It isn't finished yet, but you can read what I have so far.
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Chapter I: Taris
Some of the dialog from this piece was copied from Star Wars: Jedi Knight of the Old Republic, produced my Lucasarts Incorporated. I am in no way claiming any such dialog that is presented in the game, that is used in the piece, as my own.
A dream, that was what this was. Although, I seem to have had this dream once before. Or maybe I had lived it? I cant remember. It had something to do with the Jedi, or maybe it was the Sith? Ugh Why cant I remember? There seem to be one Jedi in particular , she had a yellow double bladed lightsaber. Her face looked familiar to me, but the details were sketchy. Another Jedi, or maybe a Sith, was holding a red single bladed lightsaber. This persons face was covered by a mask, so I could not tell if it was male or female. They seemed to be fighting over something important, but I couldn’t tell what.
All of a sudden, the fighting was interrupted by an explosion. The masked Jedi (or Sith) was hit pretty bad . . .
My head was spinning, that’s why I didn’t sit up to quickly. I laid there blinking my eyes, thinking to myself ‘was this too a dream, or was it reality?’ I could sense that someone else was in the room with me. I slowly sat up, and came to the painful realization that this was not a dream. My body was aching, and my head was pounding. I sat on the edge of the bed, I felt sick. I kept blinking my eyes to keep from throwing up all over the floor.
“Good to see you up instead of thrashing around in you sleep.” The voice sounded so far off. I kept blinking my eyes, the nausea had passed but I was trying to remember what had happened. “You must have been having one hell of a nightmare. I was wondering if you were ever going to wake up.”
The voice didn’t sound so far off this time, and it actually had some compassion behind it. When I looked up, I was met by a pair of stunning brown eyes. I blinked again to make sure I was fully awake and that he wouldn’t disappear.
“I’m Carth, one of the Republic soldiers from the Endar Spire.” I guess he saw the confusion in my eyes. “ I was with you on the escape pod, do you remember?”
Republic? Endar Spire? Escape pods? All my thoughts were kind of jumbled together, but I vaguely remembered something.
I had been sound asleep in my room, when the sound of alarms and sirens shook me from my dreams. My room mate, Trask Ulgo, came running into our room just as I shot out of bed. I was in my underclothes, why? I had no idea. And Why I was sharing a room with a male when I was defiantly a female? again I had no idea. But it was no time for question, I was up and dressed and soon we were fighting out way to the bridge. On the way, Trask informed me that Bastila, a Jedi with the special gift of Battle Meditation had been on the bridge and she was going to need our aid. I didn’t remember who Bastila, but that didn’t seem to bother Trask much, he just kept talking and explaining. I don’t know how many Sith we fought but we made it to the bridge, and Bastila wasn’t there.
After deciding to make a break for the escape pods, we ran into a dark Jedi. All the memories about that were fuzzy and kind of jumbled together, I remember that Trask yell for me to get to the escape pod and he was gone, hidden behind a seal door. I couldn’t open the door, not even with all of my security skills. I decided to go to the escape pods.
Finally, after fighting a bray of Sith, I made it to the escape pods. Carth was standing there, telling me that Bastila’s escape pod was already away, and that we could hid out on the planet below.
And that was it, I woke up here trying to remember. Carth sat there waiting for my answer.
“ Where am I? How did I get here?” I asked, I could feel the nausea coming back.
“Well, You’ve been slipping in and out of consciousness for a couple of days now . . .”
“A couple of days ? ” I interrupted him in disbelief
He nodded his head, slowly, “so I imagine you’re pretty confused about things.” I let out a heavy sigh, “ Try not to worry. We’re safe. . .at least for the moment. We’re in an abandoned apartment on the planet of Taris. You were banged up pretty bad when our escape pod crashed, but luckily I wasn’t seriously hurt.” I couldn’t help but feel like the victim of a bad super hero plot, but I let him continue. “I was able to drag you away from our crash site in all of the confusion, and I stumbled onto this abandoned apartment. By the time the Sith arrived on the scene we were long gone.”
“I guess I owe you my life, thanks.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say, I was to busy trying to stand. My head had stopped swimming, but it was throbbing something terrible. My body felt numb, almost asleep.
“You don’t have to thank me. I’ve never abandoned anyone on a mission, and I’m not about to start now.” he walked over and grab my elbow and helped me up. “Besides, I’m going to need your help.”
My legs gave out when he pulled me up, and I fell into his chest. I could here the wind being pushed out of his chest, I kept apologizing as I tried to regain my footing. I finally found my ground and pushed off of him. He smiled, and I could feel my cheeks get flush.
“What can you tell me about the planet we’re on?” I tried to walk, but I wasn’t making much progress.
“Taris was once a magnificent planet-wide metropolis of towering skyscrapers. But that was a long time ago.” His eyes seem to glaze over, like he was remembering the good old days, “ The Upper City, where the rich citizens live, is. . .is still pretty safe. If it wasn’t for the Sith occupation and the planet-wide quarantine it might not even be that bad a place to live. But the further down things have degenerated. The. . .the Lower City is nothing but a slum overrun by swoop-bike gangs waging a never-ending war for control. And the Under City is, well, even worse.” He paused here, it seemed almost painful for him to talk about, “The lowest level of Taris is a wasteland overrun by rakghouls; mindless, diseased mutants that attack on sight.” he shuddered at the thought of these creatures. I had heard of these creatures before, but had never seen one up close, I to be honest, I didn’t want to.
“ You a. . .mentioned the Sith earlier. . .” I tried to catch his gaze, but he seemed focused on the floor.
“Taris is under Sith control. Their fleet is orbiting the planet, they’ve declared martial law and they’ve imposed a planet-wide quarantine.” He looked up at me, and shrugged his shoulders, “But I’ve been in wore spots.”
I gave a quiet chuckle, and grabbed the back of the chair he had been siting on. There on the seat of the chair was a datapad. My service record, I scanned over it quickly:
Trinn Daray . . . Age:33 . . . Home world: Deralia . . . Class A Republic Soldier . . . highly skilled in linguistics, psychology, and tactical warfare . . . has a history of insubordination . . . is to be isolated from the ships’s Jedi envoys’ . . .
Carth cleared his throat, “I saw on your service record that you understand a remarkable number of alien languages.”
“I wouldn’t say a remarkable number, but some.” I looked up at him, and gave him a smile
Now it was his turn for his cheeks to flushed, “ Still, that’s pretty rare in a raw recruit, but it should come in handy while we’re stranded on a foreign world.”
“Is there anyway we can contact the Republic . . .”
“There’s no way the Republic will be able to get anyone through the Sith blockade to help us.” He paused, and looked me. His face was stern, “If we’re going to find Bastila and get off this planet, we can’t rely on anybody but ourselves.”
I had regained the feeling in my legs, and was now standing directly in front of Carth. He had finished, and was looking at me for the next course of action. I ran my fingers threw my hair, and tried to contemplate what to do next.
“Bastila? She’s the one from the Endar Spire, right?” I was just trying to get some familiarity before moving forward.
“That smack to your head did more damage than I thought.” I gave him a nasty look, “ Bastila’s a Jedi. She was with the strike team that killed Darth Revan , Malaks’s Sith master.”
Revan?
That name seemed to ping something deep within my memory bank, why? I didn’t even know what Revan, or Bastila for that matter, looked like. Yet, somehow, it seemed as if I knew them both. I thought about the dream I had, had before waking up, but my memory was still to fuzzy to make a connection, although, something inside of me said that they belonged together.
“Bastila is the key to the whole Republic war effort. The Sith must have found out she was on the Endar Spire and set an ambush for us in this system.” My mind began to drift back to the present. “I believe Bastila was on one of the escape pods that crashed down here on Taris. For the sake of the Republic war effort, we have to try and find her.”
I sat down on the edge of the bed, at this point in time my thoughts were just as jumbled as when I woke up. I let out another heavy sigh. I didn’t wanted to get involved with the affairs of the Republic, especially since I was having such a difficult time in remembering certain key points in my life. I rubbed my face with my hands then ran them threw my hair.
“If Bastila’s a Jedi, she can probably look after herself.” I finally said, my voice didn’t sound as confident as I wanted it to.
Carth gave me a look that stopped my heart in mid-beat, “Bastila’s going to need our help.” I quickly looked away in shame because of my selfishness, “Many of Darth Malak’s followers have mastered the dark side of the Force, and the Sith have already killed more than their share of Jedi in this war. I doubt anyone’s specifically looking for us anymore: we’re not that important.” I let out a low laugh under my breath, his stern gaze didn’t lift, “ But if we’re careful we can move about the planet without attracting notice; a luxury Bastila won’t have. She’s going to have half the Sith fleet looking for her. They know how vital she is to the war effort.”
“Okay, Okay, I’m sorry.” I stood up, and tried to match his harsh look, “Any idea where we should start looking for Bastila?”
“While you were out I did some scouting around. There are reports of a couple escape pods crashing down into the Under City. That’s probably a good place to start. But the Under City is a dangerous place. We don’t want to go in there unprepared. It won’t do Bastila any good if we go and get ourselves killed.”
“Well,” I looked around the room and spotted a vibroblade, “Lets get to it then.” I picked up the vibroblade, I was still wearing the combat suit I had put on when I was aboard the Endar Spire, “I want to scout out this planet a bit.” I seethed the vibroblade, and shot his a smile.
“Good idea,” He holstered a blaster pistol, “We can use this abandoned apartment as a base, and we can probably get some equipment and supplies here in the Upper City. Just remember to keep a low profile. I’ve heard some grim stories about the Dark Jedi interrogation techniques. They say the Force can do terrible things to a mind. It can wipe away your memories and destroy you very identity. . .”
I felt another ping in my memory bank. Dark Jedi interrogation techniques? Why would that seem important? I shook my head and refocused on Carth.
“. . .But I figure if we don’t do anything stupid we should be okay.” He flashed a smile back at me.
“Nothing stupid, got it.” I made my way to the door.
“I mean, after all, they’re. . .they’re looking for Bastila, not a couple of grunts like us.” He said, as he holstered another blaster pistol
“Right.” I agreed, they would be looking for Bastila, so why would we matter?
“Alright, soldier, lets move out.” His voice sounded so firm, I turned and looked at him. He shot a smile back at me.
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I walked out the door, and immediately was confronted by a minor set back. A Sith interrogation was talking place right in front of the apartment door. Actually, it was one Sith (and two droids) badgering a pair of Duros. I hadn’t been standing there long when the Sith opened fire and shot one of the Duros.
I hadn’t pulled my vibroblade completely out, when Carth, not wasting anytime, returned fire. Carth got the Sith, while I took care of the droids.
“I thought you said you didn’t want to attract attention?” I asked, sheathing my vibroblade at my side. I looked down at the dead Sith, and noticed that my sleeve was cleanly cut. I walked over to Carth, who was going through the Sith’s belongings, pocketing a few credits. “If you got any closer, you would have hit skin.” I laughed. He grabbed my arm and put his fingers through the cut.
“Sorry, I always get carried away.” He holstered his blaster, and gave it a tap.
I shook my head, and turned my attention toward the one remaining Duros, “[Are you alright?]” My accent needed a little work, but in my defense I hadn’t spoken to a Duros in a long time.
“[I am uninjured. I thank you, Human. I can dispose of the bodies for you, if you wish? I do not wish Sith attention any more than you may.]” He seemed not to have any trouble understanding me, for that I was thankful.
“[I would be grateful.]” I gave him a shallow bow, the Duros nodded and went to work disposing of the bodies, and leaving without another word.
I walked back over to Carth, and gave him a smile. He had been watching me closely as I dealt with the Duros, he showed no sign of it but I could feel his eyes on me. Even now, as I walked back to join him, he was watching me.
I think you should stick to the game fairly closely, but show us some parts of the story that we didn't get to see, ie: write about Bastila's torture. did Malak really just torture her body, or did he do things to her mentally and emotionaly as well, such as forcing her to kill people, rape, giving her nightmares, etc.? It's always neat to see what writers think what happened.
I like it, but you're taking an almight risk. Mach, the Critic, has already done this, and it was really good, extremely detailed. I hope this goes well for you, but as i said, its an almight risk.
p.s i really did like this