Fortress Vader

One - Incipiency

Honestly, it should have taken me longer to make the decision to take a life. I should have hesitated, should have mulled over the choices, even for just a second.

But I don't. I lift the blaster rifle, only pausing to steady my breath, and shoot the one facing my direction, then the one facing away. Both shots, to my minor surprise, hit my target: one in its large eye and the other on the back of its neck where its exoskeleton doesn't cover. I shoot them again, and when they are both immobile—dead or dying, I don't know which—I feel no remorse.

I feel alive. I was scared—and that's the truth. It's why I didn't hesitate, why they had to die. But as the fear starts to work its way out of me, something...new takes its place. It isn't adrenaline, though that's there too. I suppose it is thrill, perhaps, similar to the momentary pit in my stomach when a ship drops suddenly, or when my father would pick me up and hang me over his shoulder as a kid. Similar...but bigger, more pleasant.

The third day, I see no predators, but I misjudge how much hotter it gets just an hour later in the day. It is 0110 and I have about twenty minutes left before I'll be back, and forty until the lava will begin boiling again. But I'm out of water, and I'm drenched in sweat. I drop things I don't need because the energy expended for every step is enormous. Lighter pack...easier walk. I can be a survivalist.

But when the complex comes into view—I'm south of it, walking uphill to reach it—I begin to doubt I will make it. Fear nudges its way between my excitement at my journey, until I almost let myself panic and begin running in hopes my legs don't give out until after I make it behind the safer walls of the compound. But it is still almost a klick away; I'll collapse from exhaustion before I make it. I'm not a runner.

I do make it. I go to the closest water source, which is farther than I hoped—I'll have to start leaving jugs by the gates—and collapse. I drink heavily, pour it over my face and chest until my clothes are soaked, and then I take them off and pour more water on my naked flesh.

I hear a couple of crackling pops from outside and grin. The lava is at dangerous activity levels again. But I made it, barely. I laugh, then keep laughing. I choke after a minute and begin chugging more water, then plop back to the floor to close my eyes. A smile dances on my lips because I made it. I could have died, but I made it.

I am alive.

———

It's three months before I see another human. Well, I think it's a human. At first, I thought it was a Jedi. I'm not totally naive; I watched the HoloNews a few times during the war, and I read. A lot. It is part of being unnoticed, people hesitate to interrupt a person reading.

The hooded man steps off a pristine, sleek black ship and walks across the magma. I watch the surveillance feed for a long time. After a while, I wonder if it is broken as he just stands there, unmoving. It is ten, maybe twenty minutes before he shifts and walks off the screen. I check other cameras but I don't see him again. Which seems impossible.

Then, the lights go out.

Fear isn't my initial response. It's irritation, figuring I need to go fix something. Before I can decide my next course of action, however, something in the air shifts. It feels like the day Father disappeared, as if the air is somehow thicker and lacks adequate oxygen. My chest feels tight and I wonder if I'm going to have a panic attack. It's pitch black, as where I live is the center and no windows to the outside exist.

I stand, cursing myself for having AN13 shut off and on the charging port. I fumble for something, anything I can use for light. I hadn't yet experienced this issue in the center, so I've left myself unprepared. I make a mental note to keep an emergency bag near me at all times.