Disclaimer: I am not George Lucas, and I do not own Star Wars or any of the other authors characters etc mentioned in this story. I am making no money off this, so please do not sue me.

1. A Eureka Moment!

Chimaera

In Thrawn's command chamber, Captain Pellaeon has just triggered chamber an alarm. As the wailing of the alarm cuts through the noise of the Chimaera at battle, Pellaeon finally manages to turn his head towards Thrawn.

Thrawn is sitting upright in his chair, his face strangely calm. In the middle of his chest, a dark red stain was spreading across the spotless white of his Grand Admiral's uniform. Glittering in the centre of the stain was the tip of Rukh's assassin's knife.

Thrawn caught his eye and to Pellaeon's astonishment, the Grand Admiral smiled, Thrawn whispers, "But it was so artistically done."

Thrawn falls silent, the glow of his red eyes slowly but steadily fading, a few seconds' later Thrawn stops breathing.

A few second after Thrawn had stopped breathing, a squad of stormtroopers bursts into Thrawn's room rifles at the ready, followed a few seconds later by a medic team. "Captain, are you injured?" one of the medics asks, Pellaeon in reply just shakes his head and points to Thrawn, indicating to concentrate on the Grand Admiral, to whom the other medics are already starting to attend to.

The communications officer calls urgently from the bridge, as the medical team arrives. "Captain Pellaeon? The Nemesis and Stormhawk are requesting orders. What shall I tell them?"

Pellaeon looked at the tactical display, at the chaos that had erupted behind the defences of the supposedly secure shipyards, the unexpected need to split his forces to its defence the Rebel fleet taking full advantage of the diversion. In the blink of an eye, the universe had suddenly turned against them.

The main Imperial base in the Bilbringi system was protected well enough and could hold out for up to ten years if needed, Pellaeon thought, Thrawn could still have pulled an Imperial victory out of it. However Pellaeon was not Thrawn, Pellaeon glanced at Thrawn, who was now mostly hidden by the medics working on Thrawn dead or alive he would not be making any decisions right now.

Realizing that he cannot bring victory to this battle so reluctantly into the communicator Pellaeon says, "Signal to all ships"

The next words Pellaeon are about to say, sticks in his throat, Pellaeon says, "Prepare to retreat."

Despite this disaster at Bilbringi, there are still things that needed to be done life goes on even after the death of the Grand Admiral. This first "good" thing to happen was that Rukh was intercepted and killed by a stormtrooper platoon in the hanger bay before he could make his escape led by a Captain Grodin Tierce. Good Pellaeon thought, one less problem to worry about, Pellaeon would put Captain Tierce and his stormtrooper platoon in for a commendation for their effort in killing Rukh.

During the brief hyperspace the medics confirm Thrawn's death first along with the Chimaera's doctors this news causes a shock on not only the bridge of the Chimaera but throughout the whole ship.

The bridge of the Chimaera is the quietest it has ever been since Pellaeon had joined the ship all those years ago.

Rendezvous Point

The Chimaera leaves hyperspace, along with the rest of the attack fleet, after that, everything suddenly becomes very, very busy, first thing is to regroup the Bilbringi attack fleet, then to find how many ships survived and those that have survived what level damage does each one have, then initiate temporary repairs were needed. Then give then the news of Thrawn's death to the various senior captains in Thrawn's fleet, and tell them it is secret, also tell them to call in all of those ships and troops that are under Thrawn's direct command to the border area with the Unknown Regions, where they are now, see how many come or even how many are willing to come, after that move to a secure base to regroup and carry out more extensive repairs to those damaged warships.

This last point, moving to a secure base to regroup, Pellaeon has an idea about where to go a place where Thrawn's fleet could repair its battle damage and have time to regroup and plan what to do next.

Another bit of news that does comes in, is that Joruus C'Baoth is missing presumed dead. Pellaeon thought, if C'Baoth is dead (he is), that would be the only good thing to come out of all this mess and at least he won't have to deal with the mad Dark Jedi, even though Pellaeon knew that he had no idea how to deal with a mad Dark Jedi!

The shock of Thrawn's of death would keep the various Captains in line over the short term and allow Pellaeon to retain some control over Thrawn's own fleet, for now Pellaeon would concentrate of regrouping Thrawn's forces and in the medium to long term trying to keep this force together.

Several days later, with the ships of Thrawn's Bilbringi's attack fleet are gathered, Pellaeon is pleased with what he and the other Captains have been able to achieve, then Pellaeon says to the communications officer "order the fleet to set course for Yaga Minor." The military commander of the Yaga Minor system and its shipyards is a friend of Pellaeon from the Imperial Academy and they had stayed friends with each other over the years, even helping each other out from time to time.

Pellaeon orders the fleet to jump into hyperspace for Yaga Minor, however before the jump into hyperspace Pellaeon orders that all the other warships of Thrawn's own command heading for the current coordinates be ordered to head towards Yaga Minor.

Pellaeon also has high hopes that all of the 178 Dreadnought class heavy cruisers of the "Dark Force" fleet would also arrive at the Yaga Minor system (these Dreadnoughts are crewed by clone troops that are loyal to Thrawn) to join with the Pellaeon's growing force of Imperial warships. These Dreadnought class heavy cruisers would be very useful, along with the other warships that are also expected to rendezvous at Yaga Minor over the next few weeks.

As the communications officer issues the orders, Grand Admiral Thrawn's fleet jumps towards the Yaga Minor system. During the journey Pellaeon has time to think of what to do next, with Bilbringi and the cloning facilities on Wayland are both lost and several other recently taken systems about to fall back into Rebels hand, nothing can be done about that. Though there are rumours that several of the Imperial Warlords are grouping their forces for an all out attack against the Rebels, however Pellaeon does not hold much faith in the various Imperial Warlords ability to stay untied for very long.

Pellaeon thinks to himself that even various Imperial Warlords do manage to organize themselves it probably will not last, as they are sure to start fighting amongst themselves again.

Chimaera's Sickbay

As the Chimaera speeds through hyperspace towards Yaga Minor, in the Chimaera's sickbay, Pellaeon was alone with Thrawn's body trying to think what Thrawn would have done with this disaster, after an hour Pellaeon suddenly has a flash of inspiration, in that Thrawn may have left instruction in case of his death.

Pellaeon returns to his quarters, now sitting in front of his computer with the door locked and guarded, Pellaeon says, "Computer this is Captain Gilad Pellaeon commander of the Chimaera, verify" after a few seconds the Chimaera's computer replied, "Confirmed"

Pellaeon says, "Computer, did Grand Admiral Thrawn leave any instructions for me in the event of his death?"

After waiting for several seconds (it seemed like eternity to Pellaeon), the Chimaera's computer replied, "Confirmed, Grand Admiral Thrawn has left you instructions, would you like to listen to the message now?" A stunned Pellaeon looked at the computer screen for half a minute, then the Chimaera's computer again asked if he would like to read the instructions, to which Pellaeon reply is yes.

A holo of Grand Admiral Thrawn appears in front of Pellaeon, who shivers at the sight of the Grand Admiral, then Thrawn begins to speak and Pellaeon feels that Thrawn is really in the room with him. After Thrawn message is finished the ships computer copies Thrawn's instructions to a data disk, as per Pellaeon's instructions, Pellaeon puts the disk in his personnel safe.

Now that Captain Pellaeon has his orders from Thrawn, on what to do next, Pellaeon should also be able to keep Thrawn's own fleet together permanently with these instructions. Pellaeon can feel that he is alive again, this time there will be no errors, and Thrawn's instructions will be carried out to the letter. Pellaeon thinks to himself, won't the other Captains be surprised at this turn of events, which makes Pellaeon smile for the first time since Thrawn's death.

Back on the bridge of the Chimaera Pellaeon flicks on the ship wide broadcast and says, "This is the Captain, I have just finished checking with the ships computer and Grand Admiral Thrawn has left instructions for me in the event of his death. Once we arrive in the Yaga Minor system I will be summoning the other senior Captains to the Chimaera to review Grand Admiral Thrawn's orders that is all." Pellaeon then switches of the ship wide broadcast Pellaeon thinks to himself that is was good to say "orders" rather than "final orders."

Around the bridge crewmembers give each other surprised glances, some even smile at the thought that Thrawn has planned for his own death. The mood on the bridge of the Chimaera has now picked up for the first time since Thrawn's death.

Yaga Minor System

The Chimaera along with the rest of Thrawn's fleet comes out of hyperspace in to the Yaga Minor System, a few minutes after that the rest of the 178 Dreadnought class heavy cruisers of the "Dark Force" fleet also comes out of hyperspace to join up with Thrawn's fleet, along with other warships, that will be coming to Yaga Minor over the next few weeks from across the remains of the partially rebuilt Empire.

For now Pellaeon had to deal with the other senior Captain's in Thrawn's fleet, Pellaeon says, "Communications contact all the senior Captains and invite them to come onboard the Chimaera, let them know that Grand Admiral Thrawn had left orders in the event of his death."

The communications officer replies, "Aye air" and after a short while says, "Captain, all senior Captains acknowledge and are on their way."

Pellaeon replies, "Good, let the main hanger bay know we have guests and instruct the deck officer to escort the Captains to the Chimaera's main conference room."

The communications officer replies, "Aye air"

Chimaera's main conference room

An hour after the request had been sent, the other senior captains began to arrive onboard the Chimaera, all of these senior captains commanded Imperial class star destroyers and had thrown their lot in with Thrawn's return (though these Captains did not represent the entire Imperial fleet, only those that had decided to join Thrawn). Now that Pellaeon had indicated to these senior captains that Thrawn had left instructions, they are now more willing to follow Pellaeon's orders than they would have been if Thrawn had died without leaving instructions.

As the Captain's gathered in the Chimaera's main conference room, with some allied to Pellaeon, especially those of Thrawn's command squadron, some like Captain Dorja, Dorja had several other star destroyer captain's with him but not many. The main block of power within Thrawn's fleet lie's with Captain Hearman, the Captain of the Stormtide, the reason is that Captain Hearman can bring at least twenty other star destroyer captains' with him, if he decides to support Pellaeon, the rest of the fleet will follow.

Captain Hearman is much like Pellaeon, a career officer and has managed to avoid being promoted to admiral and maintained command of the ISD Stormtide for over fifteen years, even seeing the Stormtide upgraded from a Mark 1 to a Mark 2 Imperial class star destroyer. In addition, Captain Hearman has trained a large number of the current crop of star destroyer captains that he brought with him when Thrawn returned just over eighteen months, as Captain Hearman also has no love for the power hungry civilian Imperial Moffs and Governors just like Pellaeon.

As the other Captain's file info the Chimaera's main conference room and start to settle down for the briefing, Pellaeon notices that Captain Dorja is not a happy one, presumably because Pellaeon has found orders from Thrawn.

Once everyone is settled, Pellaeon says, "Welcome, I will start by playing Thrawn's final orders first, then we will decide on what happens next."

With that Pellaeon dims the room's lights and plays Thrawn's message.

Once the message has finished, to a very stunned group of Captains, Pellaeon says, "I will distribute copies of Thrawn's orders, these instructions are for your eyes only, are there any questions."

The first to speak is Captain Hearman, who stands up, with all eyes on him, Captain Hearman says, "No Questions from me Captain Pellaeon, as per Grand Admiral Thrawn's orders I will place my star destroyer under your command Captain Pellaeon."

Pellaeon replies, "Thank you Captain Hearman, I am honoured" saluting Captain Hearman, who returns Pellaeon's salute. Pellaeon thinks to himself that the rest of the senior captains will follow him now in addition Captain Hearman does not really want to be led by a power hungry civilian Imperial Moff or Governor.

After that one by one the other Captain's pledge there support to Pellaeon, making Pellaeon the new commander of Thrawn's fleet, with Captain Dorja being one of the last to place his star destroyer under Pellaeon's command. With the senior Fleet Captain's backing Pellaeon, the rest of the fleet would follow, as is the Imperial military way.

Once Pellaeon has their support, he says, "Now down to business"

The work has now begun to follow Thrawn's final order.

To be continued.