Part One - Thoughts
I watch everything around me. Time goes by, people go by. So many things had happened in those two months I was captured. They thought I had been healed in both body and spirit, but they were wrong. Dead Sithin' wrong. I now only had scars to show for my time with Daala on the outside, but on the inside, there were deep jagged gashes. I wasn't the same woman who had gone into the Knight Hammer to rescue Adra, I was a totally different one.
I hadn't been extremely brave or any of the qualities people thought all Wraiths had. I'd mostly kept to myself, staying in my room and my computer workshop, always trying to upgrade out systems, even the ones that we didn't need to. Now that I was back from Daala's tortures, things I wanted to lock away in my mind, ones I had not even told Kell, kept popping up, and I wished to become even more seclusive than before. The outward appearance I kept up was for my brother's sake, was no more than a lie.
Kell, my brother Kell. People said that the only two people who could control the man were named Tyria. There's me, his sister, Tyria Tainer, and Tyria Sarkin, his girlfriend, a Vanguard pilot. People don't really understand the relationship between Kell and me, even if they do get the relationship between Kell and Tyria. None of the pilots in the Special Forces squadrons have family they see often, unless you count the Skywalker/Solo clan and the Antilles who were both totally different stories.
Kell's my big brother and can be what I call overprotective and he calls being a good brother. The year I turned fifteen was the first year I started dating and it was also the last year. Our dad, Kissek Doran, had died when we were both very young and Kell seemed to think that it was his duty to protect me and scared most of my boyfriends away by sitting there tossing a grenade from hand to hand when they came to pick me up.
But my thoughts digressed from my problem at hand. There was a word to explain what I was feeling, but I was hesitant to even think it. I was afraid, afraid for myself, afraid for the people I'll leave behind when I'm inevitably captured by Daala again. Daala won't rest until she has Adra Tallon and me or until we kill her.
Unlike Adra, I didn't have the Force or the amazing flying skills. Sure I could beat the regular flying corps pilots but when it came to the elites, they vaped me almost every time when we were in X-Wings. My flight skills would probably make it easier for Daala and her crew to catch me. And then Wraith Squadron would be obliged to come and rescue me again.
Pretty soon, they'd get sick of it and just forget about me, except for Kell and now Cloud.
Cloud Ritril. Now there was a problem and a half. According to Nicola and Adra, he was head over heels in love with me. Id' never really taken the time to consider what he meant to me. When Adra had revealed that Cloud loved me, my first thought had been along the lines of 'run as far away as possible and take cover from the explosion that will be coming from Kell.' I didn't have much time after that to think as Adra Tallon had dragged me and Tyria Sarkin over to have us bring Kell back under control and stop him from blowing Cloud up.
When Adra has asked me how I felt about dating Cloud, I had blanked. She'd then told me to answer or she'd put one in my head. So I'd said that first thing that popped in my head, 'I wasn't interested in dating at the moment.'
To tell you the truth, I haven't really thought about it yet. Because I can only think and feel one thing, my fear. I'm a scared woman, a scared Wraith. Those two words shouldn't go together. From what Kell had told me, Nicola had taken on thirty Imps all on her won while they were on their way to rescue me. Nicola, Adra, Face, and Kell were all what some called the ideal Wraiths, minus Kell's overly enthusiastic love of explosives of course. All four were good looking, attached, excellent pilots, and all decorated with metals earned for bravery in Service to the New Republic and sported rank insignias other than that of Flight Officer. In other words, they were everything I wasn't.
I'm scared, I live in kriffin' fear. I don't know how I managed to survive those two months with Daala, probably wasn't conscious enough to realize what was happening.
There's a woman in Rogue Squadron named Lujayne Forge. Thy call her 'Rogue's Heart.' There's a woman in Wraith Squadron named Tyria Tainer. They call her 'Wraith's Heart.' But how can a woman who lives in fear be the heart of twelve without passing her fears on to the others?
