What if I can't save the world?

7. Izzy - Space Opera without End.

TEN YEARS AGO

About twenty minutes, Izzy was flying zooming toward the world capital of Suntopix, Sola. The metropolitan heart of world culture, technology, money and influence. Izzy sped past over the gates of the city, holding her breath, half expecting to be sent back by border control or even dodging attempts to be shot down. Surprisingly it was smooth sailing, literally. Either Silan stealth mode is too advanced for their technology, or Sola doesn't care who enters it anymore.

Then suddenly, Izzy was intercepted by two pods. They were the indestructible policing kind, used to apprehend ships with their inescapable tractor beams. "This is Colonel Ida Carol Beam, please state your business here or leave."

Izzy bit her lip. She couldn't tell them her mission, they'd take her ship send her home and what? Do nothing? Yeah that sounds about right. She couldn't let that happen.

Izzy looked down at the abandoned city of tall glass towers and diamond domes.

"Okay. I'll leave," she said, pendant glowing, using her powers to disguise her voice. Izzy pressed a button over her head. "Ship, take us out into space," she said pulling back the controls then thrusting them forward. "At full throttle too."

Then Izzy was pinned into her chair and felt her body strain to crush under the G-force and all the air was squeezed out of her lungs. She took a deep breath and remembered her training. She activated her pendant and fought with every last cell in her body to keep her hands on the controls. Luckily for her the ordeal lasted for only than thirty seconds because soon she was looking outside of Suntopix's at the starry expanse of space.

Izzy was always happy that she lived in the Telmorchan Quadrant. Almost. No one else could boast stars and nebula and comets and moons like them. Looking at Celestial bodies like these for even a second you could almost ignore for one blissful second the huge, shadowy, moon-sized, death star in front you.

The one with a pointy triangular prism head and five triangular prism arms. It looked like some messed up starfish. The one surrounded by five ships five times the size of Izzy's and surrounded by hundreds of thousands of tiny, pilot-only pods with only one directive.

Shoot everything in sight.

Izzy gripped the chair until her knuckles were white, out of sheer terror, and because she was so paralysed with fear that she forgot to turn on the artificial gravity (and was keeping herself from floating off).

"Captain Izzy, I sense your distress, would you like me to activate the Artificial gravitation feature?" Izzy swallowed and nodded. She turned the ship around.

'What was I thinking? I've always been too impulsive. This is never going to work. I'm just a stupid girl, how was I ever thinking I could do something. Look at that planet," she told herself looking at her home. An orange and green and blue planet that seemed to stretch farther than comprehension with little moons swirling around it in its dusty, rocky rings.

'Home to twenty billion Suntopians and I'm just one. How was I supposed to protect them? I'm just a stupid, stupid, girl who let a little hope get to me.'

This time Izzy did actually slap herself. "Oww!" she said rubbing her cheek.

'You more than deserved that. Now pull yourself together soldier! You're a disgraced mess. I want your hair pulled up, your gear all set and you to focus, now, suit up!'

'Umm, didn't you hear me? I said I quit!'

Then Izzy was about to slap herself again, but she caught her own hand, inches away from her face. 'No, I'm serious. I quit. It was stupid of me to come up here and I going home.'