Star Wars The Bad Batch: The Runaway

Chapter 1 - Crash Landing

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It all started with the engines failing. The pilot, a fifteen year old, cursed as multiple alarms were going off, telling her that other systems were also giving up. The girl scolded herself.

"Good one Callista. You managed to steal a cruddy ship!"

She almost lurched forward into the control panel when the ship suddenly came out of hyperspace. From the cockpit, she had a partial view of a green planet before her that the ship was hurtling towards.

Well at least she didn't come out of hyperspace into a meteor shower or a black hole. She might have a fighting chance of survival if she can crash land with style on the surface without blowing up.

The nose of the ship caught fire as it entered the planet's atmosphere and Callista gripped the controls like a lifeline while the ship roared as it headed straight for the ground and she heard explosions - coming from the engine no doubt.

Just hold out until I land, then you can blow up completely.

The surface grew closer and closer and Callistas' heart pounded against her ribs and she tried to remain calm. But when a chunk of metal on the nose of the ship suddenly came off, she couldn't stop herself from jumping as it hit the glass window, causing it to crack, but not shatter.

Callista then remembered that there was an escape pod and she decided she'd rather take her chances with that than staying on this ship that might come apart before it even hits the surface.

Unstrapping the seat belt, Callista grabbed her bag that carried all her belongings and hurried out of the cockpit. She made it to the escape pods at the back of the ship in less than a minute, thankfully it wasn't a very large ship she'd stolen. Yes, stolen.

If Calli had had more time and didn't have a group of thugs she'd swindled money from on her tail, she would have chosen a better space ship to make her escape.

The ship suddenly lurched as there was another explosion and Callista couldn't keep her balance and fell forwards, her head hitting the wall and it made everything fade in and out for a brief moment. Callista grabbed onto the door of the escape pod to steady herself, but didn't waste time and hit the button on the control panel nearby to open the escape pod.

Once inside, she was quick to close the door and with one push of a button next to it, the escape pod jettisoned away from the ship, and Callista watched through the window as not a second later the entire ship exploded.
She got out just in time.

Letting out a long, breathless sigh, Callista turned and gasped when she saw how close the planet's surface was. She went to the control panel and prepared for a bumpy landing.

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A few hours later...

Callista didn't know she'd lost consciousness until she awoke with a start. At first she didn't know what happened, until taking a glance around and saw that she was still inside the escape pod. It all came back to her.

The last thing Callista remembered was the escape pod making harsh contact with the planet's surface and she had been thrown around as it flipped and rolled for an unknown amount of time. Callista must have passed out during this, which in retrospect was probably a good thing.

Groaning as pain radiated from all over her body, Callista moved each of her limbs one by one to see if anything was broken. Thankfully, there wasn't, but just by doing this made the pain intensify and she knew that there were most likely bruises all over her body. But she can deal with that.

Deciding that laying on the cold metal floor was severely uncomfortable, Callista grabbed onto the sides of the single chair inside the escape pod that acted as the pilot seat and used it to help her stand up. Her arms protested as she used all her strength to pull herself off the ground, but she pushed through it. The pod rocked as Callista moved, making her pause and wonder why it did so. Wasn't the pod on solid ground?

It almost felt like it was floating...

Callista's head snapped in the direction of the viewport and it was then that she noticed there was only a partial view of the outside world on the upper half, and she saw large trees and not much else, while the lower was submerged in murky water. And with her moving around, the escape pod was slowly sinking further down.

Callista sighed, knowing that getting out was going to be difficult. The second the door opened, water would come rushing in. But it was either stay in the pod until the oxygen ran out or try and swim to the surface, even though Callista had never swam before, but there was a greater possibility of her living despite that.

Making the decision, Callista picked up her bag and slung it over her head so the strap was lying diagonally across her chest with no chance of it getting lost. She walked over to the door and her hand hovered over the button that would open the it.

After sucking in a big breath of air, the button was pushed. Callista stumbled backwards as water started rushing in and slammed backwards onto the chair that she quickly grabbed onto. Already the escape pod was halfway full and Callista kept a tight grip on the seat as the water climbed higher and higher, and she drew in another deep breath before her head was submerged.

The water was freezing and Callista's body shivered. But she focused instead on getting out. Callista used the chair as a launch pad to push herself forward with her feet and legs and she glided through the water across the escape pod and out the door. Callista wasted no time in kicking her legs to propel her to the surface.

About five seconds later her head broke through the surface and Callista gasped in the fresh crisp air with relief.

Thankfully she was only about thirty feet from the shore of what she quickly realized was a large pond.

After getting to the shore, Callista checked herself for injuries. While nothing was broken, she did acquire a couple nasty cuts that she must have gotten from the crash with all the tossing around that happened. There were a lot of sharp corners in the escape pod. One was a sizable gash about six inches long on her left forearm and the other was on her shin and roughly ten inches. The one on her leg didn't look too deep, but the other cut was deep and was still bleeding. Callista didn't have a medical kit to treat them. Talk about being prepared, right?

She thought about rinsing them with water from the pond, but it might not be clean as the water was stagnant, extremely murky and gave off an unpleasant smell that no doubt Callista now wore due to swimming in it.

Callista sighed and decided that wrapping the wounds would be the best she can do now. She took off her jacket and proceeded to rip the long sleeves from her grey shirt, then used a knife to cut them into strips.

Callista rolled up her pant leg and used most of the fabric strips to cover that one. It was harder to wrap her arm, but Callista succeeded, though blood was already starting to seep through the fabric. Callista knew she'd have to find a nearby town, if there even was one. With everything that's happened so far, Callista wouldn't be surprised if she crash landed on one that didn't have any intelligent life. But she held onto the small hope that there might be some sort of settlement somewhere, and with that she got to her feet and started her long quest of finding civilization.

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I'm so excited to be posting a Bad Batch story! I'm in love with the show!
I hope everyone liked the chapter!
~B.C.