She wasn't a pretty girl, certainly. With her pale blue skin, steely eyes, shockingly red hair, and the mass of freckles dancing across her over-large nose, it wasn't easy to tell what her species was. It was the opinion of her compatriots that even she wasn't entirely sure of her race. She had come to the Alliance a weak, timid thing, with a story of slavery to some Imperial official. The Alliance, of course, turned no one away, and with her mechanical expertise she soon gained a position as a tech. Quiet, shy, unassuming, wide-eyed, and moderately talented, she blended right in, passing almost unnoticed in the bustle of the hangar.

Just as she wanted.


The X-Wing lowered to the ground with its customary ease. Not for the first time, Thren admired the rough-and-tumble, hardworking Alliance starfighter, comparing it favorably to its Imperial counterpart. Since arriving at the Rebellion, she had been repeatedly astonished by High Command's collective valuing of its fighters' lives. Of course, she thought cynically, they couldn't afford to be as wasteful as the Empire with their cannonfodder. Rebel and conscript were not heard in the same sentence, whereas drafts were well-known in the galaxy of her birth.

She moved forward with the rest of the techs, shoving the ladders into place for the pilots to descend. All of them were in a jovial mood, and for good cause – she noted that not one fighter had been lost, in this skirmish. A decided victory on the Alliance's part, and one much-needed, for morale and resources both. Smiling and nodding to all the cheers and good-natured ribbing, Thren kept her head down and started on her work, expertly fielding cheerfully accusatory questions of why so quiet. Why not so quiet, she thought to herself as she selected her hydrospanner, she'd had no part in the victory, and no one was including her in the celebrations. Not for the first time, a jab of loneliness, of disillusionment in the camaraderie of the Rebellion, shot through her heart with painful clarity. Always alone, she was always alone, even in a crowd, and had learned the hard way that her input was not welcomed.

Finishing her work with the rest of the ground crew, she slipped away, weaving between covert games of sabacc and more ribald occupations to a little-used hallway and unused storage closet. Sinking to the floor, sitting on her heels, she rubbed her engine-lubricant-covered hands through her tousled hair and waited for her comm signal to go through to the one person in this Force-forsaken galaxy who gave a kriff whether she lived or died