And Talia smiled, fired up her dented little ship, and danced among the stars one more time.
She killed all thrust. For a terrifying second, the Skipper was silent, floating in the star’s terrible light. Then the gravity wave hit—a rolling punch that slammed her ship into the Odyssey ’s side. Metal screamed. Sparks flew. The docking clamps bit down with a sound like a wolf’s jaw snapping shut. the rookie talia
“Talia, you couldn’t dock with a docking bay if it hugged you first,” her gruff commander, Admiral Voss, had roared that morning. And Talia smiled, fired up her dented little
She leaned back in her cracked cockpit, wiping a trickle of blood from her lip where she’d bitten it. “I stopped trying to fly, sir. I just… listened.” Then the gravity wave hit—a rolling punch that
She nudged the throttle. The Skipper slid sideways, not forward. The gyros whined in protest, but Talia ignored them. She rode the shockwaves like a surfer on a tsunami, using the star’s own fury to slingshot her closer. Every instinct screamed to pull away, but she leaned into the madness.