Somewhere's Close to Nowhere, Right?
Posted on Sat Aug 8th, 2020 @ 2:02pm by Mando'ade Zaf A'Toruk
Edited on on Sat Aug 8th, 2020 @ 2:24pm
Mission:
Episode 1 - All Roads Lead to Nowhere
Location: Wild Space
Timeline: 19 BBY - just after Order 66
There had been far too many defining moments in the young Zabrak’s life. Wounds that had festered, wounds that had healed, wounds that remained evident in his physical presence even to this day, but this one. This one would never leave his soul.
Sound. Suddenly he was hyper aware of there being none where only seconds ago it had been all encompassing and unbearably loud. He seemed to exist in a moment of absolute isolation for the merest of milliseconds, caught between reality and some stupid notion that this was a nightmare.
She fell. Dropped to the ground, neither artistically or in slow-mo, but simply a downward motion into a messy crumpled pile of limbs and smoke. The angle that her head rested at told him she was gone, and the first sound he heard after his ears seemed to work again, was her helmet clunking onto the metallic floor of the walkway. His own breath followed, hard and fast and hot against the inside of his own armour.
Someone called his name. Zaf fired before he realised who, he watched the bolts bounce from the wrist shield emitter and the familiar colours of a set of orange vambraces that he knew only too well. The markings were unmistakable. The figure was well-known, and unexpected somehow, even though his position had always been clear.
Someone called his name again. And Zaf screamed as loud as his voice could muster volume, he yelled with as much force as Zabrak lungs could imbue to vocal chords, he hurled the word into the space between them even as he felt the blast hit his own chest and shove him backwards with an equal determination.
Someone grabbed the back of his armour and dragged him down the corridor into an open doorway. He fired into the space behind them both, vision blurry and mind racing faster than he could process. He felt the hard floor beneath him, the burning sensation in his two hearts and an icy sense of utter dread that permeated his sense of self.
His mother was dead. Someone was responsible. And Someone was making sure he survived. He probably should be firing back into the cataclysmic nightmare that had become Mandalore’s new normal. He couldn’t seem to muster up the emotional strength to do that right now.
This was Wrong. This was Bad. This was Not Happening.
And then, like a rush of consciousness after a short dip into slumber, a moment of clarity sunk into his brain. He wasn’t asleep, he wasn’t dreaming. He was here. And he was damn well going to do something about this.
With no word of warning, no call or curse or cry, Zaf turned, grabbed the wrist that held him, the arm that pulled him further from that cooling body he had once loved. He twisted, his body curling easily on the smooth floor, and as they both shifted into safety away from the firing enemies who had once been family, he slid his own legs around to take down the man who had rescued him.
His father hit the floor.
That was the overriding memory that crashed into the Zabrak’s mind as he heard the news. The Republic had fallen. Coruscant’s capital city was in flames. Chancellor Palpatine had declared himself Emperor. The Jedi were traitors?
A call - not to arms, but to meet - dropped in not long later. With fire in his hearts, Zaf punched in the coordinates. He shook his head as the agitated chattering sounded over the comm from deeper within the ship. From the ass end of somewhere, it wasn’t too far to reach Port Nowhere.
