On the Wings of Valkyrie

Chapter CLXVI

Luna was free floating in space. She didn't know how she'd gotten there, and she didn't much care. The girl was just....there.

She didn't know where there was. Maybe Luna could have figured out her location with the positioning of the many stars that blinked in the distance, but she wasn't all that interested in learning. She was happy just floating in the starlit darkness, hardly noticing that she seemed to be floating away from the stars and into pure empty blackness. In fact, the girl liked it as the father she floated from the twinkling lights, the freer and lighter she felt. Like gravity was being cut away or whatever was tethering her to the distant star scape was tearing free.

In fact, Luna only truly realized something was off after the closest stars had long since faded from view. It was darker than an unlit cavern deep inside the tombs of Moraband. There was no noise. There was no gravity to orient herself. The Force, if there, revealed nothing to her. The only sense that remained with her was tactical, and even that was limited since she was touching nothing.

Luna found herself completely alone in the darkness, and for the first time in a long while she felt fear of that darkness, that emptiness that could be hiding anything paired with the knowledge that she was helpless and completely alone. She scrambled for her lightsaber, for something to light her surroundings, only to find her weapon missing. Just gone.

This is all in my head. It has to be, Luna thought to herself trying to throw off the fog that had been clouding her mind while she worked to contain her panic. Thinking was difficult, like her mind was mush. I need to wake up.

But how do I do that?

She spun around blindly, looking for anything that may act as a guide. What could have been a moment or hours later, Luna spied a light in the distance. A small star, perhaps a red dwarf, just floating all alone in the darkness, though it grew nearer by the second, as though willed closer by Luna's desire.

~*~

Padmé waited with bated breath as a blaring tone rang through the room. She stood by the wall, out of the way of the med-droid as it went through the by now routine procedure. Two limbs extended into the encased tube, coming to rest on an unconscious Luna's chest. The defibrillator hummed to life before snapping as electricity shot through the pads.

No change.

"Please," Padmé muttered aloud as the machine hummed to life once more. "By the Moon Goddess, please."

Another electrical snap.

The alarm didn't stop.

The door opened as Luke rushed in, pausing at the scene before him. Carefully, as though worried she may break, he pulled Padmé into a hug. The Nabooian hung onto him, smothering her emotions behind a mask as she continued to watch the proceedings.

Another snap.

Another failure.

"How many?" Luke asked, his voice tense with worry.

"That was three," she answered as the defibrillator hummed to life once more. Luna's heart had had pauses and arrhythmias over the weeks since she'd been brought to the secret base, but the girl hadn't needed external interference to restart her heart.

That was, Luna hadn't needed external help up until three days ago, and the number of shocks required for successful restarts was increasing by the day. Padmé had already been certain her own heart stopped every time the girl's had so much as skipped a beat, but now?

Now Padmé wasn't entirely certain of what was holding her together anymore.

"Come on, Luna," Luke muttered aloud.