Bass
Mind-broken Cyborg
Darkness.
Bass reached out and waved at the space in front of him. Where was he? The blackness proved impenetrable, even with his hand mere inches in front of his face. Silence pervaded the darkness, so thick he could paradoxically almost hear it blocking out everything else. Fear welled up in his chest. Was he lost in the crypt? Where was his master, or the simpering nobles he was forced to call 'comrade?' He closed his eyes, and reached back ever so slowly to touch his face, as if to make sure he still had some form. Cold metal met his touch, and his hand recoiled away from it.
Memory flooded back, and the fear turned to nausea and threatened to force its way out. In an instant, Bass tore the faceplate away and fell to his knees, retching. Each heave pulled at seams where flesh met alloy and steel, grouping pain on top of pain. To actually have vomited would have been relief, but the internal systems that had replaced his organs would never allow it.
Something changed. A light touch of something like wind brushed the back of his neck, like air displaced as something moved. He froze, and slowly replaced his faceplate. It socketed into place with a barely perceptible hiss, and abruptly the heaving stopped, as if cybernetic components of his body were now content.
He cycled vision modes. Nothing worked, the darkness remained implacable.
The touch of something again. Fear welled up again, this time because he did remember. He tried to turn and found his legs frozen. A bitter chill creeped up past his knees. He tried to reach down and hit something. A wall.
Panic.
He lashed out in every direction and met the same wall. I twas as if he was in a coffin that had been built around his standing form. Desperate, he activated his targeting laser. A thin red beam shot out, illuminating a tiny dot in the distance. There, barely noticeable.... something crawled forward. A misshapen claw, followed by a twisting tendril reached pulled and then pulled slowly and silently, the only queue that there was any movement at all being the twisting and writhing of the limbs and the same whisper of a touch on Bass' skin.
One of them. It was here. They had found him at last.
Rage overtook anger. Bass pulled his arms back as far as he could and then with a furious guttural yell swung forward with all the might that the cybernetic limbs would allow. Something cracked, pain shot up through his elbow. He roared again and struck the walls of his invisible prison a second time, then a third, then a fourth, then the yell became a constant horrifying cry and the swinging of his arms became a battering rhythm. All the while it pulled itself closer and closer, until finally Bass could make a single erratically twitching bulbous eye. It pulled closer again, and the eye suddenly stopped, and focused on him.
Bass stopped, and as he locked his eyes with the twisted orb of the thing he opened his mouth to scream...
***
Bass lurched forward, the scream that had been interrupted before now leaving his mouth as a harsh cry of anger and confusion. Blood oozed down his arms from reopened wounds along his shoulders and chest. He looked around, taking in his surroundings. The shredded remains of a pressure tent, and his hands still clenched strips of fabric pieces of plastic ribbing. The tent had been set up in a small alcove of rock, and beyond that though there were no landmarks he could instantly identify where he was.
The broken world of Dromund Kaas.
Far off in the distance the first light of the sun was just creeping over the horizon. Or perhaps it was mid day, and that was the only break in the in the constant cloud of dust and debris that now wrapped the once-proud world. Had it all been a dream, then?
Bass tossed the remains of the pressure tent on the ground and checked his gear. His lightsaber was intact, and he turned it over in his hands a few times before igniting it. The silver blade extended in a flash, and Bass gazed at the soft glow of the light for a while before deactivating it and replacing it on his belt. Was the light somehow duller than before? It didn't matter, he had come to Dromund Kaas with a purpose, and he'd wasted too much time jumping at darkness and shadows already.
An eerie laugh sounded in the distance carried in by a gust of wind, as if mocking the idea that his earlier terror was only a dream. No sooner did he try and figure out where it was coming from than the sliver of light breaking through the dust clouds pierced the shadows around him and for a moment lit up the shattered terrain. The laugh vanished.
Bass turned, pulling his cloak around him and began to walk in the general direction of the ruins of Kaas city. Dream or not, he was still being hunted, and there was still much to do.
[member="Darth Hauntruss"]
Bass reached out and waved at the space in front of him. Where was he? The blackness proved impenetrable, even with his hand mere inches in front of his face. Silence pervaded the darkness, so thick he could paradoxically almost hear it blocking out everything else. Fear welled up in his chest. Was he lost in the crypt? Where was his master, or the simpering nobles he was forced to call 'comrade?' He closed his eyes, and reached back ever so slowly to touch his face, as if to make sure he still had some form. Cold metal met his touch, and his hand recoiled away from it.
Memory flooded back, and the fear turned to nausea and threatened to force its way out. In an instant, Bass tore the faceplate away and fell to his knees, retching. Each heave pulled at seams where flesh met alloy and steel, grouping pain on top of pain. To actually have vomited would have been relief, but the internal systems that had replaced his organs would never allow it.
Something changed. A light touch of something like wind brushed the back of his neck, like air displaced as something moved. He froze, and slowly replaced his faceplate. It socketed into place with a barely perceptible hiss, and abruptly the heaving stopped, as if cybernetic components of his body were now content.
He cycled vision modes. Nothing worked, the darkness remained implacable.
The touch of something again. Fear welled up again, this time because he did remember. He tried to turn and found his legs frozen. A bitter chill creeped up past his knees. He tried to reach down and hit something. A wall.
Panic.
He lashed out in every direction and met the same wall. I twas as if he was in a coffin that had been built around his standing form. Desperate, he activated his targeting laser. A thin red beam shot out, illuminating a tiny dot in the distance. There, barely noticeable.... something crawled forward. A misshapen claw, followed by a twisting tendril reached pulled and then pulled slowly and silently, the only queue that there was any movement at all being the twisting and writhing of the limbs and the same whisper of a touch on Bass' skin.
One of them. It was here. They had found him at last.
Rage overtook anger. Bass pulled his arms back as far as he could and then with a furious guttural yell swung forward with all the might that the cybernetic limbs would allow. Something cracked, pain shot up through his elbow. He roared again and struck the walls of his invisible prison a second time, then a third, then a fourth, then the yell became a constant horrifying cry and the swinging of his arms became a battering rhythm. All the while it pulled itself closer and closer, until finally Bass could make a single erratically twitching bulbous eye. It pulled closer again, and the eye suddenly stopped, and focused on him.
Bass stopped, and as he locked his eyes with the twisted orb of the thing he opened his mouth to scream...
***
Bass lurched forward, the scream that had been interrupted before now leaving his mouth as a harsh cry of anger and confusion. Blood oozed down his arms from reopened wounds along his shoulders and chest. He looked around, taking in his surroundings. The shredded remains of a pressure tent, and his hands still clenched strips of fabric pieces of plastic ribbing. The tent had been set up in a small alcove of rock, and beyond that though there were no landmarks he could instantly identify where he was.
The broken world of Dromund Kaas.
Far off in the distance the first light of the sun was just creeping over the horizon. Or perhaps it was mid day, and that was the only break in the in the constant cloud of dust and debris that now wrapped the once-proud world. Had it all been a dream, then?
Bass tossed the remains of the pressure tent on the ground and checked his gear. His lightsaber was intact, and he turned it over in his hands a few times before igniting it. The silver blade extended in a flash, and Bass gazed at the soft glow of the light for a while before deactivating it and replacing it on his belt. Was the light somehow duller than before? It didn't matter, he had come to Dromund Kaas with a purpose, and he'd wasted too much time jumping at darkness and shadows already.
An eerie laugh sounded in the distance carried in by a gust of wind, as if mocking the idea that his earlier terror was only a dream. No sooner did he try and figure out where it was coming from than the sliver of light breaking through the dust clouds pierced the shadows around him and for a moment lit up the shattered terrain. The laugh vanished.
Bass turned, pulling his cloak around him and began to walk in the general direction of the ruins of Kaas city. Dream or not, he was still being hunted, and there was still much to do.
[member="Darth Hauntruss"]
