Ria stepped into the room with her arms outstretched. She gave a quick spin so everyone could see her uniform. "Well? How does it look?"

The clothing was well fitted and just recently pressed. Her black boots still shone with an unscuffed polish, and a newly-minted rank badge gleamed on her chest. Her father couldn't look any more proud. "The very model of a modern officer," he said with a nod.

Another man in the room, this one much younger, gave a laugh. "It looks like you bought it from a costume store."

"Shut up, Barnes," Ria said, making a face at him.

Her mother gave a great sniff. "L-look at that. My little daughter, all grown up, and—and about to head off to war!" she managed with a repressed sob.

Ria offered her an apologetic smile. "Mama, it's not like I'm going off to fight with a blaster. I'm not really a soldier at all. More like a glorified maintenance worker."

Cyn took a sip of his drink. Ever since they were kids, Ria took a quiet pride in selling herself short. The Empire hired her to do complicated calibrations on internal dampeners—it was about as far from a maintenance worker as he could imagine. "Can you tell us where you're shipping off yet, sis?"

"Sorry," Ria said, looking away from her mother and tossing him a quick wink, "Still top secret. Let's just say it's a huge battlestation—and I mean huge. You'll definitely see it on the news soon."

"How big are we talking?" asked Barnes, "You can at least tell us the neighborhood. XQ Platform on a trade route? Or something actually experimental and interesting?"

"You're asking that? Really? Were you even listening to me when I said it was top secret?"

He shrugged. "Not really."

Ria gave him another dry look. "Shut up, Barnes."

Cyn gave half of a laugh and finished off his drink. He stood up from his chair and walked towards the hallway. The family was still chatting away. Grandpa Wes was complaining how aggressive uniforms looked nowadays (back in his day, during the height of the Republic…), Grandpa Wallace was asking mechanical questions clearly no one in the room cared about but him, Aunt Lilliam kept trying to change the subject to her dogs—no great surprises here. Ria walked towards Barnes, leaned over, and whispered something in his ear. Cyn opened the door towards the hall, only to hear Lilliam call out from behind him. "Cynnen, where are you headed off to?"

"The kitchen," Cyn called back, slipping through the door, "I'll be back in a moment."

He exited the room. Rather than turning left towards the kitchen, he walked to his right, out onto an expansive porch nestled high within the foothills. It was a cool, clear evening. The sun had just slipped behind the vast green spires of the Avaithen Rift, but the sky still was still painted a dimming orange. A cold breeze rolled in from the east, and he could hear the sound of leaves and branches rustling around him. When he was younger, nothing was worse than being dragged out into these hinterlands every year, generally for days or weeks on end. Now, though, it was the week he counted down to on the calendar the same way he used to anticipate his birthday. It was one of the few times when he was out of a cockpit and surrounded by family and friends. Home.

Six days had already passed. His shuttle took off tomorrow at noon, precisely.

Back inside, he heard a ripple of laughter. Ria's commission had been the talk of the week, and the novelty of it only seemed to grow as the days went by. He held back a sigh that wallowed like oil in his chest. Off the balcony two squirrels fought, chasing one another up and down a tree. Somewhere, a loon gave a lonely call. He heard the door open behind him. He turned, and there was Ria. She smiled. "Looks like you didn't want another drink after all."

"I needed some fresh air," replied Cyn, leaning against the railing, "And a little peace and quiet. I can't take Barnes in more than small doses."

"That's a mean thing to say," said Ria, walking towards him. "Entirely true, but still a little mean."

Cyn gave another one of those not-quite-full laughs. Ria held the railing and closed her eyes. She took in a long, indulgent breath. "You never realize just how fresh the air is out here until you're out in space for a tour. But I'm sure you know all about that."

Too much."You're right," Cyn said with a nod. "I'm thinking about taking some time off later this year and go camping. Maybe up north, near the Crevasses."

"Camping up near the Crevasses? You said that last year, too."

Cyn blinked. "No. It couldn't be that long ago," he said, his voice trailing off. "Did I really? Has it already been a year?"

"It sure has," said Ria, mildly amused.

They were silent for a moment, the only sound being the wind whispering through the leaves. Ria gave him a probing look. "So, you spending another year on the freighter routes?"

"I guess so," said Cyn, "It's better than being unemployed."

"A lot of things are better than being unemployed. Didn't you say that you only wanted the job so you could prove you could fly? I'd say you've accomplished that. There's a lot of options for a guy your age beyond basic shipping routes."

Cyn gave a noncommittal nod, watching the squirrels fight. "I'm not going to be there forever."

Ria glanced in his direction, trying to look him in the eye, "Have you given any more thought about the academy?"

He doggedly evaded the glance. "Not for years."

"Really? You seemed so excited about the idea back—"

"Back when I was what, nineteen? It was a kid's dream. Silly."

"I don't think it's so silly. You're a pretty good pilot. You could go places even if you just enlisted."

"I can go places with the freighters, too," Cyn put in quickly, "Stay on long enough until I'm in charge of two or three barges, and then I can transfer up to something else. I could run my own shipping firm, setting my own schedule. Maybe in the Core, or Hutt Space."

Ria looked out over the valley. "That's not a bad plan."

It was growing darker now: the sky grew gray as shadows around them grew long. Ria spoke again, with some authority in her voice. "Whatever it is, I'm sure you'll do great things."

He looked over to her, but Ria kept gazing out over the valley. "You don't need to be hard on yourself," she said, "You're smart, and you're capable. Regardless of what's happened in the past couple years, you still have a long career ahead of you. Don't let yourself forget that—that, and your potential."

Cyn narrowed his eyes. "You're being weirdly sincere, sis."

Ria looked back to him. "Is that so strange? I doubt that I'll be able to get a week of leave next year. It might be awhile until the next time we meet up."

The fact that Ria might not be able to make the family's gathering next year, as obvious as it seemed laid out, had not previously occurred to him. "… Yeah, I guess you're right."

"So excuse me if I go out of my way to offer some sisterly advice to my kid brother," she said, grinning with her mouth, but perhaps not her eyes, "You looked like you could use a little."

Cyn opened his mouth, but no reply found its way out. The loon called out again. He ran a hand through his hair. "Want to go back in?" he said quickly, "Grandpa Wallace hasn't even asked you about your opinions on the newest generation of motivators yet."

Ria didn't need to say anything more. Her expression remained unchanged. "He will be pouty if I don't tell him soon, won't he?" Ria said, gesturing to the door with her head. "C'mon."

The siblings left the balcony they had played on as children and returned to the warmth of the home. The skies blackened above them. The final night before their separation had arrived.


An alarm buzzed a succession of three shrill peeps. Cyn exhaled from his nose and rubbed at his eyes. He sat up in his seat, groggily reviewing the monitors before him. One had a half-completed game of Sabacc and a notice that he had quite a few unread personal messages, the other's complicated display essentially showed that his freighter had left hyperspace and was now traveling at impulse. He could just barely make out a beacon's light flashing out in the vastness of space—the refueling platform wasn't even in sight yet.

Cyn rolled his shoulders. They always felt as stiff as steel when he slept in the pilot's seat. He tapped the monitor showing the Sabacc game to end the program and start filling out his landing permits. The date gave him a moment of pause—three months had flown by since his last vacation. He hadn't been out of the freighter for any period of time longer than a few hours for weeks. Soon, though, he would at least be on solid ground. Maybe he'd take a couple days for a long weekend after dropping off his cargo.

His com crackled to life. "This is Platform H-77," said a half-intelligible voice, "Modular Conveyor, please transmit credentials."

"This is Modular Conveyor LQM-53255, registered to and departed out of Jerijador," Cyn began in a well-entrenched monotone, "En route to Saleucami. One container containing manufacturing equipment, three containing shoe kits. Requesting permission to dock for maintenance and refueling."

The other end gave a dim, constant buzz. Cyn rolled his eyes and drummed the side of his chair with his fingertips. It took the operators so long to even offer a landing permit these days. Yet another side effect of the rebellion. "Confirmed, LQM-53255. You have permission to dock."

"Thanks a bunch," Cyn mumbled leaning back into his seat. There was no response to that from the other end.

The LQM-53255 wasn't a state of the art ship by any means, but even it could land on a platform automatically, with only the most basic of input given by the pilot. It ponderously flew by a pair of YT freighters as it approached H-77, and squeezed its way to perhaps the last free airlock on the station. Cyn opened the conveyor's hatch and gave a generous stretch before walking climbing out and onto the gangway.

The census and exercise department was dead silent, and even customs was sloppier than usual—the only two agents at the gate were talking in hushed voices as he approached, and only gave a cursory glance at his documentation before they approved him. As he walked off, they continued to whisper back and forth. Cyn glanced out the windows as he made his way to the primary turbolift. He half expected to see some wreck be the cause of the ashen-faced caution, but the surroundings seemed as peaceful as could be.

It was when the lift opened to the cantina when Cyn realized that whatever happened was bigger than the system. Much bigger. The cardtables and bar were empty, with seemingly every visitor and even a good chunk of the station's staff crowded around a holomonitor at the far end of the lobby. They were packed so tightly around that he couldn't even make out what was playing. As a lot, spacers were not overly-political: Cyn couldn't imagine what kind of news would be big enough to seize their attention over cheap liquor. As he worked his way to the monitor, he could make out scraps of conversation.

"… Definitely going to be a draft. Or another round of clonefodder—but probably a draft…"

"… They keep saying Vader's MIA, but they just don't have the stones to say he's dead…"

"… About time. Damn murderers got what was coming to them…"

Breaking through the mass, Cyn got a glimpse at the monitor. It was a news broadcast. On one side, a stonefaced anchor spoke words that could scarcely be heard over the crowd. On the other side, a scene steadily repeated—a giant, spherical battlestation exploding into a dazzling array of lights again and again and again.

Cyn watched and watched and then understood. His eyes widened and mouth dried. The world around him, the noise and the conversation of the spacers and the worried commentary of the newscasters, all muted away to be replaced with a faint ringing in his ears. His mind was entrenched; his mind was racing. Her commission. The unread messages on his holonet account. Fighting with a blaster. His family. Despair. Grief. Above all else, rage.

At that very moment, everything had changed. It could never, ever possibly go back to the way it used to be.

And, at that very moment, Cyn had learned everything he ever needed to know about the Rebel Alliance.