First off a big thank you to LMSharp for Beta reading this, giving me very helpful insights and suggestions. Inspiring me to go back and update all the chapters previous this one. So feel free to go back and check out the changes if you want. And as always thank you for reading. Oh and check out LMSharp's story Disaster Zone, it's really good.
The cold hits me first, like a damp earthy wave crashing onto us as the lift doors slowly part, protesting every inch, groaning as durasteel scrapped against permacrete. I hop out as soon as there's enough room, scared they might snap shut and never open again. No thank you, over 25 minutes trapped in that box was more than enough for me. The smell was the next thing to hit me as mildew, wet mold, with just a hint of rotting corpses and sewage shoved it's way up my nose making it crinkle as I tried not to gag.
"It's the Doctor! The Doctor is here!" A kid exclaims joyfully popping out of his hiding place behind a pile of junk near the lift rushing Zelka, his grubby fingers grabbing a fistful of Doc's tunic as he bounces up and down gleefully. "Did you bring any Pashie?!" Doc chuckles smiling down at the boy who couldn't be past five and terrifyingly malnourished. Zelka unlike me is far from surprised at the kids' condition, reaching into his pocket and pulls out a small round reddish fruit which the kid greedily snatches popping it into his mouth before I can blink. His face lights up as he chews still keeping a tight grip onto the fringe of Zelka's tunic as we approach the Yurt community, smoke from various campfires almost over-riding the stench. As we enter the outskirts skeleton people dressed in rags crawl out of their homes to watch us pass, as more young kids rush us squealing. Each grabbing a fist full of whatever they can of us, chattering excitedly as we trudge forward their tugs weighing us down almost as much as our gear.
I know it's unfair to call them skeletons but I don't mean it to be judging, it's just an eerily accurate description. As we enter the village the people we pass are nothing but pale skin and bones their eyes sunken in with dark circles. This is not what I was expecting to find down here, I don't honestly know what I was expecting.
It's like being in one of those t.v documentaries of those far away lands experiencing famine, just made a hundred times more real to me as I pass haunted looking families standing in front of a bare Yurts or lean-tos constructed from bits and pieces of everything. How can people go on with their lives in the Uppercity justifying that anyone could deserve this, no matter the crime they're accused of. I guess that's hypocritical of me, considering back home I was the one sitting on the couch, just watching the documentaries. Still the difference between Earth's problems and Taris's is staggering for me, or do I just feel that way cause I've had a sheltered life of sorts? Though I better stop, this introspection or whatever you call it, there while I can still catch myself.
I try to offer a friendly smile to those that look at me and most genuinely smile back, despite their circumstances, as I push the cart up the incline to the center of the village. Zelka having his hands full with around a dozen kids hanging on him begging for treats or new things from the world above, they let go of me as soon as they realize I have nothing to offer. Should have brought something, it's not like these kids ever have the option to go to the store and buy a handful of penny candies. Though considering I don't have anything to my name I guess thinking ahead wouldn't have helped much anyway. Not that I'm complaining about that, geez, after today I can safely say I will never complain about what I don't have. Damn, I'm lucky Doc took me in when he did; I wouldn't have probably ended up here but the picture I see of myself stuck in the Lower City isn't, well let's just say it ends with me sprawled out in an alley bleeding out or starving to death - whatever would come first.
"Doctor, we're all so glad you could make it this time!" Greeted a tall black man as soon as we stopped at the the village center right in front of the carved entrance of a huge round support column. He didn't look much different from the others: under fed, pale, with dark rings and sagging shoulders but he spoke clearly and with authority, the kids immediately quieting.
"Gendar it's such a relief to see the village doing so well." Zelka says slapping the village leader a hug, I would really hate to see what it would look like otherwise. "Sorry this delivery has been so late, friend. We almost didn't make it this time, the gang war in the Undercity is getting worse." He turns to me as the hug breaks standing beside Gendar turning the attention of the elated mob encircling us onto me. "Vulcars were waiting for us at the bottom of the Lowercity Lift, if it weren't for Kylie's quick thinking and the Beks fighting them off, the supplies wouldn't have made it here." I can only offer a timid smile to the villagers appraising eyes, my brain freezing up, a cotton ball suddenly clogging my throat, never been on a stage to know if I get stage fright but I think that my now clammy palms are evidence enough.
"Um thanks Zelka but, if the Beks hadn't been there we'd be dead. I just carried a backpack," I clarify swinging said pack off my sweating back resting the sling of my new blaster in it's place. The cold air hitting my wet back making me shiver as I struggle to keep the heavy bag from falling to the ground. "Who do I give these green house heating lamps to?" I ask Gendar trying to divert the attention of the crowd before I begin to squirm under their stares.
A small soft spoken woman named Theida collected my pack eagerly going on about how she could expand the garden and maybe even have enough room to finally grow Pashi as well. (Apparently they're big around here.) Gendar told me that she was the caretaker of the community garden after she lured the children away from Zelka, promising whoever helped her set up the lamps could have first dibs to the Pashi harvest.
Gendar and Zelka supervised the unloading of the seeds and canned goods first and I took orders with the rest of the villagers on putting things away. Getting sucked into the almost giddy energy the people suddenly had, almost as if they were opening presents on Christmas. What impressed me the most was whenever someone picked up something they no doubt needed as well, they would usually end up saying something like: "Oh some of these thermal blankets should go to Ezkale's home they need to keep that new baby warm." or "Most of these clothes should go to Ronin's family those kids are growing up to fast for their clothes and Alena is always trying to mend the new rips."
When it came down to only the medical supplies left Zelka handed the reins to a woman named Pacini the village healer for her to supervise the stocking of her make shift clinic also carved out of a support pillar like the village community center. When Zelka asked after her patients she answered, "Healthy cept the poor souls afflicted with the Rakghoul disease. The two Jedi down here healed all the rest of my patients before attending to those in The Pens."
"Jedi are here, now?" I blurt out snapping up from the Kolto bandages I was filing away on a bottom shelf. Earning odd looks from both Zelka and Pacini. "I uh, never met a Jedi before." I explain awkwardly rubbing my neck, which Pacini immediately shrugs off as a stupid fan girl moment, but Zelka gives me a funny look unconvinced.
"Well you can go meet one if you wish, Master Senob and his Padawan Benik are here from Corusant helping the Republic Outpost gather samples and conduct tests on those quarantined in the Pens. They claim they're in the final testing stages of a cure."
This gets the attention of Zelka so while he's distracted by getting the details from Pacini I sneak out hoping to get a look at these Jedi and try to figure how I should deal with them before they find out about me. And when I say that I don't just mean hearing about some girl that helped Zelka deliver supplies.
The night I was brought here by some dark ritual is still pretty foggy to be, but I know it was a darkside ritual that got me here. How and for what purpose, I haven't a clue. Maybe the Jedi could help me find the answers or even replicate it to send me back. That hope, no matter how thin I realize it is, makes me anxious to meet them. But what's stopped me from waltzing right up to the Temple on Dantooine and confessing everything to their Council these few days I've been in this galaxy, is this: They would more likely destroy the product of said ritual a.k.a. me, than dare try and reverse it. Also there's the three troubling markings I found on my spine right between my shoulders blades after the nightmare I had my first night at the clinic.
It was just the same old flashes I always get when I try to remember, how I ended up here. I'm trapped floating above chanting Sith when something. I, I don't know everything suddenly became so cold and it wasn't just the room temperature. The coldness whatever it was, was somehow animate pressing down on me, filling my lungs, making it impossible to breathe.
Fortunately that's as far as I get, cause the aging woman with features darkened and scarred from the Darkside, bursts in shooting a malestorm of lighting, lighting up the tomb that until then was lit my guttering torches. Immediately frying The Hand while their backs were to her, so absorbed they were in their work. While they went down, I could feel the energy around me or, whatever it was, withdrawing from me and I could finally breath. Next thing I know her red light saber arcs towards the ceiling of the crumbling ruins, followed by a violent pull with the Force she collapsed the whole place around us.
Just as a large sandstone chunk of the ceiling is falling right over me I always jerk awake. That first time sitting up in my cot trying to catch my breath I felt this hot burning sensation between my shoulder blades. Man did it burn that first time, tearing my shirt off and using the shiny bottom of a bedpan and the polished glass of a Kolto Tank I could make out the reflection of three quarter-sized alien markings literally glowing on my back, faintly, but honestly glowing! It still warms up whenever I have that nightmare but not so intensely as that night.
What if they did something more to me then just dragging me to another galaxy? Put the dark side or whatever you want to call what the hell makes Sith bat-crap crazy, into me...
As this was going through my head I slowly approached "The Pens", the place in the game where they quarantine the infected until one of them turns and tears the throats out of the others.(How is that Humane anyway, wouldn't it be better for them to say their final goodbyes to loved ones before , you know, making sure they don't turn - permanently?) I stop just fifty yards from the Pen keeping a Yurt between me and the tented station the Jedi set up to conduct their tests on the infected. Watching through the slightly agape tent flap as a short alien Jedi with large pointed ears and big dark eyes, I have no idea what his species is called, accompanied by a younger Human Jedi. (At least I think so under that hooded robe). They're both talking with a sickly looking man strapped down to an operating table. What are they doing?
"You- you come from the world above!" Exclaims a frail old man who suddenly grabbed hold of my arm making me jump out of my skin. "Is this the time of destiny then? Is this a potent of the salvation of my people? Or merely another false sign to mislead us from the path?" The last question he says pulling his face into mine looking deep into my eyes like he can determine the answer from some far away depth in them. His own having an unnerving, crazy desperation in them. "Are you the herald of prophecy? The beacon to guide us through the darkness? Or are you merely another harbinger of shattered dreams and unfulfilled promise? Speak to me Up-worlder! Tell me what fate you unleash upon us - salvation or damnation? Speak Up-worlder - I beg of you!"
"Rukil how is she suppose to answer you when you're acting half mad." A girl my age chides him pulling him back letting me have my personal space again. "Please forgive Rukil Stranger, he's been waiting a hundred years for his Herald and he demands the same out of every visitor to the Outcast's Village nowadays. I'm Malya his apprentice."
Apprentice wait, as in the dead apprentice Revan retrieves the one of the journals from? It's a weird, indescribable feeling to realize your talking to a stranger you know without a doubt is going to die; truly making her the walking dead. "Um, Kylie, I came here with Zelka." I stammer hoping she doesn't take a offense at the way I gaped at her earlier, "I hope I'm not a "Harbinger of shattered dreams", but if there's something you need I can try my best to help." The way I figure it, the sooner the Outcasts are safely tucked away in this Promised Land the better. Especially in case I fail to stop the bombing. I know from visiting what's left from Taris in SWTOR, that the descendants of the Outcasts' in the Promised Land don't last long when their Rakghoul Cure runs out. But if I can just copy the exact coordinates down of the Promised Land, making sure they don't leave until the Cure is perfected and that they stock a boatload of it - that is, if I survive the bombings. (I realize that's a lot of 'ifs' to hope for.) Well then I can tell the Republic exactly where to dig and send aid.
"Yes, yes you've helped us by helping Zelka, shows you have the right spirit." Rukil rambles lost in thought I can see the wheels in his head spinning out in his rush. "But can you be trusted to accompany Malya in the sewers or will you doom her search when we are so close?"
Crap is she leaving already? "Your venturing into the sewers alone?" I can't let that happen. "Whatever it is you're after I don't think it's worth going down there without a group, armed with blasters."
"I can handle myself." She states defensively crossing her arms. "And you have no idea what it's worth to us."
She says it such conviction I have no doubt she'd probably march straight for the Rakghouls to prove me wrong and how important it was to her people; whether they realize it or not. "Granted on both counts. I, I'm just saying," Crap what am I trying to say that will get her to change her mind? "Look I'm strapped for credits, and I, I had thought I could grab salvage from the Rakghoul territory to sell, but if we join up maybe our chances of returning alive go up." Hold the phone, did I just volunteer to jump into Rakghoul infested sewage tunnels with only a blaster rifle; not even a cure if I get bit? Note to self: think about what your planning of, for more than a couple seconds before opening your dang mouth!
"Typical Up-worlder," She sneers surprising me from the mental list I was forming, listing how many ways this plan could go south. "Even though you have a whole world, hell even an entire galaxy at your fingers tips up there. You have to invade down here and try to exploit the few resources we have just to make extra credits. Did you ever consider how little we have down here as it is before you suckered Zelka into letting you tag along down here?"
Shoot I didn't think my on the fly explanation would be taken that way, in the game there was plenty of salvagers down here I thought it was accepted and commonplace. "No, it wasn't like that. I came here to help Zelka, the salvage was just an after thought, after I got here." I back-pedal, feeling extremely guilty, these people have less than squat, hell if it wasn't for: luck, fate, the Force or the Powers that be. I would've been stuck as a slave on Korriban or dead in a ditch in the Lowercity. And here I am thinking on exploiting on what little they had to work with while I've had practically everything I needed handed to me on a platter. "I was under the impression that salvagers coming down here would help your village, with trade and what not..." I add lamely, realizing there's nothing I could say that wouldn't make me sound more of an ass.
"Hah! Trade? No one can afford to pay what the good salvage here is worth; so most just march right on through carrying it up the lift." She starts bitterly before Rukil places a restraining hand on her shoulder reminding her to check her emotions before going full throttle on chewing me out. They exchange a long look the kind only possible between people who know each other well enough to forego words. "But nobody else in this town has the guts or belief to come with me and your right; I could use another gun... If we go, you can take any salvage you can carry as payment except the two items I'm looking for; you try to take those and I will kill you." She tells me cooly closing the distance between us, her copper colored bangs hanging loose from her taunt french braid. Shadowing her pale face, causing her silver grey eyes to look even more intense as she somehow stared me down even though she's two inches shorter.
"Agreed, but on one condition: we better have more gear then just my blaster between us, like some kind of full body armor to resist a Rakghoul bite, something to breath with so we aren't exposed to toxic levels of methane and crap - no pun intended." I add once I realized what I said, she just rolls her eyes.
"And Stealth Belts too I suppose; to go along with our light sabers! How the hell do you intend to get those things without credits Up-worlder?"
"It's Kylie, and we'll just have to wait and be resourceful, how the hell do you intend to survive down there without them?" She doesn't have an answer for that I can tell otherwise she would have flaunted it instead of avoiding my eyes. "Look I work in a clinic, maybe I can borrow two breathing masks with Zelka's permission." I offer trying to give a reason for her to hold off going until I'm ready to go with her. All the while, the little voice inside me shouting that I'm an idiot for even considering stepping foot in Rakghoul territory.
"Fine, I think I can scrounge up some kind of thick clothing that Rakghoul teeth can't penetrate from our merchant Igear, but it won't be cheap." Malya offers begrudgingly accepting my argument. She opens her mouth to say more when her eyes are drawn to something behind me, her mouth closing into a thin line. "They better make that damn cure soon."
Turning around to see what holds both her and Rukil's attention I see the man strapped down on the Jedi's operating table is no longer moving or breathing. "What happened?" I ask barely above a whisper, as I adjust my angle to better look through the tent flap to see the alien come towards the table with a scalpel while the younger Jedi drew blood slowly filling a blood pack.
"That Sulostan and his Miraluka Padawan better finish that cure soon. It's bad enough the Bitten have to be put down before they turn but cutting them open to mess with their insides is adding insult to injury." She says to no one in particular clenching her fists at her sides, paling even further than I thought was physically capable considering her complexion from never seeing sun.
I can't imagine what she's feeling right now, growing up in this impoverished small community she probably knows everyone here on a first name basis. I wonder who he was to her...
"They're doing what's necessary for the good of Taris Malya." Rukil speaks up placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. Her jaw firmly clenched she nods before turning to me a fierce determination in her look, "Zelka knows the village's Holo-Frequency and we know Zelka's, call me once you collect your part of the gear and I'll do the same when I get mine." I nod as they leave me and the dissection tent, as I head back to Pacini and Doc, not wanting to glimpse what comes next either. Feeling kinda guilty as I wish for the cure to be complete before we embark for the sewers even after I've seen how they have to go about their work. We, I'm going to need serious funding if I'm going to have any hope of preventing Taris's destruction and I think I know how to get it; starting with getting credits fast to provide for our expedition into the sewers.
For now I'll stick to avoiding Jedi as much as possible. Unless I can think of a way they could get me home, but seeing how unlikely that is, I have a better shot completing the games storyline. I mean isn't that how fanfic's usually end, then the SI gets to go home? God, I can't believe I just compared this to a fanfic, my life just keeps getting more and more absurd. And as much as I don't want to doubt it, I know getting home, if I ever can find a way to return home - will never be that simple.
The next morning after sharing a meager and a kinda flavorless meal but with the good company of the Outcasts as their thanks, and after having enjoyed a sound, deep sleep crashing at the clinic once the long trip back was finally over. I woke up earlier than usual this time starting my routine even before Canderous arrived. "You're up early." He remarks showing up at our usual time.
"Yeah well, I'm going to have to step it up and have you teach me how to maintain this rifle I got, so I can earn credits from the dueling ring." It seems like that's the only source of income left available to me and this time no one is turning me away and I am not going to fail. I have to make sure of it