A skirmish occurred between Chiss forces and the Watith crew of a freighter during the Grysk Hegemony's plot to destroy the Chiss Ascendancy. The Watith Captain Fsir had been hired by "Jixtus" to destroy or delay Senior Captain Thrawn so he could not prevent a battle between Chiss Great Families over a supposedly valuable mining world.
While exploring leads related to the Nikardun campaigns, Thrawn encountered a distress call from a freighter identifying itself as the Saltbarrel, whose captain claimed to be under attack by Vagaari pirates. The Saltbarrel was attacked by three gunboats. Thrawn noted, however, that little damage was actually being done to the Saltbarrel and suspected that the "attack" was a trap. Thrawn decided to spring the trap to learn more about the enemy behind it.
Thrawn boarded the Watith freighter and saw what he correctly identified as remote-piloting systems aboard. The Watith crew of the Saltbarrel had been piloting the Watith gunboats that were apparently attacking their ship. Upon returning to his Springhawk, Thrawn ordered his crew to fire to disable the Saltbarrel. The Springhawk then captured the Saltbarrel, fourteen Watith gunboats, and the Watith crew.
Supreme Admiral Ja'fosk dispatched Senior Captain Mitth'raw'nuruodo (core name "Thrawn") and his Chiss heavy cruiser Springhawk to investigate rumors of Vagaari pirate remnants within the Chaos. Thrawn had eliminated the known Vagaari pirate threat to the Chiss Ascendancy during the Vagaari pirate operations. During the Nikardun campaigns, rumors of resurgent Vagaari pirates unnerved the Chiss Defense Force enough to dispatch Thrawn to investigate the rumors and, if correct, hunt down any such pirates.
The Defense Hierarchy Council had sent the Chiss heavy cruiser Grayshrike to assist Thrawn's search for pirates. Senior Captain Irizi'in'daro "Lakinda" normally commanded the Grayshrike. However, she had taken leave to answer a family emergency summons by her Xodlak family on the planet Celwis, leaving the Grayshrike under the command of her first officer Mid Captain Csap'ro'strob "Apros."
During the course of his investigation, Thrawn encountered a freighter, the Saltbarrel, whose captain, Fsir, claimed to be under attack by pirates. Fsir and his crew belonged to the Watith species and claimed to be prospecting a system to install a communications triad. The Saltbarrel was under fire from three gunboats, which were secretly being controlled by Watith crew of the Saltbarrel.
Fsir asked Thrawn and the Springhawk to intervene and defend his freighter. Thrawn refused on the grounds that they were on a critical mission which did not allow them to assist others. In reality, the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet had no such limitation on operations; Thrawn had made that justification up to gauge Fsir's reaction. The Senior Captain later explained that, if the Saltbarrel were really in trouble, captain Fsir would have argued the point. Instead, one of the three gunboats that had been attacking the Watith freighter broke off to attack the Springhawk—the minimum amount of aggression against the Chiss needed to justify combat. The Springhawk destroyed its attacker, after which the other two gunboats engaged the Chiss cruiser. The Springhawk destroyed those attackers as well, after which Thrawn engaged in discussion with Fsir.
Fsir explained the Watith's putative purpose for being in the system: prospecting to establish a comms triad. The Watith further alleged that they had been attacked by Vagaari pirates, but could not substantiate why he assumed the attackers were either Vagaari or pirates. Thrawn insisted on surveying the wreckage from the skirmish for analysis purposes, after which Fsir would lead the Springhawk to the location he insisted a Vagaari base was located.
The Springhawk accompanied the Saltbarrel on a jump-by-jump hyperspace journey to a planet that allegedly housed a Vagaari pirate base. On the Springhawk and Saltbarrels last stop before their destination system, Apros and the Grayshrike made contact with Thrawn. Senior Captain Thrawn suspected that the Watith were luring the Springhawk into a trap, and coordinated with Mid Captain Apros to reverse the trap onto its originators. The Grayshrike was to lie in wait on the far side of the alleged Vagaari base planet and perform an in-system jump to reinforce the Springhawk once Thrawn had confirmation of the Watith's treachery.
Senior Captain Thrawn captured the Saltbarrel and fourteen of the twenty remote-piloted Watith gunboats that had been aboard. He would come to use these commandeered vessels to prevent the start of a Chiss civil war during the Hoxim incident.
The skirmish against the Watith appeared in Timothy Zahn's 2021 novel Thrawn Ascendancy: Greater Good, the second volume in Star Wars: The Ascendancy Trilogy.