“Y’know, where I come from, we don’t worry about the odds. We make a play and we stick with it. Well, unless somethin’ better comes up in the mean time. What I mean is, there’s no use worrying. Just dive in, do what you gotta do, and then get the hell outta there before the other guy can respond.”

Rayf grew up in Coronet, the capital city of Corellia. Corellians are renowned to be reckless, to “have rhydonium for blood”, and Rayf took this to heart. On a planet of daredevil pilots he dared more than most.

Coronet doesn't really have slums, but, if it did, Antar would have been one. The shops sold only the essentials, the speeders were old, and droidwork was often done by people. The gangs, small and disorganised as they were, strutted around like they owned the place. But one thing you would notice if you compared Antar to a more downtrodden district in another major Core World city was this; even though the speeders were old, they were fanatically well-kept. Garages did a brisk trade in tune-ups, after-market modifications and bodywork. It was a rare speeder which was stock; most had custom paint jobs, engine upgrades or just tricked-out sound systems. People took pride in their speeders. And at night the streets would come alive. Cruisers and racers and onlookers everywhere, engines buzzing, smells of food and ozone.

Growing up in Antar, the days were just barriers to get past to the next night. As the sun went down Rayf's adrenaline would climb and soon he'd be doing something that most folks would call foolish. When he was little that might involve some petty shoplifting, making fake emergency calls then heckling the CorSec officers who came to investigate, or ambushing bigger kids and pelting them with stones so that they would chase him. As he grew he started to hang around the fringes of a street gang called the Aldadas. At the time these guys seemed like the pinnacle of humanity; they did what they wanted, didn’t take any poodoo and just seemed to have life all figured out. But they, on the other hand, thought little Reyf was all talk. They kept him around, for entertainment, but never took him seriously. Not until the day when he stole Arryn Trike’s speeder.

Arryn was a gruff, quiet offworlder who had risen to the top of the Krayt Kodan gang, one of the Aldadas’ biggest rivals. He was known to be brutal in a fight and not at all gracious in defeat. His speeder had been in the shop getting a final polish after some serious upgrades, and sixteen year old Reyf had just chanced upon it. He never later admitted it, but he had no idea who it belonged to. To him it just screamed FUN, so he grabbed it. After a twelve hour joyride where he buzzed Treasure Ship Row and led some CorSec patrols right through Axial Park, scattering pedestrians all around, the speeder ended up being ditched off the end of a pier, and young Rayf became a local legend.

His time in the Aldadas started in glory but ended in bitter disillusionment. He soon realised that the gang were just street kids, and that their lives were lived in fear of CorSec raids or even of seeing members of other gangs in the street. Rayf gained a reputation for never backing down, and for being able to beat almost anyone in a street race, but none of it was enough. Without having planned it Rayf found himself walking into the CorSec recruiters office.

He trained as a fighter pilot, but, despite very respectable test scores, he only barely graduated. He had been struggling to come to terms with authority the whole time, and just barely managed to keep himself in check for the three years it took him to finish the academy course. His career, however, didn’t even last that long.

His group had been sent to flush out some pirates, a seemingly routine mission, but one which very quickly turned to krif. Many disparate gangs of pirates had gathered, it seemed, for some kind of meeting, and Rayf's squadron dropped right into the middle of it. A squadron of military-spec fighters crewed by trained Corellian pilots should have been enough to see the threat off, but the squadron leader, Commander Travox, had ordered the group to hang back and let the half dozen converted freighters run. Rayf just couldn't do it. He punched his engines and strafed two of the freighters, causing significant damage to one of them. Of course the pirates returned fire and Rayf's squadron-mates had to join the fray.

Four of the pirate freighters were destroyed and one of the other two was seriously damaged, compared to only two losses on the CorSec side.

Rayf received a court-martial for insubordination but his prison sentence was commuted because it turned out that these very pirates had been planning an attack on an orbital CorSec facility. If the data core from the captured freighter hadn't been found, nobody would have known until it was too late.

Rayf was in disgrace, with little money and zero chance of a legitimate job. It seemed, ironically enough, that the only avenue left open to him would be to join a pirate crew. That's when the Rebel recruiter showed up.