Space
Forward unto Freedom...
The stars were an ocean of scattered light, all encompassing and yet ever distant in their constant observance of that which lived through their domain and observed them in return. They were like the million eyes of an ancient god, cruelly silent as chaos raged before them, infecting everything it reached, relentless in it's purpose, devout in it's nature. The stars mocked the living with their presence, but she didn't care about that. The stars to her were not benevolent, nor were they malcontent in their nature, they were simply distant guides. Absent parents whose once kindly given wisdom occasionally afforded her the fuel to hope, the energy to move further, the will to continue. She never knew her parents. She never even knew her own name. The stars were all she had ever had, as a child lost in the ether, a soul like many who had simply slipped through the cracks of time, destined to be alone. What she had always lacked, was purpose. As a young girl, she was ripped from her orphanage and thrown into an industry of benevolence. She was made to be a slave, whose chain was the gun they placed in her hand, the gun they taught her to shoot. Then gun she killed them with. The chain she tightened around their necks. They had expected her to bow, to kill by their design, it was her defiance of that will that moulded her to become the woman she was now. She had saved a girl then, a girl they had ordered her to kill, as a final act of convergence. A girl she had sheltered, raised and cared for as long as she could. Until the Empire. Until they reached out like a cruel act of fate, and snatched her life from the stars. They had rid the galaxy of her light. Whisper was the only one who had known her. The only one who knew her name. The only one who knew how much she had wanted Whisper to abandon her life of crime, so that they might live anew, in the open, in the light. She intended to honour that desire. And in a way, she already had. Thousands of lives had now been saved, by her will, by her new design, but it was only then, when they had finally escaped that she realized something. There would never be enough. She would never be able to satisfy her new found need. She had fallen into the cold embrace, the cruel grip, of being a hero.
''Whisper, are you okay?''
The deeply contemplative mercenary looked over to the origin of the concerned voice, to find the face of the child who had started this whole crusade. Little Thea of the Underworld, the girl she had snatched from the inside of a dumpster, so that she might guide her into the end of the world, in search of a way off of it. She did not need to answer her, instead she reached out with gloved hands, covered in muck, blood and grime and placed her onto her lap, so that they might both view the stars together from the ship's main bridge. With a single finger, she poked Thea's nose, which caused her whole face to scrunch up like a tiny little monkey. And to her surprise, Whisper found herself chuckling a little at that, as the little girl did in return. Others wandered throughout the ship around them, all different walks of life that were now bidding farewell to a home they had always known to exist. It was than that she realized, the only way she could truly know their pain, was if the stars disappeared. If the Sith had snuffed them out of existence, just to demonstrate the reach of their power, and the breadth of their cruelty. She would teach them all that she had learned as a member of the industry of death. She would provide them with the will to continue, as the stars once did for. As these people now did for her.
A graveyard of ships lay before them, some still being bombarded by warships too modern to pick up such ancient ships as the one's Whisper had apprehended, on their sensors. A fleet of thirty three of quite possibly the worst smelling ships she had ever had the misfortune of being inside of, and she had been in quite a few with odours powerful enough to make even the worst homeless vagrant pass out from the fumes. She had never been more appreciative of such an unpleasant place to be. Had it not been for her discovery of them, she never would have reached Westport, Monument Plaza, the Underworld, the Commander Center, the Jedi Temple and the Senate. Had she never betrayed the band of mercenaries who helped her discover them, she would not now be slowly drifting from orbit, away from Imperial and Mandalorian patrols. With one final look through one of the ships rear windows, at a planet being repeatedly bombarded from orbit and on the ground, she said her farewells to Coruscant. She remembered what an old ally had once told her, that no matter how much glitter you sprinkle on a pile of shit, you've still got yourself a pile of shit, you've still got yourself Coruscant. She laughed out loud, inappropriately so, loud enough that a bunch of civilians and children she had saved look to her in horror, but then, she repeated it back to them and slowly but surely, they all laughed as well, before the mirth faded and they all looked somber once more. Whisper was the first to turn away and the first to accept their new path, that of hiding, of lying in wait so they might return on a brighter day, when the stars were on their side. With a few clicks and some preparations, she began to plot their path out of the system, prepped the engines and then began to make the jump to lightspeed.
''Time to go.''