It was pretty darn dark in that room. The one with the interconected computer simulations. I surfed the simulators late a night, using a combination of Durico's first and last name as an alias.
    They knew me as Davin...
    I buried myself in a protected nitch of the cyber-circle of tactical simulations. I had been doing this for months now, locking myself into the back room of my bunkhouse and spending hours and hours studying tactics and kicking the butts of the top officers on Cardia... all through a fake name from an unspecificed location of course.  The darkness in that room made a major impression on my skintone.  My bunkmates started calling me Vampire.
In the cyber-circle, people called me 'The Genius'.
    At that point in my life I had made the rank of Corporal. I scrubbed the kitchen floor after midday meal and washed dishes at breakfast and supper. Then I went back to my bunkhouse, locked myself in the back room and surfed the simulators for three to six hours. I probably could have died from sleep deprivation. Everybody got up at nine to five AM and I usually passed
out on my bed around three thirty in the morning.
    But I loved it.
    I didn't care that no one knew who I really was. I had a reputation, a social life ... I was famous.
    And like everything that ever happened to me it all went to my head.....
    I would yak to my bunkmates that I had beaten seven people in combat.
    Nobody believed me of course since they spent all day with me but they never saw what went on on those computer screens at night.
    Once in a while I poked around in the interplanetary connections.  It got boring fighting the same people on the same planet over and over. Who could resist fighting someone on another planet?
    One night I connected with a top military official at the Imperial Palace.  I was having a good night and completely kicked his butt.  Unwittingly I had begun a domino effect that was the beginning of the end of my cyber-commander days....

    A few days after I beat that guy from the Imperial Palace I recieved an encrypted computer note in my data folder. It was from another guy from Imperial City. He said he wanted to play a round of simulations with me.  I connected with him that night and beat him pretty bad.  He sent me another note the next day. He wanted to play again.  Finally, after a month of chatting and fighting with him, he told me he was a Grand Moff.
    I thought I was going to die!
    He said he knew who I was. My name and my location. Now a Grand Moff I could fall for but I simply refused to believe that he knew where I was. That is until the night that I was sitting alone in the simulator room and somebody who said his name was Grand Moff Tarkin kicked the door in and scared the hell out of me.
    I remember sitting there, reading through the tactial layout of a battle I had lost on a bad night, trying to find my point of error, when there was a knock on the door.  I rolled my eyes and yelled. "What is it?"
    A cold male voice answered me. "This is Grand Moff Tarkin. If you wouldn't mind opening the door Corporal."
    Now I only knew two people on Cardia who could do an impression of Grand Moff Tarkin...
    "Alright," I laughed, "Who is it? Rico or Fedrin?"
    "This is Grand Moff Tarkin!" his tone was a little more aggravated this time.
    "Funny guys. Come back in the morning when I have the energy to kick your ass okay?"
    Then the door slammed inward, breaking off it's hinges. I stumbled to my feet, shielding my eyes from the sudden glare of the light in the front room of the bunkhouse. I blinked a few times.
Tarkin was standing there, looking right at me. He said quietly, "I asked you to open the door."
    I blinked a few times more before straightening up and saluting.
    "You are Davin?" he asked scanning me over. "You look rather thin, boy. What 'do' they feed you here?" It was obvoiously a rhetorical question.
    "Sir?" I asked quietly. "With all due respect sir. I'm not a boy."
    He squinted at me in the dim light, then snatched me by the arm and dragged me into the front room.  I swear to god he stared at me for a full five minutes.  I couldn't figure out whether he thought I was pretty, scrawny, insolent or if he was just plain shocked that I was female.
 Finally he set his face in a frown. "Get into your uniform. Now. Full dress," he ordered. "You're coming with me."
    "Yessir." I stuttered and grabbed my uniform from my trunk.
    He ordered me into his landspeeder. I sat quietly for a few minutes beside him. A stormtrooper was in the front seat, driving, and another one was in the front passenger seat with a rifle.
    Tarkin looked at me, my hands shaking in my lap and said.
    "You have permission to speak freely."
    "Am I in trouble?" I asked, almost before he could finish.
    He chuckled blandly. "On the contrary dear. Tell me what is your name."
    "Duchunovy." I replied numbly.
    "And your first name?" he asked.
    I blinked at him, shocked. "Um...It's Daala."
    "Daala. That's nice."
    It was the last thing he said to me for the whole trip...

    When we came up on the registration building I followed him into a large room with white walls on all sides.  I was shaking, frightened out of my mind.  Tarkin pulled out some sort of remote and pointed it at the far wall.  A computer simulation of a battle appeared. It was an overview with red and blue points in V formation on each side of the screen.
    "You're red, I'm blue." Tarkin announced. "If you can beat this simulation I have a place for you in high rank."
    I blinked. "High rank?" I squawked. "You're kidding!"
    He shook his head.
    I could have fainted right about then but I figured I had better beat the simulation first.
    I was in such a daze. I don't even remember what tactics I used but I whooped Tarkin's sorry butt. He looked so angry when I blew up his last destroyer... I thought he was going to kill me.  But he took me out of the room and he smiled at me all the way down the hall.  I was just about ready to pass out for real when he led me into his office.  He sat me down in the chair across from his desk and asked me a few basic tactical questions.  Then he asked me for my vital personal information, Blood Type, Height, Weight, Age, Name, Date of Birth etc.  Then he asked me a question that stunned me. He leaned foreward on his desk and said to me very slowly.  "How would you like to command a fleet?"
    I stood up from my chair, shocked beyond words.  This was my grand moment! I could accept (the probable option) or decline his offer. (Like I was going to do that!)  I opened my mouth to say 'I'd love it' but nothing came out. I blinked at the piece of paper on the desk. I noticed that it was a registration form to be transferred to a navy fleet.  This was the grand moment at which I passed out.  Yes, for real. I actually, really, truly fainted.

    I woke up in the infirmary, feeling rather dizzy. One of my bunkmates was sitting next to my bed. I think it was Rita.  She was looking kind of excited.  I told her that I had had the strangest dream where Moff Tarkin came to our bunkhouse and took me to play this simulation.  "He asked me if I wanted to have my own fleet and then I couldn't say anything to him!" I exclaimed.
    Rita looked at me seriously and said. "Daala, it happened."
    I grabbed her by the shirt collar and begged her, "Don't toy with me."
    She opened her mouth to reply but then Tarkin walked in.
    "May I speak with the Corporal please?" he asked softly.
    Rita stood up, saluted and backed out of the room giving me an I-told-you-so look.  I pulled the blankets up to my chest and weakly saluted the Moff. My knees were water and I couldn't have stood if I had tried.  Tarkin sat down on the side of the bed and asked me the same question as he had before. "How would you like to command your own fleet? Hopefully you can
answer me this time."
    It took me two minutes just to choke out. "Oh My God..."
    Tarkin was patient with me (luckily) and sat quietly until I finally worked up the breath to blurt out. "You want to give me a fleet!?"
    Tarkin frowned. "Well, not quite yet. I want to transfer you to my fleet so I can give you some experience training. Then maybe a few Imperial class Destroyers."
    "You think I could handle Imperial Destroyers?" I almost moaned.
    Tarkin looked at me intently. "This doesn't....upset you, does it?" He asked.
    "Oh my God..." I whimpered. I was almost crying now. Durico. He had asked me to do just this, make High Rank for him.
    Finally a few of the tears escaped and I doubled over crying.
    Tarkin looked shocked.
    "If you don't want to leave, it's alright!" he exclaimed, moving over to pat my back. "I wanted to bring you with me because when I found out who you were the officials here wouldn't promote you."
    I looked up at him, tears running down my face. "They wouldn't?" I sniffed.
    He shook his head. "When they found out your gender they were embarassed at having hidden you and were going to send you off to a meteorlogical station on the southern ice cap!
    You're much too brilliant for that!"
    I burst into tears again and clutched him around the waist.
    When I finally stopped bawling he was patting my back and stroking my hair, hushing me gently. I looked up at him and nodded.
    I whispered hoarsely. "I'd love to have high rank."