Hello. Sorry for the slow update. I hit a massive writer's block, so I decided not to post anything until I could somehow resolve it. If it weren't for your comments, I would have given up and just spent all my time playing Kingdom Hearts.

If you like my style I recently unloaded my original story "How I was Murdered by a Fox Monster" to my website. You can find the address in my profile.

It was another two months before Jacen saw any hint of action. Until then, the boy had no choice but to wait.

His young hands tightly gripped the hanger railing as he watched beaten up freighters go back and forth. It was painful to watch other teenagers, barely a few years older than himself, go out on missions. Then come back laughing together as they bragged about their amazing feats.

"You should have seen them, Jacen," laughed Five, a tall sixteen year old human who'd warmed up to Jacen over the previous weeks. His face proudly displayed several scars that he'd already gained in battle. "Those Imps had no idea what was comin' for them."

"He's all talk," groaned Jacinta, Five's girlfriend. She rolled her emerald eyes while twirling her long purple hair around one finger. "He was clinging to me the whole time until we reached hyperspace. Moaning on about how we were all gonna die."

"Hey, those were very manly moans," Five protested and affectionately ruffled his girlfriend's hair. Causing her to huff with frustration.

Others weren't as lucky as Five or Jacinta. Never to return. There were small funerals among the crew to commemorate the dead, but most of the bodies were unrecoverable.

Jacen often wondered if he could have saved them.

Surely he could have deflected the shots which killed his fellow rebels, or redirected a torpedo with the force.

Instead he'd been cast to the sidelines like a rare collectible. Always on show, but never put to use.

Their leader should have understood just how useful he could be, but the elderly man was adamant that there would be no heroics from Jacen until Snap was certain that the kid had the skills to survive.

Whatever that meant.

Jacen thought that perhaps the time had finally come when Snap called him into his office after one tense meeting. The old man sat behind a rusty desk in a room so cramped that it must have been a storage closet.

"I think you're ready for your first mission!" said Snap as soon as Jacen sat down on the rusty stool.

Finally! Was what Jacen almost screamed out before he quickly reined in his emotions.

"Is that so, sir," the boy said calmly like a real adult. As though being called in for secret missions was an every day event for him. He was afraid that showing too much enthusiasm could lead to having his chance ripped away.

"The Empire has been running a mining colony out of Javin for years," Snap continued. "The people there have been begging for help ever since I was in the Resistance. There isn't too much we've been able to do with our current numbers. But we've managed to smuggle in small drops of food and weapons secretly in the hope that the people could one day fight back."

Jacen nodded to show that he was still following along.

"In recent years, the mine has become one of the Empire's main resources. If we were to put a dent in the mine, even temporarily, it would slow down their production of weapons."

"Got it!" Jacen nodded. "Destroy the mine and the Empire can't build dangerous stuff, right?"

"Exactly!" Snap nodded. "And that's why we need you."

Jacen could feel his heart rapidly pounding in his chest. It was finally the moment that he'd long been waiting for. The moment where all his painstaking rebel training would finally come into fruition.

"I need you to accompany me to Javin."

"Ah huh."

"Help unpack and prepare the explosives."

"Got it!"

"Then if an inspection team tries to search our craft, you'll mind trick them with the force."

"Okay," Jacen merrily replied. Images of heroism flashing through his head.

"And then you'll go back to the craft and wait for us until it's all over."

Jacen sat there silently. Running Snap's last sentence over and over again in his head, just to make sure that he'd heard the man correctly.

Go back to the craft and wait until it's all over.

He… had.. To be joking...

"What!" protested Jacen.

"I know that it might all seem a little scary," said Snap calmly. "But I promise that I'll try my best to keep you out of danger."

"No, it's not that…." Jacen stumbled for words. "I just thought that I'd also be fighting with you."

Snap appeared stunned for a moment. As though the idea of Jacen accompanying him to shoot down imperials that week had never occured to the man.

"Well…." Snap said nervously. "Don't you think that it's still a little early for that."

"What do you mean?" Jacen angrily asked.

"I mean you're still very shor…...I mean young. You'll have your moment, when you're a little older. In a year, or two, or possibly three."

Jacen slammed his hands down on Snap's steel desk. Annoyed that they were even having this conversation. "I can do ten times more than most of the other recruits, and you know it! What's the point of training me to be a rebel if I'm not allowed to do rebel things?"

"There'll be plenty of time for that later."

"Aren't you always talking about all the stuff that you got up to when you were my age? How would you have liked it if someone had told you to stay back and wait?"

Snap was stunned for a moment. Never expecting that all the tales of his childhood adventures would one day be thrown back in his face.

"I can use the force," said Jacen with his best pleading voice. "I can help you."

Snap crossed his arms and sighed.

"Please," Jacen sadly begged as a last resort.

After another hour of pleading, Snap still refused to relent.

Although Jacen was tempted to lock himself in his room and refuse to come out until someone handed him a blaster, he was smart enough to know that such behaviour wouldn't reward him with any missions, so he begrudgingly showed up in the hanger the next day.

They departed in a shiny Imperial freighter that Snap's team had somehow acquired from the Empire. They'd even managed to fix most of the blaster holes.

"Don't worry little buddy," said Five over a handful of sabac cards in the ship's hull. "You'll get your moment one day."

"Don't delude him," said Li, Five's closest friend. Li was barely taller than Jacen after years of malnutrition on an oppressed world. Short blonde hair hung around his pale gaunt face and he barely looked older than thirteen.

Conversations from the surrounding rebels wafted through the air. Jacen groaned and turned his attention back to his own cards. Just like his life, he'd been dealt a crappy hand.

"Don't worry superstar," said Five. "You'll get your moment one day. Holo vids, people whispering your name throughout the galaxy. Soon they'll be calling you a beacon of hope. Just like that famous mom of yours."

"I'm not interested in fame," Jacen mumbled.

"Then what do you want?"

"To kill the emperor," Jacen said as though it was the most natural thing in the world.

Five whistled in disbelief. "Well, that wouldn't make you notorious at all."

Jacen groaned and slammed his cards down on the steel floor. "I'm wasting my time," he moaned. "I should be out there on the front lines."

"Don't worry," laughed Five. "I'm sure you'll be out there soon enough. Black Phoenix just doesn't want its star being shot down in his first battle."

"That's not gonna happen," Jacen retorted.

"That's what all the other dead newbies said," muttered Li.

Jacen crossed his arms and huffed. For the first time in months, he began to wonder if he should just take Snap up on his offer and go back to the Resistance. But the idea of going back there left an unpleasant feeling in his stomach.

The strange thing was that he wasn't even worried about Finn or Rose being angry. He was certain that they'd welcome him back with open arms. Relieved that he'd given up on dreams of grandeur.

But he couldn't bare the awkwardness which consumed their relationship in the days leaving up to his departure.

Everything had been fine one day, and then the next….

It was like they couldn't bare to look at him.

But why...

Jacen tried his best to shake off such negative thoughts before he dug himself into a familiar pit of despair.

The mission… it was time to focus on the mission. If he could prove to Snap that he was an asset more than capable of completing missions, then perhaps his time would come.

The ship shuddered when they finally made landfall on the planet.

"Ready kid?" Snap asked with a grin as he emerged from the cockpit.

Jacen was tempted to snap back something smart which showed his displeasure, but he at least knew that acting like a kid was the worst way to show Snap that he wasn't one.

"Ready, sir," he said with a dramatic salute, but failed to hide his lack of enthusiasm.

He could do it. As minimal and disappointing as his task was, he could show Snap that he was worth it.

The hanger door opened with a hiss and they emerged into a grim world. Barren fields as far as they could see. Light rain falling from a grey sky.

Their boots sank into thick mud from the moment they emerged from the ship.

Snap tried his best to appear cool and composed, but Jacen had known the older man long enough to see anxiety bubbling beneath the surface.

What if the contact fell through? What if the Empire was waiting for them? Were a few of the loud thoughts that Jacen picked up from his mind.

It should be me out there too, the boy bitterly thought to himself, but of course Snap couldn't read minds.

Jacen soon occupied himself by helping to unload the explosives. Carefully passing them to the other members who loaded them onto speeders. He was in the middle of passing Five a particularly sinister looking canister, when Jacen became enveloped in the familiar cold chill which had haunted him over the previous weeks.

The boy shot around. Expecting to see someone, or at least something behind him, but yet again there was nothing there.

"Something up, little bro?" asked Five as he virtually pried the canister out of Jacen's shaking fingers.

Jacen paused for a moment. Trying to think of the best way to put his strange feelings into words. "Five, do you ever get the feeling that someone's watching you?"

"All the time," said the older boy. "But it's usually Jacinta. That creepy little minx. She can't bare to let me out of her sight, even for a moment."

It was then that the girl in question walked past and elbowed Five in the ribs.

"Ouch!" Five dramatically cried as though he'd been shot in the stomach.

Jacen scanned the distance in search of anything out of place. Anything connected to the force. But whenever he searched for the cold thread, it just retreated as though it didn't want to be found.

It was hard to watch them go.

Over a hundred men and teenagers sped off into the distance with blasters slung over their shoulders. Just like real rebels should.

If Jacen was with them, then he was certain that he could keep them safe.

But without him…

The boy was unsure if he would ever see them again.

Jacen returned to the ship and redirected his anxiety into building a tower out of the discarded dejac cards in the cockpit. Ready at a moment's notice to mind trick any imperial who was unfortunate to wander their way.

Jacinta leaned back in the pilot's chair. Nervously tapping her fingers on the console, like she also shared his fears. Her eyes fixed to the window. Alert for any signs of danger.

"Hard isn't it?" she said to break the silence.

"Huh?" Jacen was puzzled as to how she could see his miserable dejac card tower, without taking her eyes away from the console.

"Waiting….." She added. "For them to come back."

"Yeah," Jacen bitterly muttered. He'd involuntarily become an expert in waiting for people over the years.

It was then that a small vibration rocked the ship. As though the fighting had already begun in the distance.

"You know," said Jacinta nervously. "It takes a lot of concentration to look at these cameras. I probably wouldn't notice if a certain newbie snuck out to join the fight."

Jacen was about to dismiss her words as another pathetic attempt to make him feel better, until the truth of what she was saying sank in. "Seriously?"

"Oh no, look at this one," she said while tapping a sensor which clearly wasn't broken. "Perhaps it's on the fritz. It's gonna take me forever to fix it. If I was a want to be rebel, I'd use this opportunity to make a run for it."

Jacen instantly threw down his cards and rushed out of the cockpit. "Thanks Jacinta!"

"The blasters are in the crate by the door!" she called out after him.