Somehow, Thrawn Nearly Did Return
Flim’s final act as “Thrawn” was to stand down the Imperial forces Disra had rallied to his cause—with the latter arrested by Pellaeon’s forces and Tierce’s clone killed, the Caamas Document Crisis was practically over. But it would be weeks later until the true document was recovered by none other than Luke and Mara Jade on the planet Nirauan: the heart of the Empire of the Hand, a renegade Imperial offshoot hidden in Wild Space, built up by Thrawn in secret before his death as a shadow force to safeguard against perceived extragalactic threats.
The Hand not only had a copy of the original Caamas document denoting the actual scope of Bothan involvement, but something far more dangerous: an actual clone of Thrawn, which had been sent to the Hand in a Spaarti cloning cylinder a decade prior by the Grand Admiral, with the prophecy that he would return in 10 year’s time to lead them. Although Luke and Mara Jade refused to murder the sleeping clone, the choice was made for them when they accidentally activated defense systems in its vault. They were forced to flood the chamber to destroy awakened security droids, drowning the Thrawn clone in the process.
