First off, I hope everyone likes the new cover – I put a good bit of work into it, and I know you haven't seen Kyra/Lexi/Nax and all the others since their V2 designs oh, I don't know, two years ago? They've all vastly improved in quality since then, and by this point are at their V6 or V7 iterations.
Anyways, I popped Star Wars Bounty Hunter, that old tie in game for Episode II from 2002, into PCSX2. It's… okay? It's not exactly groundbreaking, pretty much a bog standard late 90s/early 2000s 3D action platformer, but Jango is pretty entertaining to watch in the cutscenes.
Visions came out too. The Duel really reminded me of, well, The Duel, from Halo Legends, except the main character survives this time. The band one was also really sick – never imagined Boba Fett or Jabba jamming out, and if I could go back in time, I'd change Lexi playing Samurai to have her playing Star Waver. Trigger's were both great, Village Bride was meh, and Production IG's was pretty good. T0-B1 was literally just Astro Boy and was obviously aimed at a younger audience, so meh. The Elder was cool, Lop and Ocho was really good, and Akakiri was a surprising twist considering everything that had come before. Also, katana lightsabers and the sheaths that go with them (saya?) look fucking sweet, but I've had plans for Kyra's lightsaber for two years now and I'm not changing them now just because I'm an unrepentant weeb.
One small observation I made back when season 2 of Mando was airing but didn't fully realize until Visions came out was that Asian inspired architecture seems to be a lot more common in Star Wars than one would think. While in Visions it's obviously because the creators are Japanese and drawing villages and cities as they would know, in Mando, Calodan (the town where Dinn gets the beskar spear) looks very much like a rural Japanese village back during the Taisho period, just with more thematic building materials appropriate to the setting, while Visions generally stuck to standard wooden/paper walls and doors, with tatami mats for flooring. Either way, I'll keep that in mind going forward.
Also, holy shit, KOTOR remake. Little bit concerned about one of the writers being seemingly off her fucking shits, though.
Read and review.
Kyra splattered some vitor onto her hand and massaged the liquid into her aching legs, hissing in relief as it worked to soothe her overstressed muscles, and then she applied it to her arms, all the while trying to keep her goal in mind, while avoiding the hurt that came with it. Arfive, who had reluctantly allowed her to use him as a table, twittered a question at her, pertaining largely to Nax, but there was also a degree of concern for Kyra within the question. "No, Arfive, I'm..." she started, feeling a brief temptation to lie to herself, only for the crushing reality of it all to weigh down on her. "...No, that's a lie." she admitted, hanging her head slightly, and she looked down to the droid. "...I keep pushing myself to be able to have a hope of saving Nax, but I find myself worrying so much about him that it's hard to focus, you know?" she continued, while Katy wheeled herself in, taking a spot next to Arfive.
Arfive chattered and chirped momentarily, before promptly bathing Kyra in the blue light of a hologram. It was a recording from one of the bedrooms in Nax's old home on Tatooine, and was of a scene Kyra immediately recognized – her resting her head on Nax's arm after he came back from being kidnapped by Lostur's men. Retrospectively, doing such a thing probably didn't help the healing process much, but it made Kyra think for a second about her love for Nax, and how her feelings had changed in what was, comparatively, a very short time.
There was that word again – love. It was a little strange, being so infatuated with someone like she was with Nax. Normally, those kinds of feelings only occurred between those who've been friends since childhood, and Kyra was sure she had never felt so strongly about anyone before Lostur came into the picture.
Kyra's eyes briefly widened, considering something. She had grown greatly in her usage of the Force, meaning that there may be a way to recover her lost memories. Katy gave off an inquisitive tweet as Kyra shut her eyes, blocking out any sort of disturbance and focusing solely on herself with the Force. Attempting to call forth a memory, it slowly started to materialize in her mind, and, in an attempt to reach further into the memory, Kyra doubled her efforts.
Only for the memory to fade away, leaving Kyra with just the vaguest inkling of what it was – the only thing she gleaned was that she was standing somewhere with one other person, one that she couldn't identify, but she knew she wanted nothing to do with him, she just didn't know why.
Kyra sighed, disappointed that her past had evaded her grasp once again, and once she tuned back in, realized that Arfive and Katy had engaged in a rather lively conversation. Sawei then entered the crew lounge, carrying a dufflebag full of things. Katy and Arfive noted her presence, and quickly vacated.
"Feeling better?" Sawei asked, setting the duffle on the floor, a distinctive clink coming from the bag. Kyra winced only a little, and Sawei took that as a yes. "As impressive as your progress is in the physical sense," she said, gesturing to Kyra's muscles, which had actually grown quite a bit from her intense training, to the point that she was beginning to show abs. "...You still need to hone your skills with the Force, and to that end, it's time for you to learn how to construct and maintain a lightsaber." she finished, opening the bag to reveal the training sabers they had been using, which, unsurprisingly, were actually in quite poor shape.
"You want me to make my own lightsaber? Didn't you say that wasn't really something we could do with the Order being destroyed?" Kyra questioned, hissing as there was a sharp pain in her shoulder.
"The Odynaro changes things, Kyra. Lightsabers, mechanically speaking, aren't too terribly complex to manufacture, and we could probably do as much with its facilities." she explained, pulling out one of the sabers and rapidly disassembling it with the Force, so that all of its components were laid bare. "This is a gross oversimplification, but simply put, you take a high capacity energy cell with a laser emitter, set it up so that it fires the laser through a series of focusing lenses, then make sure that goes through a kyber crystal, and that's what creates the actual blade." she went on, pulling the parts out as she named them so that Kyra could easily associate them. "Of course, there's certain intricacies to the actual construction of a lightsaber, but that's, broadly speaking, how it works."
Sawei proceeded to demonstrate with a handful of other sabers, showing the differences in construction from saber to saber, before eventually clearing the table, setting a lightsaber down, disassembling it, then letting Kyra try to reconstruct it.
Focusing on the lightsaber, Kyra was almost overwhelmed with the workload. Her first few attempts at assembling parts weren't exactly graceful, accidentally jamming things together with such force that, on more than a few occasions, Kyra was sure the lightsaber would break. Slowly, however, she got the hang of construction, with the lightsaber gradually returning to its original form as Kyra put it back together, piece by piece.
When she was done, the lightsaber laid on the table without a loose part in sight. All that was left was to check and see if it worked. Grabbing the weapon, Kyra flicked the switch, and nothing happened. Sawei, however, had a knowing smile on her face. "You didn't set the crystal in right." she pointed out, disassembling part of the weapon to show the problem. "Don't worry, it's a common beginner's mistake." she reassured, pointing to the crystal, which was ever so slightly offset to the right, and Sawei reset the crystal, reassembled it, and with a snap-hiss, confirmed the weapon was in working order, as it bathed the room in a white-blue light.
Then, she pulled out another saber and had Kyra practice on it, going through the bag with every completed saber for the remainder of the day.
"My apologies, Klorr, but you want me to do what?" Foreman questioned, his yellow receptor rapidly bouncing back and forth. "The Odynaro is built for mass production, in case you hadn't noticed. Something as small as a single lightsaber is simply not worth devoting resources from the production lines for." Foreman firmly stated to the Jedi, his receptor gaining a hint of orange.
Sawei crossed her arms "You mean to say the Odynaro never had smaller scale manufacturing for replacement parts?" she questioned, hoping for once that the CIS didn't decide to skimp on the budget.
"It did." Foreman bluntly responded. "However, approximately three cycles after our battle, the Odynaro suffered an impact on the ventral part of the command core, which is where the microfacturing workshops are located." he explained, creating a hologram of the Odynaro with the appropriate displays for the damage, which was actually rather extensive internally. "Normally, I would have repaired the damage, but given the precarious situation the Odynaro was in at the time, as well as the… contaminants that resulted from the impact, I decided to write them off as a lost cause." he stated, putting an unusual emphasis on the word 'contaminant'.
Sawei raised an eyebrow. "What sort of contaminants are we talking about, Foreman?"
There was a brief series of whirs and clicks as Foreman accessed his databanks. "...Rakghouls, evidently." he dryly stated, ignoring the very extreme threat he had casually ignored. "I quarantined them just as soon as they arrived – they've been locked in the microfacturing workshops for years now after I had the breach sealed."
Sawei had to immediately restrain herself from both verbally and physically hammering Foreman for not telling anyone of this sooner. "You're coming with me to the bridge. Now." she ordered, immediately grabbing him with the Force, and hauling him up to the bridge where Blackwall was. Practically manhandling him the whole way there, and even into the turbolift, Sawei would have kicked the doors open if they were any slower. "Commander!" she shouted at the top of her lungs, and Blackwall looked up from the command table, confused as to what had her panicked. "We've got a huge problem on our hands!" she shouted again, letting Foreman hit the floor with an unceremonious thud.
"Why, what's got you so riled up, Klorr?" Blackwall questioned, seemingly paying little heed to Foreman being treated like a toy. "And why are you throwing Foreman around?"
Sawei was about to explode. "Because a certain tactical droid didn't think it prudent to tell us about a fragging rakghoul infestation aboard his ship!" she shouted, drawing the attention of everyone on the bridge at that moment. Any chance of secrecy had just been thrown out the window.
Blackwall gave Foreman a blank look. "...Is this true?"
Foreman's receptor turned blue. "Yes, but I've kept them under strict quarantine and watch-" he started.
"I want them purged. Now." Blackwall hissed. If it weren't for the fact that Foreman were so critical to this war effort, he would have scrapped him on the spot. Rakghouls, despite basically being extinct in the greater galaxy, were still considered a sore spot for those on Outer Rim worlds that had been afflicted by them in the past, particularly Tarisians, and militaries still trained for outbreaks – even the Grand Army of the Republic. Blackwall looked to the nearest officer, who was clearly scared out of his mind at the prospect of a Rakghoul outbreak. "Set up a perimeter around the Odynaro and assemble an assault team of B1As loaded with scatterguns and flame projectors, and I want Strag's B2 leading it." Blackwall ordered with a particular fury. "Go!" he shouted, and the officer legged it to make the appropriate calls.
As soon as Knockout entered the airlock, seven sets of photoreceptors were upon him – all B1As. Three were loaded up with flame projectors, with a rail attached to their hips that carried additional tanks, while the rest were carrying semi-automatic scatterguns with the barrels chopped, loaded up with ammo. "The assault leader is a B2?" one of the droids immediately questioned, sounding particularly agitated as he fingered the trigger guard on his shotgun
Knockout simply turned to look at the droid, towering over him – the B1As may have been taller than their predecessors, but they were still puny compared to Knockout. "Will that be a problem, unit?" he questioned, modulating his voice to sound significantly more intimidating.
"Affirmative, your line is tactically inflexible-"
"The only thing I share in common with 'my line' is this shell, unit." Knockout barked, spooking the B1A. "I am capable of processing orders and battle flow at a faster rate than even your command models, and I am armed with enough weaponry that my presence is enough to carry a capital offense in thirty star systems. Do as you're told, or you'll be back on the line when we're done here." he commanded, before turning to the door that led to the workshops, which was blocked off by a durasteel security door several inches thick. Reaching for the access panel, Knockout attached his scomp link and transferred the override codes, and the door returned to its original position.
The B1As readied their weapons as the door lock rotated clockwise, and the two halves of the door split apart. To say the sight was disgusting would be an understatement – some sort of rotting mass of flesh had accumulated all over the area, and Knockout was unlucky enough to have an olfactory sensor installed, one which he quickly disabled. "By the Maker, what is this gunk?" one droid questioned as they entered the corridor, stepping in a pile of the stuff. It actually seemed to react to the droid's touch, reeling back as if it was alive. Regardless, Knockout re-sealed the doors and locked them in.
Running a quick scan on the mass, Knockout found that the results weren't nearly as interesting as its appearance would suggest. "It's refuse, mostly, but there's flesh, too." he simply commented, and the droid hopped out of the mass, disgusted. Knockout then activated his commlink to Foreman. "We're inside the quarantined area, There's this mass of flesh growing all over the floor and walls, one of the droids touched it and it moved. Advise."
There was a series of clicks from the other end of the comm. "Acknowledged." Foreman replied, not concerned that he didn't mention this beforehand. "Continue mission as planned and proceed to the central workshop for further orders." he ordered, killing his end of the line.
Knockout cautiously eyed the mass as it slowly squirmed its way around, and, deciding that it wasn't an immediate threat, signaled for the team to activate their internal motion trackers and proceed to the central workshops.
For a good long while, the only sounds they could pick up were their own footsteps, the timed blip of their trackers pulsing, and the occasional groan from the ship's superstructure. Otherwise, it was completely dead, and whenever there was a sudden loud noise, like a pipe falling from its mounting and hitting the floor, the B1As would jump and point their weapons in the direction of wherever the noise came from.
It may have been the vast difference in capability between himself and the B1As, but the others seemed to exhibit a significant amount of fear – even more than the original B1s did during the Clone Wars, but at least they kept the nonsensical chattering to a minimum. "So, uh..." the droid to Knockout's left started.
"It's Knockout."
"Right." the droid said, holding his scattergun to his side. "What kind of B2 are you? You don't look like the standard models, and considering what you said to Oilstreak earlier, it leaves a droid to wonder."
There was a blip on Knockout's tracker, and he readied his Tri-Shot. "I rolled off the production line at Metalorn as a C-B3 – a cortosis droid meant to kill Jedi. When the war ended and the shutdown signal went out, I was being redeployed to Mygeeto with a platoon of Avatar-7s, and we ended up in Imperial custody. My understanding of what happened after that is that I rusted away in a storehouse on Corellia for a couple years, before a Coruscant gang broke in and stole me to sell on the black market. There, I ended up with the man who transformed me into what I am today, Baal Sti. He gave me a new droid brain, one from an IG-series, and put enough weapons on me that I'm effectively a walking artillery piece."
The blip on the tracker shuffled around for a bit, before eventually running full speed down the corridor towards the team, sending their trackers into mad frenzies as the source grew closer and closer. When it was within about fifty meters, Knockout could hear the fleshly clamoring of the Rakghoul going full speed at them. Within twenty five, he had visual contact along with the others, and at ten, the Rakghoul leapt at them, claws out and ready to kill.
There was a single, loud crack that rang all through the corridor, and the Rakghoul continued on its trajectory, smearing a trail of yellowish-red blood when it hit the floor, and the only indication someone had fired was Knockout's smoking Tri-Shot. "...Nice shot." one of the droids with a flame projector remarked.
Knockout, however, had him tuned out, focusing on any distant noises. Almost immediately, there was a growing roar in the distance. "Time to move!" he ordered, fully aware that he'd just kicked every Rakghoul into high alert. "Double time it to the central workshops! Go, go!" he bellowed, forcing the squad to run full speed, their trackers going berserk as Rakghouls woke up all around the deck and started tracking them.
The horde hadn't descended upon them in full yet, but stragglers were starting to happen upon the team, launching themselves through the air and typically getting killed by one or two scattergun blasts each. The strange mass they had been encountering this whole expedition was only growing thicker, and it was starting to slow their movement down. "One of the flamers, take point and start burning this gunk away!" Knockout ordered, and the one in the rear pulled up front, doing what he could to prevent the group from stepping in it. The mass, mercifully, seemed to retreat from the heat, making his job that much easier. Unfortunately, the flame projectors were constantly setting off fire alarms and activating the suppression systems, meaning they would constantly be racing against the chrono to get to the workshops before a blast door sealed them in.
Oilstreak, the droid that had questioned Knockout earlier, ended up getting pounced by two Rakghouls, who proceeded to beat on his plating mindlessly, while Oilstreak screamed his vocabulator out begging for help. Knockout, acting quickly, put two shots into the Rakghouls, dropping them, before grabbing Oilstreak by his leg and hauling ass, only falling slightly behind the rest of the team.
"I can see the workshop!" the droid assigned as pointman shouted, blasting another Rakghoul mid-sentence. "The blast door is closing, move!" he shouted again, going even faster, racking his scattergun to take care of more Rakghouls that had shown up.
Every droid in the team, barring Knockout and Oilstreak, made it to the other side of the blast door before it got to the point where they would have to crawl or slide under. Knockout, however, had to quickly grab hold of the bottom of the door with his free manipulator, putting immense strain on his body, before sliding Oilstreak underneath so that the other droids could pull him under. Knockout, being the last one left, put his all into holding the door up so that he could get under and into the workshop.
Half the team went prone and started shooting at the encroaching horde, while the other half grabbed him and yanked him inside, preventing him from getting crushed. "Now you owe me." Knockout remarked as one of the droids helped Oilstreak to his feet.
Oilstreak seemingly huffed while the one that helped him up gave him a battle damage assessment, which came up with mostly plating damage, meaning his internals were fine. However, more concerning was what had happened to the central workshops. Here, the fleshy mass that coated the corridors was not only at its thickest, but had also congregated and formed what could only be described as a rudimentary heart, connecting the floor to the ceiling. Strings of semitransparent flesh tubes ran from a central structure, all the way out to ventilation shafts and presumably, other parts of the deck, while a gooey liquid was being pumped into the disgusting construct, giving it a disturbing orange glow each time it would 'beat'.
"Maker alive..." one of the flamer droids remarked, before bringing his weapon to bear and preparing to squeeze the trigger. Knockout, however, had him stand down, earning some looks of confusion from the droids.
"Command, we've reached the workshops. Confirm visual?" Knockout said over the comms, sending the Dropstorm a display of what he was seeing. There was an audible string of gasps from the other end, presumably from the organics who were not expecting to see something like this.
"Visual confirmed." Foreman replied over the link. "That looks like some kind of support structure for all the biomass – it's centered around one of the main power distribution hubs for the workshops, probably leeching from the main reactor." Foreman continued, theorizing with what limited information he had. "Kill it."
Knockout quickly calculated the potential damage actually destroying the heart would cause to the workshops. His arsenal would flat out destroy everything, and there was no guarantee that the fire suppression systems in the workshop worked anymore – not with how thick the biomass was. "Negative, available equipment would destroy the room as well. Requesting alternative solutions." Knockout stated, scanning the room to search for said alternatives.
There was a long series of whirs and chirps from Foreman. "Confirmed. Activation of biological purge necessary for removal of contaminants to be successful without damage to workshops." he acknowledged, with Knockout picking up a pinging sound from Foreman. "Coordinates to purge controls uploading momentarily, standby."
There were three rapid clicks from Knockout's display, and a yellow hex appeared in the distance, on the other side of the room, past the heart. "Confirmed. Transmitting coordinates to the rest of the squad." Knockout stated, cutting the link and doing as he had said. "One hundred fifty meters, dead ahead." he called out, before hearing a wet smack against the blast door, and a series of snarls and growls. "It would be best to get a move on."
The 'core', if you could really call it that, barely resembled a workshop in the slightest. Any sort of workstation had been overgrown and encrusted in the mass, spreading far and wide. What little metal plating hadn't been touched directly by the biomass had instead been coated in a rust-colored film, and whenever they would walk past chunks of flesh, there were multiple occasions where a droid thought that a new growth in the mass was reaching out to them, trying to grab them or otherwise attack. Even the air was poisonous judging by Knockout's analysis, and the little vents in the mass spewing particulate into the air probably weren't helping things much.
Knockout was momentarily concerned with the lack of defenses for what was surely an important structure to the Rakghouls, but then recalled that Rakghouls were largely mindless, only driven by a constant hunger – tactics were beyond their capabilities. Then again, a wild animal was certainly harder to prepare for.
Crossing through a doorway into the corridor that led to the systems controls, the mass grew thicker and thicker, and visibility dropped to almost nothing from the gas. Knockout pushed forward through the flesh, but quickly realized that simply ignoring it was no longer an option if they wanted to complete their objective – they had to destroy it to get through. "Stand back, I'm going to open fire." Knockout called out, and the droids instinctively stepped back as he readied his arm-mounted blaster, took aim, and unleashed a volley of heavy blaster bolts that ripped and tore through the flesh, sending chunks of partly cauterized meat and sprays of yellow-red blood into the air, dissipating the clouds of poison.
While Knockout had reduced the mass in the corridor to little more than bits of stringy flesh and veins, the rest of the mass didn't take too kindly to the act. "Uh, boss?" one of the droids called out, stepping away from some of the larger chunks that Knockout hadn't shot – chunks that were now aggressively vibrating, like something inside was trying to break out. In fact, the entire room was like that, and there was an agitated growl echoing throughout the place, sounding like an angered loth-cat. The heart, in particular, had been violently agitated, and was thrashing around in such a way that it might just bring the ceiling down on top of them.
"Move, MOVE!" Knockout yelled out, firing some shots into the heart as the squad ran into the corridor behind him. The shots really only served to anger the mass more, and extra bits started forming from within, snarling and hissing – more Rakghouls. However, these weren't turned Rakghouls, these ones had been formed, and were dripping and oozing the same disgusting gunk they had been wading through this entire time. The heart itself had grown more appendages with what looked like mouths on the end of them, pulsing and beating, and aiming directly at Knockout. The appendages chucked back, and Knockout quickly threw up a particle shield, expecting some sort of refuse to be shot at him at high velocity.
What he didn't expect was for the appendages to start firing blaster bolts at him. Mercifully, the shots were fairly inaccurate, but a few hit him on the upper torso plating, going clean through the particle shield and doing no significant damage due to both the cortosis he had been constructed with as well as the thickness of the plates. Knockout quickly switched the particle shield over to an energy shield, and started popping shots off through openings he created, warding off the created Rakghouls by blasting away a limb or three, or firing a shot into an appendage and obliterating it.
However, no matter what Knockout did, the damage never seemed to be permanent – more biomass would launch from the growth and attach itself to whatever he shot, and the Rakghoul would be back in action, angrier than before. Even total obliteration of the torso didn't seem to do much, and the horde was only growing by the second.
Then, the flamer droids moved back next to Knockout, poking the barrels of their weapons through the shield and pulling the trigger. Three gouts of flame burst forth into the corridor, setting the Rakghouls alight. Agonized screams echoed all throughout the area, intensified tenfold for every Rakghoul being toasted. "Controlled bursts! Don't waste all of your fuel!" one of the droids shouted out, shooting a few puffs of flame at an exposed patch of flesh to create a bigger wall of fire.
The Rakghouls, curiously, weren't regenerating their wounds from the fires, but were being blanketed and engulfed by the mass, before being spat back out with third degree burns, but no fire, meaning the mass was, to some degree, sentient and aware of the damage fire could cause.
The biomass must have realized its current tactic of throwing Rakghouls at the squad wasn't working anymore, as it had now sent a hulking humanoid down the corridor after them, covered in armor plating and very, very angry. Knockout dropped the shield, and the droids ran for their lives to get to the purge controls. Knockout, however, stood his ground, meeting the goliath head on. Its arms, which had been wrapped around its body like a straitjacket, suddenly unfurled, revealing a compound eye staring directly at Knockout. The arms moved to grab Knockout and effectively force him into what would be a bone-crushing hug for any organic, but Knockout met both arms with his own, finding out that they were effectively at equal strength.
Resisting the goliath, Knockout had the advantage – his stamina was unending, while the goliath's was not, despite its seemingly unnatural existence. The compound eye started to focus, and the goliath started taking the advantage over Knockout – it was then that he noticed that more biomass was being added to the goliath, increasing its strength to slowly surpass Knockout. "I have tricks, too, you disgusting freak!" Knockout taunted, before popping his shoulder-mounted micro missile launcher up and firing a shot into the eye, staggering the beast and forcing it to let go of Knockout to clutch the gaping wound.
Pressing the advantage, Knockout grabbed one of the goliath's arms and tore it away from the eye, exposing just enough of the soft fleshy bits for him to get a clean shot in. One, two, three, four, it didn't matter how many shots he was firing into it, he just wanted it dead. The thing let out multiple screeches of pain, before throwing its other arm loose. The eye had been totally destroyed, leaving a hollow pit where it once was, the optic nerve dangling loosely, dripping globs of blood.
Balling his manipulator into a fist, Knockout punched into the cavity where the optic nerve was coming from, and heard a satisfying squish that signified he had won. The goliath effectively collapsed, falling apart and becoming submerged in the muck. Unfortunately, behind the goliath was a full-sized horde of Rakghouls that had been blocked from swarming the squad by the sheer size of the goliath, something they didn't have to contend for space with anymore.
Immediately opening fire, Knockout was rapidly getting buried under the bodies, which were unable to regenerate this far into the destroyed corridor. The Rakghouls just kept on coming, piling on faster than Knockout could fire his weapons. They were starting to get up to his torso, still alive, biting and clawing at his plating, only for their heads to be crushed by Knockout smashing his fist against them. There was a faint warning alarm echoing from the main chamber.
"Warning, biological purge initiated. All organic personnel, vacate the deck immediately."
Knockout determined that he wasn't going to be able to hold the horde off with weapons alone, and, popping his micro missiles up again, started launching them into the horde, aiming to cause as much damage as he feasibly could.
"Five."
When the right shoulder went dry, Knockout popped the left shoulder and continued firing, before laying down suppressive fire into the horde.
"Four."
Biomass started pouring into the corridor, devouring the corpses that remained and snuffing out the few flames left.
"Three."
Another goliath appeared, emerging from the mass that had just entered the corridor, pushing more Rakghouls towards Knockout.
"Two."
Faced with the rapidly encroaching swarm, Knockout started to retreat, but was quickly overwhelmed and knocked to the ground.
"One."
Knockout was seemingly accepting of his fate, even as the Rakghouls bashed and clawed at him, doing their damnedest to sever his wiring and cripple him.
Tick, tickticktick.
His geiger counter was starting to go off – it was ticking at about three roentgens for the first couple seconds, and then it rapidly shot up – one hundred, four hundred, one thousand. The interference was getting bad enough that it was interfering with his electronics, despite his hardening to radiation. Knockout's safety overrides kicked on when the counter hit about five thousand roentgens, and he automatically shut down, leaving what happened next as a complete and total mystery.
When he was turned on, his internal chrono showed that about an hour had passed, and a group of B1As were giving him a look over. "Hey, can you hear us?" the droid in front of him questioned, obnoxiously tapping on Knockout's plating. "How many fingers am I holding up?" he asked, obviously holding up three.
"Three." Knockout replied, and then he started looking about the room. He had been removed from the corridor, that much was clear, but all the biomass had just disappeared, leaving no trace it was even there in the first place. "What happened? My geiger counter started ticking when the purge was activated, and now it's not."
The droid in front of Knockout pointed to the column that the biomass structure had been attached to. "The 'purge' is actually just a fancy way of saying 'controlled reactor leak'. Irradiated the entire thing to high hell and killed it – didn't leave much in the way of tissue samples, though." the droid explained, and then appeared as if he had just remembered something. "I already pulled the combat footage from your memory banks and sent it to the Dropstorm, you just need to head to decon, right where you came in."
"What about the rest of the squad?" Knockout questioned, turning around and identifying the corridor he was in by the array of scorchmarks decorating the walls and floor.
"Buried under a pile of junk, but still active. We're working on getting them out now. Which, speaking of..." the droid trailed, as a fireteam of disarmed B2s entered the corridor to remove the debris, and the B1A followed after them.
Knockout took one last look around before leaving, and he had to wonder just how an infestation of that magnitude could go unnoticed for so long, especially by a Super Tactical Droid of all things. At least they caught it when they did, as opposed to having the entire settlement get stalked and infected by Rakghouls.
Blackwall had watched the combat footage from Knockout at least five times by now. Sawei was at his side, arms crossed behind her back, giving Foreman a death glare. The tactical droid was across the table, silently watching the footage with the clone. "I'd love to know why you never told us about a problem of this magnitude, Foreman." Blackwall commented, hiding his anger.
"Because they were almost completely inactive the entire time they had been aboard, Commander." Foreman replied, his photoreceptor scanning yellow. "To me, they were not a threat, and were under constant surveillance until the Odynaro was brought ringside to handle manufacturing, at which point my priorities shifted."
"Have you ever been to Taris, Foreman?" Sawei questioned, wondering just how much the droid had in his databanks about the planet. "The people there had been menaced by those things for several millennia, even after the planet was bombed. Even if they're supposed to be extinct now, they're still a serious threat to anyone organic, and considering the Odynaro is basically right next to the settlement..." she trailed, letting the implications fill in for the others.
"I'm more concerned about that… corruption all over the walls and floor." Blackwall admitted, deeply concerned. "It's obviously sentient, but Rakghouls have never caused something like that to manifest in any recorded infestation, or at least, not any that I've heard about."
Foreman's receptor shut off momentarily as he ran some calculations. "Confirmed, the 'corruption', as you've called it, is a new factor with zero historical precedent in any Rakghoul population that has been logged in my memory banks." Foreman noted, before giving a glance out the bridge's viewport. "Perhaps the Rakata would know more."
Sawei and Blackwall exchanged a glance, before Blackwall keyed a code into his commlink and whispered an order. "They'll be here soon." he said plainly, before returning to viewing the footage.
Around fifteen minutes later, the three Rakatan ecosystem engineers – Miroj, Iganai, and Siho, came up the turbolift. Miroj was her usual cheery self, Iganai was a tad bit agitated, and Siho was somewhere in-between the two. Iganai, though, was the first to notice the footage playing in front of him. "Hjela, is that what I think it is?" Iganai cursed, immediately answering the question Blackwall was about to ask. "It is." he continued, and Miroj and Siho looked over to investigate, receiving the same shocked expression Iganai had. "Where was this recorded?" Iganai demanded to know.
"Workshop deck of the Odynaro, Iganai." Foreman curtly answered. "A droid team was deployed approximately two hours ago to initiate a biological purge and get rid of the corruption that you see in this recording – specifically, it was irradiated with an instantly fatal dose. We were hoping one of you may be able to fill us in on what exactly it is we're looking at." he continued, his tone cold and calculated.
"A failure." Iganai bitterly said. The mere sight of the corruption seemed to visibly upset the group – Miroj's mood had flipped like a switch, and Iganai was just bitterly watching the footage. Siho, quiet as ever, was a little bit better about controlling herself, but they obviously knew something about the infestation.
"A failure?" Sawei asked, leaning on the table to focus on Iganai. "What do you mean by that, Iganai?"
"That mass," Iganai started, pointing to the corruption in the recording, as well as the Rakghouls composed from its mass and the behemoths that Knockout faced down. "is a failed prototype for the ecosystems here. Our teams had come up with a number of designs for ways to make the ecosystems easily controlled, and that thing was the end result." Iganai answered, holding a particular disdain for the creation.
"That doesn't answer-" Sawei started, trying to interject.
Miroj put her hand on Iganai's shoulder to calm him. "He's saying that it's a monster. What we designated it as in our language is unpronounceable in yours, but for the sake of simplicity, let's just stick with calling it Corruption, since that's... mostly accurate to what it is."
Siho wiped her face, trying to think of how to explain what the Corruption did. "...The basic premise was to be able to transform what we intended to be organic matter between varying forms – plants and animals and such, mainly to maintain equilibrium and prevent overpopulation of varying species on the rings." she answered, making it sound innocent enough. "That was, of course, until we gave it sentience, at which point it promptly went berserk."
Sawei was dumbfounded, to say the least. "...You say that like it happening was a given."
Miroj looked to the Twi'lek. "In retrospect, it was a given." she answered, feeling urged to explain why. "The Infinite Empire experimented with several variants of this exact same thing that were more… primitive, for their own reasons, but what we learned was that, in the event of a loss of control, these types of organisms would essentially start eating every bit of matter it could find until it either ran out of matter or died."
Iganai continued watching the footage. "I had theorized that the reason for the organism consistently going out of control was a lack of higher intelligence – as in, it was only acting on base instincts, like the desire to feed and propagate its existence, for example." he explained, regretful of his actions, and a grimace crossed his face. "I tested my theory on a smaller scale, no bigger than a tra, and each subject showed promise for alleviating this issue. When applied to the first prototype, though, it was openly hostile to us, and took a small battlegroup from the Infinite Fleet to contain, at which point we decided to cut our losses and shoot it into the local star."
Siho was perhaps the most disturbed by this point. "Evidently, that didn't work." she dryly commented, earning an angered look from Iganai, which quickly disappeared. "Regardless, how long was this aboard your ship?"
Foreman's receptor flickered. "I registered an impact at the workshop deck in the central core just under twenty cycles ago. Surveillance indicated the presence of Rakghouls – those humanoid creatures in the recording, but none of this growth infesting the level. That is new."
"Did you do anything that could have caused the Corruption to manifest at the scale it did?" Miroj questioned.
"Negative. The workshops were left unpowered in the wake of our… engagement." Foreman answered, glancing to Blackwall, and then back to Miroj. "However, with the Odynaro now being ringside and main power being restored in full, I have reason to believe the Corruption used that to rapidly propagate throughout the area." he continued, giving the Rakata some pause.
Siho spoke up again. "Did any material survive?" she questioned, very interested in getting her hands on it. "For the organism to have survived this long, it had to have evolved and adapted to new methods of feeding..." she hypothesized.
"...Like sucking the energy from a ship's reactor?" Blackwall interjected, pausing the recording on the bit where the support structure had activated and was spitting blaster bolts at Knockout, flaring up with every shot. The mere suggestion of such an ability quickly made the rounds in their heads, considering what was sitting in orbit around the rings.
They were all immediately aware that there was now a much greater threat on their hands than simply a resurgent Infinite Empire.
Foreman's photoreceptor dimmed. "I doubt much material survived intact, and whatever's left is probably too damaged from the radiation to be of much value." he grimly noted, before returning his receptor to its normal brightness. "But, considering this Corruption is capable of reproducing an endless horde of Rakghouls, I'd consider this a major threat to our continued existence, assuming these replicas carry the original virus."
Sawei tapped her fingers against the command table. "We're already occupied enough with Dantinian, we can't afford to divide our forces between him and dealing with the Corruption." she noted, and Blackwall nodded in agreement. "It would be best to identify where the Corruption is in the graveyard and isolate it as soon as possible."
"Start scanning any salvage your drones find for biological material and mark the site of recovery – the sooner we can get on top of this problem, the better." Blackwall ordered, and then he looked to the Rakata. "How likely is it that Dantinian knows about the Corruption?"
Iganai paused, lost in thought. "In regards to its existence in the first place? He's probably aware – it doesn't take a particularly high level of clearance to access our old research notes for failed projects, albeit, they're redacted heavily in certain cases to prevent… mistakes from happening again." he clarified, glancing at his wife momentarily, and they shared a knowing look. "But, in regards to it surviving in the junk field? It's unlikely, but still a possibility. Now, if you don't have any other questions, we have work to do." he said, and with a nod from Blackwall, the Rakata quickly left.
A battle scarred Rakatan hunter exited his apartment building on the lowest level of Noridar, wearing just basic clothes, with a small bag at his hip, and he immediately started glancing around. To the untrained observer, that's just what he was doing – looking around. However, any trained guard, or even someone more observant, would notice fairly quickly that he was looking for either someone or something.
A married couple left a nearby shop, arms locked together, with the wife carrying a bag over her shoulder, presumably filled with whatever they had purchased. The husband, meanwhile, twisted his head slightly, as if to crack his neck, and the hunter took the signal to start tailing them.
Any regular civilian would quickly lose sight of the couple with how many were out and about today – something that usually only happened either when there was a sermon due soon, or there was a special occasion. This time, it was the latter case – some sort of new monument was being erected on the bottom level, which normally wouldn't be too interesting, except that there had been barely any construction – it was only publicly known about within the past two days, and the officials were making a big deal of it – every time it was brought up, they sounded particularly vengeful when discussing it, which was odd, to say the least.
The hunter trailed the couple through several crowded and busy streets, occasionally brushing shoulders with the odd official or guard, who mostly ignored him, except on the off chance that they were drunk, in which case he'd simply disappear as quickly as possible, leaving them to rant at nobody.
The husband went up a set of stairs, leading his wife up, and made a quick snapping motion with his fingers, before veering off around a corner. The hunter, meanwhile, continued forward, coming to the plaza where the monument was being built. It was hard to actually get into a good position to look at the thing in the first place – most civilians were overeager to see what was being put in place, and the hunter kept getting pushed around by new arrivals.
Monuments generally had some dignitary give a speech in the past on behalf of Dantinian, but something was… off about this one. The stage was positioned much higher over the crowd, the monument, which was hidden behind a large curtain, had bits of machinery just barely visible against the soft cloth – tubing and such, and, perhaps most concerning of all was the presence of Dantinian's personal guard, who were standing perfectly straight, pike rifles pointed in the air, locked, loaded, and ready to fire upon any agitators.
Everything suddenly made sense when Dantinian himself came out from behind the curtain and onto the stage proper. Even before he could say anything, the crowd erupted into riotous cheers, lasting all the way up until Dantinian was in his proper position, at which point an unnatural wave of calm swept over the crowd. "Brothers and sisters, hear me now." he started, using the Nexus to provide an artificial boost to how loud he was speaking. "Long has the Dreamer been a part of our destiny – a tool for our ascension as a species so that we may reclaim all that was lost with our Empire." Dantinian continued, with every Rakata completely fixated on him due to his commanding presence. "Only recently has the Dreamer revealed itself to us, but there are those who would seek to deny us our rightful ascension."
Dantinian nodded to one of the guards near the base of the curtain, and the guard reach in and yanked something, which caused the whole setup to reel back, revealing an Interloper - a human, if the hunter was correct. He was stripped completely bare, and he bore many scars and wounds, many of which were still fresh. His black hair had been matted against his face by the blood, and he was chained to an apartment building's wall, with his restraints constantly digging into his wrists and legs, causing a constant stream of blood to drip down his body. Medical and life support equipment had been forcibly attached to his body, constantly pumping Vitor in bulk through the tubing that entered into his body. Despite all the damage he had sustained, he wasn't even letting out as much as a scream, even though he was clearly still alive. It was then that the hunter noticed a large scar going across his neck, roughly where the larynx is, and he immediately understood why the captive had been so quiet.
Despite all the damage the man had sustained, he still looked remarkably resilient, and had been giving Dantinian a death glare the second the curtains broke apart, not even paying attention to the crowd that was rapidly growing angry at his presence. "This thing," Dantinian hissed, once again commanding the attention of the crowd. "...is one such example. Just recently, the Dreamer was nearly within our grasp, but this vermin managed to overpower the team that had captured the Dreamer and rescued it, expecting to sacrifice its own life for the Dreamer's."
Anger washed over the crowd at being denied their birthright by one man that was far beneath all of them, and they started hissing and raging at the captive. "That was until it was subdued by the copilot and brought back for interrogation, and I determined there was a better use for this filth – as an outlet for your frustrations." Dantinian stated sharply, and the crowd's anger became focused and sharp, like a blade, and it was pointed directly at the prisoner. "He will not die, but he will live to watch all that he holds dear burn to the ground." Dantinian shouted, and the crowd cheered at the threat. "Let it be known that this is the fate not only of all Interlopers who dare to oppose us, but all traitors shall share in his punishment!" Dantinian finished, stepping down from the stage and taking it, along with his guards, with him.
Without Dantinian's presence, the crowd rapidly descended into a rage, and started picking up whatever they could find to throw at the man – rocks, food, and so on, and the man was rapidly put under assault, being pelted with the most random of objects, all out of anger for denying their leader his prize. The hunter took out a multipurpose recording device from his bag, took a few pictures and a video, and quietly vacated the area before anyone noticed.
He had to imagine there would be quite a few within resistance groups who would be willing to pay for information about this, and with any luck, maybe it would find its way to the Interlopers, considering he was one of their soldiers in the first place.
That's all for this chapter.
So, the Corruption was the result of a thought experiment after realizing a mere Rakghoul infestation was actually kinda boring – Virgilius and his advisors sought to make basically a controllable Eden for the Rakata, so naturally the flora and fauna would have to be controlled as well. The Corruption was that first iteration of bioengineered life that they would have made, and as a result of being given sentience (and therefore, critical thought), it went 'no, fuck you, i'm not being a tool for you' and went rogue. Obviously, it's inspired by Necromorph Corruption from Dead Space, which in turn was inspired by Flood Biomass from Halo. Although, between the two, it probably shares more in common with the Biomass than the Necromorph Corruption, seeing as how it's actually intelligent and can think for itself, similar to, say, a Gravemind.
Until next time.
-Tweak