Chapter 9 · Chapter 9 - The Archive

By the fourth hour, Selra Tann had developed a professional dislike of the dead Emperor’s filing system.

This was unfair. Palpatine had almost certainly never filed anything personally in his life. That had been someone else’s problem, followed by someone else’s problem, followed by several thousand other people’s problems until the Empire collapsed and the New Republic inherited enough administrative debris to ensure that Palpatine remained a burden on civil servants long after his death.

Rian Calder, sitting beside her at a terminal designed for a species with slightly longer arms than either of them possessed, had reached much the same conclusion twenty minutes earlier. “The mistake,” he said, “is assuming these numbers identify files.”

Selra looked away from the archive tree. “What do they identify?”

“Depends on the year.”

“That is not encouraging.”

“It gets worse.”

“Of course it does.”

Calder enlarged the registry code attached to Voss Parck’s surviving Palace entry. They had been inside the Imperial Executive Archive for most of the afternoon, although inside was perhaps an imprecise description. The archive occupied five sealed levels beneath one of the former administrative wings of the Imperial Palace, in rooms that had once been deliberately omitted from most public plans and were now marked with New Republic directional signs whose principal contribution to transparency was acknowledging that the levels existed.

The Republic had inherited the physical archive, much of its machinery and a distressing proportion of its droids. It had replaced the insignia.

Everything else was negotiable.

The room around them had clearly once served Palace administrative staff rather than archivists. The walls were dark, the ceilings low by Imperial Palace standards, and the workstations had been arranged in orderly rows facing nothing in particular. Most had been disconnected. Six remained operational under Republic supervision, each interfacing with a different portion of the old executive record architecture because apparently no one had ever persuaded the systems to agree that the Empire was over.

A squat archival droid waited several meters away, motionless except for a faint amber pulse beneath its designation plate. CRV-19 — EXECUTIVE RECORDS CONTROL.

It had already denied them access fourteen times. Not incorrectly. That was the irritating part.

Calder touched the registry code. “Pre-Empire conversion numbering begins with the originating office. Early Imperial numbering uses office, retention class, sequence. Then the Palace reorganizes executive administration approximately eight years later and the same field becomes office, security route, sequence.”

“And ours?”

“Falls directly in the transition.”

Selra rested her forehead briefly against two fingers.

Calder looked at her. “You wanted Palace archaeology.”

“I wanted one audience request.”

“You wanted the audience request of a naval captain who brought an unidentified blue alien from Wild Space directly to Palpatine.”

“When you say it that way, I feel unreasonable.”

“You are unreasonable. You are simply not uniquely unreasonable,” he joked.

Selra gave him a sideways look. Calder smiled and returned to the code. There was no hostility in it. There had not been all day. That mattered more than Selra had expected.

Rian was still annoyed that the Thrawn matter had become important approximately five minutes after he had handed it away. He had made no great secret of that. But the annoyance was directed largely toward himself, occasionally toward the universe, and with particular intensity toward Caro Antilles whenever Caro appeared to be enjoying the situation. It had never translated into making Selra’s work harder. Quite the opposite.

Calder had brought the Palace registry conversion table from his previous property case, found the archivist who actually understood it, argued them past the first two access problems and, when an obsolete Imperial security system had attempted to classify Selra’s authorization as originating from an unrecognized government, had spent forty minutes constructing an administrative chain of succession so boring that the machine finally surrendered.

Selra had been impressed. She had not told him. There were limits.

Calder expanded another historical layer. “There.”

Selra leaned closer. The Palace code divided. One branch terminated in the executive audience register they already knew existed. The other did not. It led to an obsolete classification: SUPPORTING MATERIAL — EXECUTIVE ACCESS REVIEW

Selra straightened. “That wasn’t there before.”

“It was. We were reading the third field as sequence rather than route.”

“So the request had supporting material.”

“Almost certainly.”

She looked toward CRV-19. The droid remained immobile. Selra already disliked what came next. “CRV.”

Its head rotated toward her. “Counselor Tann.”

“Retrieve supporting material attached to Executive Audience Control registry entry”—she read out the number—“under Executive Access Review.”

The amber light brightened. “Request denied.”

Calder sighed.

Selra folded her hands. “Basis?”

“Supporting materials submitted for direct Imperial audience are protected under Palace Confidentiality Directive Twenty-Seven.”

“The Palace no longer exists as a sovereign executive institution.”

“Correct.”

“The issuing government no longer exists.”

“Incorrect.”

Selra blinked.

Calder slowly looked toward the droid. “I’m sorry?”

CRV-19 faced him. “The Galactic Empire has no registered termination instrument within the Executive Records Control system.”

There was a moment of silence.

Selra looked at Calder. Calder looked at Selra. “This,” he said, “is why lawyers drink.”

Selra turned back to the droid. “The Galactic Empire ceased to exercise sovereign authority over Coruscant following the transfer of governmental control to the New Republic.”

“That event is recorded.”

“And?”

“No compliant dissolution instrument was subsequently filed.”

Calder covered his mouth.

Selra suspected he was either laughing or preventing himself from saying something that would extend the conversation another hour. “The Republic is the lawful custodian of this archive.”

“Confirmed.”

“And I have authorization from that custodian to inspect records relevant to Mitth’raw’nuruodo.”

“Confirmed.”

“Then retrieve the supporting material.”

“Palace Confidentiality Directive Twenty-Seven requires release authority from the Office of the Imperial Private Secretariat.”

“That office no longer exists.”

“Confirmed.”

“Who is its successor?”

“No successor authority registered.”

“Then who can authorize release?”

“No current authorized signatory.”

Selra stared at it.

Calder finally lowered his hand. “That is actually rather elegant.” She turned on him. “Not morally,” he added. “Administratively.”

“You have been spending too much time with Antilles.”

Selra looked back at the droid. There had to be a way around it. Not because Imperial administration had been sensible, but because bureaucracy rarely created one copy of anything when six could be made to suffer instead. “What exactly is protected by Directive Twenty-Seven?”

“The submitting copy and materials retained by the Imperial Private Secretariat.”

Selra went still. Calder looked at her. Then he smiled. “Ah.” She turned toward him. “Say it.”

“The submitting copy.”

“Yes.”

“Not derivative copies.”

“Exactly.”

Calder moved to the adjacent terminal.

CRV-19 watched him. “Counselor, you will not circumvent Palace confidentiality restrictions.”

“I would never dream of it,” Calder said, with enough sincerity to constitute mockery. “I am going to comply with them very carefully.”

Selra brought up the routing architecture again. An audience request did not simply appear on the Emperor’s desk. They had established that already. It moved through an originating office, security review, executive scheduling and the Private Secretariat. At every stage, something had been logged. In at least two, something should have been retained.

The Palace copy was inaccessible. That did not mean the Palace Security copy was. Or Naval Intelligence. Or scheduling.

Calder entered the registry number into the old transition map and selected DERIVATIVE / ROUTING RECORDS. Nothing. He tried the earlier Imperial format. Nothing. The Republic conversion. Three entries appeared. Two were index stubs.

The third had no title.

Selra leaned toward it. “What is that?”

Calder opened the metadata.

The terminal froze. A red warning appeared. LEGACY RETENTION CONFLICT.

“Oh, excellent,” Selra muttered.

CRV-19 approached. “Record cannot be displayed.”

“Why?”

“Record is subject to conflicting preservation directives.”

Calder looked interested. “Which ones?”

“Palace Security Directive Fourteen requires permanent retention. Imperial Intelligence Directive Aurek-Nine requires compartmentalized concealment.”

Selra stared at the droid. “Permanent retention and concealment.”

“Yes.”

“Meaning preserve it forever but never show anyone.”

“Correct.”

Calder leaned back. “There is something admirable about the purity of that.”

“There really isn’t.”

“No.”

Selra looked at the warning again. “What kind of record?”

“Metadata access is restricted,” the droid chimed.

“What department?”

“Metadata access is restricted.”

“Date?”

“Metadata access is restricted.”

“Associated registry?”

“Metadata access is restricted,” the droid repeated for the fourth time.

Calder folded his arms. “Can you confirm whether it concerns our request?”

“No.”

“Can you confirm whether you are prohibited from confirming whether it concerns our request?”

“Yes.”

Selra looked at him. Calder looked deeply pleased. “Don’t.”

“I said nothing.”

“You were about to.”

“I was about to say the Empire deserved to fall.”

“That one is permitted.”

The conflict took another thirty-seven minutes.

Not because either lawyer found a clever doctrinal solution, but because Calder eventually discovered that the Republic had created a narrow archival exception for Imperial records whose secrecy instructions could no longer identify a lawful beneficiary. The exception did not authorize disclosure. It authorized determination of whether disclosure could lawfully occur.

CRV-19 considered this distinction legitimate.

Selra suspected CRV-19 would have made an excellent lawyer. The record opened. It had nothing to do with Parck. Neither spoke for several seconds. The title alone was enough. EXECUTIVE CUSTODIAL DISPOSITION — NON-CITIZEN SENTIENT HOLDINGS. Below it were several subcategories. Most were sealed. One was not. Selra saw only three lines before CRV-19 removed the display.

LABOR CLASSIFICATION

GUARDIANSHIP TRANSFER

EXECUTIVE ACQUISITION—

The record vanished. “Access determination complete,” the droid said. “Matter outside authorized subject scope.”

Selra stared at the empty display.

Calder’s expression had lost all trace of humor. Neither of them attempted to reopen it. They had come looking for one man. There were occasions when professional curiosity became indistinguishable from walking through a door one had no authority to open.Selra made a note of the registry family anyway.

Not the contents. Just that it existed. Calder saw her do it. “Later?”

“Maybe.”

He nodded. That was all.

They went back to Parck.

By sixteen hundred, the audience request had acquired twelve possible administrative homes and no actual text.

By seventeen hundred, three had been eliminated.

By eighteen hundred, Selra had learned that an Imperial scheduling droid could maintain resentment for more than a decade. The unit in question was taller than CRV-19, silver-black and narrow through the shoulders, with the designation PSS-4 engraved beneath the remnants of an Imperial crest somebody had physically ground from its chestplate.

It controlled the surviving Palace scheduling indexes. Or believed it did.

“I require confirmation of precedence,” it told Selra for the fourth time.

“You have it.”

“Counselor Tann is not an officer of the Imperial Private Secretariat.”

“No.”

“Counselor Calder is not an officer of the Imperial Private Secretariat.”

“No.”

“No member of your delegation possesses Imperial scheduling authority.”

“There is no delegation.” PSS-4 paused.

“Then your access request is improperly constituted.”

Calder rubbed his eyes.

Selra tried again. “We are not requesting scheduling authority. We are requesting archival access to a historical scheduling record.”

“Scheduling records are administrative instruments of the Imperial Household.”

“The Imperial Household is gone.”

“Unverified.”

Selra looked at the empty place where the Imperial crest had been removed from its chest. “Someone literally ground the symbol off you.”

PSS-4 glanced downward. “That alteration was unauthorized.”

Calder turned away. His shoulders moved with a quiet laugh.

Selra ignored him. “PSS-4, under New Republic archival transition law, your historical scheduling records are under Republic custodianship.”

“I have registered the New Republic as temporary occupying administration.”

“It has been more than six years.”

“That does not alter the classification.”

“Who entered it?”

“Imperial Private Secretariat Continuity Directive Two.”

“When?”

“Four days after the death of Emperor Palpatine.”

Selra stopped.

Calder stopped laughing. “Four days after?”

“Correct.”

That was not bureaucracy surviving by accident. Someone had deliberately instructed the Palace machinery to treat whatever government followed as temporary.

Selra looked at Calder. He had reached the same conclusion. Apparently darker things were going to continue brushing past them all afternoon. “Who issued Continuity Directive Two?”

“Access restricted.”

“Of course.”

She did not ask again. Instead, Calder slid the Republic conversion table toward her.

“Try the schedule event, not the request.”

Selra looked at him. “The request is protected because it belongs to the Secretariat. But once approved, the audience becomes a scheduled event. Different record.” She smiled. “That is why I brought you.”

“You brought me because I knew the numbering system.”

“I can have two reasons.”

“Careful. People will think you value me.”

“I’ll deny it.”

PSS-4 watched them without comment.

Selra entered the date. Then Parck. Nothing. Captain Voss Parck. Nothing. Naval Intelligence. Too many results.

Calder leaned over. “Search attendees.”

“We don’t know them.”

“We know one.”

Selra looked at him. “Palpatine.” She stared.

Calder shrugged. “He was probably there.”

Selra entered:

PALPATINE — AUDIENCE — NAVAL — DATE RANGE

Twenty-seven results. They narrowed by security level.

Nine.

By unscheduled military access. Three: The first concerned a Moff. The second an admiral Selra vaguely recognized from a war-crimes index. The third had no subject name.

She opened it.

DIRECT IMPERIAL AUDIENCE

REQUESTING OFFICER: CAPTAIN VOSS PARCK

For a moment neither moved.

Then Calder sat back. “There.”

Selra’s fatigue disappeared. The scheduling entry itself was minimal. Time. Duration. Originating command. Security routing. Authorization for three additional military attendees and one unidentified nonhuman subject.

She read that last field twice. “Subject.”

“Yes.”

“Not guest.”

“No.”

“Not prisoner either.”

“No.”

The designation told them almost nothing.

But below it sat something far better.

SCHEDULING JUSTIFICATION: SEE SUPPORTING ASSESSMENT PACKAGE 7-44-ES

Selra copied the number.

Calder was already searching. Package 7-44-ES did not exist. Or, more precisely, the archive insisted that it had never existed while simultaneously returning six references to it.

“That is promising,” Calder said.

“Your standards have deteriorated.”

“I have been down here seven hours.”

One reference belonged to the inaccessible Private Secretariat copy. One to Palace Security. One had been destroyed. Two were post-audience administrative references. The sixth was strange. AUTOMATED PRESERVATION DUPLICATE — EXECUTIVE SCHEDULING CONTINUITY CACHE

Calder stared at it.

Selra looked at him. “What?”

“I think nobody remembered this was a copy.”

He opened the record.

PSS-4 moved. “Access to continuity cache is prohibited.”

Calder stopped. “Under what directive?”

“Continuity cache is not an archival repository.”

“What is it?”

“A restoration resource.”

Selra frowned.

“For restoration after what?”

“Loss, corruption, sabotage, hostile occupation or governmental interruption.”

There it was again. The Empire, refusing conceptually to die.

Calder considered the wording. “Does Palace Confidentiality Directive Twenty-Seven apply to restoration resources?”

PSS-4 paused. “No.”

Selra almost smiled. “Does Imperial Intelligence Directive Aurek-Nine?”

Another pause. “No.”

“Does any surviving directive prohibit an authorized archival custodian from inspecting a restoration resource?”

PSS-4 remained silent long enough that Selra began to hope the question had damaged it. Finally: “No explicit prohibition located.”

Calder looked at her. Selra looked at him. “Open it.”

The cache unfolded. Not one record. Forty-three.

Most were system fragments: routing tables, authentication logs, scheduling checksums, security clearance verifications.

Then a document appeared halfway down the list. Selra stopped scrolling.

FIELD ASSESSMENT — UNCHARTED SYSTEM / CONTACT INCIDENT

AUTHOR: CAPTAIN VOSS PARCK

Neither spoke.

Calder leaned closer. “Open that.”

She did.

The first page appeared. Then the second. Then the third. The document kept loading.

Seven pages. Twelve. Eighteen. Attachments. Casualty reports. A shuttle manifest. A V-wing loss record. Interview annotations. A linguistic note.

Selra’s heart began beating faster. “Stars...”

Calder looked toward her. “That can’t be—”

He checked the checksum against the fragment they already possessed. It matched. Not approximately. Exactly. The partial report Caro and Alden had reconstructed from later quotations had been derived from this document.

Calder looked slowly toward Selra. “This is the original.”

She did not answer. The authentication block remained intact. VOSS PARCK, CAPTAIN, IMPERIAL NAVY. Original timestamp. Original command seal. No later personnel redactions. No Academy excisions. No summaries. The entire report.

For several seconds Selra simply stared at it. They had spent seven hours looking for a request. They had found the event that justified it.

Calder exhaled. “Well.”

Selra opened the first page. “Read.”

They did.

The mission had begun as almost nothing.

An uncharted world near the edge of Imperial mapping, entered during a Wild Space reconnaissance operation. No registered settlement. No active beacon. No recognized government. Initial orbital scans suggested no population worth recording. Then the ground party found the hut.

Parck’s description was concise. Primitive construction. Recent occupation. Storage containers. Evidence of a single humanoid inhabitant. No machinery consistent with local manufacture. No indication of a larger settlement.

Then the Imperial personnel began dying.

Selra slowed.

The report did not dramatize the sequence. That made it worse. Patrol contact lost. One body missing temporarily. Weapons taken. Search perimeter expanded. Another attack. Improvised devices assembled from captured Imperial equipment. A V-wing brought down. Pilot killed. Survival equipment stripped. Blaster. Power packs. Concussion grenades.

Calder leaned toward the screen. “He did all this alone?”

“Apparently.”

“Against an Imperial landing force.”

“Yes.”

The casualty attachment gave the final count. Five naval troopers. One stormtrooper.

Selra looked at the figures for a long moment. “Caro is going to enjoy that substantially less than the tooka.”

“He should.”

They continued. Parck had initially assumed a primitive local tribe. The assumption did not survive contact with the evidence. The attacks showed reconnaissance. Patience. Understanding of Imperial response patterns. Captured equipment was not merely stolen but repurposed. The unknown attacker altered tactics when the Imperials changed theirs. He allowed some personnel to see enough to become afraid without allowing them to see enough to identify him.

Calder read one of Parck’s tactical observations twice. “He admired him.”

Selra looked across. “Already.”

“He hasn’t even seen him yet.”

“No.”

The report shifted from the planet to the transport. At first Parck believed the hostile had withdrawn. Then discrepancies appeared in the returning shuttle. A missing piece of equipment. An access panel disturbed. A weight variance too small to trigger an automated cargo warning.

Parck concluded that an alien had boarded with them. Not been captured. Boarded.

Selra stopped. “That matters.”

Calder nodded. She marked it.

Whatever legal theory Caro and Alden eventually built, the original facts were the original facts. Thrawn had not been dragged unconscious aboard an Imperial ship. He had infiltrated one deliberately. The report described the return to the Strikefast, the Venator-class Star Destroyer carrying the expedition. Parck, now expecting an intruder, ordered the hangar illumination reduced and troops positioned around likely routes of escape. The unknown alien emerged: Blue skin. Red eyes. Humanoid. Unarmed by the time he presented himself. And surrendered.

Selra’s gaze stayed on that word. Not captured. Surrendered. Again, she marked it.

Calder noticed. “That hurts the coercive-entry theory.”

“It complicates it.”

“Yes.”

“Which is useful.” He looked at her. Selra shrugged slightly. “I’d rather know now.”

Calder smiled. “That,” he said, “is irritatingly mature.”

“I have senior partners.”

“My condolences.”

The next attachment identified one of the personnel present.

Selra read the name. Then read it again. “Rian.”

He was already looking. CADET ELI N. VANTO.

For the first time in several minutes, Calder said nothing.

Selra opened the linguistic annotation. Vanto had recognized the species. Not with certainty at first, but enough to identify the name Chiss from stories and regional knowledge associated with his home in Wild Space. More importantly, he spoke Sy Bisti, a trade language used around parts of Wild Space and the Unknown Regions.

Parck had attempted Basic. The alien understood some. His response was limited. Vanto tried Sy Bisti. Communication improved immediately.

Selra sat back. “Oh, Vanto.”

Calder was reading faster now. The report referred to Vanto repeatedly after that. Translation assistance. Clarification. Initial questioning. Transit communication.

The Chiss gave his name: MITTH’RAW’NURUODO. He offered the shorter form. THRAWN.

His Basic was described as functional but rudimentary, significantly weaker than his apparent comprehension of Sy Bisti. Vanto remained involved because none of the shipboard protocol systems carried the language with sufficient fluency for reliable questioning.

Selra brought up their witness map in a side window. ELI N. VANTO — THRAWN AIDE / MID-CAREER WITNESS

She stared at it. Then deleted the description. Calder watched. She replaced it. ELI N. VANTO — PRESENT AT FIRST IMPERIAL CONTACT. Below that: LANGUAGE INTERMEDIARY DURING INITIAL QUESTIONING. Then: PRESENT BEFORE PALACE PRESENTATION.

Calder leaned back. “He just became inconveniently important.”

“He was already inconveniently missing.”

“Now he’s more efficiently missing.”

Selra ignored him and continued.

The report recorded Thrawn’s account of exile. His people. Their prohibition against certain forms of preemptive action. His claim that his own conduct had resulted in his removal. His assessment that dangers existed beyond the Empire’s known frontier. His interest in Imperial strength. His stated desire to seek assistance for his people. Parck did not accept everything uncritically. The report contained caveats, inconsistencies and repeated recommendations that the alien’s claims be independently evaluated.

But another tone ran beneath the caution. Interest.

By the time Parck reached his conclusions, he had stopped describing Thrawn primarily as a security problem. He had begun describing him as an opportunity.

Selra found the sentence near the end. Not isolated. Not stripped into the fragment Caro had shown her. Here it sat in context. Parck recommended transport to Coruscant rather than conventional prisoner processing. He argued that the alien’s tactical ability, knowledge of uncharted regions and familiarity with threats beyond Imperial borders justified consideration at a level above ordinary Naval Intelligence handling.

Then, in a short concluding paragraph noticeably less formal than everything preceding it, came the phrase: A gift for the Emperor.

Selra read the surrounding paragraph twice.

Calder did too. Finally he said, “That does not answer it.”

“No.” It did not. If anything, the complete report made the phrase harder to use carelessly. Parck had plainly been impressed. More than impressed, perhaps. Selra went back several pages and reread the casualty summary, then the recommendation at the end. “There is something else,” she said. Calder looked over. She brought the two sections together: the dead Imperial personnel on one side, Parck’s recommendation against conventional prisoner processing on the other. “He attacked an Imperial landing party. Killed Imperial personnel, stole weapons, destroyed equipment, brought down a fighter, infiltrated a naval transport and only surrendered once he was aboard the Strikefast.”

“Six dead.”

“Yes.”

Calder understood where she was going. Under ordinary circumstances, an unidentified alien who had done all of that to Imperial servicemen on an unclaimed world would not have presented a particularly complicated administrative problem. “They could have executed him. Right on the spot.”

“Very easily.”

Selra scrolled back through Parck’s tactical observations. The captain had described the attacks in considerable detail: adaptation, misdirection, use of captured equipment, exploitation of Imperial search patterns. There was irritation in places, certainly, and no shortage of concern about the danger the unknown alien represented. But beneath it ran something else that became progressively harder to miss. Interest. “Parck didn’t want him dead,” she said.

Calder nodded slowly. “He wanted to know what he’d found.”

“And once he decided that, he had a procedural problem.”

Thrawn had no recognized nationality in Imperial records, no diplomatic status and no established species classification. He was not a prisoner of war because there was no recognized opposing government with which the Empire was at war, nor was he an Imperial citizen accused of killing servicemen. Under almost any ordinary legal framework, those absences should have forced someone aboard the Strikefast to decide what he was before deciding what could lawfully be done with him. And if he was filed as a criminal, he would had been executed or sent to a force labor camp in the best case.

The exploration directive gave Parck a way not to.

Selra pulled the mission authority into the display beside the first-contact report. The language was dry, broad and unmistakably written for expeditions entering places the Empire did not expect to find inhabited. Survey crews were authorized to recover objects, structures, equipment and other materials encountered on unregistered worlds when those items possessed scientific, military or intelligence value. Anything recovered could be removed from the site and transported for examination and eventual disposition by the appropriate Imperial authority.

Calder read the relevant paragraph, then looked at the inventory attached to Parck’s report. “They took the shelter and the camp.”

“Yes.”

The list was almost absurd in its completeness. Sections of the primitive hut. Containers. Tools. Improvised equipment. Materials from the camp. Objects whose purpose the landing party had not yet identified. The expedition had treated the entire site as recoverable material under the survey directive.

And then there was Thrawn.

Calder’s expression changed. “Oh.”

Selra understood the reaction. “Yes.”

There was no separate legal instrument in the report converting Mitth’raw’nuruodo into property. There did not need to be one for the immediate practical purpose Parck faced. The exploration authority already permitted him to remove what had been found on the planet for study, and the records gave no indication that Imperial procedure had stopped to establish that the blue-skinned sentient who had been living among those recovered effects belonged to a fundamentally different legal category.

Calder looked from the inventory to the transport manifest. “They took the camp.”

“And him.”

“Under the same mission authority.”

“It looks that way.”

That was worse than an explicit seizure order in one important respect. An explicit order would at least have required someone to identify what was being seized. This required only that Parck decide the discovery was worth bringing back.

And clearly he had.

Selra returned to the casualty section. Six Imperial personnel dead, captured weapons, destroyed equipment, a fighter brought down, an Imperial transport infiltrated. If Parck had regarded the unknown alien merely as a hostile responsible for killing his people, the easiest solution available to an Imperial captain on an unregistered frontier world would have been brutally uncomplicated.

“He could have had him killed on the spot,” Calder said.

“Yes.”

“Instead he took him with everything else.”

Selra looked toward the tactical assessment. By the end of it Parck was no longer writing about an irritating primitive who had ambushed his men. He was describing adaptability, planning, technical intelligence, disciplined use of captured equipment and an ability to manipulate trained Imperial personnel while operating alone. “Because Parck found him interesting.”

Calder nodded. “Interesting enough not to waste.” Neither of them particularly liked the phrasing. It was, however, difficult to improve.

Parck had an unusual sentient on his hands, no established legal category for him, several dead servicemen and a directive that allowed useful discoveries from the surveyed world to be removed and transported for examination. Treating Thrawn as another recovered item solved the immediate problem with almost obscene efficiency. It got him off the planet, onto an Imperial vessel and into the bureaucratic machinery without requiring Parck to answer any of the questions that would otherwise have arisen first: nationality, personhood, jurisdiction, detention authority, diplomatic status or legal capacity.

Selra sat back slowly. “It may never have been intended as a permanent status.”

“Probably not.”

“Parck needed to get him from the planet to someone with more authority.”

“And this was the mechanism already available to him.”

She nodded. That was the part that mattered now. A field expedient did not necessarily become harmless because its creator expected someone else to correct it later. Parck delivered his discovery upward. Palpatine found Thrawn useful. The Academy received an override. Naval Personnel received another. Each subsequent institution dealt with the immediate practical question placed before it—admit him, commission him, pay him, promote him, obey him—without any surviving record showing that somebody had ever gone back to the beginning and changed the legal premise under which he had entered Imperial control.

Calder was quiet for several seconds. “Nobody needed to fix it.”

Selra looked at him. “Not while it worked.”

Exactly.

Thrawn’s usefulness had become the reason the anomaly survived. The more valuable he became to Palpatine, the less incentive anyone had to ask whether the original administrative convenience had ever been legally corrected.

Selra looked again at the concluding paragraph of Parck’s report.

A gift for the Emperor.

In that context, the phrase acquired an entirely different weight. Parck had found something on an apparently empty world. The exploration directive allowed him to take what he found. He had taken the hut, the equipment, the contents of the camp— and Thrawn.

Calder let out a slow breath. “That gives usconsiderably more than an unfortunate choice of words.”

“It gives us a chain.”

“Not proof that it remained his status.”

“No.”

Selra looked at the absence between Parck’s report and the Academy override. “If we could know what happened during that audience… What made Palpatine put Thrawn into the command track?”

Calder stared at the screen, thinking. “Well, Thrawn was there and is still here… Antilles would have to ask him. Anyway…” Calder tapped the display. “What word does he use for Thrawn after surrender?”

They searched: Alien. Subject. Castaway. No citizen classification. No recognized foreign-national status. No prisoner-of-war designation. No diplomatic category. Nothing establishing ownership either.

The ambiguity had survived intact.

Selra sat back. “Caro is going to hate this.”

“Because it doesn’t prove his theory?”

“Because it gives him leverage and also twenty new questions.”

Calder considered that. “He’ll love it.”

“Yes.”

They looked at the report again.

Seven hours of archive work. Four obsolete security directives. Two droids that believed the Empire remained administratively inconvenienced rather than dead. One glimpse into a record structure neither of them particularly wanted to understand yet. And the complete first-contact report of Mitth’raw’nuruodo.

Calder rubbed both hands over his face. “I gave you this case.”

Selra looked at him. He stared at the document. There was no accusation in his voice. Mostly wonder, with perhaps a little grief for his own judgment. “Yes.”

“I want it formally recorded that, at the time, this was a useless unsolicited representation attempt with no client, no court and no fee agreement.”

“It is already formally recorded. You said it repeatedly.”

“I would like the historical context preserved.”

“I’ll ask Alex.”

“Thank you.”

Selra smiled.

Calder looked toward her. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “I’m glad you took it.” That caught her slightly off guard. He gestured toward the report. “I would have stopped when the first notice went out.” Selra said nothing. “That isn’t false modesty. I thought I knew what the file was. You didn’t.”

“I didn’t know either.”

“No. But you were curious enough to find out.”

There was no sensible answer to that which did not make the moment uncomfortable. Selra chose the practical one. “We need an authenticated copy, and the full continuity-cache provenance.”

“Yes. Also keep the access log showing exactly how we found it.”

“Already building it.” Of course she was.

They spent another forty minutes doing everything necessary to ensure that the best discovery either of them had made in months would survive contact with another lawyer.

CRV-19 authenticated the original checksum. PSS-4 reluctantly confirmed that the continuity copy had been generated automatically from the supporting assessment package before the audience occurred. The New Republic archival system added a current chain-of-custody certificate. Calder created an independent verification hash. Selra copied nothing to an ordinary firm terminal. The report went onto an isolated legal evidence wafer inside a sealed carrier. Only when that was done did she allow herself to look at the time. Twenty-one seventeen. “We missed dinner.”

Calder stood carefully. “I think we missed an entire social class of meals.”

Selra gathered her datapads.

CRV-19 approached. “Counselor Tann.”

“Yes?”

“One associated record remains unresolved.”

She stopped. Calder did too. The droid projected a single line. EXECUTIVE AUDIENCE REQUEST — SUPPORTING DISPOSITION REFERENCE Below it was a second identifier. Unlike the report, it did not resolve into the scheduling cache. Selra tried to open it. ACCESS DENIED — EXECUTIVE PERSONAL DISPOSITION. She looked at CRV-19. “What is that?”

“Metadata access restricted.”

“Does it concern Mitth’raw’nuruodo?”

A pause. “Association probable.”

Calder moved beside her. “Created before or after the audience?”

“After,” the droid confirmed.

Selra looked at the identifier. Something unpleasant moved quietly beneath the satisfaction of the afternoon.

They had found the complete report. They still did not know what Palpatine had done with the man described in it once the doors closed.

She copied the identifier. Nothing more. “Thank you, CRV.”

The archival droid inclined its head.

As they left, Calder glanced once back toward the rows of dormant Imperial terminals. “You know we’re coming back.”

“Yes.”

“I was afraid of that.”

The lift carried them upward. Neither spoke until the sealed doors opened onto the Republic-controlled level and, for the first time in eight hours, the walls stopped behaving as though Emperor Palpatine might return from lunch.

Selra took out her comm.

Antilles answered quickly. “Tann.”

“We found the Parck material.”

There was movement on the other end. “The audience request?”

“Not yet.” A pause.

Selra looked at Calder. He nodded. “We found something better.” Antilled was silent. “The original first-contact report,” Selra said. “Complete. Authenticated. Eighteen pages plus attachments.”

The silence changed. When Antilles answered, the amusement had disappeared completely from his voice. “Do not transmit it.”

“We weren’t going to.”

“Where are you?”

“Leaving the Palace archive.”

“Come directly back.” A second voice sounded faintly behind him: Sorn. Antilles said something Selra could not make out.

Then Sorn came onto the channel. “Counselor Tann.”

“Mr. Sorn.”

“Does the report identify anyone present at first contact other than Parck?”

Selra looked at Calder again. “Yes.”

“Who?” She could not help it. After eight hours underground, this part was almost enjoyable. “Eli Vanto.”

There was a very long pause.

Sorn said, “I see.”

Selra suspected he did. Far more quickly than she had. “He was there from the beginning,” she said. “He was involved in the initial communication. Sy Bisti. The report places him aboard the Strikefast during the first questioning.”

Antille’s voice returned somewhere in the background. “What?”

Selra smiled.

Alden did not.

“Bring the report,” he said. “Both of you.”

The channel closed.

Calder looked at her. “Both of us.”

“You earned it.”

“That sounds dangerously like professional recognition.”

“Don’t become difficult.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Selra had barely put the comm away when it chimed again. This time the message came from Corporate Services. VEHICLE DISPATCHED — IMPERIAL PALACE ARCHIVE ACCESS, EAST ADMINISTRATIVE EXIT. She looked at the display.

Calder leaned slightly toward her. “That was quick.”

“Apparently we are no longer trusted with public transport.”

“You are carrying the original first-contact report of Grand Admiral Thrawn.”

Selra glanced at the sealed evidence carrier between them. “Fair.”

A second line appeared beneath the first. CORPORATE AIRCAR — PRIORITY ROUTING AUTHORIZED. DRIVER INBOUND.

Calder gave a quiet laugh. “Not even a pool car.”

“What were you expecting?”

“After eight hours in an Imperial basement? A tram.”

“The firm has standards.”

“The firm has billing rates.”

They reached the east administrative exit several minutes later. The corporate aircar was already descending toward the Palace platform, one of the firm’s black executive vehicles rather than Sorn’s personal unit, its markings discreet enough to be invisible unless one knew where to look. The driver had evidently been told that this was not an ordinary collection; before either lawyer reached the vehicle, he was already outside, rear compartment open, waiting for the sealed carrier.

Selra kept hold of it. “This stays with us.”

“Of course, Counselor.” He opened the rear door instead.

Calder looked at the car, then at Selra. “You know, when I gave you this file, I genuinely thought it was going nowhere.”

“You have mentioned that.”

“I feel events continue to make the historical record less sympathetic to me.”

Selra climbed inside with the evidence carrier on her lap. Calder followed. The doors sealed, the privacy field engaged, and the aircar lifted away from the Palace almost immediately, climbing into a priority corridor toward the firm’s tower.

They had gone into the archive looking for the paperwork that explained how Voss Parck had obtained an audience with the Emperor.

They still did not have it.

Instead, Veyr, Antilles & Sorn had sent a corporate aircar to collect them because they had found the moment before the paperwork began.