I screamed as another blast barely grazed my ship, my hands jerking the controls to avoid an asteroid.
Of all the stupid ideas, why did I think it would be a good idea to lose them in an asteroid field?
Another blast, this time it hit. I checked my shields, cursing beneath my breath as the blaring red lights answered my question. This was it. This was how I was going to die. I should have listened.
Should have paid heed to all the warnings before I set out on this stupid quest. Listened to my grandmother. If I could go back to where it started, I'd have taken that opportunity in a heartbeat.
I yanked the controls again, my ship diving and avoiding another lump of rock. Only to be met with another one. I scrambled, trying to avoid it.
I didn't know if I was going to last much longer. All my alarms were blaring, red filling my vision. I could feel my fingers turning white from how hard I was gripping. I closed my eyes. Where did it go wrong?
~~~~
It started here. In this very cave, stone etched from centuries of tribal history, blue fingers and hands the only proof we were ever here.
I remember it clear as day the last time I saw this cave. The beginning. A wailing that bounced off the walls, warmth switching to cold, a daydream of seeing a woman's face seconds before everything went dark again.
I bowed my head, shirking the vision away. It didn't matter. I'm finally seventeen solar rotations, which too many it may seem very little, but I knew it was a shock to my tribe that I survived my first ten.
I couldn't blame them. I shared their surprise, carrying the scars as evidence of how many times I thought my journey was over. How many times I clung to the side of a cliff after a foolish misstep, how many times that stone had bit and chewed my palms to get me to let go.
How many hailstorms I had braved even when the ice was as big as my first. When my feet turned blue and I was stuck in the elders hut for weeks until I could walk again.
And now I was here. Back in the cave I was born in. In the cave I would some day be paired in, then die in. The celestial cave.
Three familiar faces studied my approach. It took me a second to recognize their faces from the shroud of their cloaks. My grandmother was easy, the only one that shared my blue markings on her cheeks and the dotted line beneath her hollow eyes. Missing, from an accident three years ago.
Then there was Ru-Nek, lending me a smile with his comforting eyes that blended in with stone.
And in the middle, Syl-xa, bestowing me a blank look with only a deep frown from her lips. I could feel my stomach falling in those dark pits, like her eyes were the ocean at the bottom.
"Xaphine." Her voice boomed and I fought the reflex to cover my ears. "You have completed your training and now have the ability to decide which path speaks to your vuh'cor'a."
My hand reached to my chest, gripping the fabric of my robe to feel for it. My vuh-cor-a. It was beating faster, like it mimicked the drums I'd hear at ceremonies similar to this one.
"I want to travel the stars. I want to be a star sailor." I quickly spoke, not missing a beat from my vuh-cor-a.
"As always, she is eager." grandmother hummed.
"Eager or presumptive?" Syl-xa frowned.
I sunk within myself in shame. I had spoken out of turn, and I scrambled to fix it. "My apologizes. I just... I want to follow my mother's footsteps, to continue her journey of exploration. To see if there's life beyond our world."
Ru-Nek hummed, drawing a circle on his chin with his thumb. It felt like his smooth stone gaze was now piercing into me like jagged ceiling teeth. Picking me apart. Predicting my thoughts.
"Despite our centuries worth of evidence that there isn't, you still want to imitate your mother's ambition?"
I paused, knowing what I was admitting to. That I was standing against the elders and our ancestors wisdom. Telling them they were wrong.
But I felt it. That yearning. Every time I looked up, I felt like there was something calling to me. And I couldn't deny it.
"Yes. Just as she, I feel the stars calling. There is something out there- alive or perhaps a state beyond our understanding. And I want to seek it."
The three shared a passing look- one that absorbed even my grandmother's warmth and replaced it with an unreadable emotion.
Then, she stepped forward. In her hands was a wooden box, something I had neglected to notice when I first entered the space. It was a beige wood, and it felt light as it was passed into my hands.
I adjusted it to rest on my forearm and lifted my hand. I hovered my fingers against the ancient wood, feeling each groove and crevice that winded and twisted around a brilliant gemstone. I'd never seen anything like it before.
I pressed it, hearing a click as it caved into the wood. And then the lid slowly opened.
My eyes went wide as I looked at a short metallic rod, carved with weird shapes and like it was several pieces put together. The object's name sat on my tongue for a moment, until my mind drifted to the times I sat in the snow and watched my father spar against other tribe warriors.
It was a hilt. Not like any of the metallic swords or spears we forged from the deep caverns in our mountain, but glistening like gemstones and auras. It hummed, like it had a gravitational pull that my hand was helpless to obey.
When I finally closed that distance, felt my fingers collide with it, I expected to feel something. Something big, or an upscale exhibition of how important this hilt was.
But nothing happened.
'Well that was wholly underwhelming.'
As I weighed it in my hand and examined it, it really just looked like a piece of junk. Was this a joke?
"This is a weapon that used to be one of many. We have handed to star seekers for centuries. However, the art of forging them has been lost to time, and this is the last one we have in our possession. Found in the scrap yard. Perhaps, it was fate that it now belongs to you."
I bit my cheek, understanding what Ru-Nek was pointing to. The obvious. That I was the only one insane enough to join the star seekers after so many years of fruitless excavations and deaths. That I of all people should be fearful as well.
But I had to do it.
I looked back at the hilt, turning it. It still didn't look interesting at all, how was I supposed to use it?
"How will it aid me? What is it?"
My grandmother shook her head. "We are as lost as you are. Your mother figured it out, but only later on her journey, when contact was difficult to maintain. All we know, is that it is powerful by nature, and deadly by force. A saber of light as it is recorded."
I looked back down at it. This hunk of junk? Powerful? I wasn't going to say my thoughts out loud and risk angering them when I was already walking on thin ice, but I definitely felt like I was being set up for failure right now.
"Thank you. May the wind clean our path like driven snow." I bowed.
I heard the rustle of robes and knew they bowed back in return.
"And leave the fields kissed in dew." They finished.
We stood upright again.
I remember after that, leaving the cave and met with festivities to congratulate me- that felt more like a funeral to send me off to the after life- my father pulled me aside to ask me one last time,
"Are you sure you want to do this? I have seen many ships built, only to never come back again."
I nodded. "They've had plenty attempts to make sure mine will at least make it through thermosphere."
He grimaced, not finding my joke funny, and I quickly paled.
"Xaphine, this is serious. All that's out there is asteroids and inhabitable planets."
I pursed my lips. This mantra had been repeated to me so many times it was beginning to sound grating.
"I have made my decision. It is much too late to turn back on it now." I paused, "I love you, but being a warrior is not for me."
"So you seek to run away instead of face my disappointment." He pointed bluntly and I stepped back.
"That's not true- I'm not running away."
He sighed. "Listen, I don't want our last moments together to be spent arguing. Let's go back to the festivities, and enjoy your time here. I can see I won't succeed in convincing you."
I frowned, hurt to see him so sad. I closed the distance and wrapped him in my arms, my face against his chest. He returned the envelop, tight and strong from muscles strengthened by many years of fighting.
He was the only one that I had left besides grandmother. And now I was leaving the two of them.
I didn't want to admit that, perhaps, my love of the stars was stronger than my love for them. I felt horrible, exposing the nature of my thoughts to even myself, but it was the only fathomable reason. And he knew it too.
But there was nothing I could do to change it. Not when I could feel the groans of our planet beneath my feet- feel it's aches and pain through its tremors. It was dying. And with no other habitable place in our solar system, no solution our elders could figure out, I was our only chance at finding a new home.
But if I revealed that to them, they'd take my decision away and say I was only doing it to put their need above my own. But it was both. My need to explore the unknown, and to save what I did know.
So I boarded the ship in the morning. Repeated the steps I had been taught through the rotations. Double checked the engines, made sure they had fuel, and awaited permission from the dock master to depart.
All my friends and family waved at me from below, despite the chill and incoming storm. They waved from the icy ground, their dark hair like spiraling flurries of snow. Even though I was much too high up to see him, I could feel my father's eyes billow with tears that would freeze before they could land.
And then I was gone. Climbing tens of miles within seconds, going higher and higher. Past the heights and breaking through layers of our atmosphere. My ears popped, my ship adjusting to the pressure.
I pierced the veil of aurora and wondered if it would follow me. Would I ever see such wonderful colors like it ever again? I wasn't sure.
But as I finally broke free from my planet Hevescus, I saw something far more breathtaking. Thousands upon thousands of stars.
"Xaphine. Come in Xaphine, did you make it through?" A voice echoed through my coms. I recognized it as Ru-Nek.
"Yes." I said, breathless as I took in the beautiful field of light.
"Okay, we can maintain contact with you up until you pass the asteroid belt. That's where our transmission field usually ends."
I nodded and moved my controls forward, heading in that direction.
"Xaphine, there's something you need to know. Now that you're out there." His voice sounded serious and sent prickles up my skin.
"W-what?" I looked down as if the desk of metal represented his face.
"We lied. We've been lying for years to deter people from doing what you and your mother did."
The drum was louder in my ears.
"I-I'm sorry, what? Lied about what?"
It was quiet. I grew more frantic. "Ru-Nek, what are you saying?!"
"Our civilization is weak. So weak and barely touching the surface of how the universe works. But, thanks to the asteroid belt around our system, we have been able to maintain sanctuary from others who would have destroyed us. That was, until five hundred years ago, when someone else managed to get in."
The small cabin was beginning to feel tighter. I slowed down my speed, feeling dizzy.
"A warrior who called himself jedi crash landed on our planet. He taught us how to build and wield that weapon that you have. The saber of light. Helped cultivate our tribe, teaching us how to make technology and advanced our knowledge. But made us swear we'd never leave."
"W-why?"
"Because there are those who hate people like him. Who hate peace, and revel in war and death.
And now that we had become just the same, he knew we'd be put in danger. Of course, after a hundred years, we couldn't honor that promise. People began to leave, so we conjured up a lie. To discourage."
I gulped down a breath, trying to wrap my mind around it.
"Y-you're saying, we aren't alone? Why haven't we been done something then? Finding a planet our people can live-"
"I know- I agree, but there's an outcome you have to consider. That if there is life out there, then there is a chance that they might not want to share with us what they are already squabbling over."
I paused. He was right. If there was war out there, then just like on our planet, the galaxy was a fierce territory they'd do anything to defend from others. But we were a small community. Surely there had to be some place.
"We share this information only after they've left our planet. We didn't want them to go in blindly once they had shown no matter what they said they would leave. But your mother was an exception. Our best researcher was not so naive to fall for our lies. So we told her- and she set her mind on leaving despite this."
The stars looked so little now. I felt little. Listening to him tell me this- to know how big and cast our world really was.
"How much do we really know, about the outside?" I asked, mostly to myself.
"From the Jedi, almost everything. We have maps of systems and routes to even his home planet, coruscant. We gave all this information to your mother, but the last cords we have from her were somewhere called the mid rim, near a planet called Codia."
I tightened my lips. "Send me the cords. I can jump into hyperspace there, can't I?"
I could hear him shifting from across the coms.
"Yes, but are you sure you want to do that? We have no idea what happened to her after that. We couldn't communicate with her at all in her last moments behind tracking her ship."
I tightened my grip on the controls.
"Do it. I'll pick off where she left off- continue her search. And I want all the information you have as well."
It was quiet for a moment, and I was unsure if my voice had even transmitted. Or perhaps if he believed in my determination. But then I heard a beep and saw a pulsing blue button. I tapped it, eyes widening as a stack of numbers appeared, forming a map- a huge one. Divided by regions like circles- like a ripple in a ocean. Each section was a rim, starting from the core and ending in unknown regions.
In the mid rim, was a circled in bold, white light, and I assumed it was Codia.
"This is where it is. Trust your vuh-cor-a, Xaphine. You have your mother's, and stars know it served her well."
A soft smile came to my lips and I nodded, despite knowing he couldn't see me.
"I will. Thank you, and may the wind clear our path like driven snow,"
"And leave the fields kissed with dew." We finished together.
And with a hum, the transmission ended.
I looked onwards, putting the coordinates into my navigator, pressing buttons to prepare the ship and ready it for hyperdrive. I had never actually used it before, but I practiced it so many times it felt like second nature already.
I sat back in my chair, preparing myself mentally as I flipped the final switch. The thrusters ignited, then boom. A flood of blue, brilliant light filled my eyes. Stars streaked across my view, reminding me of the snow storms. Already I felt my gut twist with reminiscence, but I knew home was nothing compared to this.
Flying through hyperspace, energy pulsing through my finger tips as I eased the controls and sat back, waiting to arrive at my destination. My eyes flickered to the saber hilt seating beside me, ominous as ever. I wondered what awaited me to my arrival. If there would be someone there to greet me perhaps- my mother maybe?
What foolishness. As I exited, I was greeted with a large, mud colored ship instead, armed and immediately hostile.
Which leads me back to now. My eyes jolted open, fingers curled as I averted my impending doom.
They had sent small fighter ships to intercept me. Little did they know I wasn't going to go down that easy.
So I flew through the asteroid belt, avoiding collisions and hearing the satisfying crack of ships not being as lucky from behind.
Because I'm Xaphine.