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For a few seconds, Hera had been sure the shouting and blasterfire they had heard echoing through the base were her crew trying to find her. Reckless, single-minded, fighting their way through these unfamiliar beings. The girls had held close to her, asking what was happening, and Hera hadn't dared answer. But then as the blastefire died down, as the voices grew quieter, she heard something else. Smooth, steady paces, the tap of boots. It was just before the cell door opened that Hera knew what was going to be on the other side of it.

And there was no escape. Three Stormtoopers stepped into the cell at once, moving to surround Hera and the two Chiss girls. The girls didn't keep asking questions, though they followed the Troopers with their eyes, and huddled behind Hera, trying to use her as a shield. The troopers were followed by an officer. Hera kept her eyes on the floor at first, but she looked up in surprise as the officer knelt down, and slowly approached her and the girls.

Hera realized then that the Empire knew what they'd find here. Or at least, they'd known part of it. When the girl closest to the officer flinched back, burying her face in Hera's shoulder, the officer looked at her.

"Who are you?"

She was wearing a rough-woven skirt and tunic, boots and a simple cap. Yet for a few seconds, Hera had forgotten that she might look different. That more likely than not, the Imps weren't going to recognize her. She closed her eyes, and took a moment to be grateful that the officer had spoken first. And then, to come up with a story.

A name. Nyn. A story. Captured by pirates, who traveled out into the far reaches, bordering the Unknown Regions, and sold her to these beings – the Grysk, the Imperials called them – who used her to watch over their stolen children. She used her Ryloth accent, spoke in halting sentences, kept her eyes on the floor, only stealing quick, frightened glances at her questioner. The girls wouldn't leave her, so the Imps had taken them all together, first into a shuttle from which Hera and the girls watched as it flew up into a Star Destroyer, then within that, an empty room that looked like it might be used as low-ranking officers' quarters. That surprised her, as did the fact that they brought water for her and the girls to drink, and even a few protein bars.

But whatever the Empire wants with these girls, she can't imagine it's anything better than the Grysk did. Sooner or later, she'll have to act. Even as she's far from her crew, with two children to take with her, and no hope of fighting an entire Star Destroyer alone.

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The older girl is looking fixedly at the wriggling droid, but just for a few seconds, then she steps to keep herself between the smaller girl and the view, deliberately looking away and focusing on anything else.

Thrawn appears not to notice anything at all, disturbed neither by the RA-7 droid's humanoid wriggling, nor by the half-full cart of droid arms and legs that some careless engineer left in the corridor. He does note the latter, though, as judicious chastisement can prompt improved performance, and this level of mess is unacceptable on his ship.

"Two more corridors," he murmurs to Syndulla, not looking over at her as he does so. "There will be vac suits in the shuttle, for emergencies. None will be small enough for the girls, but there may be a few for trainee cadets that will do."

This, of course, is when the blue lights on the wall that were previously signaling a drill go out.

"Ah," Thrawn observes, mildly. "Perhaps we might wish to pick up our pace."

Hera glances down to the girls. "Be ready to use that," she whispers, gesturing toward the cloaking device.

It doesn't take long for her to sense the movement - even from a distance, farther than she'd normally perceive, there's so much of it as troopers and crew pile into the stairwells and make their way to their normally assigned stations that Hera can nearly feel the floor vibrate under her feet. The girls are nearly running to stay with them now.

A door opens from another stairwell a few meters from them, and the girls disappear at once.

Thrawn's posture immediately becomes upright and stern, as does the set of his face.

His voice, when he speaks, is cool.

"Specialist Miran," he says to the frazzled-looking soldier emerging from the stairwell with half his crew behind him. "Task your crew to clean up the abandoned droid parts farther up the corridor. Such an obstacle could prove to be a convenient rallying point for our enemies during a shipboard incursion."

He waits a moment after he's finished speaking, raising one eyebrow as Miran stares up at him.

That seems to break the other man's paralysis.

"Yes, sir. On the double, sir."

Thrawn turns to watch them go back down the corridor, crimson gaze piercing and unimpressed. It does wonderfully for the crew's walking speed, which is entirely the point.

At the retreating steps, Hera steps out from the doorway she'd leaned into. She doesn't signal the girls to turn off the device until the hallway is empty again.

"You know they can deactivate a droid during maintenance," she points out, her voice rather flat again.

"Hmm?" Thrawn asks, turning at last from the direction the engineering crew moved in.

"Ah. Bringing them back up to full activity after a deactivation loses at least five minutes of productivity per droid. In the aggregate this is an unacceptable loss."

Perhaps with only one droid on her ship, a simple five minutes' loss is not terrible.

(Or she is very attached to said droid. Thrawn is fairly sure which end of that motivation he believes to be true.)

Hera mutters something rather unkind in Huttese.

Unfortunately, it's all she can do right now.

Thrawn appears not to notice.

(Or perhaps he does not speak Huttese. What value would there be in speaking the trade language of one of the more prominent criminal populations in the galaxy?)

"Droids notwithstanding, perhaps we would be best served in getting you and the girls onto a shuttle before any other personnel decide to begin their maintenance rounds."

Even as he speaks, he's opening the doors to the corridor of escape shuttles that lead down to the bay that holds the more comfortable and spacious shuttles that are also equipped with hyperdrive capability.

Hera follows him through the door.

"If I'm going to be outflying TIEs it'd be good to have something that can maneuver."

She's just saying.

He looks to her and raises one eyebrow.

Very dryly --

"I shall consider your preferences. Is there a model here that meets your standards?"

Hera glances around, then stops at the docking bay of Delta-class T-3c shuttle. Her eyes flicker from its composite plated, sloped hull, and its slender wings.

"That might work."

"Of course," Thrawn says smoothly, covering over any surprise he may or may not be feeling.

"A difficult loss for my ship, but hardly insurmountable."

And it's not one of the shuttles Lord Vader is prone to use, which means one less explosion to have to endure.

"It carries emergency rations, as well, should extraction take longer than you might wish."

I just hope it stays in one piece is something Hera might say. If not for the girls.

"Then it looks like this is it." She nods to the girls. "Go ahead."

Thrawn turns to the children, reaching out to take each of their hands in his.

In Sy Bisti --

"You may use my name for safe passage if need be. They will ask you questions about this place, about the Empire, about what we know. Tell them the truth."

And, back in Basic --

"Verisimilitude likely requires that you shoot me, as I assume we are both aware."

All right.

Hera wasn't expecting that.

She stays still a moment, then turns to the girls, and says a little more firmly, "Go ahead, get on the shuttle."

The girls look between them, quickly, but then the older girl takes the other's hand, and the run off through the docking bay.

Thrawn's smile is thin.

"Stun will also be less than convincing."

Chances are high that Vader will still know something is afoot, but Thrawn has his own leverage in these particular circumstances. He'd rather not spend it so, but --

"I would appreciate if you did not actively try to kill me at this particular juncture."

But all blaster wounds are potentially dangerous. He is well aware.

The truth is, Hera doesn't know what she's going to when she slips the blaster out from her skirt. She doesn't say anything to him as she levels her weapon, but then waits. Perhaps waiting for him to move after all.

And then suddenly, the blaster flicks, and Hera fires. She turns, and runs, as though she really were escaping.

The blaster bolt will hit close to his left shoulder.

Thrawn hisses in pain, immediately reaching up to put his hand over the wound -- perhaps to gauge the extent of the damage, perhaps just to better sell the story.

There's really not much time, but he does unhook his comms and smash them against the side of a neighboring shuttle, knocking over a few crates and firing his own blaster twice.

Hopefully by this point Hera has gotten the engines fired up and is poised to leave the hangar.

The girls are already strapped in when Hera runs into the shuttle. It doesn't seem like it's meant to hold too many passengers, probably high-value cargo, but there are two chairs in the cockpit behind the pilot's seat that the girls are already comfortably situated in.

Hera jumps into the pilot's seat and the ship lights up around her. She doesn't say anything to the girls as the shuttle rises up from the bay floor, and proceeds toward the opening into space.

Just as she reaches it, Suc'asaw'earmemm speaks. "Wait."

Hera almost ignores it, but there's a familiar tug to the girl's words, and Hera slows the shuttle just as the reach the edge of the bay. Just a few seconds later, a patrol of TIEs passes, flashing through the space beyond them.

Hera glances back to the younger girl, who gives her a small nod. And with that, she lifts the shuttle out of the bay, testing how quickly it can dart away from both the passing ties, and the looming Destroyer.

Thrawn just barely refrains from activating the alarm as he stumbles toward the wall, sagging against it for a moment while the shuttle hesitates. This would be very poor timing on his part, and that is not to be borne.

Once the shuttle is fully away, however, he gives it a count of thirty before he activates the alarm. Then, expression composed (if a little strained) he moves to find replacement comm gear and begin giving out instructions on how to entirely fail to capture Hera Syndulla. It will be an interesting challenge, and he finds himself wondering how much, exactly, Vader will understand.

Not that it matters. Not this time.

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