*looks at stats page and giggles* You love this! You really love this! Yeah, I know I've been told about how good this is nearly every review, but its only just starting to sink in. *grin* Hehehehehehe!!! *clears throat* Anyway!

Thanks so much to all you guys for the reviews. I really, really appreciate it.

Okay, this chapter is mostly pointless, but hey show me ONE chapter out of this story that ISNT mostly pointless. *grin*

Aisling shows a few officers who's in charge and Beth decides to go treasure hunting. How's that?

Now, dedications!

Andy: Yeah, I thought so. Dunno, I don't think its on the Imperial Health Plan somehow. There was originally a plot like ten chapters ago but that was mainly a plot that dealt with how to end the thing. Needless to say, it's been postponed for a while…

SummerRose (prev Nory; I know! That's why she's going there.

(blank); *giggle* Thank you! *to anonymous person* See? Someone appreciates my talent. *anonymous person wisely stays silent* Yeah, I probably will get that angle in, just not right now, k?

Dragonlet; I know the feeling. *evil smirk*

Silverwolfprincess; Thank you! *evil laugh* I cant either!

Baru-chan; *looks at review with raised eyebrow, shrugs and starts typing* Hmmm! Plot bunny! Thanx for it!!! I didn't, I named Luke 'Lefty' cos he looses his right hand and I named Wedge 'Wood block' cos of his name, wedge, wood block, geddit? Cheers for the name, I'll have to keep a look out for it and read that fic, thanks for the heads-up on it. Yes, do your h-work, I'd hate to think that I'd stand in the way of your education! J thank you.

A reader: thank you, thank you, no probs was going to anyway. Begging is not necessary, but if you WANT to…*smirk*

Annoying brat: Have you SEEN Epi 5?! He takes evil to whole new levels AND makes he it look good. How can you fail to appreciate that? You have just paid me the single greatest compliment that is possible on this or any other world. *mutters to self* Ever tighter my web weaves around the people of this world, by the time they discover my plot it will be too late!! *breaks into evil laugh* *random stormtrooper* You do know that its still on, right? *Epiphany* -_- Ignore that! *waves hand*  You don't want to sell me Death Sticks. *snigger* Oooh, the Almighty Poking! Yes I am familiar with its power. *glares at a friend* Quite familiar indeed.

Jay-Cee; yes, it will. *grin*

Amaris Sandstone; I'm familiar with the feeling, what do you think MY heads been feeling like since I hit on the idea?! *grin*

Sage the Psychic Slytherin; LOL. Not yet he don't, but he's getting there. *snigger*

Godfather Richsono; *bows* Thank you. Yeah I have, theres a lot of interesting stuff there.

That it? Yay, my fingers are getting bruised. (All who found filth in that, well done you are learning. Everyone who didn't, you must practise or your mind will never reside in a gutter!) *grin snigger*

And now, to the story!!!

Roberts leaned against the wall and watched with detached interest as Aisling and a general stood toe-toe, roaring insults at each other. She had walked into a training area and asked a general if she could borrow a squad or two of troopers. The general, in true Imperial fashion, had looked down his nose at her, then sneered and turned his back on her, making some comment about females not knowing their place anymore to a corporal as he did so. It went downhill rather quickly from there.

 Finally Aisling spun and stalked from the training area, realizing that she wasn't going to win this round. Roberts followed her, near-running to keep up with her furious strides.

 'What now?' he asked. Aisling growled at him and stopped in front of a lift, stabbing at the controller button repeatedly. Immediately the doors opened and Aisling went in, closing the doors so quickly that Roberts barely made it in. He glanced at her, noting the frown, compressed lips and nails scratching the air and decided to keep silent.

Soon the lift reached the right floor and the doors opened. Aisling swept out and turned right down the wide corridor, Roberts managing to look dignified as he hurried in her wake. She stopped suddenly, fixing Roberts with a glare when he walked into her, and pressed the button to open the door in front of her.

 'Isn't that?' Roberts asked nervously.

 'You don't have to come in,' was the snapped reply. She pressed the button again and Roberts winced at the way she held it down, clearly intending to do so until she was successful. 'He must be gone already,' she mused after a while, finally letting up on the button. With a disgusted growl, she turned away and strode back down the corridor the way they came.

*~*

The captain of the Avenger walked up the Vader and waited.

 'What is it captain?'

 'A message my lord,' the officer stated. 'From Imperial City. An individual named,' the captain checked his datapad. 'Aisling O' Connell.' The captain kept his tone carefully neutral when he said her name; he could vividly remember what she and the other one had done to the ship.

 'Aisling?' Vader repeated, turning towards the captain. 'What does she want?'

 'She merely said that she had to speak with you my lord.' Vader was silent for a while. 'Should I tell her that you are unreachable?' the officer asked, implying without words tone or inflection that he would dearly love to tell her to bugger off.

 'No,' Vader said at last. 'I'll deal with her.'

 'Yes my lord,' the captain said, ducking his head.

*~*

Aisling glared icily at the unfortunate trooper who had done nothing more than get assigned to communications duty that week. Roberts stood back, well out of the holo-transmitters field of view, but close enough to see and hear everything that happened.

Presently, a signal came back for the Avenger and the figure of Vader appeared on the holo-pad. Aisling, conscious of the watching trooper, bowed deeply. After a brief pause -she could just see Vaders eyebrows lifting- Vader cleared his throat and asked what this was about.

 'My lord Vader,' Aisling began, then had to hold in laughter when she imagined his expression as his helmet tilted in puzzlement. 'I offer my sincere apologies for disturbing you and give my humble thanks for the humour you bestow upon me in graciously accepting…'

 'Aisling,' Vader cut in warily. 'Have you been taking your meds?'

 'My lord?' she asked innocently, brow wrinkling as if perplexed.

 'Never mind. What do you want?' She bowed again, clearly preparing for another speech. 'Without all the trimming,' he added hurriedly.

 'Well alright then, just trying to enter the mood,' Aisling replied, straightening and dropping the sycophant act with a shrug. 'I need your permission to borrow a coupla squads o' troopers,' she told him bluntly.

Nothing moved, not a twitch of the black armour, not a catch in the ventilator-assisted breath gave away Vaders thoughts on this. But that ever-so-slightly strangled edge slid effortlessly into place when he asked;

 'Why?'

 'Cos Beths managed to hop aboard a freighter that just so happens to be heading for Carida.'

 'Carida.' There was a pause. 'And what are the coupla squads o' troopers for?'

 'For wrestling her back into the ship and keep her there long enough to get off-planet and into hyperspace.'

 'Ah.'

 'Yep.'

 'And you need my permission, because?' He knew damn-well why, but he wanted to find out how Aisling knew. She tossed her head as if it were irrelevant.

 'Courtesy, and because its easier,' she said airily.

 'And because no-one would hand them over,' Vader filled in; he was by this time familiar with her methods. She shrugged.

 'Bull-headed, your officers are,' she remarked offhand. Vader ignored the strange and familiar speech pattern and tsked.

 'What is the army coming to,' he said, shaking his head. 'When a civilian like you cant order an officer to turn over a few dozen troopers to him or her. Disgraceful.'

 'Quite.'

 'Major?'

 'General, the Major wasn't available.' *After all* Aisling thought sourly. *Officers don't get where they are by taking risks, do they?*

 'What did you say?' Vader asked in a weird kind of horrified fascination.

 'Many things,' she replied and sniffed. 'I didn't take too much notice of what he said; I was too busy thinking up things to say back. She paused a moment. 'Being incapable of leading troops seemed to feature heavily and most of it related to the fact that I'm female.' She finished the sentence with a half smile. Vader decided that he didn't want to know what she did or was going to do.

 'And the fact that you might be incapable of leading troops wouldn't have occurred to you?' he said instead. Aisling blinked at him then returned to reality.

 'Oh, I've led troops before,' she replied, ignoring the added fact that they had in fact been excursions on the parade ground. 'But I wont be the one doing it.' She nodded over to Roberts, who Vader couldn't see. 'Lieutenant Roberts is gonna do that.'

 'And what about a ship?' Vader asked after a moment. 'And supplies?'

 'Oh, I forgot completely about all that,' Aisling murmured. *Yeah, I'll bet* Vader thought, resigned.

 'I'll think it over,' he said at last, then he gestured to something out of the field of his holo-transmitter and his holo-image vanished.

Aisling turned and hopped off the holo-pad, giving a nod to the trooper as she passed. She went out the door of the chamber and down the hall, Roberts keeping step with her.

 'Now what?' Roberts asked, when they emerged into an open space. Aisling paused by the wall, watching the scattered officials, officers, troopers and courtiers with keen, if detached, interest.

 'Wait,' was the simple reply. With a barely repressed irritated sigh, he set himself up against the wall and did so.

There were a fair number of people scurrying to and fro; while the area wasn't crowded there was a definite stream of people to and from all directions. Several times groups or lone people were pushed close to the them by the tide of people or by distraction. One even veered so close to them due to his intense examination of his datapad that he nearly crashed into them before looking up and altering his trajectory, brushing against Aisling as he did so and tossed a 'sorry' over his shoulder as he disappeared.

After a while, Aisling left her spot on the wall and strode through the corridor that was opposite them, Roberts to her left and slightly behind. He vaguely recognised the way to the training area are they'd visited earlier and wondered what she was up to. It wasn't until she saw her obviously memorizing a sheet of flimsiplast as she walked that he remembered the man that had nearly walked into the wall and them along with it. He grinned suddenly and vowed to make sure that he got a good seat.

Aisling barged through the doors and swept in, all pretence of respect gone. She strode up to the general she'd spoken to earlier and tapped him on the shoulder. The smirk on his face as he turned was one of "back for more, eh?" Roberts dropped back slightly, angling for the best vantage point.

Aisling waited for the rest of the officers to give them their full attention, then produced the flimsiplast with a flourish.

 'Orders from Lord Vader,' she announced in a loud clear voice. She inspecting the document carefully on the way here she made damn sure that she knew all the details. 'Awarding unconditional control of two squads of my pick of stormtroopers, a ship sufficient for numbers and mission and all provisions required to Lieutenant Roberts and myself Aisling O' Connell, answerable to Lord Vader.'

The look on the generals face as the news sank in was everything they could have hoped for and more.

*~*

Beth looked around the room and sighed. Unlike larger starships, the freighter didn't have a detention cell, so she had been deposited in one of the cargo holds, the cargo itself being unreachable to her by a hastily rigged force-field. This left her with approximately ten foot square of space and not much else. Needless to say she was unbelievably bored.

Finally, she got up from the floor and went to the control panel beside the door. It had been made inactive on this side as a precaution. After removing the panel and examining the wires, she decided that, as a preventative measure it didn't work too well. A few crossed wires and a couple of sparks and the doors slid open easily, letting her stride through triumphantly.  

 'Okay,' she murmured to herself, looking around. 'You're out of there, now what?' She had seen most of the ship already since before someone had hit on the idea of the cargo hold she had been shuffled around to everywhere else. That left, not much at all.

 'Hello,' she said, catching sight of the other two cargo hold doors. 'What have we here?' The doors slid open immediately at her command and she saw rows of boxes and crates, none of them protected by any force field, sensor lines or barbed wire. She stepped into the hold, closed the doors and got to work, an enormous grin on her face.

*~*

Aisling stood with her back against the wall beside the doors to the bridge. From her position, she could see the whole of the bridge and most of the pit, few things escaped her scrutiny.Lieutenant, now acting-Captain, Roberts was enjoying his position of authority and they were very nearly ready to set off. The only thing they waited for was the go-ahead form traffic control.

The doors beside Aisling hurshed open and an Admiral she recognised form the courts strode smarty through, making a distinct beeline for the command post. Aisling stayed where she was, waiting to see how Roberts would deal with it.

Clearly, Roberts recognised what the Admiral was intending for he intercepted him before he stepped out onto the bridge proper, politely but firmly blocking his way. The Admiral responded by arrogantly ordering him out of his way. But Roberts, secure in his position, annulled the order, which annoyed the Admiral even more. Aisling watched bemused as the crew of the bridge and pit surreptitiously turned their heads to look at the row. Eventually, Roberts caught Aislings eye and gestured minutely. She smirked and nodded.

 'You are on the verge of mutiny,' the Admiral was shouting, his face red. 'I order you to hand this vessel over to my command and take yourself to a detention cell immediately!'

 'Is there a problem?' Aisling said calmly, stepping behind the Admiral who turned to see who had interrupted his diatribe.

 'Yes there is a problem,' the Admiral snapped, he recognised her from the courts as well. 'You are a civilian Miss O' Connell and it is against regulations for a civilian to be on the bridge of an Imperial ship. And this,' he turned to Roberts. 'Is a lieutenant.'

 'And you are an Admiral,' Aisling finished in a quiet voice. 'What of it?' While the Admiral spluttered, Roberts cast a swift look at her. Hands clasped loosely behind her back, her posture was non-aggressive if not passive, her expression was of helpful interest, her voice low, tone polite, so why did he have the urge to run and hide?

 'As an Admiral,' the admiral said at last. 'I outrank both you, so hand this command over to me immediately before I take it myself.' Aisling was silent for a moment, as if pondering his words.

 'So if you outrank us,' she said slowly. 'Does that mean you outrank whom our orders come from?' The Admiral paused, just enough self-preservation instinct still survived to make him ask,

 'Who gave you your orders?'

 'Lord Vader.' Aisling tilted her head and half-smiled. 'Do you outrank Lord Vader? Admiral?'

*snigger* needless to say, I'm not fond of officers.

Thanks again for all the reviews, but your obligation does not end here! More reviews! Greedy am I and I care not! *grin*

Bye for now!