Queen

“Well, that was an interesting way to spend an hour,” Wutroow said as Ar’alani picked up her questis and stood up. “Any further orders, Admiral?”

“Just the one Ba’kif already gave you,” Ar’alani said. “Stay alert and watch for trouble. Oh, and if trouble does arrive, squash it.”

“The simple orders are always the best.” Wutroow cocked her head.

~

“He won’t fire,” Ar’alani said. []

“He might do it out of spite,” Wutroow warned.

“No.” Ar’alani cocked an eyebrow up at her. “You didn’t really think he wanted to follow the Syndicure’s orders, did you?”

Wutroow frowned. “Excuse me?”

“All that legal order blather was purely for the official record,” Ar’alani explained. []

“Interesting,” Wutroow murmured. “He certainly had me fooled.”

“As I said, that was the idea,” Ar’alani said. “But there were signs.”

“Such as?”

“Such as leaving his shoulder lasers powered down so Thrawn only had to disable the bow cluster,” Ar’alani said. “Such as chatting with me instead of simply tractoring in the frigate as soon as the shuttle was secured.” She gave Wutroow a small smile. “Such as trying to goad me into taking a shot at him so that he could pretend I’d distracted him long enough for Thrawn to slip out of his pin.”

“Thereby shifting some of the blame onto you?” Wutroow gave a gentle snort. “Nice of him.”

“I would have been willing to share it with him,” Ar’alani said. “And just for your private amusement, I was getting ready to fire on him anyway.”

~

Stars, I love her.

I love THEM.

[Thank you, thank you, thank you, Mr. Zahn, forever thank you]

[Photo: two extraordinary pins featured today. The uber-cute chibi Ar'alani by @cherriielle, with the Chiss Ascendancy logo by @fulcrum_pins in the background]