Author's Note:

Wow! It seems that a great deal of people are interested in this little story. So, thank you to the 55 visitors in three days! (dances)

Thank you to sexyninjalady, for your enthusiasm. Here is the next chapter for you.

Chisscientist, I always look forward to your reviews. Yes, he is pretty hard to read for a Force-user, especially as Thrawn would be thinking in his own language as well. Thrawn being hard to read was several someone else's plot idea, but for the life of me I can't find which story the idea first appeared in.

Serenity8118, always a pleasure to hear from you! The Emperor, having ego? what is this thing you speak o... sorry, can't type that with a straight face.

frodogenic, I am sorry that this next chapter will not be showing the Sith lord and the word wrong. However, when Three is posted, well, have fun. :)

Sithy, I hope you enjoy this chapter, and I must say, I adore your screen name. Very cute. Thank you for the review!

And thank you and hugs to those that have put this story on their alerts/favorites: breakerofstorms, KirstyQue, Blitzflint, & frodogenic.

Last but not least, a heartfelt thank you to Artistically Done for including this story in their C2 archive. All fellow Thrawn lovers, go to their site and read the beautiful collection.

Artistically Done: Grand Admiral Thrawn Fanfiction
URL:this site .com /c2/26040/3/0/1/

Chapter 2: Electrical Musings

He could vaguely recall licking an electrical outlet when he was a very small child. The outlet had apparently been more fascinating than the four dozen toys, educational and otherwise, that were always underfoot. He also knew that the outlet wouldn't yell at him for touching it, like his brother had been doing, especially for touching his datapad. Thrass had plugged it into the wall outlet, saying something about it needing juice. The idea really intrigued the young Chiss; how could juice come from the wall? So, after waiting for Thrass to leave the room, he gathered all the concentration that a three year old Chiss could muster, pulled the datapad's plug out, and poked the outlet hard with a finger, and when nothing had happened, had decided to taste it, licking it once.

He wasn't sure, now, whether his parents had rushed him to the local emergency medical center because of the electrical shock that he must have gotten, or for the large lump on the back of his head from where he'd whacked it against the wall jerking away from the current. Probably the later, Thrawn mused, as he remembered chewing through a power cord later on that year and not going to the healers for that. Although both times his hair had stood straight up, something Thrass had found pretty interesting. It was one of the few times he'd shown his little brother off to his friends.

Curled half on his side on the prison cell bunk, Thrawn absently noticed that some of the hair on his hand was still sticking straight up. I wonder if Thrass would be as thrilled if he could see me now?

After the guards had dragged him from the throne room, Thrawn remembered gaining his feet long enough to walk the rest of the way to the private holding cells deep in the palace. Only as they were nearing the cellblock did one of the prison guards use the butt of his rifle to hit him between the shoulder blades, dropping him to the floor with a muffled gasp. The stormtroopers had been quick to drag him the rest of the way into one cell and literally toss him into the wall before sealing him inside.

He'd waited nearly ten minutes for them to come back; Thrawn had no illusions that, as a disgraced officer and an alien, he'd be left alone without at least one dominance establishing roughing up. We're better than you, scum, was a common enough theme in most prison systems. He'd attended several of his CEDF's court dates with the tell-tale swelling of black eyes and split lips. Better to play the game of willing submission, especially when all that would be harmed was his pride. Yet, after that one blow, there was nothing: no sonic pressure, no alternating lights, high power solar lights of any kind, or adjustment in the room temperature.

Save for one small meal what felt like two or three days ago and a bit of water now and again, never at regular intervals, it would see that they had forgotten about him. Or, his cynical side said softly, they are waiting for final permission to skin you alive and pull supposed Rebel ties out of you. Torture on a healthy victim lasts much, much longer.

Of course, one could argue that 'healthy' was a vast overstatement. He'd tried to walk from wall to wall several times, as a limbering exercise and to relieve the boredom, only to have his muscles refuse to take his weight, crumbling to the deck each time he took more than a step or two. The first few times he'd tried to move had been met with him nearly blacking out, and double vision beyond anything he'd ever experienced, with phantom pain arching down his shaking limbs. Even simple stretches while on his narrow bunk produced painful spasms in his muscles. All in all, he'd been forced to stay on that bunk, curled on his side, for the majority of his stay, with only his mind free to roam as it would between long periods of restless sleep.

He'd spent several hours on mental planning of the fleet's action and requirements once he was freed from this prison cell. Unless the Emperor used a completely different Fleet, his carefully honed battle group would either need to be replaced entirely, in which case this little revolt would be destroyed in, ideally, a month's time, or seriously reconfigured with replacement ships, which would, in his own estimation, take slightly less than three weeks to coordinate, train, prepare, supply and actually attack and destroy this little rebellion. Depending as well, he reasoned deep into his musings, if Voss was still at liberty to be his captain of his flagship, and could bring together the multiple captains under one command quickly enough. In all theory, he mused, the system should allow for a Fleet Captain to command up to five ships with little in the way of insubordination from the captains of individual ships. However, in his experience, a Vice-Admiral was almost always needed to keep the backbiting and questioning of authority and orders to a minimum.

After that had run its course, he had switched to fond memories of previous missions and had started to drift asleep to Thrass's voice in his mind, muttering something about what he should do versus what needed to be done. He drowsily wondered which side of this argument Thrass would have been on, until the lightning temper tantrum, of course. He couldn't even imagine Thrass's rant on the immorality of electrocuting your officers into submission, like some arena beast.

Although, Thrawn mused just as sleep claimed him, Thrass would have been honour bound to point out that even that didn't work to curb his behaviour.