Storm Trooper (Shepard) pov
The galaxy was a massive place, it was enough to make even the greatest of men feel small. So it was no surprise that one John Shepard, an imperial officer fresh out of the academy would feel this way as well.
He had hoped to get a short action-packed mission for his first job, something to get him noticed. Instead he had to escort some miners to some distant planet in the backend of the universe. All to check up on some mining outpost that had failed to send their monthly report. Nothing could make a man feel less important than getting stuck guarding a group of repair men.
At least he wasn't alone in his suffering, Shepard mused. He shared his guard duty with four other academy rookies and a single lieutenant. While this mission was officially a scout and rescue mission, in truth they were an escort. This wasn't the first time an outpost's communications system broke down, and the workers there were unable to fix it. The lack of repairs either due to lack of knowledge or supplies to fix it.
It was a common problem on distant mining worlds. The Empire didn't want to waste any more ships than they had to. Thus they had created a system where every six months, they sent out a ship loaded with supplies. The ship than went along a route stopping at as many outpost/mining operations as possible. The supplies were than offloaded and the ship then got loaded with whatever materials and data the outpost had collected.
The monthly reports let them know the size of ship they were going to need. It wasn't entirely uncommon for an outpost to miss a report but with the inability to hail them on comms they were either under attack or the comms were in need of severe repairs. Seeing as it was a single mining outpost and the location had no strategic value it was most likely the latter.
According to protocol on these occasions, the empire sent out a small ship with a team of engineers escorted by a squadron of soldiers. These were often used as training missions for fresh recruits.
They were currently stuck on a rather small starship, no bigger than two hundred square feet. It was an old model, in fact after this mission the empire planned to decommission and scrap the ship for parts. It only had a class six hyperdrive system, so the trip had taken nearly three weeks to arrive.
Kinda sad though, Shepard thought. Apparently the ship had once had a class one point five hyperdrive before it crashed. It had received heavy damage when the empire acquired it and they had found it wasn't worth the cost to fully restore it. They had removed the rust and made minimal repairs to the engine. So now it was stuck ferrying rookies and repair men to a desert planet in the middle of nowhere.
Shepard sighed as he looked out a nearby view port. He could clearly see the planet below, its surface a barren desert. The third planet from its stars orbit, a large grey moon orbited around it.
At that moment, Shepard and the other recruits were standing around what had once been a star map, their pilot was to busy driving to notice or care. The lieutenant had commandeered the ship's main dormitory for himself; while the repair crew slept in the cargo hold. They had decided to sleep in the central hub of the ship around the old holo projector.
Suddenly, the lieutenant burst in. "Troopers, armor up. We land in thirty minutes." The lieutenant barked at them. They saluted as he left to make sure the engineers were ready for our landing.
Shepard was quite pleased by the feeling of being back in his armor. It made him feel like an actual soldier, rather than an escort.
(Storm trooper group) pov
The ship landing had gone perfectly. They had set down on a simple metal pad set up to receive cargo off far larger ships than their own. The planet had apparently been packed with iron. Everything seemed perfectly fine; the only disconcerting thing had been the lack of response they had gotten when attempting to hail a crew to help them unload their cargo.
As Shepard looked out from the ship's landing pad for the first time everything seemed fine. There were a few tents and what looked like mud huts surrounding a rocky plateau. They had dug down through it to bypass the sand, a metal door buried in the rock face shone brightly as the suns rays reflected off its surface.
It took a few moments for Shepard to realize what was wrong. The whole place was silent and seemingly empty.
"This is lieutenant Josh Ford. Please stand by, this is starting to look like a lot more than a comms break down." Josh spoke into his radio, no doubt warning the engineers to stay inside. "All right, looks like we need to fan out. Look for any survivors on the surface. We split up into teams of two, Gregory you're with Bendack Search east, Porkins you're with James search west, Josh you're with me we search north. Don't stop till we reach that door. We meet up in thirty and search the mine; radio in anything that looks suspicious." Josh said as he glared at the nearby tents.
Line break
They met in front of the door to the mine and to say the search was a waste of time would be an understatement in Shepard's opinion. The only odd things were a couple of knocked over tents and weapons scattered randomly along the ground.
"This camp is empty, if there are any survivors left they're in the mine. Be careful, I have no idea what happened here." Josh grimaced as he opened the elevator door. All were silent as they went down, whether that was due to their training or the fact not a single one of them were willing to break the chilling atmosphere is anyone's guess.
As the doors slowly opened, they each held their pistols at the ready. The doors opened to reveal nothing but ominous darkness, the group of Stormtroopers remaining silent for a few minutes as they scanned for a threat.
"Looks like the generator powering the lights is offline; we're going to need to activate the auxiliary generator if we want to search the lower..." Josh paused as the sound of machinery and lights whirring to life echoed throughout the mine.
The lights revealed a massive chamber; more weapons and mining tools littered the ground, except this time there were far more signs of a struggle. Racks that once held the mining tools had been flipped up like barriers trying to block something from the lower parts of the mines. Blood covered parts of the ground and walls, yet still, there were no signs of any bodies.
"Ok... Looks like the emergency generator kicked in when it detected our life signs." Josh said as he walked off the elevator platform and towards the blood covered floor examining it closely.
The rest of the troopers spread out as they searched the main chamber for anything that looked out-of-place. Shepard was looking through an upturned storage crate. It was full of rotten food and old miner helmets.
"Sir, I got something." James shouted. He was standing near a tunnel that seemed to slowly slope down into the deeper parts of the mine.
They all rushed over hoping for some signs of life, and sure enough, there was a footprint in the dried blood. It was pointing towards the tunnel leading down.
"Looks like there could be someone alive down here after all." Shepard smiled hope filling him, they may actually be able to save someone after all. Josh simply grimaced as he pointed towards the tunnel.
This went on for the next hour. They would come across the main chamber full of splashes of blood, rotten food, and weapons. Each time they found the same foot print pointing ever downward.
"This is a trap, someone or something wants us down here," Josh said grimly clenching his pistol tighter, they had just reached the third chamber.
"What?!" Shepard barked.
"How can you be sure?" Porkins asked looking left and right in his panic.
Josh opened his mouth to answer but Davek beat him to the punch.
"It's the same foot print in the same place and pointing down. It is always placed in the same way, and the blood didn't splatter naturally. Plus there are no other foot prints as fresh or as deeply imprinted in the facility. Whatever it is doesn't care if we know it's a trap..." Davek explained as he touched the dried blood lightly.
"After this mission, I'm suggesting you for a promotion," Josh said a small amount of respect peaking through his voice.
"So what do we do?" Shepard asked, worry tainting his voice.
"There should only be one chamber left after we pass through the tunnel in the next chamber, we go in cautiously and ready for anything." Josh spoke in a commanding voice. They all nodded as they followed him down the last tunnel. They had made it about half way through the tunnel when something fell from the ceiling smacking Porkins in the face.
He screamed as he jumped back, hanging down from the ceiling was a Gungan head. It Hunt by its disembodied spine, stuck to the ceiling by some strange black substance.
They took a minute to examine the head. "It looks just like senator Binks. The spine looks as if something just ripped it out." Davek noted with a raised eyebrow. He poked the head lightly casing it to swing back and forth. (I considered removing this but I need somewhere to vent my hatred of jar jar dang it.)
"Stop that!" Shepard growled as he grabbed Davek's hand.
"Relax, its dead just like everyone else here." Davek said as he tore his hand free with a glare. Shepard growled under his breath, their were three hundred people on this outpost surly some of them had survived.
They continued on, finally reaching the main chamber. This chamber appeared to have been coated in a thick layer of obsidian. Probably an ancient magma vent, but what stood out most were the growths covering the drill. Black tentacles and orange pustules now covered its surface. The growths seemed to have originated from a large grey structure the drill head had become lodged in.
They approached the drill slowly, ready to blast anything that jumped at them. Josh had just opened his mouth to speak when the troopers all heard a slow, loud clap. They all spun around to see a figure standing in front of the tunnel they had just left. The figure was wearing some very odd clothing. A jacket made of some dark material with white rings around the upper arms. A grey hood covered his head, his shirt connecting to the hood of the same color. It's pants were blue and it had some very plain shoes. It looked like a human male.
Despite the figure's strange clothing it would have looked pedestrian, if not for its ethereal blue eyes that seemed to glow from beneath its hood. "I was starting to worry I'd have to wait another eternity for you fools to come pick me up." He stated in a bored tone.
"Civilians should show some respect. We are Imperial Stormtroopers, soldiers of the Galactic Empire. Now put your hands in the air and tell us what happened to the rest of the mining crew." Josh spoke, following standard imperial operating procedures.
The being laughed, and they all felt shivers running up their spines, there was a horrible unnatural quality to its laugh. "I've gone by many names and yet this is the first time someone has called me a civilian. As for what happened here... Well, isn't it obvious? I killed them." The man smirked.
The troopers raised their blasters charging them quickly. "Why?" Shepard shouted hopes of saving anyone squashed.
"Well I was quite peckish after my nap, and they woke me up. Apparently, I become quite cranky when my beauty sleep is interrupted." The creature chuckled.
That was the straw that broke the Dewback's back as Shepard yelled in anger, firing his blaster pistol. He missed as the creature somehow blurred away. The others joined in, but their shots never found their mark. The thing rushed Porkins, his arms covered by black spikes and hands morphing into large claws. He lifted Porkins into the air, quickly throwing him into Davek and bowling them over hard enough to slam them against the far wall.
Josh got a lucky shot as the creature was rushing towards Shepard, the blaster was over charged with explosive rounds. The blast struck the creature in the back of its head causing it to explode. But instead of falling, it simply kept going. Black tendrils rose from his neck, forming a new head even as he knocked Shepard aside. "Hmm...Those guns pack more of a punch than those miner's peashooters." The creature smirked with its recently reformed head.
Shepard was too shocked to continue firing, and the creature was on him in mere moments. Before Josh could fire again, tentacles ripped into Shepard. He screamed in agony before his body broke with a sickening crack, dragged into the man's flesh. The killer then rushed towards Porkins and Davek, even as Josh blew a hole in its side. Tentacles stabbed them both, dragging the troopers screaming bodies into its sickening mass.
The creature turned to Josh who had turned his blaster pistol to automatic fire mode. Unloading far more shots, it didn't seem to make much difference though as the creature dodged most of the shots and those that hit were quickly healed. The freaks hands morphed into a two-pronged spike.
Suddenly the spikes were across the room, having impaled Josh and James. They were torn from the ground towards the creature, their weapons having fallen from their hands as the spikes entered their guts. With a single loud crack and slurping sound, they were both consumed by the creatures inky flesh.
Alex pov
Alex Mercer was quite pleased with himself. He woken up to some foolish creatures mining and upon devouring them had discovered that the galaxy was far larger than he had originally anticipated. It seemed as though humanity had wiped itself out in his absence, but in its place Alex had gained a whole galaxy to explore. This galaxy sadly seemed full of the same selfishness and corruption humanity suffered with. Now Alex thought of the stars and all the suffering that he had to cure.
There were whole new evolutionary paths out there. Strands of DNA he had never even dreamed of. But for the moment he had a space ship to collect, he thought as he shifted into the lieutenant and began walking back to the ship.
Mercer pressed the button opening the door to the outside, sprinting painfully slowly towards the ship. He faked panting for air, giving himself a breathless quality as he hailed the ship through the radio he acquired. "There's a monster in the mines; open the cargo bay!" He shouted into it. The ship lumbered open, and he climbed aboard.
As for what happened on that ship... Well, if there had been another living being on the planet they would have never forgotten the screams.