The Emberwind shuddered as another blast struck the aft quarter, the impact rippling through the hull like the growl of some wounded beast refusing to die.
"Shields collapsing," Pixel whistled sharply from the console, the little BB unit wobbling with the vibration.
Emberlyn didn't answer. Her hands tightened around the control yoke as she hauled the heavy courier down into a violent dive. Stars stretched across the viewport in streaks of light as she rolled the ship hard to port, the freighter's engines screaming in protest.
Behind her, the pirate interceptors closed the distance.
Another missile lock warning screamed across the console.
"Yeah," she muttered under her breath. "I see it."
The cargo hold behind her still contained the carbonite slab—her mother's frozen form locked in cold silence. The entire assault, the firefight inside the stronghold, the desperate escape through atmosphere… it had all been for that.
She wasn't losing her now.
"Pixel!" Emberlyn snapped.
The droid chirped back and the dorsal cannons rotated violently, spitting crimson bolts toward the nearest interceptor. One pirate craft peeled away in a burst of sparks, but two more slid into position behind her.
Another warning.
Missile inbound.
"Fine," Emberlyn hissed, punching the hyperdrive sequence.
The navicomputer screamed as coordinates locked.
Hyperspace jump in five seconds.
The pirate missile struck just as the stars began to stretch.
The explosion slammed into the freighter's rear hull with bone-rattling force, sending Emberlyn forward against her restraints as sparks erupted across the cockpit. Systems flickered violently. The hyperdrive alarm shrieked like a dying siren.
"NO—"
The ship entered hyperspace anyway.
But something was wrong.
The star lines twisted.
Instead of the smooth tunnel of hyperspace, the viewport warped into a spiraling vortex of fractured light and impossible darkness. The hyperdrive core screamed in mechanical agony as the damaged motivator tore through navigation limits the computer could no longer control.
Pixel shrieked in alarm.
"Kill it!" Emberlyn shouted, slamming her hand against the emergency cutoff.
The ship refused to obey.
Reality stretched.
Time fractured.
The stars vanished entirely.
The Emberwind plunged into something that was not hyperspace… and not realspace either.
Silence swallowed the cockpit.
Outside the viewport was nothing but an endless black ocean scattered with distant, ghostlike streaks of light that moved far too slowly to be stars.
The engines died. The ship drifted.
Pixel gave a quiet, uncertain chirp.
Emberlyn stared out into the void, breathing slowly as the realization settled over her. "Where… are we?"
No answer came.
The Emberwind drifted for years in that silent place between space and time, the freighter's systems slowly degrading while the galaxy moved on without them.
Inside the battered ship, time eventually claimed its toll.
The artificial gravity generator failed first, plunging the interior into weightlessness. Loose tools, fragments of shattered panels, and drifting droplets of coolant slowly floated through silent corridors.
In the cockpit, Emberlyn had long since lost consciousness.
Life support systems, running on failing reserves, automatically engaged emergency medical protocols. A low-power stasis field formed around the pilot seat, suspending her vital functions in a fragile equilibrium designed to preserve life until rescue could arrive.
The field held.
Barely.
Pixel attempted to compensate for failing systems, rolling across consoles and attempting repair after repair as the years passed in silence. Eventually even the loyal BB unit's power reserves began to fail.
The droid emitted one last faint whistle before its systems finally shut down, its spherical frame coming to rest against the cockpit console.
Deep within the cargo hold, however, one system remained perfectly stable.
The carbonite slab.
Mira Rekali’s frozen form remained preserved within the carbonite matrix exactly as she had been when Emberlyn rescued her. The containment field required minimal energy to sustain itself, allowing the preservation system to endure even as the rest of the ship slowly fell into ruin.
Then, one day, the hyperdrive core spasmed.
Energy surged through the ship like a heartbeat returning after death.
Without warning, the freighter tore free of the void.
Stars exploded back into existence across the viewport.
The Emberwind slammed violently back into realspace.
Alarms roared to life as the battered courier spun out of control, tumbling through orbit above a familiar crimson world.
Dathomir.
Smoke poured from the ship's engines as it drifted helplessly toward the planet below, hull scarred and systems barely alive.
Emergency power flickered through dormant systems.
One final protocol activated.
A distress beacon.
Ancient Mandalorian encryption codes automatically broadcast from the ship's comm array—old clearance identifiers once used by Clan Rekali fleets and Mandalorian command channels. The signal repeated in a steady loop, transmitting across nearby space.
A call for help.
A call only a few in the galaxy would recognize.
And somewhere within that signal—buried beneath damaged static and corrupted data—was the identification code of the vessel itself.
Coruscant-Class Heavy Courier: Emberwind.
Drifting above Dathomir.
Waiting.
For someone to find it.
Fiore
"Shields collapsing," Pixel whistled sharply from the console, the little BB unit wobbling with the vibration.
Emberlyn didn't answer. Her hands tightened around the control yoke as she hauled the heavy courier down into a violent dive. Stars stretched across the viewport in streaks of light as she rolled the ship hard to port, the freighter's engines screaming in protest.
Behind her, the pirate interceptors closed the distance.
Another missile lock warning screamed across the console.
"Yeah," she muttered under her breath. "I see it."
The cargo hold behind her still contained the carbonite slab—her mother's frozen form locked in cold silence. The entire assault, the firefight inside the stronghold, the desperate escape through atmosphere… it had all been for that.
She wasn't losing her now.
"Pixel!" Emberlyn snapped.
The droid chirped back and the dorsal cannons rotated violently, spitting crimson bolts toward the nearest interceptor. One pirate craft peeled away in a burst of sparks, but two more slid into position behind her.
Another warning.
Missile inbound.
"Fine," Emberlyn hissed, punching the hyperdrive sequence.
The navicomputer screamed as coordinates locked.
Hyperspace jump in five seconds.
The pirate missile struck just as the stars began to stretch.
The explosion slammed into the freighter's rear hull with bone-rattling force, sending Emberlyn forward against her restraints as sparks erupted across the cockpit. Systems flickered violently. The hyperdrive alarm shrieked like a dying siren.
"NO—"
The ship entered hyperspace anyway.
But something was wrong.
The star lines twisted.
Instead of the smooth tunnel of hyperspace, the viewport warped into a spiraling vortex of fractured light and impossible darkness. The hyperdrive core screamed in mechanical agony as the damaged motivator tore through navigation limits the computer could no longer control.
Pixel shrieked in alarm.
"Kill it!" Emberlyn shouted, slamming her hand against the emergency cutoff.
The ship refused to obey.
Reality stretched.
Time fractured.
The stars vanished entirely.
The Emberwind plunged into something that was not hyperspace… and not realspace either.
Silence swallowed the cockpit.
Outside the viewport was nothing but an endless black ocean scattered with distant, ghostlike streaks of light that moved far too slowly to be stars.
The engines died. The ship drifted.
Pixel gave a quiet, uncertain chirp.
Emberlyn stared out into the void, breathing slowly as the realization settled over her. "Where… are we?"
No answer came.
The Emberwind drifted for years in that silent place between space and time, the freighter's systems slowly degrading while the galaxy moved on without them.
Inside the battered ship, time eventually claimed its toll.
The artificial gravity generator failed first, plunging the interior into weightlessness. Loose tools, fragments of shattered panels, and drifting droplets of coolant slowly floated through silent corridors.
In the cockpit, Emberlyn had long since lost consciousness.
Life support systems, running on failing reserves, automatically engaged emergency medical protocols. A low-power stasis field formed around the pilot seat, suspending her vital functions in a fragile equilibrium designed to preserve life until rescue could arrive.
The field held.
Barely.
Pixel attempted to compensate for failing systems, rolling across consoles and attempting repair after repair as the years passed in silence. Eventually even the loyal BB unit's power reserves began to fail.
The droid emitted one last faint whistle before its systems finally shut down, its spherical frame coming to rest against the cockpit console.
Deep within the cargo hold, however, one system remained perfectly stable.
The carbonite slab.
Mira Rekali’s frozen form remained preserved within the carbonite matrix exactly as she had been when Emberlyn rescued her. The containment field required minimal energy to sustain itself, allowing the preservation system to endure even as the rest of the ship slowly fell into ruin.
Then, one day, the hyperdrive core spasmed.
Energy surged through the ship like a heartbeat returning after death.
Without warning, the freighter tore free of the void.
Stars exploded back into existence across the viewport.
The Emberwind slammed violently back into realspace.
Alarms roared to life as the battered courier spun out of control, tumbling through orbit above a familiar crimson world.
Dathomir.
Smoke poured from the ship's engines as it drifted helplessly toward the planet below, hull scarred and systems barely alive.
Emergency power flickered through dormant systems.
One final protocol activated.
A distress beacon.
Ancient Mandalorian encryption codes automatically broadcast from the ship's comm array—old clearance identifiers once used by Clan Rekali fleets and Mandalorian command channels. The signal repeated in a steady loop, transmitting across nearby space.
A call for help.
A call only a few in the galaxy would recognize.
And somewhere within that signal—buried beneath damaged static and corrupted data—was the identification code of the vessel itself.
Coruscant-Class Heavy Courier: Emberwind.
Drifting above Dathomir.
Waiting.
For someone to find it.
Fiore
