Thundercats Fanfiction Project (Ch 3, Episode 3)

Thundera fractures under sword and fire. As the royal convoy flees toward Jagara’s coordinates, a desperate nuclear exchange plunges the ThunderCats into darkness and silence.

Covenant of Exile

Book 1 – Exile and Vigil – Chapter 3, Episode 3

The Last Sight of Thundera

The royal flagship pressed onward, its bridge a throne hall in motion. Every seat faced forward, discipline and covenant order holding the survivors together. Cheetara sat at the pilot’s narrow station—the forward windshield of reinforced astral glass before her, letting her see the infinite void ahead. Behind her, Jaga stood at the captain’s chair, overseeing every console and monitoring the crew’s coordination. From that seat, he could direct the ship, assume control if needed, and maintain the order that held the flagship together.

To his left, Tygra bent over diagnostics, monitoring the ship’s systems, its health and power. To his right, Panthro’s console hummed with targeting data as his broad hands guided the ship’s weapons—turret guns, missiles, and laser batteries. Snarf relayed transmissions from the rear station, his tail twitching as voices filled the cabin.

The convoy followed the path Jagara had taken earlier, threading through the debris‑strewn corridor she had carved on her escape. The beacons she left behind flickered intermittently along the route, confirming she had passed through these regions of space. Jaga adjusted their course to match her trajectory, keeping the flagship aligned with the faint trail she had left behind.

Having broken through Rataro’s forces, the convoy sped at tremendous velocity, far beyond the speeds of atmospheric flight. Their engines pushed them deep into the corridors of space, accelerating far from Thundera’s orbit. At such distance, they could no longer see the planet with their own eyes. What they witnessed came only through the beacon network—relay nodes dropped by Thunderan ships, carrying encrypted transmissions along the path the convoy had carved through the void.

Snarf switched channels, projecting feeds onto the main screen: towers burning, families fleeing, explosions echoing across the planet. Civilian ships cried for help, and military vessels reported Mutant swarms.

Snarf had pulled up the feeds on instinct, horrified by what he was hearing. Jaga did not order him to remove them. Cheetara could not look away from her controls, but Panthro glanced up between targeting sweeps—no longer engaged in battle, he had moments to look. Tygra paused his work, transfixed. The children, still wearing their respirators, could see the screen from where they sat—yellow alert lights dimmed enough for the images to be unmistakable.

WilyKit’s breath hitched sharply. She gripped the armrests of her seat, eyes wide behind the respirator mask. WilyKat leaned forward as far as his harness allowed, jaw trembling, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. The images struck them with a clarity that left no room for denial—devastation unfolding in real time, impossible to look away from.

Then Thundera’s skies shook.

Nuclear fire rained across Thundera’s cities. Towers crumbled. The ground split open. Earthquakes and tsunamis tore across the land. The planet fractured, breaking apart under the weight of its wounds. Continents sheared away. Oceans vaporized. The world fell into ruin.

No one on the surface could have survived.

Mutant jeers echoed through intercepted beacon channels: “The Thunderans are finished! Their world is dust!”

Snarf screamed first, a sound of pure anguish. Jaga and Panthro followed, their cries breaking through the bridge. The children wailed as the truth reached them—their voices raw, breaking, disbelieving, the sound of grief too big for their bodies to contain. WilyKit pressed her hands to her mask, sobbing into it. WilyKat shook his head violently, whispering “No… no…” before the whisper broke into a choked cry.

Tygra’s hands froze above his console, tears streaming. Cheetara transferred the feed to one of her side screens, her breath catching as she saw her world die.

Across the convoy, ships mourned together, their voices carried along the beacon chain: “Thundera is gone! We have lost the war! All hope is lost! What good was the Eye of Thundera?”

Jaga bowed his head. He remembered the cursed blade at Thundera’s core, the vision of judgment, and his battle with Ratilla the Plunderer. Though he had thrust the sword into the planet’s heart, its power endured, pushing outward from within. The nuclear strikes finished what the sword had begun. Guilt pressed upon him, but no one saw it—everyone on the bridge was consumed by grief.

Panthro wondered about his father and brothers, telling himself they must have escaped, though fear gnawed at him. Tygra realized his wife had almost certainly not made it off the planet. Cheetara knew her parents had been planetside—her cry tore through the bridge.

The children cried harder at the sound of her grief. WilyKit reached blindly toward Cheetara, fingers trembling—an instinctive reach for the one adult who had felt safe through all of this. WilyKat bowed his head, shoulders shaking, trying to hold himself together and failing.

Then the alarms blared.

The radar systems lit with warning across every console. A Mutant vessel was closing fast—one of the small tactical ships that had broken from Rataro’s squadrons. It carried a nuclear payload, the very strike Rataro had ordered in accordance with Rittler’s command.

“It will destroy us!” Snarf cried.

Jaga’s voice cut through the panic. “Panthro—fire a nuclear missile.”

Panthro turned, aghast. “But the convoy is too close! The blast will cripple us all!”

“Better to risk ruin,” Jaga said, “than accept certain death.”

Panthro obeyed. His hands flew across the console, launching the weapon.

“All ships—brace for nuclear detonation!” Snarf shouted into the comms.

“Cheetara—move us away from the explosion!” Jaga commanded.

Instantly shifting from grief to panic, she steered hard without responding—the other Thunderan ships following her lead.

Seconds later, the Thunderan missile struck. The explosion consumed the Mutant vessel and the two smaller ships that accompanied it.

The shockwave hit the convoy.

Not with fire—but with force.

A violent, invisible wall slammed into the Thunderan ships, scattering them like leaves in a storm. Stabilizers screamed. Hulls groaned. Shields overloaded in bursts of white light. Navigation arrays desynchronized, star tracking crystals spinning out of alignment. Engines shut down as dampeners locked. Power conduits blew in showers of sparks. Life support regulators jolted off balance. Communication arrays went dark.

The beacon feeds cut instantly.

The convoy drifted—spinning, tumbling, scattering into the void.

From the outside, the Thunderan formation shattered into a cloud of wounded vessels, each one drifting on momentum alone. Some ships veered off into the darkness. Others collided, breaking apart in silent flashes. A few held together, but barely—lights flickering, hulls scarred, systems failing.

At the center of the chaos, the royal flagship reeled, its stabilizers failing, its shields collapsing, its lights dying one by one.

***

“So perished Thundera—broken by sword and fire, shattered by war and judgment. The royal convoy drifted into silence, their world behind them in ruin, their future cast into exile. Thus began the long night of the Thunderans, carried by momentum alone into the unknown.”

Continue the Saga

Click to read saga from the beginning → link to the Prologue

Click to read previous episode → link to Episode 3.2

Click to read next episode → link to Episode 4.1 (coming next week)

Disclaimer

This work is a piece of fan fiction inspired by the ThunderCats franchise. All characters, settings, and original concepts from ThunderCats are the property of their respective rights holders. I do not own the rights to ThunderCats, nor do I claim any affiliation with its owners. This story is a transformative retelling created for creative expression and audience engagement, not as a commercial product.

AI Collaboration Statement

In creating this work, I made use of Microsoft Copilot, a tool that helped inscribe my vision into narrative form. I remain the visionary and architect of this saga, shaping its mythic framework, themes, and direction. Copilot served as the writer, giving voice to my design. I then revised and refined its drafts, making further changes to ensure the saga reflects my vision in full. This stands as a creative collaboration in honor of the original ThunderCats universe.