Chapter 6 · Chapter 6 - The Bomb I - Landing

The first warning sign was that the intern knocked.

Not tapped, not chimed, not leaned in with the exhausted informality of someone who had discovered that the Republic’s legal defense apparatus was held together by recycled caff, procedural spite, and whatever remained of Veyr’s patience after midnight. He knocked. Properly. Three times. With the solemn rhythm of a man who had found either a dead body or a form.

Antilles looked up from the deposition matrix. Veyr did not. “No,” she said.

The door opened anyway. A junior clerk stood in the threshold, pale, bright-eyed, and carrying a datapad against his chest as though it contained a thermal detonator with opinions. “Counselor Veyr?”

“No.”

“Sir?”

Antilles lowered his stylus. “That usually means she heard you.”

The clerk swallowed. “I think I found something.”

Veyr finally looked up. It was not a kind look. It was not an unkind look either. It was the expression of a woman who had spent three hours arguing with a military archive about whether provisional transfer under exceptional command authority was the same thing as deployment, and had begun to consider violence as a form of interpretive clarity. “If this is another duplicate service commendation,” she said, “I will feed that datapad to the shredder and then assign you to reconstruct it by hand.”

“It is not, ma’am.”

“That is disappointing. I had made peace with the shredder.”

The clerk stepped inside and held out the datapad. Antilles took it before Veyr could decide whether touching it would make the problem legally binding. He scanned the first line. Then the second. Then he stopped.

Veyr noticed. “What?”

Antilles did not answer immediately, which was, in her experience, one of the most offensive things a colleague could do with information.

“What?” she repeated.

He handed her the datapad. Veyr read. The room became very still.

Outside the office, somewhere in the larger legal wing, someone dropped a stack of files and swore with enough sincerity to suggest a constitutional principle had been involved.

Inside, Veyr read the paragraph again. “No,” she said.

The clerk looked faintly relieved that someone else had reached the same stage of denial. “I checked three registries.”

“No.”

“And the Academy intake archive.”

“No.”

“And the Imperial Navy personnel conversion records.”

“No.”

Antilles leaned back slowly in his chair, one hand covering his mouth.

Veyr pointed at him without looking away from the datapad. “Do not laugh.”

“I’m not.”

“You are preparing to.”

“I am experiencing several emotions. Some of them may become laughter if neglected.”

Veyr turned back to the clerk. “Explain.”

The clerk took a breath in the way junior staff did when they had rehearsed the explanation five times in the corridor and none of the versions had become less insane. “Grand Admiral Thrawn does not appear to have been formally naturalized as an Imperial citizen.”

Silence.

“He was a Grand Admiral,” Veyr said.

“Yes.”

“In the Imperial Navy.”

“Yes.”

“Given command authority over multiple fleets.”

“Yes.”

“But not,” Antilles said, voice carefully strangled, “a citizen.”

The clerk winced. “Not according to any record I can find.”

Veyr stared at the datapad as if the forms might rearrange themselves out of shame. “There has to be a military naturalization packet.”

“That would be Form GA-7b.”

“Good. Where is it?”

The clerk’s expression performed a small, tragic collapse. “Not filed.”

Veyr closed her eyes. Antilles made a sound. “Caro,” she said.

“I’m fine.”

“You are not fine.”

“I am legally delighted.”

“You are not allowed to be legally delighted until I decide whether this helps us or kills us.”

The clerk cleared his throat, which was brave of him. “There is more.”

Veyr opened her eyes very slowly. “No, there is not.”

“There is.”

“Don’t.”

“He also never filed the initial Academy placement request.”

Antilles lowered his hand. Veyr said nothing.

The clerk, apparently deciding that death was inevitable and therefore best approached at speed, continued. “Or the enrollment confirmation for the Royal Academy of Coruscant.” Antilles stared at him. Veyr stared at him. The clerk looked between them. “I checked because the citizenship packet references Academy admission as the originating institutional sponsorship, but the sponsorship file is empty except for an executive override and a note from—”

“Don’t say it,” Veyr said.

“—the Imperial Palace.”

Antilles stood, walked three paces to the window, turned around, and walked back.

Veyr watched him. “Are you pacing?”

“No.”

“You are pacing.”

“I am processing the fact that the Empire apparently took one look at Mitth’raw’nuruodo, decided he was valuable enough to make a Grand Admiral, and then skipped every piece of paperwork that would have made that decision legally coherent.”

Veyr looked at the ceiling. “Of course they did.”

The clerk nodded helplessly. “There are rank confirmations, pay authorizations, fleet command seals, restricted-access clearances, housing allocations, diplomatic-exception travel passes, and at least eleven memoranda explaining why normal species eligibility requirements were waived.”

“But not citizenship.”

“No.”

“Not Academy enrollment.”

“No.”

“Not the application.”

“No.”

Antilles sat down again. His face had gone calm in the dangerous way. Veyr knew that calm. It was the expression he got when the law had stopped being a wall and become a door someone had forgotten to lock. “Technically,” he said.

“No,” Veyr said immediately.

“I haven’t said anything yet.”

“You said technically with intent.”

“Technically,” Antilles continued, because he had never been wise in the face of opportunity, “the prosecution may have a problem proving that Thrawn was an Imperial citizen acting as an Imperial national rather than a foreign officer serving under irregular appointment by executive command.” Veyr rubbed both hands over her face. The clerk looked fascinated and terrified. Antilles warmed to the disaster. “Which affects jurisdictional framing, unlawful combatant theories, questions of allegiance, potential coercive recruitment arguments, and possibly whether certain statutes apply to him as a domestic Imperial officer or as an alien military specialist retained under extraordinary authority.”

“Do not make me admire this,” Veyr said.

“I am not making you do anything.”

“You are waving a procedural knife in front of me and hoping I pick it up.”

“It is a very nice knife,” he smiled.

“It is covered in old Imperial incompetence.”

“That is most of our evidence.”

The clerk raised one finger. “There is also a note in the Academy archive that says, and I quote, ‘Admission irregularity resolved by superior directive; do not request further documentation.’”

Veyr held out her hand. The clerk gave her the datapad back. She read the note. Then she read it again. Then, very carefully, she set the datapad on the desk. “I hate him,” she said.

The clerk blinked. “Grand Admiral Thrawn?”

“No. Whoever wrote this note.”

Antilles leaned over to read. “No signature?”

“Of course no signature. Why would there be a signature? Signatures are for civilizations that intend to survive discovery.”

The clerk said, very quietly, “There is a registry marker attached.” Veyr looked at him. The clerk took one step back. “It traces to a Palace administrative office that was dissolved after Endor.”

Antilles smiled.

Veyr pointed at him again. “Stop that.”

“I am not doing anything.”

“You are smiling like a man about to ruin someone’s week.”

“I am merely contemplating a line of inquiry.”

“Caro.”

“What?”

“If you say statelessness, I am leaving.”

Antilles folded his hands on the desk. “I was going to say potential statelessness.”

Veyr stood. The clerk flinched.

Antilles lifted both hands. “Fine. Fine. We will not call it that yet.”

“Good.”

“We will call it catastrophic Imperial administrative noncompliance with incidental implications for nationality.”

Veyr sat down again because standing had not made the room less absurd.

The clerk looked at her. “Should I keep digging?”

Veyr stared at the datapad.

Somewhere in the building, another legal team was probably arguing over whether Thrawn’s public surrender had triggered military tribunal jurisdiction, civilian court jurisdiction, special commission authority, or the ancient and honorable right of everyone involved to develop migraines. Somewhere, Director Kallus was likely trying to turn secrets into evidence without letting evidence become a trap. Somewhere, Leia Organa was probably discovering that victory had not reduced the number of impossible men in her life, only changed their uniforms. And in a cell, or a medical room, or wherever the Republic had decided to store its most inconvenient prisoner this hour, Thrawn was almost certainly sitting quietly while entire offices collapsed under the weight of paperwork no one had filed ten years ago.

Veyr closed her eyes. “Yes,” she said. “Keep digging.”

The clerk nodded.

“And if you find out he was paid for nine years under the wrong tax classification,” Antilles said, “bring it directly to me.”

Veyr opened one eye. “Why?”

“Because I want to be happy.”

“Get out.”

The clerk fled. The door shut. For a long moment, neither lawyer spoke.

Then Antilles reached for the datapad again. Veyr slapped his hand away without looking. “No.”

“I just want to reread the part where the Empire forgot to make its Grand Admiral legally employable.”

“You are enjoying this too much.”

“I have very few pleasures.”

“You have an entire constitutional crisis.”

“Exactly,” he said. “And now it has footnotes.”