Cordira...
A distant voice pleadingly called to her, begging her to return from the brink of darkness, but she resisted. Her mind was exhausted and weak; her body was no longer willing to fight, having given up after finding refuge in the relaxing and comforting void. She didn't have to suffer or struggle any longer, and she was at peace for the first time in her entire life. But the voice grew louder and more insistent still, as if she no longer had a choice to ignore it.
She finally gave in, allowing it to bring back to her every ache, every pain, every worry... Her chest was on fire, her lungs refusing to reopen after the trauma they'd just endured in the crash. She was suffocating with each passing second and becoming more and more desperate as she struggled, but the rush of relief she felt with a deep, intense breath was quickly cut short. A penetrating pain sharply drove through her side as her chest expanded, choking her and forcing her into a coughing fit that exponentially compounded her agony. She was wounded gravely along the right side of her rib cage, but she wasn't expecting that the pressure she reflexively applied with her hand would allow her to breathe easier. She didn't dare retract her hand, certain she was losing a substantial amount of blood from the injury, but she instead focused on evaluating her surroundings as her eyes continued to recover and focus once more.
She was laying on her back on the ground among broken tree branches and disrupted foliage, but it wasn't until she looked directly above her, through her cracked and broken helmet visor, that she saw the remains of her battered ship, upside-down after expelling her from its cockpit and perilously suspended by the forest's canopy just a few meters over her head. The disabled engines still attached on one side were spewing a thick, black smoke into the air as sparks fell freely from its exposed electrical wiring onto her alongside the lessening rain. She was momentarily frozen in place with fear, terrified that the branches would snap at any second and send her ship hurtling the rest of the way to the forest floor to crush her, but amazingly they held as she slowly shuffled herself out of its reach. Her entire body trembled in disbelief as she stared at the mangled wreckage; she was somehow still alive, having survived a violent explosion and a disastrous crash, events that were supposed to have claimed her...
Cordira...
Finally cognizant enough, she recognized the voice that had been resounding in her head, and it reminded her what had just happened, and why she had survived.
"Derek!"
She reached out with the Force, frantically searching the surrounding forest for him. She had watched his ship in horror as it split in half above her with a powerful explosion, but he was still alive, she could feel it. Amazingly, he wasn't far from her, but she had to get to him first. She rolled over onto her stomach with an effort, holding her breath and holding her side to bear the severe pain as she pulled herself up onto her knees. Standing demanded the rest of her remaining willpower, eliciting terrible cries from her as she struggled to endure the agony. She stood in place for several moments as she regained control of her rapid breathing, briefly unsure if she would be able to stay conscious long enough to find her friend. She was only just stable enough to stumble forward, every step shooting severe pain up the side of her chest, but she had to keep moving. Derek needed her.
Noticeable battle debris littered the forest floor in varying sizes around her, forcing her to stabilize her footing every time she moved. She heard the fighting raging on in the clearing skies overhead, but she took solace in the fact that only fighters were left. The remaining squadrons were handling the pirates' fighters, hopefully keeping them from doing any further damage, though they had lost their two best pilots as Derek and Striker had taken out the last bomber. Kirodai's medical center had been spared the direct hit of the bomber's pass as she had intended, but she had no idea if it had sustained any damage despite her best efforts.
Another starfighter explosion so close overhead made her flinch reflexively and painfully as she expected debris to strike her as it fell, but nothing came. The forest canopy above was sheltering her from further injury, she thanked the Force, but her heart threatened to stop as she rounded a large bush and stumbled upon the smoldering wreckage of Derek's ship. Laying just beside the mangled half of the cockpit and cargo hold, Derek met her gaze immediately, his head already turned to her as if he had been expecting her. He even smiled the smallest bit at seeing her, but she couldn't return it. Even from a dozen meters away, she could already sense it, and it took her breath away.
His life force was almost gone.
Forgetting her own grievous wounds instantly, she sprinted towards him as she tore her helmet off and tossed it aside, kneeling beside him as she grasped his hand he had feebly extended to her and looked over his mortally battered body. She gently tucked her hand behind his neck to lift his head out of the muck and carefully cradle it in the crook of her elbow, trembling with unbearable grief as she leaned over him. His sandy brown hair was matted to his head by blood and rain, both streaming down his face from a hooked gash above his left eye. He was hardly moving save for the shallow, weak gasps he took at lengthening intervals; his lungs had been severely damaged by a gaping wound through the center of his chest, and it was painfully clear that he had only moments left to live.
Wracked with sobs of disbelief, Cordira clutched Derek's hand against her heart, hardly able to form words as she realized she was losing her best friend. It was her fault! She hadn't been fast enough to down the last bomber before it had made its final pass, nor had she been able to find him fast enough after their crash to heal him and save him. But he seemed to be reading her mind, and though he hardly appeared to have the strength to even keep his eyes open, he somehow managed to speak, albeit weakly.
"It's okay..." he whispered, soothing her guilt. "It doesn't hurt...anymore...now that you're here."
Her eyes refused to focus through the bitter, excruciating tears that she shed, and her heart burned fiercely as she wished so desperately that their fortunes had been reversed. "This wasn't supposed to happen..." she shakily breathed, wanting nothing more than to take on his suffering and lay dying in his place. "Not to you...not like this."
"I made a choice, too," he countered, tightening his fingers around her hand as she still held his against her. "...I chose you."
She shut her eyes tightly as she cried even more intensely, feeling his feeble heartbeat slowing with each passing second. "Please," she begged with every fiber in her being, "please don't leave me... I need you."
As she met his gaze again, drawn into his perfectly emerald eyes, he smiled one last time. "I have always...been yours..."
She watched with torturous denial as he breathed his last and stilled, his eyes no longer focused on her as his face became pale and blank. His life force, his constant, comforting presence she'd felt in the Force as long as she could remember, had completely disappeared, and nothing but despair remained. Shaken and broken as she'd never been before, she only clung more tightly to him as she mourned, embracing his entire upper body as she gently rocked back and forth with him.
"I love you..."
Always...
The rain had all but stopped, as had the battle overhead, but none of it mattered to her anymore. She sat with him for an eternity, pleading with all the strength she could muster for the Force to take her instead, to take the one who deserved death, but it didn't change his state. Still trembling with intense sobs, she gently laid him back down on the ground, vainly wiping the blood off her hand before she delicately closed his eyes. The son of Paneau's High Commander, a member of the Rys'tihn Royal Family deserved so much more than what she had given him. She had nothing but regret for the life with her she had denied him, and she could do nothing to rectify it now...
"Striker!"
Although the voices were distant, Cordira gasped in surprise, unprepared to hear others searching for her. Without thinking, her self-preservation reflex kicked in and she shot to her feet - only to be nearly reduced back to the ground by the severe pain from her chest wound that had stolen her attention once more. She grabbed her side and held her breath, barely able to subdue the worst of the pain before her lingering sobs forced her to gasp again.
"Striker!" they called a second time, even closer than before, and she recognized them. "We're Rallye pilots, we're here to help you!"
She wanted nothing more than to disappear. They would blame her for letting Derek die, for not saving Dalon from the bombing raids, for not preventing this whole disaster in the first place...she had to flee.
"Striker!"
Suddenly disoriented as she struggled to walk, she stumbled a dozen times on her way back to her ship. Her vision blurred and color drained from her sight as she continued, but she pushed herself on, grabbing and donning her busted helmet defiantly. Her fire-red hair, still braided to one side, fell out below her helmet, but...her footing faltered, her hands wouldn't coordinate with her commands...
Without warning, she collapsed to the ground onto her side, incapable of breaking her fall as her body seemed to be shutting down all at once. Her arm caught awkwardly under her chest, freezing her lungs in place, and darkness sealed her in before she felt herself take in another breath.
"Striker!"
Though she had always been the Rallyes' best tracker, Pallas must have gotten her directions mixed up, Ethan mused, as they continued their trek through the Kirodai forest without success. They could even see the smoke from the ships' wreckage rising up over the trees when they found a clearing, but they had yet to locate their friend.
"We're here to help!" he repeated with a rough voice, scanning the area ahead of him with a blaster at his side. His partner was just a klick to his left, and thankfully they hadn't run into any surviving pirates yet, but he watched in her direction, too, out of habit.
After Striker had redirected his disabled fighter from a collision course with a Kirodai building, Ethan had been able to coast to a relatively manageable descent, coaxing just the right amount of power from his engines to fall from the sky very carefully. His X-wing was still in one piece, but even before the tumbling landing, it was in need of serious repair before he'd ever fly it again. He had wanted to take care of every last pirate himself to end this blasted battle, but with the last of the bombers taken out by Striker and Derek Rys'tihn, maybe they would finally leave on their own, beaten without their largest weapons.
"Ethan!" Pallas suddenly called to him urgently, a noticeable tinge of pain in her voice. "Ethan, over here!"
His blaster raised, he immediately followed the sound of her voice, sprinting through the pockets of dense foliage between them. His boots splashed loudly in the puddles he found scattered throughout the woods, but they didn't slow him at all as he brought his pistol up in preparation to fight a possible foe - -
But the sight he met instead was one that pained him to the core. Pallas was already knelt at Derek Rys'tihn's side, retracting her hand from his pale skin with an anguished expression, and he knew that their friend, Pallas' relative and one of the best pilots he'd ever known, was gone.
"He survived the explosion," she noted sadly as she stood from him, "...but not the crash."
Ethan stepped up beside her, gently putting a hand on her shoulder as she wrapped her arms tightly around her stomach. He could feel her trembling as she stood in silence, obviously withholding further grief, but he couldn't allow her to get lost in it just yet. They still had their anonymous friend to find.
"We'll send his coordinates to the Royal Guard," Ethan offered with quiet respect, squeezing her shoulder with sympathy. "They'll take him home."
Though she brushed away a few silent tears from her face, Pallas nodded after a moment, turning her attention to her commpad on her wrist to do just that. Ethan allowed her the distraction and a few more moments to compose herself, releasing a slow breath as he looked to the ground...
...but he wasn't expecting to see a trail of blood leading deeper into the forest, away from Derek's body behind them. He looked back to the wreckage, searching for any clues that Derek himself had traveled any further than where he lay after climbing out of his crashed ship, but...
"Someone else was here."
Pallas was understandably confused. "What? Who?"
"I don't know," he said as he gripped his blaster again, following the trail of diluted drops on the ground and smears on waist-high branches and leaves. Pallas kept close on his heels, her blaster drawn, as well, as they continued on through the thick trees. He was on high alert, watching all around for any sign of a wounded stranger, but the trail he had been following suddenly stopped. Determined, he scanned in all directions as Pallas did the same, and they stood side by side in silence until -
"It's him!" Ethan pointed ahead at a familiar helmet and dark blue jumpsuit he had spotted on the ground. "It's Striker!"
The two rushed forward together, eager to assist their fallen friend. The closer they got, though, the more Ethan began to realize that Striker was laying on his side, his back to them, and he...wasn't...him?
"Striker's a woman," Pallas breathed as they converged on her, having also recognized a female form from a distance. Still, Ethan reached her first, carefully kneeling beside her as he holstered his blaster.
"Striker? We're Rallyes, can you hear us? We're going to help you."
Pallas stepped over to the woman's other side to help, and just as Ethan gripped Striker's shoulders to carefully roll her onto her back, Pallas spotted something that froze her in place as her eyes widened in shock.
"Striker?"
As the woman's head and her braided fire-red hair turned with the rest of her body, Ethan felt his heart fall to his stomach.
"No... No, Cordira..."
Beneath her helmet's shattered visor, Cordira's eyes were closed, her pristine features marred by a jagged slash across her cheek. She wasn't conscious, she was hardly even breathing, but as he looked up from her to his partner, he wasn't expecting to meet Pallas' harsh glare.
"Ethan!" she seethed with betrayal, her eyes intense. In his own shock, it took him a long moment to process her reaction.
"Pallas...I had no idea, you have to believe me..."
"She used you!"
"Pallas - - I don't... I didn't know." Frantic, he dug under her flightsuit collar to find her pulse, and its weak pace worried him even more. He was still overwhelmed and utterly unsure how he felt about her deception, why she had kept it from him, but she was in a critical state, and he would deal with the rest later. "Look, she's dying. I need your help right now."
But Pallas merely stared at him.
"Pallas! Please! I need your help!"
Finally wrenched from her stupor, Pallas turned and looked back behind herself for a long moment before returning to him, releasing a shaky breath before speaking.
"...the medical center should be just beyond that clearing. Not far."
Quickly nodding his thanks, he carefully scooped Cordira up into his arms, taking care to not further aggravate her wounds. With his future wife safely secured in his hold, he looked to Pallas expectantly, following her and blindly trusting in her direction as she remained angrily silent the entire way.