Southwestern Forests (Temp RP)

Thrawn was 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 center 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. "But," he whispered, "it was so artistically done." The smile faded. The glow in his eyes did likewise... and Thrawn, the last Grand Admiral, was gone.

A piercing scream rent the night, a wail of unbridled terror, causing twin vornskrs to lift their heads. Panicked eyes swept the room, the shaking point of a blaster hastily grabbed ready to fire at non-existent enemies. Sweat beaded a furrowed brow, great gulping breaths filling the air to fuel the night terror-induced panic.

“It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, it’s just a dream…” He could hardly recognize the voice as his own. All he could think of was that voice. That being that he witnessed being slaughtered in his chair. What being could possibly remain that calm with a knife jutting from their chest? What otherworldly abilities could possess a man to accept their death with such dignity?

The blaster was finally laid aside, and he rose from his bed, shaking his head violently to clear the images. It was just a dream. He was here, and that was somewhere far off, a long time ago. A lifetime ago… before he was even born. It should not touch him. It should only be a closing data point, the final chapter in an illustrious life.

Then why did it hurt so much?

Stumbling over the now-snoring vornskrs, he made his way to the refresher. Without stopping for the lights, he bent over the sink and splashed cold water on his face, his breathing still coming in ragged pulls as he struggled to regain control. What would he think? Scared of a night vision, a dream, a series of images and nothing more.

Water ran and ran, splashing in the darkness, until his heartbeat finally slowed to a normal pace. Aches in his hands and shoulders spoke volumes to the sudden, violent stress of his nightmare. Would he ever get used to it? Should he?

Grasping blindly at a towel, he dried his face and the bit of hair that he had wet in his dash for relief. He repeated to himself in a low voice, “It’s just a dream. It’s there, I’m here.” He looked at the darkened mirror, seeing his silhouette in the polished silver and transparisteel construction.

He closed his eyes. He told himself it was to protect them from the sudden influx of light as he flipped the switch, but he knew better. He needed to confront the dream before it took over his life.

“It’s just a dream.” He opened his eyes.

The Grand Admiral’s face stared back at him, water dripping from blue-black hair.

The sound of footsteps outside his room brought him back to his senses. That was a long time ago, this was here and now, and there were others to consider outside of himself. He’d woken Avaritus again, which meant the man would be surly and callous for the next month. At least, that is how he calculated it. With the number of terrors he had over the last few months, he was banking coarse attitudes for the next decade.

Still patting at his face, he returned to his own quarters, glancing briefly at the closed door that shielded Avaritus’ quarters from the outside world. The circumstances of their arrangement were not unfamiliar, but he could not help that his Prime was mocking him in the afterlife. Of all the beings in the galaxy, why did it have to be the one that seemed most annoyed with his development?

A few whispered commands upon his return brought the lights on low, and soft music played on a well-designed surround system in the relatively spartan chambers. Keyed commands on a wall-mounted datapad brought up a room-wide projection of a rather large fleet battle, Twenty-four Imperial-class Star Destroyers pulsed softly in red, with a host of support ships forming a concave against eleven Mon Calamari cruisers and a rather pitiful array of assault frigates and escorts. Behind them, the outlines of shipyards grew fuzzy as they reached the walls.

“Play.”

Two Interdictor cruisers shifted from the furthest wings of the battle and took up positions on a seemingly arbitrary but well-defined line as the concave drew in closer. A swarm of smaller ships, of different makes but led by a heavily modified Barloz-class freighter flanked the Imperial formation, causing a small disruption in the Imperial line. The battle faltered, and then….

“Stop.”

Thraawn walked towards a specific ship, hand reaching towards its distinctive wedge design. He glanced disdainfully at the chewed nails on his hand before looking up to vessel. Chimaera pulsed softly next to the floating ship, escorted by half a dozen TIE/ln fighters.

Despite his best efforts, a tear rolled down his cheek.

Angry now, he sat in the chair at his desk and punched another series of commands. “Initiate voice commands. Override playback, begin simulation.” The field changed from soft blue scanlines to red, and the shapes changed from stylized craft to simple points. Enhanced ship information scrolled near each, but the information was not needed.

“Deploy Stormhawk squadron to intercept the smugglers. Position the Dreadnoughts from the demarcation line near the wreckage of the Golans, and bring four Lancers to handle Rogue squadron. Overlap fields of fire, identify and focus command fighters, and initiate rotating frequency jamming.”

The music continued to play in the background as ships moved, myriad control and status systems reduced to simple health percentages. The smaller ships were putting up more of a fight than they should have, but it was to be expected from smugglers.

“Begin shaping the fleet in double concave. Split the main battle line between Bellicose and Relentless, have support craft move in to reinforce the defense of the yards, and begin focusing Karrde’s craft with ion fire. I want his ships disabled while the rest of his friends perish. I want to ruin his life, not just his ships.”

Heavy damage poured on the Destroyers, and the support line sparkled like a handful of gravel thrown on water, but the formation began to take shape. As the craft identified as Rogue Squadron moved to assist the smugglers craft, the Lancers were able to use the clouds of crystalizing gas from the disabled Golans to flank and destroy the X-wings. Republic cruisers began winking out, and while the damage sustained on his craft was heavy, the overall battle was shifting in his favor.

“Assign single targets to the Dreadnoughts. Black Wing Squadron, begin identifying the most dangerous of the smugglers and harry them towards the Dreadnought formation. 181st, regroup at the demarcation line and prepare for focus fire on the Interdictors as the Rebels try to escape.”

The lone Imperial-II class marked with the insignia of the New Republic suddenly winked out, the formation of Death’s Head, Nemesis, and Inexorable pointing like accusing fingers. Their captains had been focusing down the craft, arguably the most dangerous in the defense fleet.

A tight smile came to his lips as he let the rest of the simulation play out. Despite having to wage a battle on two fronts, his numerical and firepower superiority enabled him to meet both fleets head-on without risk of being outgunned.

Finally, as the music drew to a close, he paused the simulation. One-sixth of his Star Destroyers had sustained heavy damage, with one having its keel broken by an MC-80 attempting one glorious suicide mission against its hangar bay. There were still Rebel craft, but they were surrounded by Imperial support ships and boarding craft, with their status displays reading full power outages caused by ion cannon fire.

“Damage report.”

Words scrolled over the terminal. Losses: one hundred eighty thousand lives, a total of forty-one ships, over half of his fighter compliment, and another thousand stormtroopers to boarding parties. Estimated time to rebuild.. Six years.
Six years was unacceptable. While this battle had dealt a crushing blow, he could not sustain that kind of damage and be able to defend against Ackbar’s inevitable follow-up. He needed to get that number down to a matter of months. How could he consider himself even a shadow of his prime if he couldn’t even pick up the slack on this battle?

“End simulation.”

The lights winked out as he returned to his bed, still analyzing the performance of this simulation. Yes, he was coming off a highly emotional moment and was not well-rested, but there was still a lot of room for improvement. Before burying himself in his bed once more, he keyed the build-in comm system. He knew Avaritus would still be angry at him, so he left a short apology for him to get when he came back.

The dawn brought mist and a murky light to the trees surrounding the small compound. As a morning ritual, Thraawn shaved what little facial hair would grow, and paused beside the Spaarti cloning cylinder from which he had emerged some four years ago. A moment of meditation, then he picked up his blaster pistol and a spare energy cell, and walked the perimeter of the land that had been staked out for them.

It had been an easy task to calculate the scale of diminishing returns regarding the unique properties of the Ysalamiri, and Thraawn made it a point to patrol the perimeter every day to ensure no new creatures moved in to encroach on Avaritus’s meditation chamber. It was the least he could do, he felt, given their situation.

It was about a five kilometer walk, with occasional pauses to move some of the younger creatures further away. He preferred not to kill any of them, especially given how his Prime had used them advantageously. Avaritus, of course, had no such predilection towards the safety and security of the ‘thieves of sanity.’

The facility was largely passively powered. Solar and thermal generators enabled them to be free of noisy, and above all detectable power supplies. A fine mesh camouflage screen covered the organic curves of the building, clearly influenced by the organic designs most commonly found on Kashyyyk. A great deal of care was placed in making the home unobtrusive to surrounding nature, and making it very difficult to detect.

A 4-D droid was tending one of the solar panels as Thraawn returned from his walk. He offered a brief nod despite the knowledge that it was programmed to ignore everything but Avaritus, and even then referring to him not by ‘Lord’ or by ‘Avaritus,’ but for some reason ‘meatbag.’ The peculiarities of the arrangement provided Thraawn with an interesting mental exercise, put on the back burner of his mind as he sat at a table.

A simple meal was laid out - fresh fruit grown in an artificially lit grove beneath the compound, with porridge and a small bowl of nuts. He took great care in not touching the externally acquired supplies if he could possibly help it. Sighing, he glanced at the other place setting laid out… an excess of protein and fats that truly catered to the Sith need for excess.

He didn’t answer at first. His cheeks may have tinged a darker shade of blue as he took a bite of fruit, then stirred the porridge absently. Finally, after a tense minute, he muttered “six” before sitting upright. The spoon clicked against the side of the bowl, and he finally drew himself upright and looked Avaritus in the face. “You really get off on this, don’t you? Sitting here, watching me suffer, feeding on the torment.” The words came out cold, biting, accusatory.

Avaritus felt the tinge of embarrassment and then white hot anger radiate outwards from Thraawn. The man did a good job of controlling what he presented on the surface, but not good enough. “As much as I enjoy tormenting my opponents, you aren’t one of them. I don’t take any pleasure in witnessing one of the most brilliant minds the galaxy has ever seen waste away like this.”

“You’re thinking of my Prime. I’m nothing like him save in genetic material. I’m a clone, and an ineffectual one at that. I can’t even pull his final battle into a success, and I’ve been trying for the last six months. I’m beginning to feel as if I will never get it right.” Another bite of fruit, and his hand clenched into a fist. He wanted to explode, wanted to lash out… but that wasn’t Thrawn’s way. He was always calm, cool, collected.

Deep down, he knew that if he pushed or prodded just a bit harder in one direction, he could cause Thraawn to snap, however he wouldn't. He hated playing the role of counselor, but if he was ever to make it out into the galaxy at large and bring the Sith back to power, he would need significant help from the clone. Sighing to himself, he said, “If you keep fixating on one battle, the outcome of which was already decided decades ago, then you’ll never be able to function in the present. Stop judging yourself based on a simulation. Even if you win, you wouldn’t have any more confidence in your abilities when it comes to a real battle. The entire thing is pointless.”

“That’s easy for you to say. You get to live every battle in the now. Your kind doesn’t care about the future, about the ramifications of your fight. You exist to eliminate threats, to revel in the slaughter. I have to consider the next battle, and the one after that, and I don’t get put a Star Destroyer in a bacta tank and have it come out good as new.” The words were hot, angry… but not at Avaritus. Truth was, Thrawn knew deep down that you couldn’t win the next battle unless you won this one. Perhaps a state of now-ness was necessary to ensure his success.

Avaritus bit back on the rage that filled him, mentally locking down those corners of his mind, and drawing back from the force ever so slightly, not allowing it's power to feed back on himself. He took a calming breath and replied, “Every action I have taken so far has been to preserve the teachings of the Sith. The proper order. The rule of two. While my actions may be more violent, or direct, there’s still a purpose. What is your purpose now, to exist? Any idiot can do that. You are a direct copy of Thrawn. Start acting like it.” The words were harsh, cold, and calculated. He needed Thraawn at his best, and this wasn't it.