Chapter Text
Hands I
Hands, hands everywhere, like bands of steel and unyielding pincers around her arms, grasping her coat, dragging her through the rasping gravel of Ferrix like some trussed up carcass.
Shouts, screams, the cacophony of blasterfire as somewhere nearby, Captain Tigo screamed orders in a manner unbefitting an Imperial Army officer.
Not that she was managing much better at that exact moment in time.
An instinctive cry escaped her lips as she was lifted from the ground, bodily carried aloft, wresting her from what little leverage she had managed to scrape in the dirt and mud of Ferrix. Like its sons and daughters, the planet was all too eager to shake her grip on it loose as the rioters – metal workers, scrappers, shopkeepers – all shouted and whooped, baying for her blood.
They would tear her apart and paint Ferrix with her blood. A fitting sacrifice for the blood debt they felt the Imperial occupiers owed their homeworld for the oppression of their own.
The thought was a crystallising one and it made Dedra fight harder. Her hands grasped at air, pummelled at legs and stomachs, her legs kicking out in a desperate effort to free herself. Her booted feet connected, yelled curses and shouts filling her aching head as her legs were dropped.
But they still held her arms and dragged her forward.
Everywhere the fog of war hung heavy, the air metallic on her tongue with the taste of ozone from blaster discharge. People, locals, rushed here and there, some evading the shots and grasping arms of the Stormtroopers that tried to waylay them. Others weren’t so skilful and found themselves dragged behind enemy lines or tumbled, motionless, to the dirt.
As she was about to be. Her heart was racing, a frantic, unrelenting drumbeat in her chest, counting down with military precision to her own execution if she didn’t get free. She’d read reports before, of uprisings on other worlds, where lone Imperial officers were grabbed, dragged away, and found hours or days later, or publicly displayed as a banner of defiance, their corpses barely recognisable. And she was to be next.
Digging her heels into the dirt, she planted her feet and yanked back on her captors’ grip. One wavered, toppling over, cursing up a storm as the other turned to her, eyes narrowed against the fog of blaster residue and ash from the grenade explosion, mouth open in a grim slash as he snarled at her.
One arm free, Dedra raised it to lash out at her captor, only to feel the blunt press of a blaster against her back. Her former captors looked behind her, eyes widening, then they scurried away, into the fog and the crush.
A grip like iron clamped down on her shoulder, steering her towards a building, the blaster digging into her ribs painfully. Dedra barely felt it over the rush of her heartbeat as she was forced to stumble towards an open door in the side of the building.
“Do as I say. Move!” a voice barked in her ear, coarse, rough. “Straight ahead and through the door, Lieutenant.”
If Dedra hadn’t been running purely on adrenaline and concussed from the rock that had smacked into her temple, she might have noted the abrupt change in tone, cadence, and accent, not to mention the reference to her rank, currently covered from curious eyes by her soiled ISB trench coat. But Dedra’s mind had been subsumed beneath the frantic animalism of survival, her blood and heart racing and hot as she bared her teeth as she was shoved through the doorway, felt the blaster lift from her back, ready to turn and fight to save her own life.
Her head ached from the stone that had been thrown at it. Her body was bruised from the grasping, ungentle grips that had manhandled her only moments before. Her thoughts were slowed, and wits dulled beneath the unrelenting drumbeat of her need to survive.
She was lucid enough to see that they were in a storage unit of some kind; she grabbed the closest thing to hand, blunt, heavy, and metallic, to bludgeon her captor as he turned from locking the door behind them. Turning on her heels, she swung her makeshift bludgeon towards her captor’s head, only to be blocked by a forearm that felt like she’d just tried to hit a durasteel pillar. From the sleeve of a plain, unremarkable work coat extended a wrist and a hand that curled into a fist, adding extra weight to the block, strong, callused fingers curling in on themselves that looked almost grey in the dim, half-light of the storage unit.
Panting, Dedra’s mind took a few seconds to catch up with the rest of her, wide eyes that hadn’t yet lost their sheen of panic racing over grey skin that she knew appeared cobalt blue in better lighting; a tall, imposing body clad in inconspicuous civilian gear, blue-black hair hidden under a cap, red eyes agleam in the gloom as they stared down at her, waiting patiently for her to come back to him as though they’d merely met by chance on the Imperial Concourse on Coruscant, and she hadn’t just tried to bludgeon him with a spare part in a storage unit during an uprising on some Mid-Rim backwater.
Dedra’s mind could barely fathom speech as she panted frantically. “You!” she spat, chest heaving as her arm sagged. “How?” she demanded. His other hand held her blaster, she vaguely noted. He must have found her in the crush, followed her from a distance until he saw an opening to step in and snatch her away. His eyes were knowing as she met them once more. He was waiting for her to come back to herself, and him. “Thrawn…” she breathed, and he nodded. “I knew that…”
“Of course, you did,” he said soothingly as, after a moment, Dedra lowered her arm, dropping her makeshift weapon. It hit the ground with a metallic clang as Thrawn lowered his arm and gently pulled her closer as slowly, the possibility of safety and protection punctured her mental fog of survival instinct, and she began to shake. “Easy, ch’acico. I have you…”
Her body was on the verge of collapse, but her mind refused to yield. “How?” she demanded again. Outside came the sound of more explosions, more shouts and yells, more blaster fire. Dedra flinched involuntarily.
Thrawn’s arms tightened around her as he pulled her closer still. “Since our last meeting, my investigations into Nightswan pointed me towards Ferrix. Colonel Yularen informed me of your operation here and directed me to liaise with you,” he explained patiently. “Vanto and I chose to venture planetside incognito to get the lay of the land before contacting you. I arrived just as violence broke out and saw you in the crowd.”
Dedra sagged against him, her body trembling violently. Thrawn’s gaze was sharp and assessing as he swept it over her face and body, no doubt noting the small but copiously bleeding wound at her temple, the contusions on her hands, arms, and face from being dragged through the dirt. “Apropos of which,” he breathed, fishing a comm from an internal pocket of his coat and lifting it to his lips. “ISD Chimaera, this is Commodore Thrawn. Commodore Thrawn to Commander Faro, do you read me?”
“I do, sir. Go ahead,” a feminine voice replied, tinny through the comm.
“Civil unrest has broken out on the surface of Ferrix, send additional security and med-evac units immediately to reinforce the garrison!” he continued, clearly but with urgency as the sound of more explosions came and something thudded into their hiding place’s door.
In any other circumstance, Dedra’s ears would have pricked up at the unfamiliar names and rank Thrawn referred to. It was a testament to her state that she did not, nor did she see the worry in Thrawn’s eyes as he watched her. “Acknowledged, sir. Do you need assistance?” the unfamiliar voice inquired.
“I am pinned down but secure for now in a storage unit, along with ISB Supervisor Meero. She is injured, we will require med-evac ASAP,” Thrawn replied. “Track the signal from this comm, I will leave it active.”
“Eli…where is Eli?” Dedra wondered aloud.
“I’m just getting to that,” he said in a low aside to her, signing off from his subordinate before signalling his aide. “Lieutenant Commander Vanto, do you read? Vanto, come in-?”
Thrawn’s comm flared to life in a rush of tinny feedback that made Dedra wince as the pain in her head began to build. The shaking was only worsening as her adrenaline reserves ebbed, and she was beginning to feel weak and nauseous.
“I’m here, sir. I managed to find shelter, but I have wounded. From his blaster, I’d say he’s ISB. He’s been stabbed, sir. I’ve packed and staunched the wound, but I can’t hold off the bleeding for much longer. He needs urgent medical assistance.”
“Stay where you are, Commander. Help is on the way,” Thrawn replied quickly, before stashing his comm.
“E-Eli was promoted?” Dedra forced out between convulsions. Thrawn’s grin was swift if strained.
“Indeed. Lieutenant Commander. Long overdue,” he said gently.
“A-and you…C-commodore,” she continued, fighting with all her might to hold on to her wits. “I should…I should say thank you.”
“You know that would never be necessary, ch’eo ron vim tom,” he insisted softly, one hand nestling against her cheek as she shuddered against him. “Tell me where you were hit, Dedra. Your head?”
She went to nod but the movement almost had her retching as she winced and bowed into herself. “I-I c-can’t stop s-shaking,” she whimpered, a part of her hating herself for it.
“You’re likely concussed and going into shock,” Thrawn told her, gently tilting her head up so her eyes, unfocussed and pained, could meet and try to focus on his. “Try to focus on me, ch’acico. On my voice and my eyes.”
He clasped her hand, the one that she’d tried to use to bludgeon him, pressing it palm-down to his chest, over his heart, as he raised his own and pressed it to her own, nestling against her soiled uniform tunic as her breath caught in her throat.
“Feel my heartbeat, euhn sirercenc’i. Feel my breath, try to match yours to mine,” he continued, the weight of his hand holding hers against his chest, feeling the strong, stable, unmoved thud of his heart calming as an embrace, even as she became hyper-aware of the feel of his hand against her sternum, even through the thick, blast-dampening fabric of her tunic. Nonetheless, she tried to do as he said, mastering her body’s impulse to breathe fast and shallow, taking slow, measured breaths in time with his as her heart slowed a little. “You are safe with me,” he whispered against her cheek as he leant into her, taking her weight as she slumped against him, knowing she’d hate herself for the vulnerability later but unable to fight the need to give in and take the comfort he offered. “You are safe with me,” he repeated softly, his lips brushing her skin with every word, grounding her, anchoring her as the world outside their shelter faded away for the moment. Her eyes burned as she closed them, and she knew they were heavy with tears she would never let fall, even on her deathbed. Tears of shock, tears of fear, tears of relief, whatever they may be.
Instead, defences lowered by shock and pain, her sense dulled by adrenaline and terror, she asked a question she’d never had the courage to before. “Those words…” she breathed into the lapel of his coat, dimly pleased that her voice no longer shook as much. “The things you call me in Cheunh…what do they mean? You never told me.”
“You never asked,” he rebutted, but gently and knowingly as if amused. “Do you really believe this is the time or place, ch’acico?”
“It may be the only time and place,” she murmured. “Even the safest walls have ears.”
Her words might have sounded nonsensical to anyone else, but Dedra knew he would understand. Anywhere else, even in the relative safety of her apartment, and they were at risk of being overheard. Here, now, in the middle of the impromptu warzone that Ferrix had become, sequestered away from the suffering and conflict outside, everyone else far too busy to mind them, was the closest thing to total privacy they could ever hope for.
“Very well,” he breathed, barely to be heard above the chaos outside. “Ch’eo ron vim tom roughly translates as ‘my sun and moon’. Euhn sirercenc’i means ‘little huntress’, and ch’acico means ‘my beloved’.”
Dedra’s breath strangled in her throat as her heart leapt, and she felt the tension and sudden jump in Thrawn’s body and heart rate. Yet for all that, he coolly, patiently awaited her reaction as she painfully, cautiously levered her head up to meet his gaze.
She couldn’t find any words, so she gave in to impulse. She leant forward, into Thrawn’s body, knowing he would always be there to catch her, as she tenderly if clumsily brushed her lips across his. And knew he understood her meaning when he raised one hand to affectionately cradle the base of her skull, fingers slipping through her loosened bun, easing the pain of her jumbled brain as his lips returned the light, impulsive pressure of hers.
When they broke apart, it was for Thrawn to gently tuck her unresisting head into his chest, nestling under his chin, one hand still buried in her hair while the other raised her blaster, her unwavering guard, as he whispered, “Just hold on, ch’acico. Help is on the way.”
To be continued…