Purpose Beyond Death

[Auspex-zero-one]

Step. Step. Step. Step. Bump agenst a piece of destroyed metal wall.

Light. So much light it over-loaded the optical senzors.

A1-22-X stoped, feeling the obstruktion. Its head slowly turned to one side. Then the other. Then up. Then down, to look at the glass-ed ground. The surface vas glass-ed completly. Some ruins in the distance. Char. Twisted metal. All thats left of a war that ended... eons ago.

Dust. Dust evryvhere. On the ground, in the air, in the sky... blocking the sun. A gray haze, but stil blinding to the unit, until its optics adjusted.

So long spended in the dark. How long? A year? Ten? Hundred? Thouzand?

More?

"Why... can... I... not... remember?" A1-22-X vas a bit... suprised... to hear its voice sound out, after so long. Female. Calm... reazonable. Like a school-teacher asigning home-vork to her class. Void of emotion. The voice that did not belong to it. It belonged to a woman that vas killed violently, so... long ago.

Died. Then re-born. No. Re-animated, as a weapon of her enemys. Auspex-class. A proto-type. A pinacle of Rakatan cyber-nekrotic enginering, that they perfekted, using slave-species as test subjekts. A slave, dispozed of, then returned, as a enhanced un-dead shel, to fight the battles of its masters. Until the last one. The one that maked this planet burn to a krisp. Glassed... erased. But A1-22-X endured. It vas build to endure. The planet died. But it survived.

It did not remember. Any of it.

Step. Step. Step. Step. The unit kept walking.

Aniwhere. No-where. Its feet leaving deep steps in the glass-ed ground, its weigt presing down hard on it, on each step.

Optics adjusted. It culd now see more. The grey haze-y dust culd now be seen thru. More ruins in the distance. More flat, glass-ed ground.

A1-22-X looked around agen, thru the grey haze. Ruined husks of long-crashed ships, burned, chared. The unit rekognized them. The remenants of destroyed Rakatan warships. As the design vas rekognized, the unit's internal safe-guards reakted:


Over-ride direktive: Unit Auspex01. Report for re-asignment.
Over-ride direktive: Unit Auspex01. Report for re-asignment.
Over-ride direktive: Unit Auspex01. Report for re-asignment.
Over-ride direktive: Unit Auspex01. Report for re-asignment.

The hard-coded comand continued repeating it-self in the unit's mind.

The black-armor-clad walking corpse stoped, waiting for the konfirmation signal, that wuld direkt the unit to the closest functioning Rakata ship or base. Minutes passed. Then hours. Then a day. Then a week. All this time, A1-22-X has not moved, at all, waiting, as the over-ride direktive repeated it-self in its mind. Finaly, the self-aware part of its necromized brain decided that enogh vas enogh. There vas nothing out there left, that culd direkt a homing signal to folow.

"I... am... lost."

So... "she" keped walking. Trying to decide vhat to do. Vhile the over-ride direktive stil repeated it-self. But the more it did, the more it vas ignored. There vas nothing out there. Nothing but freezing, dust-filed air, that wuld have maked a living person's breth freeze, glass-ed ground, and ruins. Stillnes and death, evrywhere.

But, the planet, vith all the ancient ruins and wrecks of ancient ships, vas a haven for those making a living out of salvaging and looting. Especialy those interested in finding the fabulus Rakatan tech. It wuld only be a mater of time, before someone wuld come.

 

[Jada Raxis]

[member="Auspex-zero-one"]

The Wrecks

After a brief stint in battle, captivity and a convention she was back on the trail. Except today was a bit different than a regular Smugglin' run. Today she was looking for some lil tricks and doodads for the SS Quantum Runner. Her small Jast 1 Freighter was a few yards away a as she dug through the wrecks, clad in her white t, black spacers jacket, trousers and some boots.

It was fairly safe here, or so she thought.

What's that noise?

She rose upright, and reached back re actively for her collapsed Echani Double sword.

In the distance a lone figure shambled. She breathed deep, clearing her mind.

The force rushed into the young warden, but she could feel nothing from the figure, almost as if it was dead or not a part of the living in some shape or fashion. Cyborgs pr Vong had to be the only two choices.

"Hello?"

 

[Auspex-zero-one]

[member="Jada Raxis"]

*rezolving image - enhanced view*

Wire-framed thru its optics analizer, the un-known sentient vas silueted clyarly thru the gray dust. A1-22-X stoped, a mikroskopic frown on the unit's face, to the extent it culd stil make those expresions.

*female - slave_species_41 - Human*

I vas human... once...

Vith that idle thoght, the unit moved agen, walking tovards the young human in the distance. As it got closer, it culd also make out a space-ship of a unknown design, behind her. It did not match anithing from A1-22-X Rakatan database.

Then the unit re-fokused on the woman. Just by the fakt she culd survive in this enviroment, vithout freezing to death, told the unit that this woman vas enhanced in some way. Finaly, as its walk bringed it in close, the cyber-nekrotic unit stoped.

*langage analizer active - unknown Basic form - atempting adaptetion...*

Vhen the other woman greeted it before, A1-22-X culd barely make it out as a greeting. It vas Basic, the langage of the slave races, but so... diferent... from vhat it vas programed to understand.

"H##lo, sla#e #e##ient. #u c## #efer t# me as A##pex, or A##pex z##o-on#." the unit replyed to the greeting, in its mostly mono-tone, reazonable voice, in its own varijant of ancient Basic, the way it vas used 30.000 years ago, during the Rakata age. To the other woman, it wuld mostly be un-legible, but vith some efort she migt understand it.

The reazon it refered to the other as "slave sentient" vas becauze that vas the only way Auspex-zero-one has ever heared non-Rakata species refered to.

 

[Jada Raxis]

[member="Auspex-zero-one"]

The Wrecks​

At this juncture she was totally baffled. But she held out a hand anyways and tried to make sense of real broken basic. could this be a chance encounter? A reason to get new crew aboard the ship? Or would it be a bust? Only time would tell.

Her droid companion spun up, a small disk shaped hacker droid and buzzed just off her left shoulder. She'd taken to calling him X for short hand of his model name.

"X translate? For us?"

 

[Auspex-zero-one]

[member="Jada Raxis"]

A1-22-X didnt kuite get evrything the woman just sayed, but from the apearance of a droid, the unit culd reazon it wuld be some atempt at translation. So, it repeated the same vords it did before, vord for vord. Up close now, the woman culd see the stiches and scars that covered its face.

The out-streched hand how-ever, vas un-mistakeable. It vas one of the prefered metods of greeting among some of the slave species. Taking the woman's hand, the unit shaked it brifly. The top area of her palms vas covered by the armor plating, but the botom come in kontakt vith the woman's hand.

The diference in feel wuld be startling, for the woman. A1-22-X's hand vas ice-cold to the touch, even colder then the armor. There vas no life there, just cold, dead flesh, keped half-fresh by the self-kontainment tehnologys used in the Rakatan cyber-nekrotization process. Even so, up close, the unit smeled faintly of rot and decay. Very faintly, tho.

Auspex01's grip vas also kuite hard, even if it tryed to keep it light. Even if it didnt have human-level speed becauze of its massive weigt and dis-proportionaly lower strength, the unit vas very, very strong, orders of magnitude stronger then any living being, exept maby Wookies.

 

[Jada Raxis]

[member="Auspex-zero-one"]



The Wrecks


As the droid translated she mad sense of what was really broken basic once more. This time she fired back her own remark, noting the droid thingys strong grip and gracing it with a smile.

"What brings you this way friend?"