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[Antecedent]

SCREAAAM...

It was like a sound.

One of madness, grief, and rage that could only be felt through the Force.

For any force users in the many light years vicinity of the Chiloon Rift, it would be felt. Terribly. Perhaps a more perceptive user might notice from much further than that.

At the nebula's edge, an anomaly awaited discovery. Yes, the source of the scream, but also so much more. A derelict fleet of nearly 200 warships ranging from corvettes and frigates to cruisers in size, with a single, large dreadnought at the center of the graveyard. And even more curious was a sight that defied all logic, what appeared to be a massive tree, which sundered the great vessel like a rock, its many roots and vine-like appendages spanning forth in a discordant pattern that penetrated and wrapped themselves around the various ships like parasitic tendrils.

Scanners would indeed show signs of life on each and every ship, more than any crew could have filled, and certainly more than what should even be possible given the state of the ruined vessels. There were no signs of power, so how could they have supported life?

Whatever happened here couldn't have been the result of anything but the Force, but exactly what and exactly how eluded all wisdom at a glance.

Someone would have to unravel the mystery before it disappeared.

 

[Jack Sandrow]

Objective: Seek out new plant life for lightsaber construction

Updated Objective: Find out what the HELL that was!

---

Jack was still testing a Valsava maneuver in his head, trying to stop that ringing in the back of his mind. It wasn't an audible scream - sound couldn't travel through empty space - but he had heard it nonetheless and had almost accidentally defenestrated himself over it. While the actual scream had been all-encompassing, the echos of it felt directional - if they were fading away in one direction, then it must have been coming from another.

And after a few hours of traveling in that other direction, he had felt the pull. Something strange, something... wrong. Life, but not as he knew or understood it. A tree, but floating freely in space. Several hundred ships, all derelict yet all interconnected with dendritic fibers that seemed to defy reason.

He was a moth to flame when it came to new species of flora.

And so he would cautiously peek closer, his fully organic ship hopefully invisible to classic electromagnetic scanners, which would in turn let him scoot even closer. What was all this? The scream he heard was still echoing in the back of his head, but... who made it?

Or what made it?

---

Antecedent

 

[Antecedent]

The very fabric of space shook--no, it shivered--in this localized thread of existence.

An experienced spacer may already have been aware of the other nearby anomalous fixture and pegged it as the source of such disturbances, were it not for the obvious answer staring right back. The Force in this region felt utterly disturbed, not corrupted, but bothered on an existential level. If the Force indeed was a living thing, then its animal instincts, or closest thereof, were in full display.

It was a wave of power that washed over Jack Sandrow rather than any electronic sensor. The Vinithi's presence was known and noted, and the source of this pulse made itself known as it began to prod at his mind.

"You... Yooouuu THINK!" The voice sounded as if it belonged to a young woman. "You think, like a person... You are not Meat?"

Then, for the moment, there was silence, before the pause was filled again. This time with another scream, one far less tormented than the last, but still deafeningly loud in the mind.

"Let me out!"

"Let me out!"

"LET ME OUT!"

 

[Jack Sandrow]

"Ow. Ow ow ow ow okay okay! Okay! I hear you!!" Jack called out in the cockpit of his ship. Communicating through the Force was something he had never been good at, but he hoped the presence, whatever or whomever it was, could hear him nonetheless. It had certainly singled him out.

"Just... Here, I'll try to find you. Please don't scream like that, it hurts a lot..." Being as connected as he was to the Force was a mixed benefit - being sensitive to the Force meant he had rather precise control over his specific forte, but was invariably vulnerable to all the other archetypes of the Force. Including, in this case, speaking through the mind.

Weaving through the dense nebula was not a trivial job. Jack was again thankful for the time he'd spent on the Pod just learning how it flew. It was a mesh of maneuverability, mass, and the slow shifting of every other bit of metallic carrion detritus in the area providing a complex backdrop for the dance of ship and pilot. The Force presence, whomever it was (and he was beginning to think it was a who, not a what) was somewhere before him - or around him? Mostly before him.

"Talk to me... do you know 'hot-cold'?" he called out to nobody in particular. "Can you guide me closer?"

---

Antecedent

 

[Antecedent]

Whether or not the entity heard him would not be confirmed by a response. At least not audibly.

Even as Jack pleaded for it to stop screaming, even when he beckoned for its guidance, there were no more words in his head. If he listened closely, all that could be felt through the force was more like rambling than talk, but at least the screaming stopped.

The central fixture of this bramble was the tree, and suddenly it began to glow as vent-like gaps in its bark began to expel a plasmatic discharge not unlike the thrusters on a ship would. At the same time, its tendril-like roots started to retract, and brought with them the web-weave of starships as if shrinking in on the center to say, "I am here."

At least that would be one interpretation. For some forms of life, it might look more akin to defensive posturing, a creature withdrawing into its shell.

Thump. Thump. Thump.

There was a rhythm to how the ship discharged its plasma. Not enough to move, let alone dislodge itself from the grandiose wreck--if it even could--but enough to offer beckoning flashes of light, like flares guiding a rescuer to the stranded.

Jack Sandrow

 

[Jack Sandrow]

He was speaking to no one, but he was still getting an answer. His curiosity, ever the wilful soul, continued to egg him further into the jumble and mess of ships and branches. So he was speaking to someone after all... and someone was listening, and responding in kind.

"Okay... I'm coming, just... hm..." It was getting really tight now, he wouldn't be able to fly the Pod in much further. "I'll be there. One moment..." Crawling out of the cockpit, he swam through the zero-G interior of the ship, before coming to his 'armory' and letting his EVA armor envelop him like a second skin. "I'm coming..."

The vacuum of space had a lot more stuff floating around here than the average cubed parsec of space. Jack had to be cautious, letting the smallest movements guide him inwards towards the 'tree' at the center. Color and filaments floated around him, and he let the sensations of the Force guide him to the middle.

"Okay... that's a big dreadnought... Can't tell the class... it's old, though, that's certain." He didn't want to end up crashing directly into the center of it all and splatter like a bug on the windshield, so he angled to the side, looking for a docking bay or some kind of entrance. "There's one... okay... Easy.... easy easy easy easy Oh SHIIII-"

Bouncing off the floor of the bay, he realized in a heartbeat that 1) gravity wasn't operational right now, and 2) that meant that pretty much all the life support systems were also probably not operational right now. He didn't mind living in zero-G but he also knew he was the exception to the rule. "I'm here," he called out in the empty bay, before carefully hooking his feet into a convenient ladder rung. "Okay... I'm going to try to make my way to you. Just hold on..."

Using spare organic material built into the EVA suit, he began extruding thorn-like spikes from the soles of his boots, as well as a long whip-like coil from his arm. And so began the long process of latching onto the floor ahead of him, yanking himself towards it, then hooking into the floor before firing the coil forwards again to re-latch where he could.

---

Antecedent

 

[Antecedent]

The interior of the docking bay, and its surrounding hallways and compartments, had every characteristic expected of a derelict vessel. Empty, lifeless, cold, dark, and perhaps a touch melancholic. Though far from the largest vessels to grace the galaxy, the warship was still a sizable monstrosity up close and had a massive, almost maze-like interior.

The further they explored the interior, the more those initial expectations would be betrayed, however. The most immediate and obvious sign of something different going on would likely be the sudden arrival of low gravity. It was barely there, but no longer would Jack need to float in the zero G environment found closer to the exterior. The next sign was the appearance of roots, they looked much like the ones found outside the ship, but were much smaller, more about what you'd expect from a tree, and then beyond that were... signs of oxygen, greenery, and... Was that a growl?

Some kind of animal, or animals, could be heard deeper inside the vessel.

"They are hungry, are you food?" The voice intruded again after what would've been a long, awkward silence at this point.

Jack Sandrow

 

[Jack Sandrow]

Jack caught himself mid-flight as the effects of low-G began to filter into the ship around him. He stumbled a moment, before getting used to the floaty feeling and righting himself to the ship's corridors. "Okay.... that's helpful. Thank you," he said, again to no one. Continuing further into the ship with a modicum of caution, he saw the roots about the same time as he began feeling atmosphere filtering in back around him. Interesting.

He'd keep the suit on for the moment, however... One weak seal or one loose fitting, and he'd be back out into hard vacuum.

Something else was here, though. Besides him, besides the plant matter, something was prowling the ship. He blew out a slow breath. "Am I food? ...well, I am technically edible. But no." A long thin knife extruded from his forearm, the mass of the whip-grapnel reshaping into a more lethal form. "I am most certainly not food."

His footsteps stayed light and quiet on the decking, and now he was keeping an ear out for something else that may be out for a pound of flesh. Or plant.

---

Antecedent

 

[Antecedent]

Once again, the voice disappeared as soon as it had returned, offering little in the way of passing conversation. Gravity became stronger, and the sparse vegetation was starting to become something more of a lush thicket.

More growls came from the immediate room ahead. Only a keen and experienced naturalist might determine whether these were growls of hostility or playfulness, something else, or between many answers at once.

The source would be spotted almost immediately, a kath hound mother and her pups, the latter of which were playing as all kath pups do. The mother, in particular, appeared quite docile and even sedate. As for the room, it appeared to be some kind of meditation chamber. It lacked the ascetic characteristics of the Jedi, nor did it have the harsh, brooding nature of the Sith.

Yet, the markings and iconography suggested some sort of sect, religion, or cult was being honored here. Three triangles interlinked, the depiction of abstract entities, and what appeared to be a motif portraying a sizable armada above many circles connected by lines.

At its center, a small object emanated with a soft, blue-white glow in a nest of sickly vines and dead twigs.

Jack Sandrow

 

[Jack Sandrow]

Jack had never seen a kath hound in person before, but the dynamics of mother & pups was fairly obvious even to him. He made sure to note the area they seemed to call their 'den', or their play area, and gave them a wide berth. Should the mother attempt to scare him off, to protect her pups, he would back off, lowering his head to make sure she understood he was no threat to her.

Perhaps she wouldn't even notice him; a humanoid figure he had, true, but a scent unlike other living beings he also had. Maybe she'd think he was part of the greenery here.

He was hesitant to reach out into the Force to explore how the flora felt here. There was a sense of primeval rawness and untapped potential, and he was mindful that he was just one being, in a potential sea of life here. The history of this place was beyond him; he was no scholar, he was barely part of galactic society at this point. But it was clearly something that merited discovery; he'd have to talk to someone in the Alliance, figure out how to send it up the chain.

Something specific was drawing his attention, though. What he had thought was a small inset light was in fact something unique, embedded in a pile of dying plant matter. A Jedi crystal, perhaps? He approached it slowly, tentatively reaching out in the Force to see if this crystalline object was the 'thing' that had been calling to him.

---

Antecedent

 

[Antecedent]

The Kath mother paid some mind to the stranger, but she otherwise seemed preoccupied with her pups and saw not a threat in his movements or actions. The pups only briefly stopped their play to inspect them with much curiosity. They might have tried to approach if it wasn't for a third pup using their distraction as an opportunity to land an ambushing leap.

As for the crystal at the center, while it was attuned to the Force, it did not offer more than a subtle connection. Though it did appear to glow a little brighter at Jack's attention.

Then, there was something else... Another call in the force, similar to the voice they had heard, but its essence would have felt different, like an echo rather than a living presence, and it was nearby.

Beyond the meditation chamber was another hallway that led towards the center of the ship, and immediately before that, a door into another room. It was left partially ajar, unable to open or close on its own while power remained disconnected.

Jack Sandrow

 

[Jack Sandrow]

Jack knelt down next to the crystal, brushing a hand over the decaying plant matter. "...what happened to you, then?" he murmured, before carefully spritzing a bit of Chyme over the plants to hopefully reinvigorate their old roots. "Try to get better... I need to keep moving. I'll be back, I hope." With that, he carefully scooped up the tiny crystal in his hand, waiting a moment to see if anything would happen... and when nothing did, he carefully slipped it into a small pocket that unfolded from his hip.

Back on his feet, he closed his eyes a bit as that presence in the Force nudged him again. "Alright... I hear you." He walked to the door, eyeing the construction curiously. Interesting... a iris-like petal, clearly durable and meant for a proper barrier for entry, but designed for form over function nonetheless. Probably. Maybe.

He tapped the slightly ajar mechanism, then pushed on it. Nothing.

"Alright... the hard way it is," he grinned a bit, before taking a few steps back into the meditation room. Carefully taking a few strands of vine and root from the ground, he walked back to the door and slipped the small filaments of flora into the cracks of the doorway. "Let's help you help me out, alright?" he murmured to the roots, pouring Force energy into them until they began to wind themselves around the mechanisms and inner workings. "A little more..."

The door creaked a moment, before beginning to open slowly. "Yep... yes, yes, just a bit more..." The door creaked to a stop, and he sighed softly. "Alright, well done. Come on out," he murmured, coaxing the newly reinvigorated plant life out of the door. "Thank you very much for the help," he smiled, gently replanting the roots and plant matter back where they had come from. "I'll be back to check on the others." And finally, he stepped through the door that was now just barely wide enough for him, into the corridor beyond.

---

Antecedent

 

[Antecedent]

Something stirred in the roots when Jack poured his own energy into them. They sang through the Force, sang of harmony, sang of determination as they took the Vinithi's motives and transformed them into shared purpose. Slowly, but surely, the door lifted, and when it was done and they were freed, the plants released a gentle hum in the atmosphere.

It felt like the force grew to be docile like the Kath Mother. There was contentment, the kind of peace one found wherever life flourished and thrived.

When Jack stepped inside the new room, something different--unexpected--happened; there was the subtle groan of power, and lights flickered on. It wasn't that the ship itself regained power, no, the rest of it remained dead, but somehow this room had its own source of power that activated. One could even sense that source of power through the Force, but it was darker, much darker than anything else felt yet.

The room itself was rather simple. There were no symbols, no decor, and it lacked spaciousness. There was a single, very spartan bed with a nearby footlocker, and a small personal bathroom on one side of the room. On the other side, a wall of curios, mostly simple relics of likely sentimental value only. Save for a small cube which, much like the crystal they scooped up earlier, emanated a presence in the Force.

There was also a rather ceremonial-looking sword stand without a blade, and finally, the source of that echo... An armor stand with a peculiar set of armor in full display. A close inspection would reveal that it was quite fitted, likely of personal make for a single individual to wear. However, more importantly than that was the strong and quite prickly Force emanation coming from the battlesuit, and it felt quite similar to the Voice.

Jack Sandrow

 

[Jack Sandrow]

Jack's eyes narrowed behind the helmet faceplate; something was off in here, something dark and similarly ancient. He still had the knife sticking out of his gauntlet, and he had his hackles raised. He eyed the room cautiously before stepping in properly. It was weird to trespass in someone else's private quarters, but this was where he had been called.

He looked through the collection on the wall, briefly lingering on the cube-thing for its Force presence. Jedi Holocron? No, too small. And made of the wrong materials. He put a hand towards it, trying to garner some kind of sense for what it would do... Nothing immediately sprung to mind, so he pulled the crystal out of his hip pocket and brought it near. Hmm... he could revisit this, possibly.

"Alright," he murmured softly, stepping to the clearly custom armor. "Now who were you?" He reached out to gently brush some dust off the shoulder. "Someone in charge of this place?"

---

Antecedent

 

[Antecedent]

The cube did not immediately react in any perceivable way, nor did that change when he introduced the crystal. Whatever its purpose, it was unlikely to be activated in such a way. The only hint of possibility was a line-like groove that wrapped around one face of the cube, as if it might twist in some manner.

It was as soon as his hand gently brushed the armor that something finally happened. It was brief, like a static shock, when latent Force energy in the armor transferred into his mind as flashes of memory.

A history of war, conflict, and personal combat with an enemy recognized as Jedi and Mandalorians. Each flash rapidly fired like animating a flipbook.

Battle on a red, dusty world, with old and oppressive statues at the base of a temple. A duel in the canopy of a forest world with massive jungle trees. A besieged enclave on an idyllic farm world.

And then the flashes stopped, all within the span of Jack's hand brushing dust off the armor's shoulder. A ringing sound followed, subtle and harmonic, and the voice returned.

"Careful! She should not be reminded." There was a hint of fear in the young woman's voice.

Then her tone changed into a manner more impatient, almost irritated. "Let me out! Please... You're almost there, find the center, where the roots rest, before the hunter returns."

Jack Sandrow

 

[Jack Sandrow]

Jack stepped back a bit, blinking through the fading memories of another life, of someone else's life. "...I'm sorry... who? Who is she? Reminded of what?"

He kept his voice down, moving to the doorway, peeking out to make sure nothing else was there, before returning to the armor. Perhaps whoever was talking to him, was using the armor as a focus. "Find the center where the roots rest," he repeated. "The center of this ship? ...should I take the armor with me?"

Also: hunter. Possibly the kath hound, probably something a lot more dangerous. And this space was filled with darkness, the kind that usually came from brooding thoughts and vicious hands. He thought back to the flashes he saw; Mandos and Jedi in combat wasn't exactly a narrow slice of history. In fact something like that had happened just a few months ago, give or take.

"....if you can hear me, voice in my head... Guide my feet, and I'll come right to you, wherever you are."

---

Antecedent

 

[Antecedent]

When he asked who she was and what she could be reminded of, there were no words as a reply. Instead, there was a cocktail of emotions that poured through the Force. Fear, anger, and most of all... Familiarity, almost like a twisted nostalgia. When the questions then turned to the armor, her voice responded in a snap.

"No!" Then it softened. "No... Leave it."

"Exit into the hallway and continue the way you were going. Stay away from the shadow, if you feel it. Run if you see it."

The path ahead was simple enough, a long hallway that continued on for some time until it opened up into a much larger chamber. A concourse of sorts, a place where traffic within the starship met. There were balconies, elevators, staircases. And all of it was overgrown with the thicket.

A single, massive root--about twice his body's width in scale--ran through the overgrowth and disappeared somewhere within. That would almost certainly be the direction he needed to go.

Jack Sandrow

 

[Jack Sandrow]

"Leaving the armor," he assured the voice softly. "Leaving it be." He peeked back out into the hallway again, before heading out with a soft step.

The main concourse was a curious design, though very overgrown with the greenery. Jack personally liked the additions; the galaxy always needed more green. The obvious eyesight draw was the massive root down the middle, of course; Jack moved over to kneel next to it. "Okay big guy... who are you... and where are you going?"

He stepped around a larger bush before beginning to press into the denser growth. A gentle wave of his hand, and the tangled flora began to part slowly. "Thank you; I'll be just a moment, then you can go back to what you were doing." Stepping through, he began to follow the massive trunk root back to its source, keeping an ear out for that 'shadow' she spoke of. She. The voice was a she, he realized. Or at least, the voice referred to a she. Could it be one and the same?

---

Antecedent

 

[Antecedent]

The path forward through the thicket revealed a certain fortune of Jack's own nature, his connection with the force and intimate familiarity with flora proved an interesting boon to say the least. Was it a matter of luck or fate? A bit of both?

Either way, the botanist's path went far less hindered than anyone else would have encountered, and it did not require the cutting or burning of the unique ecosystem that now made its home inside the derelict.

As he continued, he would begin to experience strange things again, this time there were... sights, sounds. Nothing too specific, more like murky sensations. An abstract shape that disappears into the periphery, unusual sounds, and even familiar voices from his memory, but not sentences, merely a word or two. Nonsense.

If these sensations did not prove too distracting, he might notice something far more alarming... That his connection to the Force was being disrupted. Not cut off, but constricted. Still following the root, he would notice another foreboding sign. The root was damaged at this point by what appeared to be large claw marks that even scratched into the metal floor.

Judging by the lack of scarring and fresh liquid pouring out from the root, it was likely quite recent that the cut was made.

Jack Sandrow

 

[Jack Sandrow]

Jack kept moving, slow and steady. The green he pushed on, he let push back once he had passed. His passage through here would be as far from intrusive as he could manage.

"...." Jack winced a bit, shaking his head. Did the armor give him some lingering effects? He was hearing things.

"....spider.....to the fly...."

He inhaled a soft breath, shaking his head before continuing. If the armor was affecting memory, it was giving him his own, in this instance. He hadn't thought of her in a while, and while he had certainly felt something familiar a year or so ago, he had chalked that up to paranoia. Well... perhaps this could be more of the same.

He hoped.

The ship seemed to press in around him more, now. He wavered a bit, feeling a pulse of energy - no. Not a pulse of energy, but a pulse of an absence of energy. The Force was weakening, or perhaps being suppressed? He wasn't a 'Force-ologist', but he needed it to live; whatever was constricting it, he wanted that gone, and fast.

And the roots were being damaged, too. Probably by that hunter, whatever it was... He let out a sympathetic groan at the sight. "Oh you poor thing..."

"...poor.... thing..."

He closed his eyes and turned his head until the memory passed. "....let me help." Kneeling down next to the gouged vine, he began gently coaxing plant matter back into place with the Force, adding small spritzes of Chyme to help with fluid loss. "Here... that should help." He patted the giant root, before moving onwards. Time to get to the center of it all.

---

Antecedent