Purge (Star Wars)

Invasion

The sun was shining brightly on a beautiful spring day, glinting off the glass and steel buildings of the city center. Wisps of white clouds traveled across the blue sky overhead. A human girl of about fifteen with long black hair was walking briskly down the street, enjoying the first true day of spring and the anticipation that school break was soon. Only a few exams left and she would be ready for early entry to the academy next year. Her mother was planning a party for her once the tests were over to celebrate her advanced placement and she could not wait.

Losing her father had been difficult for her family and her mother had to work multiple jobs just to keep a home for her and her sisters. But the advanced placement she had earned put her one step closer to a good job so one day they might finally be able to move closer to here, the center of the city where the skyscrapers shine.

A sudden crack of thunder tore the girl out of her reverie and she came to halt, scanning the sky for what had caused the sound. Could it be a storm? No, the weather was supposed to be clear for days and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. She dropped her gaze to the crowd on the street, some were still searching for the source of the sound but most were staring behind her and up at the sky. She turned, following their gaze up and up. High above the city far beyond the pinnacles of the massive buildings was an even more massive and terrifying thing: a ship. It floated, hovering so high above that she couldn't fathom how far away it must be yet it was large enough to completely fill the sky with its gray and black facade, shaped like the tip of a spear. The people in the street stared up in horror at a ship that had just appeared as if from nowhere. None had ever seen anything like it before. The girl didn't know what frightened her more the sheer size of the ship or how silently and motionless it hung there. For a moment the people held their breath as one, wondering if what they saw was actually real until it became all too real. It opened fire on the city below. A great red beam silently left the ship then slammed into a building with concussive force, bringing the entire thing crumbling to the ground in an instant. The wonder and disbelief that had rooted everyone in the street in place broke and the people ran. The girl ran.

She ran desperately through the streets as fire rained down from the ship and crashed into buildings. Rubble fell down around her crushing others in the crowd as they ran. She had never seen anything like it before. People who ran next to her one moment were gone a moment later, replaced by a fragment of building as if they had never been there. She ran faster. The smoke and the dust and the rubble grew so thick she lost sight of the other people around her until they nearly collided with each other. The streets she had known so well were no longer recognizable and she lost all sense of where she was going. All she knew was that she was still moving away from the ship, evident by the sound of weapons fire from behind her.

Through the dust a great darkness suddenly loomed up in front of her and she skidded to a halt so violently she nearly fell over. At first it just seemed like a pile of rubble but as she ran parallel to it, hoping to find a way around she realized it was a large, intact portion of a collapsed building. There was no way around, nowhere to go but up so she began to climb. As she ascended the dust gradually thinned and at the top she was able to see some of the city once again. Other people were gathered there as well and staring back toward the ships. She turned to follow their gaze and there it was, still hanging there, unmoving. It had stopped firing for now.

At that moment military aircraft from her planet screeched overhead to intercept the ship but the attackers launched fighters of its own. The people below could do nothing but watch helplessly as their most advanced aircraft were destroyed in moments. Several concussive blasts rent the air as weapons launched from a nearby military base but they too exploded fruitlessly against the shield protecting the invading ship.