Thrawn: Treason

 

Thrawn competes with Orson Krennic for military funding in this book. Thrawn wants additional funds for his Tie Defender ships. Krennic doesn't want funding taken from the Death Star project to support the Tie Defenders. A supply line for the Death Star is being interrupted by Grallocs attacking their ships. Thrawn and Krennic enter a wager, orchestrated by Moff Tarkin. If Thrawn can get rid of the Gralloc problem to improve delivery of supplies to the Death Star, he can get additional funding for his Tie Defender program. If not, the funding will go to Krennic and the Death Star. Thrawn takes the wager, and in the process discovers a conspiracy.

The ships had been rigged to be attacked by Grallocs by pirates, in order for them to steal the supplies. The ships were thought to be lost in space, their hyperdrives destroyed. In reality, they were taken to a trading post where their supplies were confiscated. During his investigation, Thrawn runs into his old Chiss Ascendancy partner Ar'alani. Turns out the Chiss are also investigating these disturbances. Together, they learn that the trading post had been attacked by Grysk pirates, an alien group both Thrawn and Ar'alani consider to be a threat to their respective military. In addition to attacking the post, the Grysk had kidnapped a Chiss skywalker, a child navigator capable of using the Force to help with ship navigation, a skill called third sight. 

Thrawn and Ar'alani work together to save the Chiss navigator, as well as eliminate the Grysk. After rescuing the young skywalker, they use a much older skywalker's ability to use second sight to read the mind of the young navigator, leading them to the Grysk base where they defeat the aliens. In the process, Thrawn discovers that Grand Admiral Savit was responsible for the Gralloc attacks, thus disrupting the Death Star supply chain and committing treason. Like Thrawn, he disagreed with so much funding going to the Death Star, and instead thought it was more sensible to spread the money throughout the military.

Of course, in the process of working with Ar'alani to save the Chiss skywalker, Thrawn himself also made some questionable decisions by utilizing Empire resources to aid a foreign group. In the epilogue, the Emperor encourages Thrawn to return to Lothal to deal with Ezra Bridger. Afterwards, he is to return to Coruscant to have a long talk with the Emperor. In this sense, the book ends with a bit of a cliffhanger in terms of Thrawn's future., and I don't think any additional books exist (currently) that explain what happens to him. The last time we saw him on screen, he was battling with Ezra and they get blasted off into space along an unknown vector. Ahsoka mentions him during her appearance on The Mandalorian, apparently searching for him and Ezra, so I suspect we will learn more about his story in upcoming Disney+ shows. We also learn that Thrawn's former assistant, Eli Vanto, is doing research for the Chiss on Skywalkers and second and third sight, so there may be more to their story as well.