Starfire

Scene 6: Crash Landing Arrival

Koriand'r had drifted into sleep while the ship she had stolen was in hyperspace. She didn't dream, but she did revisit the day she would never forget. She would never forget the ultimate betrayal Komand'r had concocted, would never forget how little she cared about the death of her own mother.

When the Citadel had closed in on the royal courtroom, fear unlike anything she had ever felt before had gripped Koriand'r, like a noose tightening around her throat. Her heart had pounded rapidly in her chest. It felt like she was being stabbed repeatedly with a sword.

When the Citadel had finally breached the courtroom doors and began to kill the remaining guards present, Koriand'r had felt she was slowly dying along with them. She had lost count of the times she had asked herself the same question again and again. "Could I have saved them if I had listened to my father and fled?" She still couldn't bring herself to even attempt to answer that question.

Then there was her mother. How could she think that Trogaar would change his mind? Koriand'r knew her mother loved her deeply, but why did she have to put herself between her and the cruel leader of the Citadel? All she had succeeded in doing was getting herself killed.

Suddenly Koriand'r woke up to the sound of a flashing alarm. Looking down at the primary console, she could see words in Psion flashing various colors, but always returning to red. After a quick moment of deciphering the Psion words, Koriand'r realized what they said: ALERT! EXIT HYPERSPACE IMMEDIATELY! ASTEROID BELT AHEAD!

Koriand'r complied with the console's instructions just in time. When she returned to real space, asteroids were everywhere. Looking down at the console again, a new set of instructions were flashing: MANUAL CONTROL ADVISED.

Taking control of the ship, Koriand'r maneuvered the ship through the perilous belt. Adrenaline unlike anything she had felt since the Psion experiment, Koriand'r desperately took a straight path. She had only one chance to get through safely.

Throwing the throttle down to maximum, Koriand'r flew faster and faster. She was almost safe, almost out of this place. She just had to close a little more distance and she would finally be safe.

Unfortunately, everything went wrong when one of the bigger asteroids got in front of her. Koriand'r knew she had no chance to slow down in time. She had only one chance to survive this, and she was going to take it. She had to.

As the ship moved closer to the colossal asteroid, Koriand'r located the airlock and allowed herself to be launched into space once more. Now all she had to do was fly as far away from that asteroid. All she had to do was accelerate her flight pattern, and she would escape the asteroid belt.

Wasting no time, Koriand'r flew past the ship, over the asteroid, and off to safety. Unfortunately, Koriand'r underestimated how explosive a Psion ship truly was. When the explosion went off, the shockwave that followed still hit Koriand'r.

The fortunate news was Koriand'r had at least cut enough distance between herself and the asteroid to avoid death. However, the force that hit her was just enough to knock her out cold and throw past the gravitational pull of a small, red planet. Koriand'r's body continued to float at an extremely fast pace, with little indication of slowing down.

Moments later, she became caught by another planet's gravitational pull. This one was bigger than the red planet, and it was blue, with large green forms of land here and there.

As she entered the atmosphere, Koriand'r's body was met with heat of extreme pressure. Fortunately, because she was Tamaranian, she hardly got burned. Now she was descending to the planet's ground faster and faster. Very soon, she would crash.

When Koriand'r started to come to, she could hear numerous voices all talking at once. What planet was she on? Who were these people? How far were they from the Citadel?