The Fall of Sera III [CONTENT]
Posted on Mon Oct 6th, 2025 @ 11:26am by Lieutenant JG Nayisa Wrea
Mission:
Aeon's End
Location: Sera III Colony
Timeline: 5 Years Ago, when the invasion began
2127 words - 4.3 OF Standard Post Measure
The sound of racing footsteps and heavy breathing filled the air as two figures ran through the warehouse sector of the Sera III colony. She was close, only paces behind him. It was dusk, the warehouse workers gone for the night. This chase had gone on almost three years, long enough that the name Nayisa started to feel foreign. For three years now, she had been living under the name Kari Vasa so she could track down Darius after he escaped. Three years without Starfleet resources to back her up.
They rounded a corner. Darius drew his pocketknife and swung at her, using the blind corner to his advantage. Nayisa leaned back enough to only get grazed by the blade across her cheek, then caught the arm. She twisted his arm to apply pressure until he dropped the knife, and she kicked it away. With a quick turn, she sank down and threw him over her hip, slamming him into the ground. It was satisfying to hear him gasp from the shock of hitting the ground, but she wasn’t allowing him a chance to recover. Moving efficiently, she pulled the cuffs from her jacket and slapped one around the wrist she had control over. There was a brief struggle, but she eventually caught his other hand and secured it in the cuffs.
By now, Nayisa was sitting on top of Darius, who was face down in the dirt, a hand pressed firmly into his back. Breathing heavily, she sat up and smirked. “You’re done, Darius.”
Darius, also panting from the exertion, wiggled to try and get her off of him and test the restraints. He recognised her voice and paused his struggling. This whole time, she was chasing him?? “All this time… it was you…” he snarled.
This was huge. Her mission was complete. What she’d give for a long sonic shower. “Surprise,” she quipped, shifting so she could pull him to his feet. “This time, you’re staying locked up.”
Then, an explosion.
Nayisa ducked a little and looked around, seeing the fireball that rose from the ground. Looking up, her eyes went wide as she saw dozens --no, hundreds-- of lights rain down across the colony. Five of them were headed toward her and Darius, and she shoved him toward cover. The subsequent barrage of booms were deafening, heat burning them from all sides. A warehouse exploded. Debris rained down on them as they fell to the ground.
"Damnit, let me go if you want me alive!" Darius growled, his cheek pressed into the dirt.
Nayisa kept him close, her grip on his restraints tight. "Yeah, and let you escape again? Fat chance," she hissed in return. She pulled him up and started to move, but stopped when she heard what could only be described as rapid clicking. Footsteps?
A loud bang made Nayisa jump, and she looked to the side to see… something running towards her. It was fast, and before she could react its giant mandibles reached out, catching Darius by the neck. His shock was brief before the mandibles clamped shut like a trap, ripping through his flesh and splattering blood everywhere. A gurgle escaped him as blood filled his throat. His body sagged in Nayisa’s grip. His head rolled off the mandibles and hit the ground with a dull thud, leaving a trail of blood as it rolled.
Nayisa prided herself on having a tough stomach, but that almost made her hurl.
Quickly, she let go of Darius’ bleeding corpse and staggered back to make space, her eyes wide. Her face was speckled with his blood, her heart was racing. This was a new and dangerous threat, and something told her that Darius happened to be collateral. She reached into her pocket to grab her phaser, which drew the attention of this insect-like creature. By the time she had the weapon aimed, it was charging for her. The heavy stun shots didn’t seem to do anything, and Nayisa ducked to avoid the mandibles. Appendages swiped at her, some of the blows tearing her clothes and making her wince. She caught one of the appendages before it hit her, then felt herself go airborne as the creature flicked its appendage to break her grip.
She landed hard on the ground, the impact knocking the wind out of her. The creature spared no time catching up to her. One of its appendages stepped on her left arm as it closed in, making Nayisa scream as it pierced through the fabric and muscle. The thing above her let out an ungodly sound that made her uneasy, then the clicking of its mandibles made her eyes go wide. It was going for a kill. Grimacing through the pain, she used her free hand and shoved the phaser as far into its body as she could get it. Three, four, five consecutive shots later, the creature screeched in what sounded like agony before it collapsed on top of her.
The weight of the creature and the burning pain of her injuries made her aware of how vulnerable she was. The mandibles were laying uncomfortably close to her head, her arm was still pinned, and it was difficult to breathe. Leaving her phaser on the ground, she used her free hand to push the creature off of her, grunting with the effort. Once most of her body was out from under the alien corpse, she manoeuvred to get better leverage around her pinned arm. Taking a deep breath in preparation, she used her free hand to grab and pull the sharp end out of her arm. The pain was searing, and she swore the appendage brushed against bone because the rippling sensation she felt was not natural. She cried out, and once she was free she fell backwards, clutching the now open wound but taking a few seconds just to breathe.
Again, that clicking sound.
“Shit…” she muttered, forcing herself to get to her feet. Her hand had quickly become slick with blood, since nothing was actually plugging the wound. Cradling her arm close to her chest, Nayisa grabbed her phaser and quickly found cover. She wasn’t going to last long while she was actively bleeding, but the arm felt weak. Trying to move it was painful, and she could barely get her fingers to respond. She forced her breathing to change when she saw more of those creatures skitter in. A couple looked at the alien corpse, then looked around. It was terrifying to not know who or what she was facing. She didn’t even know if these things could smell her out.
Time seemed to stand still, but eventually these creatures scampered off, letting Nayisa breathe. In the distance, she could hear alarms and screaming. Deciding that she was safe enough, she got to work taking off her jacket. Forcing a damaged arm to move nearly made her scream again, but she was able to get the jacket off and in front of her. Grabbing an end with her teeth, she pulled the fabric taught before yanking with her free hand. The fabric ripped, and she continued until she had a few strips. To try and control the bleeding, she stuffed one strip into the wound, biting down on the remnants of the jacket to muffle the pained cry, then she used the remaining two strips to wrap around her arm as best as she could, using her teeth to tie the pieces off. Tears had welled in her eyes by now, and she took a moment to breathe through the pain and wipe her face somewhat clean before she used what was left of her jacket to create a makeshift sling. She couldn't make the injury worse if it was immobilised.
Once the sleeves of the jacket were tied and her injured arm was in place, Nayisa grabbed her phaser. The onslaught of airstrikes hadn’t let up, if anything it sounded like it had become more intense. The Dominion War paled in comparison to this, and someone needed to know. She needed to get off this planet. Grimacing through the pain, she forced herself up from her hiding spot, staggering into some damaged crates. The pressure of the makeshift bandage did nothing to ease the pain. She looked around, the warehouse district looking more like a collection of fire and debris. The air reeked of multiple things burning, and the accumulating smoke thickened the air.
Sucking in a breath, she pushed off the crates and stumbled back to her ship, hoping that it wasn’t destroyed in this assault. Keeping close to potential cover, she remained alert for more explosions or those ground invaders. There were faint screams in the distance, and even if she weren’t undercover, she couldn’t help them alone. Colonies typically had their own evacuation procedures, it was a matter of how well procedure could hold up to something so unprecedented.
Another explosion went off nearby, the force pushing her down. Debris rained down on her, some leaving cuts and burns on her skin. Keep moving! she thought to herself with gritted teeth, scrambling to her feet. A few turns later, she saw her civilian ship and sighed in relief. It was smoke-scorched, but intact.
Nayisa ran up to the door and entered in her code, then coughed from the smoke as she entered. Collapsing into the pilot’s chair, she got the ship powered up and ready to depart with a trembling hand. She could feel the stickiness of the bandage and knew it wouldn’t hold, but she’d get this information to someone, even if it killed her to do so.
“Wait!”
A voice behind her made her look over her shoulder to see a group of colonists running toward her, a couple of adults, some kids, and a mother carrying her child. Oh, this complicated things. She didn’t have the resources to sustain seven more people on her ship, but she couldn’t just leave them. An attack of this level had to be reported to Starfleet, and in her condition it probably didn’t hurt to route to a starbase anyways. “Get in!” she decided, delaying the takeoff.
The group stumbled in, a mix of coughs and heavy breathing, and once they were all in Nayisa shut the hatch and took off. “Hold onto something!” she warned. With about a hundred more airstrikes impending, she had to dodge to avoid being hit. Gritting her teeth, she manoeuvred to evade the strikes, hearing collective gasps from the terrified colonists behind her. With only one hand available, each course correction felt like it required double the focus. About a minute later, she got through the planet’s atmosphere, and it was her turn to gasp. “My god…”
There were five massive ships around the planet, each one easily making a starbase look small. Thousands of smaller vessels were buzzing around them. A handful of those scouts turned their sights on the evacuating ships.
Thinking fast, Nayisa slammed the button to open a channel. “Federation evac vessels! This is Lieutenant Nayisa Wrea, I’m piloting the civilian vessel directly ahead of you.” With her mission technically completed, there was no need for the alias anymore. “You have multiple hostiles approaching your vessel! You need to break orbit now!” While keeping them on her radar, Nayisa evaded incoming collision attempts from the scout ships as best as she could with one hand, knowing the poor civilians with her were being tossed around. The ship got grazed a couple times, each hit tanking shield integrity by an incredible amount, but she nested the Moran into the atmosphere of a gas giant in the system, which seemed to deter the scouts, at least momentarily.
On her readouts, she watched as each evac vessel was pummeled and destroyed. One, two… three. At the same time, the massive warships fired at the planet, and she audibly gasped as the surface of Sera III began to glow red. Then, the planet exploded, the pieces radiating outward in all directions.
“What is it?” One of the civilians asked.
It took a couple seconds for Nayisa to even respond. “They… they just destroyed Sera III…” she quietly reported. The air in the ship gained a brutal chill as the civilians realised they just became refugees. The two kids, far too young to experience such a thing, began to cry. Swallowing her shock, Nayisa looked at the console for a second before laying in a course for the nearest starbase and jumping to warp.
This was bad.
