It came to pass that I learned how to fly from a visiting general. At least, that was what they said years after the Battle of Corellia. In truth Han taught me, during a slow time for the Jedi. Every afternoon, I would be the first to bolt from training with my mother (I still cringe at the words), ignoring her cries of, "Gracie, slow down!" and heading straight for the massive cavern that was the hangar.

So, when the rest of my Padawan age group who showed interest in space travel began training to become pilots, I became highly dissatisfied with the course.

The first sign I got that this was not going to end well was when I woke up to find that I was already late. Scrambling about looking for the lightsaber I had created just last year, I frantically ran out of the small apartment. I wasn't looking forward to this at all. It had been about five years since I had learned the truth, the whole truth, and in that time my father's training had taken me to the level of a captain, a title given only to the Jedi who could outmaneuver even a Force-sensitive. Needless to say, today's class would be utterly boring.

When I arrived, I noted that the instructor was an older Jedi master of a species I didn't recognize. "Padawans," he began in a tone as gnarled as his wrinkled skin. "We do not expect you to complete your training today, nor do we expect you to take up several months. You have been recruited because of your ability, your intellect, and above all else your desire to pursue a career in the wonderful…"

The master continued to drone on about how we had been chosen, but I faded out around the middle of his monologue. Instead, I turned my attention to the line of spacecraft behind him. Row upon row of mismatched ships stared at me like the faces of generals. Most were of the X-wing variety, and quite a few boasted battle scars from what I assumed were the clone wars. It was enough to make even the harshest critic silent in reverent awe.

But…it was not enough. I wanted more. It was a terrible feeling, to want what you know you can't have, to feel what you know you can't feel, and for a moment I could almost sympathize with my master. I knew it was not the Jedi way to demand bigger, faster ships, but it was going to be hard adjusting to the small craft after experiencing the joy that was flying the Millennium Falcon.

Once behind the controls, my doubts were confirmed: this particular X-wing had been modified so that the student could only go as fast as the instructor allowed them to! I tried to force back the rage that was crawling up my arms and into the innocent dashboard, but all I could think of was how much more I had learned outside of the Jedi order. Sometimes it was so unbearable living my life. Studying is impossible when you know your master; your mother is sobbing in the room just next to you because the father you weren't supposed to have got assigned on a mission he wasn't even supposed to be on.

I took a deep breath and cleared my mind. Now was not the time to question the integrity of the living, nurturing being that had raised me and I myself was a part of. The instructor brought his comlink to his mouth, and I could hear his voice, magnified and crystal clear through the receptor in my helmet. "All right, Gracie. Just bring her out of the hangar undamaged," he said, stressing the last bit with an annoying tone, "and then we'll talk flight." It was a rather arrogant thing to say, especially coming from a Jedi. This could only be in response to the way I myself acted sometimes.

"Okay, Master," I said with an unnecessary nod. Finally the controls seemed to yield to my instructions, and the craft came to life with a feeble whir of protest. Just as instructed I took it out of the hangar. Just as instructed, the craft and the temple suffered no damage. But once I got out into the open…it took my breath away.

You can experience flight as a passenger, or as a mechanic, or even as a designer of ships, pointing to the beautiful handiwork of your factory and saying, 'Yes, that's mine, I made that dream a reality.' However, the single best way to experience flight is as the pilot. Here is where all you can trust are your instincts and the metal and transparisteel and the engine that's keeping you from falling into an abyss. There was also something about this feeling in the smaller craft that I came to like; I had fewer places to go and it was entirely my job to keep this thing on the right track.

There's something about me that most people figure out within a few days of knowing me. A little nagging thing, something I've long denied and ignored. But it's there, and I have to face it. When I was in that craft, alone except for the other Padawans, something took over. I wheeled the ship around, plotting a course for the far side of Coruscant. My comlink screeched for a moment, then the master's voice came through, almost more shrill than the previous noise. "Gracie, I don't recall telling you to begin flying yet!"

There was that thing again. "I'm better," I muttered. Looking in the slight reflection the front windshield produced, I saw that my face had taken on an eerie, starved look. "I'm better than them," and it was true, the thing knew it. Then I was diving, falling, and heading closer and closer to the planet I called home.

My flaw, my fatal error, is that I am arrogant.

Nothing could stop me as I approached the senate building, flying far too low for regulations and far too fast for most pilots my age. I wasn't like them, and I knew it. I could handle it far better than they could. This was where I belonged. My mother couldn't catch up with me now. All of the worries I had been harboring were nothing but streaks past the windshield.

The senate became the middle class cities, located on the fringe of greatness as if they thought some of it would rub off on them. I left myself along with my family back at the senate. It tried to cling on, it refused to be shaken from its body, but still it was cast howling into the wind. I didn't care; it was nothing but the craft and me now.

Well, not really. All Jedi units have tracking devices, and mine had just been activated. I came flooding back to myself in a steady stream of thoughts and ideas, the right ones hitting me at the wrong time. The first thing to return was the basic facts: I was heading in a modified X-Wing at a speed that could be fatal flying low in a populated area, and the Jedi Knights had found me and would most likely kick me out. My computer readout was telling me that a small Corellian vessel was following me. (What, I wondered, was a Corellian vessel doing outside of Corellia, and when had they started working with the Jedi? I figured by now I must have been a fugitive of the higher authorities as well.) That was okay, I could shake it off with a few fancy tricks.

But the craft marked me with a skill I had never seen. The moves I was using weren't common knowledge; I had learned them from my father, who had come up with many of them using sheer dumb luck. Only a pilot of his rank could possibly tail me like this. That was it; I would have to just outdistance my aggressor. The thought didn't occur to me until my comlink buzzed for the third time (this was getting really annoying), and a voice came through. It was angry, loud, and distinctly male.

"What the hell do you think you're doin', kid?"

Of all of the people to spoil my little joyride…it just had to be Han Solo. My father, the one who had taught me everything I know, the one who had until just now given me free reign and encouraged my mischievous side, was attempting to discipline me. "I'm training," I spat back. "Is that a problem? I thought you said danger only heightens the pilot's senses."

"That's not what I meant," he said tensely, and I repressed the urge to ask him how he expected me to know what he meant when he didn't know half of the time. "You disobeyed orders, Gracie. For gods' sakes, if you're going to be rebellious, be a little more discreet!"

I snorted. "That's kind of the point of rebellion, Dad. To not be discreet; to stand up and be heard." He didn't seem to register what I had just said, so I repeated the statement. "You can't start a revolution by sitting on your-"

"Enough," he said, and judging by the crash in the background, he had just banged his fist on the dashboard. "Your mother wants you home. I want you home. You're coming back to the temple of your own free will, or I'm dragging you the whole way back."

He was giving me an ultimatum. I had the choice to surrender with dignity. But who was he to order me around? All the feelings I had lost returned stronger than before. These people whom I called my family, they had thought more of what they themselves wanted more than what was best for their daughter. Clear and calm, annunciated so that even my aging comm couldn't twist its meaning I uttered one syllable: "No."

I shut out the noise of my father's protests and focused on acceleration. Speed was my ally, and time was my only enemy. I had to get out of here. "You don't know how much trouble you'll be in," the voice on the other end kept shouting. "When your mother finds out…"

"Is that all you care about? How it looks?" I narrowly escaped a decorative spire on an apartment. "Well, let me tell you, it's a lot more about how I feel. And I feel cheated. Cheated of a normal childhood," I circled a public building, skirting the roof, "cheated of an identity," a few shingles fell off onto the ground below. "And to top it all off, there's my disappointment of a family."

My speech was sounding pretty good, and the feeling of confidence had once again built up in my body. I was gearing up for my final attack, the point that would drive it all home. "And you know what else? You're not exactly the galaxy's most caring parent."

I was wrong. He cared; he cared enough to cry when he knew it couldn't be helped. I was blinded by my cockiness, I was unable to think clearly, and I didn't notice the tall, transparisteel office that was right in front of me. "Pull up!" Han's yelling echoed in my ear, but it was too late. I found myself in the office building, X-Wing and all. Shards of the once glorious construction shattered my windshield, and bits of the glass fell inwards, propelled by the momentum of my still-moving craft. It grated along the inside walls with a deafening screech, the last thing I heard before something brushed past my cheek and I blacked out.

It's never a good thing to wake up in a hospital.

White walls and sterile environments have always given me the creeps. I find them to be too unnatural, and the staff at these sterile, white hospitals is often inhumanly cheery. Such was the case at the one I had woken up in a few minutes ago. "How do you feel?" asks a man who is far too perky for my liking.

"Okay," I say at first. But a few seconds after speaking, I want to take it back. "Like my face is on fire!" I shout, the words opening a fissure from my left earlobe to my chin. Clamping a hand over the wound to dull the throbbing, my worst fears are confirmed. A look of pure horror takes over my facial features as I slide my finger down the ghostly line.

The cut isn't very deep, but it's deep enough to sting. I can feel two sides to the injury that had been hastily sewn together. A primitive way to fix it compared to the bacta patches and advanced healing substances of my generation, but it would do. "You're lucky we found you," the man says quickly. "Luckier still that your cheek was all that got hit. You could have wound up blind, or worse. The only permanent damage is that it's probably going to scar."

So it would scar. I ran my fingers over it again, each individually, to make sure it was really there, and that it was the only cut I'd gotten. Every stroke reminded me that I would always have this, a reminder that I should have listened when my master told me to slow down and let the Force take control. But it wasn't enough to make me willing to sacrifice the power I had always possessed over my own decisions. Noting my silence, the doctor added, "The captain who found you said that he wanted to see you. He's going to talk to you about your behavior, no doubt. I don't mean to be rude, but you could have hurt a lot of innocent people if that building hadn't been slated for demolition in a week. Hopefully you can work on your skill, and your discipline." He glanced at his wrist comm, a model that came with a built-in watch. "I've got to see a patient in remedial burn care," he explained with an air meant to show me that on the list of important people, I wasn't close to the top. "Shall I send him in?"

"Sure."

The man who entered the room next was much less cheery, but whether this was a good thing was still up for debate. I don't know what came first: the disappointment he felt or the relief that I was alive, but both were alive and evident when he spoke. "I thought you were capable of handling the burden of the training," he said in a calm voice that frightened me, eyes never leaving his shoes. I hadn't looked at them since waking up, but now I saw the cuts where shards of glass had scratched the leather.

"This isn't your fault, Gracie, not entirely. I should have left the instruction up to your mother…master, sorry. It's not right for me to try to take their place. I guess I was just trying to be a better father to you," he confessed, looking me squarely in the eye. I avoided his gaze as he had avoided mine, looking to his chin, and the scar. I heard him say, "I love you, and I want you to know that. But that's no excuse for stepping out of my place. I should have been the responsible adult, even though that's not my style. It's what you needed, and…Gracie, are you listening to me?"

None of his words registered. All I saw was the scar, the line across my future that I couldn't erase, even if it faded from my skin. I would always be illegitimate in the eyes of the Jedi. They could never know this, but I still did, and it hurt me. "Yes, Father," I replied in a monotone.

"Well," he sighed, getting up from the chair on which he was sitting and smoothing out his pants, looking more like a father figure than the reckless pilot I knew from the time I was a little girl. "That's the bad news. The good news isn't much better."

"What's the good news, then? And you never told me what happened to the-"

The X-wing! It had suffered all of the damage I had put it through, even when I pushed it beyond its limits. Nothing could survive the collision without damage, and the ship had been pretty badly beat up beforehand. I was filled with remorse for the vessel, and regret for letting my anger get the best of me.

"It's not too good," the captain said solemnly. It must have been something only people like us could have understood; I knew my master would have scolded me for caring so much about an inanimate object. "But…with a talent like yours, I'm sure she could be fixed." He headed towards the door, then turned to look at me. "You coming?"

"Just a minute," I called, then headed towards a mirror. Though I may have felt the wound, I hadn't seen what it looked like. It wasn't half as bad as I thought. The stitches were ugly and coarse, but when compared to walking around with an open cut, they seemed like an instant cure. I made a mental note to contemplate why I had been more willing to look at a terrible injury than the smoking remains of a starship I had no particular attachment to.

I ran to catch up with my father, blood pounding in my ears from residual adrenaline that came with the shock of waking up. I stopped abruptly in the hangar where my father was standing. The sight made the breath catch in my throat, which burned from a lack of air. "I…is…that's," I choked.

Nothing could have prepared me for the sight of the ship, torn down to bare frames, pipes and engines exposed like the veins on the backs of my wrists. My father put a hand out to hold me back. "Don't do anything rash," he warned. I bit back the temptation to mention that he shouldn't be throwing stones from that glass house of his. "But we can work on it today if you want."

I nodded slowly, then ran to her side. I climbed on top of the left side, then began pulling out cords that would need to be fixed or replaced. He joined me, and for a while we felt like family. Soon the light had faded from the sky. Despite our efforts, we hadn't gotten too far. "Nothing a few days won't fix," the captain reassured me, placing a rough hand on my shoulder. "Now it's time for you to go home."

I wanted to shout that this was home, that I was where I wanted to be, yet I shut my mouth and sat obediently in the chair behind where the captain usually sat. Strangely enough, my father gestured toward the controls, signaling that I should pilot the ship on the way home. Accepting his offer graciously, I stuck to traditional flying patterns as I headed for the Jedi temple.

It took a few nudges and pushes to get me to knock on the door of the apartment and face my master. "Ah, Gracie. I believe there is some meditation you ought to be doing, hm?" she asked as I entered the room, Han behind me, guiding me into the room further. I kept walking toward my room, trying to blot out their conversation as best I could.

My meditations were troubled with visions, mostly of a cowl-bearing figure with a glowing green lightsaber bowing before another shadow, this one with a crimson blade. Most of what I had read suggested that they were Sith, an order that supposedly vanished centuries ago. With the end of the clone wars came many rumors that they had resurrected themselves in the years when the Republic was busy fending off Separatist attacks. Still, these daydreams were as close as I would ever get to any servants of the Dark Side.

There's something else you should know about me. I have a knack for being wrong.