PRIVATE LOG – PILOT CADET T’SARI VOX
DATE: Post-Battle Day 1
ACCESS: Secured Personal Entry / Bio-Key Confirmed
Didn’t sleep much. Didn’t expect to.
I guess today is the first real after day. It’s quiet, which feels wrong somehow. Like the universe forgot what it just screamed.
I flew 18 times yesterday. In and out. In and out. Most of the time on nothing but a caffeine tab.
No food. No water. Just the rush and that burn behind the eyes.
By the fourth run, I stopped trying to count the ships that exploded around me. Some didn’t explode. They just... stopped being. One moment there, blinking green like a friendly smile. Next - just absence. A vacuum blink, like space changed its mind.
I saw beings pulled inside-out. Saw one crew sliced in half, no sound, just movement, and blood that froze mid-spray. And I kept flying. Guts and grit as my Captain says.
Run seven was the one. The Bomber Vessel, codenamed Wry Comet. It failed to launch the payload. One of those compression mines Professor Wynne talked about - his “inverse-burst singularity spine” thing. Never detonated. Just... churned. Like the bomber ached. I flew through it. Not around. Through.
It was burning from the inside. Frame buckled as I hit the mid-section. Wounded in the hold. Smoke and fire and metal like screaming thunder - but I could still hear my own voice. Screaming.
Don’t ask what I screamed. I don’t know. But I know someone heard it. Someone. Because I made it through.
The medics - gods, they worked like light and mercy. The ones that could walk helped those who couldn’t. The ones who couldn’t... we left no one behind.
By the seventh mission, I felt it. Certainty. Like nothing could kill me. Like something had laid a hand over my heart and said, “You’ll finish this.” I flew with one hand on the stick and the other... I don’t know, it felt like it was holding something invisible. Warm.
I swear I heard my grandmother.
Whispering like she used to at night.
"Steady now, T’Sari. Eyes wide. Let the wind be yours."
She died three years ago. But I’d bet my wings she was in that cockpit with me.
By the fourth run, I stopped trying to count the ships that exploded around me. Some didn’t explode. They just... stopped being. One moment there, blinking green like a friendly smile. Next - just absence. A vacuum blink, like space changed its mind.
I saw beings pulled inside-out. Saw one crew sliced in half, no sound, just movement, and blood that froze mid-spray. And I kept flying. Guts and grit as my Captain says.
Run seven was the one. The Bomber Vessel, codenamed Wry Comet. It failed to launch the payload. One of those compression mines Professor Wynne talked about - his “inverse-burst singularity spine” thing. Never detonated. Just... churned. Like the bomber ached. I flew through it. Not around. Through.
It was burning from the inside. Frame buckled as I hit the mid-section. Wounded in the hold. Smoke and fire and metal like screaming thunder - but I could still hear my own voice. Screaming.
Don’t ask what I screamed. I don’t know. But I know someone heard it. Someone. Because I made it through.
The medics - gods, they worked like light and mercy. The ones that could walk helped those who couldn’t. The ones who couldn’t... we left no one behind.
By the seventh mission, I felt it. Certainty. Like nothing could kill me. Like something had laid a hand over my heart and said, “You’ll finish this.” I flew with one hand on the stick and the other... I don’t know, it felt like it was holding something invisible. Warm.
I swear I heard my grandmother.
Whispering like she used to at night.
"Steady now, T’Sari. Eyes wide. Let the wind be yours."
She died three years ago. But I’d bet my wings she was in that cockpit with me.