A brief battle took place between Chiss military personnel and the Watith individuals manning a transport ship during the Grysk Hegemony's scheme to eliminate the Chiss Ascendancy. Fsir, the Captain of the Watith ship, had been employed by "Jixtus" to either take out or hold up Senior Captain Thrawn, preventing him from stopping a conflict among Chiss Great Families over a supposedly rich mining planet.
While investigating information linked to the Nikardun campaigns, Thrawn received an emergency transmission from a transport ship identifying itself as the Saltbarrel. Its captain stated they were under attack by Vagaari marauders. The Saltbarrel was being fired upon by three attack craft. Thrawn observed, however, that minimal damage was actually occurring to the Saltbarrel, leading him to believe the "attack" was a setup. Thrawn decided to trigger the trap to gather more intel on the enemy orchestrating it.
Thrawn boarded the Watith transport and noticed what he correctly recognized as remote-control systems on board. The Watith crew of the Saltbarrel had been operating the Watith attack craft that were seemingly attacking their own vessel. After returning to his Springhawk, Thrawn gave the order for his crew to fire, disabling the Saltbarrel. Subsequently, the Springhawk seized the Saltbarrel, fourteen Watith attack craft, and the Watith crew.
Supreme Admiral Ja'fosk ordered Senior Captain Mitth'raw'nuruodo (his core name being "Thrawn") and his Chiss heavy cruiser Springhawk to look into reports of surviving Vagaari pirates in the Chaos. Thrawn had previously eliminated the known Vagaari pirate threat to the Chiss Ascendancy during the Vagaari pirate operations. During the Nikardun campaigns, whispers of a Vagaari pirate resurgence made the Chiss Defense Force uneasy enough to send Thrawn to investigate these rumors and, if substantiated, pursue and eliminate any such pirates.
The Defense Hierarchy Council had deployed the Chiss heavy cruiser Grayshrike to support Thrawn's pirate search. Senior Captain Irizi'in'daro, known as "Lakinda," usually commanded the Grayshrike. However, she was on leave to respond to an urgent family matter summoned by her Xodlak family on the world of Celwis, leaving the Grayshrike under the leadership of her second in command, Mid Captain Csap'ro'strob, referred to as "Apros."
During his investigation, Thrawn came across a transport vessel, the Saltbarrel, whose captain, Fsir, claimed they were under attack by pirates. Fsir and his crew were members of the Watith species and stated they were surveying a system to install a communications triad. The Saltbarrel was being targeted by three attack ships, which were secretly being controlled by Watith crew members aboard the Saltbarrel.
Fsir requested that Thrawn and the Springhawk step in and defend his transport. Thrawn declined, citing that they were on a critical mission that prevented them from assisting others. In reality, the Chiss Expansionary Defense Fleet had no such limitations on their operations; Thrawn fabricated this reason to assess Fsir's reaction. The Senior Captain later explained that, if the Saltbarrel were genuinely in danger, Captain Fsir would have argued the point. Instead, one of the three attack ships that had been attacking the Watith transport broke away to engage the Springhawk—the smallest amount of aggression against the Chiss necessary to justify combat. The Springhawk destroyed its attacker, after which the other two attack ships engaged the Chiss cruiser. The Springhawk destroyed those attackers as well, after which Thrawn engaged in discussion with Fsir.
Fsir explained the Watith's alleged reason for being in the system: surveying to establish a comms triad. The Watith further claimed that they had been attacked by Vagaari pirates, but could not explain 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 Saltbarrel's 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.