– Excerpts from Juru Ilatel's personal diary –

The Empire wasted no time showing us our place, per usual… the next morning after I made the last jump on that rickety freighter to this new base, a klaxon went off and we were ordered to the briefing room.

A room full of disdainful-looking humans, of course… not sure why I thought things might be any different than usual. Oh well, nothing new - just keep my head down, do my job, and it'll be one day closer to being done.

Wait, no… not all humans. Aliyana pama, what in the stars was that Xexto doing, grinning like a young fool and waving his hands at the only other alien in the room (a Chadra-Fan, if I'm not mistaken)? I wonder how long it'll take the enthusiastic edges to get knocked off that one?

Right, supposed to be listening to the briefing… TIE fighters (bunch of wacha rapra silu… ugh), intersquad training combat, blah blah the usual banal newbie briefing given by the usual screaming rotund commanding officer (Gavid something-or-another?) I just zoned out and soon enough I was in my TIE screaming off into space.

Right, the TIE… I think my feelings there are pretty clear. Still… some guns are better than no guns, so might as well make the best of them. The rust slowly started to fall off my skills as I entered the fray; I pegged one fighter pretty quick, almost letting a small smile cross my lips as the orange blossom of destruction bloomed in my sights. “You're flying sloppy, tighten it up!” buzzes Gavid through the comms… sure boss, whatever you say.

It quickly became apparent that the destinies of some of these children should not have led them to be pilots… did I just see someone try to RAM another ship out of the corner of my eye?! Young fool… frell, blaster fire streaked across my vision!

Sensors down, no way to tell who was firing at me… sorry young gun if it's you, I'm not TRYING to target the non-humans. No further time to reflect, those creaky instincts started to kick in. Fire rocked my TIE as I took a direct hit, but I recovered quickly, firing from muscle memory and showing the offender his (her? Doesn't really matter…) destiny as a cutrate explosion.

“Get it together!” Gavid again… followed apparently by an order for the remaining humans to form up on him and go after me, the Xexto, and the Chadra-Fan (all of whom, from what I could tell, had done pretty well holding their own). Oh look… the mighty Imperial humans teaching us lowly “alien” scum a “lesson”. How original. I rolled my eyes along with my ship, lining my sights on one of Gavid's flunkies who broke formation.

“Picking off the easy ones, eh?” Gavid's voice sneered through my comms right before my trigger finger twitched. Wacha ano! Blustering pompous ass… I'll show him what being on the receiving end of an easy shot is like!

But of course his darling human vassal swooped in front right as I made the shot, saving Gavid's dignity for a few more seconds. Fire spiraled across the sky as the stooge caromed into the void… at least that's one more down, if not who I really wanted.

Just as I was preparing for another shot on Gavid, one of his toadies tried to negate the Chadra-Fan (Rabee, I think?) but missed wildly, hitting Gavid instead. The resulting paroxysm of fire warmed my heart just a little bit, though I'd have preferred being the cause.

That warmth quickly chilled though, as comms chatter started almost immediately… it seems there was something wrong with the commander's ship, and they couldn't contact his escape suit… and they were blaming us three non-humans for it. “Sabotage”?! Frelling fools, like we needed to resort to that to excel! Typical! I fumed all the way back to the hangar.

No surprise, as soon as we all reassembled back in the briefing room, the humans lit into the rest of us. The servos in my hand twitched, itching to slug that smug “Inferno” character who seemed to have a particular grudge against me (youngling, if you can't handle being shown what experience can do, I know a garbage scow that's hiring…)

Just as things were about to go from verbal to physical, a soft but commanding voice cut through the room and brought everyone to attention. Hmm, a Chiss commander? I have to say I enjoyed her ability to shut all the humans up as well as she spoke briefly of Gavid's condition (coma? Can't say I'm sorry) and then dismissed us.

Well, by “us” I mean “everyone BUT us 'non-humans'”… Major Brenna asked the three of us to stay behind, then told us she was forming a special task force and needed some people (was that a glare at the retreating humans in her eyes as she said that?) to fill it out, would we be interested? The young Xexto (fine, right, “Andretti”… guess I'd best start using names now) nearly broke all his arms with the speed and force of his salute in accepting the assignment. Rabee asked about the pay (“You'll be compensated well”) and jumped at the reply.

As for myself… well, it couldn't be worse than the garbage scow, and presumably a sight better than being stuck at this training facility under Gavid's command. So… fine, whatever… Major Brenna seemed a decent enough officer so far. I shrugged, “Sure…” Look, I'm not going to get too excited yet, I've seen enough to know it's not always what it seems. At least I'd be able to afford a new flask…

…which I may need working with Andretti. He kept pestering Rabee & I to join him in some simulator practice while we waited for our new assignment. Finally, just to shut him up I agreed; it was a pretty decent run, and nice to be behind some bigger guns even if only in a simulation (still more than I got on the scow). The other two seemed to know their stuff – Andretti may be overenthusiastic, but he knows his way around the cockpit, and Rabee is quite handy with the ship's systems.

So now we wait to see what will really come of this assignment. I'm hesitant to be too optimistic, but who knows? Maybe if things go well I can even squeeze an early retirement out of it.

And if nothing else, there's the money for a new flask.