“If there were other families in the mix, I never saw them,” Thalias said sourly. “As for qualifications, I’ve got the full complement of eyes, ears, and brains. What else do I need?”

“That would be a question for the family,” Thrawn said. “But it leads to yet another question. If the family didn’t initiate your arrival, it was your doing. Why?”

Thalias braced herself. She’d hoped to avoid that question completely, but down deep she’d known it would eventually rise up to slap her in the face.

She’d come up with a couple of plausible-sounding lies, and for a moment she was tempted to use one of them. But sitting here, listening to his measured voice, she knew it would be useless. “It’s going to sound stupid,” she warned.

“Noted. Continue.”

She braced herself. “I just wanted to see you again,” she said. “You changed my life, and I…I wanted to see you again, that’s all.”

He frowned at her. “Really. How exactly did I change your life?”

“We met once before,” she said, feeling even more ridiculous. Of course he wouldn’t remember such a minor interaction. “It was a long time ago, when I was finishing my last trip as a sky-walker.”

“Ah, yes,” Thrawn said, still frowning. “Aboard the Tomra, when I was a cadet.”

“That’s right,” Thalias said, breathing a little easier. So he did remember her. That eased at least a little of the awkwardness she was feeling. “Captain Vorlip came in, you talked—”

“And she spun me around to see if I could really feel the ship as I’d claimed.”

“Yes,” Thalias said. “And you impressed her.”

“Did I?”

“Of course,” Thalias said. “She told me afterward that—”

“Because she also sent fifty downmarks ahead of me to Taharim.”

Thalias felt her eyes widen. “She did what? Why?”

“For unauthorized intrusion into the Tomra’s command area,” Thrawn said. “I was three months working them off.”

“But—” Thalias sputtered. “But she was impressed by you.”

“Perhaps as a person she was impressed,” Thrawn said. “Perhaps even as a spacefarer. But as an officer of the Chiss Ascendancy, she had a duty to enforce regulations.”

“But it was an honest mistake.”

“Intent and motivations are irrelevant,” Thrawn said. “Judgment can focus only on actions.”

“I suppose,” Thalias murmured, her gut twisting inside her. So his memory of her would always be linked to an unpleasant episode in his career. Wonderful.

“How exactly did our meeting change your life?”