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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3201221" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 416: EndThey say your life flashes before your eyes right before you die. They say you see everything in a sudden moment of clarity before you never see anything again. They say that all of your hopes, dreams, doubts, fears, regrets...all of the things that have made you who you are get put on display in front of you.    They never say why.    No one ever really stops to think about whether it happens or not...    ...but maybe that’s what all of this is.    My life.    No.    No, there was no idyllic vision of the events of my life leading up to the last moment. I wasn’t granted a retrospective view of it all. Instead, my eyes simply took in the massive, rocky Yuuzhan Vong starship ahead of me. They showed me the bright greens and reds of the turbolaser cannons I had trained on the ship, simply firing wildly to at least hit them with anything I could with the vain hope that some would make it through....and a few did. Rocks and shards of the ship were actually quite easy to see from the distance I was at as I shifted nearly all of the struggling Stardust’s power to her engines.    Behind me, there were the faint echoes of bangs on the door...likely much louder than I could hear them. In fact, I’m sure they were louder. And yet, for whatever reason, I barely heard them. They were...distant....almost dreamlike, as all of my focus was ahead of me. All of my attention on the moment, as Marix had taught me. And so, in front of me, everything was impossibly clear and vivid...    ...or maybe that was because the Vong ship was growing in the viewport as the Stardust continued to charge forward with all of the speed her engines could manage. It amazed me how fast such a large ship could truly go while still firing away with everything that could aim towards her forward arc...doing everything she could in her final moments.    As the Yuuzhan Vong’s ship encompassed the entirety of the viewport and the collision alarms screamed at me through the bridge, I did not close my eyes. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.    Not because I was afraid...or because I wasn’t afraid. In fact, fear had nothing to do with it.    I did see something. It was not my life...it was more important than my life. It was what I had lived for. It was everything that life meant to me. It was what I had made this decision for...what mattered. What truly mattered.        As clear as if they were there between my eyes and the bridge of the Stardust, I saw my children. I saw their smiling faces as I remembered them clearest...the image that got me through so many nights through the years. And with them, I saw Marix. She looked like she had the night we’d shared our first kiss under Alraxia’s three moons...as beautiful as ever.    I didn’t feel the impact.    I couldn’t.    I should have kissed her.</blockquote>

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