A/N: In this chapter we meet the second and third crewmen in our little story. Thank you all for have taken the time to read. The private messages are awesome and appreciated! I try to respond to each and every one. To the Thrawn fans out there, yes - he will play a major part in this story. So will Pellaeon. We just have to get there. (Which should be soon!)

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. I make no money from this. This is purely for fun. Please do not sue.

By the end of my shift, I could tell that my upper arm was indeed bruised. It was a subtle reminder, a dull pain that flared up each time I had to extend forward for buttons outside of casual arm's reach. I guess that, if the writers of all those fictional books were correct, I was supposed to embrace that pain. Use it as a reminder of sorts for the price of making mistakes or some such nonsense. Then again, I doubt any of these writers had ever spent even an hour in military service. If they had, they probably wouldn't have said such things about pain.

Crewman Forde arrived right on time (that is to say two minutes early), and I was never happier to exit the station in my entire life. While the day had not been too terribly bad aside from the morning's drama, I was stiff and sore from a twelve hour shift and ravenously hungry to boot. All that was on my mind was a trip to the 'fresher, a trip to the commissary for hair cutting, and a trip to the mess hall. It didn't matter if they were serving fillet of belt leather for dinner, I was going to eat it and be thankful for it.

I hadn't eaten anything the night before due to being a nervous wreck about my first day on duty. Given that I'd managed to make a mess of my morning anyway, I was planning to chow down and get a good night's rest. Tomorrow, as they say, was a new day and a fresh start. As if the thought of sleep was a cue to my body, my jaws tried to crack open in a yawn. It was a supreme effort of will to keep that from happening as I strode quickly across the crew pit towards the turbolift. If Imperial procedure frowned on being two minutes late to shift, I didn't want to know what expression it made if someone was so crass as to openly yawn on the bridge.

I stepped onto the turbolift, filing all the way into the back to make room for the rest of the shift change. I couldn't wait for the doors to close, to cut the image of the bridge from my eyes for at least twelve hours. I'd almost managed to forget the image of glowing eyes staring down at me, until I realized that Admiral Thrawn, his alien bodyguard, and Captain Pellaeon had stepped onto the turbolift with me. For the second time in twelve hours I felt the blood drain from my face. Glancing to my left and right, the other two crewman in the lift with me didn't look any better. If anything, we were sort of pressed as far back into the turbolift as possible without looking as if we were trying to merge with the plasteel walls.

The Admiral and the Captain said nothing as Captain Pellaeon keyed for whatever deck they were heading towards. Silently I prayed that their stop was way before ours. The last thing I wanted to do was catch the attention of the two scariest men in uniform on board this ship. I honestly didn't think I had enough left in me to attempt to brush past them if my stop happened before theirs. The other two crewmen - one I knew as Cris Pieterson from my own unit, and one I had only met in passing at orientation - seemed to share my silent plea. I resolved right then and there to stay on the damned lift until the Admiral and the Captain were out of it. I didn't care if I had to ride all the way down to engineering and pretend I had a reason to be there. I wasn't walking in front of either of them, not after my embarrassing behavior this morning.

Thankfully, they exited the turbolift two levels down from the bridge. The collective sigh of relief in the lift was palpable.

"Oh thank the Force," I muttered, sagging a little against the lift wall, rubbing at my bruised arm.

"You're telling me," the Nameless Crewman replied, running his hands over his face. "I think I would have passed out if I held my breath for a moment longer."

"Did you see the way that… that bodyguard was looking at us?" Pieterson added, staring at the spot in which said creature had stood as if he could still see him there. "Almost as if he wanted us to make a move. Like he wanted to gut us for fun."

Something in Pieterson's tone, in the way he continued to stare at the empty spot of floor, bothered me.

"I don't think it was that bad," I tried, attempting to sooth both Pieterson and myself. I hadn't missed the once-over that the creature had given us all, either. "I think he's just dedicated to his job, is all. I mean, imagine if your life depended on keeping a Grand Admiral alive? I think I'd view everything as a threat, too."

Pieterson was shaking his head, a frown replacing the fearful expression from before. "No, no it was more than that. I know it. They all are waiting for us to make a mistake so they can have fun killing us. Why else would they conscript us?"

Nameless and I exchanged glances, and Nameless edged a little further away from Pieterson. Apparently he didn't like Pieterson's look, either. "That's dangerous talk," Nameless said, voice low. "We're pressed into service until the war is over, then they'll let us go home."

"You really believe that?" Pieterson countered, an edge of something dark creeping into his voice. "No, they'll keep us until we die."

Nameless and Pieterson locked eyes, and I could feel a growing tension rising in the lift. It seemed all three of us were conscripted into service, pulled by force or threat of force from our homeworlds. And while Nameless and I had come to a sort of peace with our fate, Pieterson still harbored ill feelings. Ill feelings could easily grow into ill actions, and take the rest of the people around you down with you when you fell. Nameless, evidently, had no intention of falling with the likes of Pieterson. No matter what it took.

"You're both right, in part," I put in, trying to defuse the situation. "Remember, they put a lot of effort into training us. I think we're here for life or until we reach retirement age, but I don't think we're play toys to be discarded on a whim, either. If that was the case, I'd be dead right now. Or did you miss the little show between me and Ensign Colclazure this morning?"

Nameless lifted an eyebrow questioningly. Pieterson blushed with embarrassment. And just like that, the tension had passed.

"You okay?" Pieterson asked at last, glancing at the arm I was tenderly massaging. "He shouldn't have grabbed you like that. Conscript or not, you're still part of the crew. He can't manhandle you."

"I'm fine, and the incident was really my fault," I said, flicking a glance at Nameless and the question in his eyes. "I was late to my shift, and instead of presenting myself to my officer like I should have, I tried to take my station as if it didn't matter. He… corrected me on that."

"Ah," Nameless said, as if I had explained everything. After a moment of strained quiet in which both men tried to ignore my embarrassment, he extended his hand. "I'm Calim Tam, crewman on the communications team."

I took it, giving him a one-pump shake with my good hand. "Aria Idelas. This is Cris Pieterson. We're starboard tractor beam crew." The turbolift doors chose that moment to open, spilling us out into the general corridor leading to the mess hall. "Join me and Pieterson for some food?"

Nameless-now-called-Tam shrugged a shoulder. "Sure," he replied, following us into the chow line. "Though I have a question, if I may?"

"Shoot."

"If you knew you should have presented yourself to your officer this morning, why didn't you?"

It was my turn to shrug. "I was stupid and nervous. It's my first day officially. And all that beautiful training you read about? Well, it all went right out of my head. I brushed up on some basics during a lull in activity today and let's just say that I'll know better next time."

Tam winced in sympathy. "You certainly know how to make a first impression," he said with a slight smirk, picking up my tray and carrying it to an empty table so I could continue to work the soreness out of my arm.

I thought about that, and the feeling of glowing eyes staring down at me. "You aren't kidding, friend."