Protocol Omega

[Sio Anuul’ic]

Inside The Laughing Nebula

Rage. The great destroyer of most beings in the galaxy. Or so those that studied the light would have you believe. Sio did not. She was a creature of darkness and had been her whole life. It wouldn’t make sense to change now. Especially not now. Getting released from that stasis field by winter had been revealing to her. Over eight hundred years with only the force to keep her company. She had no sense of the passage of time. Only her rage, and the dark side.

Sio Anuul’ic opened her blazing red yellow eyes. The immediate sight was a miasma of possible deaths. A maelstrom of gas and debris pulled together in a purple and blue swirl. Life ending for all on board the Manticore. The Manticore was a Victory II class Star Destroyer. Not the exact same as the ones from her time, but similar. Similar was something she could easily live with though. Similar was small compared to the rest of the changes in the galaxy.

Accompanying the Manticore were two Carrack class light cruisers, and four Raider class corvettes. All ships including the Manticore had the minimum to function. Which calculated to four thousand four hundred seventy-eight beings. Over four thousand beings looking to one Chiss and her god daughter for guidance. Over four thousand beings counting on them to heal the wounds that have been done. A task Sio wasn’t as of yet sure she was going to accomplish.

There was a shuffle behind her. She felt the Captain before she heard him. He was afraid of Sio. She knew this for certain. Every time she walked passed or looked in the direction of the Captain he flinched. Or turned his head away to avoid her gaze. In the force he was a quivering ball of worry and weakness. Disgusting and vile to her. Once she may have been understanding of his discomfort. She may have even cared, but not anymore. The Captain cleared his throat. Readying himself to speak, masking his fear from bleeding into his voice. “Predor, we’re almost out of the maelstrom. We can make our final jump to Dossun once on the other side.”

Sio looked at the Captain. Contempt all over her face. She understood why he was telling her. In the chain of command she ranked at the top. All things had to go through her. At least as far as protocols were concerned. “Thank you.” She paused watching the human. “Captain.” She finished turning away from him. The wave of his relief rippling in the force. She understood why they were doing it, but she didn’t care for it. At least not right now. Sio was still out of her element. She’d only recently been let out of stasis and hadn’t fully caught up on the galactic history. A more daunting task than she imagined. Almost a thousand years of history was a lot. “I want it known,” she began addressing the bridge “that all questions and updates are to go to Rear Admiral Angelos.” She paused letting the sound of her mechanical voice fade. The mask often added a frightening undertone to her speech. The vocoder made her sound not quite alive. Which was the point, as well as a shield against potentially harmful gasses. “The Admiral is perfectly capable.” The other side of this, the side she didn’t voice aloud. Sio wanted to see exactly how the fleet had crumbled into disarray and skirmishes. She wanted to see the incompetence that had led to this.

 

[Winter Angelos]

"The patch is cracking!"

"Everybody out now!"

"We're not gonna make-"

The outer hull of the damaged compartment exploded outward in a furious rush of venting atmosphere and five more people were hurled to their deaths in the void. Rear Admiral Of The White Winter Carmilla Angelos listened to the broadcast of Chief Petty Officer Dukarthes and his team cut off with a chilling suddenness from within the safety of the Manticore's flag bridge, face pale and hands locked in a white-knuckled grip on the arms of her command chair while nausea and despair roiled through her like a toxic riptide. Around her the quiet alarms of continual damage reports flooding into the bridge were the only noises to fill the air; her flagstaff command team had fallen silent as the casualties mounted. Establishing communications with the various battle stations across her own vessel has been a surreal nightmare which had only grown as reports from shell shocked and injured officers aboard the other surviving ships had finally reached her. All around Winter men and women fought and died to contain fires, patch cracks or holes that punched through the thick hides of the warships, reroute desperately needed and little available power from lost areas to vital ones, and searched with increasingly frantic desperation to find and rescue those who were trapped in compartments that would become their tomb.

And there was nothing she could do about it.

The horrors of the Laughing Shadow Nebula replayed on an endless loop through her mind with a combination of vicious clarity and infuriating vagueness. Scenes of desperate commands for even more desperate maneuvers intermingled with vague recollections of orders which said something or another about where they were needed to hold the swiftly crumbling flanks of the task force. Fuzzy memories of the vectors on the holographic tac-display in the center of her detached bridge rubbed shoulders with crystal clear remembrances of sudden bursts of static as yet another command ship's communications died out and their IFF-tags blinked a sullen red at their last known coordinates and an ominously seldom splash of escape pod transponders flared to life nearby. Winter couldn't be certain how many hours had passed between when the Highborne winked out of existence within the heart of the fleet at the very beginning until now but she felt like it had been years. Years and the lives of over twenty thousand officers and enlisted personnel within her squadron alone, not including the untold hundreds of thousands aboard the rest of the three hundred warships that had sailed into that interstellar Hell with her.

A sudden comm request from the ship bridge, colored the crimson of an urgent message, pulled her out of her daze. As she opened it up the haggard face of Captain Daniels, the captain of her flagship and the man who ran as her alter-ego in operations of the Squadron while she was to lead from the Flag Bridge a few levels below his own, looked up at her with a look crossed between fear and anger. "I'm sorry to bother you Ma'am," he said in a tone that the woman who'd worked with him for a year and a half had learned to read as clear as day and which showed his mingled contempt and relief for the reason he had to bother her, "but the Predor has passed command to you."

Winter had to resist the ghost of an exhausted grin which tugged at her lips. Captain Daniels was a good man and had proved his mettle to her time and time again since they were paired up to lead BatCruRon 18 so long ago and he'd made no secret of his objections to having such a loose cannon as the Chiss aboard the Manticore and especially while packing a civilian rank that only outranked Winter by sheer technicality. All branches of the Obsidian Fleet's government were officially part of the military, allowing for a centralized leadership at all times. It did cause problems however when a civilian ended up with the highest authority on a naval vessel or vice versa and Captain Daniels had been an outspoken advocate for removing her since the woman first set foot aboard the ship months ago. Winter couldn't blame the man for his discomfort; many things Sio was but a comforting stable presence of an officer was not one of them...or even a sane one.

"Thank you Lan," she replied with an apologetic smile; the Chiss had gone to terrorize the ship's Bridge only because Winter had firmly made her point that the Flag Bridge was her domain and that the young woman wouldn't tolerate her odd and eccentric godmother's interference there at any time more urgent than routine travels. Her flagship's captain had accepted the verdict with stoic patience and he'd tolerated the woman who seemed to thrive off of bringing everyone discomfort. It had taken several arguments, a formal complaint from the Blood Admiralty before the outbreak of the civil war, and one incident with Winter threatening to have a cafe they'd been at bombed from orbit with both of them still inside of it to get the Chiss to settle for merely making everyone miserable instead of trying to torture them all. Captain Daniels had found himself the only babysitter willing to stand up to her despite the fear the Chiss invoked and Winter had foisted her godmother upon the poor man too much to not feel a pang of sympathy for what he must be feeling when he already had so much on his plate.

"Invite her to the Flag Bridge if you please," she continued, watching her brave captain fight to keep his shoulders from sagging in relief. "I'll be taking priority on Comms for a few minutes as well...there's something I need to do."

"Aye Ma'am."

The line cut off and Winter looked at her command staff. Most kept their eyes on their stations and the few who met her gaze held haunted looks....a look she suspected was on her's as well. The decision to hide within a stellar maelstrom to escape the slaughter had been about as dangerous as the combat itself against the enemy who'd been fleeting and vastly outnumbered them. She'd lost ten ships in there from the elements just as much as from the pursuing vessels, and the survivors had taken a monstrous pounding. The deaths of so many brave individuals wasn't lost upon her, and the weight of responsibility as the Chiss finally passed command left Winter feeling small and isolated. Though the rescue efforts were ongoing the reports put her current personnel roster at a little under four and a half thousand able bodies. It wasn't enough...not by a long shot.

As far as Winter could tell she was the last surviving member of Joint Task Force Command, the heart of the entire rebellion. Fleet Admiral Savk's strategy had left little room for error due to how many forces he'd had to commit to it and by all calculations and predictions this should have been a resounding success. Instead all that was left was the most junior commanding officer of the lowest echelons of the Blood Admiralty which had taken the rebellion's side. She wasn't any sort of Admiral of the Red or even any sort of Admiral of the Black; she was simply of the White, so named and marked as being as new as freshly fallen snow and just as little experienced in a society of tacticians. A small part of her wanted to call out to someone, to anyone, to take this crushing weight off of her shoulders and tell the girl that everything was going to be ok. Winter desperately wanted to push this nightmare off on anyone as long as it brought some semblance of order back into her life.

She couldn't though. The responsibility was hers to shoulder whether she was ready and trained for it or not and even though it was incredibly unfair Winter would just have to bear it anyway. The people of Task Force G-11 needed it if they were to have any hope of survival, let alone victory; to quote one of her favorite instructors from the Naval Academy, "sometimes you have to roll the hard six."

Winter the young and privileged daughter of the Admiralty took a deep and shaky breath before clearing her throat to grab her staff's attention. When she addressed them the next moment however, Rear Admiral Winter Angelos' voice rang through the room with a tone as hard as Mandalorian Iron and as cold as the void beyond the stars. "Priority message across all channels to all Commands and surviving elements of T.F. G-11. I'll take it from my chair." Her staff shook themselves out of their stupor and Winter inwardly winced at how long she'd allowed both them and herself to sit there like a sack of rations and give in to their melancholy. They turned their focus back to their stations with more spine than they'd shown in the hours before and with sheepish glances shared between them as they realized their lack of discipline; the Black Nexu had her head back in the game however and they'd be damned if they'd let her down. Her Comms officer signaled that recording was ready and Winter stared directly into the recorder's input with a solid gaze and threw every last ounce of command she could muster into her voice as she spoke.

"This is Rear Admiral Angelos of the VSD Manticore to any survivors of T.F. G-11. We've suffered heavy damage and have mass casualties aboard. I repeat, we have mass casualties aboard and require medical assistance. As...As sole surviving member of TFCOMD I'm authorizing Protocol Omega. All remnants of T.F. G-11 are hereby placed under my command."

Several members of her staff looked back with alarm. Protocol Omega was a worst-case-scenario command that did several things. It let others know that the entire central command had been eradicated, ordered all survivors to go deep into hiding, and ordered them to do everything within their power to safely and secretly get to several carefully hidden strongholds after having gathered as many resources and personnel as humanely possible. When Fleet Admiral Savk had introduced the policy it had merely been window dressing; now however it was the only hope Winter had of holding the surviving remnants of the Task Force together.

"We have several surviving vessels with us and we're not out of this fight yet. All capable ships are to regroup and reform with us immediately. Any ships in distress are to send word. You are to exercise extreme caution and evasive action until you've joined up. You are NOT to surrender; this war is NOT over. We'll fight until every last member of the Blood Admiralty is apprehended and properly charged for their crimes by a military tribunal. We owe at least that much to our dead.

"If you're stranded and in need of rescue don't you dare give up hope; you are ordered to survive at all costs. We WILL come for you...Angelos out."

 

[Sio Anuul’ic]

Sio watched as the Captain finished his conversation with Winter. Keeping herself calm and focused even while everything around her fell apart. It had occurred to her that the miasma of the Nebula might be catastrophic, but chances had to be taken. When survival was at hand nothing got in the way. So as she observed the bridge Sio opened herself up to the force. Saw the black still lake within her minds eye. She could feel it’s still waters calling to her. Enticing her like an addict needing a spice fix. In her mind she walked over to the lake and stepped in. She submerged herself in it. Almost instantly she felt the cold fire of the Dark Side within her. Felt it’s cruel caress surround and engulf her. Senses heightened, reflexes quickened and her ability to affect change through her will increased. When submerged in the dark side almost anything was possible.

“My lady Predor.” The captain said “The admiral has invited you to join her.” Sio’s eyes found his and saw that slight flinch again. Steeped in her power as she was she knew she appeared worse. Where all aboard already thought she was terrifying. This only added to it. That was all aboard were scared save for the black robed and masked guards that immediately moved to her side. Them and Winter herself.

The guards at her side had once been members of the fleet of Task Force G-11. However Sio had found them to be sensitive to the ebb and flow of the force. Which in turn spurned her to train them. Not in any of the finer points of the dark side, but at the very least in lightsaber combat, and practical uses of the force. Telekinesis being the biggest. When to push and pull and how best it served in battle. She also made sure to teach them the proper way to raise defenses against other force wielders. Lastly teaching them to construct a lightsaber. What good were they as guards if they didn’t serve to protect her from threats. While she had the power to deal with threats on her own, she felt most were beneath her effort. So she had the Blackguard to deal with them for her. They served a secondary purpose as well. Aside from protecting the Predor, they also acted as knights of her will. A task they both enjoyed carrying out with more than enough fervor.

The three of them exited the bridge together. When they crossed the threshold they were thrown into utter chaos. Maintenance droids were everywhere working on components and necessary systems for survival. Sentient workers were running about wildly. All of them trying to deal with fires that had started from components that had blown, or the explosions from the energy of the nebula itself. Lights flickered on and off, alarms rang incessantly. What Sio noticed though was the sense of purpose. There was fear in the side yes, but also a drive to do anything that needed. She admired that drive greatly.

She felt it before it happened. The warning bell of imminent danger. She felt the possibility of the deaths of those around her. Two in particular. Just a little ahead of her and to the left were two human females. Small and slight, but working diligently with a wall panel. Time seemed to slow down. She saw diagnostics of some system scrolling across the screen. So before their end could come. She reached out her hands. Wrapped them both in the force, and pulled. In an instant the panel exploded. The ship was rocked by something outside. Screams came over the comms in quick succession. Sio could feel it then. The failure in the engine of the ship. Her eyes widened as she saw the imminent death approaching them. She pulled out her comlink flicking it on as she did. “Winter, there’s something wrong in the engine room. I’m going to see.” She said.

Sio knew it had to be her. If she didn’t go the task force would surely die. All the goals she and her goddaughter had would be nothing. Dust in the proverbial wind. So Sio ran as fast as she could. Feeding off the force to keep her moving just as it fed on her. Fortunately it made getting to the turbolift quick work. To her great dismay however, the lift was out. “Lift twenty-three is down, can we reroute power even momentarily to get me down there?” She said into her comms. Just as she finished another voice spoke. “This is engineer Javon Do. The halls leading to the drives as well as the room containing them are flooded with gas. We sealed the doors. Orders ma’am?”

Feeling the need to hurry The Chiss ignited her lightsaber. It flared to life blazing pink fire. It’s unstable beam hummed ominously as she swung it. A loud screech ripped through the air as she sent the blade into the turbolift door and began cutting a circle out of it. There wasn’t time to activate the lift. She was going to have to jump. “Winter, forget the lift. I’m going.” She said as she tossed the circular piece of durasteel aside. All that was left was to jump. So Sio places her lightsaber back at her belt, removed her cloak and leapt into the shaft.

The different levels of the Manticore flew by. The only thing keeping Sio from going into a death fall was her subtle corrections with the force. Unfortunately though, this sort of act was precise and taxing on her body. Where she normally was able to draw on the force at a steady pace. With something like this it was like gulping at it and drowning almost at the same time. The cold fire of the dark side swirled around and through her. Teeth gritted and she winced as she almost bit into her tongue. The rusted taste of blood filled her mouth as she realized while her tongue was saved. Her cheek was not.

Sio’s senses flared as she felt the coming of the bottom level. She gathered her power and held it, waiting for that exact moment. The tell tale sign of imminent death rang in her mind. With great effort Sio cast out with the force. Her descent slowed but not as quickly as she would have liked. The impact was most likely going to hurt.

Sio slammed into the top of the turbolift cart. She felt every bone in her body shake and creek as she did. Her legs buckled and her body bent at an almost weird angle. “Ouch.” The chiss said as she got to her feet tentatively. “Now to get to the engines.” Sio pulled her lightsaber off her belt. She ignited it and used it to cut a hole in the roof of the cart. Quickly she dropped in. A quick use of the force opened the door for her. She tried to ignore the effort it took to do it though. “I may have expended too much energy getting down here.” She said to herself.

The hallway itself was like any other hallway in an Imperial vessel. Grayish black paneling with rectangular lighting in the wall and ceiling. The only thing that made it different was the obvious destruction from being inside the Nebula. “Winter, how soon after I deal with this till we can make a jump?” The Chiss wanted to know what sort of timeframe till safety was a thing. Even if in the end it didn’t matter.

Her footsteps echoed through the hallway. The click click click of her boots seeming almost ethereal in the ship. It seemed the damage had extended to the alarms as well as the walls down here. It gave the floor an almost graveyard like feel to it. Of course in a way it was a graveyard. The bodies of engineers strewn across the floor. Killed from explosions or shrapnel mostly. To those that died from shrapnel, it gave the scene even more horror. As life seeped from their bodies to spread across the floor. Eventually she came to a door. It was shut but behind it was Javon Do. She could see him through the small viewport as he sat huddled on the ground. A quick press of a button and the door opened with a hiss. “Engineer Do.” Sio said. As usual his reaction was what she had come to expect. Wide eyes and... was it awe? That was new. “Predor.” He said standing quickly. “I didn’t think you’d get here so quickly.”
“Yes well, neither did I.”
Javon motioned to the door that was still closed. “The gas, I don’t know how we’re going to get through this.”
Normally such weakness would sicken Sio. But the human had stayed and that was more than acknowledgeable. “Just get to safety Engineer Do, I’ll vent the gas.”
His eyes widened with shock as he took in her words. “But Predor it’ll...”
“I said get to safety.” Her tone was short and clipped as she cut him off. “Just trust in me, all will be fine. Unless you choose to ignore a direct order from your Predor.” The human shook his head quickly. “No ma’am.” Then left her to her work.

Sio started by closing the door she had come through and sealing it. She was about to let the gas in after all. Steeling herself and focusing on her task. She let the gas in as she opened the other door. In a time like this she would have normally used the force to get in and out quickly. Her body however, had betrayed her. Her ability to draw on the force had diminished getting here. Sio was weakened from the fall. Utilizing that much direct ability wasn’t her strong suit and never had been. There was still a task at hand though, and she would fulfill it. Her first steps into the gas filled hall caused her a small amount of discomfort. While her mask kept her from breathing the fatal cloud in, it wouldn’t last forever. So she ran into the hallway and made her way to the engine room.

Crossing that threshold was relatively simple. What was difficult was avoiding the plasma arcing off of the reactors in the room. The cylindrical reactors were in a line on either side. They were red with heat, and orange arcs of energy blasting in all directions off them. Yellow gas filled the room and threatened to ignite should the reactors heat any more than they already had. Sio worked quickly with the single computer console. Running through some quick systems as she did so. Rerouting what power she could to vent the gas, and get the reactors cooling to optimal temperatures.

Sio let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and slumped to the ground. She stared up at the ceiling of the room and listened to the reactors hum. Hopefully it wasn’t always like this. On the run and broken as they were.

 

[Winter Angelos]

Winter would have had a great deal of things to say regarding the actions of her godmother. Had she been able to, she would have protested the woman’s actions as well as argued the multitude of different options available with which to handle them. She would have spoken at great length about the risk-benefit ratios and insisted on a safer or even more assured approach being taken. Winter would have said many things.

Winter heard nothing, because the Flag Bridge had been engulfed in flames from the secondary explosions as the Manticore tumbled through space from the impact which deprived it of its engines and the woman had been bodily hauled out by her guardsman even as the inferno spread among the trapped victims of her staff.

The doors slammed shut upon the racing flames even as she struggled against the arms which prevented her from getting back inside. Her world had been reduced to the men and women trapped within the room and not even the guardsman’s shouts could reach her as Winter battered herself upon his heavy plated armor in an effort to break free; she didn’t even notice the burns on her arms or legs or the fact that her uniform smoldered in large swathes across her body. It wasn’t until the guardsman backhanded her with a gauntleted fist that she was stunned into temporary stillness.

“They’re gone My Lady,” the filtered voice of Number One said, his voice strained with the knowledge of what those deaths were going to do to his charge. Though long tradition mandated that the Blood Guard never reveal their identities to their charges whom they served for life the man had cared for Winter throughout his years to the point he viewed her almost as if she were the daughter he’d never had, and now he spoke with urgency to try and get through to her even as the haunted look in those golden eyes tore at his soul. “The fire spread too quick. The only reason you’re not dead is because of how much closer to the door the Command chair is. You can’t help them My Lady…you can’t.”

Winter sucked in a ragged gasp as she stared at the door. Scorch marks along the central edges bore testimony to what Number One had said and even then, she couldn’t believe it. No, she admitted if only to herself, that wasn’t it. She couldn’t make herself accept that her trusted comrades were gone as quickly and unceremoniously as if they’d never existed. “There……. Please, you have to do something,” she croaked with fire scorched lungs. She looked up at the featureless helmet which was such a dark shade of red it was almost black, and which hid her protector’s identity, the polished surface reflecting her own scorched and miserable face back at her...but no mercy or hope of rescue for her comrades waited in that mirror.

“I’m sorry…. they’re gone.”

Her shoulders sagged and her body went limp against the man as her world came crashing down for just a moment. He spoke again, his voice the soft and gentle tones reserved for when they were alone throughout her life and she’d been her most vulnerable. “You can’t stop yet. Too many people need you right now and you’re the only one who can get them through this. I know it’s not fair…but you must be strong right now. Can you do that for me?” Winter gave a miserable nod before dragging herself to her feet with his help, her voice trembling and hollow as she stared at the door. “I just…let’s be about it.” She didn’t convince either of them, but he’d take any cooperation he could get at this moment.

She was forced to lean on her protector as they walked. A part of that was only partially from the trauma; her legs would need tending when they were all out of danger. For the moment however she was able to lean upon the man while they made their way down to the Command Bridge, crewmen and personnel looking at them in alarm as they passed. When the doors slid open and Captain Daniels turned back to see why the Bridge had become deathly silent, he gave an alarmed shout and rushed over. “What happened?!” He looked at one of his ensigns on the Bridge. “Get a medic here. Now.”

“I’m fine,” she managed to rasp, leaning heavily upon her guardsman. “Like Hell you are,” Daniels snarled while leading them to the Captain’s chair and gently yet firmly forcing her into it. “We lost half the sensors on your level and I couldn’t be certain what happened but this? You look like someone tossed you into a reactor.”

“That’s not too far from the truth…” Winter coughed, sucking in a painful lungful of air. “My staff are all dead, Daniels. Number One dragged me out in time but…. they’re all gone.” Captain Daniel’s paused to process the statement. He looked around and bowed his head for a moment, speaking just softly enough for the three of them to hear. “I’m sorry Winter. I’ll miss them, and I have a feeling we’re all going to miss them before this situation’s over. At least that Chiss woman vented the gas in time.”

Winter’s head jerked up. “Gas? What gas?” Captain Daniel’s looked away as the Bridge doors slid open again, this time admitting a harrowed looking medic. “It’s nothing,” he said as the medic began tending to her wounds despite her protests. “We’ll be ready for jump in another five minutes, but we won’t have the fuel for the original destination.”

She nodded thoughtfully and winced when the medic began to apply salve to her burns. “Cache 17 then,” she said after a few moments of silent pondering. “It should be far enough away to get us into the clear but short enough to keep from risking anything else.” Captain Daniels nodded his agreement. “Cache 17 it is then; I’ll have the coordinates updated and pass the word to the rest of the ships.”

Winter murmured her thanks and concentrated on the holographic tac-display in front of her on the Bridge, doing her best to ignore the medic fussing with her wounds. All the while her mind raced, trying to find solutions to their growing list of problems. Cache 17 would put them uncomfortably close to the fringes of ………those others, and she didn’t like going there in such a condition but right now the Task Force didn’t have a choice. Not if they wanted to survive.

 

[Sio Anuul’ic]

Violently Sio was tossed aside as something rocked the ship. She slammed into a dead computer console that mocked her mask from her face. A small trickle of blood ran from a cut on her lip. She wiped it with her glove and stood. With a hand she reached out calling the mask to it. Rather than put it back on though, she placed it at her belt. For times like this when she wasn’t necessarily in the mood to wear it. Sio has a spot and clip just for the mask. “What was that I wonder?” She said allowed to herself. As it stood she could figure out that at the very least it was an explosion of some kind. Where and how much damage? That was a different story entirely. It occurred to the Chiss woman in that moment it might be best if she made her way back up to the bridge. At the very least to Captain Daniels to see the state of things.

As she walked she wondered to herself about the decision she just made. Why the main bridge? Wasn’t Winter in the Flag Bridge? Wanting at least a small amount of answers Sio cast her mind out. Probed the ship with the force searching for life, for Winter. The young woman had a very unique signature in the force. More often than not Sio had wondered if Winter was sensitive to the ebb and flow of the force. A subject she had been meaning to bring up with the woman, but hadn’t had the time. It was possible that now, or at the very least soon was the right time.

That tell tale flare of life that was Winter blazed in Sio’s mind. Bright and full of strength just as Winter herself was. It seemed from what Sio perceived around her goddaughter. That she had in fact moved to the main Bridge of the ship. Something more than a little curious under the circumstances. Sio was only sure of her location due to her proximity to Captain Daniels. Having the two in the same room together seemed obvious enough. So that’s where Sio headed. Padded her way through hallways till she came to a turbolift that wasn’t powered down or destroyed in some way.

While it wasn’t a slow ride up, neither was it fast. Sio could tell that only the most minimal amount of power had been left to operate the lift. A decision she greatly agreed with under the circumstances, but would suggest powering them all down completely for now. She was grateful for the use of it. Success was more important though. The doors opened and she stepped out. There were people running everywhere. Most of the fires had been put out. The injured lay against walls amongst the dead. The carnage within the ship was devastating. So poor we’re the conditions Sio had a moment where she questioned going into the Nebula. The final decision to do so had been hers after all. Though when she really replayed the events that led to this. There wasn’t another option that would have seen even half this many alive. She didn’t much care for these individuals but they were her responsibility. As such she saw them as her people as well.

As Sio stepped into the bridge she spoke. “Forgive my lateness Captain, I was otherwise distracted.”
The human only nodded as he responded. “I know ma’am, your intervention in the situation was most fortunate.” Sio could sense the small amount of respect she had gained. Something that would do for now. “That said Predor, are you alright?” He gestured to her now bruised face and the dried blood. “You’re looking more than a little worse for ware.”
“I’ll be fine captain.” Sio said as pleasantly as she could. “Thank you for your concern.” That was the moment she turned to scan the bridge itself. She was surprised to see they were already in hyperspace. Even more surprised by the fact she hadn’t noticed when the ship had jumped. “I’m glad to see we made it to hyperspace Captain, well done.”
The human stood a little more proudly after she spoke. “Thank you Predor.” He said.

Sio’s attention turned to that of her goddaughter then. One look at the woman told her something had happened. Scorching and burns on her uniform, as well as the concerned feelings she got from her guard. “Are you alright Winter?” Sio asked the girl. “What happened?”