Hand Picked

Juno Eclipse stood staring at her latest assignment orders. Lord Vader himself had plucked her from all of the Imperial pilots for a special assignment. The only question was what the hell the mission was. Usually, orders came from commanding officers, with detailed objectives and goals. But this was different. The orders could not have been more vague, which of course meant that it was confidential and it would be her last assignment.

The pilot finally made it to the hangar, and looked up at the ship she would be flying, the Rogue Shadow. It was quite the ship. The design definitely borrowed from other Imperials crafts, such as the Eta-2 interceptor and the TIE fighters. Not to mention the advanced hyperdrive, sensory arrays, sublight engines and a prototype-cloaking device.

Juno sat on one of the nearby plasteel containers, and tried to sort out how she got here in the first place. Growing up on Corulag was not as perfect as people always thought it was. After her mom died, Juno's father became increasingly stricter and admired the Empire. Juno soon became the youngest cadet in the Corulag Academy just to get some admiration from her father. From there it was on to the Outer Rim, and then the Black Squadron. Being a part of Vader's elite TIE fighter squadron was not as glorious as everybody made it out to be. Often, the squadron had to wipe out entire planets through brute strength.

Callos made everything difficult for Juno. The battle was won, the citizens were fleeing in terror, and all of the defenses were broken. But still Vader's mechanized voice came, ordering the bombardment to continue. Juno was hesitant to keep fighting, knowing full well that more bombing runs would result in the genocide of the entire planet. Gulping some courage, Juno did as ordered and for all intents and purposes, killed the entire planet.

So now Juno was here, in this strange hangar, looking at the most advanced fighter she had ever seen. All she knew was that she had to transport one person and one droid wherever they had to go. "Might as well do some work," Juno said to herself. "That sensory array could use an upgrade." The pilot grabbed her tools and got to work.

Juno welcomed the work as a distraction from her thoughts. She was finishing up when she noticed two figures approaching from the corner of her vision. However, as she powered down her welding tool to greet the newcomers, they were gone. The pilot went to where she last saw the figures, and stopped when she her the metallic twang of a droid.

"Accessing Imperial records," from here Juno heard a recording of her voice. "Captain Juno Eclipse, born on Corulag where she became the youngest student ever accepted into the Imperial Academy. Decorated combat pilot with over one hundred combat missions, and commanding officer during the bombing of Callos. Hand picked by Lord Vader to lead his Black Five Squadron but later reassigned to a top secret mission."

Juno had had enough. Who did they think they were, pulling up her records like that? "Is there a psychological profile in there as well?" she asked, finding a young man and a holographic version of herself standing there. The image faded to reveal the droid she had heard earlier.

"Actually yes," the droid admitted. "And it's restricted." The droid covered his "mouth" to say to his partner, "But Master, I can tell you she'll be impossible to reprogram."

The man only shook his shaven head and asked, "Do you know why you are here?"

Juno gave a short nod. "My orders are clear. I am to keep your ship running and fly you wherever your missions require."

The man only scowled some more, revealing more scars and marks that far surpassed his age. What was done to her new charge was unclear except that it was obviously painful. "Did Vader tell you that he killed our last pilot?"

"No," Juno said, completely unsurprised that Vader would do such a thing. "But I can only assume that he gave Lord Vader good cause to do so. I will not."

"Let's hope so," the man sneered as he walked to the ship. "I'm sick of training new pilots."

If he can train pilots, why can't his droid do the flying?

"What's this?" he asked, pulling Juno from her thoughts. "What have you done to my ship?"

Juno straightened and replied, "I've taken the liberty of upgrading the Rogue Shadow's sensor array. Now you'll be able to spy on any suspect ships across an entire system. That is your mission profile? You are one of Darth Vader's spies?" She pushed, trying to glean any information she could.

The man straightened and glared over his shoulder at the pilot. "You don't need to know anything about my missions except where I'm going. Now we need a jump to Nar Shaddaa. Can you handle that?" he asked, venom dripping from every word.

"Of course," Juno said tersely and followed him into the ship. "From the ship, I'll be giving you tactical data. What am I supposed to call you?"

"You will call me Starkiller."