Final Insurrection

Coordinates set. Paragons packed in. The Destiny was ready to go. Earth dissolved into foreign space. None of them knew quite what to expect but fires burning in the void was not on their lists. Space itself seemed to be on fire as ships zig zagged before them in what seemed like a long since started game of cat and mouse. Beams of light danced between them, firing indiscriminately. A handful narrowly avoided The Destiny, giving her and her crew the incentive to press into the mess before them. Chaos had certainly lived up to their name. Alodrass and Brian were working with Char, focussed on pinpointing the beginning of Chaos’ reign while the others rethought their preparations, leaving Lore on the bridge alone with Destiny.
“We’ve got something.” Char twisted Lore’s seat to face them. “But you’re not going to believe it.”
“Try me, I’ve just seen a bloke get tossed out of an airlock then get hit by another ship.” Char looked horrified for a moment.
“All of this.” She waved her arms around. “All of it, three days.”
“You’re right, I don’t believe it.”
“Whatever Chaos did, it’s worked.”
“Best find them then.” Lore turned back to the controls. “While we still can.” They said ducking the ship out of a torpedo’s path.
They had been searching through the files for a few minutes now and nothing was making sense; between them, it painted a picture of a society that collapsed in upon itself. Char picked up her next file and suddenly found herself lost on an alien world. There were aspects she recognised but they were few and far between. The picture was fuzzy but she could tell she wasn’t alone. Far from it. Before her, at the head of the crowd, a building encircled by fences of gold nearly ten metres tall. Just outside of the perimeter, a stage. Atop the stage, a young woman she recognised yet couldn’t name. Pain. She opened her eyes to find Alodrass atop her, hand raised to slap her again.
“Told you that would do it. What did you see?” She dismounted Char and helped her back to her seat.
“What the hell was that?” Char was breathing heavily. Alodrass just stared at her. “Oh yeah, see into the past.” Char scrambled through the paperwork. “There you are. This is Gra’or. Emperor of the Saal. Three days ago he held an event outside of his palace.” She took a breath. “There was this girl, I recognised her but I can’t remember where from. Either way, she’s who we need to be looking for.”
“She was at this event then?” Brian turned to his nearest computer. “On stage?”
“Yeah, why?”
“Thing about dictatorships is the leadership get really self-involved.” He tapped violently on the screen. “There we are, whole thing was recorded and broadcast across the empire.” He invited Char over before zooming in on the stage. “Anyone here you recognise?”
Sat just off to the side, the same young woman. She was in her mid to late thirties and had a single, sky blue streak running through her blonde hair. Even out of the vision state, Char couldn’t place her face.
“I’ll run it through our databases.” Brian screenshotted the rally, then scanned the mysterious woman’s face into a search box. “Any time now.” He complained to the computer. A moment later, it pinged. “Ah there we go. Sky: Human, agender, born on…”
“Rexel five.” Lore and Char finished his sentence.
“You know her?” Alodrass was still looking through the files.
“Feels like forever since we last saw them.” Char turned to Lore. “What happened to The Vengeance after Quatarr came back?”
“We returned it. Humans have a bad history about that but we definitely gave it back.” Lore gave a guilty smile.
“Oh… Oh!” Char moved Brian over and began tapping at his terminal. A news site flashed up. “Not all of it. ‘Despite crashing on Quatarrian soil, Protectorate officials claim one of the four Blaifin class shuttles was ejected prior to the crash and was thus unavailable for return.’ Lore, scan for Di’Frei Durhl. The main weapons array is full of the stuff.”
“Let’s hope it’s rare here too.” Lore began the scan. More than a few results showed up on the main screen. “Well… How full is it?”
“We can remove these.” She swiped away three of the ten signatures including Alodrass’ “And if memory serves, it doesn’t have that much.” There were still three on the board. “Can we narrow it down at all?”
There was a grating sound of metal against metal followed by a twitch from Lore as they forgot about clicking. “Sky! We’re thick!” Lore typed in a new parameter and one of the three remaining blips was circled once again. “They’re one of the only humans here.”
“We should keep this to ourselves…” Char shared her look of embarrassment with everyone on the bridge.
“Changing course.” Lore spoke for the last time before the silence of stupidity fell. To an onlooker, it would seem the bridge was inhabited by humiliated bobbleheads. Their destination loomed before them, the only planet not actively burning. Destiny scanned the surface to find an appropriate landing spot.
“Lore, I’m only getting one reading.” Her voice waivered. “It could be a trap.”
“Noted. Take us as close to it as you can.” Lore nodded reassuringly. Tay frantically ran onto the bridge and grabbed Lore by the wrist.
She pulled them down the ramp and tossed them from it before The Destiny could land. Their head burned as they hit the ashen floor. Ears ringing, they tried to stand. Finally in focus, they could see that they were on the planet that had been below them but they were alone. Almost. A few metres ahead of them, a middle aged woman tapping at an aged and cracked tablet. Lore approached cautiously. The air around them was more smoke than anything else so concealed their position. Sky set the tablet down and raised a pistol. Lore hid behind something solid but quickly realised that the gun wasn’t for them. Time stopped. Although still a touch disoriented, they ran at a speed they have only matched once. Their hand covered the barrel as time resumed and the shot was fired. A shock travelled up Lore’s prosthetic arm, sending it into spasm. Rivers of black ran down Sky’s face from her red eyes. She fell into Lore. They checked her over but she quickly regained consciousness. She too checked Lore before wrapping her arms around their neck. She was whispering something Lore couldn’t quite decipher but as the volume gradually increased, the message became clear.
“I’m sorry.” Over and over again. Lore remained silent but signalled The Destiny to land out of sight and wait. Chaos Calmed.