[ Though it isn't the first time she's left base on a long journey home, it's a first on this one, and it's still a fresh feeling to have people to leave behind. When she'd torn out of the atmosphere on Jakku, she had only the opportunity cost of missing her parents to worry about, no goodbyes to speak of but something to pull her hastily back.

Standing in the docking bay for the stealth ships, she searches the crowd of both those who are shipping out and those who remain behind for the faces of her friends, a soft sense of loss in her eyes alongside the fire of determination that carries her onto this mission to protect the Empress. ]

[ The yoke of the ship is unfamiliar, and Rey can't quite keep the ship steady with the grace of the Bal pilots. Tense from the strain of the illusion, she stays firmly rooted in the cockpit, shields up, taking advantage of the invisibility for as long as it will carry her. The Bal ships might not be supposed to be out of formation, but they're a great deal faster than the freighter they'd passed up.

And she'll need it, as will the rest of those aboard the ship that's lifting off. ]

They've spotted us! [ There's acute dread in her voice, the kind of panic that is honest though not helpless, just quick to burst out with precisely what she can see as the display lights up with pursuing ships. Immediately, she drops out of stealth, pushing that power towards the thrusters to carry them faster in to the black hollow of space. ]