A/N: I've been trying to aim for about 1800-2k words per chapter but keep ending up closer to 2500. So, sorry about the chapter lengths.

If you're enjoying this and have made it this far, shoot me a review or a like, just so I know people actually like this. Going back over this I've realised I'm a bit rusty in my technique, and I've been writing this on a tablet - so autocorrect has been auto-capitalising certain words that probably shouldn't be as well as skipping over errors I would never normally make using a full size keyboard. Sorry for any issues, they will be fixed when I go through and edit.

Anyway, read, enjoy, review/fave/follow/all of the above. Onwards!


Helix was staring at the ceiling.

"You exhausted yourself," someone said beside her, and she turned her head to look at Azros, who looked like he had missed sleep. She sat up on her elbows, looking around, and realised she was in the medbay.

"I didn't get rejected, did I?" she asked, fearful. Azros snorted.

"You pushed yourself way past the limits of any normal person, Helix, all to succeed in a training exercise! If they throw you out for that, I'll leave right alongside you,"

"I should hope not,"

Helix shifted so she was sitting properly in her pillows as General Organa approached. Helix hadn't seen her at all when she had scanned the room moments before.

"Luke has decided that you should sit this part of the training out," Organa told her, "He has determined that for you to take part, it could be detrimental to your health, possibly in an irreversible way." Organa smiled gently, "The fact that you pushed yourself beyond the limitations of most people to keep away a non-threatening person, however, speaks highly in your favour."

"Yeah," Helix grimaced, rubbing at the side of her head, "I'll remind myself of that,"

"He was using an intensity that would have caused anyone else enough pain to go mad," Organa told her, "And you withstood that, dehydrated, starving, and exhausted as you were. That is a formidable strength."

Azros and General Organa were the only two to see her during her brief return home. The other trainees, she learned, were on a small cruiser for the duration of their week of mental resistance training. Helix spent most of the time in the cockpit, learning what she could about flying from the pilot and co-pilot, who were more than willing to show her how to handle the small cruiser.

Helix avoided Skywalker as much as possible, and spent as much of her time in the small recreation room that held the fitness equipment, working on her strength. She was still bony, a physical build that had not been helped by cut rations during the desert routine nor a return to her old diet in the previous two months. Fortunately, rava and speti turned out to be a staple in Resistance diet and it became a common sight for the trainees to see Helix struggling with the small pasta pouches or strings.

They were called into the main lounge on the fifth day and handed their final briefing by Captain Tesli, who told them it would be a solo assignment and they had one week to complete it. Helix read through the briefing, which was straightforward enough.

"You may work together with another teammate, but you must operate under the assumption that their goal is different to your own. You all have different end goals - do not share this information with each other. You will be given up to a week to complete your set task by any means necessary; after which time you will contact Lieutenant Shei or Marek, and they will give you the coordinates of the shuttle's location."

Helix glanced around, realising most of the others appeared to be pairing off. She re-read her briefing again and then tucked it into her jacket.

The planet they set down on was an arctic world, covered in ice and snow as far as they could see. They scattered immediately, heading in different directions. The task involved getting as close to a base as possible without being detected, conduct a surveillance scan, and gather enough information to create a technical readout for the base. Helix's personal task involved finding a weakness in the base's security arrangements.

The inhabitants of the small outpost hadn't been notified of the exercise, and went about their business as usual. Twice, they encountered something that seemed to be a blip, but paid it no attention. Captain Tesli, however, was monitoring all of the outpost's systems and saw the blips, making note of which trainees had alerted the sensors.

They were so focused on the security sensors that they paid very little attention to the report of a young teenager being brought into the base, having been rescued from the icy wastes to the south. It had been a miracle the girl had been alive, the outpost's doctor noted, and she claimed to have been searching for people for two days.

The leader of the outpost, Commander Reynolds, interviewed the teenager himself in the control room. Shortly afterwards, all power systems in the base went down, plunging the inhabitants into darkness.

In the following confusion, the girl disappeared. Power was restored to the base, but it was several hours before anyone realised the girl was unaccounted for - by which time Helix had found her way back to the pickup shuttle.

"It was cheating!" Captain Tesli insisted, hours later, pacing in front of Helix, General Organa, and Major Ematt. "The primary objective was to avoid detection, and she waltzed right in there, giving herself up immediately,"

"You were the one who told us to consider our strengths and weaknesses and use them to our advantage," Helix pointed out, "Do you know how many times a day I get told I look like a kid? I thought I may as well use it,"

"If that had been a First Order outpost, results would have been very different," Tesli snapped.

"Obviously things would be different for a First Order outpost, but that wasn't a First Order outpost," Helix pulled out the crumpled sheet of paper that had her task written on it, "'Primary objective: avoid detection as an enemy agent' - which I did - 'Secondary objective: Perform surveillance and gain enough information to provide a detailed analysis to commanding officer' - which I did, too - 'Private mission: infiltrate base and identify any strategic weaknesses' - well, I think letting a stranger into the main control room was a key strategic weakness, don't you? As was letting that stranger wander around the entire base and set a minor disruption at the power generators, that seemed like another weakness,"

Leia watched the girl defend herself, unable to stop a small smile twisting the corners of her lips. She had also read Lieutenant Shei's reports on the girl, particularly the one from Panartha. Helix had a knack for using what she knew was provided, and given the increasing desperation of their incursions and ground assignments, such skills were desperately needed in commanding officers.

"In summarisation," Leia stated, cutting off the pair's argument, "Reyne completed the objectives as stated in the briefing, correct?"

"With the exception of-"

"Correct, Captain?"

Tesli scowled. "Correct, General,"

"And Reyne has passed all other tasks in training?"

"Yes, barely,"

Leia knew the man was lying - the only task Helix had just barely scraped an acceptable rank in was the speeders. Everything else was at minimum, a credit, with the survival tasks earning her high commendations from all but Tesli. Her medical knowledge had helped them through their tropical task, and the mental resistance task - even Luke had been surprised at the strength of her defenses.

"Then, I believe it is safe to say that Reyne is worthy of admission as a recon agent to the Resistance?"

Tesli nodded tersely, shooting Helix a glare.


Loren had heard she was back, and was waiting when she stepped out of the private office. He stopped as he saw her, barely recognising her for a moment.

"You grew!" he finally said, wrapping her in a hug, "You're up to my chin,"

"Of all the things to notice, you picked that?" Helix laughed as Major Ematt stepped out of the office behind her. "I cut my hair and the desert darkened my skin, too,"

"You filled out," Loren also noted, looking her up and down, "I can barely see your wrist bones, now,"

"Rava," she shrugged, "It's my new love."

"Agent Reyne, a word if you please,"

It took Helix a moment to realise Major Ematt was talking to her - Loren was "Cadet Reyne", still studying to become a lieutenant.

Agent Reyne. Helix liked the way it sounded.

"I'll catch up later," she told Loren, who grinned, before following Major Ematt.

"First of all, I'd like to begin by saying your father would be very proud of you, Agent," he stated. Helix glanced at him as he led her along various corridors.

"You knew my father?" she asked, unable to help herself. He nodded.

"Before he became an officer, Yeron served under me as a recon agent as well. Our primary objective was to locate potential sites for new bases for the Alliance,"

Keslin had barely spoken of Captain Yeron Taruk, Helix and Loren's father. He was a scout of some sort, she had known, and it was during his very last assignment that he had been killed by a rogue unit of stormtroopers. When she focused carefully, she could only just barely recall a man with short, dark brown hair and dark blue eyes, like Loren's.

"He was a very great man, honourable to the end. He loved all three of you very much."

Helix wanted to know more, but realised they had reached Ematt's office. Finn had said at some point that Ematt was the type to keep business in the office, and personal matters outside. If that was true, the personal discussion had ended.

"Now, personal matters aside," he said, confirming Helix's thoughts as he gestured for her to enter, "I am aware that you are technically still a recruit, at least until the end of this week, but General Organa has already given me permission to brief you on your first assignment."

Helix settled into a seat facing Ematt across a desk, trying to still her excitement. She wasn't even completely finished with training and was already getting an assignment!

He took his own seat and rifled through a pile of folders, selecting one and holding it out to her.

"In short, we need more bases," he told her, "With your already extensive survival knowledge, and first-hand experiences of "living rough", as we call it, you make the perfect candidate to assess the potentiality of certain sites, for developing outposts that can later become a base. This is a list of surveyed sites we will be sending you to. You will be given more files to read on base assessment, specifically what is required from a location, but aside from minor specific details, you should be able to guess at what is required,"

"Access to a fresh water supply, cover from elements, a local food supply-"

"That's it," Ematt nodded, almost smiling. Helix took the brief from him and flipped it open, scanning the list as he continued, "You will be assigned a pilot, and you will leave in four days - that should give you enough time to rest and regroup with your fellow trainee friends."


"You only just finished training and you've already got an assignment," Finn shook his head in disbelief, "Even I wasn't given that. Somebody must have given you some really high commendations."

"The General mentioned that," Helix told him, "Apparently I got one for taking a detour on Panartha, which kept us safe from a storm and took half a day off our total trip, and another one for having the foresight to hunt on Denab."

"Panartha," Loren tapped his fork against his teeth, frowning in thought, "We lived there, didn't we? Before Takodana,"

Helix nodded slowly, "And I'm not sure, but I think the outpost I had to infiltrate was our old home on Rekkiad,"

"Nah, there's no base on Rekkiad," he replied, "That would have been Hoth you were on. The Rebel Alliance had a base there that they had to abandon when the Empire found it. The Resistance moved back in only recently, downsizing the base to become an outpost only. Did you get any commendations for Vandos? The desert planet?"

Helix shrugged, picking at her food. Azros hadn't told Loren the exact conditions of Helix's "illness", only that she had fainted from exhaustion and been brought back to the base for a few hours. Loren had already expressed his annoyance at not being notified until after Helix had returned to training, but he left it at seething and that was it.

"You really should have gotten some sort of recognition," he said, "I overheard two of the officers discussing it. Something about pushing yourself far beyond anything anyone else could have endured,"

"It really wasn't," Helix murmured, deciding. "The task was to resist a mind read,"

Loren frowned at her, staring, and Finn leaned across the table.

"Was that with Master Luke? What happened?"

"He tried to read my mind, and I didn't let him," Helix replied, shrugging, "No different to anything you've tried, Loren, although he gave me warning,"

Loren shook his head. "How is it not different? You know me, we're blood. He doesn't know anything about you, he could have seriously hurt you - and he did!"

"He didn't hurt me, Loren," Helix snapped, feeling that cold sensation rising in her chest, "Resisting him was nothing like what you used to do. He told me what he was going to do, I knew before he even began. You never gave me warning, except for in the very beginning,"

"I'm your brother! I was trying to help you!"

Helix scoffed, "If that's your idea of help, I'd hate to see what you call torture,"

Loren stood up, and Helix sensed his anger, almost radiating off him - but the coldness gave her the courage to stand up to him.

"You don't understand half of what I've done for you! You wouldn't even be here if it weren't for me! Now you're saying I'm not allowed to get angry when someone else hurts you?"

She let her fork drop to her tray and stood up, "At least I didn't have to beg him to stop - even then, you would never listen,"

Before Loren or Finn could say anything, Helix whirled around and ran out of the hall. Tears stung at her eyes, and she felt guilty for her final remark, but she didn't regret it. She would talk to him later, make everything alright.

Actually, she did regret something - not finishing her meal before she had left.