A/N:OK, I wrote this back in 2013 I think, been a while since I looked at it. This story runs along the idea that Ahsoka decides to join up with the republic army after leaving the Jedi. Oh, and this is rated M for a reason, just sayin'. Ahsoka may be a little OOC at times, but this is about a fall to the dark side so that's to be expected. Anyways, on with the show.

To serve an Empire

The emptiness of space stretched out beyond the glass in front of Ahsoka, curving round the upper bridge of the Venator-class ship, Tempest, she now commanded.

Her twin green lightsabers on each hip bounced against her kama as she turned to walk towards the holoprojector. What she wore had changed now that she no longer had to conform to the Jedi order's rules, and she had adapted her clothes from the clone army's surplus from decommissioned Phase One armour. She wore knee high boots of interlocking white plates, a burgundy stripe denoting her unit affiliation. Her burgundy kama were more close to tassets, acting as thigh armour around the short skirt she wore, which allowed for great freedom of movement. Above her standard issue belt, her midriff bared her orange skin up to the top of the four white plates that made up her chest piece, adorned in the same wine colour were mirrored designs from her face markings, and the four circles above her heart which denoted her rank as general. A similarly striped spaulder protected her right shoulder, while her left was protected with the traditional pauldron, that looked similar to her kama. She wore the same kind of white and burgundy design on her vambraces, which interlocked onto black gloves on each hand. Her right vambrace had a number of buttons that linked in to her helmet, which was clasped under her right arm. Of all the armour she had scavenged, what once was a clone commando helm was the least recognisable, having been completely reshaped to fit over her montrals and leave her lekku open. The helm contained several useful features such as her communicator, night vision, inbuilt macrobinoculars, and an air filter. The bar-like visor over her eyes lit up blue when she wished to zoom in on features, highlighting the wine-coloured swirls decorating the helm. From her belt hung a blaster pistol, a small knife, and a few pouches of various supplies. In short she looked every inch the general she was, but little like the Jedi padawan that had left the order all those weeks ago.

Her boots clacked soundly on the metal deck as she walked towards the projector, nodding in respect to commander Zain as she did. Zain, the clone assigned to her to help command the 714th Legion of the Republic, was bedecked in phase II armour with colours similar to her own, and a pair of macrobinoculars on his helm. He was never seen without his twin pistols by his side and his rifle on his back. The man had seemed surprised when they originally met on Coruscant, expecting the padawan of the "Hero with no Fear" to be older no doubt. She had earned the man's respect, as well as that of the rest of the legion, on Biitu with a battle against an army of 'junk droids,' and again in their latest assignment on Alderaan.

Both Ahsoka and Zain stood before the holoprojector and placed their helms on the rim, before Ahsoka leaned forward and opened the pending communication line from the Supreme Chancellor, the blue image of said man immediately springing up in front of them.

"Supreme Chancellor, the mess on Alderaan is cleaned up, and the 714th is ready to redeploy." She bowed her head slightly as she said the words, she had felt a personal debt to Palpatine nearly two months ago as he gave her the position of General when she requested to re-join the army, which was technically a promotion from her old rank.

"Good work General Tano, you have certainly done a great deal to prove correct your appointment to the Senate," she smiled slightly at that, since the Senate had been in outrage that the Supreme Chancellor had appointed a 'supposed terrorist' as a general, but she had so far proved her critics wrong. "Now, are you aware of the situation on Zygerria?" Ahsoka's smile switched to a scowl at the name.

"I was on the planet a few months ago: the people there have reinstated laws on legalising slavery, and formed ties to the Separatists."

"That they have," the Chancellor nodded grimly; "they have expanded their efforts of enslavement in neutral systems, and are using these slaves in mines and such to acquire raw materials. These resources are being used to power the Separatist war effort."

"So I'm guessing we take out the slave trade, and cut off their supply chain?" Ahsoka said when he paused.

"That would involve taking the whole planet wouldn't it?" Zain's rough voice interjected.

"You are correct commander. I originally intended this mission to be for the 501st, but they are occupied on the other side of the Outer Rim. Anakin however recommended you for the mission, Ahsoka," Ahsoka almost missed the more casual way he talked about the pair of them in the small surge of emotion she felt over hearing Anakin's name. The Jedi knight had been a major part of her life for the past few years as she served as his padawan, and his friend. Their closeness had made it hard when she decided to leave the order two months ago, but she knew he understood her exactly on how she felt about how the order operated. The Jedi were flawed, even one of their own planting a bomb in the temple hadn't made them realise that. The Jedi needed to choose between being warriors and generals, or peacekeepers. For Ahsoka's personal choice, she chose to be what she already was. She had spent her teenage years fighting this war, and she wasn't going to stop now as she neared her eighteenth birthday.

Thinking of Anakin however stirred up emotions within her, ones the Jedi technically forbade. Both of them had certainly grown 'attached' to one another, despite what the rules were. Neither she or Anakin had ever been conventional Jedi, in fact she had often thought in a bed late at night that she would never have made it as a Jedi outside a time of war, not with all Yoda's warnings of recklessness, attachment, anger…

Ahsoka was so caught up in her own thoughts that it took a touch on the arm from Zain to bring her out of thinking, at which she looked apologetically at Palpatine, realising she had probably missed something he said.

"My apologies Chancellor, just thinking that were this not so long ago I would be with the 501st right now," Palpatine chuckled at that.

"I daresay they miss you as well Ahsoka, there was more than one request that you be assigned to the 501st when you enlisted," he paused, and Ahsoka felt as though he stared into her soul as he gazed upon her. The man was known for his ability to see right into any situation and divine the truth. "I was just saying that the Jedi are sending Master Mundi to assist you in the assault." Ahsoka tried to restrain the frown that threatened to spread over her features. While extra troops would definitely be helpful in taking the planet, she had no wish to fight with a Jedi, with doubtlessly endless advice and admonishment that came with one, especially not one of the masters on the council who decided her guilt before she was even tried. Added to the way Palpatine said "The Jedi are sending" made it sound like they had insisted on sending Mundi, she didn't even want to think about why they might choose to do so. The Council always seemed to have ulterior motives in recent years.

"How many troops is he bringing with him Chancellor?" at the end of the day she was a warrior, and she had a war to fight: better to start thinking up battle strategy rather than waste time trying to divine the Jedi's intentions.

"I am not certain of exact number, but he is bringing two Venator-class ships from the 4th Sector army that he is in command of. Beyond that all I can tell you is that he shall be meeting you at your current location in a matter of hours." That at least gave Ahsoka a few hours to create some kind of battle stratagem for taking Zygerria.

"Well, I suppose we could use the reinforcements."

"I believe in the past you have taken planets with less. However I am afraid I must leave, there is a delegation of senators waiting to tell me what I should be doing to end this war."

"Try showing them the various systems that owe the Republic their freedom," Ahsoka couldn't resist the quip, and was grateful to see a smile on Palpatine's face rather than something that showed she had overstepped the bounds of social hierarchy. Zain too was smirking; she knew he held great pride in the work he and his brothers had achieved in this war.

"I may just try that, until the next time Ahsoka." The blue hologram faded from existence. Ahsoka switched off the projector, and then turned to face the uniformed clones on the bridge. Pointing to one of them she issued her orders:

"Captain, I need any and all information the Republic holds on Zygerria and the Zygerrians. Primarily information on the cities, geography and recent dealings with the Separatists," her finger turned on another clone "you, plot a hyperspace route to Zygerria for three venator-class cruisers," again her finger moved to another clone, "you, go tell the engineers downstairs to prep all ships for battle. Someone call me when General Mundi comes out of hyperspace." Her orders were followed by a chorus of salutes and "Yes Ma'am"s, the men under her command were used to the fact she didn't suffer fools lightly, a trait she picked up from her old master. Although while she did try not to be unnecessarily harsh, at times she could get annoyed when someone did something improperly.

She had picked up her helmet and was striding off to her quarters when Zain spoke up behind her.

"General?" his voice was firm, but he sounded confused. She spun on her heel to face the man, and smiled.

"How many times Zain; call me Ahsoka. You're making me feel old." He smiled at that, he outright refused to address her by her first name. He claimed it was because it was improper, though she had a feeling it was just because Ahsoka found it a bit strange to be referred to as a General, and he wanted her to get used to the term. Their easy camaraderie often reminded her of late nights in a hangar with the men of the 501st, whilst Anakin was busy making up tactics or the like.

"I was just wondering why having General Mundi would be a bad thing?" his tone was almost apologetic, but Ahsoka was too busy silently cursing herself to notice much beyond the question itself. She sighed, bracing herself for the conversation.

"Am I that easy to read?"

"You're not particularly good at hiding your emotions."

"Yeah….I dislike the Jedi order. Quite a bit."

"But you were a Jedi?"

"Yes, so I saw all the flaws and problems up close. In a lot of ways they're corrupt and hypocritical. Don't get me wrong, for this war; their fighting skills have helped the Republic a lot. But their own philosophies are blind and…" Ahsoka sagged. When Barriss had been jailed and prepared for her trial, she had spent several sleepless nights thinking about the order. All its flaws, and failings, and what they were doing with the galaxy. All her thoughts had led to her decision to leave the Jedi, and although she still fought with the force and wielded the new green lightsabers she had constructed, she definitely did not consider herself a Jedi anymore.

"Sounds like a lot of issues with an order you used to belong to."

"An order I left. Besides, it's not like I had any choice…." She trailed off, then turned and started walking again. "You don't want to listen to a bitter woman rant about personal grievances. Go get some rest Zain, in a few hours it's back to the battlefield for the lot of us."

The thick doors to the bridge opened for her, and she strode down the corridor to her room, pressing a button on her vambrace to open it.

The room was fairly large by military standards, but as Spartan as could be expected: a metal framed bed, with drawers underneath, a chair, a holoprojector a bit smaller than the one on the bridge, and a fairly open space in the middle for her to practise form or meditate, though she rarely chose to do the latter except when thinking.

She swiftly grabbed her datapad off the chair where she had left it, and browsed the files the captain had sent her on Zygerria. She selected a file on the Capital City, and sent it over to the projector. A blue image of a city she had hoped never to see again appeared, with scrolling information in galactic basic in mid-air in relation to the city.

She sighed as she gazed over the hologram. The capital would be the best place to attack first, giving them control over all the Zygerrian files on themselves, and their slaving exploits. However, it was a heavily fortified location, doubtless aided by Separatist forces since her last visit, as the scrolling text informed her.

The city was based on and around a mountain, with low level residential housing at the bottom, and pathways and housing being built into the cliff in tiers as they went upwards, leading up to a completely flat top where most of the commercial side of Zygerria was based, and the Citadel itself. The city area at the base of the mountain, the edge of the flat top, and the Citadel were surrounded with thick walls, with turret weaponry emplacements at regular intervals. Landing at this city without permission was a death sentence, as was storming it on foot. And even if they made it in, the place was a veritable fortress with tunnels built into the mountain, and a citadel to retreat to. A treeline near the edge of the lower city was promising, but it was likely filled with proximity mines and detectors. A surprise attack would have some value, but beyond that it was likely they would have to fight from street to street right up the mountain.

Ahsoka sighed, grabbed the chair, and sat before the hologram immersing herself in possible strategy.

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Ki Adi Mundi dropped out of hyperspace five hours after Ahsoka had entered her cabin, and she was not particularly looking forward to greeting the Jedi Master as she slowly walked towards the bridge. As the blast doors opened and she stepped in range of the holoprojector, she saw the holographic projections of Mundi and commander Bacara, as well as Zain turn their heads towards her. Mundi visibly blinked when he saw her, clearly not expecting her so obviously military appearance.

"Gentlemen," she clipped as she placed her helmet on the edge of the projector, then loading up the schematic of the city from her cabin. "This is our primary objective, Zygeron, the capital city. It's heavily fortified as you can see, as well as armed with anti-air capabilities which can just as easily be turned on ground troops." She spun the map to zoom in on one of the towers on the lower level by the spaceport. "This is the only way in short of the front gate, climbing over the walls or dropping in. My plan is to put a number of men on public transports and private freighters from different planets, fly them in armed with explosives, and take out the weapon emplacements in the city. This will leave the place open to a full ground assault, during which I and a contingent of clones will air-drop above the Citadel, and try to take out the leaders while they are still scrambling for control, then hold the Citadel, while the men under General Mundi's command take the city starting from the lower Spaceport and working their way up street to street. Once we have full control of the Citadel, and your forces are keeping the armies occupied, we can fly in the remaining troops to the top of the mountain and work our way downwards, keeping the Zygerrians fighting a battle on two fronts, above and below. By the morning after we start we should have the city under complete control, and with minimum loss of civilian life." The plan had taken her a number of hours, and while granted did lean slightly on the reckless side, her plans did tend to, and she was still alive so far. Mundi however, was frowning, and Ahsoka prepared for doubtless Jedi rhetoric about recklessness.

"It would seem your have inherited your master's recklessness, " 'called it' Ahsoka thought silently. She didn't even bother to correct the man on calling Anakin her Master, considering she wasn't a Jedi anymore. "This hinges on the troopers being able to effectively take out the turrets, and that they'll even be able to get in and move around freely without being recognised is a gamble. If they are caught, we lose all element of surprise."

"It seems a sound plan to me," Zain was leaning with both hands on the projector, "the Zygerrians are not expecting an attack, they won't be actively searching every transport and freighter. The men can wear helmets or other things to cover their faces, and blend in with the varied people of the city."

"What about sending the men through this forest?" Mundi relocated the focus of the map to the forest by the base of the city.

"If we do that, not only will the guards at the gate be highly suspicious of who they are and how they arrived, but I am fairly certain there will be sensors and traps in the forested area." Ahsoka's reply was clipped and simple as she tried letting the change of topic slide without mentioning how Mundi hadn't disagreed.

"I'm not talking about sending your small contingent to knock out the turrets, I mean sending the full army for the ground assault. It would allow us a great deal of surprise to get that close to the city undetected." Ahsoka blinked and wondered if he'd heard what she said.

"Not only would the men get there tired over the distance they would have to travel from to get there secretly, but I still believe a people as intelligent as the Zygerrians will have laid traps and sensors in the forest. They'll know we're coming a mile off."

"Do you have any specific intel that states there are sensors in the forest?"

"No, but-,"

"Then you cannot be certain can you? All the same it would admittedly be a good idea to tread carefully, but I do not believe they will have bothered to spend the resources to trap the forest," Ahsoka was all but ready to get out her lightsabers and attack the Jedi at his clear dismissal of her thoughts, even though he barely outranked her as a Senior Jedi General in charge of the fourth of the twenty sector armies. The man continued on without sparing her a glance, squaring the map back off to its full size, "I believe that while the ground forces wait to deploy in the forest, we can send in bombers to take out the turret emplacements and damage the walls enough for the ground forces to enter the city and work their way up, led by you Tano, while I and my troops airdrop into the citadel and arrest those there. We then hold the building, and fly the prisoners out of there into custody." Ahsoka outright stared at the man as he talked, when or how did he ever get made a Senior General? Any skill he may have had on the battlefield was nothing next to bad knowledge of tactics.

"Any attempt at bombing won't work, I already thought of that and ruled it out. If the men fly at a speed at which they can avoid the turrets successfully, they stand a fair chance of not only missing the targets, but hitting civilians as well. If they move slowly enough to get an accurate shot, they're unlikely to make it through the barrage alive."

"General Tano is right sir; our pilots aren't capable of flying that fast and being accurate enough to avoid civvies casualties." Zain stood up for her again, looking up at the Jedi Master.

"We shall have the element of surprise, the Zygerrians will not be ready to attack the bombers as they deploy unless they are already alerted to our presence, so they will be able to go slow enough to get accurate shots. What is important is that we are able to get into the city."

"What is important is taking the city, with minimum casualties of our own men and of civilians. What you're suggesting if it goes the slightest bit wrong has a high chance of killing civilians and our own pilots, not to mention the ground troops if the forest is trapped." She could hardly believe that he would suggest this after calling her own plan reckless. In theory if he was right it would be effective, but she strongly doubted he was, the clones made good pilots, but they weren't that good.

"The main objective is to breach the citadel and airlift the leaders out of the city." Why did he return to that point? The Chancellor's orders were to take out the Zygerrian slave trade in its entirety, the city was just the start. She got the feeling that this was the reason for the Jedi council sending Mundi.

"Taking out the leaders won't stop the slavers, they'll just turn to the lieutenants and each other for command, and they'll become even more violent and dangerous." Mundi paused staring at her, while the two clone commanders glanced between them.

"Those are the orders I'm giving padawan, and this plan will be followed. You will airdrop far out in the forest, and walk to the city, whereupon you will wait for the bombing then commence your attack." His voice was stern like a man chiding a child for being silly, and the obvious way in which he pulled rank really grated on her nerves as she grit her teeth. Not only would his plan get them all killed most likely, but he was insulting her in front of her men who were watching with open mouths from where they stood on the bridge. The worst thing was she couldn't do a kriffing thing. She took the one thing she could get.

"I. Am. Not. A. Padawan." She outright growled through her teeth, "you may address me as General, or General Tano, with all due respect, sir."

Mundi didn't say a word as his hologram disappeared. She however kicked the base of the holoprojector in anger and muttered a few curses in Huttesse that she had picked up from Anakin, and would doubtless have raised an eyebrow or two had anyone understood her. She let the anger course through her system for another satisfying moment, before stemming it inside, it wouldn't do for her men to see her acting like a petulant teenager. She straightened her back and looked over at the officers who were still gaping slightly.

"Get back to work and prepare for a hyperspace jump to the Zygerrian system," she spoke quietly and calmly, but her officers all heard her, finding other places to send their glances and things to be done. She slowly grabbed her helmet off the projector and turned the machine off. She could feel Zain hovering, about to speak.

"I think I might understand why you're not so keen on Jedi right now," he said slowly, saying such things could be regarded by some as insubordination. Certainly not with Ahsoka however.

"The Jedi are many things, sometimes they even make decent warriors, but they are generally not tacticians," the woman let out a sigh, nearly eighteen standard years and she was still being treated like a child by, essentially, her peer, the padawan comment had got to her a bit. "Thanks by the way, you didn't have to stand up for me like that."

"Don't know what you mean General." The corners of Ahsoka's mouth twitched as he called her General. She looked away in thought for a moment about what to do next; obviously she couldn't disobey Mundi's orders, suicidal as they were. However he hadn't specifically forbidden her to carry out her own ideas as a backup plan. She pulled Zain over by his arm and started walking out of the room.

"Commander, how many of the 327th Star Corps did we absorb after their defeat on Felucia?" she spoke quietly and formally, signifying to Zain that it was important. After a recent skirmish with pirates, the battalion that was usually part of the legion controlled by Commander Bly and Aayla Secura had been grafted into her own ranks, since the transport purposes of sending the few dozen men back to their own legion was not worth it, and the 327th was essentially no more.

"Captain Deviss and around twenty of his best men are uninjured, and we have about twelve in the med ward." Deviss was an old friend of Zain she knew, they had both trained in the same group on Kamino.

"They haven't officially been documented into being part of the 714th yet have they?"

"No Ma'am," she could almost see the gears turning in Zain's head as they walked towards the extra barracks area where the remainder of the 327th were located.

"And do we still have any of the pirate ships in the hangar that they escaped in?"

"Two in working order, though I don't know if the hyperdrives are functional."

"If they have hyperdrives, then we can get them working."

They reached the door to the barracks, and she pressed the button to enter the room, numerous clone troopers in various states of wearing their red-striped armour stood to attention at her entry. She looked around to find the man who had been sitting on a chair polishing a rifle when they walked in.

"At ease men," she concentrated on Deviss, taking in the 'D' in Galactic Basic on his bald head above his left ear, matching the 'Z' on Zain's head. Brothers in arms indeed. "Deviss, how would you and your men fancy a stealth trip to take out a bunch of turrets in a fortified city that will likely be crawling with guards and droids?" She was known for being straight and to the point for good reason.

The man in front of her smiled, and various sounds of appreciation came from around the room. "I was hoping you'd give us a chance to get back in the fight Ma'am. Where and when will be going General?" She liked Deviss already.

"Zygerria and as soon as possible."

"Mission brief?" She handed him the data-chip from the holoprojector.

"That will give you schematics of the city Zygeron. You're going to need to take those pirate ships you brought in and disguise yourselves, helmets, bandanas, anything, just make sure you're unrecognisable as clones. You'll need to be taking explosives with you: thermal dets, RX-4, anything you can fit on your person. When you're in the city I'm going to need you to wait for my call, and then blow all the turret locations on that schematic."

The man stood straight and saluted, before turning to his men. "You heard the General, get your weapons and head down to the hangar. We'll leave in thirty."

"Thank you Captain, "Ahsoka said, nodding to him with sincere gratitude, all their lives may rest upon him and his men. She quickly strode back through the open door and turned back towards the bridge, while men thundered out behind her towards the hangar.

"You know," Zain commented from by her side, "this could be regarded as insubordination or disobeying orders."

"Only if it goes wrong, and if it does, I don't think we'll be alive to face problems over it. Besides, I am simply executing a contingency plan I forgot to mention to General Mundi." She looked at the man next to her and his frown; she stopped walking and looked at him. "Hey, if this does go south, you know I'll take full responsibility."

"Hey, let's focus on getting out of this alive shall we?" his reply was light hearted, and they both laughed as they tried to shore up the dread feeling they had over whether or not they actually would survive.