My first memory is of the porthole in my room; the humidity frosting the thick glass refracting the light from the nebula. I have no idea how old I was, young certainly. I wanted to leave the rusted, humid confines of my family’s ship and glide between the gargantuan pillars of orange and red luminosity.

At night, such as one can call it when defined by timers on the interior lights, I would talk to my younger sister about soaring free in open space. Her eyes held the reflection of my starshine dreams. Her face reflected my hopes.

Some time later when adulthood was still ahead of me, but childhood receding into memory I saw her face for the last time. The escape pod door snapped shut between us. Resigned sorrow the last image before the pirates took my home and my sister for fun and profit.

I was never sure how long I was alone in that escape pod, I was sure it was many days. I watched through another small window at distant nebulae, wondering if we had been there. Time passed as my thoughts wandered the light years between where I was and where I wanted to be. I heard the thud of metal on the hull of the pod. The pirates had come back for me and they were going to kill me. I was beyond fear and hope.

They weren’t pirates. They were Republic Fleet. They took me from the floating graveyard that I had expected to be my own. I lived at their station. I wandered the hangars, often tolerated, occasionally indulged by the Fleet pilots.

I heard rumors at first and the eventually news of a new kind of pilot; capsuleer. The Fleet was looking for volunteers for a new program. They were going to train pilots in a new way of flying. The technology was untested and possibly dangerous. The reward was the ability to glide unfettered between the stars. I raised my hand.

I am free now, free to roam. I have wandered for many years. Now that I have all that I thought I wanted the hollow space in my soul has become clear. It is not the stars, or the nebulae that I have been looking for. This new freedom is just the tool to find what has been calling out to me, and was calling to her. I have heard a word, and I must find what it means. The word is Santir.