Sera Dragovalor
Character
The stars vanished in fire.
Sera was half‑curled in the pilot's seat with one boot on the console, rereading old routes while hyperspace hummed around her, right up until every alarm in the cockpit detonated at once. Sparks burst from the overhead panels as the ship lurched violently sideways, and something slammed into the hull with enough force to rip them out of hyperspace in a spinning blur of stars and blue light.
A storm‑shrouded planet filled the viewport before she could breathe. Dark clouds churned like a living thing, lightning crawling across black oceans and fractured landmasses far below, and the sickening drop in her stomach told her they were far too low.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding…"
Another explosion tore through the rear of the ship, and the stabilizers died. The transport dropped in a violent tilt, and Sera seized the controls, fighting the spin as sirens merged into a single mechanical howl and smoke poured from the instrument panel. The hull shrieked as they punched into the upper atmosphere, rain and heat hammering the plating with the force of artillery fire.
For a moment, she managed to steady the descent, but the right thruster blew apart in a bloom of orange light, and the ship spun again, swallowed by cloud so thick it erased the world outside. Cargo restraints snapped loose behind her, and the controls went weightless beneath her hands, the unmistakable sensation of a vessel no longer falling under her command but simply falling.
Fear hit hard, but training hit harder. She closed her eyes for a heartbeat and reached for the Force, not with discipline but with raw refusal to die. Power surged through her, enough to hold the transport together for a few more seconds, but not enough to save it.
They burst through the clouds, trailing flame, revealing a world that looked like the corpse of a battlefield. Skeletal wrecks rose from black swamps, rusted towers leaned through the storm, and distant red warning lights blinked like dying embers struggling to stay alive.
Then she saw the mountain ahead, far too close for any hope of avoiding it.
"No no no…"
The left wing clipped a stone, and the ship tore apart. Metal screamed as the transport cartwheeled through trees and shattered ruins, each impact a blur of fire, mud, and crushing force, until the nose finally plowed into flooded earth and skidded to a halt in a spray of debris.
Rain hammered twisted metal while thunder rolled overhead and fires hissed as they died. Sera hung in the restraints with blood sliding down her cheek and smoke drifting through the fractured cockpit, every part of her body aching, her ears ringing, her shoulder throbbing with each breath.
"I am never flying alone again."
The harness released with a click that nearly dropped her onto the ruined console before she caught herself with a sharp hiss of pain. Emergency lights flickered weakly and rain leaked through fractured seams in the hull.
Outside, the graveyard world stretched in every direction, dark forests swaying beneath the storm, half‑submerged wreckage looming like the bones of dead giants, and distant sirens echoing through the night as though the planet was still trying to continue a war long after its soldiers were gone.
Then, somewhere beyond the crash site, a single metallic sound cut through the rain. Heavy and deliberate, it carried across the wreckage with a clarity that left no room for doubt.
A footstep.
Ziso Kus
Sera was half‑curled in the pilot's seat with one boot on the console, rereading old routes while hyperspace hummed around her, right up until every alarm in the cockpit detonated at once. Sparks burst from the overhead panels as the ship lurched violently sideways, and something slammed into the hull with enough force to rip them out of hyperspace in a spinning blur of stars and blue light.
A storm‑shrouded planet filled the viewport before she could breathe. Dark clouds churned like a living thing, lightning crawling across black oceans and fractured landmasses far below, and the sickening drop in her stomach told her they were far too low.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding…"
Another explosion tore through the rear of the ship, and the stabilizers died. The transport dropped in a violent tilt, and Sera seized the controls, fighting the spin as sirens merged into a single mechanical howl and smoke poured from the instrument panel. The hull shrieked as they punched into the upper atmosphere, rain and heat hammering the plating with the force of artillery fire.
For a moment, she managed to steady the descent, but the right thruster blew apart in a bloom of orange light, and the ship spun again, swallowed by cloud so thick it erased the world outside. Cargo restraints snapped loose behind her, and the controls went weightless beneath her hands, the unmistakable sensation of a vessel no longer falling under her command but simply falling.
Fear hit hard, but training hit harder. She closed her eyes for a heartbeat and reached for the Force, not with discipline but with raw refusal to die. Power surged through her, enough to hold the transport together for a few more seconds, but not enough to save it.
They burst through the clouds, trailing flame, revealing a world that looked like the corpse of a battlefield. Skeletal wrecks rose from black swamps, rusted towers leaned through the storm, and distant red warning lights blinked like dying embers struggling to stay alive.
Then she saw the mountain ahead, far too close for any hope of avoiding it.
"No no no…"
The left wing clipped a stone, and the ship tore apart. Metal screamed as the transport cartwheeled through trees and shattered ruins, each impact a blur of fire, mud, and crushing force, until the nose finally plowed into flooded earth and skidded to a halt in a spray of debris.
Rain hammered twisted metal while thunder rolled overhead and fires hissed as they died. Sera hung in the restraints with blood sliding down her cheek and smoke drifting through the fractured cockpit, every part of her body aching, her ears ringing, her shoulder throbbing with each breath.
"I am never flying alone again."
The harness released with a click that nearly dropped her onto the ruined console before she caught herself with a sharp hiss of pain. Emergency lights flickered weakly and rain leaked through fractured seams in the hull.
Outside, the graveyard world stretched in every direction, dark forests swaying beneath the storm, half‑submerged wreckage looming like the bones of dead giants, and distant sirens echoing through the night as though the planet was still trying to continue a war long after its soldiers were gone.
Then, somewhere beyond the crash site, a single metallic sound cut through the rain. Heavy and deliberate, it carried across the wreckage with a clarity that left no room for doubt.
A footstep.
Ziso Kus
