[Originally written by Foln] Preface: Awakening Darkness. Complete darkness. Rainfall. Such a peaceful sound. The sound of heavy rain falling on the river would have been soothing if it weren’t for the sheer darkness of the scene. The clouds above prevented any light from any of Taris’ four moons from reaching the surface. A bolt of lightning flashes. In the split second of visibility, the word “Czerka” could be read on a weathered, rusted and worn slanted metal surface, appearing to be the front of an abandoned structure among the completely overgrown surroundings. The rain continued to batter the motionless scene. With a sudden burst, a bolt of lightning struck the complex directly. In the flash of a moment, the electricity flowed to the grounding wires that had redirected the energy from the sky to the ground for centuries. However, all but one of the ground cables were rusted out, and the last was rusted thin. As this bolt of energy started to surge through this last wire, the heat burned through the thinnest section, and cut the connection to the soil. With nowhere else to direct itself, the energy spread throughout the station, illuminating consoles and shorting out systems in the blink of an eye. Long-dormant panels arced with electricity as components blew and smoldered. In one of the chambers of this complex laid a motionless man-like figure on a flat metal table with a glass-domed cover. The console on the wall next to the table crackled and sputtered with energy, burning its surface and exploding its screen. The momentary surge came to a close as quickly as it began, and the air seal on the table’s glass dome hissed in release, opening and mixing its contained air with that of the room which remained completely dark. The shape did not move. The glass dome opened fully and rested for several minutes. The surge had come and went, and the complex was as quiet and motionless as it had been for many centuries. Suddenly, a twitch. A twitch in what seemed to be its head. Just ever so slightly that it was almost a vibration, in that it went back to its original position immediately afterward. An inattentive observer would probably have missed it, even in good lighting. Following several moments after the twitch, the form opened its eyes wide and made an immediate and violent inhalation. No other motion followed. For several moments it lay there, eyelids stretched and lungs expanded to their full capacities. The left eye was nearly invisible against the darkness, but a faint red glow seemed to emanate from the right eye in the lightless room. It seemed to lay there for an interminable time, tense and motionless. After what seemed an uncomfortably long period, its head slowly rolled to its left, eyes and lungs still stretched, and lay there for another time. Eventually it rolled its head to the right, and held there for a while as well. Abruptly, its head shot back forward while it exhaled and inhaled in rapid succession. It repeated this exhale-inhale-hold…exhale-inhale-hold pattern for several minutes. Then, bending at the waist, it sat up and looked around, with a manner that was more droid-like than anything. Robotic-like motion about its neck seemed to suggest that it was scanning the area rather than getting its bearings. The body became still after it had made a thorough examination of its surroundings, and its neck would twitch from time to time in an almost rhythmic manner. For several minutes it sat there, perfectly erect and still, except for the slightly noticeable convulsions above its shoulders. Then, it just seemed to snap. It shot to life, leaping backwards off of the table as far as it could and collided with the wall in a thudding clang. It struggled to look at itself, but nothing was visible in the darkness. It felt about itself, and without any display of emotion noticed that while some areas of its body were covered in flesh, others were obviously metallic in substance. It silently moved across the room along the walls feeling for a door. There didn’t seem to be a door out of this room, but it distinctly felt what appeared to be a blackout window. With a sharp crash, it threw the table that it had found itself on through the black glass as the sounds of rain and storm poured in through the newly created opening. The flashes of lightning illuminated the room, and its own self. It looked around the room and saw a desk with a few meaningless items sloppily thrown about its surface, and moved over to it. Of these items was a clipboard, with no papers attached, but the top featured a single word on a label. With the next flash of lightning, the label became visible, and simply read: GigaBitt With another flash of lightning, it was out the window, leaving the room as motionless as before, but now with the ambience of the falling rain. Chapter 1: Emergence It becomes increasingly difficult to judge the passage of time the longer one is unconscious. Couple that with a seemingly empty memory and unfamiliarity with local terrain on a ruined planet, and it is not hard to understand that this newly reanimated being continued to trudge in the forests of Taris’ ruins days after its emergence from the Czerka facility. It traveled at night, and rested during the day. For days it trudged onwards, through swamp and stream, pushing forwards without emotion on its destination-less path. The simple effort of enduring the journey spoke for some unseen and unknown determination, both elusive to observer and observed. Reason or not, it persisted in its course. At one point, it came upon a black nightbird sitting on a low-lying branch. The bird, about 8 inches in length, watched attentively as the individual approached. The being came within a few feet of the bird without it jumping, and watched it closely. The bird saw something that only slightly resembled a human male. And that was only from the neck down. The body of the being was naked, and various regions of its torso opened through the skin, exposing several metallic rods that reflected the dim light of the moon. One of these areas was its left pectoral region; there was a silver metallic ring around a circular, flat grey plate about 4 inches in diameter, the middle of which had a triangular recess at its center. Its right leg was entirely prosthetic, along with its right hand. The bird looked up at the being’s face, and, had it been familiar with the general shape of a gas mask, would have immediately identified the facial structure as such. The cavity of its right eye was about three inches in diameter, and held open by metal wires impacted into the skin such that it seemed more of a hole in its head than an ocular crater. The eye itself was gone, and replaced by a cybernetic equivalent that had a faint red light at its focal point. The left eye was constantly held in a state of openness, and did not blink once over the time that the two stared at each other. The mouth did not appear human; it was covered, if not replaced, by a horizontally-oriented, oval-shaped component that stretched from one side of its face to the other. In all, the bird could not recognize the being as anything it had seen before; if it was capable of curiosity, it would have been overwhelmed by the emotion. The man’s head (difficulty is found in classifying this creature as a man) tilted, ever so slightly, to the left and to the right in observation of the bird. Slowly, carefully, the head would lean from one side to the other, taking in every detail of the bird’s silent form. Every now and again, the neck and head would twitch in a manner that made it seem unstable. Eventually, the bird’s small brain came to the conclusion that this unknown thing in front of it was worthy of being considered a threat. The bird reacted in kind, and, flinching backwards, let out a screeching “ca” as it tensed its wings in preparation for flight. The moment that the bird made a noise, the man-figure reached out and grabbed the bird’s neck with a speed that rivaled that of light. If the bird hadn’t estimated the presented threat so far, it did not have much time to do so. In the instant that the bird noticed the metallic fingers around its neck, the man-figure twisted its grasp 90 degrees and snapped every fiber connecting its head to its body. Immediately, the noise stopped, and once it stopped, the being dropped the bird to the ground and continued on its way. It walked into an open clearing, where at that time of night three rakghouls were prowling across. If the being had noticed the rakghouls, or knew anything about them, it didn’t seem to care. The man trudged across the muddy field as though they didn’t exist. The rakghouls themselves did notice the man making its way across the field, but after observing him for a time, they ignored him and continued on their prowl. Just another guard watch for young Onimus. He was born on Taris, and lived in the ruins his entire life. It was his turn to hold the watch on the south side of the comfortable little settlement that he and his family inhabited. The girl he liked, lyn, had come by earlier and dropped off some cookies, and it seemed to be shaping up to be a pretty good day. That is, until he saw something approach the gate that made him doubt his perception of reality. “Who goes there?” he challenged. The figure did not respond, nor did it even move. It just stood there, at the gate, and stared into the material of the giant doors. “What do you want?” he shouted. The figure just stood there. It stood motionless. Except that it would twitch every now and again, it remained entirely still. Onimus turned to shout to some of the villagers that were out and about, so he could call for some of the settlement’s fighters, just as a precaution. As soon as he turned the other way, the naked figure leapt up and climbed the 13-ft gate, digging its metallic fingers into the gate’s material. After mantling over the gate, to the great alarm of many of the villagers, the man came to stand on the inside of the gate, as motionless as he was before making the leap. Onimus stood in sheer apprehension, as he was just a pair of eyes on the gate, and was by no means a fighter. He responded by simply sitting down in a fetal position and hoping that the problem would resolve itself. Three men approached the figure, one an old villager and the other two obviously fighters. The old man faced the naked figure. “What do you want from us?” the old man said. The patchwork man just stood there. It turned its head from the old man to the large man to its right, and then to the large man to its left, with a strange twitch thrown in among the actions. After an uncomfortably long silence, the large man to the right spoke up. “You are one ugly son of a bit…” The man’s statement was cut short by a metal hand jumping to his throat. The being’s eyes remained fixed on the old man, but now had a choking grasp of the man to its right. When the large man to the left reacted to this, and moved to attack the visitor, the thing flung the man being choked into the man on the left, pushing the two of them back and forcing them to the ground. The old man stood there, facing the visitor, and after this last motion, the visitor returned to his previous position, facing the old man. When the two fighters regained their posture and started to attack the visitor, the old man declared “NO” and waved them off without breaking his stare with the visitor. “Onimus, tend the gate. Y’eldor, go and retrieve this man some garm…” Again, the visitor interrupted the sentence. This time, it pulled a knife out of its leg cavity and thrust the blade into the old man’s abdomen. With a cough, the old man fell to the ground. It yanked the knife out of the man’s midsection, separated it into two halves, turned and tilted its head towards the two alarmed fighters, twitched, and threw the knives so that the blades buried themselves in the warriors’ upper torsos. At this latest set of actions, the villagers ran in several directions, mostly away from the visitor. It walked over to the bodies, retrieved its knives, and moved to the nearest house-like structure. After kicking open the door, the being began to rifle through the wardrobes of the inhabitants. It picked out different assortments of clothing. After finding a pair of black pants, a dark grey undershirt, and a decent pair of boots that more or less fit him, it noticed a trunk out of the corner of its natural eye. Upon opening the trunk, it found an old costume set like those used in theaters in urban areas, along with a black coat. Among the costume items, it picked up a white theatrical mask, one with a neutral, emotionless face. After donning the coat, the figure put on the mask, looked in the mirror, and twitched. Chapter 2: True and Untrue Colors Dust lifted itself into the air as the recirculator groaned and hummed into action. The air from the vent grates began to stir the small particles from their place on the tops of shelves and into the atmosphere of the small supply shop. Taris was not, by any means, a well-off planet with a booming economy, but the small supply shop would be visited off and on by Republic construction men, archaeologists, and adventure-seekers. There was enough business around to support Ecent and his family, and they had no means or reason to leave. A new shipment of hydropacks had arrived that morning, and he had already contacted the few interspersed inhabitants of the area around his shop who relied on him for clean water. He didn’t quite know why some people actually set up residence on the outskirts of civilized Taris; perhaps they were in hiding or exile, or maybe they simply sought a solitary life.
Imperial Army 47th
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