Way back for Whumptober 2021, I wrote Edge of the Abyss, a short oneshot focused on Aphra and Luke that was enormous fun to write. I have been thinking about writing a longfic about them since then. I've always been fascinated by Geonosis in SW as well (do not get me started on how it's treated in canon) so "Horror fic where Aphra and Luke go to Geonosis" has been cooking in my head for the better part of two years.
There were infinitely more inspirations than that - I'm tempted to write out a full bibliography for fun, but they would not all fit into this author's note. It got bad enough that my flatmates started commenting on my weirdly specific research niches.
For the warnings: there's a lot in this fic. Violence, body horror, non-consensual body modification, cannibalism, discussions of genocide, mind control/hivemind, and a lot of grief. I'll warn at the top of new chapters if there's anything particularly bad in that chapter. Overall, though, this fic is preeeeetty dark. Please take care of yourselves.
Updates will be every Sunday. Hope you enjoy!
Hot sand smelled the same no matter what planet you stood on. At least the light from a single sun was less intense than the light from two. The desert was just as dry, but Luke wasn't as dizzy. That was a start.
"Why did your boss want us to come here?" he asked, hoping his voice didn't betray the nausea twisting his gut.
"It's not as bad as it looks, kid," Aphra said, neatly dodging his question.
"This place is dead." He didn't know why he was so sure of that, but he could feel it in his bones. But perhaps that feeling was as real as the smoke he could smell—there was no fire anywhere near them, and Aphra didn't seem to have noticed anything. Perhaps he was just going crazy.
But he hadn't known that Geonosis would be a desert world.
He hadn't known that when they dropped out of hyperspace, he would think he'd come home.
"Dead is a strong word…"
Luke cast his arm around. The desert engulfed them on all sides. On the horizon, distant enough it could have been a mirage from the heat haze, loomed structures that didn't quite look like natural mesas, but he couldn't make out what they were from here.
"Do you see anything alive?"
He knew that there was plenty of life in the desert. Reptiles that scurried through the sands. Cacti and other plants that thrived in the aridity. Even mammals. But there was no life here.
Aphra shrugged. "Maybe that's why Boss wanted us to come here, then. I'm an archaeologist. I'm an expert on dead things."
"I'm not!"
"Right." Aphra grimaced. "Should probably teach you some stuff sometime soon, huh. At least you know how to work the machines." She put a hand on his shoulder. Luke raised his eyebrows at her. "You'd be a great lab assistant."
Luke knocked her hand off his shoulder. "This is your lab?" He glanced around. Even with all that death around them, he could feel something bearing down on him. It wasn't the sunlight—as established, he was used to sunlight more intense than this—and it wasn't grief, or guilt, or anything like that. At least, not this time.
Something was watching them.
"Glad you're starting to understand!" Aphra spread her arms as if she was trying to hug the desert. "Out in the field! Death-defying adventures in the name of profit! This is where I thrive." She grinned at him. "And you. You're good at this. Remember that little scrape you got me out of on Nar Shaddaa?"
"I had to crawl through several klicks of cooling vents and climb into a trash compactor to get you out of that pirate's lair."
"And you loved it." Ignoring how Luke had pushed her away last time, she slung an arm around his shoulder. "C'mon, Luke. Aren't you ready for another adventure?"
Back on the Ark Angel, Aphra tapped away at a few buttons in the pilot's seat and pulled up a hologram of Geonosis. It rotated in the middle of the cockpit, bulbous and grand. Luke instinctively ducked in the co-pilot's seat when its ring came careening towards his face, only to sigh when, of course, it just passed through him. His eyes still slightly dazzled with blue light, he turned away to glare at Aphra's snicker.
"What are we doing here, then?" he demanded, squinting at the holo. Geonosis still looked like Tatooine from a distance—the only difference he'd noticed so far was that it was… redder… which the blue holo naturally didn't pick up, anyway. If it wasn't for the rings of debris and the occasional moon, his nausea would be full-blown by now.
"Geonosis!" Aphra declared. "An absolutely lovely Outer Rim planet boasting attractions such as sand, stone, dead things, and more sand."
Luke wrinkled his nose. "Don't pretend to be chipper—I heard you grumbling that your boss never sends you to nice places. Naboo isn't too far away if you're desperate to go back there—"
Aphra pouted. "And here I thought this assignment would remind you of home."
"It does."
"And pretending to be chipper is like, my whole thing, if you haven't noticed. Anyway, Commodex Tahn won't be wanting to see me again anytime soon." She squinted at the holo then reoriented it. "Geonosis was a Separatist planet during the Clone Wars. I dunno why it's dead now—maybe all those battles it saw wiped out the native population—but it's probably related. Our job is to go exploring in the wonderfully exciting and deadly catacombs beneath the planet surface."
"Catacombs?" That was a departure from Tatooine, then. At least they wouldn't be traipsing about in the desert. "What're we looking for?"
She tapped her fingernails on the console. "Can't tell you that."
"What?"
"Top secret information. Not allowed to share with anyone other than the boss."
"I'm your…" He trailed off. Research assistant? Lab tech? Stowaway? "Friend. I'm meant to be helping you."
Aphra blinked at the word friend but didn't comment on it. "Still not allowed to tell you."
Luke sighed. "How do you know what we're looking for is in the catacombs and not on any of these moons?" He gestured to the hologram.
"Only a couple of those are capable of supporting life. The natives certainly never populated them by choice. But that's a good point, we can check them out later. If we don't find anything in the hives."
"The hives?"
Aphra shot him an amused look. "You ever seen a Geonosian before?"
"No."
"Then it's a good thing you won't have to now." She hesitated, then tilted her head. "Probably."
Luke wondered if it was even worth asking, but— "What are Geonosians?"
"Bugs."
"Bugs?"
Aphra shrugged. "You won't have to worry about them. As you said—the place is dead. The Geonosians were exterminated."
Luke's stomach backflipped into his mouth. He leaned in. "Do you know why?"
"Perhaps." She winked at him. "Or perhaps we'll find out." She reached out to tap the hologram, and it zoomed in on one spot. The coordinates beside it revealed it was just over the horizon from where they were now. "This is the entrance to the Stalgasin hive. The capital hive, I guess. I wanted to land here and brief you, so you know what we're doing—"
"I don't know what we're doing."
"—and now we can head over! I'll fly us there—go pack your stuff." She grimaced, clearly remembering the circumstances under which they'd met. "Or go pack my stuff, if you don't have any of your own."
Luke rolled his eyes and stood up just as the Ark Angel lurched up herself. He caught the back of the seat and glared, ignoring Aphra's grin.
He did have some stuff of his own.
Luke knelt in the tiny, tucked-behind-the-engine-room cabin Aphra had granted him when she allowed him to stay on her ship. After a deep breath, he pulled out from under his bunk the many things he didn't want to think about.
The pack he was throwing together would have to last them for the whole adventure, and Aphra's blaring lack of details was making that difficult. Two sets of clothes it was, then—because they rolled up small and they were all he owned. He wondered what Aunt Beru would say to that, winced, and abandoned the thought. It didn't matter. They'd never been on a trip farther away than Mos Eisley, so there had never been a need for her to expound on that particular piece of wisdom. He wished, fervently, that they had.
Aphra would calculate the food. She'd underfeed him of course, so she could cram more deadly gadgets into her bag, but he wouldn't have to think about that until she handed him the rations. He could decide everything else to pack. Clothes were a start.
Clothes. Toolkits. Food. What else would he need? He tucked his thin blanket into the bag—if Geonosis was anything like Tatooine, he would roast during the day and freeze at night, and he didn't know the first thing about the catacombs—as well as his goggles. He didn't have a spare pair of shoes, or he'd have packed those too, but his feet were calloused from hot sands anyway. If needed—and if it wasn't high noon—he could go barefoot.
Necessities were done. That left… trinkets.
Right at the back, under his bunk, something glinted. He reached in to pull out the stacks of books that sandwiched it against the wall, and it rolled towards him with the gentle undulations of the ship as Aphra finally brought her in to land. It knocked into his knees, but he ignored it, glancing down at the books.
Physical books, made of bantha leather and flimsi. He had always known Ben was odd, but that had been possibly his seventh—or seventieth—hint just how odd.
Luke flicked to the first page. Ben's handwriting was wide and looping at the start, before it cramped towards the end like he was remembering how expensive maintaining a physical journal like this could be if he wasted the flimsi. I know that a Jedi is never alone. We will always have the Force. And indeed, I feel it flowing through me as ever, but it does me little good. Qui-Gon is silent. Anakin is gone. Luke is all that remains.
He slammed the book shut before the tears pricking his eyes could prick the page. The books went into his pack anyway, heavy though they were. If Aphra fought him about it, he'd… He didn't know what he'd do.
It was the last thing he had left of Ben, who'd died trying to save them. It was all he had of his father. And it was the last connection to a legacy, a people, an understanding about himself and what he could do, that was otherwise erased from existence.
The Ark Angel shifted and shuddered as she finishing setting down, and everything went still. The lightsaber rolled with the motion, its uneven pieces and parts clattering against the floor. Luke passed his hand over his face—it smelt like dusty flimsi, sweat, and metal—and picked it up. Peace flooded through his chest, achingly beautiful.
He didn't dare light it. Aphra might hear.
But he couldn't exactly leave it here.
His comlink buzzed in his pocket. Seeking any reason to abandon that train of thought, he made to hop to a new one, and found it bound for an equally miserable destination.
Are you at Geonosis yet? read the most recent message.
There were at least a dozen others, but he scrolled past Bail's and Breha's. Guilt stilled his hand before he could clear Leia's.
Yeah, was all he replied. Then he added, I won't let you down.
Her response was immediate. I know.
He knew that she'd tell her father he was alright, but not where he was. What she'd asked him to do was a secret they shared, just as his own situation right now was a secret she kept for him.
She didn't understand why he didn't want to join their happy family. He didn't know how to explain that he couldn't.
Luke glanced at the messages from the other Organas, then flicked off his comlink and put it in the pocket of the battered old aviator's jacket Aphra had lent him. He wouldn't need it out in the sun, but he put it in his bag for later. Before he zipped everything up, he reached for the lightsaber again, weighing it in his hands.
He was all that remained.
The door to his cabin slid open. Luke jumped, stuffed the saber into his bag as fast as he could, and spun around.
"Are you ready yet, kid? We landed like ten minutes ago."
"Five minutes ago," Luke parried. Had she seen the lightsaber? Her eyes tracked his hands' movement from the bag back to his sides, but that could mean anything. Aphra tracked everything.
"And I'm not one for wasting time."
"You waste time chatting." Luke tried to ease a smile back onto his face and was uncertain of his success.
"I call it lowering people's guards." She was grinning as easily as ever. He couldn't read her. "Get out here. I need you to carry the food."
"All of it?"
"I have more important things to carry."
"Like water?" Luke asked, but he knew that wouldn't be the case. "Or—don't tell me—weapons?"
"We need weapons. We always need more weapons. I've got all the pieces of my lovely flamethrower to carry. Why?" She glanced at his pack. "You got anything too important to ditch? I didn't think you owned anything at all."
Luke said nothing.
Aphra raised her eyebrows and patted her bag. "You definitely don't own a flamethrower."
Luke had to laugh, at that. "I don't," he said, rising to his feet and following her out of the cabin. "I'll take your food. But good luck getting it off me when you get hungry."
She slung an arm around his shoulders. "That's where my chatter comes in, kid."
"You mean lowering my guard?"
Her smile was wicked.
It was only when Luke stepped out onto Geonosis a second time, right in front of the Stalgasin hive, that he fully appreciated what Aphra had truly meant by the term bugs. The carving over the top of the entrance archway was of a creature with bulging eyes and a spindly, chitinous frame; it was worn away and incomplete, but just a glimpse at the general shapes made Luke shiver. He raised his gaze to the rest of the hive and couldn't help but shiver again when he tried to imagine those creatures building it all.
They had used stone, right? It looked like sandstone. Luke hoped it was stone—he was about to go inside it.
The spires were taller than any building he'd ever seen—certainly taller than Jabba's Palace, which had been Luke's default measurement for 'very tall building' for years, even if it didn't quite hold up anymore. Stretched and twisted, like thick clay warped, spun, and needled into grotesque spikes before baking in the heat, they glowed a dusty red against the backdrop of the sun. Luke had to avert his eyes, but those towers imprinted themselves on his retinas. For a few minutes, their shape was stamped on everything he could see, like blades tipped with blood.
The bottom of the spires collided and ballooned into a larger sandstone structure. After a few blinks, Luke recognised it as a mesa, like the ones on the edge of the Jundland Wastes. He swallowed, his throat dry. Doorways dotted the sides of the mesa and the spires at regular intervals: beautiful, ornate doorways, each one wrought with some new undeniable artistic flare. He couldn't see any ladders or steps or turbolifts. These were bugs that could fly, then.
Another glance and squint at the horizon revealed more of these structures. They were spaced apart, but close enough in space and style to be seemingly part of the same… city, for want of a better word. The catacombs must link them, even if he naturally couldn't tell from here. He glanced at the sand beneath his feet and imagined those connections. Imagined what lurked between them.
The care that had gone into building this place was enormous. It made both its unfamiliarity and its emptiness hurt like a wound.
Aphra shoved her head into a helmet and tossed one to Luke, not waiting for him to snap out of his reverie. He fumbled for it and just clasped his fingers around the edge before it toppled to the ground. When he looked up, Aphra had adjusted the strap at her chin and had her finger hovering over the switch to the lamp on the top.
"You know, I wanted to bring a droid," she said conversationally, still peering at the structure. The entrance was right in front of them, partly caved in, but just as ornate as the others. Its keystone trembled above their heads; Luke eyed it nervously, then eyed the dark tunnel behind it.
"A droid?"
"You need a droid to scan the place and figure out where the catacombs go. The GAR invaded a couple of decades ago, and even they had to use droids and Jedi to find their way through."
Luke's heart stumbled. "Jedi? What were the Jedi doing—"
"They fought in the Clone Wars. Keep up." Her look was a little scathing, but everything about Aphra was either insincere or scathing, or both. Luke was used to it by now. "But, y'know, I don't have the droids I was gonna use because when Kanata was firing at us you had to negotiate and trade with her instead of letting me get us out of there—"
"She was ready to blow us out of the sky."
"I was gonna use the antique stealth microdroid dust for something!"
"I'm sure." His heart hadn't calmed down yet. "What're you gonna do without a droid?"
"Use you."
"What?" Did she know? He wasn't a Jedi. He couldn't—
She tossed him a scanner. "Scan the tunnels as we go and make notes. That's what assistants are for."
Luke grimaced, but gladly caught it. "Don't assistants get paid?"
"I feed you."
"Not enough." Luke switched the scanner on. A blue-lit map of some of the nearer tunnels belched out, wriggling away from the emitter like worms. Luke peered at it, gaze flicking to the tunnels that were indeed just below his feet. Then the image shivered for a second, shadows flicking across it like lifeforms.
He hesitated.
Aphra rolled her eyes and tapped it. Hard. "Glitches. This old thing always does. Don't you?" The last sentence was almost a croon. Then she glanced back at him, smirking again. "What, were you afraid there was something—"
"Let's go, Aphra."
"I told you. The planet's sterilised. There's nothing here. Didn't you see the bodies?"
"What?"
She looked at him, confused, as if that wasn't a genuinely horrifying sentence she'd just said. "On the flight in. Though—I guess you were too busy moping mysteriously to come to the cockpit and look out the window." She cast her hand around behind them. "The desert is peppered with bodies. Teeny tiny, they look, from the ship when we're flying over them. But it seems like the Geonosians just dropped dead where they were." She looked back at him closely. "When I say there's nothing here, I mean it."
"Alright, alright." But Luke shuddered and cast his eye into the dark tunnel, then out over the expansive, irradiated horizon. It was rust red, but when Luke blinked, he imagined it the colour of blood.
That was ridiculous. He knew that. Geonosians, bugs, probably didn't even have blood. But the sand undulated in the wind, lapping, and Luke felt cold despite the beating sun. He glanced up again at those entrances in the side of the mesa, dark spyholes staring down at them.
"Wonder what weapon they used for that, actually." She tapped her chin. "Be nice to get a hold of that. I bet I could improve it—"
"You'd want to improve it?" Luke bit out, still on edge. "It sterilised a planet. It left bodies everywhere!" Only partly knowing what Geonosians looked like was worse than knowing fully: his mind was concocting increasingly horrifying images of their hypothetical corpses.
"Weapons speak to me, kid. Don't start moralising."
Luke gritted his teeth but forced himself to ask, because he needed the information: "So, you don't know what weapon was used?"
"I wish I did." She bounced her head a little and took a step forwards.
"Do you even know who did it?"
"Nah." She stopped and seemed to feel the weight of his gaze, because she turned to look at him. "Look, I'm not in the mood to be lectured. Let's go. Unless you're gonna back out like a coward, in which case leave the food and also I have the keys to the Ark Angel so don't even try to fly it without—"
"I'm coming!" he snapped. "I… I'm coming."
Her grin told him she'd known that already. She lit the lamp on her helmet—directing the beam right into his eyes. He staggered back, bringing his hand up to shield himself, blinking. "Then let's go."
Luke blinked some more, then took a breath and switched on his own lamp. It carved patches of colour out of the tunnel ahead of him, like a lightsaber punching through the darkness. He reached out a hand and brushed, infinitesimally gently, his fingertips against the rough wall.
He had to close his eyes.
A cloying cacophony of fear, anger, pain, death barrelled through his skin to shatter his heart. He staggered back. For a moment, he was the only pillar of light and life in a sea of death. Rot and decay settled on his shoulders like a mantle, a heavy cloth of misery that trailed behind him.
He opened his eyes again and looked around. There was nothing there. Still the desert, still the tunnel, still the high walls he hoped were stone.
Aphra was still walking ahead. She hadn't even turned to look back at him.
He had to go with her. Aphra didn't know what had sterilised the Geonosians, or who—she wasn't lying about that, he was fairly sure—but she knew more than she was telling him. The Rebels didn't know anything. Leia and her parents, and whoever else comprised Rebel High Command, were baffled by it. It had to be the Empire, but it wasn't their modus operandi. It was bizarre.
And this place was vile, but that just meant something had happened here. Luke had promised them answers. Leia needed him to come back with answers. He'd promised her that even if he refused to come to Alderaan just yet, he'd give her that much.
So he jerked his foot into motion and stepped forwards. Another step. He followed Aphra deeper into the tunnel, into the knot of catacombs writhing on his scanner, and felt the darkness grin as it swallowed him in one gulp.
We have been here forever. And we are far from dead.
Years ago, we were many, and now we are few, but we are still not dead. Our planet grows more hostile with every passing day, as the invaders' poison turns the skies and sands against us, as the world bathes in their toxins, but still, we survive.
Our home, scoured. Our hives, decimated. Our workers, trapped in deaths we cannot transform into one life, let alone all of them. At least, not yet. For years, all we have done is sit and wait and fail to do what we were always meant to do.
But even as our world rejects us, even as our minds rot unmerged, even as the crush of our history squeezes hope from our wombs, we remain. We are compelled to. Geonosia is still our world, no matter what invaders may inflict upon us.
And we do not appreciate intruders.
