One step. Two steps. Three steps.
She heard them from the other side of the wall. She knew what would happen now. She knew the guard would open her cell, and the next couple of steps she would be taking were steps towards freedom.
The door of the cell slid open, the officer she had seen  day when he had brought her food and escorted her to the training rooms occasionally, signed her to come outside, then cuffing her hands behind her back.
"For the last time, Miss Ree."
"I'm not gonna miss it," she said, grinning.
She took a deep breath and then started taking her first steps towards the exit of the metal prison building she had been kept in. Soon, she would be outside again. Really outside. For the first time in forever.
Thane had been right. And in a way, Ciena hated that. Because it meant she had to live on and break her oath. It felt terrible. But despite feeling like it just wasn't right to violate the oath she had made to the Empire... she couldn't seem to forget what Thane had said, especially that one sentence which kept repeating in her head.
»Did the Empire stay true to us?«
She couldn't stop thinking about it, and in the end, she knew that it hadn't... but then again, that didn't matter, did it? She'd been the one to swear the oath, not the Empire. She was the one who had to stay loyal. That was how it had to be.
But then her mind drifted to the horrible things the Empire had done to the galaxy. To all the pain it caused... and to how much more pain it could have caused if the rebellion hadn't destroyed the Death Star.
»Both of the Death Stars,« she corrected in her head, feeling sick at so much as the simple thought of it. She thought of Alderaan... but she also thought of Jude, of Berisse, who had died because of the Rebellion, and had to fight back the tears. These deaths were something that could never be forgiven... as much as Alderaan and building the second Death Star could never been forgiven.
By now, it was clear to her that the first Death Star had just as little been built to prevent a war from happening than the second one. She'd been told construction of the station had started shortly after the ending of the clone wars... far before anyone could ever have thought of a war with the Rebellion. Building this weapon had only had a single purpose... to demonstrate the power of the Emperor, mainly at the cost of innocent civilians, so no one would dare to oppose his iniquities anymore.

Ciena still shuddered as she remembered her first – and thankfully also last – encounter with the Emperor, and prayed silently to never again have to stand in front of a person who made her feel the way Palpatine and Vader had.
After everything she'd been through, the jelucan had started questioning whether or not the rules about honor she had grown up with simply weren't compatible with a galaxy where so many people only thought of themselves and used others for their personal gain. Her culture had chained her to the Empire despite her faith in it fading every day... and her believes had driven her to try to kill herself as the only way out of the situation, despite whatever future she might still have had ahead of her. If it weren't for Thane, she would be gone by now... no longer struggling with the fact that a part of her still wanted to go back and remain loyal, in spite of her hatred towards what the Empire had become.
She didn't have doubts in the believe of her people itself, not once. The jelucan attitude of morality was good, it was just people that used others like her that made it dangerous. The thought made her sick... and it forced her to remember the evening before her mother's trial.
The evening she had learned that no one had stood to the rules of their culture because they were too afraid... when Thane had been the only one to show up at their doorstep and stand by them.
She didn't even dare to think of where her mother was right now.
A part of her wished she had broken the rules to help her back then. Now she didn't even know if her mother was still alive. Was Jelucan still controlled by the Empire?
She wasn't even sure how much time had passed since she'd been arrested.
She'd lost track of time in her cell.
Lost in her thoughts, she hadn't even realized she had now taken her first step outside the base until her boots touched the sand.
Now that she was back out in the open... it felt weird to see a landscape that seemed to stretch endlessly towards the horizon. It felt like ages since she had last seen anything like it, having spend most of the past years in space.
She didn't know where she would be send now. Ciena had just been told that it she would be send to a planet which had once been controlled by the Empire and was still suffering the consequences, and that her mission was to help in every way possible.
That had been the sentence of the New Republic. Two years of social work on worlds the Empire had destroyed in one way or another. A lot of the other prisoners shared that fate. It made sense. Those people who had turned a blind eye to what the Empire had done to the galaxy – or even taken a part in it – were now forced to see the consequences of their actions, to speak to the victims, to love and work with them. Ciena had already been well aware of what the Empire had done to some worlds for a while now, so this weren't new information... but she was kind of glad to be able to help these people after everything she had played a part in these past years.
Of course no one trusted the former imperials enough to simply drop them off on these planets and leave them to it. After all, there surely were enough who would flee as soon as they got a chance – even though Ciena was sure not everyone thought like that – so both local people, as well as a couple of rebels that were stationed on the planet for this exact purpose, kept an eye on them.
That sounded a little like slavery to her, but she'd been promised a humane treatment as well as proper meals – so far as it was possible on the planet she was send to – and two days off every week.
If someone behaved commendable, he or she would even be allowed to go on a short holiday during which they were allowed to travel anywhere – as long as they were supervised. When the two years of social work passed without incident, one received a certificate of permission of employment with which they were allowed to work anywhere in the galaxy – both in the New Republic and on the independent worlds which, for the most part, had entered into commercial contracts with the New Republic.
Overall, that didn't sound bad... and way better than Ciena had even dared to dream. She'd expected a lifelong imprisonment in a prison of some dead-end village – with a death sentence, even. But she hadn't even considered that anyone would even try to reintegrate Imperials in society through social work. And she thought that – maybe – it could actually work.
"How much longer do I have to wait?", she asked, and the jailer smiled grimly.
"Can't wait to get away from here, can you?"
She shook her head.
"It's less that, than... I... I can't wait to fly again."
She beamed, more than she had in months. Ciena knew she would fly – of course she wouldn't be piloting, she probably wouldn't even be allowed to step into the cockpit. But at least she would be in the air again. She had missed that feeling more than anything else.
Her fingers trembled with impatience. She closed her eyes and breathed slowly. She knew she shouldn't be happy just yet, when she didn't know who would supervise her. Maybe that person was horrible, or-
"I'm here to pick up Ciena Ree?"
She would have recognized this voice anywhere. She didn't need to ope her eyes to know who had just spoken – but she did it anyway, because she wanted to see him.
"Thane Kyrell, Corona Squadron," the jailer mumbled, reading the data off of his pad, then uncuffed her. "You're authorized to take her with you."
At first, Ciena was stuck somewhere between punching him in the face and hugging him – then decided to do the latter because the jail or was still around and she didn't want to have the first strike in her files minutes after leaving jail. Thane wouldn't have reported her, she knew him well enough to know that.
"Idiot! You said you weren't allowed to be my supervisor because they think you wouldn't report me!," she cursed, her head pressed into his shoulder.
"Your hair doesn't smell like hay anymore," he mumbled. "It still smells nice, though." It flat like eternity since they had last been allowed to touch one another.
She'd love nothing more than to do it all day now. As the thought crossed her mind, she pressed her lips onto his. Ciena wasn't mad at him anymore, hadn't been for weeks. She admired that in spite of the war, in spite of everything that had happened... he had always stayed her Thane, ready to risk his life if it meant saving her's, until the very end, even when they were on different sides of the war. "How's your injury?," he asked as they moved apart.
"Healed up." She grinned. "Care to explain why you are allowed to supervise me after all?"
"He isn't," a woman's voice spoke up from somewhere behind Thane. "Not alone, at least."
"You're pretty late," Thane commented and turned towards whoever has spoken with them.
"I thought I'd give you some privacy first since your finally able to feel each other up again."
Their faces reddened.
"How dare you to-" Ciena said, now standing next to Thane to be able to look at the woman she was speaking to – then faltered in the middle of the sentence as she realized that she knew the woman standing right in front of her. And she was the absolute last person Ciena had expected to ever see again. "Kendy?"
Her former roommate grinned.
"Someone who isn't Thane is supposed to keep an eye on you, which is why I'm here."
"I..." Ciena didn't really know what to say. "I thought you were..."
"Yeah, I know. They did kill most of the squad I was in during the revolt, but some of us indeed made it out alive, which of course they didn't exactly shout from the rooftops."
"That makes sense..."
Truth to be told, she was overwhelmingly happy to see Kendy. She was glad that at least one of her friends had made it out of the war. It was just... she hadn't been prepared to see Kendy ever again. Sometimes, this huge galaxy was indeed surprisingly small.
The three walked towards the spaceport together. There were already some former imperials waiting onboard the ship when they entered, and Thane ushered Ciena into the cockpit while Kendy led everyone else into the passenger room of the transport.
"Lizard-toad-snake for pilot?," Ciena joked when they entered.
Thane laughed.
"Not today, copilot."
Her eyes widened in surprise.
"Really? I'm allowed to?"
She beamed.
"Well, officially, you're not. But what they don't know won't hurt them," Kendy said as she joined them. "You two have been flying together since you were kids. And I know how much you love piloting. I'll still stay here to watch you in case you get into mischief, though."
Ciena didn't care if her former roommate stayed or left, because in this very moment, nothing could deteriorate her good mood. She hadn't been this happy in forever. She knew that this bit of doubt about her oath would be nagging her for the rest of her life... but maybe she could learn to live with it.
Both her and Thane had, in spite of having to fight the entire galaxy for it, survived the war to fly another day.
Their future was uncertain... but because Thane had saved her, the galaxy could potentially one day be a better one for Ciena than the one they had grown up in.