Commodore's Log - "Let Them Eat Worry"

Dark, hazel eyes gazed softly into the night, catching the scattered flickers of pulsars and beginning to shimmer like the stars themselves. A delicate glow set on the commodore's cheeks, on her hair, on the corners of a fragile smile.

With a level of tenderness that ran far from what she'd come to expect of herself, Liedran planted a food behind her, then another. A practiced, graceful pivot brought her to face her desk where her eyes settled on a slim, gleaming datapad. The blank, charcoal canvas that constituted its display appeared to stare back at her, uneasily patient as it awaited the commodore's report. And as a long silence hung over her head, the delicate traces of peace in Liedran's expression finally died, her weak smile retreating into an uneasy frown.

Sooner or later, Command would inquire for her status. She wasn't accomplishing much by putting off her mission log.

Except... Watching. Waiting for the creatures of her nightmares to show themselves.

Somewhere beyond the pitch black horizon, hiding in their gnarled maze of death and decay, Liedran could smell the Brotherhood. Glimmering eyes saw a pale, almost unnoticeable, display of military posturing. The Mawite forces stood delicately on the tips of their toes, waiting to pounce, to gash their teeth and claw for the jugular of the Alliance. That feral darkness had already touched Coruscant, Kril'Dor, a countless number of sectors and lives.

And it was still going, creeping through the galaxy's foliage, forming a measly gap in the stars as it watched from the bushes.

So far, the 3rd Expeditionary had been lucky. Since the start of their patrol, the formation had not once even caught a glimpse of the Maw's piercing eyes. Despite the constant state of combat readiness throughout the line, officers were beginning to grow lax. All but the commodore. Liedran's fears had only grown with every passing minute of silence. Tickling nervousness crescendoed to a headache, to shivers running up her spine with every dash of a false alarm reaching the Cadence's sensors.

The commodore shook her head roughly. She'd looked for comfort in the silence of the observation deck, but that silence was clearly only allowing fear to fester. She needed a distraction. A-

Liedran's eyes, once confined to a lifeless stare amidst the racing of her thoughts, focused again on the datapad. Her defeated sigh fogged up a section of the device as she lifted it from her desk.