Thrawn's Defeat:

D27/1 BBY, Unknown Space

"I see your defeat. Like many arms surrounding you in a cold embrace."

Mitth'raw'nuruodo endured the freezing vacuum of space, held snugly in the purrgil's tentacles, cursing the stupid prophesy of the strange creature on Atallon that kept repeating over and over in his mind. For the last twelve humiliating hours that saying had been replaying like a metronome. Repetitive and never ending.

But like he'd once said to the Emperor, he was a warrior, and warriors will experience victory or defeat, but they never cease to serve. And in this case, he had a duty to his fleet to survive this unexpected displacement and lead them back to safety. Although not the safety of Core space that they would be expecting. He fully intended to keep the 7th Fleet for the Chiss to use in protecting their own section of space against the deadly Far Outsiders and the Empire. Bridger had made one fatal mistake when he directed the purrgil to take his fleet away; Thrawn was quite familiar with the so called unknown regions of space, having memorized the star maps of the Chiss explorers long ago, before going undercover to infiltrate the Empire.

With this newest development Thrawn considered that mission to be completed now. A mission that had lasted for more years than he cared to think about. He had more than enough information to take back to the Chiss Ascendency on the Empire. And he'd come to his final conclusion as well. The Emperor was not to be trusted and allying with the Empire would be detrimental to the well being of the Chiss. He'd done everything he could to slow down the construction of the Death Star, considering it to be a serious threat to his people, but it had all been for naught now that his Defender program was permanently on hold. Such a shame too, as those fighters were a thing of absolute beauty. At least he had two in the Chimaera's hangar to keep for himself and base future designs of fighters on.

After watching Bridger leave with a cocky smile and an equally cheeky salute, Thrawn counted the seconds, already calculating how long it would take the boy to reach an escape pod. He felt a small thrill of satisfaction when the tentacles loosened at the same time he assumed that the Jedi would be launching away from the Chimaera.

Only another second later, he was immediately wishing for the tentacles to hold him again as the vacuum of space sucked him towards the nearest broken window along with everything that had already left that was not bolted down in the bridge. He scrambled frantically for something to grab onto to save himself and was surprised when the end of a tentacle wrapped around his waist again. Thrawn struggled to his feet with the unwieldy weight around him and the vacuum still pulling at him but he made it happen out of sheer determination. He needed to make it to the nearest work station to activate the shield before he froze to death. Already he could feel that his limbs were resistant to his mind's orders. He'd been in the cold for one minute and fifty-seven seconds already. Too long.

As Thrawn forced his feet in the correct direction, the tentacle went with him, not helping exactly, but not hindering either and preventing him from getting sucked out into space, so he was more than grateful. He almost stopped moving when he heard a, "YOU'RE WELCOME," resound like thunder through his mind, but kept himself on task. With a final lunge, Thrawn finally smacked the emergency shield button and inhaled gratefully in relief as the barely visible blue force shield covered all of the broken windows and the last of the tentacles withdrew from the bridge, including the one that had been holding him up.

He gasped in much needed air as the life support systems slowly returned the atmosphere in the bridge to normal, and shivered uncontrollably, wrapping his arms around himself. Despite this, he had enough concentration to question the purrgil's actions. "Why did you save me?" he asked out loud through chattering teeth, wondering if he'd get an answer.

"BECAUSE THE JEDI WANTED YOU GONE, NOT DEAD. AND HOW CAN YOU SAVOUR YOUR DEFEAT IF YOU ARE NOT ALIVE TO DO SO?"

Thrawn raised a brow and laughed bitterly. "Well, thank you anyway. I suppose I can't talk you into letting my ships go sooner than later?"

"NO," was the only answer.

He thought about trying to shoot the purrgils into letting his ships go, but that just wasn't honourable after this one had saved his life.

"A WISE DECISION. BESIDES, WE TORE ALL OF YOUR GUNS OFF LONG AGO," came a final sentence in his mind with something that sounded an awful lot like gleeful laughter.

And that was the end of the conversation. Resigned to the fact that there was nothing else he could do at the moment, Thrawn decided that getting warmed up was only fair. And visiting a refresher. Twelve hours was a serious test of his self control.

He forced his trembling legs to walk towards the exit, finally feeling the ice start to melt off his skin. He opened the door to find a dozen officers standing and muttering to each other, apparently trying to decide if they should enter the bridge and save him. They snapped to attention and lined the hallway at his appearance. Despite the trembling in his limbs, Thrawn drew himself to his full height and placed his hands at the small of his back in his customary command stance. He raised a brow at the gawking officers. "I want a full report on damages and a personnel count as soon as possible. See if you can contact the other ships in the fleet. I want to know their status as well. Inform them that I will be in touch with each of the captains starting an hour from now."

The officers snapped off a brisk salute and scurried into the bridge to take care of his requests. Thrawn nodded to himself, making a note of who they were and considering them for promotion. Most of his usual bridge officers had been lost in the original attack, being tossed out the windows by the purrgil. Two of these men had escaped the bridge while he and Bridger were otherwise occupied with their confrontation, but the rest were all junior officers who were stepping up voluntarily. Thrawn was pleased. He had done his best over the years to staff his personal ship with the brightest and most trustworthy that he could find, but on a ship that was run by more than 9000 officers and over 27 000 enlisted personnel, not to mention almost 10,000 troopers, not all of the personnel decisions were his. Thrawn briefly mourned the loss of his experienced senior bridge staff, but he got past it quickly. The new officers could learn on the job.

His musings had finally brought him to his room, walking at a quick but dignified pace through the halls, passing shocked looking personnel as he went. He occasionally nodded in acknowledgement to someone who snapped to attention quick enough, but for the most part, Thrawn ignored them all. As his door closed behind him, he dashed into his small refresher, never so happy to see a toilet and a shower with hot running water in his life.

Precisely one hour after entering his cabin, Thrawn strode back into the bridge. His shower and power nap had left him feeling ready to take on the galaxy once again. Or in this case, the purrgil and the damage they had caused to his fleet. "Status report," he said calmly and loud enough to get the attention of every officer, the number of which he was glad to see had quadrupled since he left.

An eager Lieutenant marched over quickly, datapad in hand which he handed to Thrawn. He scanned the contents as Yarce talked. "The Chimaera is relatively undamaged sir, considering..." he waved a vague hand at the three massive purrgil that could be seen towing their ship. "The ion cannons and turbolasers are all missing from the hull but the shields and engines are still working on an acceptable level. Whenever we get out of this..." again the vague wave of the hand. "We do have some replacement cannons and turbolasers in the hold that we can attach to the hull."

"That is something at least." Thrawn had to admire the purrgil for their foreplanning in removing his guns. Honour or no, he probably would have shot them off the hull sooner than later otherwise, and dealt with the consequences of spinning out of control through space as it occurred. Especially if he knew the purrgil were dragging his fleet further than he wanted to go and would have to use valuable resources to return to Chiss space. Fortunately they had completely restocked the ship at their stop at Coruscant just two days ago. His crew should have enough supplies to feed them for two years. "So the hull is still intact?" he asked. "We haven't lost any of our crew or supplies?"

Lieutenant Yarce made a confused looking head nod / shake thing, trying to answer both questions at once. Thrawn raised a brow and Yarce flushed in embarrassment. "Sorry, Sir." He cleared his throat and pulled himself together. "The hull is fine and aside from your bridge officers and a few troopers that the Jedi killed, all personnel are accounted for."

"And the other ships?"

Yarce sucked in a breath and then spit out his news. "We've established contact with eleven of the twenty ships in the 7th fleet, fifteen of the twenty extra ISD's that were brought in for the blockade, and believe it or not, two of the six construction spheres as well. According to reports, all of the ships in orbit were dragged away, which we hope means that the unresponsive ships have simply lost their communications array. The two ISD's that had entered the atmosphere with us over Capital city received heavy damage but they are also with the rest of us. Those ships lost a lot of personnel and are probably not worth repairing, but we could scavenge them for spare parts and divide those up amongst the rest of the ships."

Thrawn nodded once in agreement and was impressed with his efficiency. "Very good, Lieutenant Yarce. I seem to have lost my second in command. Are you interested in that position?"

The dark haired human male's eyes went wide and he blinked twice, before nodding eagerly, astonished that Thrawn even knew his name, not to mention offering him a significant promotion. "It would be my pleasure, Sir."

Thrawn almost smiled. "Excellent, Captain. I'll comm the other reachable ships from the communications room. Is Captain Pellaeon's ship one of the responsive ones?" Thrawn asked, since Pellaeon had been in charge of the blockade and was an experienced officer not likely to panic in strange situations.

"No, Sir. I'm afraid not."

Thrawn suppressed the urge to sigh. He was afraid of that, after losing communication with Pellaeon earlier. "Very well. Keep up the good work, Captain. When you get a chance, upgrade your bars so the others know your new status."

Yarce nodded again, doing an admirable job of keeping his enthusiasm under control for now. "Yes, Sir. Thank you again, Sir," he said before saluting and spinning on his heel smartly, walking briskly back and forth on the deck, calling for reports from the stations in the pits below.

Thrawn watched for a minute, happy with his choice of Captain. Nothing like a crisis to bring out the best in people. Or highlight the worst. Fortunately for Yarce and the backup crew that had stepped into command positions without being asked, it was the former. Thrawn made a mental note to talk to each of them later and make sure they all had ranks that matched their new command positions. And with that, he turned on his heel as well and walked into the communications room. He still had a lot of planning to do and Captains to inform of their new status as Imperial deserters. Over the years, Thrawn had been handpicking Captains for his fleet. Men he knew were not one hundred percent in love with the Empire but were ambitious nonetheless. They usually came from worlds that had been overrun be the Empire and had joined the Imperial Navy with no other choice available to them. Or they were old enough to have been loyal to the Republic and weren't in love with the new government system but had wisely kept their mouths shut. In any case, Thrawn was confident in his new fleet for the Chiss. The lesser officers and personnel would go along with whatever their Captains told them to do, because that was how they'd been trained; to not think for themselves and obey orders without question.

There were half a dozen Captains in the extra blockade forces that Thrawn didn't know personally. Those, he would keep in the dark for now, leading them on with lies if necessary, until he found out what kind of people he was dealing with and where their true loyalties lay.

It was a further twenty hours before the purrgil finally dropped out of hyperspace near a green planet. A timeframe that Thrawn calculated would have taken them deep into Unknown space and relatively close to Chiss space. (Assuming that purrgil travel through hyperspace at the same speed that the average ship does.) Thrawn was happy to see the rest of his expanded 7th fleet already there as well, along with all six of the construction spheres. He wasn't sure what to do with those yet, but he had a few ideas percolating.

He watched from the bridge as the purrgils detached themselves from every ship but his, wondering what was up with that. Somehow, he wasn't surprised when he heard a thundering voice in his head again.

"YOUR JOURNEY HAS COME TO AN END, BUT YOUR DEFEAT HAS NOT. THIS IS MY REVENGE FOR YOU SHOOTING ME YESTERDAY."

"Oh, kriff," Thrawn muttered under his breath as the Chimaera was towed directly into the atmosphere of the planet and down to the surface in less than twenty seconds. Not even enough time for a call to abandon ship.

"Full power to the thrusters!" Thrawn yelled as a swamp that went on as far as the eye could see came into view.

Officers complied, but it wasn't enough fast enough, and Thrawn knew it wouldn't be. The purrgils dragged them forward directly above the swamp and dropped them. The engines whined alarmingly and the ship shuddered and then fell like a mountain from the sky into the swamp as gravity won the battle over a ship that weighed too much to hold itself up without full power.

Thrawn was flung off his feet and into one of the pits when the Chimaera crashed into the swamp. His head smacked into a consul and that was it. The former Grand Admiral of the Imperial Military was out like a light.