Chapter 3 · Chapter 3 - The apartment

By late morning, Selra Tann had discovered that inspecting a dead man’s apartment required considerably more documentation once the dead man had returned to life.

The distinction had not improved the paperwork. If anything, it had multiplied it. Her desk was almost entirely hidden beneath three overlapping inventories, an Imperial residential grant, two New Republic custodial orders that disagreed about which office had possessed authority to issue them, a provisional assets review prepared after Endor, and a much more recent authorization permitting Veyr, Antilles and Sorn to conduct an independent inspection on behalf of Mitth’raw’nuruodo without conceding that the property itself had ever been lawfully seized. The last sentence had taken four lawyers and one government clerk nearly a day to negotiate and now occupied six lines of text whose principal achievement was ensuring that no one involved admitted anything useful.

Selra read it once more before sliding the authorization into the hard case beside the property schedules. She added a portable evidence scanner, two blank recording wafers, a calibrated imaging unit, a packet of physical seals and, after a moment’s consideration, a second stylus. The first would almost certainly vanish somewhere between the fortieth and fiftieth item on the inventory. Experience had taught her that office supplies developed an independent migration pattern whenever litigation became interesting.

Across the partition, Rian Calder looked up from his terminal.

“Are you moving out?”

“No.”

“You have enough documentation to establish a small government.”

“I’m visiting one.”

That earned his attention. Calder leaned slightly around the edge of the partition, gaze dropping to the title visible on the uppermost file.

FORMER IMPERIAL RESIDENTIAL PROPERTY — CORUSCANT CENTRAL HEIGHTS — MITTH’RAW’NURUODO

His eyebrows rose.

“Oh.”

Selra clipped the case shut.

Calder looked at it again, then at her. “The apartment.”

“Yes.”

“The apartment.”

“You have now identified it twice.”

“I’m appreciating the development.”

Selra stood and reached for her jacket. “You should try appreciating your own work. It may improve morale.”

“My work does not currently involve inspecting a Grand Admiral’s penthouse.”

“It involves three administrative appeals you assured Caro were more likely to produce billable hours.”

“That was before the Grand Admiral became billable.”

Selra slipped one arm into the jacket and gave him a look. Calder had been with the firm long enough to know exactly how much mockery could be directed upward, sideways and downward without becoming professionally expensive. He was good at his work, quick when interested, cautious when not, and possessed of the particular resentment common to competent people who discovered that someone younger had chosen the inconvenient assignment shortly before it became the assignment everyone wanted.

“You gave me the file,” she reminded him.

“I gave you the preliminary research.”

“You said anyone sufficiently interested in wasting a night on it was welcome to the whole thing.”

“I was tired.”

“You were dismissive.”

“I was accurately dismissive based on information available at the time.”

“You called it an unsolicited publicity stunt with no client, no court and no fee agreement.”

“All true.”

“You also said Antilles would lose interest once someone else filed first.”

Calder frowned. “I was wrong once. There is no reason to make it archival.”

Selra fastened the jacket.

ALEX-4 passed the open office door carrying a stack of physical folders balanced with the effortless precision of a machine whose manufacturer had never expected attorneys to continue printing things several centuries after the invention of secure data storage. The legal droid slowed just enough to turn his amber photoreceptors toward Selra. “Counselor Tann, your transport authorization has been confirmed.”

Calder’s expression changed immediately.

Selra looked at ALEX-4. “Transport authorization?”

“Yes. Counselor Antilles requested that Corporate Services make an aircar available for the inspection. The assigned vehicle is Partner Sorn’s executive unit.”

There was a brief silence.

Calder stared at her. Selra stared at ALEX-4. “Sorn’s aircar.”

“Correct.”

“He is still off-system?”

“Correct.”

“And Antilles authorized me to use it.”

“Technically, Counselor Antilles instructed Corporate Services that, and I quote, ‘Sorn cannot complain from three systems away quickly enough to matter.’ Corporate Services interpreted this as authorization.”

Calder leaned back in his chair. “Oh, this is becoming offensive.”

Selra closed her eyes for half a second. “Thank you, Alex.”

“You are welcome. The vehicle is waiting at the east platform. Its internal refreshment compartment has also been restocked.”

Calder looked genuinely wounded now. “They restocked it?”

ALEX-4 turned his head toward him. “Partner-class vehicles are routinely serviced before use.”

“I know that, Alex.”

“Your tone suggested uncertainty.”

“My tone suggested injustice.”

“That falls outside my current document-management functions.”

ALEX-4 continued down the corridor.

Selra picked up the hard case.

Calder watched her do it with increasing disbelief. “You know, six weeks ago you were arguing filing deadlines with Municipal Procurement.”

“I am still arguing filing deadlines with Municipal Procurement.”

“And now you get Sorn’s car.”

“I’m going to inspect contested property. Not going out for drinks on it.”

“In Sorn’s car.”

“Would you prefer I take the metro with several million credits’ worth of original records?”

“I would prefer that someone acknowledge the rate at which you are climbing.”

Selra paused.

There it was. Not quite hostility. Calder was too intelligent to resent success in the abstract and too self-aware to disguise envy as concern particularly well. What irritated him was velocity. Selra had arrived young, ambitious and visibly prepared to work twice as hard as necessary if it moved her half a step closer to the rooms where decisions were actually made. Calder had already been in those rooms often enough to know they were mostly full of tired people making expensive mistakes, which had not stopped him noticing when she began receiving invitations.

She rested the case against her leg. “Is that what this is?”

Calder spread one hand toward her, the files, the jacket, the invisible executive aircar waiting several floors below. “You take the case nobody wants, stay up all night with Antilles, get yourself into the Thrawn defense, and now they’re sending you alone to inspect the most politically radioactive apartment on Coruscant in a senior partner’s aircar. I’m simply observing an unusually efficient career strategy.”

“Would you like the apartment?”

He hesitated.

Selra waited.

Calder glanced again at the file. “What exactly is in it?”

“No one seems entirely certain.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“There are three inventories.”

“Which agree?”

“On the address.”

He grimaced. “Original Imperial seizure records?”

“Partial.”

“Republic inventory?”

“Two versions.”

“Art?”

“Yes. A lot, apparently.”

“Imperial intelligence residue?”

“Possibly.” she shrugged lightly.

“Unresolved chain of title?”

“Oh, definitely.”

“Security restrictions?”

“Yes.”

“Potential restitution claims?”

“Several.”

“Government property disputes?”

“Probably.”

“Client instructions?”

“Verify what remains, identify what disappeared, establish what belongs to him, and do not accidentally concede that the Republic had a lawful basis to remove anything.”

Calder considered all of that. “No,” he said. “You can keep the apartment.”

“I thought so.”

“I still resent the car.”

“That seems manageable.”

He turned back toward his terminal, then looked over again before she had taken two steps. “What is the place actually like?”

“I haven’t seen it.”

“You didn’t look up the property listing?”

“It has not been on the market.”

“You know what I mean.”

Selra did. Everyone in the firm had heard fragments by now. Imperial grant. High floor. Private terrace. Residence attached to promotion into the highest military circles of a regime that had considered architectural restraint evidence of insufficient loyalty. She had deliberately avoided the more lurid commentary circulating around the case because she preferred seeing evidence before acquiring expectations about it.

“The plans say approximately eleven hundred square meters,” she said. Calder stopped moving. Selra continued, because his expression made it worthwhile. “Two principal reception rooms. Formal dining room. Library. Private office. Three guest suites, service spaces, terrace, separate staff access, and a principal bedroom suite approximately the size of the litigation floor.”

“Eleven hundred.”

“Approximately.” she said nonchalantly.

“For one man.”

“There were two domestic droids.”

“That does not improve it.”

“It was an Imperial residence.”

“That is not a residence. That is a municipal district with plumbing.”

Selra allowed herself a small smile and lifted the case again.

Calder pointed his stylus at her. “Take legally admissible pictures.”

“I intend to document the property.”

“Of the view.”

“That is not evidentiary.”

“It could become evidentiary.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. You’re the ambitious one. Find a theory.”

She started toward the corridor.

“And Selra?” She glanced back. The humor had receded just enough to show something more sincere beneath it. Calder nodded toward the case. “Check the Imperial inventory against the first Republic entry before you start comparing later transfers. If something disappeared during the changeover, every department afterward will have copied the absence forward and treated it as original.”

Selra looked at him for a moment. That was good advice. “I already flagged the transition dates.”

“Of course you did.”

“But I hadn’t separated the first forty-eight hours.”

Calder nodded once, satisfaction arriving despite himself. “There. Now when you become partner before I do, I can claim material contribution.”

“You’re assuming I’ll remember.”

“I’m documenting the conversation.”

“You’d better have Alex authenticate it.”

“Alex likes me.”

“Alex likes correct formatting.”

“That is practically affection in this firm.”

Selra left him with that and crossed the outer offices toward the lifts, the hard case pulling pleasantly at one hand. The firm was fully awake now: assistants moving between conference rooms, clerks negotiating with government registries, attorneys speaking into secure channels in tones that suggested somewhere, somebody had failed to file something important. Through the glass partitions she could see Caro in his office with one sleeve rolled back, dictating to ALEX-4’s remote transcription system while simultaneously marking corrections on another brief. He glanced up as she passed, raised two fingers in acknowledgment, then pointed toward his own eyes and toward the case.

Document everything.

Selra nodded. No speech. None required.

The lift took her down through forty-three floors of Coruscant legal real estate to the private transport level, where Partner Sorn’s aircar waited in a marked corporate berth with the understated black finish and aggressively discreet security package of a vehicle purchased by someone who billed enough per hour to consider ordinary traffic a personal insult.

The driver was already waiting beside it. He wore the sober dark uniform of the firm’s transport staff and stepped forward as soon as Selra approached, taking the evidence case from her before opening the rear door with the smooth efficiency of someone who had spent years transporting senior attorneys between hearings without ever developing an audible opinion about them.

“Counselor Tann.”

“Thank you.”

There was no question about her destination. Corporate Services had sent the itinerary ahead with the vehicle request, along with the access authorization, the expected duration of the inspection, and apparently enough additional information that Selra suspected the driver knew more about her afternoon than she did.

Calder, annoyingly, had a point.

The rear cabin contained real leather, serious soundproofing, a communications console more secure than some planetary ministries, and a chilled compartment stocked with water, fruit, caff and a small box of imported pastries. Selra settled into the seat while the driver secured her case in the recessed storage compartment, closed the door and moved around to the front.

She looked at the pastries, then at the empty seat opposite.

“Absolutely not,” she told Calder, who was not there.

She took one anyway.

The aircar lifted from the private platform and entered the traffic stream only long enough to climb through it. Coruscant’s ordinary lanes spread below in dense, glittering layers, vehicles packed into regulated currents that could slow to a crawl during the working day. Sorn’s aircar did not remain among them. A priority authorization flashed across the forward transponder, the firm’s account accepted the transit charge without requiring anyone inside the vehicle to acknowledge that money had changed hands, and the car rose into one of the restricted upper airlanes reserved for government traffic, emergency services and civilians prepared to pay sufficiently for the privilege of not sharing the city with everyone else.

The difference was immediate. The congestion fell away beneath them. Towers that would have taken twenty minutes to circumnavigate in the commercial lanes slipped past in clean intervals, and the driver accelerated into the open corridor toward Coruscant Central Heights with the quiet confidence of a man whose passengers were accustomed to arriving when they intended to.

Selra took another bite of the pastry and looked down through the window at several million beings progressing much more democratically below.

Being a junior associate at Veyr, Antilles and Sorn did have occasional advantages.

Only then, with the towers began to loom before them, did Selra open the property file again and look properly at the first image of the residence she was about to enter.

The images had been taken years earlier, during an Imperial administrative survey. High glass. pale stone. a terrace suspended above the city. Rooms built to impress people who already possessed more power than most worlds would ever see.

At the top of the document, beneath several obsolete seals, was the name of the beneficiary.

Mitth’raw’nuruodo.

Below it, the granting authority.

Selra read that line twice. Then she sat back against Sorn’s absurdly comfortable seat. “Of course,” she murmured.

The apartment, apparently, had been a personal residential grant from Emperor Palpatine.

She was still looking at the grant when the aircar began to descend.

The change was subtle at first, a slight alteration in pitch beneath the cabin floor and the shifting angle of the towers beyond the window. Coruscant Central Heights rose ahead in a cluster of pale residential spires built during the last decades of the Republic and improved, expanded, fortified and made considerably more expensive under the Empire. They belonged to that peculiar category of architecture designed for people who expected the city to remain beneath them in every relevant sense. The lower levels disappeared into the haze of traffic and neighboring structures, while the upper residences stood above most commercial lanes entirely, connected by private bridges, enclosed gardens and landing facilities large enough to make the word residential feel inadequate.

The driver banked toward one of them.

Selra lowered the file.

The complex did not have a landing pad so much as a private port.

Several platforms projected from the upper structure at different elevations, broad enough to accept executive shuttles and private yachts rather than merely aircars. One stood empty except for ground markings and a row of recessed guidance lights. Another held a sleek pleasure craft whose hull was longer than the entire frontage of Selra’s apartment building. On a lower berth, maintenance crews were servicing something with folding wings and an engine housing large enough to suggest that whoever owned it considered planetary atmosphere an optional inconvenience.

Sorn’s aircar descended toward a smaller platform reserved for surface vehicles, although smaller was a relative term. Four cars could have landed beside them without becoming acquainted.

Selra glanced through the opposite window as they crossed the outer security boundary. The traffic lanes had fallen far below. Up here, there was wind, clean light, and an uninterrupted view over a section of Coruscant so vast that the planet almost managed to resemble a landscape rather than machinery. The terrace levels of the complex stepped outward beneath them in bands of stone and glass, planted with mature trees that could not possibly have grown there naturally and had almost certainly been transported from somewhere whose climate had been forced into compliance at great expense.

The original property survey described the building as high-security executive residential accommodation.

Selra thought that was one way of putting it.

The aircar touched down with barely perceptible contact. Before she could reach for the door control, the driver was already outside. He came around to the passenger side, opened the door and waited while she stepped onto the platform, then retrieved the evidence case from the secured compartment.

The wind caught immediately at the loose edge of her jacket.

It was stronger than she had expected at that altitude, cold despite the afternoon sun and carrying the faint mineral smell of recent rain from levels of the city she could not see. Selra accepted the case from the driver and instinctively looked toward the edge of the platform. A transparent safety barrier rose only to waist height, presumably because anyone wealthy enough to live here was expected to possess both good judgment and insurance.

The view beyond it was obscene.

Not beautiful, exactly. Coruscant had passed beyond beauty centuries ago and become something closer to scale made visible. Towers rose through cloud and traffic in every direction, their upper sections catching sunlight while the lower city vanished into layers of blue-gray atmosphere. Airlanes crossed between them in bright, controlled streams. Far below, somewhere beneath those ordered lines, Calder was probably still sitting at his desk pretending he did not care that she had been given Sorn’s aircar.

Selra decided she would not mention the landing platform.

That decision lasted approximately three seconds. She would absolutely mention the landing platform.

“Counselor Tann?” The voice came from behind her.

Selra turned.

A man in a dark civilian coat stood several meters away near the entrance pavilion, one hand resting on a narrow document case. He appeared to be in his early fifties, human, compactly built, with short graying hair and the slightly weathered expression of someone who had spent too many years explaining government property classifications to people who believed classifications were what happened to other people’s property. A New Republic identification badge was clipped visibly inside his coat, but there was nothing military about him.

He waited until she approached before extending a hand. “Perrin Vale. Office of Custodial Assets.”

Selra shifted the case to her other hand and took it. “Selra Tann. Veyr, Antilles and Sorn.”

“I know.”

“That sounded ominous.”

“It was intended as efficient.”

His handshake was brief and dry. Vale released her hand and glanced toward the aircar as the driver moved back around the vehicle to wait. His eyes lingered for half a second.

“Your firm travels comfortably.”

“We do.” Selra said it without apology, as if executive aircars, private platforms and priority transit lanes were simply part of the ordinary machinery required to practice law properly.

Vale looked back at her. His expression remained perfectly neutral. So did hers.

Apparently the afternoon would begin with bureaucracy and judgment.

“I have the inspection authorization,” she said.

“So do I. Two copies, in fact. Your office transmitted one to Custodial Assets, one to Property Recovery, and a third to Parliamentary Legal Oversight, which forwarded it back to us with a request that we confirm we had received the first two.”

Selra nodded. “Good.”

“You consider that good?”

“It means nobody can later say they were not notified.”

Vale studied her for a moment, then gave the smallest possible sigh. “You people have already started.”

“We started before I left the office.”

“I was afraid of that.” He turned toward the entrance pavilion and gestured for her to follow.

The structure at the edge of the platform was almost entirely glass, although Selra suspected very little about it was actually transparent to anything security considered interesting. A pair of recessed scanners framed the doors. Beyond them stood a reception chamber large enough to accommodate passengers from a private shuttle, with luggage conveyors, customs-grade inspection equipment concealed behind decorative paneling, and a second set of doors leading deeper into the residential tower.

“This platform belongs to the residential complex rather than the individual property,” Vale said as they walked. “The larger berths can handle yachts up to sixty meters without special clearance. Anything heavier uses the lower reinforced deck.”

Selra glanced back through the glass at the neighboring pleasure craft. “People live here and commute by yacht?”

“Some people consider leaving the atmosphere part of commuting.”

“Of course they do.”

Vale looked at her. “You have not spent much time in Imperial executive housing.”

“No.”

“Neither had I before the asset seizures.” There was enough in his tone that Selra decided not to ask how many residences had taught him the distinction.

At the scanner, Vale presented his credentials first. The system accepted them with a soft chime, then requested Selra’s authorization. She placed the firm’s access wafer against the reader. Her name appeared, followed by the scope of permission: independent legal inspection, documentary imaging, inventory verification, no removal of assets, no alteration of installed systems, no network access beyond domestic administrative records expressly released for inspection.

The final line flashed amber.

DROID INTERACTION PERMITTED. BEHAVIORAL CONTROL DEVICES NOT TO BE REMOVED OR MODIFIED.

Selra read it twice. “There are still droids inside? Operative?”

“Two.”

“After six years?”

“They are part of the property inventory.”

“That is a sentence I expect one of them may object to.”

“They have not so far.”

“You have spoken to them?”

“Several times.” Vale keyed the inner door open.

“Did they object to the restraining bolts?”

“They were not consulted.”

Selra looked at him.

He looked back without apology. “Security considered both units potential repositories of Imperial data. Full memory extraction was proposed, then challenged because the ownership status of the droids was unresolved, then delayed because Intelligence wanted them preserved in operational condition in case behavioral patterns proved relevant. Eventually someone installed control bolts, restricted their communications architecture, disabled external mobility authorization and left them in situ.”

“That sounds admirably temporary.”

“It has been temporary for six years.”

They entered a private lift lobby faced in pale stone. There were no floor controls visible, only a credential reader and a discreet security panel. Vale inserted an access key, and a residence designation appeared.

Selra recognized it from the file.

7-AUREK — FORMER IMPERIAL EXECUTIVE RESIDENCE

Former.

Not seized. Not transferred. Not confiscated. Not returned. The government had spent six years finding increasingly elaborate ways not to answer the question of what the apartment currently was.

Vale selected the residence. The lift doors opened.

He did not step inside immediately. “One thing before we go up.”

Selra waited. “The seal on the private entrance is still active. I will deactivate it in your presence and log the time. From that point, you may inspect freely within the authorization. I will remain with you for the initial walkthrough and for any area still subject to a separate evidentiary restriction. After that, unless you prefer otherwise, I can stay in the entry level while you work.”

“That will be fine.”

“There are no active security concerns that we know of. The domestic units have limited locomotion and no external network access. They have continued routine cleaning and environmental maintenance under their original household programming.”

Selra glanced toward the lift. “They have been maintaining an empty apartment for six years.”

Vale’s expression shifted slightly. “Yes. Not empty, just unoccupied.”

Something about that landed differently from the rest of the inventory language.

Not sentimental. Selra had no intention of becoming sentimental about two Imperial domestic droids and an eleven-hundred-square-meter penthouse. But the image was strange all the same: rooms sealed by one government, inherited by another, their owner presumed dead or lost somewhere beyond known space while two machines continued polishing surfaces and maintaining climate settings for a man who never came home.

Vale seemed to have followed some version of the same thought, because his next words were quieter. “The more service-oriented one will offer you refreshments.” Selra looked at him. “Repeatedly.”

“How repeatedly?”

“I accepted tea on my second visit because it was faster.”

Selra smiled despite herself. “And the other?”

“The other will inform you how many times the first one has already asked.”

That sounded promising.

Vale stepped into the lift. Selra followed, evidence case in hand, and the doors closed behind them.

The lift rose without perceptible movement, the floor indicator advancing through levels that did not correspond neatly to ordinary building stories. Selra watched the numbers change while Vale reviewed something on his datapad, and by the time the display shifted from numerical designations to PRIVATE RESIDENTIAL ACCESS, the city outside might as well have ceased to exist. There were no windows in the lift, no vibration from traffic, no hint of the thousands of vehicles moving through the airlanes beyond the tower. Only the muted hum of the mechanism and the peculiar awareness that they were traveling upward through an amount of private real estate that would have housed several hundred people comfortably anywhere else on Coruscant.

The doors opened onto silence.

Not the sterile silence of an abandoned office or a government-sealed room, but something softer and stranger. The private lobby beyond was lit. The air was warm. Somewhere, very faintly, Selra could hear environmental systems moving through their cycle. The space itself was large enough to qualify as a reception room in most residences: pale stone underfoot, walls rising nearly six meters before meeting a recessed ceiling, two sculptural light fixtures throwing diffuse gold across the surfaces. A long bench of dark wood stood against one wall beneath an empty mounting bracket where some decorative piece had once hung. To the right, a second set of doors led toward what the plans identified as service access; straight ahead stood the main entrance to the apartment.

That entrance was sealed.

A transparent security membrane stretched across the double doors, overlaid by three successive authorization tags from three successive administrations. The oldest was Imperial, its crest removed but its registry code still visible beneath the replacement mark. Over that sat an early New Republic custodial notice, yellowed slightly at the edges where the projection field had begun to degrade. The newest was much more recent and much less dramatic: a clean white legal seal identifying the property as subject to continuing review and prohibiting unauthorized removal, alteration or transfer of assets.

Selra stopped in front of it. “I expected tape,” she said.

Vale glanced at her. “So did half the first provisional government.” He set his case on the bench and produced a narrow authentication key. “The Imperial seal was originally physical as well as electronic. They removed the locking bar after the transition because emergency services objected to requiring three ministries to authorize entry in the event of a fire.”

“That seems unusually sensible.”

“It took four months.”

“Less unusually.”

Vale gave her a brief look that suggested she was beginning to understand his profession, then brought his credential against the control panel beside the doors. The system woke reluctantly. First came the Imperial registry identifier, still embedded too deeply in the building infrastructure to have been removed without replacing the entire access architecture. Then the Republic overlay. Then a warning that the residence contained controlled archival material, restricted domestic systems and unverified legacy hardware.

Selra shifted the evidence case to her other hand. “Unverified legacy hardware.”

“Anything installed before Endor that no department wanted to certify as harmless.”

“That must narrow Coruscant down considerably.”

Vale entered a second code. “You have no idea.” The first seal vanished. The second dimmed. The most recent remained, awaiting acknowledgement from both parties. Vale touched the panel and looked toward Selra. “Your authorization.”

She placed the firm’s access wafer against the reader.

SELRA TANN — VEYR, ANTILLES & SORN.

The system paused long enough to make her wonder whether six years of administrative hesitation had somehow become part of the software. Then the seal dissolved from the doors in a pale wash of light.

A lock disengaged somewhere inside.

Vale did not open the doors immediately. Instead, he turned his datapad toward her. “Entry logged at twelve forty-three. Present: Perrin Vale, Office of Custodial Assets; Selra Tann, authorized counsel for the registered owner. No property removed. No preexisting seal broken except under joint authorization.”

Selra read it. “Registered owner.”

“Yes.”

“Not former owner.”

“No.”

“Not claimant.”

“No.”

“Not Imperial beneficiary.”

Vale’s mouth tightened slightly. “Counselor Tann, if you intend to enjoy every noun in the custodial record, we may be here until tomorrow.”

“I only wanted to know which noun your office currently prefers.”

“My office prefers not to be sued.”

“That is a noun I recognize.” He authenticated the entry record. Then he opened the doors.

The first thing Selra noticed was the height.

She had seen the architectural plans. She had read the measurements. Neither had prepared her for the way the apartment opened upward once the doors parted. The entrance hall beyond rose through nearly two full residential stories, its ceiling crossed by narrow structural ribs and illuminated by indirect light hidden somewhere above. The floor was dark stone veined with silver-gray, polished enough to hold soft reflections without becoming ostentatiously glossy. A broad corridor continued toward the interior beneath a succession of high arches, and beyond that, through an opening twice the height of an ordinary doorway, Selra caught a first fragment of one of the main living rooms: pale walls, an expanse of glass, and daylight pouring in from somewhere beyond.

The place did not look abandoned. That was what unsettled her. It looked paused.

There was no dust along the entrance console. No stale smell. No film over the light fixtures. Instead, the air carried a faint, clean scent of polished wood and something lighter beneath it, an old household fragrance that might once have been called masculine if anyone had been required to categorize it: dry, restrained, with a trace of flowers softened almost to nothing. A tall ceramic vessel stood in one corner containing a carefully maintained arrangement of living greenery. The wood surfaces had been polished recently enough to catch the light cleanly. Even the stone floor showed the faint parallel marks of a cleaning unit’s last pass.

Selra stepped inside and automatically looked down at her shoes.

Vale noticed. “The droids clean every morning. Unless the control system interrupts them for inspection.”

“For six years.”

“Yes.”

She looked again at the room.

A narrow console beside the entrance held nothing except a shallow decorative tray and a small holoemitter currently inactive. Above it floated a subdued household status display: temperature, atmospheric balance, maintenance alerts, water consumption, power draw. Everything was green.

The apartment was waiting for someone.

Vale stepped in after her and the doors closed behind them with a softness expensive enough to be intentional.

“Motion restrictions remain active,” he said. “The domestic units can access the residence and service spaces, but not the landing platforms or external communications systems. They cannot transmit beyond the local building network. Their long-range ports have been physically isolated.”

Before Selra could reply, there was the faint sound of servomotors from beyond the archway.

A humanoid droid emerged into the hall.

Its chassis was elegant rather than military, finished in a muted cream with bronze detailing at the joints and across the chestplate, the sort of design intended to disappear gracefully into expensive interiors while remaining sufficiently humanoid to carry a tray without alarming guests. It had probably once been polished to a near-perfect sheen; now the finish had softened slightly with age, though the machine itself moved without any sign of neglect. A dark restraining bolt sat conspicuously against the pale plating just below one shoulder, stamped with a New Republic control code.

The droid stopped when it saw them. Its photoreceptors brightened. “Counselor Tann,” it said with immediate warmth. “Welcome.”

Selra glanced at Vale. “You told them I was coming?”

“I transmitted the authorized visitor list.”

The droid took two measured steps forward. “I am MILO-3, domestic service and hospitality. I have prepared the residence for inspection. May I take your coat?”

“No, thank you.”

“Of course. Would you care for caff, tea, chilled water, fruit infusion, or a light meal before beginning?”

“No, thank you.”

MILO-3 inclined his head graciously, as though her refusal were merely the first stage of a longer negotiation. “Very good. I can have a cold plate prepared within twelve minutes.”

Selra looked at Vale.

Vale did not quite smile. “I warned you.”

A second droid appeared behind MILO-3.

This one was darker, gunmetal gray with narrow copper identification bands and a more utilitarian body plan, still humanoid but broader through the torso and less interested in pretending to be decorative. The same New Republic restraining hardware had been fixed beneath its left collar joint. It paused beside the first droid and regarded Selra with pale blue photoreceptors.

“MILO-3 has offered hospitality twice,” it said.

“Once,” MILO-3 replied.

“You included six beverage categories. I reduced them to a single event for efficiency.”

Selra’s mouth twitched. “And you are?”

“VETA-7. Domestic administration, inventory, residence maintenance and security liaison.”

“Security liaison,” Selra repeated, looking at the restraining bolt.

“The designation predates current circumstances.”

“I see.”

“I doubt that.”

Vale made a quiet sound that might have been a cough.

Selra looked from one droid to the other, then past them into the apartment. Beyond the entrance hall, the scale of the residence continued to unfold in glimpses: a staircase curving upward toward a gallery level, a section of wall occupied by three recessed inactive holo-projectors, another arch opening toward what appeared to be a formal reception room, and far beyond all of it, sunlight so bright that it could only be coming from the terrace.

She had expected wealth. She had not expected maintenance.

Somehow, the fact that the flowers were alive and the lights were adjusted and two machines had apparently spent six years preparing rooms for guests who never came made the apartment feel far more intimate than a sealed ruin would have.

MILO-3 turned slightly toward her. “If Counselor Tann intends to begin with the principal reception rooms, I can provide a brief orientation. Alternatively, the formal dining room has suitable workspace, and I could prepare refreshments while you review the inventory.”

“No refreshments,” Selra said.

“Certainly.”

VETA-7 looked at MILO-3. “It will ask again,” Vale said quietly.

“I heard that.”

“It was intended as useful information.”

Selra set the evidence case down on the entrance console and opened it. “Good,” she said. “Then we may as well establish expectations now. I am going to inspect every room listed in the property schedule, compare the current contents against both the Imperial and New Republic inventories, document missing or transferred items, and review any household records that fall within the authorization. Nothing is to be altered, moved or disposed of while I am here unless I specifically approve it.”

Both droids turned their heads toward her with almost identical precision.

VETA-7 answered first. “Understood.”

MILO-3 followed a fraction later. “Of course, Counselor. Shall I prepare something for you to eat before we begin?”

Selra closed her eyes.

Vale finally smiled. He authenticated the final entry log, checked once that Selra’s authorization remained active across the domestic record system, and then seemed almost visibly relieved to have reached the point at which the apartment became someone else’s problem. “I’ll be in the lobby,” he said, gathering his case. “Call if you need a seal lifted, a restricted inventory opened, or someone from Custodial Assets to formally witness a discrepancy.”

“Not if I need refreshments?”

Vale glanced toward MILO-3. “Absolutely not.”

MILO-3 inclined his head with dignified disapproval. “I am fully capable of attending to Counselor Tann’s requirements.”

“That,” Vale said, “is what worries me.”

Selra looked between them. “How often have you been here?”

“Enough.”

“Meaning?”

“Enough to know not to answer that while he is listening.”

“I am always listening within authorized domestic parameters,” MILO-3 said.

Vale gave Selra a look that conveyed six years of accumulated experience more efficiently than any explanation could have done. “Good luck.”

The doors closed behind him.

For the first time since arriving, Selra was alone in the apartment with the two droids. The silence changed immediately. Not because the place became quieter, but because the institutional layer had gone with Vale. The apartment no longer felt like disputed property under supervised access. It felt, however improbably, like a home whose owner had stepped out and failed to return on schedule.

MILO-3 folded his hands neatly before him. “Would Counselor Tann prefer a chronological tour, architectural orientation, or inventory-based inspection?”

“Inventory-based.”

“Of course.” VETA-7 turned toward the main corridor. “That is also the least efficient method for understanding the residence.”

Selra picked up her case. “I’m not here to understand the residence.”

VETA-7 looked at her. Selra waited. “Noted,” the droid said.

She had the distinct impression that it did not believe her.

They began with the first reception room. The scale of it was almost offensive.

Selra entered through a broad archway and stopped before she meant to. The room stretched across the outer face of the apartment beneath another of the absurdly high ceilings, its proportions softened only by the way the furniture had been arranged into several smaller conversational groupings rather than one ceremonial expanse. Pale upholstered chairs stood around low dark tables. Two long couches faced each other across a woven floor covering whose pattern Selra did not recognize. The far wall was almost entirely glass, opening the city beneath them in such breadth that the traffic seemed reduced to strands of light suspended in haze.

What surprised her was not the expense.

It was the restraint.

The room was luxurious in materials, certainly, but not crowded with them. There were no trophies of rank, no portraits of Palpatine, no Imperial insignia, no ceremonial weapons mounted for effect. Instead, the walls held a combination of physical objects and discreet holo-recesses: carved panels, fragments of textile, a small sculptural form under transparent shielding, and several inactive projection fields positioned where paintings might have hung in a more conventional residence.

Selra opened the first inventory. “Reception Room One. Original Imperial schedule lists twenty-three displayed works.”

“Correct,” VETA-7 said.

“Current visible physical pieces: six.”

“Correct.”

“Holo installations?”

“Eleven active emitters. Two removed. Four decommissioned.”

Selra looked up. “Decommissioned by whom?”

“New Republic technical inspection.”

“Removed by whom?”

“Imperial Security, prior to governmental transition.”

That made her pause. “Before the New Republic entered the property.”

“Correct.”

“Do we know why?”

“No.” MILO-3 added, “The removed units were integrated into the primary display network.”

Selra turned toward him. “Primary display network?”

MILO-3 gestured toward the opposite wall.

Only then did she properly notice what was missing.

The wall itself was enormous, uninterrupted except for a recessed frame nearly four meters wide and perhaps two high. It had the unmistakable architectural look of something built around a device rather than decorated after the fact. Power conduits remained beneath an access panel near the floor. A thin line of mounting hardware ran along the upper edge. Whatever had occupied the space had been removed carefully, but not invisibly.

Selra walked closer. “What was here?”

“A panoramic holowall,” MILO-3 said.

“How large?”

VETA-7 answered. “Three-point-eight meters by two-point-one. Multi-spectrum projection, archival-grade color reproduction, layered depth rendering, independent environmental calibration, secure local storage.”

Selra stared at the empty frame. “So someone removed the equivalent of a very large entertainment display.”

“No,” VETA-7 said.

Selra looked at him.

“It was not primarily used for entertainment.” MILO-3 added, with the air of someone supplying necessary context, “Grand Admiral Thrawn used it for art study, comparative cultural analysis, tactical visualization, architectural reference, music transcription, historical maps, and occasionally news broadcasts.”

“Occasionally.”

“Rarely.”

Selra glanced back at the inventory. “Who took it?”

VETA-7 paused. “That is unclear.”

She looked at him again. “How unclear?”

“The Imperial seizure schedule records the unit as present.”

“And the first Republic inventory?”

“Absent.”

Selra lowered the datapad. “There is no transfer record?”

“None in the domestic archive.”

“No removal authorization?”

“None.”

“No receiving department?”

“None.”

MILO-3 said, “The wall was disconnected nineteen hours before the first New Republic custodial team entered the residence.”

Selra went very still. “By whom?”

“Unknown.”

“Did you see them?”

VETA-7 answered this time. “Our movement and observation functions were restricted under Imperial seal during that period.”

Selra looked from one droid to the other. “So someone came in after Thrawn disappeared, before the Republic arrived, disabled or restricted you, and removed a holowall large enough to require specialist equipment.”

“Correct.”

“Anything else?”

VETA-7’s head tilted very slightly. “Would Counselor Tann prefer the short answer or the complete answer?”

“The complete one.”

“Then this tour will take longer.”

Selra opened a new note. “Good.”

They continued.

The second reception room was smaller only by the standards of the apartment, which meant it could still have hosted a diplomatic dinner without moving much furniture. Here the atmosphere was warmer. Darker wood. Lower lighting. More seating. A sideboard ran along one wall, and beside it stood a built-in bar of black stone and bronze fittings.

The shelves behind it were empty.

Completely empty.

Selra stopped in front of them. “Inventory?”

MILO-3 answered before she asked. “All consumable beverages removed during the initial Republic custodial review.”

“All of them?”

“Yes.”

“Disposed of?”

“Some.”

Selra turned. “Some?”

VETA-7 consulted the internal record. “Forty-three sealed bottles classified as consumable property. Twelve transferred for contamination testing. Nine discarded after expiration review. Six reassigned to government hospitality stores under provisional administrative authority. Four recorded as damaged. Three unaccounted for. Nine returned to storage pending ownership determination.”

Selra stared at him. “Returned to what storage?”

“Unknown.”

She looked at the empty shelves again. “How much of it did Thrawn actually drink?”

MILO-3 answered immediately. “Very little.”

“That vague?”

“I can be specific.”

“Please.”

“Grand Admiral Thrawn consumed alcohol in the residence on twenty-one recorded occasions.”

Selra blinked. “Over how many years?”

“Twelve years, four months, eleven days of recorded ownership.”

“That is not much.”

“No.”

“Guests?”

“Significantly more.”

“Of course.”

MILO-3 sounded almost pleased to be useful. “The residence was occasionally used for formal dinners, command receptions, diplomatic visits and private meetings.”

“Did he host often?”

“No. Grand Admiral Thrawn was rarely resident on Coruscant for any significant period. For all of the years in which this property was assigned to him, he was deployed with the Seventh Fleet.”

Selra glanced around the room again. “How rarely?”

VETA-7 answered with greater precision. “His visits were generally brief. Fleet consultations, Admiralty business, strategic conferences, and direct summons to the Imperial Palace accounted for the majority of recorded stays. Extended periods in residence were exceptional.”

“Direct summons to Palpatine?”

“To Emperor Palpatine,” MILO-3 corrected automatically, then seemed to encounter some internal reason not to pursue the matter further. “Yes, Counselor.”

Selra looked toward the empty shelves behind the bar. The apartment had begun to make more sense. It was built like the home of a man expected to entertain ministers, governors and senior officers, but its actual occupant had spent most of his career somewhere else entirely, aboard a warship or moving with the fleet. Coruscant had been a place he returned to for orders, reports, conferences and the occasional audience with the Emperor, not the center from which he exercised power. “So he wasn’t really part of the capital social circuit.”

“No,” VETA-7 said. “Grand Admiral Thrawn was a serving fleet officer.”

The distinction was simple enough that Selra wondered how often people forgot it. Rank had put him close to the center of Imperial power; proximity had not made him a politician. Whatever influence Thrawn had possessed, he had exercised most of it from the bridge of a Star Destroyer rather than from rooms like these.

She gestured toward the empty bar. “Then why stock this much?”

“Imperial Household standard,” MILO-3 said.

Selra looked around the room again. There it was. The answer to more and more of the apartment. Not Thrawn: the Empire.

The size, the marble, the imported woods, the terrace gardens, the bar, probably half the furniture and most of the architecture—these were not evidence of his personal appetite for luxury so much as the Imperial state’s idea of what a Grand Admiral should inhabit once the Emperor had decided to elevate him visibly.

Selra made another note. “Which items in this room were purchased by Thrawn personally?”

VETA-7 began listing them.

A carved stone panel from the outer regions. A set of woven wall hangings from an Outer Rim colony Selra had never heard of. Two chairs. Three holo licenses. A small sculptural piece. Several books. A table.

Selra looked at the table.

It was nice. Dark wood, beautifully worked, but not the sort of thing that suggested dynastic wealth.

“He bought this?”

“Yes,” MILO-3 said. “It is an original Rionese council table, late Consolidation period.”

Selra looked at it again. “Why?”

VETA-7 answered. “The placement of the inlays identifies the relative political status of those seated around it. Reproductions frequently omit the wear patterns that indicate how those conventions changed in practice.”

“So he bought it to study it.”

“Initially.”

Selra ran her eyes over the perfectly ordinary chairs arranged around it. “And then used it as a table.”

“It remained a table,” VETA-7 said.

She took a couple images and sighed. “That’s it?”

“In this room.”

She looked back toward the built-in bar, the dark stone, the gold-toned fittings, the view worth more than most estates. “And the rest?”

“Transferred with the residence.”

Of course.

The next room made the pattern even clearer.

It was less formal and clearly used more often. A long low couch faced a wall containing four staggered holo emitters rather than framed art. One corner held a reading chair angled toward the windows. There were physical objects here too, but fewer than Selra expected from the phrase art collection. A narrow ceramic figure under shielding. A painted mask. A metal relief. A textile stretched vertically along one wall.

The rest existed as light.

When MILO-3 activated the display network, the room changed.

A translucent field unfolded above one emitter, resolving into the image of a sculpture Selra recognized from the inventory but had assumed was missing. Another projector brought up a landscape composed in a style unlike anything Core-world schools taught. A third produced a rotating artifact, every surface rendered in enough detail to show tool marks and age fractures.

Selra stared. “These are… reproductions?”

“High-fidelity reproductions,” MILO-3 corrected politely.

“Of works he didn’t own.”

“Some he owned. Some he had studied. Some were held in museums, archives, private collections, cultural institutes, universities, monasteries, diplomatic holdings and military repositories.”

“How many?”

VETA-7 answered. “Current local archive: eight thousand four hundred and twelve primary works. Twenty-seven thousand six hundred and three secondary reference images. Nine hundred and eleven comparative reconstructions.”

Selra slowly lowered her datapad. “That is more art than will fit in this apartment.”

“Yes.”

“And most of it is holographic.”

“Yes.”

She looked toward the display. A piece of her financial picture shifted: the art trust. The acquisition records. The assumption that a collector at Thrawn’s level must have been pouring enormous sums into rare originals. Perhaps not. “What did he spend on reproductions?”

“Licensing, scanning and archival preparation costs varied.”

“Compared with buying the originals?”

“Substantially less.”

Selra almost laughed.

Of course.

Of course Grand Admiral Thrawn had found a way to become an obsessive collector without behaving like one financially.

“He didn’t care about owning the object.” she said out loud, in almost a whisper.

MILO-3’s head tilted. “I would not characterize it that way.”

“No?”

“He cared whether ownership was useful.” That made Selra look at him. The droid continued. “Some originals provided information unavailable through reproduction: material composition, weight, construction technique, pigment aging, tool marks, hidden repairs, scent, temperature response, acoustic properties, ritual handling traces. Those he sometimes acquired physically. Where a holographic or technical reproduction preserved what he needed, he generally considered possession unnecessary.”

Selra stared at the projected sculpture. That was not how most collectors behaved. It was, however, exactly how she was beginning to suspect Thrawn behaved about almost everything. “Practical.”

“Yes,” MILO-3 said.

VETA-7 added, “Economical.”

Selra turned slightly. “Was that deliberate?”

“Grand Admiral Thrawn disliked paying for information twice.”

She wrote that down too.

MILO-3 watched her for a moment, then said, “Counselor Tann has now been standing for twenty-eight minutes.”

“I’m aware.”

“A light refreshment would improve concentration.”

“I’m fine.”

“Tea?”

“No.”

“Caff?”

“No.”

“Fruit?”

“No.”

“A small savory plate?”

Selra looked at him.

MILO-3 remained entirely sincere. “I can also provide house slippers, if Counselor Tann would be more comfortable without outdoor shoes during the inspection.”

She looked down at her perfectly respectable work shoes, then back at him. “I am not taking my shoes off.”

“Of course. The slippers will remain available.”

VETA-7 said, “This is the fourth hospitality attempt and the first footwear intervention.”

“Thank you, Veta.”

“You are welcome.”

“What’s through there?” She asked, pointing at the pair of ornate closed doors.

“The library,” MILO-3 said. “Beyond it are the private office, formal dining room, terrace gallery, guest suites, principal bedroom suite, secondary rooms, service corridor and residential aide quarters.”

Selra checked the floor plan. “Bedrooms first.”

“Of course.”

MILO-3 turned toward the private wing, and VETA-7 followed with the quiet inevitability of someone who already knew the tour was about to become confusing.

The transition from the reception rooms was marked less by a door than by a change in scale. The corridor narrowed slightly, though narrowed was generous for a passage wide enough for three people to walk abreast, and the harder stone of the public rooms gave way to warmer flooring and darker wood along the walls. The city remained visible through intermittent panels of glass, but the sightlines were broken now, more private, with shallow alcoves holding small holoemitters and the occasional physical object under protective shielding.

MILO-3 stopped before a pair of tall double doors.

“The principal suite.”

Selra glanced once at the plans, then stepped through.

She stopped.

The bedroom was ridiculous.

Not vulgar. That would almost have been easier. Everything in it was too well made for vulgarity: pale stone, dark wood, fabric heavy enough to fall without a crease, and a ceiling high enough that the room seemed to possess its own climate. The bed stood on a slightly raised platform facing a wall of glass, beyond which a private section of terrace curved around the exterior of the tower. There was a sitting area larger than Selra’s entire first apartment, a dressing room visible through one open doorway, and another opening beyond that leading into the bathing suite.

She walked toward it.

The bath had been sunk directly into the floor.

Selra stared at it.

It was not merely stone-lined. The entire basin appeared to have been carved from a single enormous block of dark material shot through with faint silver veins, polished smooth where it descended into the floor and left deliberately rough along the outer rim. It looked less installed than excavated.

“That cannot possibly be one piece.”

“It is,” MILO-3 said. “Velmorian duskstone. Four-point-eight metric tons before final shaping.”

Selra turned slowly toward him. “Someone transported nearly five tons of stone across the galaxy to make a bathtub?”

“The Imperial Household Office considered the material appropriate to a residence of this classification.”

“Naturally.”

She stepped closer, looking down into it. “Did he actually use this?”

There was a short pause. “Infrequently,” MILO-3 said.

VETA-7 supplied the number. “Eleven recorded uses.”

Selra looked up. “Eleven?”

“Correct.”

“In twelve years.”

“Twelve years, four months and eleven days of recorded ownership.”

Selra looked back at the basin. “That may be the least efficient use of four-point-eight tons of imported stone I have ever encountered.”

“Grand Admiral Thrawn did not select or purchase the installation,” VETA-7 said.

“Yes. I am beginning to notice a pattern.” Selra moved back into the bedroom and reopened the inventory overlay. The room was immaculate, but that was true of the entire apartment. What bothered her was something else. “Where are his personal effects?”

MILO-3 turned toward her. “Counselor?”

“Clothing. Personal datapads. Toiletries. Anything he kept here regularly.” She glanced toward the dressing room. “The inventory lists almost nothing.”

VETA-7 answered first. “Because Grand Admiral Thrawn did not use the principal suite as his usual bedroom.”

Selra looked up. “He didn’t?”

“No.”

She looked around the room again: the vast bed, the private terrace, the dressing room, the sunken bath carved out of nearly five tons of imported stone.

“Then who did?”

“The suite was generally reserved for guests,” MILO-3 said. “On one extended occasion, Senior Lieutenant Pyrondi occupied it for ten consecutive nights while serving as the Grand Admiral’s temporary aide.”

Selra’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me? His aide slept here?”

“Correct.”

“He put his aide in this room?”

“Correct.”

Selra stared at him. “Of course he did.”

MILO-3 gestured toward the next door along the private corridor. “There are two additional guest bedrooms on this level. If Counselor Tann would like to continue in order—”

“No.”

Both droids looked at her.

Selra tucked the datapad beneath one arm. “I want to see the aide’s room.”

MILO-3 paused. “The other guest rooms are immediately adjacent.”

“They’ll still be there afterward.”

VETA-7 turned without comment and started down the corridor. MILO-3 remained where he was for half a second, then followed. “Of course, Counselor.”

There was something almost satisfying about the fact that, for once, he did not offer her food.

VETA-7 led the way back into the corridor, past the pair of doors MILO-3 had identified as the remaining guest rooms and toward a narrower section of the private wing. The change was subtle but immediate. The wall treatments became simpler, the decorative lighting less elaborate, the doors closer together. There was still nothing cheap about the construction; even the service side of an Imperial executive residence had been designed by people who regarded ordinary materials as a personal failure. But the architecture had stopped performing quite so aggressively.

MILO-3 gestured toward one of the doors. “Residential aide quarters.”

Selra checked the floor plan. The room was positioned between the principal suite and a secondary corridor leading toward the office and service access. Convenient. Close enough that an aide could be summoned without crossing the public rooms, far enough away to preserve some privacy. Entirely logical for the person assigned to assist a senior officer during his stays on Coruscant.

VETA-7 opened the door.

The room beyond was so ordinary that Selra initially thought they had taken a wrong turn.

Not small, exactly. Not by any reasonable standard. It would have qualified as a perfectly good bedroom in most expensive apartments on Coruscant: perhaps twenty-five square meters, with a private refresher, built-in storage, a narrow work surface beneath one wall, and a bed large enough for a tall occupant without being designed to impress anyone who entered the room. The ceiling was normal. The windows were normal. The floor was good wood rather than imported stone. A reading lamp stood beside the bed. There was one comfortable chair near the window, a small side table, and a recessed holoemitter set into the opposite wall.

Selra stepped inside slowly.

Behind her, the principal suite still existed only a few meters away, containing almost five tons of ornamental stone and enough unused floor space to host a committee hearing.

“This,” she said, “was where he slept.”

“Yes,” VETA-7 replied.

Selra looked around again, waiting for the detail that would make the room secretly extraordinary.

It did not arrive.

The bed was well made. The mattress looked expensive enough to be comfortable and ordinary enough to have been selected because someone intended to sleep on it rather than display it. The wardrobes were closed. A dark throw had been folded across the foot of the bed with geometric precision. The room smelled faintly more strongly of the same dry wood and subtle floral fragrance she had noticed near the entrance, although whether that came from the room itself or from years of domestic environmental programming she could not tell.

“How long?”

MILO-3 answered. “From the second night after Grand Admiral Thrawn took possession of the residence until his final departure from Coruscant.”

Selra turned. “The second night.”

“Yes.”

“What happened during the first one?”

“He occupied the principal suite.”

“And then?”

“He instructed me to prepare this room for permanent personal use.”

“Did he say why?”

MILO-3 paused for a fraction of a second, accessing something older than the recent maintenance logs. “He stated that the principal suite was inefficient.”

Selra stared at him.

VETA-7 added, “He was more specific on a later occasion.”

“Was he?”

“He described the distance between the bed, wardrobe, refresher and exit as unnecessary.”

Selra looked toward the door, then imagined the expanse of the other bedroom. “That sounds like him.”

Neither droid commented on how she had reached that conclusion.

She crossed to the wardrobe and opened it. Here, finally, were personal effects.

Not many. Thrawn had apparently spent too little time on Coruscant to require a full civilian life there, but the room contained the evidence the principal suite had lacked. Several dark civilian tunics hung neatly along one side. Two formal garments of unmistakably expensive construction occupied protective sleeves beside them. A lower compartment held boots, house shoes and a pair of exercise garments. One drawer contained folded shirts and underclothes, each stack arranged with the sort of exactness that might have been the work of domestic droids until Selra noticed that the spacing was not entirely uniform.

“You did this?” she asked, indicating the drawer.

MILO-3 came closer. “Laundry and wardrobe maintenance, yes.”

“The folding?”

A pause.

“Not always.”

Selra looked at it.

“Grand Admiral Thrawn frequently returned clothing to storage himself.”

“Poorly?”

MILO-3 seemed almost offended on his former owner’s behalf. “Adequately.”

VETA-7 said, “MILO-3 refolded approximately thirty-two percent of items returned by the Grand Admiral.”

Selra smiled.

MILO-3 turned his head toward the other droid. “That statistic was not requested.”

“It was relevant.”

Selra closed the drawer before MILO-3 could defend twelve years of folding standards.

On the work surface lay several objects that had apparently survived the inventories because no one had considered them worth removing. A narrow writing stylus. Two blank data wafers. A small ceramic dish containing three old fastening pins. A physical book with a repaired spine. Beside it sat an empty stand sized for a datapad or holo-projector. There was no decoration beyond a small framed image rendered in low-resolution holo, currently inactive.

Selra pointed to it. “May I?”

“Domestic display,” VETA-7 said. “Not restricted.”

She activated it.

Two Imperial officers appeared above the frame.

Thrawn was immediately recognizable, though younger and wearing a substantially lower rank than the one by which the Republic knew him. Beside him stood a human officer Selra did not recognize. Both were in dress uniform. The human was smiling openly; Thrawn, predictably, was not, though there was something less formal than usual in the way he stood beside him.

Selra glanced at the inventory data. “Commodore.”

“The image was recorded on the occasion of his promotion to that rank,” VETA-7 said. “Lieutenant Commander Eli Vanto was promoted the same day.”

Selra looked again at the human officer. “Vanto.”

“Yes.”

There were no admirals, no politicians, no Emperor in the frame. Just the two newly promoted officers, caught at some point after the formalities, close enough together that the image felt personal rather than official.

Selra studied it for another moment. “He kept a holo of his own promotion beside his bed.”

“Not precisely,” MILO-3 said.

She glanced toward him.

“Lieutenant Commander Vanto gave him the holo.”

“Ah.”

“Grand Admiral Thrawn did not select the image.”

“But he kept it.”

“Yes.”

Selra looked back at the projection. That, she thought, was a rather different thing.

She switched it off.

There were no medals here. No portraits of Palpatine. No photographs of officers lined up beside Star Destroyers. Nothing that advertised rank at all. If someone had shown Selra the room without telling her where it was, she might have guessed it belonged to a professional who traveled too often to accumulate much and preferred good things without needing them to be extravagant.

Which, she realized, was considerably more interesting than the five-ton bathtub.

She opened the inventory again. “Personal property retained in the room at time of Imperial sealing?”

VETA-7 began reciting. “Civilian clothing. Eight physical books. Twenty-three data wafers. Two personal datapads. One portable art scanner. One set of exercise equipment. One ceremonial knife of Chiss manufacture. Four small physical artworks. One holo projector. Personal correspondence archive, encrypted. Miscellaneous grooming items. One pair of corrective dark lenses. One—”

“Wait.” Selra looked up. “Ceremonial knife.”

“Removed by Imperial Security.”

“Of course.”

“Art scanner: removed by Imperial Security. Personal datapads: removed by Imperial Security. Data wafers: removed by Imperial Security. Correspondence archive: removed by Imperial Security.”

Selra’s expression changed. “That is a lot of Imperial Security.”

“Yes.”

“And the physical books?”

“Three removed. Five remained.”

“Art?”

“Two removed. Two remained.”

She looked at the small room again, suddenly less ordinary. Not because the furniture had changed, but because she could now see the absences. Empty spaces on the shelf. A faint rectangle on the desk where something had stood for years. A mounting bracket inside the wardrobe with nothing attached to it. The quiet archaeological outline of a life partially dismantled before the Republic had ever arrived.

“Was this room searched first?”

VETA-7 answered without hesitation. “Yes.”

“Before the principal suite?”

“Yes.”

Selra looked back toward the corridor. “Meaning whoever conducted the Imperial seizure knew which room he actually used.”

“Correct.”

That mattered. She made a note.

MILO-3, standing near the bed, said, “Counselor Tann may wish to inspect the bedside compartment.”

Selra looked at him. “Why?”

“It contains an item omitted from the first Imperial inventory and added by the New Republic.”

That got her attention. She crossed to the bedside unit and opened the upper drawer. Inside lay a pair of reading glasses.

Selra stared at them.

Not dark lenses. Not tactical equipment. Not encrypted storage. Just ordinary spectacles with thin frames, folded neatly beside a small polishing cloth.

She picked up the inventory overlay rather than touching them. “Those are his?”

“Yes.”

“Why weren’t they taken?”

VETA-7 answered. “The Imperial officer conducting the search classified them as medically irrelevant personal effects.”

“And the Republic?”

“Logged them.”

Selra looked at the glasses again. For reasons she could not immediately explain, that small object made the room feel more inhabited than anything else she had seen.

MILO-3 took advantage of the silence. “Counselor Tann has now been inspecting the residence for forty-one minutes. I could prepare a light lunch while you continue.”

Selra did not look away from the drawer. “No.”

“Soup?”

“No.”

“A sandwich?”

“No.”

“The house slippers remain available.”

That made her turn. MILO-3 stood there with complete dignity.

Behind him, VETA-7 said, “Second footwear intervention.”

Selra closed the drawer. “I am beginning to understand why Grand Admiral Thrawn spent most of his time aboard a Star Destroyer.”

MILO-3’s photoreceptors brightened slightly. “I am told naval catering was less attentive.”

“That is not what I meant.”

“I know, Counselor.”

The remaining bedrooms took considerably less time.

One had been used occasionally by overnight guests and contained nothing more interesting than the administrative residue of six years of inventories: a missing lamp later found in building storage, two replaced mattresses, and a wardrobe whose contents had been removed as consumables and linens rather than personal property. The second appeared to have been used so rarely that even MILO-3 could provide only four recorded overnight occupants during Thrawn’s entire tenure in the apartment.

Selra photographed both rooms, checked the physical contents against the latest schedule, marked two minor discrepancies for later review, and moved on.

By the time they reached the library, she had stopped expecting the room names on the architectural plans to mean very much.

This one, at least, was immediately recognizable as something Thrawn had actually used.

It occupied a long room along the inner side of the residence, quieter than the reception spaces and considerably less theatrical than the principal suite. Shelving covered most of two walls, interrupted by recessed holo displays and narrow storage compartments. A broad worktable stood near the center, large enough to spread several physical documents or projected maps at once, while a second desk faced the windows at an angle that gave its occupant the city without placing it directly in his line of sight. There were physical books here in greater numbers than anywhere else in the apartment, mixed with archive cases, reference wafers, art catalogues and neatly labeled storage boxes.

Selra stopped just inside. “This was the library.”

“Officially,” VETA-7 said.

She looked toward the desk. “And unofficially?”

“Grand Admiral Thrawn’s principal workroom while in residence.”

That made considerably more sense.

Unlike the principal bedroom, this room felt configured rather than merely furnished. The difference was subtle. Nothing was worn; Thrawn had simply spent too little time on Coruscant for that. But the furniture had been arranged around work rather than presentation. The central table stood beneath the strongest lighting in the room, with data ports accessible from every side. The desk near the windows had been angled away from the view, not toward it, and several shelves held reference material grouped closely enough to suggest deliberate organization rather than decoration. A portable holo-projector sat within easy reach of the worktable, along with an articulated reading lamp and a pair of empty document stands.

Selra looked around once more. This was not a room that had been lived in heavily. It was a room someone expected to be able to enter, work in immediately, and leave again.

Selra set her evidence case on the table.

“Good. I’ll work from here.”

MILO-3 brightened. “I can prepare caff.”

“No.”

“Tea.”

“Still no.”

“Water?”

Selra looked at him.

“I am required to maintain hydration standards for guests.”

“You are required to let me examine the room.”

“Those requirements are not mutually exclusive.”

VETA-7 moved toward one of the shelving units. “Fifth hospitality attempt.”

Selra ignored them both and began unpacking her scanner, datapads and recording wafers. Then she saw it. She stopped with one hand still inside the case.

On a shelf beside a collection of sober archival boxes stood a small plastoid figure approximately twenty centimeters high.

It was hideous.

The figure depicted a man in an improbably fitted silver flight suit, one boot planted heroically on a stylized asteroid while he pointed a blaster toward some unseen enemy. His hair had been rendered in metallic gold. His cape was translucent blue. The base still carried the faded logo of what Selra vaguely recognized as an enormously popular holodrama from several years before, along with the words DELUXE COMMEMORATIVE EDITION in aggressively cheerful lettering.

Selra stared at it.

Then she looked around the room.

Dark wood. Military reference material. Cultural archives. Art catalogues. A Grand Admiral’s working desk.

She looked back at the figure. “What is that?”

MILO-3 followed her gaze. “A promotional figurine associated with the holodrama Fire Across the Stars.”

Selra knew the title. Everyone knew the title. It had run for something like twelve seasons and generated an amount of merchandise normally associated with small planetary economies. “I know what it is.” She pointed at it. “Why is it here?”

There was a brief silence.

VETA-7 answered. “Senior Lieutenant Pyrondi purchased it.”

Selra turned. “For the Grand Admiral?.”

“Accidentally,” MILO-3 added.

That made Selra turn back. “Accidentally.”

“During her ten-day stay in the residence. The figurine was included in an order placed through a commercial holo-service. Lieutenant Pyrondi stated that she had selected the wrong product option.”

Selra picked up her datapad again. “And she left it here.”

“She attempted to remove it on departure,” VETA-7 said.

“Attempted?”

“Grand Admiral Thrawn informed her that there was no practical reason to discard a functional object merely because its acquisition had been unintended.”

Selra looked at the figurine. “Functional.”

MILO-3 pointed toward the base. “It is also a datapad stand.”

Selra stared at him.

Then at the figure. Then, because she could not help herself, she lifted her own datapad and slid it carefully into the narrow groove behind the heroic silver-clad holodrama captain.

It fit perfectly.

Selra stood there for several seconds. “He actually used this?”

“Frequently,” MILO-3 said.

That was somehow worse. She left her datapad in it. “Fine. The ridiculous man can hold the inventory.”

VETA-7’s photoreceptors shifted toward her. “For clarity, Counselor, are you referring to the figurine or Grand Admiral Thrawn?”

Selra looked at him. “Continue the inventory, Veta.”

“Understood.”

Selra settled at the central table and pulled the oldest Imperial inventory onto one side of her display, the first New Republic entry record onto the other. For the next half hour the work became methodical.

“Two freestanding archive cases, east wall.”

“Present,” VETA-7 said.

“Portable holo-projector, military-grade.”

“Removed by Imperial Security.”

“Receiving record?”

“None available to the domestic system.”

Selra marked it and continued. “Set of six physical reference volumes, Kuat shipbuilding histories.”

“Present.”

She looked toward the shelf VETA-7 indicated, counted six spines and moved on. “Bronze desk lamp.”

“Present.”

“Carved stone object, seventeen centimeters, provenance listed as unknown.”

“Present. Third shelf, central recess.”

“Three encrypted archival wafers.”

“Removed.”

“Again Imperial Security?”

“Yes.”

“Desktop tactical projector.”

“Removed.”

“Imperial Security?”

“Yes.”

Selra stopped writing and looked up. “Did they leave anything that could store data?”

VETA-7 considered the question. “Several devices.”

“Anything interesting?”

“No.”

She looked at it.

“That was not an assessment of their cultural value,” the droid clarified. “It was an assessment of their probable intelligence value.”

“Good to know.”

She worked down another page. “Physical artwork, ceramic, blue and black, approximately thirty centimeters.”

“Present.”

“Second ceramic piece, red glaze.”

“Broken prior to Grand Admiral Thrawn’s final departure.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“By whom?”

“MILO-3.”

From the other side of the room came an immediate response. “It slipped.”

VETA-7 turned his head. “You placed it too close to the edge while dusting.”

“The shelf was unusually shallow.”

“The shelf had not changed dimensions.”

Selra suppressed a smile and marked the item as accounted for. “Replacement?”

“Grand Admiral Thrawn declined replacement,” VETA-7 said.

“Did he mind?”

“No.”

MILO-3 added, perhaps unnecessarily, “He asked whether I had damaged my hand actuator.”

Selra glanced toward him.

MILO-3 was rearranging absolutely nothing on a sideboard with the intense attention of a droid determined not to appear involved in the conversation.

She went back to the inventory. “Desk chair.”

“You are sitting on it.”

“Secondary chair.”

“Present.”

“Two document stands.”

“Present.”

“Personal correspondence box.”

“Removed.”

“Art catalogues, twenty-eight physical volumes.”

“Twenty-seven present.”

Selra looked up again. “The missing one?”

“Loaned.”

“To whom?”

“Senior Lieutenant Pyrondi.”

Selra stared at him. “Did she return anything she borrowed?”

“Yes.”

“That sounded defensive.”

“It was statistical.”

She made another notation.

The pattern became clearer as the lists advanced. The apartment had not been stripped indiscriminately. Furniture remained. Books remained unless someone had found a reason to take them. Decorative pieces mostly remained. Anything capable of holding information had received much more attention, particularly in the brief interval before the New Republic assumed control. Some items were documented properly. Others had vanished into Imperial administrative darkness before anyone on the Republic side had ever known to ask for them.

But the two droids knew.

Not everything, perhaps. They had been restricted at crucial points. Their network access had been cut, their movements limited, some of their records likely inspected or copied. Still, they remembered who had entered rooms, which objects had been used, where Thrawn slept, what he ate, how often he entertained, which guest had occupied which bedroom, what had been moved before the government changed hands.

Selra lowered her stylus.

She had spent most of the afternoon treating them as unusually talkative pieces of the apartment. They were witnesses. Very good ones.

MILO-3 noticed the pause immediately. “Counselor Tann?”

She looked toward him. There was, she decided, no point resisting forever. “Caff, please.”

MILO-3 went completely still.

Selra almost regretted it.

“I’d like to have a caff,” she repeated

His photoreceptors brightened so noticeably that even VETA-7 turned to look at him.

“Certainly, Counselor. Immediately. Do you prefer it black, with cream, sweetened, lightly sweetened, Corellian roast, Chandrilan medium roast, or—”

“Black. Whatever you normally serve.”

“Of course.”

He left the room at a speed that was technically dignified but only just.

VETA-7 watched him disappear through the doorway. “Hospitality request accepted after fifty-eight minutes.”

Selra leaned back in the chair. “Are you keeping a record?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I always keep record.”

That seemed entirely plausible.

She rotated the datapad away from the inventories and opened a blank interview note instead. “Veta.”

“Yes, Counselor?”

“You maintained household records during Grand Admiral Thrawn’s residence.”

“Yes, I always did.”

“You knew his schedule when he was here.”

“To the extent necessary for domestic operations.”

“Guests?”

“Yes.”

“Overnight guests?”

“Yes.”

“Personal visitors?”

A very slight pause.

“Yes.”

That was enough to sharpen her attention.

Selra folded her hands on the table. “I’m going to ask you something that is not in the property inventory.”

“That has already occurred several times.”

“I mean something personal.”

VETA-7 regarded her without expression. “I am a domestic administration unit, Counselor. Most of my records are personal by definition.”

Fair point.

MILO-3 returned carrying a small tray with a cup of caff, a glass of water and, despite explicit instructions, two small biscuits.

Selra looked at the biscuits.

“You did not ask for them,” MILO-3 said quickly. “They are complimentary to the beverage.”

“That is not how requests work.” VETA-7 objected.

“They are already present.”

She considered fighting him. Then she took the caff. MILO-3 looked so profoundly satisfied that she decided the biscuits could remain. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure, Counselor.”

VETA-7 said, “He will remember that sentence for several years.”

“I intend to.”

Selra took a cautious sip. It was annoyingly good.

“All right,” she said. “Both of you. During the periods when Grand Admiral Thrawn was actually resident here, do you have any record of him having a lover?” MILO-3’s head tilted. VETA-7 did not move at all. Selra continued before either could retreat into definitional problems. “Someone with whom he had a romantic or sexual relationship. Someone who stayed overnight. Someone who slept with him rather than merely occupying one of the guest rooms.”

There was a brief silence.

Then VETA-7 said, “No.”

Selra raised her eyebrows. “No record, or no one?”

“No person is recorded as sharing Grand Admiral Thrawn’s bedroom overnight while he was resident in the apartment.”

“That specific?”

“Yes.”

“What about the principal suite?”

“Guests occupied it. Grand Admiral Thrawn did not occupy it with them.”

“The other bedrooms?”

“Guests only.”

“Anyone arrive late and leave in the morning?”

“Yes.”

Selra waited.

VETA-7 continued, “Senior officers. One intelligence liaison. Two civilian specialists. A physician on one occasion. None entered the aide quarters for the purpose you are describing.”

MILO-3 added, “Several visitors remained after midnight because meetings continued beyond their anticipated duration.”

“But no lover.”

“None known to us,” MILO-3 said.

Selra took another sip of caff. “That does not mean he didn’t have one.”

“No,” VETA-7 agreed. “Grand Admiral Thrawn spent the majority of his time deployed. We cannot report domestic activity occurring aboard military vessels or at locations outside this residence.”

There it was. The limitation she would have written herself. “Good,” Selra said. “That distinction matters.”

MILO-3 seemed to consider something.

“Counselor, if you are attempting to establish whether the Grand Admiral maintained a concealed romantic relationship, absence from this residence would have been comparatively easy to conceal.”

Selra looked at him over the rim of the cup. “Why?”

“Because his presence here was itself irregular.”

VETA-7 added, “A person wishing to meet Grand Admiral Thrawn privately would have had substantially more opportunities elsewhere than in an Imperial executive residence with building security, household records, staff droids and landing-platform logs.”

Selra slowly set the cup down. That was useful. Not because it answered the question. Because it told her where not to look.

She made a note.

No known overnight intimate partner at Coruscant residence. Limited evidentiary value due to infrequent occupancy and deployment pattern. Check visitor records only for corroboration; do not infer absence of relationship.

Then, after a moment, she added:

Domestic droids may be more useful than half the surviving Imperial bureaucracy.

VETA-7 leaned very slightly toward the datapad.

Selra turned it away. “That one is privileged.”

“I had not asked.”

“You were reading.”

“I was observing.”

“Veta.”

“Yes, Counselor.”

“Don’t.”

“Understood.”

MILO-3 quietly pushed one of the biscuits two centimeters closer to her.

Selra took another sip of caff, then paused. “There’s another category I haven’t asked about.” VETA-7 waited. “Was the apartment ever used when Grand Admiral Thrawn was not on Coruscant?”

“Yes.” That answer came quickly enough to make her look up.

“By whom?”

“Commodore Karyn Faro.”

Selra set the cup down. “Only Faro?”

“Yes.”

“Once?”

“Once.”

“How long?”

“Three nights.”

“While Thrawn was offworld.”

“Correct.”

Selra opened a fresh line in her notes. “Authorized?”

“Yes,” VETA-7 said. “The Grand Admiral had expressly authorized Commodore Faro to use the residence during a three-day assignment on Coruscant.”

MILO-3 added, “Commodore Faro held permanent residential authorization.”

Selra looked up. “Permanent?”

“Yes. Her access credentials were not limited to a particular visit or assignment.”

“So she could have used the apartment whenever she was on Coruscant.”

“Provided the authorization had not been revoked,” VETA-7 said. “It never was.”

Selra glanced around the library.

“And how often did she actually use it?”

“Once.”

“For three days.”

“Correct.”

She considered that.

The apartment had guest rooms, private landing facilities, domestic staff, enough space to house a small diplomatic delegation and, apparently, an Imperial Household budget designed around the assumption that a Grand Admiral ought to entertain on a scale bordering on the ridiculous. Thrawn had spent most of his own time elsewhere, yet he had given one other person standing permission to walk in and make use of the place whether he was present or not.

Karyn Faro. His Second In Command.

Not temporary access arranged because she happened to need somewhere to stay. Not a three-day exception. A permanent credential that Thrawn had apparently seen no reason to revoke.

And Faro had used it exactly once.

Selra made a note beside her name. That was not proof of anything beyond trust. It was, however, rather a lot of trust.

“Did anyone else ever have that permission?”

“Not according to the household access records.”

“Was there any unusual activity during Commodore Faro’s stay?”

“No,” VETA-7 said.

MILO-3 added, “Commodore Faro worked long hours, returned late on all three evenings, accepted breakfast twice, declined it once, and complained about Coruscant traffic on four occasions.”

Selra looked at him. “You remember that.”

“She was emphatic.”

“Did she use the priority lanes?”

“The military ones, Counselor.”

Selra nodded slowly. “Then four complaints seems conservative.”

The terrace was last.

By then Selra had spent long enough inside the apartment that the first step outdoors felt almost disorienting. The doors opened soundlessly and Coruscant rushed back into existence around her: light, distant traffic, the low continuous vibration of a city that had no meaningful ground level. Wind moved across the upper face of the tower, gentler than it had any right to be at that altitude, moderated by the building’s environmental field.

The terrace was enormous.

Of course it was.

It wrapped around two sides of the residence in broad sections of pale stone, broken by planted areas, sheltered seating and low architectural screens designed to interrupt the wind without obstructing the view. Mature greenery softened the harder Imperial lines of the building. Several small trees grew from deep integrated planters, their leaves shifting gently beneath the artificial moderation field. Beyond them, Coruscant extended in every direction until towers dissolved into haze.

Selra walked toward the edge.

“This may actually be more offensive than the bathtub.”

MILO-3, following with her now-empty caff cup on a tray and the two biscuits, said, “The terrace was considered one of the principal advantages of the residence.”

“I’m sure it was.”

She checked the inventory as she walked. Most of what appeared there was architectural or had transferred with the apartment: exterior seating, planters, environmental controls, lighting, two sculptural installations, an automated canopy system.

“Did he use it?”

“Occasionally,” VETA-7 said.

Selra looked back at him. “That means very little when you say it.”

“Grand Admiral Thrawn spent time on the terrace during twenty-seven recorded stays.”

“Doing what?”

“Reading. Reviewing reports. Taking meals on six occasions. Receiving Commodore Faro twice. A work dinner was hosted here once.”

Selra made a small notation. “Parties?”

“No.”

“Formal receptions?”

“No.”

“Imperial Household spent all this money building a terrace the size of a municipal park, and he used it to read.”

“That is substantially correct.”

Selra continued around the outer edge. Most of the furniture looked as though it belonged to the residence rather than to any particular occupant: carefully chosen, expensive, weather-resistant, and almost aggressively neutral. She was nearing the far corner when she noticed something that did not match.

It stood beside the parapet, partly sheltered behind one of the wind screens.

A telescope. Not a military sensor. Not a sophisticated astronomical array. A simple optical instrument on a compact tripod, its casing dark and slightly old-fashioned, with manual adjustment wheels along the side. It looked almost absurdly modest against the technology surrounding it.

Selra stopped. “That isn’t on the Imperial Household inventory.”

“No,” VETA-7 said.

“Personal property?”

“Yes.”

She approached it without touching. “Data storage?”

“None.”

“Recording capability?”

“None.”

“Network connection?”

“None.”

That explained why Imperial Security had left it behind.

“It’s just a telescope.”

“Yes.”

Selra bent slightly to look along its alignment. It was not pointed toward the city. The instrument had been angled above the horizon, toward a patch of afternoon sky in which she could see nothing except the pale glare of Coruscant’s atmosphere.

“What did he look at?”

MILO-3 answered from behind her.

“The stars.”

Selra straightened. “I gathered that.”

“You asked.”

VETA-7 turned his head toward MILO-3. “The question was plainly requesting greater specificity.”

“Then Counselor Tann should have specified greater specificity.” MILO replied

Selra raised a hand before the domestic dispute could develop. “Did he always point it in this direction?”

“Approximately,” VETA-7 said. “Grand Admiral Thrawn adjusted it during use, but returned it to this position before storage.”

“Toward what?”

“Unknown.”

That made her pause. “No target recorded?”

“The instrument has no recording functions.”

“Did you ever ask him?”

“No.”

Selra looked through it. Daylight rendered the exercise useless. The eyepiece gave her only a washed field of brightness and the vague suggestion of nothing at all.

She stepped back. “How often did he use it?”

“Not often,” MILO-3 said. “Usually late at night.”

“Alone?”

“Usually.”

Selra looked once more toward the empty sky.

There was probably a perfectly ordinary explanation. A navigational interest. A particular star system associated with a campaign. An astronomical object. Perhaps simply the preference of a man who spent most of his life aboard ships and found a planet-wide city claustrophobic.

She did not write any of those possibilities down.

Instead she entered the item exactly as it was.

Personal optical telescope. Present. No data storage or communications capability. No discrepancy.

That should have been the end of it.

She closed the inventory and looked back through the glass doors at the apartment: the enormous rooms Palpatine had given him, the bedroom he had declined to use, the aide’s quarters he had chosen instead, the library arranged for work, thousands of works of art preserved as information rather than possessions, and two domestic droids who appeared to remember more about their absent owner than half the surviving Imperial government.

She had come expecting to inspect the property of a Grand Admiral.

What she had found was a remarkably expensive shell around a man who had barely lived in it.

“Counselor?” MILO-3 was beside her again.

“Yes?”

It was holding a pair of house slippers.

Selra stared at them.

VETA-7 said, “Third footwear intervention.”

She looked down at her shoes. The slippers were unquestionably more comfortable than what she was wearing, and after several hours on polished stone floors she could appreciate the offer on purely practical grounds.

Unfortunately, the inspection was almost finished. “No.”

MILO-3 lowered them by perhaps two centimeters.

“Counselor Tann has been standing for a considerable period.”

“And Counselor Tann is leaving soon.”

“Of course.” It sounded disappointed.

Selra regarded it for a moment. By now she had very little doubt that if she indicated the inspection would continue another three hours, MILO-3 would have her out of her shoes, supplied with dinner and somehow filled and prepared in that ridiculous monolithic bathtub before she had finished objecting.

She started back toward the apartment, then stopped.

Something had finally occurred to her.

“Milo.”

“Yes, Counselor?”

“You’ve spent the entire afternoon offering me caff, fruit, sandwiches, soup and what I suspect would eventually have become a four-course dinner.”

“I could provide four courses.”

“That is precisely my concern.” She gestured vaguely toward the enormous, mostly empty residence. “Where are you getting the food?”

MILO-3 seemed surprised by the question. “From the building provisioning service.”

Selra blinked. “You can order food?”

“Within authorized domestic-maintenance parameters. External commercial access is prohibited, but the residence retains limited connection to the building’s internal service network. Provisioning requests are permitted when authorized personnel are scheduled to enter.”

Selra looked at the empty caff cup still sitting on his tray. “When did you order it?”

“This morning.”

A pause. “Before I arrived.”

“Yes.”

“You ordered food specifically because I was coming.”

“Naturally.”

VETA-7 added, “MILO-3 requested sufficient provisions for two meals.”

Selra looked at him. “Two?”

“Lunch and evening meal.”

“I was scheduled for an afternoon inspection.”

“MILO-3 considered the duration uncertain.”

“It was prudent,” MILO-3 said.

Selra looked from one droid to the other.

Somewhere in the apartment behind them was a bathtub carved from nearly five tons of imported stone, freshly maintained and apparently ready for use. There was food in the kitchen that had been ordered before she arrived. There were house slippers waiting for her feet. Had she stayed until evening, she suspected a bedroom would somehow have become involved.

Grand Admiral Thrawn might barely have lived here. His domestic droid remained determined that somebody should.

Selra picked up her evidence case. “I’m leaving.”

“Of course, Counselor,” MILO-3 said, and then it hesitated. “Would you like something to take with you?”

Selra closed her eyes.

VETA-7 said, “Sixth hospitality attempt.”

“That one doesn’t count,” MILO-3 protested. “She is departing.”

Selra started toward the entrance before either of them could establish the relevant statistical standard.

Then she stopped. The tray still held both biscuits. She looked at them for a second, reached over, took one, and bit into it as she resumed walking.

Behind her, MILO-3 said nothing. Which was almost certainly taking considerable restraint. VETA-7, unfortunately, suffered from no such limitation. “Hospitality accepted.”

Selra kept eating the biscuit and did not turn around, door closing behind her.