Disclaimer: I don't own SW and I never will-so there!
Summary: Ariah Trin is a normal young woman, independant and having just moved out from under her parents' wings. The world was hers-until she met Thrawn, the evil Imperial warlord from Timothy Zahn Thrawn trilogy.
Note: This is nothing like Rebound, though similar in the beginning. It has a much different plot besides "bad-guy from book lands on earth and becomes good".
A/N: I've never really been good on Thrawn, and most of my Thrawn fanfics I end up deleting. I guess I don't feel worthy enough as a writer to have him in my stories.
Shadow of a Threat
"Sir, Section 4 has been isolated and cut off from the surrounding area. The Galistons are retreating."
"Good. They will not bother to regroup."
"Admiral—something just came out of hyperspace. Sector 002. Its traveling at eight thousand knots!"
"Shields—!"
KABOOM!
Somewhere in Kentucky…
Ariah Trin looked up at her watch. Ten fifteen. She needed to keep jogging for at least ten more minutes if she wanted to keep herself in top condition. She would start running after ten minutes was up, then she would go for an hour down Sharks Road, and then turn down to Shapp Street, where her cozy house was sitting below a cozy hill corner.
She was twenty-five, just starting to live completely by herself, and enjoyed taking long walks at night during violent thunderstorms.
Overhead, a bird cawed to her, and she smiled as a hawk circled in the air. Then another one circled. Another one.
Looking closer, she realized they weren't hawks, but vultures circling prey. And they were near her house. Her house which was isolated from everyone else's.
With a gasp, she ran as hard as her agile legs could. She didn't like buzzards. Never had.
At first, as she glanced out into her yard, she could see nothing. Nothing at all. But that was when she saw the badly injured figure on her porch, smoke rising from off charred clothing.
She ran up to him, praying that God would keep him alive.
He was wearing a white uniform reminiscient of Grand Admiral Thrawn's in Star Wars: the Thrawn Trilogy. His skin was painted a dark blue, and his hair was blue-black. But there was something about him that was different from other Star Wars fans who dressed up in costumes. Also, why would a mere fan be here on her porch bleeding and unconscious? Why would someone put a dressed up SW fan here anyway, if he had been carried?
Suddenly his eyes opened, and she saw the dull red glow of them. Her breath chilled within her, and her heart refused to beat.
No. No. It can't be. I'm hallucinating, she thought, panicking on the inside but remaining calm on the outside.
He said something in another language—Aurebresh? Huttese? She couldn't be certain. She had never heard such a language before. Then he slipped into unconsciousness.
An Imperial officer from Timothy Zahn's book is on my porch. If he is the genius of the books, then we're in big trouble. I must never allow him to see my art. Who would want to see my art anyway… she continued babbling to herself, fear creeping up and making her tremble. She hadn't thought Thrawn was scary in the books, and had even thought he was kind of cute, but now she realized what she had on her porch, and it sure wasn't a cuddly puppy.
Since he is just a character, and not real, I can kill him. Besides, I'll be doing the world a favor, she thought. But then she realized what would take place if she did kill Thrawn. Even if she was able to hide the dirty deed from the rest of the world, it would still haunt her, and each time he was assassinated by Rukh in the books, she would realize she was the one who killed him. She had never killed anyone or anything and decided not to allow that to change. And besides, what if all that happened in SW was true and George Lucas was a prophet?
Yeah, right, she thought as she checked Thrawn over. Because he was so "human" it was easy to forget about the threat of him, and she looked at him like a nurse does a patient, though she wasn't a nurse.
She couldn't really tell at first glance how bad he was injured, so she rushed into her house, grabbed the phone in the kitchen, and dialed 911.