Cover Artist: Scott Biel & Tom Jung

In Heir to the Empire, Grand Admiral Thrawn commented that he only ever faced one opponent that thwarted his ability to use art to defeat them. This throw-away line is the basis for this short story that was included with the 20th Anniversary Edition of Heir to the Empire.

Trevik of the Midli is a new attendant to the Queen of the Red. On his first day in her service, he is with her when she meets with Nuso Esva to discuss the destruction of Grand Admiral Thrawn. On Thrawn's flagship, he and his aides discuss how best to stop the threat of Nuso Esva as quickly as possible, before he causes serious harm to the people of Quethold, as he has done in the past on other planets. Thrawn's Stromma liaison, Nyama, provides information on the way the Quesoth culture works, and Thrawn details his plan to sneak a holocam into Nuso Esva's stronghold to view the art he has surrounded himself with. Nyama agrees to facilitate this plan as best he can before leaving. On the planet, Trevik is approached by his brother who explains that the Queen is under the control of Nuso Esva, and persuades him to carry a holocam into Nuso Esva's stronghold and film the art. Trevik agrees, only to prove that the Queen is behaving as she should. He succeeds in filming all the art without being caught and returns the camera, triumphant that the Queen is unaffected by Nuso Esva. Thrawn's crew receives the footage and he uses it to plan an assault on the city, but Nyama disagrees with his findings and pulls all of the Stromma out of the Imperial forces before the battle can be joined. As the Imperial forces begin their assault, Nuso Esva reveals to the Queen that he has predicted everything that Thrawn would do, including the holocam that Trevik brought in. He explains that he picked the artwork that he did, so that Thrawn would jump to the wrong conclusions about his plans, and walk right into a trap. The Queen will have the transports she needs to subvert the natural order of things on her planet by stealing the Imperial juggernauts once the troops have been killed. Everything appears to be going in Nuso Esva's favor, until his forces make a final push against the juggernauts. With the final commands given, Thrawn's forces discover the location of the last of the Queen's communications loudspeakers, and the leader of Thrawn's air forces, Baron Fel, begins his mission to sneak under the shields and destroy the loudspeakers. The Queen's forces breach the hatches of the juggernauts to find that they are stripped of all weaponry and useless to them, and she is unable to order her soldiers to do anything else, as the loudspeakers around them have been disabled. Thrawn's forces then fix up the speakers to broadcast a recorded message from the Queen to surround and protect her guests, but because Nuso Esva doesn't understand the language used, he assumes he has been betrayed, and kills the Queen in revenge, ensuring his own death at the hands of the soldiers. With the end of Nuso Esva, Thrawn tasks his forces to clean up the remainder of Nuso Esva's followers, while he begins his preparations to reenter Imperial space and bring about an end to the Rebellion.