POV:
Nuetralizer Model 1 (David)
Objective: BYOO (Escape Planet)
(
"Shadow of Chernobyl" Plays)
Even here, even now, some trace of Xiphos could be found.
Ruins of Salyrini, the great battle where the Bryn'adul had won, in spite of
vicious resistance not just from the SJC but from the Nuetralizer Model 1's, back in the days when Xiphos could field a literal army of them had buried much of what had made the battle so vicious.
The Bryn'adul had
barely won however. Scores of their most elite warriors had been killed, torn apart with utmost brutality, killed with T-007 Ion Disruptors, which had helped overwhelm even
their Molecularly compressed flesh, strangling Draelvasir with their bare hands. Sarka had been a victory only in the barest sense of the word for the Bryn'adul. Losing so many to take what should have been an easy planet had been a sign of things to come. Xiphos had learned from her defeat there and designed the next generation of Nuetralizers to more properly combat them.
There were still traces.
Pieces of his brothers could occasionally be found dotting the Landscape, too damaged to self repair. They were often times surrounded by piles of Bryn Corpses, buried under rubble.
David had been buried alive in a tunnel full of refugees he had tried to evacuate to safety. He had gone into a power conservation mode to avoid going insane from the experience.
A minor earth quake had broken open the collapsed tunnel, and the jostling had caused the damaged Nuetralizer to wake up. He had multiple dents and scratches, and all his onboard weapons were inoperative from the years of being buried without maintenance. It was testament to the robust design he had reactivated at all.
His main power plant and back up power plant was damaged. He was running on the emergency back up in his chest, which would only provide him another 007 hours of power before he ran out for good.
David spent the first half hour of that digging out the remains of Sarkan Civilians from the collapsed tunnel, pulling out what he could find, covering them in a tarp he found. It had cost him precious time but he had to do it. Then he went walking through the ruins, looking through the skeletons of military vehicles for repair parts. It was disturbingly quiet in the desolate ruins. He found Chassis parts from his fellow brothers, all of whom were damaged beyond repair themselves.
He stopped as he spotted himself in a broken mirror. His Jaw was missing and one side of his chassis was scorched. One photoreceptor was scratched, barely functional.
He took the mirror for detail work. His repair Nanites were inactive currently. He took what parts he scavenged from his brothers and continued wandering.
He finally found an intact repair kit in the Skeleton of an APC, and had quietly set to work, pulling off his cracked and damaged chest armor and shut the APC so no one would see the light from the sparks.
He ran a more thorough diagnostic.
His Nanites were not just inactive...they were gone. They had degraded and bled out of his chassis during the months he had been buried.
"Chit..." David muttered.
He went silent as he heard an SJC Starfighter fly overhead. He knew it was SJC by the engine whine.
The main power plant had a severe crack in it. If he had his Nanites still it wouldn't be such an issue, but there was no way he was fixing what he saw with a simple repair kit. Reluctantly, he was forced to bypass it entirely, jury rigging on the emergency power plant from another Model 1, removing his main one entirely. He bought himself another 007 hours at best.
He did, however manage to locate an undamaged automatic paddle beam weapon from one of his brothers, and eagerly installed it in place of his damaged one. He had some form of fighting condition but he was still at a severe disadvantage. His Mother and the SJC were not exactly on speaking terms.
He carefully patched together his damaged chest armor, reattached it to his frame and began to look for more weapons among the dead.
Most of it was damaged. But one poor bastard had thought to take an old
ACP Shotgun with him. Only four shots in it...
David's audio sensors picked up footsteps...and voices. He peaked out from behind the APC hatch.
It was Sarkans...a mix of aid workers and technicians, clearing out the ruins. They were doing much as he was, salvaging usable equipment.
David wasn't sure how to react, unused to interacting with Civilians. He decided to take a chance.
David slowly came out of cover, leaving his shotgun behind at the moment. He held his hands up non threateningly.
When they spotted him, slowly walking up to them, most froze in pure fear. The Sarkans remembered the Nuetralizers, having witnessed the many feats of ripping and tearing they had engaged in that terrible day, the vicious Skeletal warriors having racked up the most Bryn kills per individual. Their nightmarish reputation had only grown as time wore on, some of it embellished, but all of it having a basis in fact:
Do not feth with a Nuetralizer.
"It...it's one of
them..." one of the Sarkans said, half out of pure terror, half out of amazement.
"What's it doing here? There shouldn't be any. Not
intact anyway..." another observed.
One started to go for his comlink, only to be stopped by an older Sarkan.
"One of those things took a rocket for my wife and kids..." he told the younger Sarkan.
"I take it we didn't win this battle..." David observed from the evidence around him. "Do my Brothers persist? Does my
mother persist, or was her operating cycle terminated?"
"We...we lost the battle, but the war was won. Your maker and your brothers live, and are wanted by almost the entire Galaxy." the leader answered.
"I would greatly appreciate it if you didn't summon the authorities..." David requested.
Indecision played out over each face. Finally the oldest Sarkan stepped forward.
"We can give you a thirty five minute head start before we have to alert them...if you're gonna get off Sarka, you had better do it now. Place will be crawling with Jedi soon. Gotta be an intact starship somewhere in the ruins."
The old man took his hooded cloak off and gave it to him.
"That should make identifying you at a distance difficult if you're spotted..." he said.
David put it on, finding it obscured his physical profile nicely.
"Thanks, Organic."
"Watch out in the ruins. There are criminals in them, stealing whatever isn't nailed down. But it's also the best option to evade or delay capture because those areas haven't yet been secured by the government."
David turned, looking at the messed up landscape.
"Then they'll have a ship that brought them here..."
"Are we really doing this? We could get in trouble!" a technician protested.
"If it hadn't been for these warriors..." The old man grimaced. "A lot less of us would have escaped."
"I shall tell my brothers of your generosity..." David said to him, turning and running back for his shotgun before heading deeper into the ruins of the mountain city.
OOC: Done with permission of
Silver Strand
