July 13th, 2486 - Planet Haaloja-2 - Long Distance Cruiser ‘The Sparrow’

Clerica’s eyes fluttered open. The room was dimly lit; as her eyes adjusted, she noticed a grey celling covered in pipes. A face appeared, blocking out her vision. It was a girl, roughly the same age as Clerica, with dyed blue hair hanging down over her face and bright green eyes wide with worry.

‘Hey … a—are you okay?’

‘Like you give a shit’, Clerica thought. She was too tired to vocalise her annoyance, so she simply closed her eyes and nodded. Her neck ached, and she flinched with the movement.

‘Wait, try not to move too much’, the girl said. ‘That was a nasty landing…’

Shakily, Clerica opened her mouth, and managed to choke out a few words. ‘Where … am I?’ she asked.

‘You’re on our ship, the Sparrow’, the girl replied. ‘My name is Chara.’

‘Chara … why … am I here?’

The girl named Chara’s head titled with confusion.

‘Well, I mean, I was a bit freaked out a when I found you’, Chara laughed nervously. ‘…but I couldn’t just leave you there … some of the local wildlife seems … hostile. I was surprised when I dragged you back to the ship and discovered that some of my crewmates knew you.’

‘They must … have been … mistaken’, Clerica chuckled dryly. Everyone she knew was dead.

Another face came into view. Clerica’s eyes widened in shock, and she tried to move; she was too exhausted, her muscles too stiff from the run to the escape pod on the surface of the nameless planetoid, and the crash landing that followed. It was a face she knew all too well. Large, white, rabbit-like ears, long golden hair; crimson eyes narrowed with distrust glared down at her.

‘No funny business…’ the Bungirban warned, ‘… or you’ll leave this ship with fewer teeth than you entered with.’

‘Got it’, Clerica grumbled, glaring back.

She remembered everything at once. It must have shown on her face; a compromising emotion, that caused Chara and the Bungirban to respond with expressions of concern.

‘They’re coming…!’ Clerica gasped. ‘They … they killed everyone … are we on Haaloja-2?!’

‘We are—hey, what does that mean?! Who was killed—who’s coming?!’ Chara asked.

‘We knew there were rebels … living on this planet … and the Wulver Empire knows that too … and wants to make an example of them, I heard them say it, when I … they killed my friends—my family—they’ll do the same here! They’ll kill everyone!’

She knew exactly what expression her face was making, what warm liquid stained her cheeks, pooling in the dark circles under her bloodshot eyes. She was ashamed to make herself this vulnerable, in front of strangers, potential enemies … she wasn’t even sure why she was doing it. Yet the expression on her saviour’s faces reassured her. It wasn’t panic, or fear … both the Bungirban and the Human had eyes alive with determination.

*

Pazzik said what was on everyone’s minds.

‘We have to tell Jokbaala.’

‘She’s in shock, but the details she gave me … well, she was too lucid to have misremembered it’, Angora said, his expression grim. ‘I’m pretty sure she doesn’t mean us any harm anymore either ... she seemed … desperate.’

‘If she’s right, then everyone on this planet is in danger’, Ichiro added. ‘Anti-rebel and anti-Haalojan sentiment is still at an all-time high since Vizran … If the Empire feels that there’s a rebel threat on Haaloja-2, they’ll send in troops and wipe the slate clean—there’s no sense in blowing up a perfectly good frontier planet, when they can repopulate it whenever they please.’

Abiona entered the common room from the cockpit. There was a shadow over her face, her eyes glinting seriously beneath loose strands of curly hair.

‘There’s an Imperial Flagship in orbit’, Abiona said, the tone of her voice grave. ‘We need to tell Jokbaala … to prepare his people for an invasion.’

July 14th, 2486 - Planet Haaloja-2, Yakaap Village - Elder Jokbaala’s Cottage

Jokbaala’s face fell. He leaned on the table, placing his hands under his nose.

‘You’re certain? He asked, his moustached lip twitching.

Pazzik looked him dead in the eyes, and remained silent. The other crewmembers of the Sparrow stood around. Ichiro tapped his foot obnoxiously on the ground, until Chara pinched his arm.

‘You’ve brought hell to my doorstep … our people will see it that way, at least’, Jokbaala said.

‘This isn’t our fault’, Chara said, her voice conveying aggravation. ‘You wouldn’t even have known about any of this if we hadn’t told you!’

‘That doesn’t change the situation, girl!’ Jokbaala replied. ‘It doesn’t matter who’s to blame for this—we’re farmers! We don’t have spacecraft—we fish and bake bread, we barely have rifles for hunting … and those guns are from the 30s’! Even before I arrived here, the Empire had been looking for any excuse to … remove us … my whole race has been branded ‘rebel’, and now we’ll pay for it. You may have done a good thing telling us, but we can’t do anything to change our fate!’

‘… but we can.’

They all turned to look at Abiona. She leaned against the windowsill, a smirk on her lips, and her eyes narrowed wickedly.

‘They’ll come in dropships, right?’ Abiona said. ‘They’ll scan the village from above … considering the sheer size of the place, they’ll probably need to put forty or fifty pairs of boots on the ground … so it’ll be a shock to them when they find the village empty. It’ll be even more shocking when their dropships suddenly take off without them.’

‘You’re saying we should steal their ships?’ Ichiro asked. 'Put the Haalojans on them and fly off? How would we even pull off something like that?’

‘Abiona’s got a point … there are ways we can fight that the Haalojans can’t’, Angora stated. Now it was his turn to be stared at. ‘We’ve got Mystik—and Ichiro and I have military training. We’ll coordinate the evacuation: tell the Haalojans where to hide and when to strike, with the few rifles you’ve got. If … no, when the Imperial soldiers decide to get violent, they’ll be in for a world of hurt. We can escape on the Sparrow after everyone’s off-world.’

Pazzik looked at Jokbaala, determination in his ruby eyes.

‘… I hate relying on you, Pazzik…’, Jokbaala growled. ‘… but this isn’t about us, it’s about our people. The plan makes sense—I might have thought of something similar, but without you, it won’t work. Please … Pazzik.’

‘You already have our help, you old fool’, Pazzik grunted in response.