Disclaimer: I'm still not George Lucas, nor do I own Disney, to which my college-student bank accounts can attest.

A/N: I'm still sorry about the lack of more detailed information I gave before posting the first chapter; hopefully what I added to last chapter's author's note will help clear up the confusion. That was the prologue, now the main body of the story begins five years later. I've taken liberties with the family of Wedge Antilles to create an OC; I prefer to be creative rather than a slave to Wookieepedia, though I like to use EU information where I can get it, so I hope I can be forgiven for that. It also feels like there's an unfortunate amount of exposition in this chapter, though I suspect you're at least a little bit interested to understand what's going on in the galaxy, rather than my leaving you completely in the dark.

Lord Lelouch: Yes; it makes sense to me that Anakin would be much more cynical or pessimistic in this timeline, at least at that point (he'll be rather different when we meet him again). As you can see, Padme now is, too. Neither of them had many friends, and I can't help but think that they created a lot of each others' happiness. Without each other, then, they'd be much more prone to become bitter individuals. I hope to change that. :)

Thanks to sodorland, Veritas1995, and Jedi Master Misty Sman-Esay for the kind review and Christmas wishes!

Chapter I: Secret

Five Years Later

Padmé Naberrie Amidala, onetime law-defending Queen and Senator of her home planet of Naboo, celebrated her thirty-second birthday by a spectacular flaunting of Republic law.

Or rather, with a flaunting that would have been spectacular had anyone known what she was up to. As it was, this whole operation was as secret as the rest of hers.

After all, Padmé was familiar enough with the government she had once supported to be able to list off the top of her head the innumerable charges that would be brought against her should she be caught doing what she was doing, leading what she was leading.

Espionage. Forgery of official documents. Destruction of commercial property. Theft of commercial starships. Piracy. Arson. Terrorism.

Vigilantism.

Treason.

After one last, quick briefing with the field operatives she'd chosen for this mission, she headed to the bridge of the medium-sized escort frigate that had been liberated into her little revolutionary fleet.

Padmé and her partners in crime liked to call themselves the Alliance to Restore the Republic. Everyone else in the galaxy liked to call them "those mysterious happenings that are starting to rouse the suspicions of Republic military intelligence."

Well, let them wonder.

After all, the quality of military intelligence had decreased considerably following the collapse of the Grand Army – just another sign that the world she'd tried to make a difference in was decaying faster than Coruscant's public transit system. She stifled an ironic chuckle as she thought of the way her dear, gentle father – already a former Senator when she was just a little girl – had warned her about the kill-or-be-killed world of politics.

How little he knew what would happen to her – to the Republic – in the years following her acceptance of the royal name of Amidala from her people.

A blockade of Naboo, and then an invasion, by the ridiculously over-powerful Trade Federation.

Increasing corruption and the shattering of the Republic. The rise of the Confederacy of Independent Systems and the tensions that grew as the Senate continued to refuse to acknowledge those systems their right to secede.

The secret creation of an army of clones to serve the Republic.

A long and horrifying war.

The revelation that her growing distrust in Chancellor Palpatine was well-placed, as he had been plotting with the late enigmatic former Jedi Count Dooku long years before the war's beginning in an attempt to gain more powers for himself. Most of the administrative branch had been in on it, too.

Widespread belief held that he had wanted to make himself a dictator, to turn on the Separatists and crush them, and use the victory as his crowning glory. One would be surprised at what people would concede to someone who had successfully ended a war.

And then there had been the way he had caused a diversion to make his escape – if the horrible slaughter of hundreds of loyal Jedi could be summed up with a little word like "diversion." The number of Knights and Masters residing in the Temple at the time had been nearly halved. The death toll among those out on the front lines had been even worse – even with warning. Survivors had trickled in. A few had been confirmed dead. Many were still unaccounted for.

Once Palpatine reached his hideout in the Outer Rim, he had called the remainder of the Grand Army back to him, combining it into a hodgepodge force together with the remainders of the droid armies of the Separatists. Holed up somewhere in a cluster of far-flung sectors like a wounded predator in its den, he was nearly untouchable.

The Republic had survived, but barely. They had put together what they could of an army out of planetary defense forces, leaning heavily on the warlike nature of the Mon Cal and the belligerency of the Corellians (who had almost refused out of sheer pride) for the bulk of their new fleet. They had let the Separatists be for now, striking a wary truce as both parties rebuilt. What was left of their non-droid armies were doing their part to keep a wary eye on those sectors in the Outer Rim, too, as were the Mandalorians, who had said nothing to either side of the ended war but seemed instead to be attempting to use the power vacuum of the galaxy to rebuild their warrior state – and with frankly alarming speed.

All that, Padmé supposed, was to be expected in such a situation. As was the paranoia.

After all, if a Chancellor who had been so loved and trusted could have been so despicable, could have come so close to destroying the Republic as they knew it, who else might be hiding secret dreams of tyranny?

But it was the paranoia that was the problem. Though the Senate officially still functioned, as well as the Separatist government, in reality most systems had drawn in to themselves. The galaxy teetered on the edge of anarchy.

And so it was with firm resolve that Padmé had pledged not only her commitment but her full service to the little group of Senators who still wanted to fight for the ideals of democracy.

Alderaan. Chandrila. Corellia. Mon Calamari. Pantora. And a few others.

And Naboo.

Padmé resigned her Senate post three years ago, citing family struggles – and it was true that her father had been very ill very often lately – and more or less disappeared from the scope of galactic events. The fierce, brave Queen who had stood strong for so long had fallen silent, just like that.

Padmé hadn't bothered to take the time to see what kind of sensation her sudden absence had caused. As the new active head of the Alliance, she had more important things to worry about.

She soon found out that the Alderaanians, at least, had been preparing for this for a long time. She wasn't surprised. Anyone who knew Bail Organa as well as she'd come to wouldn't be fooled by his pacifist values for a second. He was not a man to be lightly dismissed.

With the help of a few geniuses he'd recruited, she'd managed to make their operations usually seem like the work of other parties – planetary leaders who had gone rogue, or maybe organized crime – the very people the Alliance fought against.

The innumerable planetary leaders who had gone rogue or turned tyrant.

Organized crime and newly formed drug rings. Slave trafficking.

Paranoid plots to overthrow the Republic government.

She and her people took them all out, and no one was the wiser – at least, not yet.

After all, the biggest problem in the universe was that no one was willing to do what it took to perform justice, to actually enforce the values of right and wrong that they all paid lip service to.

"The biggest problem in this universe is nobody helps each other."

Padmé stopped, unaware that she had been walking more and more slowly, consumed by troubling thoughts.

Now where had that come from? Certainly not from her own mind; it was far too sentimental and naïve for that. It almost felt like memory…

"Padmé? Hey. You said you were coming to the bridge, but you never showed up. Is…is everything okay?"

Kyella Antilles had a hand on her shoulder, friendly concern written on her pretty young face. Padmé realized with a start that she was still a ways from her destination. She straightened, forcing herself to focus on the task at hand.

"I'm fine. I take it we've returned to Lycradel III. I felt us turn around earlier."

"Uh-huh." An intelligent spark lighting her eyes, one of the Alliance's brightest young minds tightened her hold on Padmé's shoulder and more-or-less dragged her toward the bridge. "There was an intact vulture station at Karad V. Defunct and inoperative, but intact – no sign of Republic tampering."

Kyella was one of the geniuses, recruited by her fighter pilot uncle. Padmé sometimes felt bad that the brilliant young woman had dropped out of university with one year left, and had told her so much once, only to be brushed off with a quick smile and a shake of the head. According to Kyella, she felt her intelligence was much better served making the galaxy a better, safer place than it ever had been doing whatever meaningless pet research had been thrown her way by petty corporate funding. The girl was a natural code-breaker, and she lived and breathed strategy and intrigue. She had been the key to the successful completion of many missions.

Kyella dragged Padmé over to one corner of the bridge and practically shoved her at her workstation before flopping down in her chair. She pointed to something on a sensor screen that looked like gibberish to Padmé. "See, we haven't quite come upon the debris field yet, but the pattern of the smaller pieces that drifted after the destruction is entirely undisturbed. To me, this says that the ARC-170 squadron that went to survey the planet never came back out again. Grand Army protocol dictates that they would have come back through this same area when leaving the planet, just as a precaution against the Seps. If we're looking for a lost clone squadron, I'd say this is the place. They would've been too far from their capital ship to receive the snake's transmiss –"

Kyella suddenly froze in her seat, then leaned forward intently toward her sensor screen, fingers gliding swiftly over the controls before freezing again.

"Oh, by the powers," she breathed. "I don't believe it."

"What?" Padmé asked, not sure whether to be worried or excited at the younger woman's tone of awe.

"We only stayed just long enough last time to confirm that the mini-station here had been destroyed. But now we're trying to see more of it. Do you see that, just coming into our field of view behind the main body of what's left of the station?"

Kyella pointed and zoomed in even further, and Padmé felt her eyes grow wide.

"Is that?"

"It is." Kyella's voice was still soft with disbelieving reverence. "It's the hyperdrive ring of a Jedi starfighter."

Padmé almost forgot to breathe. This mission had just become ten times more important.