Reflections: A Star Wars Fan Fiction Novella

Chapter 2

     It was pointless from the start. Our leaders had failed us. It was a long time before I learned the fate of my squadron's brothers and sisters, all of their fates significantly different from one another. I remember I had broken off from the attack for damage assessment.

     My interceptor had been hit by more glancing shots than I could count over the course of my career. However, the New Republic forces were being extremely ruthless today. I had been rammed, by an X-Wing, of all possibilities. Thankfully, he only took half of my starboard side's wing off with him.

     There was something extremely wrong with us all flying without shields when the enemy had one for every ship. Yes, I have heard the argument before, that it makes us faster and increases our production quantity. Clearly, we were now outnumbered and underpowered. I had no idea how we were going to win this.

     I neutralized several other hostile craft, including the one that had rammed me. I guess it was seeing a TIE Interceptor lacking a wing that had made them so overconfident. Eventually, the wing came off completely, and I was left with a choice. Continue to fight without half of my wingtip cannons or retreat. I chose to retreat, not because my life was precious to our case, but because my death would be meaningless. It wasn't as if I was abandoning my squadron, we had been separated since the start of the conflict.

     I decided the best course of action was to get as far away from the conflict as possible. I noticed there were two moons past Jakku's horizon. We had been given hardly any information on this location in the first place, and it looked habitable enough. I accelerated towards the larger one, but I wasn't sure whether it was a measure of distance or mass that increased its size.

     The gravity of the body embraced us, us being me and my interceptor of course. I was relieved at the clouds racing up to greet us. From what I had seen, Jakku lacked clouds, entirely. If I had to survive here, I wouldn't thirst. Then again, there was no guarantee those clouds contained water.

     Everything went dark as I was pulled into the nearest cloud body. I half expected a mythological creature to scare the shee out of me. When the light returned, I noticed that I had begun to drift off course. Of course, lacking a wing now was more than simply a cosmetic disadvantage. I felt the craft begin to spin, so I counterbalanced it by shutting off the right engine. Well, now it was technically the bottom engine, as my craft was flying at such an angle that my lone wing was on the top and I was perpendicular to the surface.

     I focused on studying the approaching surface. Sand, snow, or crystals, I wasn't sure what was below. One thing was for certain, it wasn't igneous, liquid, or hard enough to shatter my titanium hull. Well, if it was composed of crystals it might. Either way, I would definitely not survive a blunt impact.

     I don't know why it appeared in my head, but the image of my craft skating across the surface, on its lone wing, stole all of my attention. Bracing myself, in other words making sure my tongue wasn't between my teeth, I reversed the orientation of thrust. This meant that I would spin 180 degrees so that the wing would be oriented on the bottom. Before I did this, I made sure the controls were locked, so that my flailing arms didn't mess things up any worse than they already were.

     It worked, I still can't believe it did to this day. I listened to myself holler and cheer, pumping my fists as if it was my own accomplishment and not stupid blind luck turning up in my favor. Was it? Who's to say, it could have been the almighty force, for all I know.

     I popped the hatch and threw myself outside. Sand, of course. White sand. My boots barely sank an inch. I was about to pop my helmet, but before I did that I realized that I hadn't scanned the atmosphere yet.