A Life Without Meaning

ℙ𝕣𝕠𝕝𝕠𝕘𝕦𝕖

When your parents are high ranking officers in the Imperial weapons division, you see the galaxy through a very specific light.

A harsh one.

Bright fluorescents that make it hard to open your eyes in the morning. That make it impossible to discern night from day, not that it much matters floating in space.

Life on a starship wasn't any less unforgiving. Everything was regulated, down to each morsel of food that you put into your body. But Ellia knew nothing different. That was her life, and for all intensive purposes, that was her galaxy at the time.

And her parents, it would be generous to say that they weren't the warmest of people. That came with the territory of working for the Empire. Where some children received hugs, kisses, soft words of affection, Ellia had mere pats on the shoulder, constant lecturing, and silent gazes that instructed her not to speak.

But there were days, when the star destroyer was stationed in a planet's orbit, when she could rise from her dull, grey quarters. And, if she was early enough, could catch a glimpse of the system's sun, peaking over the edge of the planet. Illuminating the ship with its ethereal, orange glow for a fraction of a second. She would close her eyes, and pretend that she could feel the star's heat wash over her pale skin as she stood there in the window.

Then, just as quick as it would arrive, the sun would be gone. Passing out of the cruiser's range and reminding Ellia just how cold space really was.

When your parents are high ranking officers in the Imperial weapons division, you don't learn much about the galaxy they are supposedly defending. You don't get to visit many planets, moons, or star systems. Your understanding is restricted to the information you are fed on board a destroyer or in some other Imperial base. Needless to say, that information was filtered to the highest degree.

Ellia hadn't been able to realize this for herself until one day, as a bored teenager trapped on base, she had snuck into a restricted officers meeting that her parents were attending. Peering around the walls, a small smile on her face due to the shred of mischief that had yet to be squashed, she observed the many officers standing around the circular holo-table that was in the center of the room. Displayed above it, was a holographic recording of a field test of one of their most recent weapon designs.

As she continued to watch, tuning out the boring jargon that her parents were throwing out to their colleagues, the flickering hologram turned towards a tight-knit group of villagers.

And they were screaming.

They were begging for their lives. Pleadings with the troops off camera to spare them.

Their cries were promptly cut short by the loud sound of an explosion, and a blinding white light.

The hologram was shut off, the Imperial officers carrying on their conversation as if nothing had happened.

Ellia had turned and sprinted back to her quarters as fast as her legs could carry her, feeling dangerously sick to her stomach.

She was sixteen when she ran away.

After watching the weapon test footage, it was as if she could finally open her eyes fully for the first time in her life. Suddenly, everything the Imperial's said about the universe was tainted. Especially after she confronted her parents, voicing her disgust with what she had seen, and it resulted in a most heinous of shouting matches, in which they told her that in order to ensure safety for the galaxy, there were sacrifices that needed to be made.

"Sacrifices?" Ellia had spat back. "They were people! Innocent people, and you took their lives for a blasted test!" she screamed.