I sat in the cockpit and plugged in the coordinates that L9 gave me as I got on board. The computer stated the journey time, which was far too long to just sit at the controls and stare into hyperspace. I took the time to attempt to fly a Starfighter on the military flight simulator that I salvaged in my early years. I had been able to ace it without trying lately, so I tried to test myself. I set the simulated enemies to be a star destroyer, imperial class, and a legion of TIEs. The virtual fighter shredded the fighters with ease, using manoeuvres that worked with my actual ship.

The star destroyer was a different story. I managed to avoid and take out its turrets, but the shields prevented me from doing anything substantial. I made a small mistake which caused my stabiliser wing to get knocked off. I managed to get into hyperspace, but just barely, without the stabiliser the fighter didn't want to dodge and weave like it once had. Once in hyperspace, the simulation ended.

I tried the same sim over and over until I got tired. I went to sleep, DV started to repair the simulator, a habit he had gotten into since he had found a way of optimising the response time and downloading other, newer, ships.

I was woken by a blaring of alarms. The ship was coming out of hyperspace, but it had already scanned for threats. The alarms told me they'd found some.

I scrambled to the cockpit and searched the surrounding area for ships.

The X-wings started circling me. Judging my firepower, they were in attack position. The cruiser behind it was what caught my eye. The beeping of the communicator shocked me. I quickly responded.

"This is Kaise Wykail, I was told that I could get in contact with the Resistance here."

"Who sent you?" The message was voice only, heavily distorted.

"Darie," my voice was calm, but I was shaking.

"Stay within the escort and move towards the starboard hangar. Do not deviate from that flightpath, and keep your turrets facing away from the ship until you land."

I followed their instructions, carefully moving the turrets so they were in a backwards position, and flying fairly close to the nearest X-Wing. Entering a hangar seemed to have a different feel than entering a planet, the change from Zero-G to artificial gravity was as sudden as the change from a vacuum to artificial atmosphere. My ship quickly, and discretely, normalized its pressure. The landing was just as smooth as on the planet, but I was more conscious of the broken landing gear.

The hangar didn't look as pristine as I remember the Imperial base I lived out the early years of my life on, but it was still cleaner than most places I'd been. A detail of security troopers, heavily armed, marched onto the ship. They combed it over for weapons, confiscating most of the contents of the armoury. The lightsabers were all that was left. I gathered them up and my droids and I followed the troopers onto the hangar.

A pilot in an orange jumpsuit and a black flight helmet leant against his Starfighter, the only black fighter in the hangar, a small droid of a design I hadn't ever encountered rolled around at the pilot's feet. He spoke first.

"What do you want to talk to the resistance about?"

"I want to join. I've got a ship weapons and training plus my droid has some locked out First Order data although it's about 7 years old." I took a deep breath.

Looking intrigued he told one of the troopers to take the droids to the slicing team.

He beckoned me to follow him to an elevator that took us up to the command deck.

Standing in front of us, to greet us, was General Leia, I had seen holos of her from her Rebel Alliance days. I'd known her as a traitor in my younger years, but I learnt to respect the Alliance and their cause once I was old enough. She wore unimpressive military clothes; unlike the rest of the officers, her uniform didn't have a badge denoting rank or position. There were lines of moister skin that ran down her face, evidence of tears.

Her command team was the most diverse I'd ever seen. Aliens I had never seen before and some I had, Twi'leks, Rodians and several others.

General Leia spoke, "Welcome to the resistance, Poe said you wanted to speak to us."

"I want to join you." Her eyes caught on the lightsaber at my belt, they started to tear-up. "I can fight, fly, do maintenance, anything you want me to."

"Why do you want to fight?"

"I've had bad experiences with tyrannical regimes."

"I noticed your Lightsaber. Do you know the Force?"

"Yes, I remember being taught from a young age."

"Could you teach some of our recruits? They aren't strong in the Force, but they can use it."

"I can try."

Poe interjected, "what should we do, General?"

"Get him to an orientation briefing, and test him. Give him a bunk and get Finn to mentor him."

"Finn is still recovering."

"That's fine, he won't need to stress." Poe escorted me to the elevator again, this time getting off on a crew deck. I was then shepherded to a small room. My things had already been moved and were piled neatly on a desk next to the small bed. On the bed were a set of folded overalls as well as some combat gear. Hanging up on the door was an orange jumpsuit and white helmet, plain and simple.

"So their trying you out for everything then!" A human woman, about my age, came through the door, she had pale skin and black hair cut short.

"Are you my bunk mate?"

"Obviously." She sat on the neat bed, creasing the sheets, "Did they give you to Finn as well?"

"Yeah. Who is he, sorry I pretty much just got here."

"He's a soldier from what I found out, but he got hurt quite badly."

"So they give him the easy cases."

"Exactly."

"I'm Kaise by the way, and you are?"

"Mira." She got up and left. About a minute later she returned in an orange jumpsuit of her own, "Didn't they tell you? We've got the pilot's test in about ten minutes. I don't think we should be late."

I hastily undressed and put on the jumpsuit, not bothering to worry about modesty or embarrassment. The jumpsuit was a bit too baggy for me, it was comfortable, but didn't allow for quick movement.

"It looks big on you."

"Thanks."

We rushed to the hangar. We weren't last, but we had cut it close. We were each directed to a Starfighter, a T-70 X-Wing. L9 had been prepped and was ready to help me pilot. The cockpit was small, but not cramped, the controls were very simple to understand, and I already knew how to fly the ship before the quick tutorial had even started. Once in flight my instincts kicked in. I routinely checked oxygen, structural integrity, and shield strength. We went on an easy route; we didn't even need weapons. It was purely an agility test. Most of the class aced the test first try; the rest only needed another one or two tries. The more advanced test stumped a few of us, but Mira, two others and I managed to tackle it quite quickly.

On our return we were congratulated, and separated into squadrons. I was assigned to silver squadron, a new squadron of fighter pilots who can handle themselves. I was given the designation of 'Silver three'.

The rest of the day was busy. Infantry tests were right after a short break to eat. Those consisted of a short obstacle course and weapons training, I particularly excelled at melee combat, managing to win every duel.

After the tests we all had to meet our mentors. The meeting was being held in a large room. We'd all changed into more formal wear, although each had their own small differences, a customised blaster here, small badges and other jewellery there. Mira wore a ragged and worn jacket that looked too big for her, and made her seem smaller and childlike. I, on the other hand, wore my father's old imperial rank badges and on my belt I had my lightsaber hanging alongside my father's.

Finn was a human male. He wore simple clothes that seemed to belong in a medbay and walked with a more than subtle limp. We went to him more than he came to us. Once we'd met he was brought a chair by a droid. When he sat down I noticed that he winced slightly as his back hit the back rest.

"So, from what I have here, you are both pretty good at just about everything."

"Yes Sir!" Mira said this with a quiet and soft voice, as she did she resisted the urge to go to attention.

"If you do need anything, then you can use this to call me directly." He gave us each a small, short-range communicator. I put it in a pouch on my belt. Finn's gaze caught on my lightsaber.

"My father helped me build it." I said, noticing his gaze.

"I've only ever seen two lightsabers before, one had been in the hands of a very dangerous man, the other seemed to belong to one of my closest friends."

Mira suddenly took a step back.

"What's wrong?" both of us asked at once.

"I didn't know you were a Jedi."

"Is that a problem?"

"No, it's just… I've got a secret." Her voice became very quiet, "I found out that I was gifted in the force very recently. My family already hated me, this just gave them a reason to hate me more."

"I'm here to help with that. They searched my ship and saw that I have quite a few holocrons. Most of them were made by my father and my grandfather, but some are from ancient Jedi and Sith. They want me to teach people who are force sensitive."

"Really!" Finn exclaimed.

"Yes. I don't know how or when it's going to be set up."

"I'll see what I can find out."

We returned to the mess hall for the last meal of the day. The food was bland and mass produced, but very filling. People split into groups. Mira and I found ourselves conversing about Starfighters and told stories about our time before joining. I was quiet for most of the conversation, listening more than talking, I was distracted by a pair of Twi'leks who were obviously twins. Their colouring was different to any other Twi'lek I had seen, dark grey. Their eyes were bright blue and they seemed to do everything in unison. Both girls wore grey-blue versions of the pilot jumpsuits.

"So what did you before you arrived?" The question came from Paus, a corellian human who had told us about his time as part of a freighting crew.

"I planet hopped. I've spent a lot of time on my own. I went from planet to planet trying to join the resistance."

"How come you didn't join earlier?" Paus' Zabrak friend Krei asked

"I was too young."

"Wait how old are you?"

"18"

"Really! I thought you were about 24." Paus said

"Yeah. I've always been mature for my age. I think that happens when you see your planet explode."

"Oh, wow that must be terrible." Mira looked truly sympathetic.

"I guess. It was a long time ago. I don't really remember it."

"I think it's time for bed." Paus said as he looked at the time, "we've got training in the morning."

"I think we should go too." Mira responded, but before we could leave Poe walked up to us.

"Kaise, can I speak with you for a second."

"Sure."

"You know the project that you want to do?"

"Yeah."

"We have a room and four pupils for you."

"Five. Mira is force sensitive."

"I know, Finn told me."

"Oh."

"Go to this room tomorrow after lunch." He handed me a data pad with a map on it.