Chapter 14 · Privileged Communication

The civil observers did not find a dungeon.

That was, according to Dalen Vorr, both a success and a problem.

They found a detention cell that had been too cold, a sleeping platform that had required medical correction, documentation that was almost complete, security procedures that were defensible if one read them charitably and troubling if one read them with the attention of someone who had spent a career distrusting governments, and a detainee who, when asked whether he had been denied medical care, answered, “Not after the doctor became involved.”

That sentence, Vorr later informed Captain Brant with the air of a man discussing an unexploded device, would probably appear in three reports, two hearings, and at least one editorial before the end of the week.

The observers left dissatisfied, which meant they had been allowed enough access to avoid immediate accusation and not enough access to feel they had been managed successfully. The New Republic could live with that. Barely.

The transfer occurred six hours later.

It took three decoy vehicles, two sealed routes, one argument between Brant and Madine over whether the third diversion was excessive, one argument between Madine and Kallus over whether it was excessive enough, and one brief but memorable intervention from Dr. Seln, who informed all of them that if their operational choreography caused her patient to miss the next antibiotic dose, she would file a medical protest so specific that even the legal department would bleed.

The route beneath the government district had been swept twice.

The surface route leaked anyway.

Not the correct one. Not enough to compromise the movement. Just enough for half the news channels to spend the afternoon showing footage of a covered medical transport entering the judicial detention annex while retired generals, civil advocates, former senators, and three men whose only known qualification appeared to be owning good coats argued about whether the New Republic had blinked.

The judicial detention annex did not look like victory either.

It looked older than the parliamentary wing, less eager to convince anyone of its virtue. Its medical level sat behind two layers of custody checkpoints and one administrative desk staffed by people who had learned not to react visibly when history arrived on a repulsor gurney. There were two secure medical holding rooms. One was already occupied.

No one said by whom.

That, naturally, made everyone more aware of it.

Room One remained sealed, its external status panel dimmed to privacy mode. Staff used no name in the corridor, only “patient one,” and even then rarely. A medical droid passed in once with a tray of specialized equipment and out again without any visible change in urgency. Kallus noticed. Brant noticed. Thrawn, feverish, pale beneath the blue, and apparently too tired to open his eyes for more than a few seconds at a time, almost certainly noticed as well.

He said nothing.

Room Two became his. Making him patient two.

It was larger than the original cell and much less honest about what it was. The walls were pale, the lighting adjustable, the bed real, the mattress pressure-regulated, the blanket thermally competent. There was a medical monitor above the headboard, a sealed cabinet, a refresher alcove with actual privacy, and a wide observation window that could become opaque at the press of a security control. The door had three locks. The window had none, because it was not truly a window. Two guards stood outside at all times. A third watched the corridor intersection. A fourth monitored the internal feed from a separate station whose archive had been severed from the general detention system after Thrawn had advised them to do exactly that.

Brant hated that he had been right.

Kallus hated it more.

Dr. Seln only cared that the fever began to respond to treatment.

By the following morning, Thrawn’s temperature had reduced enough for her to stop looking as though she might personally overthrow the detention hierarchy, though not enough for her to approve anything involving stress, prolonged sitting, or government officials using the word “briefly” as if it had medical significance.

The lawyers arrived anyway.

Because the lawyers had rights now.

That, Kallus thought, was the phrase that had haunted the Republic since the first petition: rights now. Not later. Not once convenient. Not once security had finished imagining every possible way a Chiss admiral could turn a chair into a strategic advantage. Now.

Veyr, Antilles and Sorn came as a pair.

Not three. Of course not three. Three would have looked theatrical. One would have looked too modest. Two was efficient, serious, and just threatening enough.

The first was Talia Veyr, senior partner, human, perhaps in her late sixties, silver hair cut at the jaw, dark eyes, expensive black formalwear with no ornament except a narrow pin identifying her as licensed counsel before the New Republic Provisional High Court, the Chandrilan Judiciary, and six Core jurisdictions whose names alone suggested money. She moved with the calm of someone who had spent decades entering rooms full of people who hated her and leaving with signatures.

The second was Caro Antilles.

Not that Antilles either.

He had the practiced expression of a man who had explained this often enough to resent both genealogy and coincidence.

He looked as though he had once considered growing a beard and had ultimately decided ambiguity suited him better. Younger than Veyr by perhaps twenty years, Core-accented, pleasant in the way of men who had trained pleasantness into a legal instrument, and carrying a slim folio that had already been scanned, opened, inspected, rescanned, sealed, and tagged by security before being returned to him under protest. He introduced himself to Brant before she could force him to.

“Caro Antilles,” he said before Brant could ask. “Still no relation.” he joked.

Brant stared at him. Kallus, standing beside the secure door, closed his eyes for half a second.

Veyr did not look amused. That suggested she had heard the line too often to forgive it and not often enough to forbid it.

Captain Brant completed the entry warning in a tone sharp enough to cut through courtesy. “You will have forty minutes. No exchange of physical objects with the detainee. No devices. The folio remains sealed unless opened on the table under visual security. Written notes may be taken on issued sheets only. Visual monitoring remains active. Audio masking will be engaged for privileged communication. Any medical distress overrides counsel privilege and ends the session immediately at Dr. Seln’s discretion.”

“Understood,” Veyr said.

“Do you contest any of these conditions?”

“Not at this time.”

Kallus looked at her. Veyr looked back.

The phrase sat between them, polished and venomous. Antilles smiled faintly. Brant’s expression did not change. “Do not make me regret allowing chairs.”

“We rarely conduct consultations standing, Captain.”

“I rarely conduct consultations with men who used to command Star Destroyers.”

“Then this will be educational for all of us.”

Kallus thought, not for the first time, that law and espionage were cousins who had made very different wardrobe choices.

Dr. Seln emerged from Room Two before Brant could answer. Her gaze moved over the lawyers with the clinical neutrality of a woman assessing possible contaminants. “He is stable enough to speak,” she said. “He is not stable enough to be exhausted for sport. If I see his temperature rise, oxygenation drop, pain markers increase beyond tolerance, or any attempt by anyone to turn a medical consultation into theater, you leave.”

Veyr inclined her head. “Doctor.”

Antilles said, “We have no interest in compromising our client’s health.”

“Everyone says that before compromising health for scheduling,” Seln replied. “Try to be original.”

She stepped aside. The door opened.

For the first time since Thrawn had entered New Republic custody, his counsel met him without a transparent barrier between them.

He was not in prison white anymore.

That had been another small war, won by Seln without ever admitting she had fought it. The detention garments had been replaced by medical clothing: pale gray, soft, short-sleeved, loose enough to allow monitoring lines, still without pockets, still unmistakably issued by an institution that believed fabric could be humane and controlling at the same time. He sat propped against the raised head of the bed, blanket drawn over his legs, one wrist fitted with a medical sensor cuff, an intravenous line secured along his left forearm beneath a transparent dressing. A security restraint point existed on the bed rail, visible but unused. That absence, like most absences around him, felt deliberate whether or not it was.

His color had improved since the fever spike, though not enough to make him look well. His eyes remained too bright. The unnatural red had always made human observers uneasy; now the fever gave them a glasslike intensity that no one in the room found comforting.

Thrawn looked first at Veyr. Then at Antilles. Then at the sealed folio. Then at the two chairs placed at the regulated distance from the bed. “Counsel,” he said.

Veyr stopped beside the bed, not close enough to trigger Brant’s patience, not far enough to imply reluctance. “Admiral.”

“Former,” Thrawn said.

“Yes,” Veyr replied. “Legally, that may prove useful.”

Kallus, from outside the open doorway, did not like the direction of that sentence.

Thrawn’s expression did not change. “Doctor Seln has advised I avoid unnecessary aggravation.”

Veyr sat. “Then we will begin efficiently.”

Antilles took the second chair and placed the sealed folio on the small table between them. He did not open it.

Brant stepped back. The door closed. The observation window remained clear for three seconds, long enough for everyone outside to confirm positions. Then the sound-masking field engaged. The glass did not darken, but the room changed. Voices continued inside, visible in movement, impossible to hear beyond the low neutral hum designed to preserve privilege without allowing anyone to forget that privilege had been grudgingly engineered.

Kallus watched Veyr speak.

He could not hear her.

That, legally, was the point.

He hated it with the restrained professionalism of a man who understood why it mattered.

Inside the room, Veyr folded her hands in her lap. “We received the complete transcript of your first recorded exchange with Senator Organa, Director Kallus, and Captain Brant.”

“I assumed you had.”

“You declined to answer several questions.”

“Yes.”

“You also allowed several lines of inquiry to proceed far enough to create ambiguity where silence would have created less.”

“Correct.”

Antilles leaned back slightly.

Veyr’s gaze sharpened by a fraction. “Intentional?”

“Yes.”

“Explain.”

“The Republic needed to ask those questions.”

“That is not a legal reason.”

“No. It is a strategic one.”

“We are not your strategists, Admiral.”

“Former.”

“Former Admiral,” Veyr said, without missing a beat. “We are your attorneys. Our purpose is not to assist the New Republic in becoming more competent at interrogating you.”

“No,” Thrawn said. “Your purpose is to prevent them from becoming less competent in ways that damage my objectives.”

Antilles looked down, and for the first time his pleasant expression acquired something real beneath it: interest.

Veyr did not move. “Your objectives,” she said.

“Yes.”

“We should discuss those before the government invents them for us.”

“Agreed.”

She opened the folio only after turning it so that the seal faced the observation window. Legal theater, perhaps, but useful theater. The issued sheets inside were blank except for identification marks along the bottom edge. No hidden compartments. No preloaded documents. No data storage. Brant had been thorough.

Veyr removed one sheet and did not yet write. “First: your medical condition has improved enough to avoid immediate emergency petition, but not enough for the government to treat the matter as resolved. Dr. Seln’s notes are useful. Extremely useful. She writes as though every sentence has a spine.”

“She is competent.”

“She is dangerous.”

“Those are not mutually exclusive.”

“No,” Veyr said. “They rarely are. The civil observers’ preliminary letter is more restrained than expected. They note deficiencies, corrections, ongoing concerns, and the need for continued review. We can use it if necessary.”

“I would prefer you not use medical deterioration as primary leverage unless required.”

Antilles’s eyebrow rose. Veyr simply watched him. “That is an unusual preference for a client in your position.”

“It is not preference. It is prioritization. If the argument becomes that the New Republic harmed me through negligence, the question of my custody conditions overwhelms the question I came here to raise.”

“The question of an external threat.”

“Yes.”

“The government has not accepted that framing.”

“No. But they have not dismissed it.”

Veyr’s pen touched the page once. “Second: charges. They are not ready.”

“I know.”

“You may suspect. We know. Their internal uncertainty is visible in the way they have preserved options without naming any. War crimes, command responsibility, material support to Imperial governance, unlawful military action, unlawful detention, classified operations, and Lothal.”

Thrawn’s gaze did not shift.

Antilles watched that carefully.

“Lothal will be emotionally powerful,” Veyr said.

“Yes.”

“It may also be factually dangerous.”

“Yes.”

“For them or for you?”

“Both.”

A small silence followed. Veyr made a note. “Batonn,” she said.

The monitor above the bed continued its quiet pulse.

Thrawn’s expression remained composed.

“That will be their cleanest public accusation and one of their least clean legal ones,” Veyr continued. “There are contradictory records. Imperial after-action summaries. Rebel intelligence fragments. Civilian casualty estimates. Tribunal material from a former high ranking officer who served aboard your command ship at the time and later surrendered.”

Thrawn looked at her then. Only a fraction more directly.

Veyr saw it.

“She is alive,” Veyr said.

Thrawn said nothing.

Antilles did not write. “She was not convicted on Batonn,” Veyr continued. “That does not exonerate you. It complicates them. Complication is useful.”

Thrawn was silent for long enough that Antilles glanced at the medical monitor before looking back.

At last Thrawn said, “Do not approach her without necessity.”

Veyr’s eyes narrowed. “Because she is strategically irrelevant?”

“No. Because she is strategically relevant.”

“That usually leads to the opposite instruction.”

“Only if one has poor discipline.”

Antilles’s mouth almost smiled. Veyr’s did not. “Former Admiral, if Batonn becomes central, she becomes necessary.”

“Perhaps.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is the current answer.”

Veyr studied him for several seconds. “You are protecting a witness.”

“I am preventing premature activation of an asset whose circumstances I do not yet know.”

“That is a very ugly sentence for a very human instinct.”

“Correct.”

Antilles wrote that down. Thrawn’s gaze moved to him. Antilles did not apologize.

“Third,” Veyr said, “status.”

“Legal or political?”

“Yes.”

That earned her the smallest acknowledgment, almost approval.

“You served the Empire,” she continued. “You held military rank. You exercised command authority. You surrendered under your own identity. All of that is clear enough for public outrage and not nearly clear enough for the law once we begin asking what, precisely, the Empire made you.”

“The Empire made me useful.”

“Again, not a legal category.”

“No.”

“There is no complete naturalization file.”

Thrawn’s eyes stilled. Veyr had been waiting for that. Antilles watched both of them now, all surface pleasantness gone.

“We have partial commission records,” Veyr said. “Rank confirmations. Military appointments. Decorations. Operational authorizations. A remarkable number of documents signed by officials who apparently did not want to write down what they were doing in language that would survive a change of government. We have no clean grant of Imperial citizenship. No finalized alien officer integration statute applying specifically to your case. No complete oath sequence filed in a civilian archive.”

“Imperial military bureaucracy was often selective in its precision.”

“That may become the most generous description anyone has ever given it.”

Thrawn’s gaze dropped briefly to the sensor cuff on his wrist. Then returned to her. “You intend to argue I was not an Imperial officer?”

“No,” Veyr said. “That would be stupid.”

Antilles did smile then, very faintly.

Veyr continued. “You wore the uniform. You commanded forces. You accepted authority and exercised it. Denying that would damage credibility. What we may argue, if necessary, is that the legal framework under which you served was irregular, incomplete, and possibly more akin to exceptional foreign military appointment than full Imperial civic incorporation.”

“That would not absolve command responsibility.”

“No,” Veyr said. “It may alter jurisdiction, classification, sentencing exposure, and the government’s ability to present you as a simple continuation of Imperial state identity.”

“Leia Organa will dislike that.”

“Senator Organa will dislike many correct things.”

Thrawn considered that. “Yes.”

Veyr’s pen moved once. “But,” she said, “we do not deploy that argument early unless forced. It smells like a loophole. Courts tolerate loopholes. Publics do not. And you are already at risk of being turned into a symbol by people whose support you do not want.”

“Imperial nostalgia factions.”

“Yes.”

“They misunderstand the function of order.”

“They think you represent it.”

“They are incorrect.”

“They rarely require accuracy to become loud.”

“True.”

Antilles leaned forward slightly. “Then we need to decide what you represent before they decide it for you.”

Thrawn looked at him. “And what do you suggest?”

“That depends on whether you want acquittal, negotiated custody, political rehabilitation, military advisory status, protected intelligence cooperation, or martyrdom.”

Veyr did not look at him, but there was a quality to her stillness that suggested approval.

Thrawn’s face remained unchanged. “Not martyrdom.”

“Good,” Antilles said. “It is a poor legal strategy unless one is already dead.”

“I am not seeking rehabilitation.”

“No,” Veyr said. “You would have chosen different counsel if you were.”

“I am not seeking acquittal through denial of fact.”

“Also noted.”

“I am seeking to preserve sufficient credibility and operational freedom to make the Republic act on a threat it is structurally inclined to dismiss.”

There it was. Veyr lowered her pen. For the first time since entering, she seemed not surprised, but satisfied in the way a mathematician might be satisfied when an equation finally revealed the variable everything else had been orbiting. “Then you do not need a defense built primarily on innocence,” she said.

“No.”

“You need one built on indispensability.”

“No.”

Antilles tilted his head.

Thrawn’s voice remained even. “Indispensability breeds resentment and dependence. Both are strategically unstable. I require a defense built on procedural legitimacy, factual precision, controlled cooperation, and the Republic’s own interest in not discarding information because it dislikes the source.”

Veyr’s pen remained still above the page. “There are also factual distinctions the Republic will prefer to blur,” Thrawn continued. “I was not involved in the galactic civil war as they define it. By the time open war developed between the Empire and the Rebel Alliance, I had already departed known Imperial space with the Seventh Fleet.”

Antilles looked up. “That will not make you sympathetic.”

“No. But it will make certain accusations imprecise.”

Veyr’s eyes narrowed slightly. “And imprecision is useful to us.”

“To you,” Thrawn corrected. “To the Republic, it should be dangerous.” A pause followed. Then he added, “It is also verifiable that I opposed the Death Star project. Openly.”

Antilles’s expression shifted by a fraction. “Openly, in Imperial terms?”

“Openly enough that surviving records will show it, if they have not been destroyed.”

Veyr’s pen remained very still.

Thrawn continued. “You will also find repeated disciplinary proceedings in my service record.”

Antilles looked up fully this time. “Courts-martial?”

“Several.”

“That is not usually considered helpful.”

“It will be if you read the charges.”

Veyr studied him. “Explain.”

“I was repeatedly assigned to conflicts where the expected Imperial solution was escalation, punitive destruction, or politically visible force. I resolved them, where possible, by minimizing casualties, preserving infrastructure, and preventing local resistance from becoming generational.”

“And they court-martialed you for that?” Antilles asked.

“They attempted to discipline me for exceeding orders, ignoring preferred methods, reallocating resources without authorization, and producing outcomes that embarrassed officers who had recommended more conventional responses.”

Antilles’s mouth moved slightly. “By conventional, you mean bloodier.”

“Usually.”

Veyr wrote one word. “Records?”

“My Imperial service file should contain enough to establish the pattern. Incomplete, perhaps. But sufficient.”

“You are giving us a great deal of material,” Veyr said.

“I am giving competent attorneys enough weapons to construct an adequate defense.”

“Adequate.”

“Good, if you prefer.”

Antilles gave him a look. “Most clients say excellent.”

“Most clients are poor judges of legal strategy.”

Veyr’s pen touched the page at last. “This will matter.”

“Yes.”

“Not morally enough for the public.”

“No.”

“Legally enough to complicate the public story.”

“That is the intention.”

Veyr looked at him for a long moment. Then, very slowly, she smiled. It was not warm. It was not kind. It was the expression of a woman who had just been handed a difficult case and discovered the client understood difficulty as architecture. “That,” she said, “we can work with.”

Outside the room, Kallus watched her smile through soundproof glass and felt his stomach sink. He did not know what had been said. He knew enough.

Inside, Veyr resumed. “Then our immediate objectives are as follows. One: stabilize medical conditions and prevent any recurrence that can be characterized as negligent confinement. Two: force formal detention classification. Three: secure regular counsel access. Four: obtain the evidence index for potential charges. Five: prevent political actors from defining your position before we file a controlled statement. Six: identify what assets, funds, or property remain frozen, seized, unclassified, or lost in administrative limbo.”

“My funds will be minimal.”

“Your name is not.”

“I did not retain you under the assumption of charity.”

“No,” Veyr said. “You retained us because we are expensive enough to be resented and skilled enough to be feared.”

“Both qualities seemed relevant.”

Antilles made a note.

Veyr continued. “Payment can be addressed. There are seized Imperial accounts with disputed ownership, inactive officer allocations, prize shares, pension structures, and confiscated property claims still floating in postwar review systems. Some may be yours. Some may become yours if the government argues you were fully Imperial enough to prosecute under certain theories.”

Thrawn’s eyes narrowed by a fraction.

Antilles looked almost delighted.

“If they want you to be Imperial for guilt,” Veyr said, “they may find you were Imperial enough for property. If they want you to be foreign for jurisdiction, they may lose certain forfeiture assumptions. Either way, there is room.”

“That is inelegant.”

“That is law.”

“No,” Thrawn said. “That is accounting.”

Veyr inclined her head. “Often the sharper blade.”

For a moment, the monitor was the only sound in the room.

Then Thrawn said, “There is another matter.”

“Of course there is,” Antilles murmured.

Veyr gave him a look. He became professional again with impressive speed.

Thrawn continued. “I will require contact with two individuals.”

“No,” Veyr said immediately.

He looked at her. She did not soften.

“Not yet. Do not ask formally yet. Do not mention names yet. Do not give the government a reason to expand the scope of intelligence containment before we know what conditions they will tolerate. Every unknown contact you request becomes either a suspected co-conspirator, an intelligence asset, a remnant link, or a hostage to political panic. Later, perhaps. Under counsel channel, perhaps. Under court-supervised strategic cooperation, perhaps. Not now.”

Thrawn considered her. “Good.”

Antilles looked from one to the other. “You expected that answer?”

“I required evidence that she would give it.”

Veyr’s smile thinned. “Do that too often and I will charge more.”

“You already intend to.”

“Yes. But with less elegance.”

Thrawn inclined his head slightly, conceding the point.

Antilles, perhaps unwisely, said, “Do these individuals relate to the threat you mentioned?”

Thrawn’s gaze shifted to him.

Veyr said, “Do not answer that.”

“I had not intended to.”

“Good.”

Antilles accepted the correction with no visible offense. That, too, was useful. A lawyer who could be corrected without defending his pride might survive this case.

Veyr placed the pen down. “We need a statement.”

“No public statement yet.”

“I agree. A private statement to the government, through counsel. Narrow. Medical neutrality. Continued cooperation with lawful process. No admission beyond identity and voluntary surrender. No rhetorical flourish.”

“Draft it.”

“I will.”

“No reference to Imperial service beyond formal identification.”

“Agreed.”

“No invocation of external threat.”

Veyr looked at him.

“That surprises me.”

“It should not. The warning loses value if introduced through defense counsel before evidence.”

“And if the Republic delays indefinitely?”

“They will not.”

Veyr glanced toward the observation window. “Because Senator Organa will not allow it?”

“Partly.”

“Because Kallus is investigating?”

“Partly.”

“Because you have made yourself too inconvenient to ignore.”

“Yes.”

Antilles tapped the blank sheet once. “And if inconvenience becomes insufficient?”

Thrawn looked toward the sealed window, through which he could see Kallus standing in the corridor beyond, arms folded, face unreadable to most observers and too tired to be fully so to him. “Then we escalate.”

Veyr’s eyes sharpened. “Define escalate.”

“Not yet.”

“We are your lawyers.”

“Yes.”

“That does not make withholding information from us advisable.”

“No,” Thrawn said. “It makes timing the release of information to you necessary.”

Antilles gave a low breath that might have become a laugh if the room had been less severe. Veyr did not laugh. She seemed, if anything, more pleased. “You understand,” she said, “that most clients lie because they fear consequences.”

“I assume so.”

“You appear to withhold truth because you are arranging consequences.”

“Yes.”

“That will make representing you irritating.”

“I selected counsel with significant tolerance for irritation.”

“We call that billing.”

Outside, Dr. Seln approached the observation post and looked through the glass. Kallus noticed her before Brant did. “How long?” Seln asked.

“Thirty-one minutes,” Brant said.

“He is done at forty.”

“The agreement says forty.”

“My patient says forty or less.”

“You have not spoken to him.”

“I am looking at him.”

Kallus followed her gaze.

Thrawn had not moved much during the consultation. That, Kallus had learned, did not mean rest. It often meant all available energy had been redirected inward, toward listening, ordering, choosing. But Seln saw something else: the slight increase in tension around the mouth, the controlled stillness of someone suppressing discomfort rather than lacking it, the way his hand rested too carefully over the blanket near the line of pain.

“He looks the same,” Brant said.

“No,” Seln replied. “He looks like himself, which is not medically reassuring.”

Kallus did not ask whether that was a diagnosis.

Inside the room, Veyr had noticed the doctor outside. “We are nearly out of time.”

“Yes,” Thrawn said.

“One final matter. The other patient in this ward.”

Thrawn’s eyes moved back to her. “I have not asked.”

“No. You have noticed.”

“Yes.”

“Do not attempt to identify them.”

“Would that compromise my defense?”

“It would irritate people whose cooperation we currently require.”

“A weaker argument.”

“It may also compromise your physical security. There are very few reasons a second secure medical room in this annex would be occupied under privacy seal during your transfer. None are relevant to our immediate legal strategy unless you make them relevant.”

Thrawn’s gaze remained steady. “Understood.”

Antilles looked mildly disappointed to let mystery remain unbilled. Veyr closed the folio. “We will file for regular access, medical updates through counsel, and a detention classification deadline. We will not yet file over the preliminary interrogation, but we will continue to preserve the issue. We will request the evidence index. We will prepare for Batonn. We will not approach the former officer unless necessary.”

Thrawn inclined his head. “Acceptable.”

“That was not a request for approval.”

“No.”

“But useful to know.”

She rose.

Antilles gathered the issued sheets, leaving them blank except for the notes he had taken. He held them up toward the observation window for security collection, then placed them in the sealed transfer sleeve provided by Brant. Privileged, tagged, protected, resented.

Veyr looked back at Thrawn. “You need rest.”

“That appears to be the consensus.”

“Consensus is rarely this medically enforceable. Take advantage.”

“I will consider it.”

“That means no.”

“It means I will consider it.”

“It means no,” Antilles said.

Thrawn looked at him.

Antilles smiled pleasantly. “I have represented admirals before.”

“Former.”

“Former admirals,” Antilles corrected. “They all believe rest is something that happens to other people.”

Veyr stepped toward the door. “Then allow me to phrase it legally. If you deteriorate because you refuse to rest, you will damage several active arguments and annoy your physician, your counsel, and possibly the court.”

Thrawn paused. “That is a more persuasive formulation.”

“I thought it might be.”

The sound-masking field disengaged as the door unlocked.

Brant entered first, because of course she did. “Consultation concluded?”

Veyr handed over the sealed sleeve. “For secure privilege handling.”

Brant accepted it as if it were warm enough to burn. “No incidents?”

“None,” Veyr said.

Dr. Seln stepped in behind Brant and went directly to the monitor, ignoring the lawyers with admirable focus. Thrawn looked at her. “I remained within the agreed time.”

“Yes,” Seln said. “I am devastated by your obedience.”

Antilles’s eyebrows rose. Veyr, wisely, said nothing.

Seln checked the temperature reading, then the line, then his pupils, then the monitor again. “You are done talking for the next hour.”

“Doctor—”

“That was not an invitation to begin immediately.”

He closed his mouth.

Kallus, visible through the doorway, stared.

Antilles leaned slightly toward Veyr and murmured, “Can we retain her?”

“No,” Veyr said.

Seln looked at them both. “You cannot afford me.”

For the first time since entering the annex, Caro Antilles looked genuinely delighted, in a way that said ‘yes, we do’.

Brant escorted the lawyers out.

Kallus remained by the corridor window as Veyr passed him. She stopped. “Director.”

“Counselor.”

“Your transcript was thorough.”

“It was supposed to be.”

“It was also revealing.”

“Interrogations often are.”

“Yes,” she said. “Especially of the interrogator.”

Kallus held her gaze. Veyr smiled with no warmth at all. “We are not filing on it today.”

“How generous.”

“How strategic.”

She walked on.

Antilles gave him the legally distinct smile of a man who had introduced himself as no relation too many times and now found private amusement wherever he could.

Kallus watched them leave. Then he looked back through the glass.

Inside, Thrawn had closed his eyes. Whether he was resting, thinking, or arranging the next complication behind a fevered stillness, Kallus could not tell.

That was beginning to feel like the defining condition of the case.

Dr. Seln adjusted the blanket with the brisk care of someone who would deny it was care if anyone was foolish enough to name it. Thrawn did not open his eyes.

A medical droid passed silently between the two rooms and turned toward the restricted lift.

No one said anything about it.

Kallus noticed anyway.

He was very tired of noticing things.

Behind him, Brant finished logging the lawyers’ departure and turned to the guard detail. “Reset access protocol. No one enters without medical clearance, security authorization, and legal notation.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“And if anyone from Veyr, Antilles and Sorn calls before the hour is over?”

Kallus looked at her. Brant did not smile. “Tell Vorr.”

“That seems cruel,” Kallus said.

“Yes.”

For a moment, the corridor was almost quiet.

Not peaceful.

Never that.

Only the brief, narrow quiet of a government that had survived one more procedure and knew perfectly well the next one was already moving toward it.