Present, interrogation room aboard the Mon Cal cruiser Home One, Bilbringi Shipyards

"Alright, I guess that's all I have for you then;" Deana said, closing down her datapad; "unless you had anything to add Commander?"

I shook my head, wondering if it had been long enough. That had taken a while to get through.

"You know the rest, I was processed and here I am."

She nodded, "yes well I don't need to record that. You'll be moved to a cell next. There is one thing I'd like to know though, and it could help you in the long run."

I raised an eyebrow and looked up at her, "what would that be?"

"You mentioned that Hades had a recall transmitter that allowed your cruiser to send out a signal to your ships. If you could provide that transmission's frequency I might be able to get your incarceration taken care of quickly and even allow you better accommodations."

There was a silence between us, and then I burst out laughing. Was she serious? She couldn't possibly think that I was going to give her that of all things and besides I didn't think I'd be staying for too long anyways.

"I'm not giving you anything that will let you hunt down my people; I thought I already made that clear."

"I was wondering, after hearing about how you felt when you realized you'd lost that you might want to be more cooperative."

I snorted, "hardly."

"Alright," she said, her tone changing just enough to make me notice. "Republic Intelligence isn't going to be as friendly as I've been though. I'm just a fleet intel officer, once you're on Coruscant things will get harder for you."

I looked at her appraisingly, "I thought you didn't torture your prisoners?"

"Sometimes there are things we have to do, we don't have what we need here but on Coruscant they'll have everything they need."

I chuckled leaning back and shaking my head as I looked at the ceiling, "you know Lieutenant, I guess I was wrong about you."

"Really," she said softly.

I nodded, "during the months between Thrawn's departure and Endor; when we served under Vader and attacked all those innocent people, do you know what I always asked myself?"

"What," her tone was indulgent; she really wasn't expecting me to give her anything else of use after all.

"'Can I live with this?'"

I looked at her and saw her frown as I continued, "that is something I've wrestled with for a good deal of my career. Living with the choices I've made and despite some pretty nasty screw ups I've made I think I can say that yes, I can live with them. Do you think you can live with sending me and the other prisoners to be tortured?"

She set her face, "I do what needs to be done for the safety of the galaxy. To ensure there isn't another Alderaan."

I nodded, "there you go again. You know that is one thing that I've always found interesting about the Republic: you hold up events like Alderaan and act as if it gives you a free pass to do as you please. I admit that the old Empire committed atrocities, but does that really mean you have to act like that Empire in turn?"

"You attacked us Commander, your side lost, you were captured and now you're a prisoner of war."

I nodded, "yes that is a convenient excuse isn't it. Does the public know that you torture your prisoners?"

"The Republic military does not torture," she said, "our intelligence service does."

"And that makes all the difference I suppose," I said with a soft smile. "So long as you're not the one doing it then it isn't your problem. I envy you; I've had to live with slaughtering entire communities because someone decided it had to be done. All you have to do is enter something in your datapad and the atrocity gets committed elsewhere. What an ideal job for someone with no stomach."

"Get spaced Commander," she said, the nerve struck. "We're done here."

There was a blaster shot—it sounded more like a volley actually—followed by another wave of blasterfire out in the hall and behind the one way mirror besides us. Deana reached for her weapon and pointed it at me; the effort was somewhat comical as I hadn't moved from where I was sitting during the entire affair.

"I will shoot you," she said coldly.

"I think you need to worry about the door," I responded quietly, pointing behind her.

She turned, keeping an eye on me before she aimed at the hatch, I remained seated curious to see what exactly was going on and hoping I wasn't about to get shot. The hatch hissed open and a Republic trooper stepped inside, her eyes widening as she saw the weapon aimed at her.

"Easy Lieutenant, it's clear."

Deana lowered her blaster and scowled, "what just happened?"

"Someone tried to rescue the prisoner; we've sent out a call for a medic, they managed to shoot two of the security personnel."

"How did they get aboard the ship," Deana asked worriedly, looking out into the hall, I leaned over and looked past her and indeed there were two bodies sprawled on the deck. They looked very dead to me, hardly in need of a medical team.

"They pretended to be escorting prisoners; that's how they managed to get so close before we noticed something was wrong."

"They were escorting prisoners," Deana said hotly, "and you fell for it?"

The trooper stiffened defensively, "the prisoners were clones ma'am; we didn't think anyone would try something that stupid on the flagship."

I looked up at the trooper and smiled, "no, I'm sure no one would expect something that crazy. Very good shooting by the way, they didn't even have time to grab their weapons."

The trooper glared at me. Deana frowned and looked back at the bodies as the trooper leaned close to my still smiling face warningly

"You shut up Imperial. I almost died today because of your worthless hide."

I frowned, "I'm hurt Major, I didn't think you'd switch sides so easily."

Deana froze, "Major, wha—"

She didn't finish as the trooper turned around and drew her weapon, firing in the same motion into Deana's back; the intelligence officer dropped like a stone her arms sprawled out on the deck.

The trooper turned back to me and delivered a backhand across my face that spun my head around. It stung like hell but I had to admit I deserved it.

"You stupid bantha," snarled Sissir, "were you trying to get us killed?"

I worked my jaw, shaking my head in an attempt to stop the ringing.

"Well I had faith that you could get to her before she turned around."

Sissir rolled her eyes; another 'Republic' trooper looked in through the hatch, "all clear Major."

She nodded, "let's get you out of here before I decide to shoot you too."

I smiled and stood, stepping over Deana's body and into the hallway where a trio of guards lay sprawled on the ground. In addition to the trooper dressed in Republic style there were three others all of them clones. I nodded appreciatively as I peered into the adjacent viewing room where my interrogation had been monitored. There were two more bodies in there as well; the clones moved past me and began moving the three corpses into the observation room.

"Very impressive," I said; "stupid, but impressive."

Sissir slammed me into the wall and my head began ringing again, "don't piss me off anymore than you already have Gar. We had a kriffing hard time getting this to work and save your rear."

"I didn't think I'd get saved, I fully expected you to run and stay safe; not risk your life for a dead man."

She scowled at me, "you idiot."

"Guilty as charged," I responded as she let me down.

There was a groan from inside the room behind us, I frowned and looked over Sissir's shoulder to see Deana crawling towards the hatch.

"Major, you missed."

"Easily fixed," she responded, drawing her weapon.

I took her blaster and smiled, "allow me. I owe her."

Sissir blinked, "you're feeling vindictive."

I shrugged and knelt down in front of the hatch, poking the barrel of the blaster beneath Deana's chin and raising her eyes to meet mine.

"Hello Lieutenant."

She tried to look defiant, but the pain didn't lend itself to being bold, I nodded understandingly.

"I'm sorry you're hurt, I'd hoped that you wouldn't have felt any pain. After all until just a moment ago you were very civil to me."

"Just shoot me already," she muttered. Her eyes though said something different, she was terrified.

I nodded, "oh I will. I need you to give a message first. Can you do that?"

She looked at me like I'd lost my mind, "go to hell sithspawn."

I sighed, "the message is this: 'leave Hades alone. We're done fighting. Whoever you send after us will die.' Can you do that?"

She remained silent and I shook my head, "so much for civility."

I stood, she looked up at me, her face set defiantly even as her eyes pleaded with me; it was an interesting combination.

"Goodbye Deana," I pulled the trigger and a ring of blue energy flattened her against the deck; she convulsed and lay still.

I held out the blaster, Sissir took it with a frown as she switched back it back to kill, "I was wondering about that."

"Bacta patch," I called to one of the clones, he tossed me the patch and I lifted up Deana's charred uniform and slapped it onto the wound. "That should hold her until someone realizes what's going on."

"That won't be a for a while," Sissir said, "we're running a hard line directly into their mainframe. They don't even realize they're being hacked and they won't know we're here until we're gone."

"From one of your shuttles I assume?"

She nodded, "Commander Kindran came over himself."

I smiled, "how thoughtful of him. Lead the way; I think we've outstayed our welcome and I'd rather not test our luck with that hack despite Orlis' considerable skill."

"Agreed," she said, handing me a Republic officer's uniform. "Put that on and we'll get going. We've got some prisoners to escort."

As I stepped off the assault shuttle I still found it hard to believe that we had just walked off the Republic flagship and launched with barely a word. Mostly due to Kindran's skillful data manipulation, keeping holocams looping when we passed by and diverting maintenance and security teams with false calls. Minor things like that, he'd even managed to give us clearance to launch without going through flight control. The Republic was going to have a fit when they realized what had just happened. I'd thanked Orlis profusely for coming in person to ensure that the hack was handled smoothly. He'd brushed off my thanks but remarked that he hadn't expected I'd be the one to do something stupid, he'd fully expected Iriana to be the one in need of rescuing. Especially after she charged those three assault frigates. I had to chuckle at that one and imagined that I'd get chewed out by my fair share of the crew.

The part of the rescue that I found the most masterful was the Black Knight herself, Daru had completed the cloaking shield, and that had enabled the cruiser to sit just off the shipyards, beyond potential collision with the Republic warships and wait for the return of the team's shuttle. True they'd been deaf and blind, but they'd proven at least the utility of a cloaking device in covert operations if nothing else.

I looked at the waiting members of my unit with a broad smile, "whose party is it?"

Toth twitched and came at me with murderous intent, grabbing me and twisted me over as if I were a child, I didn't resist despite my initial inclination.

"You're a moron Gar, don't ever do that again!"

"Would you have actually shot at us," asked Kalan, looking a little hurt.

I shrugged as Toth let me go, "I don't know if the guns had any charge left."

Everyone noticed the obvious, I'd completely evaded the question but no one pursued it further. Everyone was too intent on welcoming me back. The person I was looking for though was no where to be seen.

Sissir must have seen my expression because she touched my arm, "she's busy. We only just got the cloak working; also I wouldn't go see her right now."

I nodded, taking the advice to heart; I turned to Harth who stood stiffly with an ominous scowl on his face.

"Losses," I asked concernedly.

"Minor, just over half a dozen."

"Seven?"

He nodded and I felt a weight lift off my chest, it had been impossible to confirm that the data I'd had in my disabled fighter had been up to date. At least now I knew that no one else had been killed during this fiasco.

"What do we do now," Iriana asked, getting to the point instantly.

Everyone looked at me questioningly and I sighed, shaking my head. Yes, what now. Thrawn was dead, his clone wasn't going to wake up for five years and the Empire would quickly be turning in on itself with no direction from someone as iron handed as Thrawn. Where did Hades fit in? After the silence had dragged on, I finally shook my head and smiled.

"I really don't know. For now get us clear of Republic space; somewhere neutral where we can disappear for a time. We'll worry about it more when we have some distance from the entire war."

She nodded, everyone exchanged glances and I shrugged, "I don't have anymore answers right now. Everyone get some rest and we'll figure it out from there."

Orlis tapped my shoulder and handed me a datapad, I looked at it with a frown that quickly turned into amazement.

"Where—"

"I took the liberty of investing and manipulating our finances. We won't want for much if we decide to continue operations."

I nodded and handed it back to him, "remind me to never play Sabacc with you."

Orlis let out a smile and nodded as I turned and began walking through the crowd.

"What are you going to do Gar," Matrin called.

"I'm going to take my own advice and get some rest," I responded with a wave. I was through with politics and war for the time being. Yet another failed campaign and we were back where we'd been nine years previously. We had to decide if we'd do what we did then again and hope for the best. The galaxy had gotten much smaller since then.

I lay in my bunk, my eyes closed but unsleeping as I stroked the purring ysalmir on my chest, thinking of what to do next. It seemed that even with the war effectively over in my mind, there where just as many choices to be made now as there had been previously. I'd already made one that was rather risky but I felt was warranted after all this time. Lost in thought, I didn't hear the door hiss open, or the soft footsteps approaching my bed. In fact I didn't even realize there was someone in the room until the ysalmir let out an indignant squawk and was pulled off my chest. My eyes opened and I found Daru looking down at me, she was wearing the dress she'd worn the first night Sissir had escorted her to my cabin when Stele and his force-sensitive idiots had been aboard.

I smiled at her, "for a mechanic you know how to get a man's attention."

Wordlessly she slid onto the bed and across my body, I tensed at her touch as she wrapped her arms around me and pressed her lips to mine. My hands traveled along her back and down her lekku; tracing the familiar ground tenderly.

She broke the kiss and looked into my eyes, fingering the buckle she'd given me still clasped at my waist.

"I'm never leaving you behind."

I considered her with mock shame, "even if I don't bring the ships back in good condition?"

Her eyes shimmered and she leaned down against me, closing her eyes and holding me as if I was the fragile one, "even then."

After a long while of lying together, caressing each other, she spoke again, "what now, Thrawn is dead. We don't have anything left to fight for."

I nodded, a slow gentle smile crossing my features. Yes, what now, I'd already told Iriana about our next destination. Now was as good a time as any to tell Daru.

"I have another promise to keep, one I made a very long time ago."

She looked up at me, her expression puzzled. I kissed her forehead gently as I ran a hand against her cheek, she leaned into the caress and closed her eyes, taking my hand and suckling on the fingers.

"What promise is that," she asked, finally releasing my hand.

I smiled at her, "I promised we'd find someone. We'll be stopping at Ryloth for a while."

She froze and looked up at me, her lekku trembling as she slid up against me, wrapping her hands around my head and leaning down against me, whispering tearfully against my lips as we kissed again.

"I love you."

I couldn't help myself as I smiled, breathing back into her mouth my own words.

"I know."