grief

viridian

The explosion heard throughout the galaxies destroyed almost everything in its range. Nearly everything within a light year's radius was vaporized, the rest set ablaze. After moments of painstaking silence, a much sweeter sound deafened the blast. The echoing cries of those who no longer feared for their very existences. Those who knew they could exhale, even for a moment, without being stripped or searched or beaten at the hands of regional troopers. The First Order's gaze was finally elsewhere, the light overtaking the shadow draining from their irises. The fanfare swelled and the whoops and hollers of every alien creed lasted for days, dancing through the day and feasting and drinking throughout the night.

Ayda's eyes fluttered open to the screaming alarms, the ship's monotonous piloting program calling out for the captain. A few blinks brought her slurried vision into focus, but the ringing in her eardrums blocked out all other noises, distracting her from whatever was going on. The hum intensified the heartbeat felt racing through her chest into the rest of her body, her entire being trembling. Never out of fear.

Ayda finally remembered to perform some sort of self-assessment after any accident or injury.

Name: Captain Ayda Scullion.
Occupation: TIE Fighter pilot for the First Order.
Current Mission: Shoot as many Rebel scum that dare cross my cannons.

The time spent inside her head allowed a moment for the pilot to collect herself, just enough to receive a staticky transmission.

"Ca..t..n Scu...ion... Cop... Ov...r... Capt... Scull..!"

Ayda shook her head and pulled herself off of the ground, ignoring the volume and intensity of which her muscles hissed. Drunkenly staggering her way over to collapse in the cockpit, she fumbled for a black switch and a red button, managing to correctly do both in order to receive what she could of this frazzled transmission.

"Do y... read... Capt... Scullion... Scullion. Ayda, come in!" A voice made itself clear, but the picture still struggled to come through. Ayda annoyedly swatted the screen and the visuals of a middle-ranking female commander appeared. A slender, hazelnut-colored woman with almond-shaped eyes looked the lightest bit frantic as she tried to contact Ayda. Maybe once she got cleaned up, she'd take her for drinks to relax.

"Go for Scullion," Ayda spoke, her voice raspy from previously shouting horrid and baseless threats at the Rebels. She knew they'd win. She'd known ever since they began to appear stronger under Commander Ren's rule. Speaking of, where'd he run off to instead of fighting with the army?

"Scullion, this is Lieutenant Tash with the 86th Regiment," she began, her voice low but quite strong. "You've been chosen for a special extraction mission, ASAP."

Ayda's eyebrow lifted in intrigue, her mind already drowned in questions.

"Specially chosen? Why would a Lieutenant ask a pilot something like that?" Ayda mumbled, rubbing her chin as she leaned back in the cockpit seat.

"Everyone else is dead." Tash sighed, a cold and deep sadness married to her words. Regaining composure after a split second, she continued.

"You must travel to the Sith planet of Exegol and retrieve Kylo Ren. I am sending you the coordinates now. Over and out."

"But-!" Ayda chirped, her sentence interrupted by Lieutenant Tash's face melting away from the screen. The pilot huffed, disappointed she wasn't able to ask her out to drinks before she signed off. A blinking silver button on the TIE's dashboard drew Ayda's thoughts away from bedding the Lieutenant, the coordinates to Exegol being received. She reached up to adjust her fiery curls contained in a low-hanging bun, but was greeted with coagulated blood matting the locks on the side of her head.

"Oh, well. No time to get dolled up for Ren," she shrugged, her dialogue dripping with sardonicism. The course was mapped out, and a routine diagnostics assessment to the ship with the combination of pressing a few buttons sent them into hyperdrive, autopilot enabled to get a moment of recovery and recollection from the war's brutal ending.