Chapter 42 · The Former

Karyn Faro had learned to hate the word former.

Former Imperial officer. Former captain. Former admiral, if the speaker wanted rank to enter the room before context did. Former enemy. Former defendant. Former asset under review. Former woman with a uniform, a ship, a chain of command, and a life whose rules, however brutal and increasingly indefensible they had become, had at least possessed the decency to be clear about where they ended.

Former did not mean free.

It meant processed.

It meant watched lightly instead of heavily, restricted politely instead of openly, trusted enough to work and not enough to stop being useful as a file. It meant that on Kuat, in a naval asset recovery office whose upper windows looked out over shipyards no one called Imperial anymore unless they wanted to start a fight, Karyn Faro spent her days sorting through the wreckage of a navy that had once believed itself eternal and now survived in registries, salvage claims, tribunal exhibits, missing property schedules, and the cautious hands of people who had lost the right to sound nostalgic.

She was good at the work. That was not a compliment.

She had spent her life in the navy. First as an officer who believed discipline could be honorable if one served under commanders who used it cleanly, then as an officer who had learned, too slowly and too thoroughly, that an honorable person inside a dishonorable machine could spend years calling the difference important while the machine used both. She had left after Endor, after the second Death Star, after the Emperor’s death had revealed not merely defeat but rot so deep it seemed to have been load-bearing all along. It had not been sudden, whatever the tribunal summaries implied. It had been cumulative. Alderaan had been a wound in the galaxy even officers who never spoke of it carried in silence. The first Death Star had been a doctrine made visible. The second had been confirmation.

By then, Faro had no appetite left for pretending the Empire’s monstrosities were exceptions committed by other branches, other officers, other fanatics with uglier uniforms and cleaner orders.

So she left.

Or tried to.

The New Republic had not considered departure a sacrament.

There had been hearings. Statements. Review boards. A tribunal with better lighting than mercy. Her rank by then had made her useful to prosecutors and inconvenient to everyone else; her rank at Batonn had made her less cleanly guilty than public memory preferred and more implicated than innocence could bear. Captain aboard the Chimaera then. Admiral later. Former by the time the questions found her.

She had survived the proceeding. That, too, was not acquittal in any spiritual sense.

She remained on probation with three years left, restricted travel, monitored communications, mandatory work placement, periodic review, and the particular civic humiliation of being told, every six months, that her reintegration remained satisfactory as if she were a damaged docking clamp being tested for load tolerance.

The office liked her because she understood ships. The government liked her because she understood Imperial paperwork. The public did not know enough about her to dislike her properly, and Faro had worked very hard to keep it that way.

Then Thrawn came back from the dead and ruined everything.

Not personally. Not yet.

That somehow made it worse.

He had not appeared at her door, had not sent a message, had not asked for loyalty, testimony, silence, forgiveness, strategy, or the impossible old comfort of command. He had simply walked into the New Republic’s capital, surrendered himself in front of witnesses, and allowed the holonet to do what the holonet did best: turn incomplete information into a feeding ground.

For days, Faro had watched from Kuat with the increasingly dangerous calm of a woman who could not travel freely to the place where people were mangling the past in public.

Grand Admiral Thrawn, vanished architect of Imperial terror.

Grand Admiral Thrawn, possible savior of the New Republic.

Grand Admiral Thrawn, war criminal.

Grand Admiral Thrawn, military genius.

Grand Admiral Thrawn, victim of postwar vengeance.

Grand Admiral Thrawn, monster in a cell.

Grand Admiral Thrawn, secret consultant.

Grand Admiral Thrawn, proof the Empire had possessed competence, if not morality.

That last one had nearly made her throw a cup through the wall display.

Not because it was false in the simple way. False things could be ignored with practice. It was infuriating because it was the sort of half-true rot that people used when they wanted order without responsibility. Competence, as if competence were absolution. Discipline, as if discipline could launder what it served. Strategy, as if strategy did not depend on what one was willing to spend.

And the other side was no better.

She saw commentators who had never set foot on the Chimaera speak of Batonn as if every minute of it could be compressed into a slogan. She saw former Rebel analysts misname officers, invert command sequences, combine operations separated by months, and say “Thrawn’s fleet” with the kind of simplicity that made history obedient and useless. She saw New Republic ministers avoid saying what they did not know, and Imperial apologists fill the silence with polished sewage.

By the end of the first week, Faro had stopped watching live broadcasts.

By the second, she had started again because not watching felt like leaving her own name unguarded in a room full of knives.

The morning Selra Tann arrived, Faro was cataloguing recovered hyperdrive components from a decommissioned support cruiser whose ownership was disputed between the New Republic, a shipyard subcontractor, two planetary restitution boards, and one elderly Moff’s nephew who had produced a deed so obviously forged that Faro almost admired its optimism.

Her supervisor had given her the file because she was “uniquely qualified.” Everyone was very careful with euphemisms around former Imperials.

Faro had written three corrections in the ownership chain, flagged the nephew’s deed for fraud review, and was drafting a note explaining that propulsion systems removed from a military vessel after surrender could not be reclassified as private devotional objects simply because someone had written the word memorial on a requisition form, when the receptionist pinged her desk.

“Visitor for you.”

Faro did not look up. “No.”

A pause.

“She says she has an appointment.”

“No, she doesn’t.”

Another pause.

“She says she represents Veyr, Antilles and Sorn.”

Faro’s fingers stopped above the terminal.

For one second, everything in the office sharpened: the recycled air, the distant hum of shipyard traffic, the smell of burnt caff from the communal machine, the half-visible skeleton of a Star Destroyer beyond the window, stripped of insignia and dignity under New Republic supervision.

Then Faro leaned back. “Of course she does.”

“She has credentials.”

“I am sure she does.”

“Should I send her in?”

Faro looked at the screen where the nephew’s forged deed waited, suddenly more honest than the rest of the day. “No,” she said. “Tell the journalist she can file her request through public affairs like every other parasite.”

The receptionist was silent long enough to be frightened. “She says she is not a journalist.”

“They never lead with that anymore.”

“She is asking to speak with you regarding Mitth’raw’nuruodo.”

Faro closed her eyes. There it was. The name, not the rank. Not Thrawn. Not Grand Admiral. The name he had rarely allowed most Imperials to use and never needed to make dramatic because his silence around it had always made it heavier than any title.

Faro opened her eyes. “Send her in,” she said. Then, after a beat, “And log the visit.”

“It is already logged.”

“Log that I asked.”

“Yes, Admiral.”

Faro looked toward the office door.

The receptionist corrected herself too late. “Sorry. Ms. Faro.”

Faro did not answer.

Selra Tann entered three minutes later.

She was mirialan, green-skinned, dark-haired, and younger than Faro expected, though not young enough to be underestimated without effort. Fine geometric tattoos marked the bridge of her nose and the line of one cheekbone. Her clothes were plain, formal, expensive in the way good legal fabric was expensive: designed not to draw attention until one noticed how precisely it avoided doing so. She carried no recording crew, no visible datapad, no holocam disguised as jewelry, and no expression of breathless professional hunger.

That made Faro distrust her more. Journalists had learned subtlety. So had lawyers. So had spies.

“Ms. Faro,” Tann said.

“Try again.”

The mirialan paused. “Admiral Faro, if you prefer.”

“I do not.”

“Then Ms. Faro.”

“Still wrong, but less wrong.”

Tann accepted that without visible offense. “I am Selra Tann, associate counsel with Veyr, Antilles and Sorn.”

“No, you’re not.”

Tann blinked once.

Faro returned to her terminal and made herself look at the forged deed. “You are either a holonet stringer with better makeup than instincts, or someone’s idea of bait. In either case, you can leave before I call Security and make this entertaining for both of us.”

“I can provide identification.”

“You can provide many things. Forged credentials, edited authorization chains, a sympathetic opening line about how difficult this must be, perhaps a veiled reference to Batonn by sentence three if you are ambitious. I have been watching your profession circle the story for weeks. You are all getting less original.”

Tann remained standing. “I am not media.”

“That is exactly what media says when it wants the second question.”

“I am here as part of Grand Admiral Thrawn’s defense team.”

Faro laughed. It came out sharper than she intended and less amused than even that. “No.”

Tann’s expression did not shift. “No?”

“No,” Faro said, finally looking at her. “That is not a sentence that walks into my office on Kuat without six layers of formal notice, probation authority clearance, and at least one person in Security pretending not to panic in the corridor. If Veyr, Antilles and Sorn wanted to speak to me, they would not send a mysterious associate to improvise in my doorway like an investigative drama with poor consultants.”

Tann regarded her for a moment.

Then she said, “Your probation authority was notified yesterday at 1640 local. The authorization was issued under limited legal contact provisions, not witness summons, because you have not been formally listed. Security cleared me at the building entrance and again at this floor. Your supervisor was notified that the conversation is voluntary and may be terminated by you at any time. I declined to have a security officer present inside the room because I assumed you would find that insulting.”

Faro stared at her.

Tann reached slowly into her sleeve, removed a flat credential wafer, and placed it on the nearest cleared surface without stepping closer. “Authentication code is visible. You may verify through your own terminal.”

Faro did not move.

Tann added, “I would prefer not to be thrown out as a journalist, but I understand the impulse.”

That was better. Not good, but better.

Faro picked up the wafer, scanned it, and watched the credential return legitimate across three separate channels.

Selra Tann. Associate counsel at the firm Veyr, Antilles and Sorn.

Authorized contact: Karyn Faro, probationary legal status, non-custodial, voluntary preliminary interview.

Subject matter: prior Imperial service record, Batonn proceeding, potential relevance to defense preparation.

Faro set the wafer down. Then she pointed at the door. “Get out.”

Tann did not move. “I believe you verified my credentials.”

“I did.”

“And?”

“And now I know exactly which kind of parasite you are.”

The mirialan’s eyes narrowed by a fraction. Not anger. Assessment.

Good, Faro thought. Be offended enough to stop pretending this is civilized.

“I am not here to ask for loyalty,” Tann said.

“You wouldn’t get it.”

“No. I assumed not.”

“You assumed wrong if you thought that would make me curious.”

“I am here because your prior proceeding is likely to become relevant.”

“My prior proceeding is closed.”

“Closed proceedings reopen in practice when lawyers begin citing them.”

“Then cite it.”

“We intend to understand it first.”

Faro leaned back in her chair. “Thrawn sent you?”

“My firm sent me.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the answer I can give accurately.”

Faro smiled without warmth. “Oh, he chose well.”

Tann said nothing.

Faro stood. The movement was enough to make Tann’s shoulders shift, not back, but ready. Faro noticed. Naval officers noticed balance. Probation had not taken that from her.

“Let me save you some billable hours,” Faro said. “I am not speaking to him like this. I am not speaking for him. I am not speaking against him. Not on this terms. I am not clarifying Batonn for anyone who thinks pain becomes more useful once it has been formatted for court. I have already survived that campaign once, and I am not letting a prosecution team, a defense firm, or some committee with clean hands and perfect hindsight drag me back through it because they need a better shape for their argument. Whatever you are building, I am not scaffolding.”

“I have not asked you to be any of those things.”

“You were going to.”

“No,” Tann said. “I was going to ask whether you would prefer the first version of your relevance to this case to be written by us, by the prosecution, or by commentators who have already forgotten what rank you held at Batonn.”

Faro went very still. There. Not a knife. A file edge. Much more dangerous.

Tann continued, “You were captain aboard the Chimaera during Batonn. You later reached admiral. Your post-Endor tribunal did not convict you for war crimes based on the Batonn record. That fact complicates several possible charge theories against our client. It also makes you useful to people who may not care whether useful is fair.”

Faro’s jaw tightened. “Our client,” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“Say his name.”

“Mitth’raw’nuruodo.”

“No,” Faro said. “That is not what I mean, and you know it.”

Tann held her gaze. “Thrawn. Grand Admiral Thrawn.”

The office seemed to contract around the name.

Outside the window, a skeletal cruiser frame moved along a construction spine, held by tugs and magnetic clamps, stripped down to structure. Something once built for war, waiting to learn what the new government needed it to become.

Faro looked at it instead of Tann.

“He was dead,” she said. Tann did not answer. Faro looked back. “He was dead because that was the only way the rest of us got to keep moving. Not cleanly. Not easily. But there was a grave-shaped space where the question of him used to be, and now he has crawled out of it with lawyers.”

Tann’s expression remained composed. “That is one description.”

“It is the polite one.”

“I believe you.”

That made Faro angrier than disbelief would have. “Don’t.”

Tann inclined her head once.

Faro picked up the credential wafer and held it out. Tann took it. “Tell Veyr, Antilles and Sorn that if they want my tribunal record, they can request it through the same channels everyone else abuses. Tell Thrawn—” She stopped. The name caught, not in grief, not exactly, but in the old habit of command recognition, in the memory of red eyes over a tactical table and a voice that could make impossibility sound like a scheduling matter. “Tell your bosses nothing. I am not one of their pieces.”

“I do not think they believe you are.”

Faro’s eyes flashed. “That,” she said, “is either ignorance or strategy.”

“Possibly respect.”

“Get out.”

This time Tann did move.

At the door, she paused. “I will file a notice that you declined voluntary preliminary contact.”

“Good.”

“If the prosecution seeks your testimony, your probation authority will have to approve travel or remote appearance.”

“I know how my leash works.”

Tann’s mouth tightened slightly. “That was not my word.”

“No. It was mine.”

A pause. Then Tann said, “For what it is worth, Ms. Faro, I do not think the holonet is treating Batonn responsibly.”

Faro stared at her. The statement was not soft enough to be sympathy and not sharp enough to be manipulation unless Tann was much better than Faro wanted to grant. “Of course it isn’t,” Faro said. “Responsibility is bad for ratings.”

“Yes.”

“And you think your firm will do better?”

“No,” Tann said. “I think we will be more precise.”

Faro laughed once. “There it is.”

Tann’s hand rested on the door control. “Precision may be the only thing in this case that prevents everyone from lying in opposite directions.”

Faro did not answer, she hated that sentence. She hated it more because she could hear, beneath the legal polish, the possibility that it was true.

Tann opened the door.

Faro spoke before she could leave. “If they lie about Batonn, I will not help them.”

Tann turned her head.

Faro’s voice was low now. “The prosecution. The defense. The holonet. Him. Anyone.”

Tann looked at her for a long moment. “And if no one lies?”

Faro’s mouth tightened. “Then everyone will still hate the truth.”

For the first time, Selra Tann almost smiled. “Likely.”

She left with no promise of cooperation, no signed statement, and, Faro suspected, exactly enough to make their bosses pleased.

The door closed.

Faro stood in the middle of her office, breathing through her nose until the first hot wave of rage settled into something she could use. Then she sat. The forged deed remained open on her terminal, its clumsy lies almost endearing now. She should have gone back to work.

Instead, she opened the restricted public archive and searched Thrawn’s name again.

The latest holonet panel appeared on delay: two commentators arguing over whether the former Grand Admiral’s cooperation with New Republic security should affect the upcoming trial. A third asked whether military genius could be separated from Imperial service. A fourth, smiling too much, suggested that perhaps the Republic could learn from its enemies without forgiving them.

Faro muted the audio.

For six years, she had been former.

Now Thrawn was alive.

And former, she thought, had just become the least stable word in the galaxy.