Star Wars: Slave Of Darkness

As the sound of the cry faded, I gave serious consideration to simply leaving. Just turn around and go find another cave to avoid having any part of that bullshit.

However, I couldn't. If I was going to survive the Leviathan, I needed whatever I could find in this wreck. Not to mention, I was on a time crunch. I simply didn't have the time to find and go spelunking in any other wrecks. For all I knew, they too had a monster infestation. Might as well deal with the one I was already in.

Clipping my glowrod to my belt, I waited, listening for any sign that whatever creature was here with me was coming closer. I was greeted by only silence, but I couldn't shake the feeling that it was nevertheless nearby.

I couldn't get a good grasp on its exact location with my Force senses. Its presence was almost as slippery as oil. But I could feel its hunger radiating outwards.

It hadn't eaten for a very, very long time and I was on the menu.

However, it stayed back, its hunger tempered by caution. It was watching and getting my measure before striking. An ambush predator then.

Because of that, I had time to prepare and I was damn well going to use it.

Pushing my will into the computer again, I ordered it to run a diagnostic while I kept an eye out in case the monster decided to change tactics. The emergency lighting was obviously on, but there were also a number of other subsystems that should have reactivated as well.

As it returned a report, I took note of the contents before I started shutting down unnecessary systems to conserve power for as long as possible.

There was no telling how long the ancient power core would last. It had literally been millennia since it had last seen maintenance, so the fact that it was still functioning at all in this condition was already a miracle. Overstressing it could potentially cause it to go critical.

The life support systems were the first to go. The ship had enough holes in it that it was no longer vacuum-sealed and air had seeped in over the centuries, so there was no need to waste energy on it.

Even if there were some rooms that were less than habitable, my helmet's air supply and filters would last me long enough to get out of them. If not, holding my breath was always an option. That done, I moved on.

The cruiser was large enough that it had an internal tram system to transport crew and goods from one end of the ship to the other. It was also the next subsystem to be deactivated. I sincerely doubted there was enough of the tram line left intact after the crash to be worth keeping it powered.

One by one, I continued to manually deactivate system after system until only the lights and automatic doors remained active. I'd played survival horror games before.

Lesson one: Keep the fucking lights on.

Lesson two: Don't get locked in with the monster.

Now it was probably inevitable that a lot of the doors were broken and I'd have to open them manually anyways, but the less that I had to do that with, the better.

With that out of the way, the next step was arming myself. Unless I wanted to tear the ship apart piece by piece, that meant finding an armory.

Though most of the data on the ship's computers was corrupted and inaccessible due to age, I was able to find a mostly intact map. Comparing it to the one I had made in my head with my powers, I was able to get a good read on how big the ship was supposed to be…and how much damage there was.

From the schematics, the cruiser was supposed to be around seven hundred meters, only a hundred meters smaller than a Harrower-class Dreadnought and placing it on the lower end of heavy cruiser classification.

Twenty armories were scattered across its bulk, though most of them were concentrated around the crew quarters, barracks, and hangar.

Unfortunately, all three sections were inaccessible. Half of the ship had been turned into scrap when it hit the ground, leaving it in its current state. Both the crew quarters and the barracks had been in the front half and now simply no longer existed.

The hangar and its immediate surroundings, placed on the lower decks, seemed to have been completely crushed when the ship settled after impact.

However, it seemed there were still two armories near engineering. Well, relatively nearby. They were both five levels up from my current position, but on different sides of the ship. I'd decide which one to go to when I got to that level.

When I pulled back, it felt like nearly an hour had passed, but a glance at my helmet's chronometer showed that it had only been a minute or two. Good.

Light clicking sounds emerging from the depths told me that the monster would soon lose patience. I tilted my head and considered the sound, trying to get a read on what the creature was. An insectoid of some kind?

I shook my head to dismiss the thoughts before they could go far. No more time to dawdle. I'd find out soon enough anyways.

My boots echoed quietly on the deck plating as I walked out of the control room and headed for the nearest exit.

...

The closest turbolifts were a few corridors away from the engineering section. As I walked through the dead halls, I could hear the clicks persist, which was soon joined by a quick series of scurrying taps.

I didn't bother to look around. It was pretty obvious that the creature was following me, likely cutting off my escape as I moved further into the ship and deeper into its lair.

Listening didn't reveal much else about the creature. As the halls I found myself in were built wide and tall to accommodate the movement of heavy industrial equipment, I couldn't use it as a measure to figure out how large the monster actually was until I saw it.

Still, it was somewhat comforting to know that it couldn't be much bigger than a cargo truck if it expected to fit through here, much less fight.

Soon, the turbolifts came into sight. The heavy durasteel doors were jammed open, revealing the empty shaft beyond. No lights illuminated the inside of the turbolift shaft, leaving it as a dark pit.

When I examined them a bit more closely, I found that the edges of the doors were bent, as though they had been shoved aside by something very strong. I lightly touched my hand to the curve to compare my grip to whatever had done it. Not a match. Whatever was responsible, it wasn't humanoid.

I craned my neck to look up, the glowrod on my belt dimly illuminating the dark shaft enough for me to see the outline of the door for the next floor. Like ones I was standing by, those had been forced open as well.

As I went to pull my hand away, there was some unexpected resistance as it stuck to the door. With a stronger tug, I managed to completely free my limb without too much difficulty.

Turning my hand over, I couldn't see anything on it or on the door. But testing my fingers revealed they were now covered with some sticky substance, invisible to the naked eye.

I frowned and engaged my Force Sight. Under my now colorless sight, I could see that something was sticking to my hand, dangling off in thin strands. More such strands coated the doorway.

Looking up into the turbolift shaft, I discovered it to be completely covered with the same substance, almost to the point of blocking sight. After a moment of observation, I realized what it was: webbing.

I pondered my next course of action. I needed to get up to the armories, five floors above me. There were maintenance tunnels that would lead me there, but it would take more time and possibly leave me trapped in a small space.

No, I needed to go through here. Which meant clearing a path. If this webbing was anything like normal webbing…

I summoned a small charge of lightning into the palm of my hand and watched as the strands burned away by the heat generated that accompanied the summoned electricity. A smile tugged at the edges of my lips. Good.

I called up another charge and directed it at the doorway. As the lightning crackled from my fingertips, the strands ignited and burned as quickly as dry straw. In an instant, the turbolift shaft lit up in a bright flash before going dark again and strands of scorched webbing went tumbling into the darkness below.

Something clattered before falling past me. All I saw was several blurs of white before they were out of sight and I heard more clattering and some uncomfortable-sounding snapping noises. From the sound, it seemed that I had stumbled upon some of the ship's former crew, now just bones.

Ignoring the grisly discovery, I looked back up as I debated the best way to get up to the desired floor. Climbing was out. Whatever this creature was, it was an arachnid of some kind. It would be much better suited at climbing a vertical surface than me, so I'd want my hands free at least to fight it off.

I closed my eyes and concentrated.

Force Flight was an option, though not my first. For some reason, using telekinesis on yourself was more difficult than using it on other things, requiring more control and power to maintain than usual applications. No, I had a better idea.

Metal groaned as a bulkhead tore itself off the wall and placed itself before me. I stepped onto it without hesitation and my impromptu elevator started rising in the air.

Levitating something while you're standing on it was much easier than Force Flight. I managed to get to three floors up without incident before the creature made its move.

The screech was deafeningly loud, even when dulled by my helmet. Peering over the edge of my platform, I got my first look at the monster.

Eight black, bulbous eyes stared unblinkingly at me as eight long legs dragged its huge body through the doorway and into the shaft before it started effortlessly scaling the walls. Its enormous frame, easily fifteen feet tall and long, was covered in glossy black chitin, segmented at the joints to allow for easy movement.

Two pairs of large stinger-fangs surrounded its mouth, from which I could see drool drip down as it salivated at the sight of its next meal.

It was closing the distance at an uncomfortably fast rate. I had to do something before it was on me.

Lightning crackled between my fingers just before I hurled it at the monster, only to watch it nimbly hop out of the way even before I had finished the movement. Beneath me, the platform wobbled unsteadily at my momentary lapse, reminding me that I needed to concentrate on maintaining that or else fall.

Fuck.

This was a really bad place to fight a spider creature, especially for me. I wasn't a particularly acrobatic fighter, preferring to fight on solid ground. I needed to get out of the shaft before it caught up.

It was a quick decision as to how I accomplished that.

Pushing the Force into my legs, I crouched down and jumped, launching myself high into the air while simultaneously kicking the bulkhead towards the arachnid. Like before, it dodged out of the way, though the size of the metal plate caused it to momentarily pause its pursuit.

Grabbing onto the lip of the doorway to the fifth floor, I heaved myself up and out of the turbolift shaft. I didn't stay still for long, rolling out of the way just as the monster spider burst through the doorway, its fangs snapping at me.

I snapped off another burst of lightning at it, only to see it curl up into a ball and tumble out the way. Again, it reacted faster than I could aim, as though it was predicting my movements.

As it uncurled, its fangs and thorax twitched just before something splattered against my helmet's visor. Surprised, I stumbled back, instinctively swiping at it only to get my hand stuck to it. Luckily, I realized what it was and quickly released a jolt of lightning to clear it.

But as I did that, the creature had crossed the distance and slammed into me, knocking me from my feet and pinning me to the ground. Its fangs tried to bite at my chest, but was stopped by my armor, scraping off the metal with a horrendous screech.

Without any other weapon and not enough time to concentrate, I punched at its face with my right hand to try and hit something important before it could figure out where my squishy bits were while trying to hold off the fangs with my left.

My first few strikes were clumsy and merely sparked off its hard shell, but the fourth hit home. The spikes on my knuckle-plate sank into one of its giant eyes, causing dark-green ichor to squirt out and splatter on me and the floor.

The spider creature immediately stopped trying to claw at my armor and let out a disturbing squeal as it scrambled back, its many legs lashing out blindly. One of them caught me in the side, launching my body through the air to slam against the wall.

Though my vision swam from the impact, I wasn't hurt and I immediately lashed out with a Force Wave. Distracted and without anywhere to dodge, it hit the monster head on, propelling it down the hallway where it landed with an almighty crash.

It was back on its feet in a split second, barely hurt by the impact. But instead of charging me, it only regarded me for a moment before skittering off back into the darkness.

Shaking the last of the disorientation from my head and standing up, I watched the dark tunnel it had disappeared into. It had been hungry before. Now it was angry and in pain on top of that.

It would be back.

====================

The first book of this fanfic has been completed on Patreon, you can look it up in the collection alongside the second book. You can visit Patreon if you want to read in Advance.

 [email protected]/Rage_moon