AUish. Or maybe just a couple of missing scenes from a younger, less serious time.

Maximilian Veers was starting to wonder if it wasn't too late to decline the promotion. Not that he wasn't proud of his newly earned rank, and the sheer impossibility of refusing Lord Vader's favor aside, but two hours into the exalted gathering, the freshly minted colonel was longing for the days, back when his commanding officer had not yet thought it politic – how he hated that word! – to drag Veers along to … whatever this festivity was supposed to celebrate.

The aristocrats were sneering at him because he wasn't one of them. The Alderaanis were frowning at him for being a career soldier. The Alderaani aristocrats were going for a double score – and there were plenty of those at a high-class get-together only one system over from the Alderaani sector – while a few particularly intrepid souls added extra disdain for his association with the – absent, naturally – Sithlord.

None of which, unfortunately, would serve as a deterrent against the dozen or so females who'd set their sights on him. The ladies – using the term exclusively to denote rank – seemed to regard the wedding band he wore as a challenge, and the fact that most of them were still hanging on to the arms of their respective … companions as no hindrance.

Veers had managed to steal half an hour of agreeable discussion with a civilian engineer, but had spent the rest of the time resisting the temptation to follow the example of a handful of local fleet officers who were slowly but surely draining the bar dry.

He had ditched his ridiculous flute of champagne for a glass of straight Corellian whiskey; but only an idiot or a prospective suicide got drunk in a minefield, social or otherwise, and Veers wasn't that desperate yet. Instead, he had scouted along the outskirts of the ballroom until he had found a way to access the open balconies beyond, and gone for some fresh air.

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

He had all of ten glorious seconds to himself before a polite soprano greeted him with, "Colonel."

Veers had not, hitherto, considered white silk as a camouflage material, but against a backdrop of highly polished white marble, the slight, silk-wrapped figure had been all but invisible until it moved.

"Milady," he gave back with a small bow, hurriedly trying to come up with a way of retreating to another, unoccupied balcony that didn't look like he was running from a girl half his size. Preferably, before it came to light that he had not the slightest idea who she might be. He had seen her enter at the arm of some Alderaani dignitary old enough to be her father ….

Actually, the guy damn well better is her father, seeing how, up close, the girl beneath the regal air and adult attire can't be a day over fourteen. Possibly less.

"So, Colonel, whose company do you prefer the stars' to?"

Say again? "I beg your pardon, ma'am?"

Wraithlike, a slender arm draped in white was raised towards the night sky.

"I couldn't stand the company inside anymore," the girl explained with refreshing candidness, "and I always loved to watch the stars. So I went and looked for home."

Pale fingers pointed out the brilliant star dominating the Aldraig night, even in this light-polluted area, as befitting a neighboring sun. "Where are you from?"

Nonplussed, Veers simply stared at her for a moment. He had not looked for his homeplanet's primary since his first night at the Academy, when a homesick recruit had realized that he was now a good third of the circumference around the galactic disk and the stars above him entirely unfamiliar. But then, the girl was even younger than he had been at that time ….

"Denon," he replied gruffly. "Too far to be visible from here."

"Ah, yes, of course. The Inner Rim stars are only visible from the Orus to the Airon sector."

Full points for astronomy. A soft peal of laughter told the colonel that he must have been thinking aloud.

"Why, thank you, good sir." White silk whispered as the young lady dropped teasingly into a full court curtsey, the stateliness of the gesture somewhat lessened by an ill-concealed grin.

"I can even name all the constellations visible from here," the girl went on, "they are virtually the same as at home. Except for Agek, the stalking bird, who is now a cyclops because Alderraan outshines the usual eye stars."

Almost against his will, Veers found himself laughing, too.

"By all means, milady," he gave back his most regal bow, "pray do enlighten me."

Oo oo oo oo oo oO

Nearly half an hour went by in amiable banter, the rancorless, open disregard of convention a welcome counterpoint to the icily polite disdain that had previously dominated the evening. The competent discussion of constellations had gradually become interspaced with a dissection of the ongoing festivity, its cause – the governor's eldest daughter's debut, apparently – and its illustrious guests with a razor-sharp wit and tongue. The first few – well-aimed and well-deserved – barbs had evidently been a test, but when they had failed to incite an indignant reaction (to be honest, the girl had a tendency to pick up Veers' own thoughts regarding certain people that bordered on the uncanny), the young lady had cheerfully warmed to the topic.

The colonel wouldn't have been a very good tactician, though, if he hadn't realized he was being herded. The girl – the Princess of Alderaan as he had found out in the meantime, by way of a careless remark begun by an offhanded "My father, as the Viceroy, …" – was being rather subtle about it, in a couple of years she would definitely be a dangerous discussant, but for now it was still noticeable that she was steering the topic of conversation … somewhere.

Or someone, possibly.

Given her peers' reaction to his uniform and her quite indifferent one, the Alderaani Highness was obviously going through some teenage rebellion stage. Complete with a fascination towards forbidden – or in this case: military – things.

"… too bad the Catao nebula isn't visible from here, due to light pollution," said little rebel was just saying, inching towards her real target under the cover of astronomy. "Without it, Paltan isn't really much to look at. His ancient name literally translates as 'He of the starless mantle'."

The girl laughed lightly, in reminiscence. "The first time I saw Lord Vader on the news as a child, I called him Paltan. My parents were not amused."

A sensible reaction. Before Veers could say anything, however, the princess threw him a shrewd look.

"You are one of His, aren't you? I have heard people mention it. What is he like?"

The dark eyes sparkled with something that was halfway between childish and female curiosity, and somehow the colonel felt the Sithlord an inappropriate subject to either. He tried to head off the topic by pleading ignorance. "I have no idea what you are talking about."

The girl was having none of that.

"You are one of Vader's Own," she challenged, "one of the people he has promoted himself. Aren't you?"

One of Vader's Own – what a fancy title. Veers nearly shook his head at the pretentious description, but saw no reason to answer in the negative. "If you insist of calling it that way, yes, I am."

A radiant smile lit up the girl's face, just visible in the semi-darkness. "Then you must know: What is he like, when he is not pretending to be the Emperor's three-dimensional shadow?"

"Excuse me?" Irritation at the flippancy lent a bit of an edge to the colonel's tone.

Alas, the young princess was not as easily discouraged.

"All that Lord Vader does at official functions is to loom, tall and dark, behind His Majesty," she explained nonchalantly. "I am certain there is more to him than that."

Another impish smile. "After all, it is only in ancient fairytales where one finds the sort of sorcerer that can detach his own shadow and sent it away to do his – usually sinister – bidding. And while there is little enough confirmable information about his lordship that he might just as well be a mythological creature, he is obviously not."

Maybe that made him a less than ideal Imperial, but while Veers could effortlessly decide that the unflattering simile about the old man on the throne had been a case of childish babble and could be safely ignored, he felt less sanguine about the dismissive way the girl spoke about his Supreme Commander. "Young lady, this is not a joking matter!"

Everything childish fell away like a dropped mask, and for a moment the colonel caught a glimpse of the young woman that would be a force to be reckoned with, in a few more years.

"You admire him." No guess at all, but dead certainty.

"Of course, I do! Lord Vader is the best damn commander I have ever met – and I have been a soldier for longer than you have been alive! A master tactician and always along at the frontlines, either with the ground troops or with the TIEs. He …. " Veers shook his head. "You have neither the knowledge nor the experience to appreciate what I am talking about!"

"No, I don't," the girl snapped, with unexpected fierceness, "because the moment I mention him, everyone changes the topic!"

She caught herself, with visible effort.

"My apologies, Colonel," she went on, with a seriousness far beyond her years. "I misspoke. Would you please consider telling me more, regardless?"

It would have served her right if he just turned on his heels now and walked away. But then, he should have done that the moment he had noticed her presence on the balcony.

"He has no tolerance for incompetence," Veers conceded with a scowl.

The princess gave a soft, startled laugh.

"Ah, finally, a kindred soul," she murmured under her breath, before wondering, "Does he never have to deal with Imperial administration? How does he manage not to strangle the bureaucrats, five minutes into each committee meeting?"

"He doesn't, on occasion, I expect," the colonel told her drily.

The girl gave an amused snort, that was utterly unladylike but very much a teenager, before sobering abruptly. "It is true then, that he kills his own men, sometimes?"

Veers rubbed a hand across his face in frustration. "Child, an incompetent officer has the potential to kill more of his own troops than any enemy can ever hope to."

The princess looked about to argue when she was stopped by the intrusion of new voices and steps. A young woman and a slightly older man stepped onto the balcony. With their eyes still accustomed to the bright glare of the inside lights, they didn't seem to notice that it was already occupied.

"Now, isn't this much better than that stiff atmosphere inside?" the man asked.

The woman agreed softly, a few more words were exchanged and then the man's arm slid from her arm to around her hips and … lower. The woman tried to sidestep.

"None of that, Hawkur, please."

The man tightened his grip, drawing the woman closer, crowding her against the balustrade. "Come on, Siofra, turnabout is fair play. You asked me for a favor, now it's my turn to …"

Veers had been about to announce his presence by stepping over to twist the molester's arm off his victim – and probably off the shoulder joint, too – when a swirl of white silk shot past him, radiating anger like a furnace heat. The colonel had seen the great steelworks supplying the Kuat shipyards, so he felt competent to draw the comparison.

He had also seen such incandescent wrath before, and for one vertigo-inducing moment, the petite princess reminded him of a much taller Sithlord.

"Undersecretary Kilesa, how dare you! ..."

The young woman was no fool, she fled the moment Mr. Kilesa was otherwise preoccupied. Veers hung back, mesmerized. He had rarely witnessed such a devastating dressing-down, and never one as exquisitely worded. The colonel didn't hear a single word unfit to be uttered in polite company, but still the man went red and white repeatedly, in rapid succession.

In a last-ditch effort he lunged at the girl, but she ducked away from his first grab and kicked out in a way that hurt just watching, both because of how pointed her shoes were and because of how instable her footing had to be, on those high heels. The man folded with a gasp.

Eyes still aflame, the princess turned back at Veers. "Please excuse me, Colonel. I have to make sure that Miss Hevgon is alright."

Head held high and fury surrounding her with a presence far beyond her stature, Her Highness of Alderaan stormed off.

Veers also stepped back into the ballroom. And if there was a crunch of bone beneath his boot-heel – well, people really ought to know better than to let their limbs laying around where someone might step on them. Especially, when they were trying to align a small hold-out blaster with the back of a young girl.