Grand Moff Tarkin tells Thrawn that there’s been a problem.

Eli Vanto later walks in on Thrawn interviewing Orson Krennic over a priceless blue Kyber crystal that has gone missing. A week later, Galen Erso also goes missing from Eadu and Thrawn makes several deductions about his kidnapper/rescuer but after going through Erso's possessions on Lah'mu he finds Lucky Hazz Obloobitt among Jyn's possessions. A very annoyed Director Krennic returns and claims that he's found the missing Kyber Crystal in Thrawn's possession but Galen Erso hasn't reappeared. Thrawn denies culpability which Krennic doesn’t exactly believe and gives Krennic back his damn crystal.

While investigating Eli finds a connection between Bodhi Rook and Galen Erso but rather than working for the Rebels he's come to give himself up!

Turns out that Has Obitt - which Thrawn deduces from Jyn's toy -  has blackmailed Bodhi into giving himself up which Eli confirms and it was Obitt's idea to smuggle out a key Kyber Crystal to distract Director Krennic and then to steal Erso from underneath their noses while he was trying to find it! Bodhi, after a lot of persuasion, then tells Thrawn that they took Jyn and not her father and by the time that they'd realised their mistake, Erso had already escaped by himself.

Thrawn concludes that allowing Bodhi to be punished by Imperial justice will only be likely to push him towards the Rebellion and offers to Bodhi the opportunity to stay with his fleet where he can keep a close eye on him. Thrawn remarks that he isn't hired by the Empire to fix their every problems but Eli returns and has found Obitt who also claims that he is being blackmailed by Bodhi.

Eli says that one of them must be lying. Thrawn says that the mystery of Erso must be solved because he is vital to the Emperor’s plan and offers the solution that both of them have been telling the truth. Thrawn tells Eli to review all Bodhi, Krennic, Erso and Obitt footage.

Eli finds nothing.

Thrawn finds a loop in Obitt’s footage where he touches his nose and the subtle gesture is repeated more than once and concludes that the Imperial footage has been heavily doctored. He talks to Obitt and Bodhi and this time Obitt tells him something different, he was under Krennic’s thumb all along. Krennic claims that he wanted to flush out all the Rebel cell’s that would possibly liberate Galen Erso such as the potential traitor Bodhi but the exercise went wrong and Erso escaped under their thumbs.

Eli asks why Krennic would risk such a valuable asset like Erso for such a pointless exercise but Thrawn tells Eli that he is extremely disappointed in Eli’s deductive reasoning skills, he should have picked up on the loop. Eli remarks that Thrawn has a high estimation of his skills and Thrawn replies that Eli’s words confirm his suspicions all along  - Eli was the one who had blackmailed Obitt, Bodhi and Krennic and his being there was the reason why Thrawn was unable to get a direct useful reply from any of them.

Eli then replies that he wouldn’t have had the authority to doctor the footage and Thrawn says that he agrees, because Eli wasn’t the perpetrator but blackmailed into blackmailing Obitt, Bodhi and Krennic. He says that he knows exactly where Galen is so Krennic, Eli and Thrawn go up to Grand Moff Tarkin’s office.

Tarkin tells Krennic that Erso (the goose that laid golden eggs) is dead. Krennic is horrified and Thrawn tells him that Tarkin only wanted to see his reaction, when they walked into the room there was a chair opposite Tarkin which means that he had entertained a guest and the chair had been warm indicating that the chair had been recently sat in. Unless Tarkin was able to kill Erso and move the body in less than a few minutes Erso wasn’t dead. And besides, that wasn’t Tarkin’s MO nor would he want to mess up the DS project completely. The receptionist had also allowed them in directly and Thrawn concluded that Tarkin had been expecting a visit for a while.

Tarkin tells Krennic that it was as Thrawn said and that he can have Galen Erso back now. After Eli and Krennic leave Thrawn asks Tarkin what the point of the whole exercise was and Tarkin smiles thinly and wishes Thrawn a happy Empire Day. Thrawn observes that Krennic is still very nervous.