A/N: Surprise! I hope this is a wonderful gift for anyone waiting on this story. :) To everyone that has reviewed, followed, favorited, and loved this story, I give a huge thank you. A special shout-out to Tbarse, Jason864 Sg-1, Darth Wannabe, Celystira, Falcon's Hyperdrive, Draco Volans, Elorendil, The Ghostly Galoomp, ionwaterfall, Valiar Marcus, Liyahna, Tyria47, isubs11, Murmeltier, Meline387, Olenna Tyrell, Zedille, Wyval, Phygmalion, Wolf's Honor, Cycloneozgirl, Neila Nuruodo, GabrielaTJ, Hoplite39, Chisscientist, asqwerty3345, and the many Guests for all the wonderful reviews! It truly made my heart smile to see you all enjoyed this so much.

This chapter here is a little on the dark side, and a little bit of a catch-up on some events in the first part of this story, so I hope you stick with me after reading it. Some things just needed to be discussed so other chapters will make sense.

Disclaimer: The usual. :)

One month.

One month to the day since the Empire won its first major victory against the Rebellion after the defeat at Endor. Somewhere out among the stars, rebel pilots battled ships they once considered safe havens and beacons of hope, desperately trying to hold the line against Imperial encroachment. Somewhere out there, Grand Admiral Thrawn initiated the next phase of his campaign, the tactics subtle to the point of invisibility. Destroying his enemy from the inside out with speculations and deceptions, striking at the fragile heart of the New Republic.

Crushing it's morale as well as its defenses.

Everyone with spark of intelligence knew they were happening. I felt it, witnessed the Admiral's brilliance in the faces of every medical and military individual that took their turn to interrogate me. A pall had settled over the Rebel systems, dread dancing across transparent emotional eddies as the citizenry wondered if civil war would erupt across the face of the galaxy once again. How foolish of the Rebels to prematurely insist that the Battle of Endor ended the war. The massacre at Sluis Van, the theft of a quarter of the New Republic's fleet, exposed that lie for what it was.

The war was far from over and now everyone knew it.

It was simply a matter of time before the people would revolt against their own revolutionary leaders.

I thought this as the medical glided the laser trimming tool over the fingertips of my right hand. With a gentle hum, it meticulously trimmed my nails to the genetically appropriate length for my species. I was certain that its programming indicated such things were necessary for the healthy functioning of my body. Just as I was sure that short nails meant less of a chance I'd miraculously scratch my way through the guards, the durasteel restraints, and somehow make my way off-planet.

All without catching the notice of my jailors, or anyone for that matter.

Fat chance.

I almost laughed at the thought, swallowing back the bitter sound before it had a chance to lodge itself in my throat. One month had passed since my capture, since the Admiral's first victory and subsequent followup strike against rebel morale. Yet the Rebellion hadn't taken that strike as the warning it truly was. They created their own counter-measures against the decay of morale, Councilor Fey'lya leading that particular cruelty.

Thanks to that monster, my face was all over the Holonet. I was the hottest news ticket since the Sluis Van attack. Senators called for my head almost daily at his urging, using my image as the public 'face' of the enemy. He went on and on in speeches, attempting to calm the public with the news of my capture and simultaneously rending the reputation of Admiral Ackbar. Great orations spouted to all that would listen—and in a time where the galaxy feared another civil war, that was a lot of sentients—blamed us both for what happened. It was Ackbar's fault for weak battle planning. It was my fault for being… well… the only Imperial captured from the attack.

Aria Rhen Idelas, the Imperial Mastermind behind the Sluis Van Attack.

He'd made me the personification of all that was evil and wrong in the galaxy.

How quickly that same New Republic forgot that I was just an Ensign—and newly appointed to the rank at that. How quickly they discarded the facts that before that I was a conscript. Forcibly ripped from my home, my family watched over at gunpoint, and told as well as I was that any infraction on my part would equal an execution on theirs. The Rebel media didn't care about that anymore than it cared for Skywalker's futile attempts to divulge the truth.

Proving that the wounds from the previous civil war were still tender, and those that had begun to scar were ripped open anew by the campaign of Imperial Grand Admiral Thrawn.

Except that no one believed that he existed.

Supposedly all the Grand Admirals were dead, caught and executed within a year or two of the Emperor's fall. Even I'd heard the reports of that on my little mid-rim planet. No one wanted to believe that their glorious New Republic had missed one, that the great leaders that toppled the Emperor were capable of failure in any way. Or that they had no idea what they were doing, and that the Republic was literally one senatorial temper tantrum away from imploding.

No one dared, even in the darkness of their own private fears, to wonder if there really was a Grand Admiral wreaking havoc across their star systems.

It was simply easier to believe that one slip of a girl barely out of her twenties was responsible. People slept better with me behind bars awaiting my execution. People went about their jobs, their daily lives, with my face firmly fixed in their minds as the source of all evil thanks to power-mad monsters like Councilor Fey'lya. It was so much easier to blame the face right in front of you than the faceless enemy somewhere in the galaxy.

I was the face of the enemy now brought low, or so Fey'lya and his ilk crowed. There was no escape for me. I knew it. So did my captors.

So I did the only thing I could do. I reclined in my medical bed and let the Emdee do its job, staring transfixed at the screen across from me. Watching the Holonet replay yet another of Fey'lya's condemnation of Admiral Ackbar and his supporters, and pondering if Fey'lya truly understood or cared that the division he wrought with this blaming of Ackbar was more damaging to the morale of his New Republic than anything the Admiral or I could have done. I tried to take solace in the fact that all this media hype served a very good purpose. As long as the galaxy at large was focused on me, they weren't hunting down the Admiral.

It made me wonder if he planned that, too, or if he had spun a hopeless situation into pure tactical gold.

Probably the latter. Stars, I prayed that it was the latter. I prayed my impending execution would have some benefit in the end.

"Don't think about that," Skywalker said softly. "The Senate has yet to make its ruling."

No doubt he'd sampled my mood, sensing it across the currents of invisible power that was the Force. I closed my eyes, forged my painting within my mind, and hid my thoughts within the stars. "Go away," I sighed resignedly; repeating the phrase I'd thrown at him for the past month. "I don't want you near me. Please, just leave me alone."

"You know I can't do that."

"I won't tell you anything, just as I won't tell your interrogation group anything."

"They aren't interrogators," he sighed this time, repeating his usual response to this conversation. Only he didn't sound resigned or tired. Just honestly stating facts. "You are a prisoner of war, Ari. Per our own rules, we can't interrogate or torture you. It isn't our way."

I turned my head, shooting him a look that told him just how stupid that group of sentences was, and what I thought of those that believed them. He flushed slightly. "It isn't," He said firmly.

"Fine. Your questioners won't learn anything from me. I'm not a traitor."

"I never said you were."

I flicked a glance at the Holonews again. "Doesn't matter what you think. Someone has to pay for what happened at Sluis Van. Your Senators have already painted me the villain of this story. How long do you think you can keep me hidden before they storm this fortress and kill me on the spot?"

He was silent a long moment, and I could feel the dilemma racing through his mind. Unlike my own precautions, he didn't try to hide what he was feeling around me. If anything, he wanted me to feel the conflict. To experience his disillusion with what the New Republic was becoming already. It was important to him that I understood the balancing of duties to a government that made questionable decisions with the responsibilities to each individual that made up that government. In his mind, those individuals included me.

That, and the fact that I was innocent of Fey'lya's accusations, kept him at my side almost as much as his desire to train me as a Jedi.

"I won't let them," he said at length, as if those four words could magically undo the death sentence looming over my head.

"I don't believe you."

"Ari—"

"No, Skywalker, you—"

"Luke. My name is Luke."

The tiniest growl of frustration made it past my lips, and I closed my eyes. "I believe that you would die to defend me, even if I don't understand why or welcome it. You dying with me won't help this galaxy from what's coming. You gave me your word that you would do what was necessary to protect it."

I felt him reach out a hand to me in comfort, and then decide against it when I stiffened in response. I didn't want anyone touching me ever again, and he knew damn good and well why. After weeks of captivity, I was still in a medical room and in a medical bed for one reason only.

They'd taken my foot.

Stars above, they'd cut off my foot!

My right leg ended in a smooth stump two inches above where my ankle would have been. It didn't matter so much at the moment that I also had much less control over my left hand then I used to, that the fingers wouldn't quite flex into a full fist anymore. My hand was still there, meaning there was a chance, however slim, that I could regain full use of it one day.

My foot was missing. Hard to regain use of something that was no longer attached to your body.

Too much damage had been done, the doctors said, too much time without proper treatment. Not to mention the unknown side effect of that much vornskr venom running rampant in my veins for a prolonged period of time, coupled with the high metal content in my blood from those thrice-damned trees. It all had culminated in dead nerve endings and necrotic, irreparable flesh.

The need to scream, to sob, welled inside me again. I forced it down with effort, swallowing the bitterness and the tears. Sobbing wasn't going to help me. And if I really was a tactical advantage now, a screen to divert the rebels from coming after the Admiral, I had to play my part. Tears on a young woman's face did not fit the role of the stone-cold mastermind behind the Sluis Van Campaign.

"They're fitting you with a repulsor-cuff today," Skywalker said gently, picking up on my emotions again and leaning against the side of my bed. "After that, you'll be released into my custody."

I stared blankly at the screen.

"There are rules that you will need to follow," he continued. "Or I'll have no choice but to place you back into confinement."

I took in a deep breath through my nose. He wasn't going to give up or go away until I said something. "Does it really matter, Skywalker? A cell is a cell."

"Call me Luke. And it matters, especially since I've managed to convince most of the Council that you aren't completely at fault for what happened at Sluis Van."

I blinked. Blinked again, and searched for the hidden barb in his words. There had to be a trap somewhere, something that would invalidate me as a shield to my Admiral, something that would direct them to him rather than allow him to remain in obscurity.

"I did it," I said firmly. "I confess. I, Aria Rhen Idelas, Ensign in the Galatic Empire, am solely responsible for what occurred at Sluis Van. I did my duty to the best of my ability, to serve the Empire I both love and believe in with all my heart. I will not apologize for it, nor admit to anything less than pride in what I did for my Empire."

I expected to see his chin lift in defiance of my statement, or for him to grind his teeth and pace about, spouting useless sentences about how he'd gone out on a limb for me, or how I owed him, or how I had to work with him if I expected to survive. It's what I would have done in his place. He just stared at me with that serene crystal-blue gaze, the texture of his thoughts against mine as soft as ever.

"No," he said simply, calmly. "You were not at fault and we both know that, regardless of what Fey'lya says. There was no way you could have known you would end up with me in the 'Falcon, or that we would stop at Sluis Van. There was no way you received orders to do what you did."

"I did it. I was there."

"Your presence and assistance in the attack are not in question," he shook his head slightly. "You are guilty of war crimes against the New Republic in that regard. However, there are mitigating circumstances that lessen that charge."

My mouth twisted in a cruel little smile. "Using the Force is a mitigating factor?"

"No. Your conscription is. Combined with what Calim Tam showed me before our forced excursion on Myrkr, I feel there is a strong case to reduce your sentencing."

By the Empire… I'd never wished so hard to be back on the Chimaera in my life. If only for a moment to grab Tam by the shoulders and shake him until his head popped off. I'd told him speaking with this Jedi was a terrible mistake. Showing Skywalker the depth of madness running through our crew, and the sickness that was Master C'Baoth and how we tried to correct it, had been a huge mistake. Now I was going to pay the price of that for both of us.

Skywalker's eyes narrowed, as if he could barely see the streaks of crimson anger and sickly yellow flecks of sorrow crisscrossing my painting.

"There's more," he continued. "I believe you when you say that we need to save your Grand Admiral Thrawn. That part of our arrangement hasn't changed."

My eyes drifted back to his, stifling a small glimmer of hope before it had time to take root in my heart. "It hasn't? After all that I've done?"

"I gave you my word," he said with a shrug, as if this were a simple thing. "And… Ari, I saw the vision with you. I… I can feel that it's true. Somehow, some way, we need to put an end to this fighting and quickly."

That small glimmer coalesced into a pearl, nestling without my permission in that nest of sorrow and anger that had become my world. The narrowed, quizzical expression melted on his face, turning into a somewhat boyish smile. I rolled my eyes. Of course he would have noticed that.

"Whether you like it or not, Ensign Aria Rhen Idelas of the Galatic Empire," he said with a tiny grin. "You are going to have to adopt a Jedi mindset to help me forge the peace."

"What makes you think that I have that authority, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker?" I threw his title right back at him.

He gave another shrug. "The way the Admiral accorded you priority status during our negotiation, for one thing. For another, you're our only connection to the existing Imperial Elite. If you call, someone will answer. That information will get to the Grand Admiral."

I took a long deep breath. He had me there and he knew it. Remain alive, and I will come for you.Always remember that.My Admiral's words chased around in my head like a storm.

"I will not become a Jedi," I declared firmly. "I will serve my Empire."

The smile vanished, the serious light of a promise glowing in his eyes. "If I have my way, you won't have to give up one to take on the other."

I dreamt a lot during my time in captivity.

It shouldn't have been as shocking a revelation as it sounded, given my afinity for prophecy each and every time I closed my eyes. Yet there was precious little to occupy my mind during my captivity, and even less stimuli in the tiny windowless room that served as my prison cell. No furniture shared the same space with me other than a bed. Any chairs for visitors were brought in on a needed basis and removed just as quickly. My instructions, should I wish to forego tranquilizing drugs to keep me calm, was to sit on the bed with my hands held at shoulder heights, palms open and facing outwards until a security agent secured them behind my back and to the durasteel railing of the bed.

Then chairs would come in. Along with the questioners and their questions, until they had enough of my less than helpful answers. I truly knew nothing of value, and every answer I gave was honest. Yelling and screaming, threatening me with pain, couldn't force me to manifest information that I didn't have. Again, I marveled at the Admiral's foresight. One couldn't betray a plan if one did not have it in its entirety.

Hours upon hours of staring at bare walls were somehow worse than the fear and tension back home. Sleep became my refuge, my respite from the isolation. I… dreamt again, and that was the most disturbing thing of all.

I gave up on dreaming after my first week as an Imperial conscript, believe it or not. Unlike the others taken from my homeworld, I harbored no illusions about my future. There was no part of me that kept up a hope that the so-called 'New Republic' would quickly demolish what remained of the Empire, no torch that I carried within my heart made of the love of my family or the desire to return to my previous life. All that got me were pillows sodden with my tears and the animosity of those who shared my dormitory. They had been in the program longer than I, and had already had the childish blubbering stripped from their souls by relentless Imperial drillmasters.

I, like the other new conscripts, were threatened with beatings by our fellow 'recruits' if our wailing kept them from much-needed sleep.

Only they weren't threats—they were promises. I was forced to watch as Natasiah Grellis, another girl from my homeworld, was beaten to near unconsciousness for having a nervous breakdown our fourth night in the dorms. In the morning, she simply told the Drillmaster that she'd had a bad dream and fallen from the top bunk. No amount of screaming at her by said Drillmaster, nor the extra work she had to do as punishment, would force her to reveal the identities of those that had harmed her.

None of us that knew the truth would speak up, either. And I had a feeling that such things weren't only expected—but encouraged—by our Imperial Masters. Beating the 'soft' out of us before we embarrassed ourselves on whatever ship we were assigned, plus instilling a sense of 'unity' with our fellow conscripts. Only… only it didn't work that way for Natasiah. Her eyes went hollow and stayed that way, and no amount of help from me or Zyreth or anyone else from our homeworld could bring back her light. Hugging her, holding her in the night… nothing.

I took a beating for her once.

It didn't help.

If anything, it made her treatment worse.

Shortly thereafter, she was transferred out of our dorm. I never found out what happened to her after that. Come to think of it, I never even thought of her after the moment the doors closed behind her and the guards. It was too dangerous to think about her fate, to think of anything other than doing what was commanded of me.

I stopped dreaming after that, both literally and figuratively. Part of me knew the unspoken truth. Natasiah Grellis was dead. They'd found her wanting, unfit for duty though her intelligence test placed her above me. She'd broken that night of her beating. Stars, she'd probably broken well before that. It happened sometimes, or so the other more experienced conscripts said. There'd been a betting pool on all of us the moment we'd reported to the dorm.

Natasiah had lasted one day longer than the odds had favored.

I never had the time to find out if she'd simply been placed with a different group. If she'd found an officer like Colclazure that had plucked her from the brink of disaster and made something out of her.

But I saw her face as I floated in the formless haze of dreams, her image permanently burned into my brain. The shattered look in her eyes as she'd marched away, the almost smile on her lips. Relief… like she had found release within her own mind, even though her body remained in forced servitude to the Empire. I saw my own face with hers, how I'd found a sort of freedom in the opposite way: I made my conscription my reality.

Nothing existed beyond the present day. Nothing mattered beyond the 'duty' I was forced to take up. I threw myself into my work, into my training. I learned and progressed, scoring high enough on tests and simulations to earn my place onboard the highest ranking ship of the Fleet: The Chimaera.

I would never know if that made me stronger than Natasiah or weaker. If my sacrifice of everything I was had been the key to my salvation or if I had simply committed a kind of living suicide. It hurt too much to think about, and besides, there was way too much to learn and do on the Chimaera to bother with things I couldn't control or change.

And there were others to make me forget her. Calim Tam, and Aryk Colclazure. Reese and Vyns and Tschel, and a myriad of others. I saw them in my dreams, sat in Colclazure's tiny little closet of an office, a bottle of bootleg whiskey in my hands as we laughed at some war story Tschel was relating. Sometimes Tschel left and it was just Aryk and I, and we did things together that we had never done in the flesh. Other times it was Reese and I. Once, and only once, it was the Admiral and I.

That time I'd woken to a cry that had nothing to do with hopelessness and everything to do with very unofficerlike thoughts.

But Natasiah was there again when I closed my eyes, the shadow of Elindria Gilliam not far behind.