Outside, a storm raged. Behind a grey veil, the world lost its shape as it succumbed to the encroaching downpour. Black clouds boiled, gathering about the Citadel summit like smoke. The sky flashed violently, and in the distance, stratoscrapers loomed like shadowy giants. Rain battered the expansive window pane, a thousand silent droplets at a time. Another silent flash; Jeryd caught his reflection in the glass, lost, vacant, and utterly bored.

The lecture was in its 88th minute, and Major Gundyr showed no sign of letting up. He was a tall slender man, impeccable in uniform, with a grey bushy moustache and a pallor that betrayed long years behind a desk. His watery gaze was keen, beady, and meticulous. On the one occasion they spoke, Jeryd was given the distinct impression that he was not listening to what he was saying, but rather decrypting the private thoughts in his head. At least the creepiness was interesting. For a lecturer, one might concede he had other redeeming qualities. Intelligent? Yes. Well-read? Undoubtedly. And he drew on decades of experience working on some of the most covert intelligence operations in the Empire. But, by the Emperor’s shrivelled scrotum, was the man dull.

Presently, he was gesturing at an old holo taken some years before the birth of the Empire, taken by a probe droid surveying a separatist base. With idle swipes of his finger, he cycled through a variety of scans and data, taking time to point out a solitary plume of gas illuminated orange by a heat sensor reading. The glow made Onika’s skin look almost red. At regular intervals, she surfaced from her diligent note-taking to spot details on the holo, her nose wrinkling every time she narrowed her eyes. Jeryd watched the stylus move in her fingers, and recalled the drawings she shared with him during one of Ivy’s classes. He found himself wondering if she still liked to draw or if the cadet program had broken the habit. He suspected her palms were calloused from all the training.

It had been nine months since he last saw Jo-Jo. She had very soft hands, moisturised, manicured, and clean. She smiled so easily for him. Nine months. He could be a father by now. Sometimes, when he looked out the window and imagined a life beyond those walls, he pictured her, cradling a little boy or girl, still smiling, asking him to come home. But the call never came. The reality, he knew, was that she was probably working at her parents’ law firm, in a smart dress suit, decidedly not pregnant, and not thinking about him. Not when there were so many big city boys in their big city suits, taking her for big city drinks in their big city cars. While he was still stuck in school with his thumb up his arse.

The holo changed, the separatist base was now a smouldering ruin. The Major pointed this way and that, droning in a way that could shut down a protocol droid. Jeryd studied the images, and found himself replaying fantastic combat scenarios that led to the aftermath. He recalled his training, and his friends, and wondered if they were yet caught up in some bloody conflict, storming enemy lines, basking in the glory of victory. In all likelihood, they too were in some miserable classroom, gazing out of a window, longing for something more. He considered his current comrades, then. His new friends. Some were soldierly, like him. Confident, capable, skilful and bold. Some had brilliant minds, they were prodigious, geniuses even. Some boasted incredible technical skills, engineering and computer wizardry. Others brought more unorthodox talents to the table, making their unit a crucible of different cultures, backgrounds, and experiences. They all walked the same path in their own way, they did it together, and they had at their disposal the very best of the Empire’s resources, be it equipment, training, vehicles, weapons. He wondered if they felt it, too; Jensen, Khoovi, Onika, Kass, Tolomy, Thida, and Neb. Together, they could change the galaxy.

“...And that was what brought the insurgents to their knees. All it took was a single plume of gas.”

There was a beat of silence, pregnant with the hopes of every cadet in the room. Then, bliss. The hologram vanished and the lights came on. Ripples of applause broke out around the room for their guest speaker. Jeryd summoned the strength to offer two whole claps, before gathering his things. Over the clamour, Major Gundyr invited questions but his audience was already in full retreat. Later, when he was duplicating Tolomy’s notes in bed, Jeryd would curse his own infantile attention span, but in the end, it came down to a choice between ignorance, or throwing himself through the window to a wet and violent death. And as he joined the deflated ranks trudging from the classroom, he wasn’t wholly convinced the right choice had been made.

“Cadet Redsun.”

Outside the classroom hovered a small droid, about the size of a smashball. It had large insectoid ocular sensors and a square vocabulator that lit up when it spoke. Upon hearing that dispassionate drone, for a moment of fleeting horror, Jeryd thought the Major was summoning him back for question time. Shrugging off the survivalist tension, he approached the droid.

“You are to report at once to Knight Rayner. Level 36. Besh-44.”

“Knight… Rayner?” He repeated, in confusion. By now, he knew every ranking officer at the Citadel, and had never heard of a- Rayner. His face dropped, suddenly grave, “Wait. Why?”

“Do you not understand the nature of an order, cadet?”

Jeryd opened his mouth, then reconsidered, “I’m on my way.”

Making good on his word, Jeryd set off at once, an old fire rekindled in his belly. Since his promotion, Kyle Rayner had been mercifully absent from Jeryd’s day-to-day existence. As cadets, they learned to co-exist, an effort of mutual survival, if nothing else. They mixed like oil and water. Kyle Rayner was a gifted cadet: skilful in practical matters, extensively knowledgeable, and gifted in the Force. If only he could chalk his animosity down to Rayner’s previous life as a Jedi padawan. It would’ve made sense, and given Jeryd’s background, it was even understandable. But it was more than that. There was something about the guy that just pissed him off. He tried to ignore it, to rise above it, but he was always there, chipping away at his defences. A smug, self-satisfied clown.

And now he was an Imperial Knight.

As he walked, Jeryd reasoned with himself. All the same arguments he’d told himself before: Kyle Rayner had the experience, he'd been around long enough, completed his training, proved himself capable. He was qualified to be an Imperial Knight in every way, but one - he was still Kyle Rayner. As he stepped out of the lift onto Level 36, he expelled his frustrations with a sigh. Nowhere was it stated that he was expected to like everyone. There was always at least one superior officer who was a bit of an arsehole, and if nothing else, Rayner was unquestionably his superior officer. We respect the rank, not the man, Jeryd reminded himself as he closed in on Room Besh-44. He braced himself for whatever tedious onslaught Knight Rayner had in store for him, and rang the door chime once.