Star Wars_ X-Wing 08_ Isard's Revenge - Michael A. Stackpole [14]
“If you wanted me dead, the garrote would have gotten me. Will providing us some illumination kill me?”
Silence answered him.
Krennel looked over at his left hand and hit the switch. The tall room’s lighting came from a bank of glow panels built in nearly three meters off the floor. They cast their light up at the domed ceiling, which then reflected it back down. The whole room, which had been decorated in grays, tans, and browns, glowed warmly. Krennel let the light build, then pulled himself up to his full height and slowly turned toward his visitor. He knew he would make an impression, and given the situation, that impression would be important.
And yet, as it turned out, it would be trivial compared to the one made by his visitor.
He’d not seen her in years—save for disturbing dreams from time to time. Barely shorter than he was, she wore her long black hair unbound. Two white sidelocks framed a face that would have made the woman the toast of any number of planets. Her high forehead, strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, and straight nose all combined to make her a rare beauty, but two other elements spoiled the effect.
One element was her eyes. The left one smoldered a molten red, as if the iris were radioactively bloodshot. The pale blue of the other eye seemed colder than frozen methane, and her stare sent a shiver down Krennel’s spine. She exuded power, and Krennel found it very seductive, but he also knew she would consume him if she found a way to destroy him.
The other thing that spoiled her beauty was a network of raised scars radiating out from a small puckered crater below her right temple. Krennel studied her closely for a second and thought he saw enough asymmetry in her face to suppose those scars were a sign of massive trauma that had been surgically repaired. He recalled that Rogue Squadron had claimed to have killed her when they ousted her from Thyferra, but her presence in his office put the lie to that story.
Krennel slowly removed the twisted garrote wire and tossed it on the floor between them. “You had a point you wished to make with this, Ysanne Isard?”
The woman smiled coldly. “I could have killed you here, in your office. Your people would have awakened tomorrow morning with me in your place. It is important that you know I could have taken over for you in the blink of an eye, so you will believe me when I tell you that doing so is not my intention.”
Her words came evenly and calmly, and Krennel allowed himself to mull them over before replying. He searched them for her true agenda, not wanting to accept that she was being truthful with him. The second I allow myself to even imagine she does not have another plan working here, I am dead. Still, knowing how perilous a judgment it was, he couldn’t find her deception. Yet.
“You do have a purpose here, then?”
“The same purpose as always: the preservation of my master’s Empire.”
Krennel allowed himself to laugh, then seated himself on the edge of his broad desk. “Your injuries might have cost you a painful memory or two: such as the loss of Imperial Center and the Emperor’s death.”
Isard’s expression sharpened. “I remember those things very well. I carry the pain of those memories in my heart.”
You have a heart? Krennel kept his expression bland. “Then you must also know the best hope of reestablishing the Empire is now dead.”
“Really? You think Thrawn was that hope?”
He arched an eyebrow at her. “You don’t?”
She pressed her hands together, fingertip to fingertip. “Thrawn was brilliant, there was no taking that away from him. But he lacked the vision he needed. He was stunning when fulfilling the missions he’d been given. You and he clashed over conduct in the Unknown Region, out there in the wilds of the galaxy, but I doubt anyone