Hunter's Moon - Chapter 1: Sands of Time
Written by Allison 'Scaleblade' McCulloch
"Have you extracted her name?" His eyes did not move from the glass window.
"No, General. She says nothing just…" The medical droid flicked through its datapad briefly. "…laughs."
He tucked his arms behind his back, thinking, though he could not show it. Two bright golden eyes remained locked upon the subject inside its darkened glass cage. Two widened and glowing amethyst orbs glared directly back at him, burning with the typical primitive hate of a starved animal.
The General had no idea who she was… or what. She was a species he had not yet encountered, but she was obviously a Force user, perhaps even a Sith. A formidable one as well. Though there had been no precise display of her powers, she had moved and fought with the liquid grace and almost precognitive reflexes that Grievous had encountered in so many Jedi. He… acquired her while on Dantooine. In his mind, this was well worth the loss of that backwater Rim world. He had plans for her…
"General?" came the lifeless voice of the droid.
"Is the exoskeleton completed to my specifications?" He now craned his head to face the droid.
"We are clear to proceed, sir."
"Then do so…"
The droid scooted away from the towering General's side on an invisible repulsorlift column. Not moments later, bright white lights illuminated the room. It was a plain room, nothing more then a small, sterilized cube. Within it, bound upon a plain white table, was his prize. He could not make out any exact details that might point to her species: just a jet black form, almost like a living, breathing, vaguely reptilian and, the general observed in a clinical way given he no longer had such desires, shapely shadow with burning purple eyes and a long, slender tail.
From within her cage, she saw him as well. Organic eyes trapped within the hard metal shell of a droid, often hidden within the darkness of a cape. She never cared for the war waged around her – but this was a creature whose name she could not forget: General Grievous, a name not unassociated with the slaughter of Jedi. She had seen holograms of him, but as she looked at him now, he did not seem to live up to the name or the reputation. Though his body looked the part of a mass murderer, his eyes did not strike her as such….
A sudden, painful pressure struck her in the back of her neck, as a thin needle penetrated into her spinal column.
Doors opened to the left and right of the table, two droids entering from either side of her. Tall, sticklike, and walking on 6 skinny spider-like appendages, they closed in on her, additional and equally thin armatures extending, a collection of surgical gadgets studding the various limbs. From both, the only sign of their intelligence came from singular red glowing optics atop a flexible tendril, their red glow sitting in the middle of the black shadows their stalks caused as they blocked out the blinding lights from above.
They drew closer to her and she felt the pressure extend throughout her body… as if something were crushing her….
---
The cyborg awoke suddenly as the tendrils binding her squeezed tighter about her, cracking her already brittle and damaged carapace. Her vision was blurred, but she could see she was encased in gooey mucus, which seemed to already be dripping off of her as the tentacles tightened their grip and sent new waves of pain soaring through her burning body.
She could see a similar scene around her, creatures and aliens all held tight against the gooey walls. All of them were blissfully comatose, unaware that their bodies were rotting away around them. A few were no more then skeletons with a few scarce scraps of meat hanging from their bones.
She felt the entire wall shudder and grumble, as if coming alive. More tendrils slithered from crevices in the walls, wrapping themselves tightly around her appendages and pulling her from the sticky mucus that bound her to what she suddenly realized was the inside of the Sarlacc's digestive tract itself. As they tugged, she felt something constrict deep behind her mask. The tentacles responded with another, harder pull followed by the sound of several snaps.
They pulled her away from the wall and lifted her upwards. Above her, a sphincter-like opening dilated, revealing night sky above…
---
The head of Sarlacc emerged from deep within itself and opened its gaping maw. It made vaguely hacking noises as it gagged and choked before a projectile was finally sent flying from the pit and into the sands farther away from the beast's maw.
---
Hours passed and the twin suns of Tatooine found their places beating down on the endless sea of sand.
She had not moved at all since her… expulsion from the bowels of Sarlacc. She was covered in a thick crust, the remainder of the mucus coating she had gained while she was in the creature. The sands also already seemed to begin to bury her; nearly half of her had already disappeared into the desert.
---
Her eyes opened again to the bright white room. She was still upon the table, but something felt different… something felt wrong… She could not move.
"What have you done to me…?" She was surprised at how… different her voice sounded. It was her voice, but somehow, now, it was more….synthetic….mechanical.
The General's voice responded. "You have been improved." His skeletal face came into her view. "You are the subject of one of my… personal experiments…"
"What have you done to me, cyborg?" Her words gained a venomous bite.
Grievous withdrew himself from her sight. "I've heard rumors of you…how you killed your master because you felt him too weak to train you…"
She felt something detach from her neck with a long hiss of air.
Grievous continued. "…and that since then, you've been searching for someone skilled enough to truly show you what you are capable of…"
The medical table began to hum and move, gently sliding to an upright position.
"…And though you are powerful, you desired perfection… and I have done just this…"
Once in the full upright position, she found herself staring at the window he was looking into. A press of a button, and it turned completely reflective.
"…I made you perfect."
She glared at the mirror in disbelief. Before her, shackled to a white medical table, was a slender blue-hued droid baring an uncanny resemblance to the cloaked General standing next to her. It was a robotic mockery of her body before, paying several homages to her early form including thick, tendril-like 'hair' and a long, metal whip of a tail. What she saw before her was a masked monster…. it could not be her… she refused to believe it was.
"WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?" Her body seemed to activate all at once, and she began to pull violently at her shackles, screaming obscenities in several languages.
Grievous watched her with a clinical lack of interest for several moments. He had expected this kind of reaction. His experience from his own…rebirth…was almost the same – he remembered the blistering rage he had felt towards his creators… and sometimes still did. However, his experience also told him of the incredible amount of advantages this form had.
The new female cyborg soon found out it was a futile to struggle against her bonds. She was fastened there and there was no breaking free of the shackles metal grip. "This is not perfection…" She hissed at Grievous.
The General quietly watched himself in the mirror. "You are the beginning of a new type of warrior: the immortality of technology wedded with the undeniable power that is the Force. Let me teach you… and you shall be perfect."
She felt almost offended by this offer. "What could YOU possibly teach me?"
The shackles suddenly opened and she fell to the ground with a sudden lurch.
"Then we shall do this your way." The General said once she collected herself. "Defeat me and I shall let you leave. Don't, and you will allow me to teach you." A six-fingered hand slipped out from his cape and presented her with the black, curved hilt of a lightsaber.
She took the curved shaft quickly. "You best get a ship prepared for me now… this won't take long, General." She took a step backwards, igniting a blood red blade.
Grievous simply stared at her as he unfastened the cloak around his neck, hanging it on the upright table between them. From an invisible 'belt' on his hip, he snatched up two sabers from the collection of five mounted there, taking one in each hand and igniting the twin blades, both bright emerald green.
Both stared intently at each other, circling and sizing the other up, waiting for an opening: Grievous, sure footed in each step like a great metal predator; his creation, wobbly with the awkwardness of a newborn hatchling in each cautious movement she made. Both were waiting for the other to move, silently attempting to read the other's eyes and glean the split second of warning that heralded an attack.
The female finally struck out at him, delivering an upward slash…
---
The treads of the Sandcrawler came to a moaning halt some distance from the Pit of Carkoon. A ramp slowly lowered itself from the behemoth of a vehicle.
Soon, creatures began to scuttle down the ramp: Small humanoids, no bigger then a meter tall, all clothed in dirty brown cloaks shrouding their entire form, two bright eyes shining within the hood – Jawas.
The tiny scavengers spared no time, jumping right to work searching the pits for any small piece of junk or trinket they could find. Their scanners had picked up an unusual reading in this place… an exotic metal very rarely seen in the galaxy these days… so it was with great excitement that they eagerly combed the desert for whatever it was that contained this treasure
They each carried a strange device with them, personal sized scanners, no more than metal detectors they had modified and strengthened to assist them in their often daunting task of finding the smallest piece of technology in the desert sands.
An hour or so passed, the thorough Jawas being sure to check every part of the incredibly large pit's borders, though they were careful not to wander too close to the titanic maw itself.
One finally stopped and started jumping excitedly, squeaking with a high-pitched voice. "Utinni!"
The other scurried over to their excited comrade, all of them gathering around his scanner, the first one pointing frantically, and then running ahead after the signal. "Kee nala quista!" he shouted enthusiastically before his small form tripped over something.
The others followed and suddenly began frantically dusting away the object their comrade had tripped over, which soon revealed some type of alien droid encrusted with filth and sand. It was of a make they never had seen before, blue in color with a long tail and unique metal dreadlocks…and perhaps worth a great deal of money….
The air became filled with numerous cries of 'UTINNI!' as all of them struggled to unearth their find and carry it back to the massive Sandcrawler.