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Years ago, when then Commodore Thrawn had come aboard his new star destroyer, aide in tow, the old guard had been defensive, uncomfortable. They were stiff and stilted with the newcomers, choosing to be as formal as possible, and the number of transfer requests had more than quadrupled. But when Thrawn and Vanto had shown they were nothing to be feared—unless you chose to be lazy or happened to be too arrogant to absorb a lesson to improve upon deficiencies—that posturing fell away and Thrawn had taken to crafting his ship into what it is today: the crown jewel of the Seventh Fleet; the premiere ship to serve aboard in all of the Imperial Navy.
(Provided you weren’t xenophobic, that is.)
Now? Well. Now, people fight to serve in the fleet and on the Chimaera even more so. Thrawn can afford to be selective, yet Faro notes that most of the personnel transfers she sends his way are actually approved by Vanto.
Of course, most of the crew has feelings about Thrawn and Vanto—the pair of them may as well be married, as far as most of the bridge crew is concerned. They’re together almost all of the time, and Thrawn is very pointed in his education and development of Vanto’s admittedly freakish ability to be almost as good as Thrawn at predicting things before they even happen.
That brings Faro to the young woman who stands before her. Lieutenant Eifrodeet Pyrondi is standing ramrod straight and locked up, her cheeks flushed and pink and her chest heaving with breath.
“Tell me what’s wrong, Lieutenant,” Faro beckons.
Pyrondi looks away, fists clenching at her sides, and but to her credit, finds the strength to make eye contact once more. “Admiral Thrawn, ma’am. He caught me engaged in…” she swallows, “An amorous encounter in one of the maintenance closets with—”
“Commander Lorelai Hammerly,” Faro finishes, already having had an inkling of the happenings herself. Hammerly was rather obvious in her affection for the younger woman. “He’s got a knack for that.” If she had a credit for every lieutenant or ensign who was ready to wet themselves because Thrawn somehow managed to appear in the exact place of a covert liaison. “What happened after he discovered you?”
“He told us to move our activities somewhere more secluded and locked the door behind himself as he left.”
She shakes her head. “You’re new to the Chimaera,” she tells Pyrondi. “And you’re new to Thrawn. Hammerly is not. How did she react?”
Pyrondi shrugs, shifting her weight from leg to leg a little uncomfortably. “Honestly, ma’am, she was embarrassed but not nearly as concerned as I am, which I expect is because she’s got seniority. I’m going to be transferred, aren’t I?”
Faro scoffs. “With your weaponry aptitude test scores? Please.” Thrawn had been downright giddy when she’d presented him and Vanto with Pyrondi’s aptitude tests—she had made sure to do so in person. “You won’t be going anywhere. Admiral Thrawn does not appreciate being bombarded with… well, we’ll call them states of passion, but he understands—“ or at least Vanto has, er, educated him on the subject “—that long campaigns in deep space get lonely. I assure you he doesn’t plan to throw you out because you made out with a sensor officer in a maintenance closet. The Chimaera isn’t like that.”
Especially since Thrawn is a lot of things, but most assuredly not a hypocrite. Faro has it on high authority that Quartermaster Temvin caught him and Vanto in a rather compromising position in the ancillary stockroom just last week.