Formation

[Railla Cyer]

Time was malleable. Or at least, the perception of time was. A chronometer would tick consistently the same way again and again, but human emotion colored in the lines between this constant. Time often passed too quickly when everything went the way you wanted it to go. It slowed down to treacle when the galaxy crumbled at your feet.

A glancing hit from a proton rocket had shattered her port-side solar wing, sending Railla Cyer's TIE fighter into a terminal tumble. That was what she knew. But it didn't cause panic. Instead, time slowed in that peculiar way which allowed for unusual clarity of awareness. She was out of control, and that very fact was beyond her control. The cool realization that she would likely die wasn't met with panic breaths or a fruitless shout in the void. Instead, Railla took internal stock of what had brought her to this moment, and what she should devote time to thinking about before the next shot destroyed her outright.

She thought about her mother and father, trying not to derail herself over wondering how many other doomed pilots fell back on thoughts of their parents. Railla wished she could spend her last moments in perfect reflection, thinking about a life full of the kind of things that caused time to race past fallible human perception. It had been like that, once. But her mother and her father had drifted apart in a galaxy-wide chasm that opened up between them.

Before she lost consciousness, the only thing Railla felt was anger. Anger at knowing there was something very important in her life that was taken away from her, and now it was too late to reconcile the loss.