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 her family and, in fact, most of the rest of the planet. But while her 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 as she was old enough, Zal left Chandrila and enrolled in the Rengali Imperial Naval Academy, bringing nothing with her from Chandrila but a lucky charm made for her by her older brother. All she 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 distinguished herself time and time again before graduation. Unfortunately, discrimination graduated with her. After being turned down for numerous choice assignments, she was finally placed as a shuttle pilot (a post Zal found at least as boring as contemplating the idyllic beauty of the woods back on Chandrila). When she shared her frustrations with a friendly Senator she was ferrying, she finally learned why she has been denied all combat posting: Imperial Naval Command suspected her of Rebel sympathies due to her Chandrilan upbringing.
Frustrated with the Empire and unhappy with her stalled career, Zal decided to prove Imperial Naval Command right and defected to the Rebel Alliance. She was assigned to a starfighter squadron, the Soaring Dactillions. In meer weeks, she was piloting an X-wing in combat situations. After a high-attrition raid on the Fondor shipyards left the Dactillions under strength, her quadron was reassigned as test pilots for the new A-wing fighter, stationed on Cardooine.
A week later, the Dactillions 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 high. Zal, perhaps protected by her lucky charm, was one of the only two Soaring Dactillions to survive the battle. Int he wake of these events, Zal requested (and received) a transfer to Special Operations. Zal couldn't be happier with this assignment, or with her role in the Rebellion.