Earlier that week, Inner Rim Territories, star destroyer Chimaera

"They will require a crystal gravity trap* to deal with our asteroids. There are a limited number of places they can acquire such an item," Thrawn said methodically.

Garin watched as the Admiral examined the star charts floating around his command chamber, glancing over at Pallaeon briefly, seeing the other man's discomfort put himself slightly more at ease in Thrawn's presence.

"What about the attack on Tangrene? The forces massing in that sector can't be going after anything else."

Thrawn's mouth twitched in a smile, "Captain you fail to understand our opponents. As much as they consider themselves a legitimate government with a legitimate military they are still rebels. They cannot think in any way other than that of a rebel; feints and skirmishes are their forte. Not prolonged fleet actions. They would not assault a facility as fortified as the Ubiqtorate for fear of losing too many assets in the ensuing battle; and any hit and run would fail to do significant damage."

"It is a feint," Thrawn said conclusively, to his credit Pallaeon didn't push the issue further as the Admiral continued. "If they are going to strike, it will be as they attempted to do so at Endor; the Tangrene forces are far too obvious to be their main force even if they intend to hold the line against the defenses there."

"So the question is," Garin spoke finally, drawing the attention of the two flag officers, "where can they acquire a crystal gravity trap and of those locations which will be the least costly to raid."

Thrawn smiled and nodded, "very good Commander, Captain this is what you must aspire to do. Think unorthodoxly; think as your opponents would. The Commander is rather uniquely suited to this operation as his unit has been designed to fight like the Rebels themselves do."

Pallaeon shifted uneasily, "yes Admiral." His gaze turned to Garin, "well Commander, where do you believe they will strike."

Garin felt the joined stares to be a little oppressive, Thrawn's was easy to deal with; it was that same expression he always wore when he was educating his subordinates. Pallaeon's was quietly resentful, but to the man's credit it was open. Most flag officers when told to listen to a fleet officer would have chaffed and ignored anything Garin would have had to say. Pallaeon at least was willing to listen. It occurred to Garin that Thrawn was grooming his successors, or if not his successors, at least his lieutenants for his new Empire. The idea that the Grand Admiral might intend for Pallaeon and Garin to serve with him in a major role in this newest incarnation of the Empire sent chills through his body. He cleared his mind of thoughts of power, focusing back on the task at hand; everything in its own time. At this moment he was an officer and a pilot, nothing more. If Thrawn had greater plans for him, then he'd tell Garin when the time came.

"Kuat and Bilbringi would be the most convenient targets; Kuat is too heavily defended, even Zsinj** was careful about attacking the facilities there. I don't see the Republic," Thrawn frowned and Garin quickly amended himself, "the Rebels; being overly eager to test Kuats latest defense systems. They learned from Zsinj's assault. The Rep—Rebels need to attack a facility that doesn't have its own massed defense force."

"So the only viable option, assuming that Tangrene is a feint," Pallaeon said skeptically with a glance at Thrawn; "is Bilbringi."

"Very good Captain, Commander. They will strike at Bilbringi, so we must be ready for them here when they arrive. I've already made the necessary arrangements and the rest of our forces should be joining the Chimaera shortly."

Thrawn looked directly at Garin, "I've sent the necessary stores to the Black Knight Commander. I thought you might be in need of replenishment."

Present, interrogation room aboard the Mon Cal cruiser Home One, Bilbringi Shipyards

"You thought of the attack on Bilbringi?"

"No, Thrawn did," I responded with an amused smile at her disbelieving tone. "He'd already made his mind up about where your forces would be striking. He was just humoring himself and educating Pallaeon and I; we were his principle students." I shrugged, "as far as I know we were his only students."

She looked at me worriedly, "Thrawn considered you his pupil?"

Again I shrugged, realistically I hadn't been in Thrawn's presence enough to be considered his student; but I think he did take a very personal interest in my career and certainly steered it in and my thinking in the direction he felt would best benefit his plans.

"I think Pallaeon was more his prodigy than I was, true I'd known Thrawn longer, but if we were students, then I was home schooled while Pallaeon attended the lectures in person. Draw your own conclusions from that."

The expression she had on her face was uneasy, I had to smile at her did she really believe that either Pallaeon or I could be another Thrawn? We'd both learned from him it was true, I practically owed my existence to him; but Thrawn was a genius, singular and not transmutable. No one could ever be another Thrawn, even his clone would be just that, a copy of the original if it ever woke. I had no aspirations to lead fleets and certainly not empires, what Pallaeon would do from this point on was anyone's guess but the fight was over for me.

"So the fleet began to build up," she prompted suddenly, seemingly very eager to put the unpleasant thought of Thrawn's pupils out of her mind.

I smiled; she hadn't noticed the pause when I'd omitted the cloaking shield that Thrawn had given Hades. Why the Republic was being so simple about all this was anyone's guess, but I suppose they assumed that I'd given up entirely.

Earlier that week, Inner Rim Territories, aboard the Black Knight

"A cloaking device," Iriana said incredulously, tossing the datapad down on her desk with a frown. "What does the Admiral think we'll do with that?"

"Hide I suppose," Garin said with a smile that earned him a scowl from Iriana.

"Seriously Garin, those things are useless, you can't see a krigged thing once you activate them and what's worse is that you need to expose yourself to get any intelligence on the outside."

Garin shrugged as Daru looked between the pair, her brain tails swishing back and forth pensively remaining quiet as Iriana continued.

"Does he realize the power strain that will have on our generators? We aren't a destroyer; we don't have the power plant to operate that beast in parallel with our other systems."

"Actually," Daru spoke up, drawing their gaze to her. "I've been looking over the specifications and I think we can power it. If the old Dreadnaught heavy cruisers can manage and still fire their weapons I don't see why we can't."

Iriana snorted, "engineering is not going to like this. Besides Chief, you don't normally handle that section of the ship. Do you know what you're talking about?"

Daru stiffened but continued, "yes Captain, I believe I know exactly what I'm talking about. I may work on fighters almost exclusively but I know how to route a power coupling. Don't forget who kept this ship running after the unit disbanded."

"Alright that's enough," Garin broke in before anything got out of hand, "if Daru says we can install it then we can install it. I'll have engineering work with her on it and see what they can come up with. In the meantime, the Admiral has sent us a timetable for the battle. He expects the Republic will be hitting Bilbringi in the next few days."

Iriana nodded, "I don't like this. I'm still not convinced that the Republic is going to hit us here. If all the intelligence says Tangrene and the Ubiqtorate, why are we so convinced that they'll be here instead?"

"There's nothing for them at the Ubiqtorate," Garin said, "sure they could knock out our intelligence command, but Thrawn has been handling the intelligence angles during this entire campaign almost exclusively. They need a CGT, without it they'll never be certain if Coruscant is safe or not."

Iriana nodded though she looked far from convinced, "alright, I'll set engineering on this cloaking shield. I assume you'll be training as usual?"

Garin nodded, "that's the plan."

"Good luck to all of us then," she said with a tight smile. "And here's to hoping this war will finally end."

"You know it's kinda scary thinking about the war ending. I mean from the sounds of it this won't be the end right?"

Garin looked over at Kalan and shrugged, "they have two fleets; the larger of the two is being used to hit Tangrene. Thrawn believes the second fleet will strike us here and that their best units will be concentrated here."

"So if we beat them here, then they'll lose the backbone of their fleet," Matrin said thoughtfully.

"It'll be Endor in reverse," Harth added quietly, sipping his caf.

"That's what bothers me," Kalan retorted, "we thought we had Endor in the bag remember? There was no way they could get us and now we're doing the same thing over again. What if they've got another trump card lined up? What if Thrawn's wrong and we get beaten?"

"Then we move on and keep going," Harth said, "that's what Hades is, we survive, we keep surviving and we move on."

"And what if the war actually ends," Kalan persists, "because we do beat them and they surrender or something else happens and the war ends anyways. We're a fighting unit, what do we do when there is nothing left to fight?"

"It's politics Kal," Toth joined in, "there will always be someone to fight. It will never change. If it isn't the Republic then it will be someone else. We will have enemies regardless of the outcome."

"I just get the feeling that we need to think about our future," Kalan murmured uncertainly.

Everyone was silent for a long time as they nursed their drinks and considered what he'd just said. It seemed like it might just keep going that way, then Matrin looped an arm over Kalan's shoulders.

"You aren't supposed to be the depressing one, the Commander and Harth are, what are you thinking?"

Garin snorted and looked over at Harth who remained totally stoic, "why am I the depressing one?"

"Oh that's easy," Matrin continued. "You're the one that gets us into all the trouble. Do you know how peaceful it was without you around?"

Toth snorted and shook his head, "see that Gar? You're loved."

Garin nodded, "so I see."

He looked at Kalan and noted that his usual smile was back in place, that was good, at least being the target of Matrin's commentary had cheered him up somewhat. It did make him wonder though, how many of Hades number were having similar doubts. It was no secret that this next battle would be big by any stretch of the term. It would likely tip the scale permanently one way or the other for the remainder of the conflict. Everyone remembered the last time a battle like that had been fought, and Endor had not been a pleasant experience for anyone.

His com buzzed, "Durives."

"Captain Pallaeon just landed in a shuttle sir; he wants to speak with you."

Garin blinked and looked around at the others in the lounge before standing, "where is he?"

"He's waiting in the debriefing room sir."

"Thank you."

Garin excused himself with a frown, now what?

Pallaeon turned as Garin entered the room, "Commander."

"What can I do for you Captain," Garin asked as he joined Pallaeon besides the holotank and frowned at the imagery. "Planning the upcoming battle?"

Pallaeon remained quiet for a moment before speaking, "trying to predict how the Admiral will fight it."

Garin chuckled, "good luck Captain. I'm not sure that anyone can fully predict what Thrawn will do."

Pallaeon nodded, "perhaps you're right, but I will still try."

"Did you need something Captain, if you just wanted to discuss the Admiral's battle plans you could have called."

"I thought this might be better done in person. I know you still blame me for the aftermath at Endor."

Garin blinked, looking at the Captain in surprise, did he sound guilty? More importantly did he seriously think that Garin required an apology for Endor? What had been done had been done and while they could stand around discussing it till the galaxy collapsed it would do no good for either of them.

"There's nothing to explain or apologize for Captain. You made a judgment you thought was sound; I can resent you for that, but I can't fault you. I've made my share of judgments that were called into question."

Pallaeon looked at Garin appraisingly, "I think I understand why Thrawn created you and this unit."

Garin remained silent, his expression politely curious. He had his own ideas about why Thrawn had created Hades and given it to Garin but he wasn't above listening to other opinions.

"The Admiral," Pallaeon finally said, "sees people like you as a vital asset. He speaks about how the Empire must change if it is to survive. You were his prototype, you and Hades. He feels that individuals who are willing to take the initiative, be innovative, and assume responsibility for the consequences are the future of the Empire. I don't know that I agree with him, I find your tactics and methods too unpredictable and reckless for a proper military organization; but I understand the Admiral's thinking and I can respect it."

Garin found himself smiling at Pallaeon's words, they weren't exactly how he'd have described Thrawn's use of Hades but it was certainly accurate he wouldn't deny that. He'd always felt that Pallaeon was nothing spectacular but Thrawn did seem to regard the Captain as his protégé so he had to have some merits.

"You may be right, and I probably think too much like our opponents for anyone on our side to feel safe but you must admit that we've been having great results."

Pallaeon nodded thoughtfully, collapsing the holotank image and extending his hand to Garin.

"Well since the Admiral has faith in both of us, shall we agree to put both our opinions behind us and cooperate under his direction?"

Garin took the proffered hand and nodded, "gladly sir."

Present, interrogation room aboard the Mon Cal cruiser Home One, Bilbringi Shipyards

"So you and Pallaeon both thought that Thrawn planned to use Hades as the template for the greater Imperial forces?"

I shrugged, "honestly we'll never know. Certainly my unit had more success during the entirety of this war than most." I smiled at her knowingly, "enough that it got the Alliance and Republic's attention certainly."

"Yes," she said cautiously, "well Imperial units that start behaving differently tend to raise alarms."

I watched her as she tapped more notes into her pad and smiled, she was trying not to imagine what would happen if the entire Imperial Navy had been reformatted along lines similar to Hades. Of course there was only so far such a project could have been taken. After all my unit wasn't exactly the model military environment, but certainly giving more latitude to commanders to make their own decisions free of the chain of command would have allowed more ingenuity; something that was painfully lacking the Imperial forces. It had taken Russani to teach me to think out of the box and it wouldn't have been healthy for our forces if every pilot got it into his head to start thinking independently. There was a certain extent that unit cohesion was more important than personal direction.

Then again, personal freedom seemed to have served the Alliance and later Republic quite well, so perhaps a less structured and more open military mind was the key. I doubted that anyone would ever find out anytime soon given the current situation; with Thrawn dead the warlords and moffs would go back to their sectors and systems and start fighting again. There wasn't anyone in the Empire currently who had the muscle to pull them together again, and of course there was still the issue with so many units just vanishing. I had to wonder if they knew something that the rest of us didn't, or if it was just another warlord offering better pay than the Empire.

"Commander," Deana asked again, from her tone she must have called me a few times already.

I blinked, looking up from my reverie, "sorry."

She frowned as she continued, "I was asking about the buildup to the battle."

"Well there isn't much to tell," I shrugged, "Thrawn pulled in the assets that were close to the system and we got ready for a second Endor."

I laughed bitterly, "if we'd known how much like Endor it was going to be I don't think any of us would have stayed to fight."

*A crystal gravity (also called gravfield) trap is, to my knowledge, the only device in the galaxy at this time that can consistently detect a cloaked ship and in this period of time only the Empire has them though by the time of the Yuuzhan Vong War the Republic would have them as well.

**Zsinj's second super star destroyer, the Razor's Kiss (aka Second Death) was acquired during a daring and costly raid on the Kuat Shipyards.