Chapter Three - Midnight

Adra rolled over with a groan as her comm went haywire. Her hand groped through the darkness in its search for her flightsuit and, in turn, the comm. At last her hand found the beeping thing and she grumpily thumbed it on.

"Tallon. What the sith do you want at midnight?" she snapped, not exactly caring who was on the other end. While a part of her mind registered that the person might be someone like General Antilles or similar, everyone should have the decency to let people sleep at night. Apparently the courteously of sleep didn't extend to pilots like her.

"Sorry Adra," Colonel Celchu's voice came over the comm, "but this is rather necessary...or so these people claim." He paused, as if debating whether or not to continue. He opted to. "Do you have any relation to a General Tallon?"

* * * * *

Adra had taken a shower as quickly as her dim awakeness would allow, and then she'd hurried towards the docking bay, tugging at the collar of her flightsuit as she went.

It was hardly twenty minutes later that she arrived at Rogue squadron's headquarters. The Enigma touched down and the first thing she noticed was the TIE fighters stationed there. Somehow she wasn't surprised that the New Republic hadn't blown them out of the sky. The marks on the spacecrafts would've been enough for the New Republic gunmen to hesitate shooting them. Had it been Adra behind the guns, however, she could've shot them on sight.

She climbed out of her X-Wing, unconsciously slowing herself down. A small figure became silhouetted in the light pouring from the building. Quickly she recognized the figure as Ari Solo, the Huttese-speaking and quite insane nine-year-old of Rogue squadron.

Adra walked towards her, a smile evident on her face, even if she was glowering inside. Ari yawned slightly and nodded in acknowledgement of Adra. Adra found herself quickly wondering why the sith they had the girl up this late, for one, and for two, how she had missed the girl's transition into a pilot- not just a girl who liked to fly. Wedge was obliviously doing his job well, turning this Solo child into a pilot.

Ari smiled to Adra then turned down the hall. Adra could only assume that she was to follow the girl. She was led not to Tycho's office, as she'd expected, but instead to Wedge's. An exasperated sigh escaped her as she realized that under normal circumstances Tycho wouldn't have even gotten Wedge up. Unless he was being pressured into it or if he didn't want to deal with the person or persons involved. Colonel Celchu, from what Adra knew of him, wasn't a person to give in easily. It was with that thought in mind that Adra entered the office.

Ari saluted Wedge, who returned it with something like a fatherly smile on his face, and then he bade Ari a good night with the order to get some rest. Adra watched Ari walk sleepily off, then turned to Wedge.

"Well? Why am I here? Tycho said something about an Imperial General," she asked him, taking a seat in front of his desk. If he could afford to have Tycho wake her up, he could afford her not being formal.

Wedge didn't appear to mind the lack of salute, but a frown creased his face none-the-less. Then he spoke, his voice a bit tired.

"Why didn't you ever elaborate on your parents? We knew when you arrived after being knighted that you had Imperials for parents, but you didn't tell Iella that your father was General Tallon," Wedge paused for a minute, a look of something like self-shock and self-annoyance crossing him. "I can't believe I never connected you to him." He shook his head and Adra got the distinct impression that he was trying to figure out how he hadn't connected the general he had been fighting against in some skirmishes a few months back to one of the pilots he had up there to blindside a Star Destroyer.

Adra could care less what he was trying to figure out. She had told whoever asked that she was not General Tallon's daughter, no matter how many times she was questioned.

"I'm not his daughter," she whispered. She almost wished she hadn't said anything because to her it sounded more like a plea of acceptance than the sure-thing she'd been telling herself and others for the past ten years.

Though she wasn't looking at him, Adra could feel Wedge's surprise at her words rippling through the Force. It changed abruptly into confusion. Then Adra felt the tangles of a question beginning to form.

Before he could ask, she answered, "I was seven years old when I decided I hated the Empire. That was also the year my mother got the notion into her head that I should marry Garik Loran, that marvelous Imperial actor," Adra paused, looking over at Wedge, wondering if a sarcastic remark was on its way. The only thing she saw was a smile, so she continued. "Anyway, the General found a way to weasel me into the Imperial academy that year. The long and the short of it is that by the time I was nine, the General was just that to me. I still see him as nothing more than an enemy general that thinks I'm his daughter. I left Bastion that year with Yaddle, just a few days after I shot at the door he was behind then put the blaster to my own head."

The surprise Adra had felt in Wedge earlier had come back in double the strength. She glanced up at him now, seeing his jaw slightly open. Before he could voice his surprise in some comment or another, a stab of panic crossed Adra.

"Could you not repeat that, General? Please?" Even though she normally wouldn't beg, she very nearly did now. Wedge masked his surprise and immediately nodded.

"Of course," he replied. Then he frowned slightly, as if he couldn't exactly find a way to word it right. "Have you told Face? I don't mean as your commanding officer, Adra; I mean that in respect to the fact that I'm sure he'd like to know something about your past. Before being a Jedi, I mean."

Adra sighed. Yes, she thought, I probably should tell him that. I just don't like bringing it up. At last she nodded to Wedge.

"No, I haven't," Wedge started to cut her off, but Adra continued, "Wait, Wedge, let me finish. I will tell him, I promise; I'll even do it today if you'd like, but I want to know why they're here first."

Wedge considered her for a minute then nodded as he stood. Without another word he led her down the hall a ways, at last stopping before Tycho's "office" door. Pressing the release on the panel, he stepped inside as it opened, Adra following him in.

General Tallon and his wife were already on their feet, the former talking in a mildly heated manner to Tycho. The Alderaanian was looking at the General with narrowed eyes. Adra didn't even bother listening to General Tallon's words; instead, she pulled out her lightsaber, walked up silently behind the General, and then activated the green blade centimeters under his chin. All talk stopped as the General registered what weapon was being held under his chin and then who was holding it. Adra held his eyes in a glare, watching him.

The General, however, seemed to find it all a joke.

"Hello there, Addy," he said. Adra's glower increased at her old semi-nickname. "Why don't you put that away before you hurt yourself?

Adra opened her mouth to reply, but Tycho broke in first, saying, "General Tallon, I would think you of all people would know that Adra- if she is, as you claim, your daughter- isn't one to joke around with a lightsaber."

Mentally Adra cursed Tycho. Wedge and General Tallon were both looking at her with different expressions and Adra was sure her mother was glaring just the same.

"Listen to the good Colonel, father," Adra spat out the last word, using it to cut more than anything. "He knows more about me than you do."

"You mean to say, Lieutenant, that when you left with Yaddle you never actually told your family?" Colonel Celchu's voice came across the void.

Adra looked over at Tycho, nodding, then deactivated her lightsaber. "You may have gotten that right, but you didn't get the second bit correct," she turned to glare at the General, scorn written all over her features. "He is not my father, and I've given up on calling them my family."

Shock, surprise and a million other things filled the Force, nearly sending Adra reeling. She looked up, her eyes oddly dark, and glared at each person in the room.

"Could you all just get a sithing hold on your emotions!" she exclaimed at last. Everyone looked at her in shock, then Wedge and Tycho nodded. They seemed to remember she was a Jedi in that moment, for both looked a bit embarrassed and mumbled something that sounded like 'Sorry, Adra'.

Adra continued to glare at them for a few more seconds, the looked over at the General and his wife. Her expression darkening still more, she kept one hand on her blaster, the other on her lightsaber.

"Alright then. Why the vong are you here on Coruscant?"

The General looked as if he were ready to tell her to shape up and quit being insubordinate, but then seemed to think better of it. He shook his head and sighed.

"Because after you left, mayhem in your wake, I might add, your mother and I actually sat down and talked about what you had come to tell us. We realized that you didn't actually have to come and tell us that you were going to be getting married, but you did. We don't know why, didn't know then and still don't know now, but you did. It seemed as if you almost were trying to give us another chance...or that's what your mother says," he spoke easily, quite out of his every day military insignia. Whatever he had been hoping to achieve by his little speech, however, backfired instantly.

Adra merely scowled at him, almost shaking with anger, as she fought to come up with a response. Finally, she did. "Right, so you just decide to fly to Coruscant and arrive here at midnight which, I might remind you, is a time when people usually sleep! By the emperor's bones, you couldn't have just found a hotel somewhere so that I could think of things to say to you when I'm awake, not when I'm half asleep and pissed because you woke me up?"

Dimly aware that Tycho had picked up his comm, Adra just stood there, trying to concentrate on the Force to let go of her anger. Anger at her parents because of their actions earlier the other day, angry at them for being such sithing Imperial koochoos. And most-importantly, at this moment, angry at them because they woke her up at midnight. Sure, they could make up a story, but that didn't mean she wouldn't marry Face. That was, undoubtedly, the only reason they'd actually decided to 'request' forgiveness. Lina Tallon sat down in one of the chairs positioned in front of Tycho's desk, the General standing behind her. Adra merely glared some more.

When she could finally not stand the silence any longer, she just threw up her hands and walked out into the hall. She made her way towards the docking bay, annoyance seething through her. Quickly she climbed up into the Enigma, put her helmet on, and powered away from Rogue headquarters.

* * * * *

By the time she got back to Wraith, she was too tired to walk to her room, so instead she went into the lounge. Not really caring if anyone else was up yet, she inspected the room, glad to know that it was at least empty. She grabbed one of the blankets that what crumpled at the end of one of the couches, kicked off her boots and plunked herself down under it.

Adra curled her legs up under herself and rested her head on the arm of the sofa, pulling the comforter up around her. So what if she was falling asleep in the lounge. If people had a problem with it, they could take it up with her blaster. At least she hadn't gone to bed in Rogue lounge.

* * * * *

She woke up about six hours later- o seven hundred- to the sounds of someone moving in the hall. About to get up and stretch, she stopped as she realized everything around her. She had moved a bit, that was sure. Across the room Nicola sat talking quietly with Bror. At one table, the Tainer siblings were having a cup of caf- their morning tradition when time allowed. She rolled onto her back and at once found herself staring up at Face as he looked down, her head in his lap. He put down whatever the datapad was that he had been reading, a grin spreading over his face. Adra smiled back at him and was about to comment when Nicola's voice did instead.

"Well, look who finally woke up," she was in a better mood that usual this morning, that was for sure. Adra looked over at her friend, then closed her eyes again, still thoroughly exhausted. She had gone to bed at twenty-three hundred last night, had been woken up by her insane parents an hour later, had spent an hour at Rogue headquarters and then had come back to crash on a couch. "I went to get a drink at about one thirty last night and- to my surprise- found your boyfriend, Adra, coming out of your room. Care to offer us an explanation, because when I got here this morning, you were asleep in much the same position I see you in now."

Adra couldn't help smiling at her friend's words. They certainly explained who Tycho had chatted with on the comm last night. He probably knew she was going to be walking out in a few moments, thus deciding it would be a good idea for someone at Wraith to know she was coming back from Rogue and if she wasn't there within a half-hour to send a search party for a crashed X-Wing.

"Actually, if you really want an explanation," Adra began, opening her eyes again, "then I'll tell you. Good ol' insane Tycho commed me at midnight to get me to get my butt over to Rogue to have a little chat with my parents. If you've got any doubts about it, ask Wedge."

She was dimly aware that everyone in the room was listening with interest, and saw Nicola nod.

"I see," her friend finally said. "Oh well, we've got the day off so long as the Imps don't attack. Enjoy getting rested up then." And with that, Nicola went back to her previous discussion with Bror.