"Note to self: Rakghouls are also not toys."
The Force was a gateway to many abilities contemporary physicists would consider impossible. Contemporary to my home universe, that is. Physicists of this sanity-forsaken universe thought nothing unusual of a man being able to walk up to a door lacking any kind of handle or power, staring intently at it, before it opened with the screech which could only be created by servomotors and seized mechanisms being forced to move.
Okay, fine, it wasn't that simple.
It had taken me ten minutes of staring at one of the operational doors aboard the crashed Endar Spire to figure out how the thing had worked. Undo the latches in the curving crossbar, then slide those portions into the ceiling and floor. Undo the latches in the door proper, then slide those into the wall as far as they would go.
All of which I then replicated with the Force.
Because none of the doors I chose to pursue had any power. Now granted, that was an intentional choice. Any door with power would not have anything worthwhile hidden behind it; The pirates would have looted it long ago. And that which I sought, the long-lost weapons of the Jedi light and dark who had died on this ship, would have been high priority items on that list of potential loot.
So it was with the squeal of protesting metal that I forced open another unpowered door.
And the sound of bare feet on metal reached my ears. No, not bare feet; There was the tell-tale sound of skin on metal, but something harder accompanying it. Claws, it had to be. That faint scratching noise could be little else. Given what I had unleashed upon this ship, there was a very short list of potential suspects to have created that noise.
Rakghouls.
The very same creatures I had thrown at this ship in the hope that it would get rid of the pirates.
I froze in place as I tried to figure out the origin of the noise. The noise came from somewhere in front of me, but where? The maze of corridors within the ship made it impossible to pin it down precisely, and the metal of the ship's bones conducted sound exceptionally well. Mundane senses were a bust, then. And against a creature as deadly as a Rakghoul, that was not good.
Fortunately, I was not limited to mundane senses.
Opening my mind to the Force, I reached out and detected a mind. Not a very complex mind, granted. I got a sensation of hunger, of thirst, magnified dozens of times… and it was close. Right-around-the-corner close.
No wonder I could hear the claws on its feet as it stalked the halls.
I had barely enough time to steady myself, to mentally prepare myself for taking on a Rakghoul unarmed when it turned the corner. A clawed hand stained red with blood gripped the corner as the rest of the creature came into view. Its maw was stained as red as its claws, and an uneven splatter of the same color decorated the rest of its body.
It hissed in what I could only assume to be triumph before it launched itself at me.
No hesitation, no doubts, I simply reached out with the Force to get a solid grip on the gore-slicked pallid grey flesh of the beast that was before me. And then I threw it against the nearest wall. Or bulkhead, technically. Regardless of the proper terminology, the Rakghoul impacted with the satisfying thump of flesh against a solid object.
Despite that, the creature got up again, though its left shoulder sat at an unnatural angle and the previously pale skin had already begun to darken. Injured, certainly, but far from dead. To me, that meant it was still a threat.
So I did it again.
I picked it up with the Force, slammed it into the wall, and then did it a few more times for good measure. After the seventh time, the Rakghoul's previously bone-color skin had darkened considerably from the bruises and scrapes and who-knew-what-else the impact had inflicted on it.
But still, I sensed life in it.
But still, it rose from the ground.
I seized it with the Force again, twisted it in the air, and with a roar I slammed it head-first into the wall with all my strength. Learning from my past attempts, I kept a solid grip on it the entire time to ensure that the head would be what struck the wall.
Repeatedly.
The beast did not get up. As it lay at the foot of the wall, it began to spasm, to twitch, to seize violently. Clawed arms flailed wildly. Legs terminating in stubby but still wickedly sharp claws kicked out at random. Red-tinged foam began to spill from the creature's mouth as its neck shot back into its shoulders at irregular intervals.
Truth be told, the sight reminded me of a baby rabbit that had had its head crushed by a dog, vainly kicking by a body that had not entirely realized that it was dead. The sight of it all made saliva pool in my mouth as my body prepared to retch. I could feel acrid stomach acid crawling up my throat as the Rakghoul continued its death throes.
With an exertion of my will, I forced the acid down while my pulse hammered in my ears. Blessedly, the beast began to still, the spasms coming less and less frequently. Soon after, I felt the last vestiges of life leave it while my heart continued to race within my chest.
That… that had been an experience.
Damn it, I should have just used the Force to choke it out. Why hadn't I even considered that?
After a few moments, I got my heart rate back under control and stumbled along the corridor toward another closed door. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw the door through which the Rakghoul had come, its keypad illuminated gently. It still had power, lovely. I pushed the access button from across the hall, and the door whispered shut. In case of more Rakghouls, it would only be a temporary reprieve, but it would do.
But the door in front of me lacked power. It was the work of a few seconds, but I soon managed to force it open. The two halves of the curved vertical beam retracted, the interior latches swung open, metal and servomotors protested at the unpowered movement, but I got it to open, nonetheless. No doubt it would be absolutely hellish to repair, but that would be a problem for someone else.
Probably.
Hopefully.
The doors slid open, revealing another hallway completely without power. And at its end another locked door. Without power. I trudged towards it, seriously considering that I was simply wasting my time with this whole endeavor. Just because there was a locked door in the way did not mean it had kept the more persistent looters out.
Last one, I promised myself as I went through the process of opening the door. I needed to figure out where I was flying next, anyway. I could not go directly to Dromund Kaas from Taris, that would be extremely suspicious and too easily tracked back. I needed to stop off somewhere to change ships discretely.
The best place to do that would be somewhere busy with a hands-off government that would not ask too many questions. An independent world was too hit-or-miss to risk, especially if I ended up back on whichever planet I chose. It rather missed the point of an alternate identity if I got recognized due to something as simple as travel records.
Which meant Hutt Space. The only place in the galaxy worse than the Sith Empire. Maybe I could find a way to start a slave revolt in the two to six hours I would be spending there?
Before I could consider that question properly, the doors slid open.
Revealing bodies. Two bodies, in fact. Heavily decomposed, too, from the look of things, though I could not be certain. One was clad in robes as brown as the corpse's mummified skin, the other in some pale grey armor that looked like it would be better suited for use as an unorthodox sieve than protection.
That was a good start; It meant they had been here for a while. Potentially since the crash.
As I drew nearer, the good start got better.
In the almost-armored body's hand was a scratched-up but still distinctly chrome cylinder. Or rather, most of a cylinder; There was a distinctly unhealthy number of wires streaming from one end, with the case terminating at a jaunty angle. Cut in half, most likely. That just meant the other half had to be around here somewhere.
And the other body? Another partial cylinder. This time, however, the damage had clearly not come from a cut. The damage was far too uneven for that to be the case. Given how the uneven edge of the metal, how it twisted, and how it was more than a bit charred, I suspect an explosion had done this. Given the rather large hole in the decking and walls which revealed half-melted cables and electronics, I could guess what had caused it.
But that was hardly important.
This day had just gotten a whole lot better.
...
Hey guys I would really appreciate it if you could throw some power stones to help elevate the ranking.
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