Bright New Stars - Fan Fiction

[erickyboo]

>

Chapter 1
The air was stiff. Dust and smoke particles wandered around the small compartment. It had to be no bigger than three meters wide, and three long. The rust coloured floor was littered with crates and various technological junk. They say, one man’s junk is another’s treasure. I had slowly opened my eyes. The room was not too bright so they were able to adjust easily. It was relatively quiet, small mechanical clicks were audible but nothing alarming. Then there was a noise, metal on metal and then, a loud bang echoed outside. There was a faint electronic noise, and more sounds on the metal, but then it was quiet again. Footsteps I thought. I tried getting up, but my body ached, I felt my muscles, tired, heavy and my head was in pain. I gathered my strength, and I got up. The strange place around me was not very welcoming. Something felt wrong, but I could not remember. I decided to push the door with some hesitation. I peeked into the rust-coloured corridor, looking left and right. Slowly, I made my way out. The corridor was dimly lit, there were holes in the walls, marks and smoke. Sparks came out of the broken lights and other tubes. I could not tell what they were or where I was, but here I found myself. I then heard a noise, it was like a buzz, but it was deep and heavy, and low as well. I decided to go towards it, but it was fading, with fear, I made my way through the corridors. It was becoming darker and darker as I progressed, and there were more holes. Suddenly, there was this loud noise. I felt heat coming on to my right arm, a pain. I grabbed it but could not scream for I was in too much pain to scream. The pipe next to me was smoking. That’s when I saw it. It was emitting the low buzzing noise, but it was more like a hovering noise. It is a strange thing to describe. It was hovering off the ground, and it was different from the rest of wherever I was. Instead of the rust colours of the corridors, it was silver and it looked so clean. It had a blue light. Some sort of eye perhaps. This eye was located on what I thought was its head. It was elongated. It attached to what would be its body. On the back, it had these two fin like things. But the body also connected to frontal appendages. They were like two arms with a two-digit claw. On the bottom of the body, it had this device with two fins on the back. It also had a light, it was dim but it turned red and a laser came out of it, pointing at me. After a second, it dimmed to blue, the laser stopped. Amazed by that creature, I had temporarily forgotten about the pain on my arm. I started feeling it again, and I felt something watery, I was bleeding. Then the flying creature flew down closer to me. It was quite big, its length was almost twice my height. It extended its arm, and lifted my arm with its two mechanical digits, then waited, as if looking at it. It let go but I held my arm in place. From the device below, a small beam struck my cut. It stung but the bleeding stopped. It lifted and turned around. Its humming noise became a bit louder and the beat faster. It was moving away, and I followed this silver creature with blue lights through the dark rust corridors.

Here I was, in this strange place, following a strange flying creature, not even knowing my name. I noticed it had some sort of blue energy trail which likely propelled it. We reached a door. The flying creature used its beam on some sort of panel. The door slid open. To my surprise, there were other flying creatures. There was one just like it, but there were two others which were very different. They were other silvery creatures with blue highlights. It was more round and less angular than the first ones. They had some sort of little head-looking things which were connected to some sort of body. The heads were connected to some sort of bulbous fin. On the middle section of the body were a set of blue lines and a weird symbol. Below there were some sort of leg looking things. They did not look they could walk however. Perhaps they were clamps, or some other device. More fins were placed front and side of the creatures. They formed some sort of X or an H. Two smaller teardrop shaped fins were located in front of the bodies, besides the middle section. There were also two disks on the side of each creature. They had some sort of blue energy glow. It was curious that their components did not all connect to each other but floated in place. These creatures were strange indeed. I decided to try to communicate with them. I then said, “Who are you?”But the creatures did not reply with words, rather the disc creatures chirped and the beam creatures hummed in a higher pitched noise. One of the disk creatures came closer to me. It crossed and extended its two frontal fins towards me. I did the same with my hand. To be honest, I was confused and I did not know what it wanted but I tried to mimic it. A strange light, a cone of energy protruding from its middle section, appeared towards my open palms.

It was a bizarre sensation and as if I wasn’t done being surprised, an object appeared in my hands and smaller packs appeared. The bigger object was dark silver. It had some sort of handle which connected upwards to an upper part. Towards what I assumed was the front, it got smaller. It was also connected to a smaller part similar to it by two components. There was a sort of frustum and a cylinder spaced by a gap, they connected the two halves of the object. The other smaller objects seemed too look like the frustum, in fact, they were the same types of pieces. There were three of them. I decided to put the three small objects in my pockets. I then realized that I was wearing a light hoodie, it was a light gray hoodie. I was also wearing cargo pants. They were of a vivid brown. Still, I could not remember much yet. I then decided to grab the bigger object by the handle. I supported it’s weigh with my left arm by grabbing on the bottom section. It then lit up.

[erickyboo]

There were two orange circles on the top sides of the handle. They looked like buttons. On the topmost part facing me, there was this floating thing that looked like a display, it was orange as well. I noticed that the space where there was an empty now had a beam of energy running across of it. There were other smaller orange lights. I held the grip tightly and must have activated something as a strange beam came out of the cylindrical part of the object. The sound and the beam startled me so I let out a scream. I looked at the results and I noticed a hole in the metal below me. I now understood what this was. It was a weapon, a pistol of some sorts. It carried quite the power. I noticed one of the disc creatures display an orange beam into an object, which it used to levitate small varied trinkets on a crate near a small bed. It wanted me to practice. I aimed at the objects and fired towards them. Bolt by bolt, I destroyed as many objects as I could. Had fire ten shots in total and I noticed it wouldn’t fire anymore. I wondered why. I tried touching one of the button looking things on the handle. To my surprise, the weapon disassembled and floated. It was amazing, After a few seconds of admiration, I snapped back into it and I remembered the smaller objects. They were ammo packs! I took one the one floating and put it on the small crate then I took one from my pocket and put it in its place. I then let the gun reassemble. I had learnt how to fire and how to reload. I tried practicing my aim more I held down the grip to see if I could shoot it faster that way. Instead, two flaps on each side came perpendicular to the weapon. The lights on the circles grew bigger and on the slaps, they glowed more. I let my grip go a bit and it fired a powerful series of bolts. They were not like the beam-bolts of the normal firing mode. This overcharged mode was way more powerful. I decided to give it another try. It was as if I could feel the power flowing through the weapon. IT was quite powerful indeed. I tried firing again but it wouldn’t fire, so I reloaded it. This meant that each overcharged shot consumed half the power, interesting. I then took notice of all the damage I had caused. There were holes everywhere in front of me. I had even pierced the walls and the sunlight was coming from the outside. This was quite a powerful weapon. I was about to try again but I found myself puzzled. The sunlight had reminded me that I was in a strange place. I turned around to the flying creatures and they blinked their lights. One of the beam creatures fired at the ground and created a circle. Then a disc fell down into the floor below. They wanted me to go there! I looked down the hole, it was another room, it looked safe. I made my way down that hole. Above I heard noises on the metal floor. Footsteps! The flying creatures quickly made it down. The disc creatures lifted the floor-disc with their beams and the beam creatures used their beams to seal the disc. It was at that moment that I heard louder footsteps and this horrifying noise, like a scream, like a call, a whine. I could not tell what it was. But something was there. We were being chased.

I started running; whatever was upstairs might find a way to chase us. I dared not look back, it could have taken whatever was that creature might catch up somehow. I ran through the corridors and suddenly, I felt something. It was a hand, I was being caught! I felt the end! My hope faded as I gasped. The cold hand of death had grabbed on to my exposed arm. I dared not look. I froze, but then I saw it wasn’t doing anything. It just stood there. It was a gold-coloured humanoid. It wasn’t shiny, it looked old, but it hardly looked menacing. It had big eyes, very robitc in nature.

“I’m sorry, I did not mean to startle you!” it said. “We are doomed! We are doomed! The sand people have taken over! Soon they will find us!”
“What? Who are you?” I replied, “Wh- what are you?”
“I am HR-S8-GE3, a protocol droid.” It answered. “I was salvaged from the desert by the Jawas and served them but then the sand people arrived! And now we’re in the middle of the desert! We’re doomed! The maker has forgotten us!”
“Look, Aych-Ar… Cee… Whatever, I’ll call you Aych-Ar. We can make it out of here” I turned around and saw the flying creatures. And I turned around. “I’m sorry, I panicked”. The creatures just made lower noises.
Aych-Ar had a particularly robotic voice, not quite devoid from emotion though, he had a tone. It sounded like panic and fear. “How will we get out of this doomed mobile junkyard?”
“Mobile? This thing can move? Why don’t we get to the control room and start it up?”
“It’s too damaged! The power core has been damaged, He replied, “we’d have to repair it!”
“Well then, do you know how to repair it?” I theorized, “maybe, maybe the flying creatures can do something!”
“I am not skilled in that, maybe one of the others might, but it’s no use!” I could still hear his panic. “It wouldn’t matter! The sand people will come back with more reinforcements! Then we will be doomed!”
“There are others?”
“Yes, there are.” He began listing them, “B5-6G, astromech droid, T7-L2, another astromech droid and… well… one of our companions went to see if it was clear on the upper floor but never came back…”
“I think I heard him…” I replied,” when I woke up. He’s, gone. I’m sorry. Can’t we make it out on foot then? There must be somewhere where there are people. Gather your uh… robot companions while I go find a kitchen to get me some food.”
“My partners and I are droids. And that’s crazy! We’ll never make it out on foot! We don’t know where to go! The navigational computer might tell us but the sand people will surely get us! “I started at him with my arms crossed.” Fine, fine, the kitchen is on the level below. After the service ladder at the end of the tunnel, go down and move all the way forward. There should be a big bowl sign. That’s the kitchen.”
“Got it, thanks Aych-Ar.” I replied. I looked at the flying creatures and said,” You four, stay with them. They might need protection. Oh and thanks for the weapon, I’ll be back.”

I took off for the stairs at the end of the ramp. With a hasty paste I walked, I tried not make too much sound. I reached the end of the corridor and climbed down the service ladder. I slowed my pace down. There were some open doors and far ahead, there was some sort of big room. I could see some machinery ahead, but then I spotted the bowl sign. it was close to the end. I hastened my pace in relief of that sight but then this creature wearing beige robes and a horned mask, some sort of head gear. It was not particularly pleasing, but it did not look like he was made out of sand. I decided approaching him.
“Hey, are you a droid… thing?” I said.

[erickyboo]

It turned towards me. I then noticed it carried some sort of weapon and then it made that horrible noise I had heard earlier. That was a sand person! I could feel my heard beat, I was going to close my eyes and try to duck but my adrenaline kicked in. I raised my weapon, aimed at its direction, and fired three times towards it just as it was aiming towards me. Each time I fired, I blinked. I then approached There was a big gaping hole in its chest and another one where the head was. It was defiantly dead. My heart beats were rapid. I was shocked. With part of its head missing, it looked like some sort of thing, not a person. Still, I felt, weird. I tried not to think about it. I entered the kitchen and I had forgotten what I came in here for due to the shock. After a few seconds of awe, I shook my head and tried to focus. I looked for anything that looked like edible food. I looked around the place, I managed to find barrels of water. I pushed them down so I could roll them. I then continued my search for food and on one of the counters, I found packets of strange biscuit like things. I couldn’t take anything much in the side of meat as it would spoil really quickly. I looked around me and I found an empty brown sack. I took it and put the biscuit packs inside. There were quite a lot of them. I slung the sack across my back and grabbed it with my right arm. I began to push the water barrels towards the corridor. I honestly did not think this would last long but I did not have much time and I needed to be light enough. We were stranded in the middle of I don’t know where. There were horrific things, sand people, who wanted to kill us all. I did not remember how or why I got here and I could not even remember my name yet. Still, I had to improvise and focus on staying alive. I reached the end of the corridor and slowly climbed the ladder as best as I could. The sack wasn’t helping me much but I managed it anyways. I left the water barrels down. The droids and the flying creatures were close to the service ladder. I looked at the flying creatures.

“I need help bringing the water barrels up, I can’t carry them on my own”.
They moved towards the water barrels on the level below. Aych-Ar was standing there with B5 and T7.
“You have returned! Thank the maker!” Aych-Ar said, “Here are B5-6G and T7-L2.”
B5 was a smaller droid thing. It had a dome as a head with multiple lights, below it had a cube-like body and had two legs which had some sort threads or wheels. I could not tell. It was orange coloured. T7 had a very similar build but instead of a dome it had this cut-off short conical shape. I then noticed their legs behind their main body.
“I’m alive, I encountered one of the sand people but, he’s dead now.” It felt strange saying that. I had shot it… “So where is the control room?”
“It’s located on the top floor, which is the one above.” He replied. “While you were gone, the astromechs managed to repair the elevator, but we fear there are more sand people on the upper level.”
“We can take them out, for now, we need to get to the data to find out way to civilization.” I replied. It was then that the flying creatures returned with the barrels of water. “Let’s head for the elevator, lead the way Aych-Ar.”

Aych-Ar led us to the control room. What struck me first was the view on the other side of the windows. It was an ocean of sand, a desert. It looked like the sun was setting as well. There were many controls and panels all around us and we had to activate and find the right panels that would give us the data we required. It wasn’t going to take a small amount of time unless we got lucky. The droids quickly set out to activate the panels all around us. There was visible damage in this room. I could see some bullet holes here and there. I hoped no important systems were severely damaged. There was however this one console which had been destroyed. I hoped it was not it. There were wires coming out of it and that gave me an idea. I pulled some of the wires and indicated the flying creatures to cut them for me. These wires would be used to fashion straps to turn the sack of food into a backpack. IT was probably not going to be the best thing in the world but it would help carry things. The water barrels were the most important though. They were harder to carry for me than some of the others in my company. I would have to consume way more supplies than them to stay alive and well, and find a way to get to a bathroom, or make one if I had to. Luckily, I did not want to now. I don’t know how we would go to wherever civilization was without getting followed by sand people but it would be our only chance of getting alive, and my only chance to find answers. Sand people- I could see figures moving towards the sand crawler, there was a huge brown beast with something or someone riding on it.

“What’s that? I asked Aych-Ar. “Is it help or sand people?”
“I’m afraid it is more sand people!” The droid replied. “They’ll overwhelm us if we don’t get out of here shortly! You bucket of bolts, we need that information now or we’ll be doomed!”
“I see many of them… they’ll be here soon! We’ll need to slow them down somehow! And even if we get the data, we’ll have to find a way to run without getting killed.” I tried thinking of any possible solutions. This is what I had to do, I had to put aside my fear and think. “I… I think I know what to do… we need to erect a barricade to stop them as long. But also… Aych-Ar, could something here begin overloading whatever is powering this vehicle?”
“We could overload the reactor.” He answered in a worried tone. “But we’d need more time and we’re inside!”
“Then do it.” I said in a firm tone. This idea was going to be crazy, but we had to try it.”Flying creatures, come and help me. We need to barricade this place Is there anything else you could make me?”

One of the disk creatures chirped and used his beam to create two grey and orange cubes with spikes on it. He also made another ammo pack. With his beam he offered me the ammo pack but kept the two cubes. The other three were scrambling around for pieces of junk and wall they could find to form a barricade and wield it together. There were holes where I could poke and shoot from and space above for the flying creatures to peek up and shoot. I hadn’t thought of how we were going to get out yet… No time to think though, I could hear the noises, they were coming! For several seconds, I could hear them moving around, screaming in their horrible voices. My heart beat increased, once again. They were coming. They were coming! I heard the mechanical rumble of the elevator… They were coming… I heard several footsteps coming towards us, then one of the disc creatures lunged one of those orange cubes towards them, I peeked through one of the shooting-holes. It was emitting light and it went in the elevator where the sand people were. The bright orange cube lifted from the ground and emitted this sphere. This big bright ball of what I guessed was some type of energy engulfed the sand people. They were dying in there and after a few seconds, the ball imploded. The elevator went down while the sand people were being covered by an orange glow, I could not see though. I then heard the thud of the elevator’s remains hitting the ground. That was something… a grenade! Then I heard more screams. They were coming!

[erickyboo]

“We got it! We got it!” The droid said. “Thank the maker! We’ve gotten the data! According to Bee-Five, the nearest outpost is thirty kilometers away.”
“It’s thirty kilometers away?” I exclaimed, “that’s like eight or nine hours of walking! And- and the reactor, how long?”
“It’s all we got so far!” Aych-Ar said,” just a few more moments and we should find the reactor controls and initiate. I shall notify you when they have been set to destruct.”
“Good”, I replied. Once it sta-.”
I was interrupted before I could finish my sentence, the flying creatures started shooting at the sand people. I quickly went to my shooting-hole and started firing my weapon. They were mostly talking blind shots. They probably came from some service ladder or something but they were here in numbers. I was down to my last ammo pack by now, the area where the sand people were standing was very devastated and the sand people’s number was almost over in our level, but I had seen so many though the window.
“We got it!”Aych-Ar said while the astromechs beeped in joy ”The reactor is very unstable and it’s going to blow in a few minutes! We need to get out!”
“Okay, okay!” I replied “Our only way out is through them… unless…”
“Oh no… Unless what?” The bipedal droid said in a troubled tone, almost as if he knew.
“Unless we blow up a hole and jump through with the flying creature’s help…” I said.
“That’s madness!” He exchanged.
“Then it’s all the better!” I exclaimed. “I need a grenade, and to let us climb on you.”

One of the disc creatures handed me a grenade, which I threw after the droids were safe. I had blown a pretty good hole, big enough to let us through. The sand people were coming as they noticed we stopped firing. The flying creatures then went through the hole, they dropped the water barrels down. The two astromechs were slowly lifted by the disc creatures. The beams lifting them seemed stronger than what I had seen usually. It was our turn. Aych-Ar and I went through the hole where the window had once been. The droid let itself fall on the beam creature. I took my courage, and then I ran and jumped. I grabbed on to the other beam creature and slowly descended. I looked back and I saw movement in the barricade. They were trying to get through. Once we were down, the creatures and droids pushed the barrels of water. And we ran, as fast as the slowest one of us could. After quite some distance, I turned around and stared at the place where I had woken up from. It was like this big elongated trapeze with the small side facing down. It was rust-coloured like the interior but it would only retain its shape and colour-tone for a few more seconds. The reactor went critical, it failed and exploded. I put my hand in front of my eyes to block the light, but then I saw the debris coming.

“Incoming!” I warned. ”Get to cover!” The debris closed on us and then it rained metal.

Chapter 2
I had tried to lay under the protection of a dune. My flying companions were the most suited to dodge the debris but one of the droids had not been so lucky. B5 had been hit with a flying chunk of metal. He was split open. It had been like a chainsaw through a piece of wood. T7-L2 and HR-S8-GE3 were fine but they screamed in panic and lamented the loss of their friend. I sat there under the hard suns, sweat running down my forehead. I wiped it off and looked at the remains of the behemoth that held us earlier. What remained was charred. Perhaps even the sand might have been vitrified or glassed by the explosion. The word glassed… it seemed familiar to me. I looked at the flying creatures… they were not strangers. I had seen them before… Where and when? I couldn’t remember yet but those creatures… What were they called? What were they called? I did not remember yet. The short moment of calm was interrupted by Aych-Ar’s cries to me.

“We’ve lost him! We’ve lost him! He was a brave companion!” He cried, “Oh why did the maker reserve such a cruel fate for him?”
“We’re not all dead. We still have to find our way to the outpost.” I tried to give him purpose. “And now that he’s gone, I’ll need to know in which direction he said.”
“He was brave and he did tell us where to go.” He tried to focus. “T7, share with us.”

After sharing with Aych-Ar, we salvaged scraps of metal from the wreckage and we took the food and water then headed off towards the outpost. It looked like the twin suns were setting and it was going to be a dangerous night. I had enough water to drink for the trip, but I would also need a shower. I decided to wait until later to take one. We walked for half an hour without saying a word. I was starting to get tired and the sun was already setting. The flying machine had been providing me shade for the sun. I drank plenty of water but I also had to suit my needs. I told them to go ahead and not to look back for a few seconds. It didn’t feel good to do this in the desert but I did I had to suit my body’s needs. After using some water to wash my hands, we continued our journey for another twenty minutes at which the sun was almost fully down. The desert started getting colder and I would have appreciated some nice warm fire to heat up and light up the night ahead but I didn’t have the tools to myself start it. Too bad there weren’t any generous gods to give out fire! Prometheus would have been nice to just come and give it to me, if he was real of course. But something seemed oddly familiar about that term… Prometheus… Promethia… Promethean… Yes that word seemed familiar when I thought about the flying creatures with the disk… I still couldn’t quite get it… Sleeping might do me some good.

“Let’s walk ten more minutes and call, have some rest.” I said. “I’m not sure about you but I need to sleep.”
“T7 and I can shut down to conserve energy.” Aych-Ar said.
“You need to conserve energy?” I then looked at the flying machines. Hm, machines, not droids but not exactly simple machine either… “What about you?” They made low noises. “I guess that’s a no. Well then, watch guard over us.”

And so I slept. And I dreamt. However what I had dreamt of was not sweet and comforting. I remember it. The droid where there, but there were people and the droids turned into the people. I was on a ship, it was the giant thing where I woke up in. Then there was light and fire, everywhere. I saw faces, friendly faces, and then green plasma burning them. Then we crashed into a skyscraper and it was day. Some people told me to get out and come with them, but there were things behind them, they had weapons and were pointing towards the people. I started falling off the building and the sky got yellow. It was then that I woke up. Light was hitting my eyes. I hadn’t slept very comfortably but any sleep would have done. There was sand in my shoes and clothes. It was everywhere! I tried getting it off of me. I also saw that the scraps of metal were placed in a way to cover me. Something had glassed the sand near me. I presumed it was the flying machines, automatons trying to keep me warm. The flying automatons woke the droids up.

“It’s time to get on the move.” I said. “The sooner we get to civilization, the better.”

[erickyboo]

We resumed our Journey. In the distance, I saw animals of different shapes and forms. Some looked like sand lizards. They had fins but I couldn’t make out the details very well. There were some big rat-like creatures that tried approaching us aggressively, which made aych-ar panic, but some of them were fried by the automatons before the rest went away. There were just three hours of walking remaining, I drank plenty of water. But as I stopped, I turned around and saw humanoid shapes. The flying creatures seemed alarmed. We were being tracked and hunted! We had to reach safety before them. I walked faster, I couldn’t run, else I’d require more water and be tired more easily. The sun was hot and the sand was in my shoes. I felt miserable, stranded in this immense desert. But the worst was not here yet. The horizon was getting darker, it was where we were going. Aych-Ar was alarmed and told me it was a sand storm. We were stranded in the middle of the desert with no shelter. Behind us, the trackers decided to turn around and head for whatever shelter they might have had or brought with them. We moved towards one of the sand dunes, there, we took our metal scraps and reinforced them by wielding them together with those beams the automatons produced. They were creating a chamber for me to stay in. I was going to be buried under the sand and that was not a fun idea, but it was the best thing I had to survive. The small chamber was entrenched in the sand dune and there were additional holes to get enough air for me. The two droids would power down and let themselves be buried right next to me. I had no idea what the four flying automatons would do. I waited a few minutes. Then, the sand in front of me started falling and blocking the entrance to my casket. I was being buried alive and I had a limited supply of air, however the pockets of air would give me as much time as possible. I then waited, I don’t know how long I waited but it felt like a really long time. I tried to save as much as my air as I could. I breathed slowly. I tried to think during that time. It was hard. I thought about what had happened earlier. That poor droid who had been hit by that metal junk, he had been useful on getting the data to the outpost. For him, I had to bring HR-S8-GE3 and T7-L2 to the outpost and I was determined to get through this storm alive. It gave me courage. Those monsters would have to pay. I would have to make them pay. I looked at my hands, they were unclean, my clothes as well. I didn’t have anything else to put on. I tried drinking some water and eating a bit. It then hit me; those flying creatures were called sentinels! I remembered their names! Aggressor sentinels and watcher sentinels! Yes! The disc creatures were the watchers and the beam creatures were the aggressors. The names, I took joy in remembering them. I was recovering my memory slowly. I would perhaps figure out who I was soon and how I arrived here. Then I drifted in my thoughts, mostly thinking about this place, this harsh sandy place.

Time passed and I was startled by the movement coming off of the sand and the sudden light. The sentinels had dug a tunnel probably twice my height. I tried climbing out and I saw them trying to dig out the droids. I gave them a hand.

“I’ve got sand all over my circuits!” Aych-Ar said as he was activated. “My goodness! We’re alive!”
“Yes, but don’t get too excited.” I told him” We need to move before they catch us. We also have to leave the metal scraps behind. It will only slow us down”
“Right “he said as we started walking towards the outpost,” I don’t want to get caught by those sand people!”
I looked at the sentinels. “You, things, guys. You’re called sentinels right?” I said to them. They made positive noises and bobbed their bodies up and down. “I’m remembering things very slowly. Once we’re at the outpost, we can try figuring out what’s going on.”

We walked the rest of the journey. The sandstorm had been beneficial for me as I managed to rest my legs. After crossing a sand dune, what I saw worried me and relieved me. I saw smoke coming from the outskirts of the outpost. The outpost was larger than I thought it would be. There was a large animal inside the outpost. I had actually measured the same type of animal from a few hours ago when I stood by a dead one of its kind. I used it as a rough reference for the outpost. It was like a rough circle with a circumference of 150 meters, at the center, there was a bracket shaped building. It had some sort of solar panels on the top I guessed. It was probably some 40 meters long. In front of the building, there was some sort of small building, maybe six meters. There were two diagonal buildings in front of each wing of the bracket. They were maybe ten meters tall. In front of those there were two pillars. There was a small entrance about twenty to thirty five meters in front. On the left side, there was a building which was shaped like half a cylinder with two smaller ones protruding from its bases. Behind those, which would be next to one of the wing brackets, was a group of eight machines with what looked like antennas. Behind the buildings, there were more. Right behind it were three smaller buildings, four to ten meters long. Then they were flanked by two bigger ones, maybe some thirty meters long. They had a larger area and then a smaller one facing the back. Like an entrance. At the very end there was a cubic building some fifteen meters. They were mostly shaped in rough shapes, some had small domes like bumps on them. A small skirmish took place in front of the entrance. A vehicle looked to be the source of the smoke, there were several bodies. Most of them belonged to those sand people. These monsters were actually losing this time. I wondered where the others that were chasing us were. We started descending the dune. By the time I was down, all the sand people were dead. Some armed people came towards us. There were members of other species and humans. Strangely, these others looked very much like humans. There was this green skinned one who looked exactly like a human except for two tentacles coming out of his head. Two other ones were like humans as well but had horns coming out of their heads. They also had brown tattoos on their face. There was another one that looked like a cat mixed with a human. A catman, two twentacle men, a horned man and horned woman and three other regular humans, all of that was odd to see together. I then thought I was being rude for that type of description, then again, the word hinge-head came to my mind. I had memories of this… yes… the hinge-heads I remembered them. But this place certainly did not have hinge-heads. Elites or Sangheili, I had actually seen one. Yes I could remember even more.

“Are you okay kid?” I heard.
“Huh? I replied confused. I must have had a stunned face as he approached me. “Yeah, I’m… well… I was looking for this outpost”
“Looking? What happened?”The same voice said. ”You look horrible! It was a human speaking. He had more decorated clothes so I assumed he was higher rank than them. “Come, bring your droids inside. It’s not safe out here.” We started walking towards the outpost. He put his arm over mine.

[erickyboo]

“Well I woke up in a big giant trapeze shaped transport thing and it had been attacked by these, sand people.” I explained. ”I found these guys and we looked in the data banks to see where the closest outpost was. We walked all the way here. There were some that were following us. We, uh… blew up the thing.”
“You mean,” he replied, “a sandcrawler? That must have been quite the thing. But others are following you, you say.”
“Yeah, we blew up the power core, yesterday.” I said. “The sandstorm slowed them down.”
“Are there any other people with you?” He asked.
“No,” I replied, “only these two droids and those four flying sentinels. We lost one astromech droid earlier though.”
“You must have been through a lot.” He said looking impressed. “We’ll get inside, my men will clean your droids and I’ll get you some water and food. So what’s your name boy?”
“I… Well it’s that I don’t remember a lot. I’ve been recovering memory but I don’t remember my name.” I said hesitant and embarrassed. “I’m not from here though. All of this, it’s a brand new world”
“Your story is very peculiar. Look, I’m militia captain Fedona. I’ll be right with you” He said as we reached the entrance of the outpost. He turned around to the tentacle man. “Fencer, take them inside and tell the boys to clean the droids. Make sure our guest gets some food and water”.

Captain Fedona headed towards more militia I guessed. There were more of these militia people in the outpost. There were hovering vehicles, crates, lots of military equipment around. We passed the pillars and the front buildings and we headed towards the bracket shaped building. Fencer took us inside. We went up a ramp short to the center of the bracket and a large door opened. The room inside was like some sort of mess hall for these militia men. There were a few people inside. The room was rectangular. We entered at the middle of one of the longer walls of the room. There were four tables in front. Behind the tables was a counter with food equipment I guessed and a door leading to what I guessed was the kitchen. There were two doors on the side of the room and two couches besides the doors. Fencer told me to sit down and talked to some of the people inside. I sat down and waited, looking around. A minute later, I was given a large glass of water and there was some food. It was some meat of some sort. It was very tasty. The sentinels hung near the droids and the droids were getting cleaned by some people. There were cables which were connected to them now. The sentinels then began to wander around the place and I just sat there eating. I was exhausted. I let my mind wander as I ate. The sangheili are not from here either. I also felt like drinking some milk. How did I know what was from here and what wasn’t? Did I used to know something important? Obviously I couldn’t remember what would be considered important. I felt like there was a reason why but I just couldn’t remember. Hinge-heads, they slaughtered us human. Yes, the covenant, they had a genocidal campaign. How did I end up here?

“Excuse me for being away” A deep voice said, captain Fedona’s. “The sand people will be attacking soon. I’ve got a few minutes to spare and I have a few questions to ask.”
“Thanks for the food.”I replied as he nodded. “What do you want to know?”
“How many sand people did you see following you” He asked.
“I’m not exactly sure.” I answered. “However I don’t think there would be few numbers after what happened at the sand crawler.
“Yes, my next question pertains the sandcrawler.” He said. “Could you tell me about when you got on the sandcrawler and how many sand people attacked?”
“I don’t know.” I told him. “I couldn’t remember.”
“Excuse me!” Aych-Ar said behind me. “My name is HR-S8-GE3 and I was present during the initial attack.”
“Alright droid.” The captain said. “Enlighten your master and me and tell us about yourself.”
“Very well.” The droid complied. “I was a translation droid serving on board the Jawa sandcrawler. I was dealing with a trade between the Jawas and some traveling farmer. We had to quicken the trade because of a crash the jawas wanted to investigate. We traveled two hours east to the crash. It was some sort of small transport. The jawas took me inside. There wasn’t much to. It was curiously quite pristine. Then we saw a body. My new master I suppose. He was lying unconscious and we picked him up and moved him towards the sandcrawler. Then the four sentinels, as master calls them, came out of the crash and went into a protective formation around master, escorting him. The jawas tried putting retraining bolts on them but two of the sentinels projected a beam to take the bolts and then the weapons. Once inside, we brought the master to one of the upper decks. They managed to trick the sentinels into a room locking them inside and brought the master to another room. I was told to alert the Jawas in case he woke up and to calm him down. We traveled for another hour until we got hit. A Jawa shouted to run because the sandpeople were here. I proceeded to the nearest window and saw two dozen sandpeople on that side of the sandcrawler. I then went into hiding with two astromech droids. The attack lasted about half an hour and then it got quiet. I saw through the window that many sand people were leaving, however there were some roaming around. A few minutes later, the master found me. He went to get supplies and then we went to find directions about the nearest outpost. There were more sand people coming back and the master and the sentinels fortified the area. We were later attacked and the sand people were held off long enough to get the information. We triggered the overload of the power core and jumped off through a hole the master had made. We then lost one of our companions and started our journey where we walked for a total of 30 kilometers to this outpost.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” I asked him.
“Well master, you did not ask” He replied.
“Good point.” I said feeling embarrassed.
“A lot of sand people attacked you then.” The captain said. “They have been very aggressive here too. Something is making them more aggressive than usual. Different clans by the distance you provided. If they followed you then that means they will soon reach us. If those numbers you claim are true, then that means we’re outgunned! We’ll need to gather every man and woman who can fight to defend this outpost. There are only twenty of us militia men so far. Most others here are just civilians sent here to prepare the outpost to accommodate new recruits into the militia.”
“I was able to kill some of them.” I said, volunteering for the action.”I can lend a hand. They’re monsters. My sentinels can help too.”
“You’re very exhausted and you’re under my care.” The captain said. “I don’t want to obligate you to do this. You’ve been through a lot”.
“I am confident I can do this.” I said, raising my tone without being disrespectful.
“Very well.” He said. “If it’s your desire, I’ll honour it. Now tell me about your sentinels, as you call them.”

[erickyboo]

“The ones with the discs are called watcher sentinels. The other ones are aggressor sentinels. The aggressor sentinels have these beams while the watchers fire these bolts. The watcher was able to construct a weapon. It’s in my bag right now actually.” I looked into my makeshift backpack and took it out. “They were also able to make grenades. They’ve wandered off…”
“I saw them wandering outside like if they were observing the area.” The captain said. “Let’s go get them.”
I had already finished my food so having to go outside didn’t bother me that much except for the heat. We exited but the droids stayed there. The two stars were still bright so I had to shade my eyes. I saw the sentinels wandering around. I then yelled them to come towards me. They obeyed. These sentinels seemed to be protecting me. I knew that, however I wasn’t sure why. It was this key memory that was absent. The sentinels positioned themselves in a row in front of me.
“Show him what you can do.” I said.

One of the watcher sentinels made some ammunition for my weapon. The energy illumined the hot sand with a bluer hue. I was then going to pick it up but then the watcher pick it up a beam and swung it before the other watcher catched it and gave it to me. Then an aggressor sentinel fired its beam at the sand, making a line a few dozen centimeters in front of my feet. A strange wall appeared in front of me. It was blue and I could see through it. There was a beam coming off from the watcher. A sentinel fired its beam at it but it was stopped. It was some sort of shield. It then changed colour to red and disappeared. I hadn’t seen that before. Then, a watcher started its construction fields. I thought it was going to make a weapon or more ammo but it took longer. It lasted a few seconds and then, these things appeared. Four silver quadrupeds appeared. They were really big, longer than I was high. They each had a head with some sort of pincers. They had some blue glowing eyes and a few blue lights on their body. They had three digits at each of their feet. They were actually more like claws. One had spikes on its back and two horns on its head. They resembled the watchers and I knew them however I could not remember their names yet. The other watcher then did the same except that were wasn’t one with spikes. One of them then fired a bolt like the one coming from my weapon in the air. They could shoot from their mouths! Their pincers! I thought to myself that these could have been useful earlier, but then again, we were holding out pretty well in the sandcrawler.

“I don’t know where you and your buddies from another planet come from but I sure won’t miss this opportunity.” The captain said. “That gives us 13 more fighters. That’s actually impressive. Come with me kid, you’ve just given us hope.”

There were some more militia looking at what had just happened. They talked amongst each others with particular looks on their faces. I followed captain Fedona. We walked towards where there was an open space inside the fort but in front of the entrance. It was just past the small building in front of the bracket building. There was another astromech droid judging by its small legs connected to a cylinder which finished off on some sort of flat cylinder head. It was projecting a blue hologram of the fort. Fencer was there too. The quadruped robots were crawling on the buildings now. They were on the walls. Then I remembered! They were called crawlers! The sentinels flew above me and my droids, I guessed they were mine now, were still recharging. The militia assembled around the hologram. There were also some of residents of the outpost gathering up as well. Captain Fedona began to speak.

“There is a major sand people attack incoming. We’ve suspected this for a while and have witnesses that claim the sand people have been more aggressive. A clan took down a sandcrawler thirty-kilometers from here. They have been following the only living survivor and his droids but they retreated when the sandstorm hit. Our survivor has brought some special guests.” The captain signaled me to the others when he said survivor and then pointed at the sentinels and crawlers. “These flying creatures, sentinel watchers, have deployed the creatures on the walls. Now the sand people, they outnumber us and they will come and attack us. However, now we have thirteen more and they will give us a tactical advantage. We will let the sand people in and trap them. They must remain in this open area. We’ll hold them off between the buildings. The survivor’s forces will attack from behind. They will force them in and they will be forced to fight behind them. Now we’ll need preparations so we’ll have to barricade the buildings. Our medics will be joining us in case any of you get shot. The construction crews will be helping you fortify the area. We need to be ready and we will strike the enemy. If you have any questions, now is the time to say it.”The captain looked around but no one asked. “Alright people. Let’s get to it!”
“Captain, how are we going to strike them from behind without them knowing?” I asked.
“That’s what we need to figure out now.” He replied.
“Maybe we can bury them in the sand.” I said.
“If they can do that, then that’s a good idea kid.” He said.

[erickyboo]

We walked outside the outpost. The crawlers and sentinels followed me. The eight crawlers and two watchers spread out from us in a circle some thirty meters from us forming an arc around us. They then started digging in the sand. The two aggressor sentinels stayed with me. Now, they were hidden. The captain went to oversee the construction and I had nothing else to do but to look around. I thought about home and I wandered around the outpost. I remembered home. It was a place called Roost. My father was a scientist, doctor in archeology and my mother as well. She was a professor at the University of Green Cove in archeology as well. I asked what those eight machines that looked like antennas were. Someone told me they were moisture evaporators. They gathered the water moisture in the air and then made fresh water. My father and mother sometimes took me to fish. My parents often took me fishing and I spent a lot of time at the beach with my friends. When I wasn’t with them, I spent my time home. I always wanted to explore and even fight the covenant. The covenant was defeated. They never managed to touch our planet. The stories went that the Master Chief had fought the covenant on Earth and that the covenant fought each other. My dad however told me something… something else that I couldn’t remember either. At the back of the outpost where the two buildings were, there were some dormitories and other military training equipment. I actually liked paintball. I played it with my friends. I thought about them and I missed them. I was now stranded on a desert on an unknown world. If this whole experience was like what fighting the covenant was, then I wasn’t exactly prepared for it. When I was born, the covenant was fighting us. I wandered around the outpost and went back into the bracket building, which was the militia headquarters. I got some rest, talked around to people to learn about this place. The horned people were called Zabraks and the tentacle heads were called Twi’leks. This planet was called Tatooine and the outpost was Outpost Thar. A few hours passed. Then I heard the alarms.

I took my weapon and went to the fortified zone. The two aggressor sentinels were escorting me. Barricades had been installed. There were militia taking cover getting ready. These men and women were scared. I could see it in their faces. I looked over the dune. There were silhouettes, humanoids and their mounts, which were called Banthas. I saw captain Fedona. A scout told him that there were at least fifty of them. That was a lot. The sand people came towards the outpost. They charged. They had numbers on their side. Banthas and sand people lifted the sand as they ran towards the outpost. The sound they made was horrible. The captain said a few words to boost the moral up. It was going to get really bloody. I braced for it. The sand people were approaching and were at about a hundred meters from the entrance now. The captain told the men to fire on his mark. The militia was nervous, there was sweat coming down from one of them. They were now at fifty meters. The captain ordered to fire. Some of the sand people stumbled and fell. They died. The sand people still approached, one of them highly decorated was leading the attack. They began to fire on us and the captain ordered to fire at will. Bullets and blaster bolts fire through the air; Blue, green and red lights hitting sand people and bullets hitting the barricades. I began to fire my weapon. The two aggressors, who were idle, flew up in the air, and fired their beam weapons and the sand people. At that moment, the crawlers and watchers burst from the ground, trapping the sand people in. There were now orange bolts of energy flying through the air. The sand people turned around to fire on the crawlers. One of the crawlers had jumped on a sand person riding a bantha. It had chopped his arm off with its pincers and then killed the bantha. The watchers then came towards us and used their construction beams again. I was thinking they were making more crawlers but something different appeared on top of the two pillars. Two floating things shaped like giant tear drops facing the sand people. They were some machines, some automated turrets. They charged up and made noise sand then fired upon the sand people. They were getting cut and massacred. These beam turrets were taking some fire however the bullets just pinged off. One of the crawlers then blew up sending shards of broken him towards the sand people. They were getting thinned out. The highly decorated sand person came towards me, he was wielding a blaster weapon like the militia. He took out a giant stick and slammed it into our barricade and then jumped towards me. I stumbled backwards. He pointed his blaster at me fired. But I was saved by one of the sentinels who projected a shield. An aggressor sentinel then fired its beam on its back and it fell down. I got up and shot it to make sure it was dead. The sand people were trying to escape but they were being hunted down by the crawlers. All of this seemed to take so long yet it took but a few seconds to massacre these sand people. I looked to my left. One of the militia had been wounded by the barricade. A medic came to assist him. We had won this battle. There were bodies, bodies of the sand people littered on the sand. Some of them were missing limbs while others just had blast marks on them. It seemed that these blasters created small e explosions when they hit their targets however the weapons from my crawlers and sentinels had taken off entire limbs, cut them in half, left giant holes in them and in general created a whole mess. The sentinels and crawlers then came towards me. There were now five regular crawlers and the one with the spikes. Two had apparently been destroyed. The captain then shouted congratulations. I looked at the body in front of me. Its back had been lacerated and it had holes from my weapon on it. Captain Fedona came towards me.

“We owe you and your companions our lives kid.” He said, looking at me. He shook his head with this big great smile and then held me tightly. I couldn’t breathe. He then let go off me but his arms remained on my shoulders. “Son, you’re our hero.” I smiled back at him.
“I was doing what I could to survive.” I told him.
“I’ll need to attend to the others.” He told me. “We’ll need to gather the bodies for any trinkets which could lead us to understand this aggression and attend to the wounded. We’ll also dispose of the bodies so if you want to lend a hand you can help us search the bodies.”
“Actually, I think I can do something about the bodies.”

[erickyboo]

Chapter 3
We searched the bodies for at least a quarter of an hour. We had taken weapons, small items but it was I who found the most interesting thing. The decorated sand person was not a sand person according to the militia. He was carrying some sort of communication device and a datapad. The datapads in this place were bigger and bulkier it seemed. Not at all like the slim and light datapads from back home. There were words written in letters I did not understand. This datapad used buttons and had a screen at the middle. It was not tactile like my datapad. I also found dogtags and other small technological items. Sand people apparently didn’t use technology too much, sometimes they did but they were not usually tech savvy and it was often looted. They took the objects back to the militia hall. Now we had fifty three stinking bodies and I had thought of a way to get rid. The bodies were dragged into a bigger pile and the crawlers prepared assembled around the pile in a half-circle. I told them to get rid of the bodies. They started firing on the corpses. All these dead sand people were being disintegrated. The power those weapons they had must have been very high for such a process to happen. It was like this orange essence just dissipating the pile. It was like burning a pile of thread. It was basically gone fast. There were no more bodies remaining. Fifty three of them had been disintegrated. Despite its morbidity, it had been quite a spectacle to watch. The other militia had gathered around to catch a glimpse. I came back inside. Aych-Ar and T7 had been cleaned and looked shiny now. Aych-Ar greeted me with relief that I was still alive. One of the militia had apparently told him what had happened. T7 was working on the datapad. He had some cables coming from him that where attached to it. The Captain was here. He handed me a glass of water.

“Alright Aych-Ar.” The captain said “Tell us what the astromech found.”
“This appears to be the datapad of an Imperial operative codenamed the Agitator.” Aych-Ar briefed us. ”His mission objective was to agitate the sand people to attack key outposts and critical sites that would ease the way for an imperial invasion on Anchorhead, all under the cover of sand people. His datapad also contains the location of a secret imperial detention center and operation base located ten kilometers south west of Anchorhead in the Junland Wastes. The Agitator was present at sandcrawler attack. There was a Republic operative onboard with sensitive information. The attack right after had been this one. Three more outposts were on the schedule this week. He also took note of the crash where we found Master.”
“Well, this explains everything.” The captain said with a worried tone.
“What’s Anchorhead?” I asked” And why is it so important?”
“Anchorhead, is one of the larger settlements. The Republic has a building there, it is there where a key republic starport is located. You don’t know about the Republic and the Empire do you? “Captain Fedona asked me before I shook my head negatively.” The Republic is the government in our galaxy. It doesn’t have touch everywhere but it’s the dominant power. Now the Empire, well the Empire wants to take over and exercise domination over everyone. The Republic and Empire fought and there was a treaty. But it’s only a way to keep both factions at bay for a bit while both recover. War is inevitable but we don’t want to start throwing the punches before we’re back up on our feet. Now we are allied with the Republic as you can tell. If we lose Anchorhead, we lose republic help on Tatooine.”
“I’m familiar in living in times of war.” I said. “However it was a war against an alien foe that wanted to eradicate every single one of us.
“Well then. All of us owe you one and I think it’s time to start figuring you out kid.” Fedona said as he put a hand on my shoulder. “If those imperials consider that crash important, then we better get there too. I will warn Anchorhead and brief the men. Go clean yourself, eat and have some rest time while I get things sorted out.”

I did what he suggested me, mostly. Someone had washed my clothes, My Cargo pants, my hoodie, my shirt and shoes weren’t smelly anymore. Being in the desert and wearing the same clothes for a long time tends to get them smelling not too pretty. I ate the same food that I was given. It wasn’t the greatest thing but I had to eat. I asked around to know more stuff about this whole war and place. The republic had been around for thousands of years and some of its protectors were a monk-like order called the Jedi. They had these things called light sabers and used what was called the force, some sort of magic. They supposedly did good things around the galaxy. There was another order that was their opposite. They were the Sith who fought to get more power and domination using the “dark side of the force”. They were part of an Empire that included many who were not force users and had come back from the dark corners of the galaxy and attacked the republic but conflict was like a cold war. In the 20th century on Earth, there was this cold war after the Second World War. My dad said that after our war with the covenant ended, we entered a period like the one after the Second World War but only that enemies were foggy. The big fight was over, but there were sometimes those who still wanted to eradicate us and the insurrectionists who sought to damage Earth and its government. There were also criminal and more freelance organizations around this galaxy. I was shown some star-map of the galaxy and it wasn’t the Milky Way. It didn’t look like it. I don’t know how I ended up here but that was pretty impressive if I had left the Milky Way. Aych-Ar told me more about himself. He was a droid that was bought by a weapons merchant to provide translation to several bounty hunters. One day the merchant crossed a bounty hunter and he got killed. The bounty hunter took his weapons and his droid. Eventually the bounty hunter crash landed after another bounty hunter tried to take his bounty. He died in the desert and the Jawas salvaged what was left. Interesting things seemed to come in crashing on this planet it seemed. Captain Fedona returned to see me. He was accompanied by three other men.

“The republic just came in with two transport landspeeders.” He said.” They are sending three of their soldiers to assist us investigate the crash and then recover the republic operative if possible. We will load up your friends in them and investigate your crash site if you agree of course.”
“Yes” I answered” I want to find out why am I here and I guess I’d be willing to help”
“Good. Do you need anything? Weapons, armour?” He asked
“I’m fine with what my sentinels provide thanks.” I told him
“Well then.” He said. “Let’s go outside.”

[erickyboo]

We climbed on board these vehicles equipped with some sort of anti-gravity as its main propulsion. These were called landspeeders and this one was big enough to contain enough space for my crawlers and sentinels. It was a thirty-something minute ride to the sandcrawler. The sand was already reclaiming what was left of the sandcrawler. The republic soldiers accompanying us got off with the captain but they got back on and continued our Journey towards the crash site. It only took us about ten minutes. And then we noticed people. Both landspeeders came to a halt. There were bodies in the distance.

“It’s the imperials!” The captain said. “Six of them! Get back to the landspeeders and ready to engage!”

We quickly got into the landspeeders and we went towards the imperials. Suddenly, a small light appeared and from it materialized this huge thing. It was very big. It was bipedal and had some sort of carapace on its back. It had two visible hands, one with some sort of blade and the other I assumed a rifle. They were Knights! The knight had teleported behind one of the imperials. He impaled him with his blade and threw him towards another one. He fired his weapon at another imperial killing him immediately. He was taking fire and one imperial ran towards him but the knight slapped him away so hard he hit an imperial speeder which was ten meters away. There was an explosion and the knight started disintegrating. We then got out of the landspeeders and the republic troopers engaged the remaining imperials. Three against 15 wasn’t a fair match. The imperials still opened fire on us but they were quickly killed. One of the watchers came over to where the knight had been. There was like this gold and blue wisp, like a ghastly flame. The watcher used its construction beam and from there, the knight had rematerialized. It had revived the knight! These watchers certainly were marvelous. I looked at the knight with more detail. It had stood on two legs that were not quite connected to the main body. There were two arms which held the blade and the rifle. They just floated in place. It had a sort of helmeted-head and behind it was this big carapace-like thing. It looked heavy and stood very tall, perhaps three meters tall. It had a pair of two black organic looking arms at the front with five fingers each, perhaps they manipulated things that way. It also followed the blue-highlight pattern that the sentinels and crawlers had. It looked imposing and I would probably have tried to run away had I not known it was mine.

“You check what’s inside while the troopers and I inspect the imperial vehicle and what equipment they have.” Captain Fedona instructed me.
“Knight”, I said, “show me inside.”

The knight’s started its locomotion towards the interior of the pod. My companions, including my two droids, followed me inside. The sand had almost engulfed the pod but I could enter. It was quite large, and it was dark.
I took four steps. The interior lit up. There were blue lines coming from the ground below my feet moving towards the wall some five meters in front and then on to the ceiling. The lines multiplied in geometric patterns. A pillar rose up from the ground containing a black rectangle. I recognized it, it was my datapad! It was twenty seven centimeters wide, seventeen high and one deep. I took it and it felt lighter. I turned it on and I heard a voice.

“Hello Damien.”The neutral voice had said my name. “Pardon me for not being able to attend to you earlier. The pod is heavily damaged and there is a power failure I managed to restore. I have upgraded your datapad so we can communicate and so I can assist you more easily.”
“Who are you?” I asked it.
“I am the ancilla that was detached to protect you at the moment of the split. Do you remember?” It replied.
“Is that another droid?” Aych-Ar asked.
“No, it’s some sort of AI.” I said. “I don’t remember. I woke up in some other place and the only things I can remember is my life but not how I got here”
“You appear to have suffered memory loss.” It said. ”You need to get diagnosed and personal armour has yet to be built for you. We are however far from the estimated location of the ship’s crash site and this vessel is too damaged to serve a purpose. There is a major power leak and I estimate only thirty four more hours until power loss. I cannot repair it and shall self destruct this pod once we are safely away.”
“You mean, I got here on a ship?” I asked it.
“I was generated a few seconds after the split was happening and I did not manage to obtain information on the moments before my creation.”It then took an apologetic tone as it said. ”My apologies however I know that if the ship survived, you must return to it and I shall assist you in getting there. I have the co-ordinates but we will need a vessel capable of transport.”
“I might be able to do something but right now I need to do some things for the people here.” I told it.
“Very well, I shall assist you.” It said as another pillar rose up holding my earpiece and my backpack. “I have provided food and water tubes in your backpack to keep you sustained in absence of armour.”
“Alright, let’s head out.” I said as I put on my earpiece and backpack. I held the datapad in my hands.

We walked out of the pod and headed towards the captain and the republic forces.

“So, did you find what you were looking for?” Captain Fedona said.
“I found some answers, but I’ll need a slipspace capable transport to reach the ship I came from.” I told him.
“What is slipspace?” He said.
“Faster than light, it’s complicated.” I said.
“Ah!” He replied. “We have hyperdrives but getting a ship for you might prove a bit difficult. But we’ll be able to manage something.”
“In the mean time, I’ll lend a hand with what I can here.” I told him. “By the way my name is Damien.”
“Well then Damien, glad to know you’re still helping us.” He said as he laughed “Corporal Quem’al, could you please explain the situation?”
“Yes sir.” The corporal said. “The republic operative is currently detained in the imperial facility where the imperial agent was based. We will need a diversion while someone infiltrates the base and locates the operative to bust him out. We will recon the area and call for reinforcements to begin the operation once it’s done.”
“If we are to assist then the defense element assigned to you will be able to provide assistance” The AI said.
“Who’s that?” The captain asked.
“It’s an artificial intelligence.” I answered him. ”It’s located in my datapad and will help me.”
“Very well Damien.” The captain said. “Your defense element as it calls it might prove useful.”
“Sir, is this a good idea to bring in a kid into all of this?” The corporal asked. I was a bit offended.
“This kid has saved an entire outpost.” Captain Fedona told him “He’s earned his right to fight.”
“Yes sir, sorry sir.” The corporal apologized. “We should move before they extract any information out of him.”

[erickyboo]

We moved towards our landspeeders and boarded them. The knight could barely fit inside. Luckily this transport landspeeder was big enough for him and the rest. We had several minutes to travel. I told the captain of what I discovered over the communication system. Afterwards, I decided to think. I tried remembering a ship. I felt like I had been on a ship where I had met these sentinels and AI, they were familiar but only recently. How did they relate to my life? I did not remember. I was away from my parents but this is like the life I had imagined for myself. I would be away from home fighting the covenant, an alien enemy. This time, I was away from home fighting an alien enemy. I guess this would be the chance of a lifetime to do something similar to what I had imagined as the war was over. I decided to ask my AI questions about the sentinels and the knight.

“AI, tell me more about the knight and sentinels, also the crawlers.” I said to it.”I know them but I still feel like I’ve only met them recently.”
“Yes reclaimer.” He said. “My database is limited to the factual events that proceeded but I have information on you and the constructs. These constructs were designed by the forerunners to fight the flood over a hundred thousand years ago.”
“What are the forerunners and the flood?”I asked.”They sound familiar”.
“The forerunners were the caretakers of the galaxy a hundred thousand years before your time.” It answered “They faced a great enemy, the flood a highly dangerous lifeform which consumed others to strive. They were overwhelming the galaxy so the halo array had to be fired and exterminate all life in the galaxy. Life was later seeded back into the galaxy including you relcaimer. You are reclaimer to what the forerunners left behind and as such you shall instruct us. You have the geas.”
“I feel like I should be surprised even though I’m not.” I told it. “Tell me more about what they can do. And these weapons”
“The weapons on the promethean knight, watcher and crawlers are specialized in dealing with flood enemy.” It described. ”They incinerate and disintegrate matter to prevent the flood from spreading. The weapon the promethean knight is carrying is called lightrifle. It is a weapon designed to deal with the flood with extreme accuracy at range. Your weapon is called the boltshot. It is a forerunner sidearm. The watchers and crawlers carry them as well in built-in configurations. The alpha crawler carries a fast firing suppressor designed to deal with the flood at close range. The aggressors carry a sentinel beam. This beam is effective against the flood in numbers but it is only a temporary solution. The sentinels can be a security detail as well as serve in the repair and construction of certain forerunner structures. The watchers are capable of projecting a hard-light shield in front of an ally to protect it. They are equipped with a gravity displacement beam to catch and return enemy grenades and other small ordinance. They are also able to construct beam turrets and crawlers as well as armament. The crawlers are built to overwhelm the enemy in great numbers. They are fast and have the ability to latch on to vertical surfaces as well as upside down surfaces. The knights are constructs built with an AI of human or forerunner origin. They are the result of the composer, a machine designed to transform biological life into the digital realm. These constructs are equipped with a hard-light blade and another weapon. They can carry a watcher and can be brought back if killed by a watcher. They are capable of local translocation as well as do the others but on a more limited scale. Is there anything else you’d like to know?”
“Well that’s impressive. Could you tell me what you did to my datapad?” I asked it in awe
“Yes Damien.” It obeyed. ”I upgraded it to be able to store more data, added a built in projector and extended its power reserves. I upgraded the sensors as well.”
“Thank you.” I said. ”I’m just going to spend some time on it and play something while we get there.”
“Oh my!” Aych-Ar said. “I am in awe! If I had been programmed with something greater than awe, I would have displayed it!”
“Well, I don’t think there is much after awe Aych-Ar.” I told him.
“Duly noted master” He replied.
I played a game on my datapad to pass some time. It would keep my mind busy for the rest of the ride to our destination.

[erickyboo]

Chapter 4

We had reached more rocky part of this planet, Tatooine as it was called. The coordinates took us through a cave. We left our vehicles as we didn’t want to make a lot of noise. We walked, or for some of our companions, flew, over to the other end of the cave. From there, we could see a base in a hidden valley. It wasn’t too far. There was an oasis at the middle, it was walled but due to the nature of the location, walls seemed redundant. There were several buildings inside the rectangular shaped base. There was something that looked like a landing pad, a communications tower and even some sort of garage. They were all of the same colour as the sandy buildings of this planet. Perhaps some sort of limestone. The walls of the cave where we were, were quite smooth. The buildings probably were not constructed from this cave. It did not really matter. What I had to figure out is how we were going to get inside and finding our guy. The communication tower seems like the best area to take over first. In case things went wrong and they called up reinforcements, we had to stop them from doing so.

“We could hit that communication tower over there first.” I said. “It would stop them from sending reinforcements in case they notice us and things go wrong”.
“Good plan kid.” Captain Fedona said.
“How are we supposed to get there without being spotted?” The Corporal asked.
“We teleport.” I said. “The knight can bring us there. Right?” The ancilla confirmed my assumption.
“Corporal, stay here.” Fedona ordered. Rashun, Damien and I will secure the tower then bring the droids over to examine their data. If you see something, let us know.”

The knight opened up a part of his back carapace like the wings of a beetle and then one of the watchers inserted itself into it. It was designed to hold it. It seemed like a sort of symbiotic relationship. The knight and his watcher. We got close together and the knight walked to us and put his sword and lightrifle on Rashun’s and Fedona’s shoulder. I was in the middle. I had my boltshot in my hands, in between both people. I started seeing this flash, this light. I experienced a strange and unpleasant feeling in my stomach. Next thing I knew, we were somewhere else. I felt dizzy that moment. I saw a room with windows. It had some screens, computers perhaps. They were gray. There were some people too, wearing clothes of the same colour. Four people sitting in chairs, one armoured by the door. I saw this in an instant. They were startled. They began to face us and the knight shot the armoured one. It sent him flying backwards against the wall, leaving a hole in him. The ones in the chair got up and reached for their weapons but they were shot by Fedona and Rashun. The knight was letting the watcher out. It popped out and hovered around.

“Room secured.” Said the captain, “Bring the droids in.”

The knight teleported out and a few seconds later it came back with the two droids. I looked out the window, the imperials were walking along unaware of what was going on. Fedona was telling the droids to connect with the system. My ancilla told me that it sent the watcher outside to do some air reconnaissance.

“We should secure the rest of the building while the droids work.” Captain Fedona said. “We can take care of it, your knight and you can stay here. Tell us if something new appears.”
“Okay.” I replied.

They left the room and headed towards the lower levels. I looked over the droids.

“We found something master!”Aych-Ar said. “There are orders to transfer a republic prisoner to a high security cell. There schematics of the base in the communications.”
“Ancilla, tell captain Fedora we’re going to retrieve him.” I said. “Can you transfer the schematics to my ancilla T-7?”
“Schematics received,” my ancilla said” prepare to be translocated.”

The knight took back the watcher and came over to me, putting his weapons on my shoulders. Once again I saw this bright light and felt this unpleasant feeling in my stomach. We were being teleported, and the scenery changed. The detention center was a large long room, there were these square cells along the walls. The cells were some sort of shielded wall. There were people in them. There were also more imperials over to what looked like a torture chair. There were four troopers and five more prison personnel. They started looking towards us as the knight was deploying the watcher. The knight fired and hit one of the troopers. They fired back at us. The watcher deployed a hard light shield in front to protect me. I ran towards one of the cells. The watcher dropped his shield. The knight had already downed two more imperial prisoner personnel. I took cover and fired at the general direction. The knight was shielded by the watcher. It charged towards the imperials and when he got in range, the shield dropped and the knight cut through two troopers. The watcher fired upon them. I looked at my datapad. It displayed the location of the cell of the republic operative. The knight and watcher came towards me. I reached the cell.

“Are you the republic operative captured at the sandcrawler?” I asked.
“Yes. I didn’t know the republic would find out where they took me!” He replied. “I didn’t tell them anything. Torture was going to be next for me.”
“Captain Fedona.” I said over the datapad. “We found him, but there are other prisoners.”
“Leave them.” The operative said. “They carry a plague the imperials have been trying to make to exterminate the sandcrawlers. They have all been injected. The imperials were looking for an immunity.”
“Those sons of hutts are worse than I thought!” the Captain said. “We’re going back up to the droids now.”
“There is an imperial patrol heading towards our transports.” My ancilla said. “The crawlers are being sent to intercept however the droids report that an imperial transport is hailing the communicator tower. I have spoofed the operators and I am trying to delay them.”
“Get out of there Damien.” The Captain said. “They are going to come down on us soon.”

I looked around the cell. I started shooting at some box where cables came off of it. The knight shot it as well. The cell’s power started failing. The operative was free but this triggered an alarm.

“Uh oh, captain, the alarm.” I said.
“I know, we suppressed it at the tower but the transport is still landing.” The captain replied.
“We should get the others out.” I said as I looked over one of the other cells. There was a corpse now, he had died. “Oh… no….”

[erickyboo]

I went over the operative and the knight teleported us out, watcher in him. It had been the third time I saw the white light. I was still not used to the effect it had on my stomach. I told the operative where to go. The crawlers and sentinels gathered up. I saw some sort of dropship land on the landing pad close to the communication tower. The knight returned with everyone else left. We boarded the landspeeders and left the area rapidly. I asked where we were going and was told that we were going to Anchorhead. It took us some time to get there. That plague worried me. From what I knew, a lot of people were farmers. Many of them were going to die if the Empire succeeded. We only retrieved a prisoner and caused some trouble. I still wanted to find a way home. I had to find the ship were I came from. The republic had soldiers to take care of the rest.
We approached Anchorhead. From the distance, I saw these tiny buildings get bigger and bigger. They could be seen from really far due to the terrain. As we get close, I could make them out clearly. There were these white-sandy buildings mostly, some towers that were topped with his mushroom cap-like roof. There were more moisture vaporators, buildings of different shapes and sizes, several stories high. There were some landspeeders, merchant tents, many people walking here and there. We had taken this central road. To my left there was this big metal building. The binary stars seemed to be closed to setting. I was hungry. I noticed more merchants, people, droids and even some animals, those big rat things called womp rats. We took a few turns and stopped near this giant rectangular building. There was some sort of big door, it opened and we entered. The doors closed behind us. We parked and I got out. There were many parked vehicles and stacks of crates. There were some people working around. It was a warehouse. The droids got out, followed by the prometheans and sentinels.

“We have arrived to the SIS base.” Captain Fedora said to me. “Strategic Information Service, the republic’s intelligence gathering and covert ops service. It’s not as big as imperial intelligence services but they’ve proven effective.”
“So like the office of naval intelligence?” I said. “People are usually scared of them. There are stories surrounding ONI. They say they are devious, but their actions saved humanity, moral dilemmas but still scary. My father used to do some scientific stuff for ONI… That reminds me…”

We walked towards this elevator platform and went below.

“Tell me more about where you come from. What was your war like?” The captain asked.
“For nearly 30 years, we were hunted down by the covenant.” I told him. “Our worlds were burned, glassed. Colonies after colonies fell. We were trying to hide. We did what we could to lead the covenant away from our worlds. I grew up wanting to fight them.” They were technologically superior. After the end of the war though, we were getting some good technology. I actually remember. My dad was working on some archeological project for ONI involving forerunners. They had this massive civilization but one day it ended by this parasitic being called the flood. They left us a heritage for us to reclaim. My father was working on unearthing something…. And I was there… I can vaguely remember… I still don’t know what.”

We arrived to a lower level. We were escorted by a lieutenant to a large debriefing room. He invited us to sit. There was a large table with ten chairs on each side. The decoration and colours of most objects in the room were gray with red trims. There were large monitors displaying information, circles, lines, the weird letters I did not read. There was a hologram projector at the middle of the table. It was displaying a hologram of the planet. The lieutenant was dressed in a beige shirt and pants, something to blend in I guessed. He had dark brown hair and had scar on his cheek. Both arms were set behind him, but when he approached, I noticed his arm was prosthetic, not plastic but metal. He was carrying a satchel of some sorts and a blaster on his leg, holstered in. He had a datapad in his organic hand. The captain and other republic people sat near me. My prometheans and droids were behind me, T7 was being plugged to some sort of computer. The lieutenant went towards the knight. He looked at it and admired it for a few seconds. My knight looked at him and stood straighter, standing imposing as this impressive forerunner knight. The lieutenant then sat down. He had a smile on his face, he glanced at his datapad and signaled two guards to leave the room.

“Operative Thanyce, it’s good to have you back.” The Lieutenant said.
“It’s good to be back in Repulic territory Lieutenant Rill.” The operative replied.
“I suppose we have to thank militia captain Fedona for your rescue.” The lieutenant said.
“Actually, all thanks go to Damien! Captain Fedona corrected him. He has helped us greatly. If it wasn’t thanks to him, our outpost would have been taken over and the sand people would probably be marching on Anchorhead now.”
“Yes… well he looks a bit young… Your report is waiting to be written Thanyce, but in the meantime, I’d like to know what happened and what you learnt.” The Lieutenant said.
“Of course.” Thanyce said.” The Jawas provided me with the imperial droids. I managed to infiltrate, the compound and retrieve the information but the imperials were on to me. I got droids and a landspeeder that I used as final payment. We diverted to a crash site and found some salvage shortly before having the sand people attacked us. I learnt that the sand people were actually led by an imperial agent at the compound.”
“Captain Fedona made us aware of that discovery.” Lieutenant Rill said. “We sent out word of caution. Go on”
“We got attacked and I got captured. I hid the data disk in my cybernetic arm.” Thanyce continued. He revealed his cybernetic arm that was hidden by clothing. It was very much like the Lieutenant’s. He gave the data disk to the Lieutenant. “They saved me for interrogation and were too busy conducting their experiments. The captain and his men came to my rescue. As for what I learnt, the imperials have begun the second phase of the project. The Rancor’s Grip virus is ready for large scale testing. The data contains more information but I can tell you that the imperials managed to get the immunity and the virus is working as intended. They have control over them and their strength is greatly enhanced. Conversion takes three minutes.”
“We’ll have to take a look at the data and send the Jedi.” Rill said. “How exactly did you escape again?”
“That big droid teleported us, I don’t know what manufacturer it is.” He explained. “It’s also got powerful weaponry and-“
“They are not droids, they are prometheans. The constructs are of Forerunner origin, an ancient civilization from a place you’re not familiar with.” I had interrupted them.

[erickyboo]

“We should reverse engineer them, examine them!” The lieutenant said excited.
“No, they belong to the kid.” Captain Fedona said fiercely. He was actually quite well built and intimidating. “After all he did for us, I will protect him as long as I’m with him. And I think Damien will want a ride to another planet. I think it’s the least you can do considering he saved your life and the Data.”
The two republic SIS agents looked at each other with a look of embarrassment.
“We can do that, where do you need to go?” The lieutenant asked.
“I’m not sure” I answered, “but if you give my droid aces to your star charts… I think I can get it.”

The lieutenant fiddled with his datapad and I took mine out. The hologram of a planet appeared. My ancilla began to speak.

“Data received from T7-L2. The system is the Bothan system and the planet is Bothawui. The ship should have crashed there.”
“It’s a touchy system but we can arrange something. We will make the arrangements for tomorrow and provide you with a room to stay in for your droids, uh… prometheans and you.” The lieutenant said.
“Thank you” I said.

I was escorted to my room. We traversed a maze of stacked boxes, consoles and other equipment to get the dorms. We took a corridor and got several looks from the republic personnel there. I guess having a hulking three meter knight and company was a very strange sight, or intimidating. I stepped in the room. There were several bunk beds and a few unpacked crates. The droids, sentinels and crawlers managed to fit although it got crowded. The knight wasn’t able to fit through the door. He stayed to watch the door. I put my backpack down and my datapad on the bed. I examined my boltshot and the ammo packs. I had four spares in my bag. I decided to take a shower, I was dirty and probably didn’t smell too good. I asked for the showers and was taken to them. Valuing my privacy, I took the knight with me to detract anyone who’d want to shower. For some forty minutes I was able to attend to my personal hygiene alone, thanks to my knight in shining armour. I felt much fresher and returned to my room. The captain had brought me something good to eat. I wasn’t sure what it was but it was good.

“So Aych-Ar. What do you know about our next destination?” I queried.
“It’s the home of the Bothans.” Aych-Ar replied. The terrain consists of plains, mountains and forests. It used to be a republic ally until fifty thousand imperials invaded. The republic fought exceptionally hard and although they lost, they drove the imperials out. The system is neutral since then.”
“We shouldn’t run into too much trouble right?” I asked.
“Not if we lay low”. Aych-Ar answered.
“Charge up, tomorrow we find the ship and answers.” I said.

I put on some clothes bigger than mine and requested mine washed. I laid in bed, thinking about my parents, my home and the day. I was eager to go home. I didn’t think too long however as I fell asleep very quickly.
I was woken up by Aych-Ar. I put on my clothes. My hoodie and shirt still had the cuts where the sparks hit me back at the sandcrawler. They were clean at least. I put on my backpack and put my datapad in. I put my earpiece back on and the ammo in my hoodie’s pockets. I used my fabric belt to make a holster for my boltshot. I put it around my left thigh and made a loop. The smaller part of the loop would be the holster. I had to scatter the boltshot to insert it inside or take it out and reassemble it as the resting or fighting position. It didn’t look too pretty but I had something. I guess you have to learn to use what you have because one day, you might take things for granted and next thing you know, it’s too late. I went out to get my morning hygiene done. The republic staff was still unsure about my hulking knight following me around. I returned to my room where captain Fedona waited for me.

“Good to see you’re ready.” He said. “We will head out to the spaceport and meet up with a smuggler.”
“And he’ll take me to Bothawui?” I asked, knowing the answer. We walked towards the elevator.
“Yes.” He answered. “While I’d like to help you, I have the militia to take care of.”
“I understand.” I said, “You’ve helped me greatly. Without you, I would probably have no hope of finding my way home.”
“You saved us all and helped immensely.” He said. “It’s the least I could do to repay you.”

I smiled. We reached the elevator. I remained quiet. We walked towards the spaceport. It wasn’t far away. We entered the spaceport, it was busy with people. The main hall was large and high. There was a giant window with the view of an exterior part of the spaceport. There were platforms and many monitors, screens with people looking. We approached a woman seated on a couch. She had pants with armour plates, a duster and helmet with an open-face.

“Woah there!” She exclaimed. “I did not expect that cargo to look like that. The name is Jilah.”
“I am Damien.” I said.
“You must be the prime star kiddo.” Jilah said. “I received the payment and am ready to take him Fedona.”
“Remember Damien, “the captain said, “if you need help, contact me. Aych-Ar will teach you how to use the holonet if you need to do so. You’re always welcomed here.”
“Thank you Fedona for everything.” I said.
“No, thank you.” He replied. “Farewell.
“Let’s not get too sentimental kiddo. Come this way.” Jilah said.

I smiled and waved at Fedona as I walked away. We went towards the left. We reached an elevator. The crawlers went on the walls and ceiling to make place for us. This caused Jilah to talk in surprise. We reached the hangar. There was a waiting room and beyond that, the ship itself. I saw this ship. A bit smaller than a pelican’s length but it looked more like a disk or short cylinder with a small windowed rectangle protruding from it. On the opposite side there was an elongated rectangle, blue glowing engines. It was of an orange-brown colour with beige undertones. There was a ramp leading inside the ship.

“And this will be the ride.” She said. “The Thranta’s Luck. She’s a fine ship, good for smuggling supplies without being too big to be problematic.”
“How close will we land?” I asked.
“Bothawui is a planet that seeks to be a bit distant, there is however a small haven for smugglers and information brokers there.” She replied. ”I will see where we can go but if things aren’t too fortunate, I’ll drop you off at the smuggler’s haven. The republic paid good credits for this. Count yourself lucky kiddo.”

She told me to wait by the ramp and she went inside, a minute later, a platform descended from the belly of the ship. JIlah was on it and told us to get on. The prometheans and the droids got on and the platform began to raise. We were lifted into the cargo hold. It was a fairly large room where there were various crates, cages, speeder vehicles and other equipment. I followed her with my datapad and the droids while the prometheans remained I the cargo hold. It was a bit cramped. We took a corridor linking to the cockpit. Along the corridor were various closed doors. She put a code in a small pad on the door and it opened up, sliding to the left. We entered the cockpit.

[DrHalseyFan]

I’d like to give this a read, but you have got to work on spacing and paragraphs. It’s all just one giant wall of text I don’t feel like picking through.

[znazanz777]

^

Also, you submitted this to the Creative Writing Event, right? I know you did one last month.