Vision of the future

Captain Jade or some other title?'

'Call me anything you want,' Mara told him. 'And what should I call you? Or doesn't anyone in this place have a name?'

'All thinking beings have names, Mara,' the man said. 'Mine is Admiral Voss Parck. It's a pleasure to meet you at last.'

'Likewise,' Mara said, staring at him as a ripple of shock went through her. Voss Parck: the Victory Star Destroyer captain who had found Thrawn on a deserted world and brought him to the Imperial court. And who had subsequently joined him in his shame and supposed exile from the Empire.

But the man in front of her...

'I imagine I look rather older than you might have expected,' Parck said offhandedly. 'Assuming you had any expectations at all, of course. I may have overly flattered myself to assume the Emperor's Hand would even remember my name, let alone my face.'

'I remember both,' Mara said. 'You were one of the people every faction in the court used as an example of what not to do in the middle of a political fight.' She glanced at the aliens. 'But then, those were the same people who also thought Palpatine sent Thrawn out here as a punishment. So what did they know?'

'And you think Mitth'raw'nuruodo's mission was otherwise?' the alien at Parck's right asked.

'I know otherwise,' Mara assured him, looking him up and down. 'Tell me, Admiral, does the whole race talk like Thrawn? Or is this some special cultural training you give your troops in case they're all invited out for High Day drinks?'

The alien's eyes narrowed—'Calm yourself, Stent,' Parck said dryly, holding up a hand. 'You must understand that one of Mara Jade's most subtle weapons has always been her talent for irritating people. Irritated people don't think clearly, you see.'

'Or maybe I just don't like any of you very much,' Mara said, feeling a touch of annoyance at Parck's quick and casual insight. Usually her enemies didn't figure that one out nearly so quickly. The slower ones never figured it out at all. 'But enough about me. Let's hear about this grand push of yours out into the Unknown Regions. You gave up a lot, after all: Coruscant, the status and camaraderie of the Imperial Fleet—' Deliberately, she looked at Stent. 'Civilization.' Stent's eyes narrowed again, but Parck merely smiled. 'You've met Thrawn,' he said, his voice softening to near-reverence. 'Any true warrior would have given up whatever was necessary for the chance to serve under him.'

'Except those of his own people, I gather,' Mara countered. 'Or did I hear the story wrong of how he wound up on Coruscant?'

'No, I'm sure you heard correctly,' Parck said with a shrug. 'But like everything else people think they know about Thrawn, that particular story is somewhat incomplete.'

'Is it, now,' Mara said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her legs, a posture designed by its apparent helplessness to put suspicious people at ease. With the same motion she surreptitiously rocked the chair back a bit, trying to gauge its weight. Very heavy, unfortunately, which eliminated it as a grab-and-throw weapon. 'I seem to have some time on my hands. Why don't you start at the beginning?'

Stent laid his hand on Parck's shoulder. 'Admiral, I'm not sure—'

'It's all right, Stent,' Parck calmed him, his eyes steady on Mara. 'We can hardly expect her help unless she has all the facts, now, can we?'

Mara frowned. 'My help in what?'

'It started better than half a century ago,' Parck said, ignoring her question. 'Back when the Outbound Flight project was preparing to fly, just before the Clone Wars broke out. Well before your time, of course—I don't know if you'd even have heard of it.'

'I've read about the Outbound Flight,' Mara said. 'A group of Jedi Masters and others decided to head out to another galaxy and see what was there.'

'Ultimately, their destination was indeed another galaxy.' Parck nodded. 'But before that particular expedition began, it was decided to send them and their ship on a, shall we say, shakedown cruise: a great circle through part of the vast Unknown Regions of our own galaxy.' He waved a hand back toward Stent and the guards. 'A route, as it turned out, that was to bring it across the edge of territory controlled by the Chiss.'

Chiss. So that was what they called themselves. Mara ran the name through her memory, searching for any reference the Emperor might have made to them. Nothing. 'And the Chiss didn't feel like being good hosts that day?'

'Actually, the ruling Chiss families never had the chance to decide one way or the other,' Parck said. 'Palpatine had already decided that the Jedi represented a grave threat to the Old Republic, and had sent an assault force into the region to quietly take care of Outbound Flight when they showed up.'