On the Wings of Valkyrie

Chapter CXLIX

Luna's eyes slowly opened, blinking the dark bedroom into focus. She yawned and rolled back over, burying her head into a pillow as she silently wondered if she could snatch a few more minutes of sleep before whatever required her attention made itself known to her mind. The girl was just starting to think she'd manage the feat when she realized she couldn't sense the Force. She bolted up in bed, noticing as she did so that she had bracelets on her wrists. Luna looked at random jewelry in confusion, reaching over to her bedside table to turn on a lamp—the viewport was closed, thus the room was pitch black—to get a better look at the sizable metal bracelets.

What the hell? the girl asked herself when light had flooded the room. She'd seen the bracelets before, though usually they were magnetized to one another and doubled as cuffs for prisoners—specifically Force sensitive prisoners as the metal these particular cuffs were made of would cut the wearer from the Force. They were kept in a certain section of the ship with other equipment for special prisoners.

Luna only blinked for a moment, rather confused as to how they'd gotten on her, before making use of the key that had been placed on her bedside table by an unknown entity. The cuffs fell into her lap, and the Force hit her like water from a breached dam, a tidal wave of feelings and sensations that would have overwhelmed a lesser being. Luna only took a long breath, riding out the overwhelming rush of information until the flow steadied into what she was used to sensing.

Even then, it took a few seconds before her mind was her own once more. It was only then that she could process any of the information the Force had given her.

Vader's here, Luna noted to herself in surprise, sensing the familiar dark nova a few rooms over. When did he get here? While I was asleep probably....hold on, how did I get to my bed? What was I doing last?

All the girl could remember was sitting in her office reading datapads, though she could not for the life of her remember what the documents were about or what she was doing with them. After that, memories just blurred into one incohesive form of unintelligible existence. Luna had heard about black out drinking and knew at a certain point people could be practically drunk on sleep deprivation, but could someone actually black out from it? Because if people could, then she probably just had.

Must have fallen asleep at my desk or something after it became too much. Force, I hope I was still thinking enough to write coherent and useful notes and plans.... But falling asleep in my office doesn't explain the cuffs. Did I ask for them in an attempt to prevent having the vision? But then why am I not in my pajamas?

Luna had never thought of such an hypothesis before, but by sleeping cut from the Force, perhaps she had managed to get around receiving that blasted nightmare. It hadn't woken her up, after all.

But that in turn implied that she had likely been asleep for quite awhile without what had come to be a reliable interruption of her sleep cycle. Since no one had woken her up, that probably meant everything was okay. Or at least being handled. Or if it hadn't been, it would be by now because Vader had arrived?

Probably. At the very least it didn't feel like the ship had delved into chaos since she was last awake—the Force felt relatively calm.

For the moment, Luna didn't much care as she was perfectly content to lounge in bed for a few more minutes before rising to face reality and let whoever handle whatever needed to be handled. If she was needed, someone would come get her. The girl could get questions and what-not answered later. First order of business was getting changed into a new set of clothes—perhaps with the addition of a shower—closely followed by food as the girl was starving and could not for the life of her remember the last time she ate.

~*~

Luna stepped out of the 'fresher, clothed but still pulling a towel through her hair to further dry it, to find that a droid had come by and dropped off a tray carrying what had been her standard breakfast when aboard any destroyer. The girl hadn't ordered her food beforehand, but knew the culprit by tradition.

She began to eat, picking up the note that had been laying on the tray with the rest of the food. The only information on it was a simple time and place—Helpful as ever, Vader.

The girl glanced at the chrono to discover she had an hour or so before what she could only assume was a strategy meeting or something of that sort. That gave her time to eat as well as get herself oriented when it came to what had been done, what she needed to do, and hopefully a chance to destroy any and all nonsensical notes she may have unknowingly written.

Deciding to focus on breakfast first, Luna sat down on the bed and lazily waved a hand, triggering the viewport open with the Force, intending to look out at the empty landscape of space. She fully expected to see stars, as that was all that had been surrounding the Executor for days now.

Instead she found herself staring open mouthed at the Rebel Alliance Fleet, X-Wings, Y-Wings, and TIEs painted with what could be mistaken for blue war paint buzzing between the larger capital ships like bees between flowers. And if Luna wasn't mistaken, she could see different squads running drills together—as in Rebel and 501st pilots flying side-by-side in maneuver training.

"What the Force?!?!"