Project Boussh: Pressed But Not Crushed by Durandir Wedge Antilles hesitated an instant, even though the turbolaser battery he'd targeted was now well within range. Surely Thrawn hadn't just said what he thought he'd said. Surely he wasn't serious - it had to be a bluff. No. He knew better. From what he'd seen of the cloned Grand Admiral earlier, there was no doubt in Wedge's mind that he would do what he had threatened. "Grand Admiral Thrawn," Wedge hissed, glancing toward the bridge ahead, for a moment considering switching his targeting sights in that direction. Instead, he returned his attention to his current target and fired, eliminating another of the enemy ship's guns. "I expected more from you." "My apologies, but you've not left me much to work with," Thrawn replied evenly. "Major." There was a brief but tense silence, and then Wedge could faintly hear the sound of a blaster shot over the comm channel. That was it, then. By executing Wedge's friends and allies just to buy his own safety, Thrawn had made this battle *personal*, and he would pay. But just then, the silence of the comm gave way to a confusion of noise that Wedge's ears couldn't even begin to unravel... ~ In her weakened state, Becki was having difficulty making sense of things. She'd recovered from her faint just as they reached the bridge, but it had taken her a long, dazed moment to wake up enough to understand where they were. After that it hadn't taken quite as long to figure out how they had gotten there - the stormtroopers still guarding her team made that conclusion somewhat easier to reach. Even so, not until she found herself standing next to Vickie - would this be the real one, then? - did she remember why they were there. And now things were moving faster than she quite liked. It was hard to think, feeling so lightheaded - but at least the lightheadedness wasn't hard to explain, once she had glanced down to see the blood staining her shirt and the bacta patch in place near her shoulder. Her right arm was even number than her brain. That probably meant the droidstopper note was not an option at the moment. Though, come to think of it, she'd only seen one battle droid moving on the bridge so far, and that was the one that had slipped Vickie her lightsaber to cut the prisoners' bonds, so Becki decided not to worry much about that one. At least she wasn't bleeding at present, though she didn't want to hazard a guess as to how much blood she'd lost before they got the bacta patch on her. Too much, one way or another - she was certainly feeling the lack now. She still hadn't quite figured out why Brad had shot Thrawn instead of Dorset, but she could at least think clearly enough to realize that it was a good thing he had. Except, of course, that that was what had started things moving too fast for her to keep up. Not long after Vickie had freed Becki's hands from the binders, Tede had appeared from somewhere to press a blaster into them. Her right arm might be numb, but she managed to shoot with the left - and her targets were nearer than usual, near enough that even she had little chance of missing. And she had no choice but to shoot and keep shooting, for the enemy was on every side. In between shots, she had to rely on intuition and reflex to keep from being shot herself. At least her reflexes were working somewhat faster than her sluggish brain, but after one much-too-near miss sizzled past her ear and left a faint scent of burnt hair behind, she began to fear they couldn't work fast enough or long enough. She glanced around, seeking calm in the midst of this storm. She knew she wouldn't be able to keep fighting much longer without rest - already the lightheadedness was beginning to edge into dizziness. But the battle was everywhere. Pandemonium had turned the usual efficiency of the Star Destroyer's bridge upside down. She saw Brad and Vickie and - oh, look, another Vickie; the clone Kelly must have reached the bridge by now, then - heading for the bridge's entrance. Elsewhere, scattered throughout the room, she saw her own Rescue Team comrades and even a few other Terrans and NR fighters whom she recognized. "Becki!" She blinked and turned at the sound of her name. It was Fir who had called, still supporting Fenya, who was limping somewhat. Relief brightened both the Mendellians' faces as they reached her. Becki greeted them with a faint smile, then suddenly gasped. Looking beyond them, she had seen the one thing she least expected to see - and yet, perhaps the one she ought to have most expected - in the midst of a battle on the bridge of the Admonitor. Her eyes followed the familiar blur of orange, and there he was: Macavity, impossibly, inexplicably, yet quite undeniably leaping to land in the lap of the clone Thrawn, now sprawled lifeless in the command chair. The cat turned to look straight at Becki, and she saw his mouth open in a meow, though she couldn't hear the sound of it over the noise of battle. As the surprise of seeing him faded, it left behind a welcome renewal of her strength, driving back the dizziness and clearing the cobwebs from her brain. She grinned at Fir and Fenya and took off running toward the ginger cat. At least, she would have run, if not for the current state of the bridge. Frustration mounted as she had to shoot a third, then a fourth Imperial out of her way, but Macavity still sat placidly in the dead Grand Admiral's lap, waiting for her, so she knew she had to get to him no matter how long it took. Without warning, the crimson of an Imperial Guardsman's robes obscured her view of the cat; her reflexes were quicker now than before, but still not quick enough. His blaster was pointed dead at her, and there was no time to duck. But in the moment when the shot should have come, suddenly the Guard's weapon was falling to the floor - as was the hand that had held it. Then the Guardsman himself was on the floor, too - in two pieces. Three, if you wanted to count the hand. In his place stood Corran, his lightsaber gleaming before him, frowning at her. "Better watch where you're going," the Jedi scolded. She nodded, gulped, then shook her head. "Never mind. Macavity - " "What?" Disdaining explanations, she simply grabbed his arm to pull him along the last few feet to the command chair. Macavity, when they got to him, purred to see her, rubbing his head merrily against one of the chair's arms. Becki reached out to pet the cat - as much to reassure herself it was really him as anything, she suspected - but stopped suddenly at the sound of an unexpected voice. When, after a second's confusion, she realized whose voice it was, she laughed with delight and reached not for the cat but for the comm controls installed on the arm of Thrawn's command chair. ~ Wedge grew more and more alarmed at the sounds of chaos on the Admonitor's comm channel. What in the galaxy was going on in there? Had Thrawn's execution of prisoners turned into a riot? He would have expected, after the first prisoner was shot, that Thrawn would have again made his demands of Wedge, but after that first blaster shot, he hadn't heard the Grand Admiral's voice again. "Grand Admiral?" Wedge shouted into the comm, hoping he would be heard over the noise. "Thrawn, what's going on?" The Grand Admiral did not respond. Instead, Wedge heard a sound that at first he couldn't place. It didn't sound like human - or Chiss - speech at all, though it reminded him faintly of some Noghri voices he'd heard. Then the sound came again, and this time he recognized it, though at first he could hardly believe it. What in the name of the Force was a *cat* doing on board the Admonitor? He called again: "Thrawn? Anyone? What's happened?" This time it was a human voice that answered him. A human laugh, actually - a woman's laugh. "General!" said the voice that had laughed. It took him a moment to recognize who was speaking; she sounded faint, almost giddy, and that was making her voice higher- pitched than he remembered. When he realized who it was, he blinked in surprise and then called back anxiously. "Terra Three? Is that you?" "Right, sir." "What are you doing there? Are you all right? What's going on? What's Thrawn doing?" "Um," she said, still sounding giddy, and now also rather tired, "well, let me take those in reverse order, I guess. Thrawn's doing nothing, because he's dead. What's going on is we're fighting for control of the Addy, I think, at least that's what it looks like, but I'm not quite sure, I just woke up, sort of. Which leads to the next question - yes, I'm all right, I think, at least I will be, more or less. And what I'm doing - well, I'm talking to you and trying to avoid being shot, which would be pretty difficult if not that most of Rescue Team One is helping." Having apparently run out of breath after saying all this, she finished with what sounded to Wedge like half sigh and half giggle, leaving him wondering just what that "more or less all right" had meant. But for the moment the one thought that held his mind was: Thrawn is dead. Then we've won - or we will, that's certain now. They were near winning anyway; before long, the Admonitor's dorsal weapons and shields would be as dead as her ventral ones. But now, her most dangerous weapon, the genius that commanded her - if the clone really had been the genius that the original Thrawn was - was dead too. Now it was only a matter of time, and probably not much of it. "Rescue Team One?" he echoed. "Your team reached the bridge? Are you the only ones?" "No, there's some of the people we were supposed to be rescuing here, and also - um - it looks like Slicer Team One too. Maybe others. Not all of our people, but I think the others are heading this way now." "All right," Wedge said. "We don't have much time. As soon as you can, our forces on the Admonitor need to be getting off of it." "Right. Gladly. If we can. It's very lively in here just now." "Well, as soon as you can. Don't worry too much about subduing the Admonitor's forces now - just find your way to safety. Spread the word to our forces inside." "Yes, sir!" she said - more enthusiastically than Wedge remembered as normal for Becki. But for the moment, he had other worries: the Admonitor wasn't actually dead yet, not quite, and it was up to his fighters to do something about that. Allowing himself a quick smile at this unexpected turn of events, he switched his comm to the New Republic forces' channel and prepared to pass on the news of Thrawn's most timely demise.