The Freak Fleet 'verse: A series of stories exploring the dynamics among Grand Admiral Thrawn, Pellaeon, Covell, Parck, Niriz, Dorja, and other members of the Seventh Fleet. Legends cast in Rebels, a couple of OCs. Mix of Canon and Legends (Essentially AU). Serious, as well as not-so-serious fics. Semi-crack.
The Freak Fleet - Breaking the Ice - Of Chiss and Men - Witch Hunt - Second Chances - Chance Encounters - The Evil So Terrible It Tried To Black Out The Stars - An Unstoppable Force Meets an Immovable Object - All Roads Lead to Coruscant - Freak Fleet Files - A Kingdom of Isolation
Author's Note: In this fic, Thrawn is still Admiral, Parck is Captain of the ISD Chimaera, Niriz and Pellaeon are XOs.
Written before Thrawn novel, therefore it follows the old Imperial Navy rank system (in summary, leaving out a couple of ranks):
Ensign - Lieutenant - Lieutenant Commander - Commander - Captain - Vice Admiral - Admiral - Fleet Admiral - Grand Admiral
When Commander Pellaeon finally made his way past all dignitaries at the Grand Reception of the Winter Fete, he found Captain Parck deeply engaged in a one sided conversation with Admiral Thrawn at one of the small, private coaches in the Eastern Wing of the Imperial Palace.
"Ah, there he is. Commander Pellaeon!"
Captain Parck motioned him to join them.
"Please, have a seat. I was just about to tell the Admiral about Wynssa Starflare's latest holonet drama based on a story of the famous Alderaanian writer Yoshiki Tanaka."
Pellaeon gave his superior officers a polite bow and sat down opposite to them. He absentmindedly nodded at the service droid which had promptly appeared next to him to get him a glass of the same drink the two men had been drinking.
"Ah, that is hardly a breaking news, sir, the last episode aired on the HoloNet over two months ago," Pellaeon supplied, taking the offered drink from the tray; to his surprise it had appeared to be an old Correlian whisky, one of his favorite brands from his homeworld.
Captain Parck rewarded him with a lopsided grin. "It is a breaking news to the Admiral."
Pellaeon took a sip from the glass to hide his smirk. Somehow it did not surprise him that Admiral Thrawn had paid little attention to the HoloNet or Holovision blockbusters. Their alien admiral was interested only in high culture, spending all his off-duty time in his suite appreciating the most famous works of art the galaxy had to offer. Pellaeon supposed it was a nothing short of a miracle for Admiral Thrawn to be even aware an actress and producer named Wynssa Starflare existed.
The crew, on the other hand, adored Wynssa Starflare's holodramas. There were only so many things one could do in their leisure time aboard a Star Destroyer to keep themselves from dying of boredom. The whole Seventh Fleet must have been completely hooked on the brave adventures of Kaiser Reinhard and his beautiful sister Annerose.
Captain Parck then proceeded with outlining the basic storyline to Admiral Thrawn who clearly didn't share their fondness for the space opera genre; the alien features were as impassive as ever, but his lips were pressed into a thin line, his glowing red eyes having the distant look he had appeared to have during exceptionally boring political gatherings.
In other words, the Admiral found it a complete waste of his precious time and attention.
However, what made Pellaeon stop and stare was the fact that the Admiral did not simply cut the Captain off. By all means, he had the full right to reprimand Captain Parck and remind him that he had overstepped his boundaries. True, Admiral Thrawn made them all listen to his never ending lectures about art but that was his right as their commanding officer. The Captain, though, had absolutely no right to make his superior listen to his overly enthusiastic retelling of Yoshiki Tanaka's space opera.
And yet as he listened to the Captain's amicable tone and watched the Admiral's face cringe and quickly hide it behind a sip from his Correlian whisky, Pellaeon couldn't help thinking it reminded him of two old friends who did not share but respected each other's hobbies.
While friendly relations among officers were tolerated, Admiral Thrawn always remained cold and distant to everyone, never playing favorites, never engaging in a small talk; a true natural born leader surrounded by his servants, wearing the admiral's uniform as if it was his second skin. It was impossible to imagine him having been anything else.
"Something you might want to share with us, Commander?" Admiral Thrawn's smooth, measured voice broke his line of thoughts.
Pellaeon realized he must have been staring, feeling like an ensign caught eavesdropping on a conversation between two ranking officers. He straightened in his chair and cleared his throat, putting the half raised glass back on the table.
"Please excuse my bluntness, Admiral," Pellaeon mumbled in an apology, "but you and Captain Parck seem better acquainted than records would indicate."
There was a reason why Commander Pellaeon was the beta shift regular executive officer: he and Admiral Thrawn simply did not get along. Captain Parck followed every single one of Admiral Thrawn's seemingly illogical orders without hesitation, Commander Niriz only expressed concern for the Admiral's safety when he decided to take part in a ground assault from time to time, however, it was Pellaeon who could never stop himself from suggesting a different approach, offering an alternate solution.
While Admiral Thrawn's orders seemed completely illogical at first, it all fell into place in a hindsight, as if the Admiral could use the Force to enter his opponents' mind and predict all their movements. The alien commander scored a victory after victory, rising quickly through the ranks, giving them all enough opportunities to shine and make names for themselves as well. Their enemies rarely struck on schedule, thus Pellaeon often found himself leading the battle and waking up the Admiral.
And Admiral Thrawn had always answered his call. Even at the oddest hours he appeared wide awake and immaculate as ever, as if he never slept, as if it never bothered him to come to his rescue. Then he proceeded to give him and the ongoing battle a long contemplative look and countermanded most of his orders, using a completely different strategy. Every time it made Pellaeon feel like an ensign who had just graduated from the Academy.
Even though he and Commander Niriz happened to be very good friends, lately there has been a certain rivalry between them. A new task force consisting of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer and several Victory-class Star Destroyers would soon arrive freshly from the docks as a newest addition to the Seventh Fleet, a new vice admiral and a new captain positions opening up. It would be Parck, of course, who would be promoted to the rank of a vice admiral, the man had certainly earned it and his promotion was long overdue.
That meant the position of the flagship's captain would open up as well, and there was no way Admiral Thrawn would have ever chose a man who dared to talk back as his second-in-command. Pellaeon, however, didn't want to be a captain of any other ship but ISD Chimaera.
The Admiral was watching him with the strange, glowing red eyes, his alien face as unreadable as ever. Captain Parck abruptly stopped in a mid-sentence, his eyes darting between Pellaeon and Thrawn.
Pellaeon suppressed a grimace. Splendid, once again he had overstepped his boundaries; the Admiral's past and background had always been off-limits.
"Captain Parck and I have been acquainted with each other for fifteen years, seven months, and twelve days to be exact." The Admiral said in such an off-hand manner as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe.
Pellaeon almost jumped from his seat in a surprise. The two had known each other for more than fifteen years?
I've got the observational skills of a mynock, Pellaeon thought in embarrassment. There was no way he would ever become a captain of an Imperial-class Star Destroyer, even a Victory-class Destroyer was forever out of his grasp.
Captain Parck decided to take a pity on him. "Commander," he said with a deep sigh, "please believe me when I say it's not you."
He crossed his arms in front of him in an annoyance.
"He is as tight-lipped as…" Captain Parck trailed off, seeming to be searching for a comparison. "Well, I guess I just invented a new idiom, 'to be as tight-lipped as a Chiss.'"
"Captain, please,..." Thrawn admonished.
The Chiss, that must have been the proper term, focused his deep glowing gaze at the Captain, a one such glace would be enough to put even the most insubordinate crewmen back to their place. Yet this time those eyes held no threat.
Pellaeon blinked.
The situation could not have possibly gotten more absurd. Captain Parck has just talked back to Admiral Thrawn and the Admiral let him get away with it. The Captain never, ever disagreed with the Admiral; the man had always followed all Thrawn's instructions to the letter and never deviated from his orders.
"Since the Admiral finally decided to break the proverbial ice," Parck let out a chuckle as if the last word held an another hidden meaning, "I assume he has no objection to me finally breathing a word to another soul about how he ended up as my prisoner on Strikefast all those years ago."
The Chiss admiral took a sip from his glass, his face completely unreadable.
"The Captain misremembers. I allowed myself be taken prisoner."
Pellaeon let out a sound that might have been a choke. It definitely sounded like a joke but the Admiral had been deadly serious, giving Parck a disapproving frown. Either Thrawn really had let himself be taken captive or he had at least believed so.
The Captain paid little attention to both of them, leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs, his eyes getting a distant, dreamlike look.
"We had been chasing smugglers into an uncharted territory," he began, his voice full of nostalgia, "and found ourselves dropping out of hyperspace close to an unknown world. We launched starfighters after them but they managed to escape and hide on the planet's surface. So we sent out a ground assault team to find the smugglers and retrieve our fallen pilots."
A smirk appeared on Parck's face.
"And we stumbled upon a hut of an alien warrior who managed to make us run for our lives."
There was no doubt as of the identity of the said alien. Something told Pellaeon that there was much more to that story, that the most important details had been left out, that the Admiral had most certainly not originated from a primitive backwater world, but neither Parck nor Thrawn seemed to elaborate further.
"He took a dead pilot's commlink and hid away the body, filling his suit with fermented berries that attracted attention of local predators. He took apart a blaster and used the powerpack as an explosive and threw more of those nasty berries at us that attracted even more local animals. When we cut off the dead pilot's commlink, he proceeded to lay a monofilament string to the treetops, causing one of our fighters to crash. He stole a commlink of the other pilot and switched them without us noticing."
Pellaeon threw a shocked glance at the Admiral who only nodded in confirmation, his face as impassive as ever.
"And then he set off more explosives and found a way to jam our communications, creating a diversion so we would not notice he had sneaked aboard our shuttle when we finally decided to abandon that wretched mission. However, I quickly realized that there had to be a hidden passenger aboard, so I ordered my men to wait until he left his hiding place and in the end we managed to subdue him."
The Captain finished his story with a triumphant smile.
The Admiral tilted his head to a side and raised an eyebrow.
"I am afraid that it is rather… loose interpretation of the real events that had occurred later that day. Nevertheless it is clear even from the Captain's version that I surrendered willingly and I allowed them to take me as their prisoner. I could have easily taken over their crew and their ship."
Captain Parck's face turned into a scowl, apparently not pleased to be robbed of his great victory against the Chiss.
"And of course, I can't leave out the best part," Parck said mischievously, taking a deep sip from his Corellian whisky to muster his courage. "The Admiral, bound in shackles, looking like a savage, with long unkempt hair, dressed in nothing but skins and furs."
Pellaeon flinched and looked at the Admiral who had been staring blankly ahead, the alien features unreadable, his eyes giving out a dim, steady glow.
How long Admiral Thrawn had spent on that world? How did he end up marooned on a backwater planet with no means of escape? Pellaeon knew for sure it couldn't have been a simple accident. His thoughts must have been clearly written on his face for Captain Parck sighed and shook his head.
"I am sure the Admiral will tell us the whole story behind his exile one day."
As tight-lipped as a Chiss. Probably the most fitting comparison in the Galaxy.
"Perhaps, perhaps not," Thrawn said enigmatically, and then he focused his gaze on Pellaeon, giving him a long, measuring glance that always made him downright uncomfortable. It was as if the red eyes could see right through his soul.
"In any case, I can provide the Captain with more detailed and completely accurate retelling of the events that happened later that day."
Then suddenly, Pellaeon realized that he had been recalled from his night shift duty for a completely different reason. Admiral Thrawn tended to avoid social gatherings and fetes like a plague, exchanging only few polite words with dignitaries and moffs, retreating to the ship as soon as the protocol would allow. He never withdrew into the private rooms that served as a place where the guests could hold an uninterrupted private conversation.
"I thought…" Pellaeon blurted out, trying hard to keep his voice even and failing. "Sir, you have placed me on the night watch duty for the past year..."
"Exactly." Thrawn nodded, still looking directly at him with that deep probing gaze. "I focused my attention on Captain Parck and Commander Niriz because I needed to make them acquainted with each other's command styles; they were in need of my guidance and tutoring to be fully prepared for the task I envisioned for them. I appointed you as the beta shift executive officer because I knew the Chimaera would be in good hands."
Pellaeon opened his mouth but no sound would come out of his throat. He was completely, utterly at loss at what to say.
Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Captain Parck breaking into a wide grin.
Thrawn abruptly stood up to his full height and offered him his right hand.
"There is an opening for the position of the Seventh Fleet flagship's captain. I would be honored if you accepted the post and became my second-in-command, Captain Pellaeon."
THE END
Oh, and by the way, watch The Legend of the Galactic Heroes (Ginga Eiyuu Densetsu 銀河英雄伝説 ) based on Yoshiki Tanaka's epic novels (unfortunately, the books are available only in Japanese). It's even nicknamed the Japanese Star Wars. A must watch for all Thrawn fans! You will love Kaiser Reinhard and his fleet admirals.
Parck approved material!