Anguirus111 Note: You might be wondering why I'm rewriting Admiral Daala's character and her encounter with Han, Chewie, and Kyp in the Maw Installation. Quite frankly, I found the idea of a female admiral in the Imperial Navy very interesting as they were notably anti-female. However, I felt the idea that Kevin J. Anderson went about it was different than what I would've liked to see, where Daala worked hard to get where she was and didn't just sleep with Tarkin and get promoted. Also, I didn't like how she was so clueless as to what was happening in the rest of the galaxy as she blindly decided to stay in the Maw, she should've at least ventured out a few times to Kessel to get a heads up on the state of the galaxy. Simply put, her backstory and rank is going to be different, but the whole encounter with Han in the Maw while different will still occur after his mission to secure the Spice Mines of Kessel fails and he barely escapes with Chewie, and Kyp. The small details might not be 100 accurate with KJA's novels but who cares? The first part of this chapter occurs before Han goes on the mission to Kessel…

Coruscant: "So you want me to open diplomatic ties with Kessel? Is that such a good idea, what if I fail?" Han asked. "Then it's all for nothing?"

"Not exactly," said Wedge. The two of them were in Wedge's office where he was taking a brief reprieve from cleaning up Coruscant following its recent reacquisition into the New Republic after Emperor Palpatine's latest clone's death.

'What then?" Han asked. Wedge grabbed a dossier and tossed it onto Han's lap.

"We need you to investigate rumors of a legitimate pre-Endor appointed Imperial Vice-Admiral who is supposedly hanging around the Kessel area. We don't have any solid evidence, but rumor has it this Vice-Admiral pops up from time to time above Kessel and harasses Moruuth Doole, for what reasons we don't know, and then vanishes," said Wedge. Han briefly glanced through the file.

"A single Star Destroyer?" he asked after reading the rumors on what vessels this Vice-Admiral had. "That's not much of a threat."

"No," Wedge admitted. "But a Vice-Admiral is typically only a Vice-Admiral if they're very good at tactical combat. One Star Destroyer could be still be a threat in the right hands, Thrawn proved that more than anyone."

"So what's their name?" asked Han still going through the files.

"Daala," said Wedge simply.

"Daala?" asked Han. "So what's he like?"

"We don't know anything about him," said Wedge. "All the records pertaining to him were curiously purged from the system, all we got is a scrap of info saying that they trained at Carida," said Wedge.

"Assuming it's a he," said Han. "The file doesn't indicate gender."

"C'mon Han, no female ever achieved a rank higher than lieutenant save for Ysanne Isard, but how she got to be Intelligence Director and then leader of the Empire after Palpatine's death is anyone's guess."

"Yeah you're right," said Han getting up. "If I catch any wind of this person while on Kessel, I'll let you know."

"Thanks Han," said Wedge. "It's probably nothing after all, but you never know."

"Bye Wedge," said Han leaving.

"Later Han,"

Much Later: The damaged transport roared through the Maw Installation carrying Han Solo, Chewbacca, and Kyp Durron. Things hadn't gone particularly well in Han' negotiations after the Millenium Falcon had been fired upon and crashed into the planet only for Han and Chewie to be taken prisoner by Moruuth Doole who was still holding a grudge against him and Chewie for not being capture by the Empire for having spice. As slaves they'd met up with Kyp Durron, who'd been there since childhood and all three had miraculously escaped on a prison transport that was now badly damaged and flying amidst the blackholes of the Maw in a desperate attempt to get away. However, they now had no idea where they were going and thanks to a slight puncture in the hole, they were quickly loosing consciousness due to oxygen depravation.

"C'mon Kyp," said Han barely awake. "You can make it."

"I'm trying Han," said Kyp. "I'm-"

Kyp suddenly slumped onto the console unconscious next to the similarly unconscious Chewie when suddenly the transport roared past a pair of black holes and emerged into a massive area of empty space filled with a cluster of asteroids and a triangular shaped object in the distance.

"A star destroyer? What the hell," said Han before he too slumped into unconsciousness and awaited the death beyond.

Han's next memories were nothing of blurs of people rushing all over the place, him on a gurney, bright lights flashing, and murmured voices.

"How'd they make it through?" asked a voice.

"Luck," said another.

"Not luck, this one has Force potential,"

"Invasion?"
"Unlikely, oxygen depravation,"

"Who are they?"

"Wait I know they're!"

Silence

The next thing Han knew he was opening his eyes to see a bright light above him.

"Hello," said a voice as a dark shape loomed over him. "Good to see you're awake?"

"Am I dead?" asked Han, fearful for how Leia and the kids would survive without him.

"No," said the object, which coalesced into a female doctor leaning over Han. "Nearly were when we finally got to you, but you're fine now."

"My friends," said Han struggling to get up before being forced down by the doctor.

"They're fine but still unconscious," said the doctor looking off to Han's right. Han leaned his head over to the side to see Chewie and Kyp attached to life support monitors that were rhythmically beeping.

"Thank you," said Han gratefully even though he had no idea who she was.

"It's my job," said the doctor simply. She scanned Han's heart rate through a handheld scanner before putting it away.

"Where are we?" asked Han as he looked off beyond Kyp and Chewie to a window portraying the darkness of space with the swirling black holes beyond.

"You're inside the Maw," said a new voice. Han turned his head to see the new voice, this one belonging to another woman, brown haired who seemed to radiate authority.

"And who're you?" asked Han. The woman shrugged disarmingly.

"Just a smuggler like you used to be," she said. "You are Han Solo of the New Republic correct?"

"Yeah," said Han nodding realizing it was futile to deny it. "And you would be?"

The woman walked over and leaned against the foot of his bed and looked at him.

"My name's Aeryl," the woman said.

"Aeryl?" Han prompted trying to find out her full name. The woman nodded.

"Aeryl Daala," she said. Han's eyes widened but quickly narrowed as he tried to not to tip her off to anything.

"What?" the woman demanded confused. Han shrugged, it'd be too late to deny it now.

"I came here to investigate rumors of an Imperial Vice-Admiral Daala operating in and around this area," said Han solemnly. "Are you that person?"

Aeryl leaned over Han's face with a dark look over her face. Han briefly gulped when suddenly the edges of her mouth began quivering and she burst out into laughter.

"An Imperial Vice-Admiral? Me?" she asked incredulously. "You must be joking the Empire doesn't promote women in their hierarchy to a position that high!"

Han nodded embarrassed as he too began laughing at his ridiculous statement.

"I haven't laughed this hard in a long time," said Aeryl wiping a tear from her face. "You are a joker Mr. Solo that much about your legend is true."

"I wouldn't call myself a legend," said Han sitting up while the doctor gave him some water. "I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"Aren't we all," said Aeryl. "Aren't we all."
"So you know nothing of this Vice-Admiral?" Han asked drinking the water.

"I wouldn't say that," Aeryl said thoughtfully.

"So you do know something," said Han. "What?"

"Do you promise not to tell your friends in the New Republic?" asked Aeryl.

"No," Han promised. Aeryl leaned back and rested her hands on the bed.

"Moruuth Doole is a pain in the ass, we both agree on that I hope?" asked Aeryl.

"No argument on my part," said Han. "He held me prisoner for the past few weeks and I'm itching to get back at him."

Aeryl nodded. "Anyway, I don't want him accidentally poking his nose around here so me and my smuggling group concocted a scheme where we dress up a member of our team in a Vice-Admiral's garb. Together with a Star Destroyer we 'acquired' we wheel him out to Kessel whenever Doole starts poking his nose around here and use him to warn off Doole. I was kind of hoping the NR wouldn't find out about it and decide to investigate it because then we'd really be screwed because then Doole would find out he's not real and we'd be up the creek," she said.

"You're secrets safe with me, I'll just say that it's still a possibility," said Han. "I can leave right?"

"Of course," said Aeryl nodding. "But we don't have any ships scheduled to leave right now so you'll have to stick around for now."

"That's fine," said Han. "I don't want to compromise your operations. I may be legit, but that still doesn't mean I don't appreciate the biz."

"That's good because I'd rather the NR didn't know about this place, it's pretty good for where it is. Locations good and so too is the defensiveness of all the black holes," said Aeryl.

"How'd you find it?" asked Han sleepily.

"I'm not to tell you everything," said Aeryl with a smile. "Now get some rest I'll show you around later."

Han nodded and laid back down on the bed before he was sound asleep. Aeryl looked at him saddened before leaving the room with the doctor.

"Imagine that, the hero of the rebellion right here in our fingertips! This could be our in to getting back into the war!" shouted the doctor.

"Yes," agreed Vice-Admiral Aeryl Daala all business now. "But we're not going to do anything about it."

"What?" demanded the doctor. "This is a perfect opportunity."

"If we harm him," said Daala as an aide came up and followed the two of them. "We're going to have the entire New Republic on our heads. Palpatine and Thrawn couldn't defeat them and I seriously doubt we'll have any better luck with a straightforward assault. However, there are other ways of winning and after I glean for all the information I can about the New Republic that Doole has no clue about, we're leaving this place. I want all stormtroopers and personnel to pack up everything and get it onto the Gorgon ASAP. Then I want all ships except for the Hydra to pull back out of visual range until called for."

"It's going to be hell trying to conceal the Gorkon," said the aide.

"We'll manage," said Daala. "Now move, you have your orders."

The group split up and Daala sighed and looked up as a massive shadow fell over the base.

"This is the life we chose," she said solemnly before walking off to direct her personnel.

Later: Han and Co. were sitting in the rest room outside of the hospital and were finally recovered from their injuries while working in the spice mines as well as the oxygen depravation.

"I can't believe we're still alive," said Kyp with a weak smile.

"Just lucky I guess," said Han. He looked out the window of the room to see a Star Destroyer hovering in the distance. Chewie growled something.

"Aeryl said that they'd 'acquired' one, I guess that's it," said Han.

"She's in remarkably good shape, she doesn't look like she's got a scratch on her," said Kyp. Han nodded.

"That is a bit strange, but then again the Errant Venture is lacking in score marks as well," said Han. Chewie laughed.

"So what if it's brick red, it's still true!" shouted Han.

"I trust we're all alright?" asked Aeryl suddenly appearing.

"Yeah we're fine, so what's up?" asked Han.

"Not a hell of a lot, we were just packing up some things for shipment out of here," said Aeryl as a Sentinel-Class landing transport roared out from underhand and headed for the Star Destroyer.

"For smugglers, you're not very conspicuous," said Han pointing at the thing. Aeryl laughed as she motioned for them to follow her down the hallway.

"It's a different world than when the Empire was around, nowadays more force is needed to do what's needed. The world's a lot more dangerous than when the Empire fell," said Aeryl. Han shrugged.

"Maybe," he said. "But for the most part it's for the best."

"The New Republic doesn't police things as well as the Empire did. On the one hand there's more freedom to get things were they need to be, but on the other hand scum like us are free to capture whatever we want from whoever we want with no repercussions," said Aeryl.

"Well we've been busy trying to repair things after Thrawn failed in trying to take over the galaxy and then Emperor Palpatine coming back right on his heels, Coruscant, Mon Calamari, Bilbringi, and a host of other areas have been heavily damaged and if not repaired could fall to the Empire at any moment," said Han.

"There's not really much of an Empire left is there?" Aeryl wondered. Han shrugged.

"I guess not," he said. "The inner rim is primarily controlled by various Imperial Warlords while the Outer Rim is rumored to have hidden Imperial Fortresses throughout, but there's no real proof of it. At any rate the Imperial are too busy fighting amongst themselves while trying to assert dominance in order to give us any real trouble. It's pretty much going to be peaceful from here on out."

"Yah," said Aeryl nonplussed about the current situation of the once glorious Empire.

"So what was this place?" asked Han. "I don't think you'd have had time to construct all this on your own."

Aeryl nodded as the aide joined them. "We found it by accident, better you don't know the circumstances. We investigated and discovered that this used to be a former Imperial Military Research Base where they were designing weapons like the Death Star," said Aeryl. "For reasons unknown, it was abandoned and we found it about five years ago right before the Battle of Endor and have been here ever since."

The aide grumbled something and Aeryl looked at him annoyed.

"You three keep walking, there's an observation area ahead, I'll catch up with you in a moment," said Aeryl.

"Fine, I still need a rest my body aches all over," said Han. The trio walked off down the hallway leaving Aeryl with her aide.

"He seems upset about something," said Kyp as they passed by other personnel who eyed them warily.

"Yeah they all do. But Aeryl does seem to be in charge around here," said Han. Chewie barked something.

"Yeah probably, but we all are hiding something at one time or another," said Han. "She's a smuggler, she doesn't want her base of operations."

"I get the impression that she's concealing a lot more than just a simple base," said Kyp.

"How so?" asked Han.

"It's a feeling I have," said Kyp ominously. "Like the feeling I got when piloting that ship through the Maw. She's hiding something, the only question is, what?"

"What the hell do you want?" Daala demanded. "You're blowing my cover!"

"You're blowing ours!" shouted the aide. "Telling them the truth, what are you thinking?"

"I am a Vice-Admiral in the Imperial Navy appointed by Emperor Palpatine himself, I know what I'm doing!" shouted Daala. "To cover up what this place was is pointless, concealing the Gorkon is hard enough and that can move! There is no way to conceivably cover up this base giving the time those sedatives we gave them would last. If they found out our cover would be blown and then what? We'd have to take them prisoner and quite I frankly I don't want to do that. Palpatine removed all the scientists, like that Qwi Xux and Tol Sivron from this base years ago along with whatever plans they had well before we even got here so it's not an issue. Besides, we're not going to be here much longer for the New Rep. to get a bead on us. Now get yourself to the Manticore and stay there!"

The aide growled and walked off. "This is what we get for having a woman in charge…"

Daala yanked out her comlink and flipped it on. "When my aide gets to the ship see that he is thrown in the brig for a few days to cool off."

Daala sighed, this was just the latest in a long of line of aides she'd had to let go for making a comment regarding how her gender shouldn't be in command of anything. It'd been uphill since day one when she'd first decided to join the Empire. She knew she wouldn't have had a chance, but she'd stuck with it. She'd created an alias on the computer network and had shown her strategic prowess time and time again. It wasn't long before she attracted the attention of superiors, which was her intent all along. Unfortunately, as great as it was to have netted the attention of Moff Tarkin, but his offering her advancements in turn for sexual favors had turned her off. She intended to get promoted based on her abilities as an officer, not a lover. She'd rejected his advances and he'd left swearing he'd ruin her career. For the next couple months she'd lived in fear until she'd heard the blissful news that the Rebels had destroyed the Death Star and taken Tarkin with it. She hadn't been happy about the loss of such a battlestation and the Rebels gaining strength, but having Tarkin gone was a huge weight off of her shoulders. Unfortunately, she was still stuck doing manual labor for another two years until finally, her efforts under her alias paid off when she attracted the attention of someone who valued her tactical prowess much more than her sexuality and like her he too was somewhat of an outcast among the other officers.

The man was none other than Vice-Admiral Thrawn who had only gotten where he was because he'd wiped out the Outbound Flight Project, something that any aspiring Jedi hating Sith could appreciate. When he'd been rediscovered by the Empire, Palpatine had instantly given him command of his own Star Destroyer and sent him on various missions in to the Unknown Regions. He'd recently gotten back and decided to test his skills against the students of Carida. He had annihilated all of them in the simulations without breaking a sweat, but Daala had managed to hold her own longer than the rest using decidedly unconventional tactics of ramming her ships straight into his. Nevertheless she'd lost and figured that was it but to her surprise she was wrong. According to rumor, when Thrawn finished the simulation he'd taken the roster of the entire base, flipped through it and when he'd come upon her photo he knew immediately it was her who'd been on the other end. Thrawn instantly went to her cabin and knocked on it. She'd answered it and found herself confronting the solemn gaze of the red eyed blue skinned Chiss.

"H-hello," she'd said.

"Greetings Cadet Daala," said Thrawn. "Please walk with me."

Daala swallowed nervously and followed him.

"Wh-what brings you here?" she asked.

"I think you know," said the alien. Daala sighed, knowing she probably shouldn't have tried to challenge a user with the name HandofThrawn but she couldn't resist a challenge. Now it looked like her entire career was in jeopardy if not her life, faking an ID on the network was something that just simply wasn't done.

"Yes I suppose I do," said Daala.

"How long have you been here cadet?" asked Thrawn.

"Three years," said Daala.

"And you've been stuck doing menial tasks the whole time?"

"Yes," said Daala sighing. "I don't like it, but there's not a lot I can do about it, it's just the system. One day though, I hope to be able to truly show to others how I can benefit the Empire."

"You realize that your talents might be better off with the Rebellion. At least there they would use you to your fullest," said Thrawn.

"The same would be true for you, the Empire isn't always fair to aliens," said Daala before realizing who she was talking to. "Sir!"

"That is quite alright feel free to talk informally cadet," said Thrawn as they advanced down another corridor.

"Sir if you don't mind my asking, why are you part of the Empire?" asked Daala.

"For the same reason I suspect you are, they're the rightful power in this galaxy. The Rebels are an illegal organization that has no plans for the future besides gaining power. Once they do, they will instantly fall apart to internal squabbling much the same way the Old Republic nearly fell to the Seperatists before it corrected its problems and became the Galactic Empire. To join the Rebellion would just be…wrong," said the Admiral. Daala nodded.

"Yes, it's more of a gut feeling more than anything else," agreed Daala. "But what does this have to do with me."

"I believe you have potential, potential that is being squandered on this base. As much as I'm sure the base will miss your above average mopping, there are better opportunities elsewhere for you," said Thrawn. They emerged onto the landing field where a Lambda Class shuttle was waiting on the field.

"What's going on?" asked Daala confused. Thrawn turned to her.

"I've been assigned to track down the rogue Grand Admiral Zaarin and I have transferred you to my fleet in order to assist me," said Thrawn.

"But I don't even have a rank," protested Daala.

"You do now," said Thrawn handing her a rank insignia. "Let's go Lieutenant Daala, we have work to do."

"Now?" asked Daala incredulously.

"Evil doesn't wait around lieutenant, it must dealt with now before it grows into something completely unmanageable," said Thrawn.

"And if it does become unmanageable?" asked Daala as she boarded the shuttle.

"Find a way to make it more manageable," said Thrawn. And with that the shuttle took off towards the future.

Present Day: "Make it more manageable," said Daala to herself. She nodded and proceeded to the observation dome to continue to learn all she could about the New Republic and make the daunting task of reviving the Empire…more manageable.