"You are about to embark on a mission that is undoubtedly more dangerous than all of you have ever experienced." I remember Admiral Ackbar's briefing like it was yesterday. At that point, I was excited to finally be able to go on my first mission. I was so confident in myself, and I thought I could do anything. You're probably wondering what all of this is about, what this whole "dangerous mission" is? Well, it was scary, challenging, and painful. And for the first time in my life, an entire galaxy's fate rested on my shoulders…

3 Weeks Earlier

After navigating through space in the Alderaan system for multiple hours, scanning the area for any sign of life, I finally found a Star Destroyer containing the Death Star plans. There were not many Star Destroyers with this, but Rebellion intel showed that this one contained them.

Meanwhile, Alderaan was obliterated. Besides the star charts, there was not a trace of the peaceful and beautiful planet. When I first received the news of the obliteration, I wept for hours. Then, the sadness turned to rage. That was why I so badly wanted to be selected by Admiral Ackbar. Because I wanted revenge.

The Imperial-Class Star Destroyer was a magnificent ship. This Star Destroyer was like all others, gray, triangular, and from the outside, somewhat dull. Once I found the ship, I quickly turned on my cloaking device and started my approach. I had to make it in and extract the plans, and then escape. This one file could save the entire rebellion from complete destruction. The Death Star was a large space station with the power to destroy an entire planet. It was what destroyed Alderaan. I was quite scared!

I was a talented pilot and coder. My astromech droid R0-L4 disabled the Star Destroyer's tracking system. Then, taking a deep breath, I carefully piloted my X-Wing into a deserted bay on the Star Destroyer. I slowly opened the top of my X-Wing and peeked out.

"BLEEP! BLOOP!" R0 said. He was telling me to be careful, but I did not need to be reminded.
"Shut down R," I told my droid. "But be ready to take off."

"BLOOP! BLEEP! BOP!"

Seeing no stormtroopers, I slid down the side of my X-Wing and ran to a nearby TIE fighter. The TIE's right-wing was nowhere to be seen, and the cockpit was split in half right down the middle. I climbed into the cockpit and looked around for any possible supplies. The only supplies I could find were an E-11 blaster rifle and a medpack. Exiting the TIE, I took out my thermal imaging scanner and slowly turned the device in a circle. The device scanned the area for heat signatures. It allowed me to see where people were, even through walls. After a few moments, I concluded that there were no stormtroopers in the bay. Then I noticed a control room a few yards above the bay. I cautiously walked up the stairs with my blaster drawn. The glass had several holes in it with burn marks around them. They were blaster shots. Then I noticed something more chilling. Claw marks. More than 5 feet long and a few inches thick.

Once I made the decision to actually go in, I crawled over to an onboard computer, trying to be as stealthy as I could. I was wondering why there would be no guards in this whole area. The lights were flickering, and sparks were often shooting out of other screens. I was worried that this could all be a trap! When I made it to the computer, the screen was black. The entire system was off. Using my decoding skills, I hacked into the mainframe and found a direct route to the Star Destroyer's archives. There were several rooms and hallways. I stared at the map. I knew a single Star Destroyer has multiple levels and pathways, and an additional 10,000 stormtroopers were stationed on an Imperial Star Destroyer.

After I memorized the directions, I began my run to the archives. Just about ten seconds into the journey, I figured out why this area was so deserted. The answer was at my feet. There was a stormtrooper lying across the ground. He was mangled, with claw marks on his back. His blaster was across the hallway. The stormtrooper was a few feet away from the door, almost as if it were trying to run but was stopped.

"Fascinating," I quietly whispered to myself.

And then I heard a growl.

It was a monstrous growl, and it was long and deep. It sounded like a rancor. That's when my eyes widened with understanding. This stormtrooper was trying to get out, but the rancor caught up and the rest of the crew locked the door. A rancor is also cold-blooded, explaining why it wouldn't show up on the thermal scan.

I ran to the door, hoping for it to possibly be unlocked. When I realized it wasn't, I started to decode it. I heard thumping coming from the hallway. It was coming.

When the door finally clicked open, I dove through and aimed my gun through the doorway, and in there stood the rancor. Immensely tall and slimy, with razor-sharp teeth. I shot the control panel, and the door slid shut. It would never open again.

I slumped to the floor and clutched my orange pilot vest. I took deep breaths. I had never been confronted by a dangerous creature like a rancor. When I finally caught my breath, I continued my run to the archives. This hallway was much more lit, and I didn't get the creepy vibes of the rundown docking bay.

I ran to the archive room, but every 30 seconds I had to jump into a random room to let a group of stormtroopers pass by. This went on for half an hour. When I finally made it, I ran into more trouble. Almost 20 yards from the archive room, a droid, a modified bb unit stood, guarding it. This droid, I could tell, had the power to sound the alarm, and lock the archive room. I learned that there was a possibility of a guard in my briefing.

I slowly crawled closer to the droid and stopped about 12 feet away from it. I was concealed behind a crate of blasters to avoid being seen by it. While the droid had x-ray vision, the droid didn't move or sound the alarm. It sat there. And sat there. I was curious if it was actually working. Then I noticed that the droid's lights weren't even on. I desperately needed to get into the archive room. If the droid was off, then all I had to do was break into the room and the droid wouldn't do anything. Then I could just walk right in. But if the droid was just faking being off, then I would be stunned, captured, and my mission would fail. I would be tortured and then eventually killed. I was just about to throw my medpack at the wall to try and test it, when my grenade fell out of my holster and onto the ground with a loud thud. Then the droid, clearly aware, turned on its lights and produced its taser. I was at a distance far enough to where I couldn't be tased, so I aimed my blaster at the droid and waited. When the droid noticed, it started rolling at me like it was mad. Then, I shot the droid in its core. The droid exploded into thousands of pieces with a loud bang.

I waited for a minute. Then, I let out a deep sigh. The droid did not sound the alarm. Then, the alarms went off. The noise was so deafening that I could barely walk. I staggered up to the droid and found a piece of indestructible material, which had the clearance code on it. With it, I typed it into the screen. To my greatest surprise, a squad of stormtroopers was waiting behind the door, their guns were all aimed at me. I leaped to cover behind the wall. Then, a split second after I jumped, the stormtroopers opened fire. I traded shots with the stormtroopers, and I eventually shot three of the four stormtroopers. The last stormtrooper, clearly of higher rank and battle skill, connected a shot to my hand. I cried out in pain then shot him straight in the arm. He cried out and slumped to the floor, unconscious. Then I dragged him out of the archive room. With all the stormtroopers down, I had free access to the archives.

I slumped down to the ground and clutched my arm. The wound was pretty bad, but not fatal. I crawled over to my medpack and treated my wound. Knowing the fate of the rebellion depended on the success of this mission, I pushed through. Then I stumbled into the control room and fell on top of the main access computer.

Regaining my breath, I hacked into the database and searched for the Death Star plans. Since I was already on edge, and the alarms were still blaring, I tried to go as fast as I could.

When I finally found the Death Star plans, I plugged in my X-Wing shaped flash drive into the computer. Then I dragged the Death Star plans across the screen and into my flash drive to copy them. The plans were going to take a minute to copy, and I could hear the distant sound of footsteps coming from the hallway that I came down. Thinking quickly, I opened a ventilation shaft and took up a defensive position. Then I took a long deep breath. When I saw the first stormtrooper at the end of the hallway, I shot the control panel, and the doors speedily closed and locked shut.

Then, a few seconds later, the flash drive copied the plans, and a message on the screen reported:

Download Complete. Safe to remove drive.

As I put the flash drive in my pouch, I could hear the troopers working to open the door. I thought about locking it, but then I put a proximity grenade on the ground next to it. I clicked the top button on the bomb, and the device clicked. Then I rolled into the ventilation shaft and tried to get back to my ship, closing the grate behind me.

I navigated a long maze through the vents. The vent smell was disgusting. It smelled like a thousand mynocks. The worst part was that It took almost an hour! The Imperials actually turned off the alarm system thinking I was dead or gone. While I was in the vents, I heard a distant boom, indicating that the stormtroopers got into the archives and set off the proximity grenade. Yet, the imperials did not think to look to find my ship. Either they thought I didn't fly in, or they forgot about the bay where my ship was. The bay was even erased from the Star Destroyers map, as I recalled from the map in the bay.

Finally, I found my X-Wing. The vent ended at the exact spot where the door I shot was. I opened the vent and cautiously peeked out. I didn't see or hear the rancor, so I jumped out and rolled to the side because the vent was high in the air. I stealthily moved to my X-Wing and tapped on R0-L4. In a few moments, his lights came on and he happily chirped, "BLOP! BLEEP! BLEEP!"

He was excited I was back, and that we were finally going to leave. I can't say I thought otherwise, this place gave me the creeps. I opened my interceptor top and climbed aboard. I flicked on the switch above my head to turn on the X-Wing. Then I finally saw the rancor, staring right at my face only a few feet away.

I jumped and pulled back the joystick on the left. My ship flew backward several yards and almost hit another ship. However, I pressed the flashing green button on the screen in front of me, and the ship steadied. The rancor stood up and roared so loud my ears rang. Quickly, I pressed the toggle to the right of the joystick. To switch my firing mechanism to cannons. Then, I grinned as I pulled the trigger on the left joystick as I watched the rancor explode into flames.

With the rancor gone and the bay in flames, I turned the ship to face the edge of the bay and piloted the ship out of it. The moment I left it, I started to take fire from stormtroopers that must have entered the bay after I shot the rancor. Then I was slightly upset that I obliterated the rancor because he could have taken out the stormtroopers that were pocket shooting me.

Unfortunately, one of the stormtroopers was actually good at their job and took out my communication system. It was a real problem, due to the fact that I needed it to send an SOS, which I probably should've done way before I turned on my ship.

The moment I left the bay, the troopers must've sounded the alarm that I was in space, because laser cannons on the star destroyer were firing at me like nobody's business. I thought that possibly every gun on the Star Destroyer was trying to take me out.

I did barrel rolls, loops, simple jerks, and really any other dodge to try and avoid being destroyed. Once I was finally in range of the cannons, I activated attack mode. I flicked the switch on my targeting screen to spread my 4 wings into an x formation, hence the name: X-Wing.

I toggled my weaponry to torpedoes and turned on the targeting computer. I then pulled the right joystick to the right to pick a target. Once the crosshair was aligned with the Star Destroyer cannons, I clicked the button on the screen. Then I got a pop-up message indicating that I had locked onto the cannons.

Then time seemed to slow. The flashes of green energy that ensured certain death seemed to go slower that my ship. I felt graceful, like a dancer successfully completing a backflip. I smiled. It felt nothing like a war zone, more like a fun training exercise. Then, I thought about my adventure. It would be the perfect story. Smiling, with a feeling of completion, I pulled the trigger.

I closed my eyes and waited for the cannons to explode. They did, only not the ones I wished would.

With a sudden jolt, I opened my eyes quickly and looked at my ship. The wings were back in its cruising position, with the wings flat up against each other.

When I looked at my mechanical screen, it almost seemed like it was a joke. It said:

Warning: Weapons system offline

I yelled in frustration. Without my weapons, I couldn't take out the cannons and I couldn't make it away. This was one of the worst things that could have happened. Not as bad as being destroyed, but It was certainly bad. But, in all my anger, I didn't notice the flashing sign on my computer screen indicating I had an enemy lock until it was too late:

It was far too late to evade lock. I looked up to see myself much closer to the Star Destroyer than I expected. When I looked up at the cannon, it almost seemed to be grinning at me, like I was a fool for getting too cocky. When I realized I was done, I closed my eyes and readied for my ship to be obliterated.

I heard a boom.

And then a series of multiple booms followed.

When I finally opened my eyes, I was in utter disbelief. The entire row of Star Destroyer cannons were in flames. Bursting through the smoke, was the gold Y-wing bomber squadron.

When they flew by, they gave me a solute through the glass. I soluted back, and then started setting my coordinates.

My heart was pumping so fast and hard that I could feel it in my head like someone was beating in it. I looked back to the squadron, but they had already left the area. I looked to the Star Destroyer, which was now a burning ball of fire. And then I looked at my own ship, just a tiny interceptor. A tiny interceptor pilot just broke and entered into an IMPERIAL facility, stole by far the most valuable document in the world, and escaped without being destroyed. This was the spark. The spark of hope.

I smiled. Then, the screen indicated that the route was set. Feeling content, I engaged the hyperdrive and blasted off into hyperspace.