrawn said, the sudden pain in his voice clear. He gave her a small smile. “There’s nothing you need to tell me.”
Borika nodded, an understanding passing between them.
“We’ll have to do this again sometime,” she said, standing up.
“I’d like that,” Thrawn said, his expression becoming even more sorrowful. “Unfortunately, I’m going to be off-world for a bit.”
“When you come back then,” Borika said. She mentally cringed after saying it. She knew there was going to be no coming back. “You’re welcome to stop by my ranch for a rematch if you’re ever on Ool.”
Don’t give him any more of a reason to stay.
“Yes,” Thrawn promised, his face still sad but his eyes hopeful. “Perhaps when I come back.”