Jedi Ace
EPO-1 DELTA-CLASS STATUS
Location: Outer-Rim, Unknown Planet Orbit
Shields: Online
Weapons: Armed
Life Support: Nominal
Reactor: Stable
The Epo-1 Delta-class starfighter hung still against the black, its wings angled like a bird frozen mid-flight. The planet below was barren, nameless, another piece of rock abandoned to the edge of the map. Silence pressed against the cockpit glass, thicker than any shield. Dangal sat alone, one arm draped over the chair's rest, the other lightly resting over the faint scab along his side, a reminder of Khronas, of fire and chaos long past. The pain was minimal now, more memory than flesh, but every time he touched it, the weight of that day pressed back into him.
A chime broke the quiet. The commlink blinked alive, casting a faint glow across the darkened cockpit. He reached without looking, thumb grazing the control to accept. The holo-projection stuttered into being fractured voices, fleet chatter, status reports. He listened for a time, not to the words themselves but to the empty cadence they carried. Then he cut the channel, leaving only the void to fill the space again.
"Come, Jedi… descend into the shadow. Face what you fear."
His hand moved next to the datapad clipped at his side. He activated it, letting the pale blue light wash over his features. Lines of text scrolled past, contested systems, votes uncast, worlds fallen to silence. He read none of it, eyes drifting, mind pulled back to fragments he couldn't shake,
Khronas
mocking challenge echoing in his ears, the sting of cold steel, the taste of blood in the snow, the smoke curling in every corner of his vision, the Senate subpoenas. Flashes of ridges, trembling troopers, the distant rumble of explosions, shards of battle that refused to fade. The hum of the ship's reactor filled the silence, but it was hollow, like the pulse of a body too weary to fight.He felt the weight of all the Alliance losses pressing in, not as numbers or reports, but as living absence. Worlds lost, allies fallen, voices silenced. The Core, the heart of everything, had slipped from their grasp. The New Jedi Order, once a light among shadows, now flickered weakly, scattered like dying stars. Their strength remained, but fragile, splintered, their unity fractured by fear, distance, and time. He could almost hear the echoes of their doubts, the quiet of the stations where no one dared speak too loudly, the whispers of what might never return.
Dangal's shoulders bowed further, as if the ship itself carried him as much as he commanded it. His fingers brushed over the flight controls, tracing the contours with a mechanical familiarity, grounding him in the present. The scar on his side pulsed against him, a stubborn reminder of what had been taken and what might still be lost.
Thoughts bled into one another: the Alliance clinging to relevance, a galaxy teetering between submission and defiance, the New Jedi Order struggling to rise under the weight of its own shadows. He felt the pull of the Force, not as clarity, but as a mirror to every fracture, every gap, every failure. What would survive? What would endure? What could he do, alone in orbit around this barren rock, to shape even the smallest spark into hope?
The hum of the ship's reactor filled the silence, but it was hollow, like the pulse of a body too weary to fight. He let the memories of Khronas, the screams, the shouts, the steel, wash over him again, fragments he could not excise but also could not fully bear to confront. And yet, even in the ache and shadow, he knew he would carry on. There were others left. There was still the Alliance. There was still the Order, however diminished. The galaxy had not yet finished testing them.
Dangal let the silence return fully, his eyes heavy, mind haunted, body aching. He did not fight it. The fighter drifted on, a scarred sentinel in the endless dark, one man alone with the weight of battle, loss, and the uncertain future of everything he had sworn to protect. He exhaled slowly, eyes tracing the distant stars. He didn't know how to feel, the situation was already stressful one and was wearing him down as his face rested on his palm for a moment before his head shook him to reality.
"The galaxy will endure," he murmured, voice quiet but steady. "I must do what I can, while there is still hope… as long as there is hope." he said. In a way more so to shatter the doubt, that heavily lingered in the back of his mind.
"Loss leaves its mark, but it does not end the fight. It test's us all but only a united Alliance can endure what comes next."
-Dangal Olderem
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