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Ar'alani,
I trust this message finds you well. As I write from within my office onboard Chimaera, I imagine you reading these words in your own office on the Steadfast. At the same time I hope you never get to read them at all.
Ever since coming to the Empire, I have been writing a variant of this particular message. First, simply to keep a record of my observations and exploits, ready to send should ever the need arise. It also fulfilled a secondary purpose: to maintain a connection to that which has always been my one motivation - the protection and preservation of the Ascendency.
And, on a more personal note, it served as a reminder of our friendship.
As I moved up the ranks, my notes became more complex. The longer I stayed, the more I was able to understand in ever greater depth how Lesser Space operates and how much it differs from our own regions. What had started as a reasonably simple message became the preamble to an ever growing collection of documents.
As you are well aware, I eventually managed to establish an irregular but secure means of submitting my reports to General Ba'kif and, by extension, to you. Yet I still maintained the habit of updating and amending this message to you before every engagement I faced. Its main purpose now is to serve as a final report and farewell should my mission come to a premature end.
Once I reached command rank, my life within the Empire became both freer and more constricted at the same time. I am under constant scrutiny, by my peers who view me as an outsider and by those seeking the favor of the Emperor and who therefore see me as a rival. I am not as ignorant regarding the political arena as I once was, but I still find it tiring and a waste of time and effort.
And yet, despite this, my rank allows me the freedom of pursuing my own missions almost unhindered. As a non-human, it is almost expected of me to behave in an odd fashion, so I make the most use of it. This has allowed me to establish the means by which you will have received this letter. The latest version is always stored in a certain location and should I fail to update it within a specified period, it is automatically passed on to you via a series of untraceable connections.
It is a comfort to know that, should an unforeseen event prevent me from ever returning home, at least this final message will reach you in due time. Ordinarily, I would attach my latest observations and findings to this note. But of course we have only just parted ways after our successful defeat of the Grysk incursion into Imperial space and I have shared with you all I know. So for now there is no further intelligence to add.
Therefore, the purpose behind this message is a purely sentimental one. Your final words at our parting have been on my mind ever since. My position in the Empire is not as strong as it once was. In some way it is becoming more and more untenable. I have more freedom to command as I see fit than I ever had and likely would have had in the Ascendancy. But there is an overall path the Empire is taking which I know to be wrong. On a tactical, strategic and moral level. And yet I am being given signs in no uncertain terms that any objection to the proposed doctrine, irrespective of how well founded it may be, would be both useless and unwise. Perhaps fatal.
I have not yet reached a point of no return but I suppose it must arrive eventually. Until it does, my place remains here and I can only trust that I will have enough time to extract myself from the Empire once it is certain that my presence here serves no further use.
I write these words while we are en route to a shipyard which will make modifications to my ship. The Emperor has particular designs towards one of the rebel insurgents on Lothal and has tasked me with retrieving him. I suspect you would not approve of the way I must obtain the rebel's surrender but there is no other way if I am to remain in the Emperor’s favor. It is but one of the many unwelcome tasks I have had to perform since being ordered to deal with the local uprising.
I cannot tell you how frustrated I am to be confined to this particular region of the Empire when I know there is a far greater threat further afield. It is my desire to seek reassignment once Lothal has been pacified. The evidence of Grysk activity in Imperial space will serve as proof that a more dedicated approach is required. If Seventh Fleet could be employed in this way then it would be a far better use of my abilities than to hunt down individual cells of insurgents.
I have written many messages such as this one in the past. In fact, every time I was about to go into battle. Once a letter is finished it is deposited in my safe space, ready to be sent should the outcome of the engagement prove fatal. So far, I have always safely returned and thus each message was replaced with a newer version by the time I was once again heading into danger.
I have always found it instructive to read through my previous message before deleting it. Even though I am not a particularly emotional or sentimental man, as you are well aware, it is a record of what was close to my heart at the time. So it was with my last message, written before I set off to face Grand Admiral Savit. It contained a passage dealing with our unplanned time spent together in my quarters - my rather colorful description now makes me smile but it was an indication of how much that shared moment meant to me. How much it still means to me.
I erased that passage along with the rest of the message, just like I have every message before it, but that moment lives on in my heart. If this has indeed been the last time we saw each other then it could not have not been a more fitting farewell.
As I read over my letter I note that its tone is significantly more reflective than it would have been in the past. An indication perhaps that your parting words struck more of a nerve than you perhaps realized. I do not expect the confrontation at Lothal to go on for much longer, but of course death is a constant companion in our profession and misfortune can strike at minor engagements just as well as major ones.
So should you be reading these words please know that I have done my duty to the Ascendancy as I saw fit and that it was my every intention to return home when the timing was right. I regret that some unforeseen event has prevented me from keeping that promise.
This message will only be sent should I become incapacitated, and unless by some happy accident I was able to flee without deactivating the message's automated protocol, I will have been killed in action or am otherwise unable to return. I hope for the former - a warrior's death would be preferable to any alternative I can think of.
You are my oldest companion and I cannot imagine where life would have led me were it not for you. I have always treasured our friendship greatly and if you indeed get to read this letter, it pains me that I shall not be able to see you again. There is more that I would say but I cannot get the pen to convey my words accurately.
Farewell my friend, and may warrior's fortune ever be in your favor.
Mitth'raw'nuruodo
Ar'alani stared at the letter, the hand holding it shaking slightly.
When she had received the parcel, worn from weeks of travel, she had felt her hopes rise. Thrawn had been declared dead by the Empire after his fleet had disappeared over Lothal. She had grieved, but without a body there had remained a glimmer of hope. Her old friend had been resourceful and the thought of him being overcome so completely was difficult to fathom.
Unwrapping the parcel and recognizing Thrawn's handwriting, she had been certain the letter was a sign of life, an indication of where he was. Perhaps a call for aid. But it had been the opposite - a confirmation from the grave that he was indeed lost forever.
So typical of him to have thought of that eventuality. Other than the letter to herself there had been two more - a thin envelope for General Ba'kif and a much larger one for Eli Vanto, Thrawn's one true friend in Lesser Space. She hoped it would bring him comfort to receive a final good-bye. Losing Thrawn had been hard for Vanto… was hard for him. It was obvious to all who knew the human that he was very obviously still mourning.
Ar'alani felt a sharp pain in her abdomen. She closed her eyes and laid a hand on her stomach. And despite everything she smiled. Thrawn's letter had been reflective, even somewhat foreboding. But his reference to their shared night, so unplanned, so impossible, had shone through as a beacon of light.
And fate had a strange way of operating. Thrawn was gone, but Ar'alani was carrying his child. Her rash decision back on the Chimaera to keep Thrawn’s eggs, a decision he had not been aware of, had led to new life developing inside her. She fully expected the little chissling to be a handful once it arrived. But one day, when he or she was old enough Ar’alani would show them Thrawn’s letter. Until then she would keep it safely stored away.
Taking a deep breath, she kept her hand on her abdomen and read Thrawn's final massage again - and even though she knew it was impossible she thought she could hear his voice in her head.