Twilight Sparkle stood in front of the portal to the human world, thinking. What were the human counterparts of her friends up to? Was Sunset Shimmer behaving herself? There was so much she didn't know! And due to the nature of the portal, she wouldn't know for quite some time.
It was for this reason that she was there then. She had gotten permission from Celestia to examine the mirror, but had been warned against trying to change anything about it. In the words of the diarch, "That mirror is intrinsically tied to the fabric of the universe, any attempt at changing it will prove catastrophic."
It was a good thing that Twilight wasn't changing anything. At most, what she was doing was tampering. Maybe meddling. Certainly short term. Any lasting effects would be a mistake on her part, and she’s been doing this magic thing long enough to not make mistakes.
She powered her horn down, causing the magic mirror to cease to glow. She walked around it, seeing if her magical nudging had changed anything major about it. When that unsurprisingly failed to show her anything, she trotted around the room, looking at the magical instruments she had set up all around the mirror. Still nothing. She frowned, and reapplied her aura to the mirror, watching the instruments while she manipulated it. They showed slight variations that weren't even in line with her tweaks, and they stopped the second she stopped pushing.
Twilight looked around the room, double checking she was alone. "Poop," she said quietly.
Then her eyes caught on something. The meticulously bundled and organized cables connecting all her instruments were a bit off. She had plugged a couple cables between devices wrong. A quick job replugging the errant cords fixed her problem perfectly. She still couldn't make a tiny bit of the magic powering the mirror change in the way she wanted, but now her instruments at least properly recorded her attempts.
Twilight paced in circles around the mirror. This thing wasn't stronger than her, she knew that from the fact she could change the specifics of the enchantment. It changed itself back and actively resisted her, but she couldn't figure out why. She fiddled with the mirror as she walked up to it to look at her reflection, thinking that might change when she tweaked the enchantment. As she stepped forward, however, her hoof caught on one of the hastily-laid cables around the mirror. With a yelp, she fell through.
Wherever the mirror's twin was, it wasn't on the floor, as Twilight soon realized. She shortly hit the ground, landing in a sprawl in a cramped room, a door to each side. As she went to pick herself up, she noticed that she was bipedal once more. Did it work? A quick self-examination revealed that she was the right shape, size, and color. She ran a hand through her hair in relief, but froze when she came into contact with a horn. She felt around, and found two more, smaller than the first and on each side of it. "What in the—"
She would have to finish her introspection later. A cream-skinned human in a bright orange jumpsuit burst through the door, followed closely by five more of near-identical color and in identical orange clothing. One spotted her. "Hey, what are you doing, standing there? The civilian evacuation ships are back that way!" He jabbed a thumb back the direction they had entered.
"Wh—"
Another member of the squad slapped the first on the back of the head. "The way between here and the civvy evac ships is absolutely crawling with Imps. Do you think she'd make it there? She's gotta go out on the military ships." He walked up to her, offering his hand. "We gotta go fast, miss. Don't want to get a shot in the back."
A confused Twilight took his hand hesitantly. The first soldier rubbed the back of his head. "We don't have time to argue, so if we get in trouble, it's your ass."
"Of course," the second said. "Introductions will have to wait, miss. We gotta run."
"Okay?" With her consent given, the soldier nearly pulled her over as he started running again. Slightly out of practice in a bipedal form, Twilight was always being tugged along, despite her best efforts. They ran up and up, taking each of the seemingly-endless staircases two steps at a time, flashing past hundreds, if not thousands of rooms filled with things that in any other situation would make Twilight stop and spend hours studying. Twilight’s stumbling, zig-zagging running directly contrasted the straight and easy way the soldiers around her ran.
Soon enough, the group emerged into the light. Twilight expected to stop at the top, maybe take a little break. Instead, she felt her feet leave the ground for a moment as the soldier holding her hand kept running. “Can’t stop now, miss. Any second now, the Imperials are gonna bring down a lot of hurt on this planet.”
Not knowing how else to reply, she just nodded dumbly as she did her best to keep up with the soldiers. They ran down an alleyway, coming to a wide street. The buildings flanking her route were tall, and built in a way that Twilight had never heard of before, let alone seen. Every few alleyways, more soldiers—some dressed identically to the group escorting Twilight, most in armor of less jarring shades—emerged, creating a veritable river of humans of varying cream complexions.
A bright flash and an explosion over her head drew her eyes upwards. A large, metal triangle was overhead, and a multitude of small dots were spreading from it. For a moment, every soldier on the road stopped with Twilight. "That," the soldier leading Twilight said slowly, "is a big bird."
His words seemed to snap the world back into action. Instead of the panicked sprinting that Twilight expected, the soldiers put on a grim air and kept their retreat even more orderly than before, murmuring softly between each other. One of the soldiers running alongside the group Twilight was with said, "What's with the civvy?"
Not even sounding out of breath despite Twilight being sore and tired already from doing the same thing, the soldier replied, "Found her deep under. Couldn't just send her back into the Imps."
"What was she doing deep under?"
"No clue. Haven't had time to ask." The soldier looked upwards. "Imp invasion and all."
The other soldier's mouth pressed into a line. "Never thought I'd see one of those in person."
"Never wanted to."
With that, their conversation ended. Silence reigned around Twilight while she ran. She focused straight ahead, even as explosives rained down on the city behind her. She could faintly hear the screams of those that survived the initial explosion. She squeezed her eyes closed and held on to the soldier's hand as tightly as she could, trusting him to lead her where she needed to go. He did his job faithfully, even as the bombs started landing on the fleeing soldiers.
Suddenly, Twilight felt a premonition. She looked up, and saw a bomb dropping right for where she would be, and there was no way they were going to survive it. The adrenaline rushing through her body allowed her to trace where it would land, dig her feet in, and pull the soldier at the end of her arm to the side, knocking him off balance from the unexpected change in velocity. She threw her free hand up in an attempt to create a magical barrier, forgetting that humans couldn't use magic.
The rippling explosion stopped before it reached them, seeming to find the air too solid to go through. All around them, the shockwave knocked soldiers off their feet and shattered near windows, but directly behind Twilight, there were no effects.
Twilight helped the soldier stand. "Sorry," she said.
"Not a problem," he replied, wiping himself off for a moment. "C'mon, it won't be long before the Imperials drop another bomb on us. We need to get moving."
Twilight nodded, considerably calmer than she was before. She'd been in mortal danger before. Maybe not quite like this, but that short burst of calm she felt was all she needed to get control of herself. At least until the adrenaline wore off.
Not too much later, the now-thinned soldiers arrived at the doors of their hangar. The group split, most of them heading in one direction, while the rest of the soldier's squad went with just a few others dressed like them in another direction. "Where are they—"
"They're going to distract the Imperials long enough for us to get to orbit," the soldier said without slowing down. "From there, we'll pick them up and get the heck out of dodge."
Orbit?
Twilight just followed him as they ran. The doorway they went through opened up into a massive room absolutely filled with the largest, strangest vehicles she had ever seen. Each one was the size of a small town, oblong, and coated in what she assumed was weaponry.
"One of these babies has over thirty turrets and a state-of-the-art shielding system on it," the soldier explained as they trotted up to one. His words brought forth pictures of Canterlot's numerous large towers behind a translucent purple shield, making Twilight feel homesick. "There isn't a better-defended ship of its size. We'll be fine, now."
An orderly line of soldiers had formed at each one of the near half-dozen ships. Twilight was led to one seemingly at random. They waited impatiently as the line advanced quickly. Twilight took a moment to look around. Curt stood out more than her, due to him being dressed in bright orange and the few people in lines that had skin in different colors. Twilight locked eyes with an attractive woman two ships over who was a bright blue and had two long tentacles protruding out the back of her head instead of hair. The woman gave her a smile, before facing forward, saying a few words to a man at the bottom of the ramp of her ship, and walking away.
Twilight rubbed her neck, trying not to think how the woman got the scars she had seen there.
Soon enough, they were face-to-face with a woman holding onto a clipboard of some kind. Twilight couldn't see a pen anywhere, though. "Name," the woman said without looking up.
"Not on the list," the soldier said. "Curt Valadme, pilot, plus one."
"We don't have space for cowards shirking their jobs," the woman said, giving Curt a look so full of venom that Twilight was sure he'd drop dead and leave her on her own. "So go to your own ship. We're full."
"I'm escorting a civvy," he explained. "The way to the civilian transports was too far and too filled with Imps for her to have made it."
"We're full," she repeated. "Go to the other hangar and get in your ship."
Curt ignored her curt reply and brushed past her. "Bring it up with the admiral." The woman sputtered indignantly and uselessly as he led Twilight onto the ship. "Let's find you a seat and talk."
Twilight stood by a window in the ship, looking at the battered planet in wonder and horror. Curt stood next to her, watching a too-small number of four-winged ships returning with the fleet of civilian and military ships. The Imperials didn't send any ships up at them, instead focussing on bombarding the planet. They were free to go, unmolested.
"I don't remember having a Zabrak of quite that color in my navy," someone said from behind them. Twilight tore her eyes away from the spectacle with some effort, looking at the speaker.
He was a middle-aged man, with dark skin and greying hair. Underneath his simple clothing, Twilight could tell without trying that he kept himself in shape. Curt saluted. "Admiral Demos, sir."
"At ease, soldier," the older man said with a hint of amusement in his eyes. "I think you're allowed a bit of time to relax after something like that. Come, let's talk over drinks."
"Sir?" Curt asked hesitantly as the admiral began to walk away.
"Chop chop," Demos said. "I've got a nice bottle of Alderaanian wine that I've been meaning to find an excuse to open."
Twilight and Curt shared a look before the latter shrugged. They followed the admiral through the ship to a relatively large room that was relatively lavishly appointed. The woman from outside the ship was standing behind a plush chair, which itself sat at the rear of a heavy desk. The older man sat down at the desk and gestured with one hand to the two seats suspiciously prepared on the other side while the other hand grabbed a bottle and three glasses. "Sit." Curt sat first, followed by Twilight, who kept her eyes on the ground.
"So why is one of my X-wing pilots on a transport ship?" the admiral asked, placing a cup in front of Curt and pouring a small amount of wine in it. "On top of that, what's a civilian doing on a military transport? The sergeant here had some words to say about you two, but I thought I would speak to you first. We have the time, after all."
The woman lifted her not-clipboard, tapping the face without looking, saying, "Sir, Curt Valadme is in violation of three different regulations under the most recent update of Alliance protocol. The first is—"
"Innocent until proven guilty," the admiral interrupted, pouring Twilight's wine. "Give him a chance to defend himself."
"I'm actually curious as to my 'crimes'," Curt said, putting his heels up on the desk.
"Four regulations," the sergeant corrected herself. "Bringing a civilian on board a military vessel in an active battlefield, disobeying a direct order in an active battlefield, abandoning a combat spacecraft, and blatant disrespect of a superior officer."
"Disobeying a direct order? I'm a higher rank than you are, sergeant," Curt said.
"During a planetary evacuation, all relevant personnel are to be obeyed as if their orders were coming from the mouth of an admiral," the sergeant said. "This was a part of your basic training."
Curt shrugged. "I was faced with a decision. I could send a civilian into an active Imperial purge, or I could bring her along." He took his feet off of the admiral's desk, pointedly looking at the sergeant. "Do you think she would have survived if the Imps saw her? I joined the Alliance to save lives, sir, so I made my choice."
"The loss of a single X-Wing is—objectively, of course—worse than the loss of a single civilian life," the sergeant said. "That spacecraft could have potentially saved dozens, even hundreds of lives."
"The funny thing about decisions made under duress," Demos interjected, "is that logic very so often takes a back seat. Was it the right decision? I very much doubt it, no offense to you." The last part was aimed at Twilight. "However, there were much worse ways to handle that situation and," he put his cup of wine down and picked up a not-clipboard of his own from off the desk, "my records here put you as one of the best pilots stationed on that planet. We'll need you."
"So you're just handing him a pardon?" The sergeant exploded. "In the Republic, he would have gotten a court martial, if not a—"
Demos slammed his fist down on the table, shocking the woman into silence and causing Twilight to raise her eyes for the first time. "Don't lecture me on the Republic, girl," he said, much calmer sounding than expected after his outburst. "The Republic fell when you weren't even in school yet. I lived and breathed Republic military my entire life." He took a deep breath. "I'll handle this. You're dismissed. I'll call on you later."
"Sir?"
"You're dismissed!"
The woman hastily saluted before practically scurrying out the door. After a moment, the admiral sighed. "Why don't you explain what happened?"
"My squad and I were on the way to the hangars when we ran into Miss..." Curt trailed off. "I'm sorry, in the chaos, we didn't have time for introductions."
"Twilight," Twilight murmured.
"My squad and I were on the way to the hangars when we ran into Miss Twilight. With the Imperials having made landfall between us and the civvy ships, I made the decision to take her with us." Curt smiled. "That was the best decision I have made in my life."
"How so, soldier?" Demos asked.
"She saved my life. Pulled me right away from an Imperial bomb."
"Hmm." The admiral turned to Twilight. "You've been quiet. Do you have any questions?"
"Why?" she asked softly.
"Why what?" Demos asked.
"Why did they burn that planet?" Twilight lifted her head, showing the tears running down her face. "Why kill everything? I don't understand!"
Demos recoiled slightly. That was not what he expected. "The cruelty of the Empire knows no bounds, Miss Twilight. This planet is just the latest in a too-long line of others just like it, and it won't be the last."
Curt hesitantly put a hand on Twilight's shoulder. She jumped slightly, but otherwise didn't react. "That's why we're fighting them. Tooth and nail. At every turn. Even if we don't win in the end, we'll inspire someone else later who will."
When Twilight didn't respond, Demos cleared his throat. "In any case, we're a week away from the reserve fleet, if we want to avoid Imperial patrolled space. We don't have the time or resources to drop her off somewhere safe, so she's your responsibility. I don't expect her to fly an X-Wing, but I do expect that if push came to shove, she could at least defend herself. I'll talk with the sergeant about a blaster or some armor. You'll likely be sent to the quartermaster within a couple days." He turned his attention to Twilight. "Welcome to the Rebel Alliance to Restore the Republic."
There was a dramatic silence for the next few seconds. "You two should really try this wine. It would be a shame it you just let it sit there and forced an old man like me to drink the whole bottle."
Author's Note
Chapter one has been revised to correct plot and logic holes pointed out by readers. If you see any of that going on here, be sure to mention it. I can't get better if you don't tell me what I'm doing wrong. To be blunt, tear me a new asshole, but do so constructively.
In addition, some of this chapter doesn't make sense unless you read the updated chapter one due to some fairly major changes to individual scenes. There is almost one thousand new words worth of chapter now.
Twilight Finds Friends
Twilight was silent, sitting in a corner as Curt talked, joked, and poked fun with his squad while they played some game with worn cards under dim lights. Boasts of impossible maneuvers performed were shot down, tales of victory in the face of impossible odds were debunked, and stories of conquests outside of space were corrected. She had been invited to join in, but every action they took reminded her of the friends she had that she couldn’t see and stabbed her in the heart. She decided that she would instead sit far enough away that she could pretend she couldn't hear them or see Curt look over his shoulder at her occasionally.
One of Curt's squad excused himself and came to sit next to Twilight. She recognized him as the first to speak to her when they discovered her. They sat still for a moment, his orange jumpsuit glaringly obvious in her peripheral vision. "I saw what happened with that bomb." When Twilight didn't reply, he continued, "We should have died." She still didn't say anything. "Don't try and hide it, you're a Force-sensitive."
"It's magic," Twilight muttered. "It's not hard. I had a lot of friends that could do it too."
"Magic, sorcery, spirits, whatever you call it, it's the Force," the man said. "I wouldn't use that openly, if at all. The only two that do are the Emperor himself and his enforcer."
“It’s what I am!” Twilight snapped. “Don’t tell me what to do or not do!”
The room got quiet as all eyes swung over to her. She shrunk once more from the attention. “Just leave me alone.”
“I want to help,” the man said.
“And I want to be left alone,” Twilight replied softly. “So please go away.”
The man stood up, holding his hands between himself and her. “I meant no insult. If you ever want help, I’ll be there.” With that, he walked away.
Twilight didn’t give him the courtesy of a response, instead choosing to pull her legs up to her chest and watch the rest of the Rebel squad slowly resume their game.
Twilight slept fitfully, visions of her friends dancing around her dreams, accusing her for losing them in her haste. Angry eyes bored into her soul, and spite-filled words sheared her ears. Every few minutes she would jolt awake to feel tears matting her face, wipe them away with a swiftly-dampening blanket, lay still on the bed until she fell asleep, and drop right back into her nightmares. After a few hours of that cycle, she finally, mercifully, fell into a deep, silent sleep.
After a far-too-short rest, Twilight woke to a hand shaking her shoulder. Forgetting, for a moment, where she was and who was around her, she flailed and fell off the other side of the bed. "Ow," she moaned.
Curt walked around the bed, sticking his hand down to help her up. "My bad. I forgot how most people react their first day away from home."
Twilight took his hand, yelping as she went from prone to standing in a fraction of a second. She stumbled a bit as blood rushed to her head, but Curt steadied her. "Sorry again. I'm not doing a very good job at this."
" 'S fine," a tired Twilight muttered. She yawned, stretching herself more awake. "Why am I up?"
"The admiral asked me to get you able to defend yourself, remember?" Curt asked. “I got the okay for the quartermaster to get you fitted for a set of armor. It won’t stop a blaster to the chest, but it’ll save your skin if we run into Imperials again.”
Twilight nodded. "Alright, then. Lead on."
The ship wasn't large enough for them to take a large amount of time getting anywhere. Even with having to wait for the elevators, it took less than five minutes for the two to be standing at a door stamped with the word "ARMORY". Despite the haste of the trip, Twilight still felt the eyes of people watching her as she passed, but nobody was looking whenever she looked over her shoulder.
Curt pushed some green buttons on the side of the door, and got two quick, rough beeps in response. His brow furrowed, and he pushed the buttons again, with the same result. He rolled his eyes, thumping his hand on the door. "Hey! We need in!"
The door slid open without anyone on the other side to have opened it. From further inside came, "Shouldn't you have the password?"
"Didn't work," Curt replied, pulling Twilight inside behind him. "This one needs armor."
"I was told," the quartermaster said, coming into view around to the side of the door. He was surrounded by racks with patched clothes and armor on one side, and what Twilight assumed passed for weaponry here on the other. Most of the latter appeared to be broken. On him was loose-fitting pants and a skin-tight sleeveless shirt, and in his hands was most of an obviously-broken version of the weapon Curt and his squad were carrying when they picked up Twilight. "Sergeant asked me to just hand over a suit to a civvy, free of charge, and said it was the admiral's orders. You don't forget that in a day."
"So are you—"
"Yes, I'm going to do it," the quartermaster said. "I won't be happy, but orders are orders. We won't stick together if we don't listen to the chain of command."
He turned to Twilight, a critical eye scanning her from head to toe. He grunted and pulled a pile of cloth off a shelf in the wall, tossing it at her. After a moment he said, "Well?"
Twilight blinked. "Well?"
"Can't fit you for a suit if you're in civvy clothes," he said. "Switch out."
Twilight's cheeks flushed red. She knew enough from her first time through the portal to know that humans wore clothes, and to do otherwise was a cultural taboo. She shoved an uncomfortable memory out of her head as she looked around for a place to change out of sight.
"We don't got a changing room," the quartermaster said. He turned to Curt. "This one's a little more green than I thought she'd be."
"She's a civvy," Curt said, turning to face the wall. "She's not used to the same things we are." After a moment, he grabbed the quartermaster's shoulder. "C'mon. Face the wall."
An exasperated quartermaster turned away from Twilight. "Fine, fine."
A flustered Twilight hurriedly slipped out of the clothes she had arrived in and pulled on the worn, skin-tight clothes she had been tossed. "I'm good," she said when she was dressed.
As the guys turned around, Curt let out a low whistle. "You weren't kidding. Not bad."
Twilight flushed again, shooting him a look.
The quartermaster cleared his throat. "If you two are done flirting, I can start doing my job." Silence. "Thank you. Now, light or heavy?" He turned around to a rack of armor and started leafing through the suits without waiting for. Twilight to respond.
"What's the difference?" Twilight asked.
"Light armor is easier to move around in, heavy armor is more likely to stop something from going through," Curt supplied when it became clear that the quartermaster wasn't saying a word more than he needed to.
"Will heavy armor save me from a," she paused for a moment in thought, "blaster?"
"No."
"Then I'd rather be able to move and dodge," she said.
Within a few minutes, the quartermaster had her fit in armor of the right general size and out the door. The second the door closed, the buttons on the side of the door turned red.
"Pleasant fellow," Curt said. "I hope he realizes that we'll be back the second you get clearance for a blaster."
Twilight was once more awoken from her nightmares by Curt shaking her awake. This time, however, she remained on the bed. "Wakey wakey," he said quietly. "Big day today."
"Have we reached the fleet?" Twilight asked.
"Nope."
Twilight groaned and pulled her blanket up over her head. For a moment, she thought her childlike attempt actually worked. Curt proved her wrong when she felt his fingers dig into her sides.
He let her thrash around a moment in hysterics, a flood of giggles bursting out of her mouth. "I'm up!" she shouted through her laughter. "I'm up!"
Curt hoisted her up off the bed, plopping her down on her feet. "You sure you're awake?"
"I'm sure," she said, wiping some tears off her face. She looked down at herself, seeing the off-white clothes she had been given the day before were messy and bunched up. She smoothed out the sleeves, pulling them down to her elbows, and did the same for her pant legs, making sure they were down to her ankles.
From the table, one of Curt's squad called out, "Ey, Curt! We see you looking!"
Twilight straightened up and looked at Curt. He cleared his throat and was looking pointedly away. "Did no such thing," he said quietly, as if he was trying to convince himself.
"Uh huh," she said. He blushed, causing her to giggle. "Don't we have somewhere to be, Cassanova?"
"The armory, yes," he said, latching on to the change in topic. "We need to go to the armory." He started walking to the door, finger pointed in front of him. "Onwards!"
A slightly-perplexed Twilight followed along behind him. This time, she caught glances of people hurriedly looking away from her when she looked in their direction. Something stuck into her head, though. Every human in sight was a shade of a few different colors, but she was a different one. Last time she went through the mirror, they were every color ponies were, so her being purple wasn't such a big deal. And even that said nothing about her horns, a feature no other human had. Why were they all the same, but she was different? "Hey, Curt?" she said.
"Hmm?" he asked.
She opened her mouth to voice her observation, but recalled what the admiral had called her. "Zabrak". Whatever she was missing, it appeared to be common knowledge, and she'd appear crazy to ask such a question; crazy people aren't given leave to jump planets to go home. She was still wrapping her mind around that. "Nevermind," she said. "It was a dumb question."
"Are you sure?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm sure," she said.
The trip to the quartermaster ended up with Twilight in the hallway holding a small weapon that she was sure would disintegrate in her hands, even though she didn't know what it was supposed to look like. A half-hour of argument later, a smiling Curt brought her out a normal sized and much more intact weapon, presenting it to her with a flourish and a bow, much to her amusement.
But a weapon is only as good as the one using it. Curt brought Twilight to the shooting range and taught her the basics of shooting. How to brace the blaster, how to breathe, how to stand. She was to aim for one of the the reinforced plates over a dummy enemy and fire. Twilight didn't say so, but it looked like scrap metal over a makeshift mannequin. She didn't have to worry about his repeated assurances that shooting the dummy instead of the plates was fine, though. She didn't even get close to it.
After an hour had passed, Curt surveyed the damage that her blaster had carved. It wouldn't be fair to say that she never hit the dummy—same could be said for the plates—but it would be fair to say that she hit more by chance than design.
Twilight frowned at the weapon in her hands. "I'm not very good with this," she said.
"You're overthinking," Curt said. "Just relax and shoot."
"That's what I'm doing," Twilight said, frustration seeping into her voice. "Just pointing and shooting. The problem is that I can't point for poop!"
The duo was silent as Twilight covered her mouth and blushed. "Not. A. Word," she said.
"Nope," Curt said, holding in laughter. "Not one."
"I'm serious," Twilight warned. "I don't think even I can miss at a pace and a half."
With some effort, Curt stifled his laughter. Some chuckles still escaped, but for the most part, he was done. "Maybe you should take a bit of a break. Calm down a bit, then try again."
"Maybe," Twilight said, holstering her weapon. "It's worth a try."
She went to the shooting range twice daily until they arrived at the fleet five days later. She didn't get much better.
Twilight was once more awoken by a hand shaking her shoulder. "If you want to keep that hand, get it off me, Curt," she teased.
"It's not Curt," the Rebel that had spoken with her before said quietly. "I was hoping you had reconsidered my offer of help."
Twilight thrashed out from under his hand, turning to glare at him. "Why?"
"Because you're being reassigned when we land in the fleet, so this is my last chance to teach you anything."
Twilight's eyes narrowed. "You said nothing of teaching me," she said.
"I have now," he replied.
After a second of thought, she relented. "Fine. Teach me."
He beckoned for her to follow, walking without waiting for her to even get up. She slipped out of bed, walking past Curt's squad, each member sleeping. A short walk through cramped hallways brought them to a room filled with containers of various shapes and sizes.
"Before we do anything," Twilight said, "who are you, and what did you mean about being reassigned?"
"My name's Jak," he said. "About being reassigned, you've been staying with Pegasus Squadron. We're pilots. When we go on a mission, you'd be left alone, and the sergeant isn't too big on that idea. So you're being moved to a squad you can go on missions with. Probably a scouting squad, maybe recruitment duty." He snorted. "They think that sending an alien to recruit means more aliens will join, or whyever you'd go."
Twilight furrowed her brow, but made no comment on the last part. "So since you have one night left, maybe two, to train me, you're doing what you can now?"
"Yes," he said. "Now, I know you can already use the Force, I've seen it. That gets rid of the hard part. For a first step, lift one of those crates over there. While that's in the air, grab a barrel."
Jak had been right about one thing: Twilight was reassigned. Almost the second their ship landed inside a much larger one, Twilight was led to another room. What he got wrong was that he had much more time than he thought to teach her. Curt, who ended up being Pegasus Squadron's wingleader, reassigned Jak with her. "We don't have enough X-Wings for you to be able to use one," he had said to Jak. "I'm sending you with Twilight. Keep her safe until we can find a place for her to stay."
"Why can't I stay on the ship?" she had asked.
He had replied, "We don't have enough supplies for us to give any to someone not doing a job. We can't afford for you to do nothing."
Her new squad was as welcoming as she could have hoped for, if not more. A burly man who was barely taller than Twilight with bright red hair held out a hand. "Name's Gibb. Pleasure to meet you."
Not knowing what else to do, Twilight clasped his hand. Pleasantly surprised to not be thrown up off the ground by the force of a handshake, Twilight introduced herself. "Twilight. I'll try not to slow you down."
A pale woman next to her spoke in a language that Twilight didn't understand a word of. Her voice sounded as light and fragile as her thin frame made her look, despite the words coming out of her mouth being feral. When she saw Twilight's look of confusion, she coughed. "I apologize. I assumed conversing in Zabrak would cause you to feel more comfortable in a novel environment. I was unaware of the fact that you were reared by humans."
"It's an easy mistake to make," Twilight said, a light coming on in her head. "Zabrak" was a species! She had suspected such, but that made it click.
"Don't mind Minda," Gibb said. "She means well."
Her eyes roamed across the rest of the squad. Save the wiry woman, every member was taller than her. She didn't know why, but that amused her. "I have got to be one the shortest people in the fleet."
"You think that now," Gibb said. "Wait until you see Wook."
"Wook?" Twilight asked.
"You'll know him when you see him," the man replied. He straightened up, the change in body language and voice clearly telegraphing his change from friend to boss. "Alright, we're a recon squad. Do you know what we do?" Twilight shook her head. "We go down to a planet—sometimes Imperial, sometimes not—and have a look around. We find where Imperials like to hide, where sympathizers collect, the approximate numbers of each, and such information. If we find an Imperial base, we assess its defenses. We each have a niche we fit into that makes the whole squad work. We rely on each other. We need to be able to rely on you and your friend. That means you need to carry out your assignments in as close to the allotted time as you can, and no messing around. Am I clear?"
"Yes," Twilight said.
"Yes, what?"
"Yes... sir?" Twilight asked slowly.
"Now say it like you got a pair!"
Twilight looked down at herself for a moment, giving Gibb a look when she looked back up.
"We'll work on it," the man declared. "Minda will show you to your bunk. You'll have a couple of days to wander the ship and make some friends, but when it comes time to work, you work."
Twilight first ran into Wook when she literally ran into him. At first, she wasn't quite aware that she had run into a person. She sat silent for a moment, hand feeling the fur in front off her face. She jumped out of her skin when the furry wall in front of her made an undulating sound somewhere between a whine and a dull roar.
Twilight fell backwards and scrambled for a second, getting a full view of the monster in front of her. It stood a head taller than the tallest man she had seen—as tall as her, then half again—and was coated in shaggy fur. The fear she felt melted a little bit into confusion when she saw what could only have been mirth in its eyes.
“Wook, stop messing with the new girl,” Gibb said, stepping around the large creature. He extended a hand to lift Twilight up. “You okay, Twilight? Didn’t scare you too bad?”
“I’m fine,” she said, taking his hand and pulling herself up. “This is Wook?”
Gibb nodded. “He’s a Wookiee, if you haven’t met one yet. Most mischievous thing I’ve ever met in my life. Enjoys jokes and pranks like none I’ve ever met.”
“I probably had a few friends that could put him to shame,” Twilight said without thinking. It took a fraction of a second for flashes of blue and pink to hit, followed closely by a feeling of melancholy.
Gibb cleared his throat. "Well, it's a good thing we found you. We've got a mission, and it's an easy one. We're scouting out a small town on Alderaan that we haven't been to in a few months. Won't be an Imperial for kilometers."
Twilight settled into a routine after the first couple missions. There would be days, one time a week, between missions. When a mission did crop up, she got into her armor—or a suit of civilian clothes, depending on the mission—loaded up onto a transport, and dropped onto a planet to do recon. Usually, Twilight was either carrying supplies or handed the holonocs. Jak was put at the controls of the transport and whatever vehicle they were using on the surface. He always complained about the lack of weaponry on each one.
This mission was no different from the rest of them. Twilight walked with Minda from the female bunks, conversing quietly while Twilight ignored the looks she had become accustomed to over the last month. It took the duo a short time to walk to where their transport of the mission was docked.
Jak was down headfirst in one of the many ports in the chassis, fiddling with one thing or another, grumbling just loud enough for Twilight to get the impression of words as she approached, but not much more. Gibb greeted them upon arrival. "Alright, there's our ladies. That should be all of us."
"Sir, what about Wook?" Twilight asked.
"We're landing down on a planet that has never had a non-slave Wookiee on it," the man replied. "Wook would stick out like, well, a Wookiee on an Imperial planet."
"I take it this mission will be more dangerous than those we normally carry out?" Twilight asked.
"Much more so," Gibb replied, "especially since we're going in with even less than our usual notice. We're meeting with an Imperial spy that's been one of us for years that wants to defect. We've been talking anonymously for months, gathering information that has allowed us to save countless lives. Unfortunately, she's worried that her superiors know she's going rogue, so she wants us to get her now."
Twilight nodded. Over the last month, "usual notice" proved to be hours, maybe a day if they were lucky. The Alliance had to stay only a step behind the Empire, and therefore advance teams such as Twilight's were forced to react to swiftly-changing situations with little to no notice. She wondered how she made it onto a team with as much importance as the one she was on. Especially if they were important enough for the mission at hand.
"Why were we selected, out of every squad the Alliance had available?" Minda asked, ignoring a loud clang from the ship followed by a stream of explitives that made Twilight blush. "I am not implying that were are incapable of a mission such as this, neither am I implying a basic lack of competencies within our organizational leadership, rather, I am reminding you that nobody is infallible and bringing into question the judgement of this particular action."
Gibb looked at Twilight. "She has information that she says can cause the downfall of the entire Empire, but wants to speak with an alien. A female Zabrak, to be precise, of a previously-unheard-of color. Won't talk unless her squad gets her."
"Me," Twilight said. "Why me?"
"A better question is, 'Is this a trap?', to which the answer is—quite obviously—'Yes'," Jak said from his position stradling a piece of the ship. He had one hand rubbing his head, while the other was holding some kind of tool. "Which begs the question of who wants Twilight, and why?"
"We have our orders, so we don't have much of a choice," Gibb said, face contorted into a grimmace. "Put on your armor, we're far more likely to see action than we've been before. We leave the second Jak's done with the ship."
The squad, minus Jak, saluted Gibb and went to find a place to wait for Jak's modifications to be complete. After a few more minutes, Jak started yelling explitives at the machine, dropping off the top and giving it a kick before walking over to the squad leader. "Done."
"Are you done, or did you give up?" Gibb asked. "This is important."
Jak's glare could have answered the question, even if he hadn't. "I'm. Done."
Gibb nodded. "Alright! Let's move out! Everyone in, fast!"
As Twilight was walking onto the ship, Jak trotted up next to her. He pulled out a device, jabbing it into her neck at a spot past where her armor covered it. She hissed as she felt a pinching from the machine. "What did you just—"
"Nanomachines," Jak interrupted. "They're designed to self-destruct after a month, and if they detect that you've died between now and then, this shuttle goes boom."
"What?" Twilight exclaimed. "Why would you—"
"Death is preferrable to capture by the Empire," he interrupted again. "Especially for an alien. Also, my job is to protect you. Death is preferrable to explaining to Curt how I let his girlfriend die."
"I'm not his girlfriend," Twilight deadpanned. "We've known neach other a week."
Jak looked at her sideways. "Fine. I did it because I don't know what they want with you, but I suspect that it's nothing good. I can't let anyone go back if we don't protect the one that this mission revolves around." He sped up, sliding halfway into the cockpit. "Think of it as extra incentive to not die." And with that, he was in the room and the door closed. The lights on the side of the door turned red.
Twilight stared at the door. "Ass," she muttered, turning around to join the rest of her adoptive squad.
Twilight's conversation was interrupted by the crackling of the intercom turning on. "Planetary approach complete. Landing in tee-minus two minutes."
"That's my cue," the temporary replacement for Wook said, standing up. "It was nice talking to you, Miss Twilight."
"I could say the same," Twilight replied, standing herself. "I take it you know what to do?"
"Of course," he said. "You go up against Imperials before?"
"No."
"First time's always the worst," he said. "It gets easier over time."
Twilight nodded. He walked off to gather up his supplies, and Twilight grabbed hers. In a minute, the entire squad—save the pilot—was waiting by the entrance ramp.
"The coords she gave us are only a kilo south of here. This is the closest we could land, with the dense foliage," Gibb reported as the ramp began to drop, revealing the tall, dark forest outside. "If anything's going down, it's between here and there." He looked at Twilight. "You're with me up front. There are a few things I need to explain to you."
"Yes, sir."
He looked over his squad. "You don't look half as bad as I expected. We just might pull this off without a hitch." He turned on one heel and marched down the ramp. "Move out."
Twilight locked in step with Gibb. "What do you need to tell me?"
"This is war," he said, walking around a patch of dense foliage. "In war, people die on both sides. You will have to kill. You will watch a friend die, knowing there is nothing you can do to save him." His eyes lost focus for a moment before he pulled himself back. "War is not a nice place to be. Especially not a war of the kind we're involved in."
Before Twilight could respond, she heard the telltale "pew" of a blaster being fired, and Gibb cried out, collapsing. She felt a rough grip on her arm, and was yanked into the foliage around her before she could scream.
Twilight didn't know how long it was between when she was grabbed and when she was roughly forced to her knees on the ground at the feel of the blue alien she had seen at the spaceport. "We captured this one, ma'am," the man that had carried her said. "There's also one more confirmed casulty. Put a hole in his back myself."
Twilight looked up at the woman, recognizing her as a Twi'lek from one of her talks with Minda. The alien duo was surrounded by men clad in pure white armor clearly designed more to be easily noticible than to allow them to avoid being seen should that be necessary. Stormtroopers, they'd been called by the members of both of Twilight's squads.
"You," Twilight said. "I've seen you before. You were escaping on the Alliance ships, same as I was."
A cruel smirk twisted the Twi'lek's face, and she crouched in front of Twilight. "So you did see me."
"Why are you—" Twilight started.
The Twi'lek grabbed Twilight's chin in her hand, silencing her, but allowing her to see the two black discolorations trailing down from the edges of her mouth. "Don't you know how war works, darling? Dispatch your weakest opponent first to discourage others from joining a fight against you, charge a newcomer immediately—hold nothing back when you go to kill." She released Twilight, standing up. "You made your squad the weakest link, and so you were cut. Pity they didn't all die, too." She turned to the leader of the Stormtroopers and said, "She's yours. Do with her as you will, just wait for me to get out of earshot if you're going to be..." she paused in mock thought, "loud."
"Yes, ma'am," the white-clad human said, saluting.
She turned to the rest of the armored men. "I need a few of you to chase me to where they're taking off. If you feel like it's necessary so that they don't suspect me, shoot me somewhere even the Rebellion could heal. Can't have this be a complete waste for us." Twilight watched helplessly as the Twi'lek trotted off with half of the assembled soldiers back the way Twilight had been dragged.
The leader of the soldiers eyed Twilight up and down, muttering to himself, "Female and alien, but not a bad specimen." Louder, he said, "You'll do."
He took off his helmet, and Twilight pushed down her growing fear, pulling up every shred of defiance in her body to spit in his face.
He chuckled, wiping his face. "You're a lively one. You'll definitely do." His hand whipped across Twilight's face, sending her to the ground with a cry. "Once you've been taught to respect your betters." He turned to one of his subbordinates. "Load her up. I know where she's going next."
"The market, sir?"
"She wouldn't make us enough coin to make it worth the trip," the man said. "Young and pretty just doesn't overwrite the fact she's a Zabrak. No, she's heading to one of the Camps."
"Sir, she's a Rebel, sir."
"She's a civvy that got drafted into joining the Rebellion," he said. "I don't think it would be hard to make her one of us. If we kill her, we only remove a Rebel from the equation, but if we recruit her? We've not only removed a Rebel from the war, but added one more soldier to our numbers, doubling our advantage gained."
The duo looked down at Twilight laying on the ground. "Do you think she'll make it, sir?"
"If she doesn't, they'll just kill her," he replied. "Now get her on that ship. I want to be gone the second we can be."
