Project Boussh: The Hand Of Thrawn
by Policrat'

General Erisi Dlarit scowled at the stormtrooper guard, punched an over-ride
sequence into the lockpad, and stormed into Secondary Command.

Two strides later, she stopped in surprise.

The room, normally dark and spartan, was alive with tactical holos and
scrolling displays of data. Grand Admiral Thrawn stood by the main tac
sphere, talking to the holo-image of an officer she didn't recognize, a man
with a thoughtful face, thinning hair, and a flag officer's rank-tabs on his
black uniform.

Before Erisi could open her mouth, Thrawn glanced up at her, his eyes
glinting with what might have been anger or amusement.

"One moment, General," he said softly, and tapped a code into his keypad.
For a moment, something like a heat-haze shimmered in the room, and
suddenly, everything went silent.

_Proving-field_, Erisi thought, snarling silently, and clenching her fists
in rage.

Fighting down the anger, she forced herself to stay outwardly calm, looking
over the tactical displays. It was easy enough to identify the glyphs that
represented the _Admonitor_ in orbit above Terra, the two other ISDs lurking
behind the moon, the Rebel squadron moving in-system and the rag-tag
starfighter force in Mendellia, and as she studied the holos, she began to
see the outline of the battle-plan.

Like most of Thrawn's plans, there was a simplicity and an art to it: the
Rebels knew that their only chance of defeating the Grand Admiral was to
combine their forces, but to do so, they had to come into the death ground
of high orbit, where the jaws of the trap could be closed around them, and
they would be destroyed.

But not, she told herself with barely-suppressed fury, if the Grand Admiral
was too busy with war-games to listen to her.

She spun on one heel, and began to pace angrily back and forth, stalking
along the outer edge of the proving-field, scowling darkly, alone with her
anger and the silence.

***

Finally, the holograms all flickered into nothingness, and Thrawn turned
round, offereing Erisi a sardonic smile.

"What can I do for you, General Dlarit?" he asked.

"The Rebel prisoners have escaped, Sir," Erisi told him, her anger and
impatience bleeding through into her tone. "Someone sabot-..."

"I'm aware of that, General," Thrawn said, with a dismissive wave of one
hand. "A minor setback. The Rebels will still be defeated."

"With respect, sir," Erisi countered, "They somehow managed to cause
significant damage to the flagship's security systems, we're locked out of
the cloaking-device controls, and Lieutenant Sredro believes that there may
be more undetected programs designed to cripple us during the battle."

Thrawn's eyes flashed with anger, but when he spoke, his voice was very
cold. "Then, General, I would have expected that you would have detailed
slicer crews to ascertain how bad the damage is and to repair it... *before*
you came to bother me about it. Gunnery and Fighter Ops have had repair
crews at work since the first dog-watch."

He paused, and smiled at her, a vornskr's smile to its prey.

"Admittedly, neither of them was supposed to be overseeing the security of
the prisoners and liasing with Special Services. Do I make myself clear,
General?"

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you. General. And if the damage to the flagship is so severe, and if
the Ubiqtorate is so incompetent, you could at least make the effort not to
distract me when I'm ensuring that the other Imperial forces at our
immediate disposal perform somewhat nearer to peak efficiency."

"Yes, sir."

As Erisi turned and left, chastised but still seething, Thrawn called up a
repeater screen, and his fingers played across his keypad. If Erisi could
have seen him, she would have been perplexed to realise that he was placing
bids for items on the primitive Terran auction facility known as E-bay.

Had she known what those bids signified, she would have been furious.