Zal Artha never fit in. Born and raised on Chandrila, Zal should have been a nature-loving, peace-making scholar like most of the rest of his family and, in fact, most of the rest of the planet. But while his brother and sisters were playing with their pet squalls and taking dance and elocution lessons, Zal was racing speeders through the crystal canyons and breaking curfew.

As soon he was old enough, Zal left Chandrila and enrolled in the Rengali Imperial Naval Academy, bringing nothing with him from Chandrila but a lucky charm made for him by his older brother. All he wanted out of life was to sit behind the stick of a starfighter. While at the academy, Zal faced constant harassment, discrimination, and derision from instructors and students alike. Undeterred, Zal pushed through and distinguised himself time and time again before graduation. Unfortunately, discrimination graduated with him. After being turned down on numerous choice assignments, he was finally placed as a shuttle pilot (a post Zal found at least boring as contemplating the idyllic beauty of the woods back in Chandrila). When he shared his frustration with a friendly Senator he was ferrying, he finally learned why he had been denied a combat posting: Imperial Naval Command suspected him of Rebel sympathies due to his Chandrilan upbringing.

Frustrated with the Empire and unhappy with his stalled career, Zal decided to prove Imperial Naval Command right and defected to the Rebel Alliance. He was assigned to a starfighter squadron, the Soaring Dactillions. In mere weeks he was piloting an x-wing in combat situations. After a high-attrition raid on the Fondor shipyards left the Dactillions under strength, his squadron was reassigned as test pilots for the new A-wing fighter, stationed on Cardooine.

A week later, the Dactiollions scrambled again, this time using untested prototype A-wing fighters to repulse an Imperial raid on Cardooine. Though the Dactillions pushed back the Imperials and A-wing proved itself a superlative interceptor, the cost was very high. Zal, perhaps protected by his lucky charm was one of only two Soaring Dactillions to survive the battle. In the wake of these events, Zal requested (and recevied) a tranfer to Special Operations. Zal couldn´t be happier with this assignment, or with his role in the Rebellion.