| Sep. 10th, 2009 @ 05:18 pm Desert Walk Pt 1 |
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The dry, seemingly infinite plain offered no respite for Elias. The heat was a constant thing; his biosuit had shifted colour to an off white, and had become reflective to cope with the brutal temperature. Hard, flat copper sand stretched beyond the horizon, harshly contrasting with the washed out sapphire blue of the sky.
He had been here now, for perhaps three hours. His mask and hood had connected up to provide all over coverage - the slightest bit of skin showing would leech his precious moisture out before he had a chance to seal the breach. The lenses in the mask's viewfinder filtered the harshest of the glare, but were still having trouble displaying the location of the navigation beacon. The radiation from the local blue-white star was so intense it drowned out almost all sensors and communications.
That was why it was such a brilliant place to hide a smuggling base. The star's main 'habitable' planet was exposed to this radiation unceasingly, and was, other than the thin and dry atmosphere, utterly untenable to life. Noone would willingly come to this system - there wasn't enough to interest anyone.
But this was where his search had finally taken him. Amidst the star's neverending deluge of radiation were sensor buoys, hardened and hidden close to the planet's troposphere. And so he had had the crew of the Gentle Guide put down outside the assumed sensor range of the final beacon's location. He would go on foot, hopefully too small to be detected amidst the all pervasive background radiation. If he did not return inside of three days, they were to immediately launch and head to the nearest Jedi Enclave to request reinforcements.
He was tracking a Sith Marauder party. Three in total, in a heavily armed and armoured skiff that had been plaguing the spacelanes for some time. They had been plundering Republic fast courier and light cargo vessels. Some of which had been carrying sensitive information and dignitaries to and from warzones.
The Jedi could not allow this to continue - bad enough the Sith had actually managed to avoid capture for this long, now they actively targeted fast couriers bearing Jedi markings.
So they had sent Elias.
Temperature and Radiation warnings flashed up in bright crimson every few minutes, insistently reminding the Syracean that he had again chosen the toughest possible job to perform. He wiped them and refocused on the intermittent signal he was receiving from the final beacon.
Syraceans (Elias’ race) - were cursed with incredibly delicate physiologies. Most times the ambient toxins present in the air on industrialised worlds were enough to debilitate them – literally poisoning them. Also, their skin was very sensitive to changes in humidity, and had to be maintained at a level of tropical humidity to prevent eczema and skin sloughing.
But he was lucky – he was clad in a personally tailored semi-sentient enclosed environment suit.
He had spent a vast sum of money – some of it illegally – to get this suit designed. The designer had been an eccentric Verpine – brilliant, but with a taste for gambling and illicit substances; glitterstim; hau’yi (A hallucinogenic plant that, ironically, grew exclusively on the Syracean homeworld of Syrac); Whyren’s Reserve Corellian Whiskey; if it was highly illegal and likely to overload your synapses, this alien wanted it.
In return for designing the biosuit, Elias had acted (albeit somewhat reluctantly) as the Verpine’s bodyguard and pusher. He managed to remain mostly morally intact, and after much trial and error, the biosuit had been the result.
Tailored specifically to Elias, the semi-organic, semi-sentient biosuit connected with his nervous system to monitor his biorhythms effectively, and was essentially another layer of skin – albeit one that could change its colour, breathe, and drew its nutrients directly from Elias’ own body. In exchange for a share of his blood, it protected him from death. It would heal tears and rips in itself – even help Elias’ own body heal wounds, by shunting nutrients and sealing itself into the cut. In the case of radiation exposure, the suit would literally shed itself, replacing radioactive cells with new ones.
He had added small, flexible plates of padding the front and back to improve his durability – if he fell the plates would help absorb the impact. The hood and mask were the final pieces – they included an inbuilt comms device (in the suit’s collar), a viewfinder with the ability to filter visible light into the spectrum that Elias could see, and even an onboard navigation computer. With the mask, he could last in a vacuum for several hours, before its tiny oxygen reserve was depleted. It could also filter gaseous toxins.
The Verpine finished rattling off the technical aspects of the suit, wringing its claws in anxious hope of gratitude. Elias nodded appreciatively and the relieved Verpine scurried away, behind a sand dune in the distance.
What?
A flurry of warnings overlaid the HUD, and they did not seem inclined to leave. With frustration, Elias attempted to wave the warning symbols away, snatching at non-existent insects.
Fighting to focus beyond the symbols, he thought he caught a glimpse of a shining light in the distance - the Beacon! It had to be. He began to run, feeling the heat despite the suit’s adamant efforts to keep it out.
He halted, confused, at the edge of a vast crater.
The shining was a white building, incongruous with the barren landscape. In the blue white light it glowed like a star. It was palatial thing, perhaps some three stories high and several hundred metres long.
A figure appeared, wrapped in bright green and white robes, opening the white wood door and waving in welcome. They seemed eerily familiar.
He scrambled down the crater edge and stopped when he came within twenty metres of the front of the building, shocked and even more confused.
Another Syracean, a mature female, smiled at him, waving for him to come in, to come home.
“You can’t be here…” He whispered. This wasn’t real. He must be hallucinating.
The woman smiled and shook her head in apology, clutching a tiny white knife in her hand. He knew that blade – it was his blade! His ancestral blade! Who was this mirage?
The warnings blinked back into vision again – what seemed like dozens of them. He blinked unfamiliar wetness from his eyes.
The mirage vanished. The palace, the woman, the blade. In its place, a crashed cargoship lay – ceramal ribs jutting into the air, shining from abrasion and time. He blinked again, determined to rid himself of the sudden moisture in his eyes. The wreck remained in place.
Just as well.
Suddenly, the radiation warnings began to drop – he risked an askance glance at the sun – it was low on the horizon, thankfully. Dark would soon fall, and with it, he would find some small respite. But he would have to continue.
He consulted his viewfinder, and located the beacon in his HUD. He would have to approach the facility during the day – the planet’s bulk, protecting the sensors from the onslaught of radiation, enabled his quarry to have some level of foresight to attack. He could not let that happen.
He would walk through the night, now cautious of discovery.
END OF PART 1 |
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