Private Post Apocalypse

[Starlin Rand]

Chapter 1: In My Dreams, I Always Do It Right

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Ruined City of Pirivena, Chaldea
Inner Rim

Kyla Nimdok stood in the cockpit of the Bright Knight, gazing out through the viewing window. They had just come out of hyperspace, and were now rapidly approaching a blue-green globe orbited by a purple moon. It was odd, she thought - from the way Master Rand had described what happened there, she didn't expect it to look so... peaceful.

About ten years ago, Chaldea had suffered what could only be called an apocalypse. Dragons had attacked the inhabitants with gnashing teeth and fiery breath, burning every settlement and killing every sentient being they could find. The loss could be felt in the Force even across a vast distance of billions of light years. Now they were going to see the ruins up close and personal.

There had been reports of a Dark Side cult operating near Pirivena, the remains of a coastal city that was now partially underwater. The reports had come from one of the few surviving remnants of Chaldean civilization, the Mer. Normally isolationist, the fact that they had felt compelled to ask the Jedi Order for help indicated that they were taking the threat posed by the cult seriously.

Though she was endeavoring to hide her excitement, Kyla was intrigued at the prospect of meeting the Mer. She wasn't so happy about the investigative work. But she supposed not every mission could double as a relaxing retreat or an impromptu shopping spree...

"Landing in T-minus ten minutes," Master Rand's voice interrupted her thoughts. He was sitting in the pilot's chair, steering the ship. "Do you know where Lara is?"

"No," Kyla replied, sinking into the co-pilot's chair to indicate that she would not be willing to go look for her sister. "She's probably in her room reading a book or something."

A moment later, Lara stepped into the cockpit. "Sorry, I was in the 'fresher," she said. "Did you guys start without me?"

Starlin chuckled. “Well, whaddya want me to do? Call you up on the intercom and tell you to shit faster?”

Lara groaned and flopped into her seat. Starlin’s smile faded almost immediately, his expression growing distant. Resting her cheek on her hand, Kyla studied their master’s bearded face. Though he still smiled and joked, something had been off about him for the past few weeks. Whatever was bothering him, it must've been a pretty big deal for it to dull his undying light.

"Is that Chaldea?" Lara asked, looking out the window as she buckled herself into her crash webbing.

“Yeah,” Starlin answered. “I’ve already started landing procedures. Are you girls ready to go?”

The twins answered in affirmation. Kyla's attention was brought back to the planet as they began to descend down toward its surface. Now that they were up close, she did see some signs of destruction visible from orbit. Her brow furrowed. Nobody seemed to have a definitive answer as to why the dragons had burned the world down. But it had brought an end to everything.

"We don't want to land too close," Starlin said. "If the cult's operating in the ruins of the city, it'll be dangerous for us. I'll set us down on the outskirts.."

 

[Starlin Rand]

Despite the faraway look in his blue eyes, Starlin was doing his damnedest not to think too much. Because if he did allow himself to contemplate his fate, to face the reality of his current situation, he would lose it. Even now, as he parked the starship and prepared for their mission, a voice rose up from his subconscious, taunting him throughout his routine.

Everyone who has ever cared about you is dead. Everything you spent all these years building is gone. All the ideals you stood for are broken. Your shining examples are false idols. You are alone.

He ignored the voice, getting into the driver's seat of his speeder. Once Lara and Kyla had buckled in the back, he hit the accelerator and sped off toward the city proper.

They blazed past overgrown ruins and empty streets, the only sound the gentle humming of the speeder engine. Pirivena was in a state of urban decay that was both unsettling and beautiful. Nature had reclaimed all the manmade structures, the towers and towns and homesteads green with plant life. Starlin had never had the chance to see Chaldea before the dragons destroyed it all, but from what he understood they had been in economic and social decline for decades before their cities burned. At least their civilization got to go out in a blaze of glory, rather than suffering a slow and agonizing death...

He shut down the path his thoughts were taking. “We should be coming up on the meeting spot now,” he announced, turning a corner.

The coordinates the Mer had given him turned out to be the site of an abandoned opera house. The building had been intentionally constructed half on land and half on water, and it appeared to be less overtaken by wildlife than the rest of the ghost town.

Kyla was the first to climb out of the speeder, looking around while she stretched her legs. Her brow furrowed as she spotted another speeder parked nearby. “Are we not the only ones here?”

“Well, yeah. The Mer are gonna meet us,” Starlin said.

“Do the Mer use speeders?” she asked.

"Probably. They aren't true merfolk, you know - not like Melodies. They have these special suits called Atargatis Skins which let them swim underwater. If they want to walk on land, they just take them off." He closed the door on the driver's side. "Let's get inside. We're running a bit late as it is."

 

[Starlin Rand]

He pushed open the entrance to what had once been the opera house's lobby. With no windows to let in natural light and no electricity, it was very dark inside. He turned on his lightsaber so that he could see better.

"Halt!" a voice commanded. The owner of the voice stepped out of the darkness; it was a woman in full armor, her face obscured by a golden helmet, wielding a magnificent lightsaber. "State your names and your business here, strangers."

Nodding reassuringly to Lara and Kyla, Starlin raised his hands in surrender. "Greetings," he said. "My name is Starlin Rand. We've come on behalf of the Jedi Order, to answer the Mer's call for help."

A pregnant pause followed his words. The woman didn't speak for several long moments. Then she reached up and removed her helmet, revealing her face.

Starlin's eyes widened. No way. It can't be... "Isolda?" he whispered.

"Starlin." She stared at him, her stunned expression mirroring his. "By Ashla, it's been so long..."

"Twenty years, give or take a few."

"You've grown a beard."

"Your hair's going gray," he said. Though his lips curled in a smile, his eyes were full of pain. Here was his lost love, the one who got away. All it took was seeing her again to bring back the deep and abiding yearning he had felt for her in his youth. The beautiful knight who couldn't be with him because they were from different worlds.

As the initial shock of recognition faded, Isolda slipped back into a more professional persona. "I apologize for the... poor welcome. The Mer also requested my help. They didn't mention that anyone else would come."

"Have you met with the Mer yet, or heard anything from them?" Starlin asked.

"No." Her brow furrowed. "I've been waiting for nearly an hour. There's been no word from them in all that time." She turned her attention to the twins. "Who are your companions?"

"Oh, uh—these are my apprentices, Lara and Kyla Nimdok," he introduced them. "Girls, this is Isolda of Ession. She's... an old friend."

The girls exchanged confused glances, then bowed politely to her. "Nice to meet you, ma'am."

Starlin checked his datapad. “The Mer haven’t sent me any updates either. Do you think something happened?”

"It is possible." Isolda gestured toward the doorway behind her. "Come, we can talk more in here."

 

[Starlin Rand]

Starlin followed her into the auditorium, Kyla and Lara trailing close behind. The massive chamber was partially submerged in ocean water, the waves lapping at what remained of the seats. Every now and then he spotted a colorful fish tail flashing amid the seafoam.

Isolda led them up onto the empty stage, where a table and chairs had been set up for the meeting which had yet to take place. The sight of the empty seats was eerie in light of the Mer's unexplained absence. "Please, have a seat," Isolda said before taking the chair across from Starlin. "I'm sure you have questions for me, as do I for you."

Starlin nodded and sighed. "Well, for starters - what are you doing all the way out here? Chaldea and Ession aren't exactly neighbors."

"Many Essonians no longer call Ession home," she replied softly. "I have become what you might call a knight-errant. I wander the stars, rendering justice to evildoers and helping the weak and wronged. Chaldea called for aid, so I answered." Pausing, she added, "This world reminds me of Ession in many ways. It has seen the end of everything, brutalized by a stronger force which destroyed its civilization. Yet there are survivors. Perhaps I see myself in them, a spirit of resilience similar to that of my own people."

"That's admirable of you," Starlin said. "I was assigned to this mission by the Order. I can't claim to have any personal connection to this place, but I'm willing to do what I can to help." He didn't mention that the Order as he knew it no longer existed, or that the Core had been abandoned to the Sith. He was in no mood to broach the topic, and they had more important things to worry about. "Since the Mer have failed to show up, I suggest we organize a search party."

"I agree. Though I am not sure where to begin looking for them." Her gaze darted toward the water, and her face seemed to drain of color. "Do you think... they are somewhere down there, beneath the waves?"

"I mean, it's possible." He shrugged. Was she afraid of the water? "We don't need to go diving, though. I have a better idea."

 

[Starlin Rand]

Removing a piece of enchanted chalk from his pocket, Starlin drew the Jedi meditation symbol across the stage. Then, kneeling within the circle, he closed his eyes.

The beauty of the sorcery Syd had taught him was that it could be invented on the fly. Each spell had a structure - a statement of situation, followed by a plea to the Ashla for help - but beyond that it was malleable as clay. He was a songwriter, accustomed to penning lyrics with an ear for rhythm and syntax. He could come up with a simple rhyme in his sleep.

"The Mer have disappeared; Ashla, reveal their path, make it clear!"

Power surged through the chalk lines. Starlin's eyes glowed a pure white, his vision changing. He saw ghostly figures fleeing. Wordlessly, he got up and followed their path, his companions trailing behind him.

The route led outside of the opera house and along the shoreline. Gradually the land grew upward, becoming rocky and cragged. Finally, the spectral Mer ran into a cave in the cliffside. Starlin's eyes returned to their normal color as the vision faded. "They went in there," he announced.

"But why?" Lara asked. "Was something chasing them?"

"It would seem so," he answered, brow furrowing. "But I couldn't see who or what it was."

Isolda was staring at him in awe. "You've grown more powerful since we last met," she murmured, eyes wide.

Starlin looked away, a blush make his cheeks grow warm. "I'm nothing special," he deflected, rubbing the back of his neck. "But yeah, I was uh... promoted to Master. Happened in the field, during the invasion of Coruscant a couple years back." Which didn't really narrow it down, since his homeworld was constantly being invaded, but whatever.

"Something similar happened to me." Her gaze grew wistful. "I was promoted on Ession when the Sith attacked. Right before my master died in battle."

His stomach knotted, remembering the day Syd had mastered him. How radiant she had looked. How could she be gone? "My master is dead too." Clearing his throat, he faced the cave mouth. "We should head inside and start looking for the Mer. There's no time to waste."

 

[Starlin Rand]

Master Morgun Jai had indicated during the mission debriefing that the cult here on Chaldea might be connected to ones they had encountered before. Starlin didn't know if he meant the Cult with a Capital C, or something else. It was all very ominous.

So was the cave. As they headed inside, picking their way over rocks and sand, he cast a worried glance over his shoulder at the girls. They weren't ready to face a Coven. Although he supposed they needed some exposure to these things. Keeping them in the dark about the horrors of the galaxy would just leave them unprepared. And that was far more dangerous than bringing them along on a mission like this, where he could at least supervise their first contact with the worst the galaxy had to offer.

It made him all the more grateful that Isolda was with them. She was a devout Ashlan and a seasoned veteran well-accustomed to dealing with Dark Siders. Between the two of them, no threat was too great to be overcome.

The cave mouth swallowed them whole, plunging the heroes into darkness. All four ignited their lightsabers: Starlin's blue, Kyla's violet, Lara's orange, and Isolda's silver. Silver, like the streams in the Room of a Thousand Fountains on Coruscant...

"All right, everyone stay close," Starlin whispered. He led the group forward, stretching out his senses with the Force. It was just as he feared - there was a definite Dark Side presence nearby. And the further they went, the closer it became--

A flash of red dropped down from above, landing in front of him. Lit by the glow of her crimson saber, the figure which rose to her feet was a white-haired woman dressed in black. Her eyes burned with corruption, the power of the Dark Side coursing through her blackened veins. Her lips pulled back in a snarl. "Starlin Rand," she sneered. "I should have expected to find you here."

"Uh... Have we met before?" Starlin asked.

"No," she replied. "But my face will be the last thing you see before you die!"

They were swiftly surrounded by more red lightsabers, more figures in the dark. The cultists rushed at them from all sides, slashing and stabbing. With a grin, Starlin unleashed a torrent of Force Light which rippled outward. Those caught in the wave were either thrown backwards or vaporized on impact, their ashes mixing with the sand.

The cult leader lunged at Starlin. He parried her attack, his blue blade crashing into her red with masterly finesse. Isolda fought off the worst of the cultists, keeping them away from Kyla and Lara. The twins watched each other's backs as they picked off the weaker fodder.

Soon all that was left was the cultists' leader. Isolda joined the duel, fighting alongside Starlin, while Kyla and Lara watched for reinforcements. Outnumbered, the cultist began chanting in a dead language as she fought. Starlin could feel the power surging as she called upon ancient forces. I knew it couldn't be this easy, he thought grimly, his lips moving as he fired up a counterspell: "Ashla, show this two-bit enchanter--"

The ground rumbled beneath their feet. A roar echoed through the caverns, not animal but a force of nature so incredible, it could only spell doom. Then, as Kyla and Lara looked around, unsure of what to expect, it happened. Saltwater flooded the tunnels, flushed in from the ocean at the cultist's summons. Starlin's eyes widened as he saw a wall of water headed straight for them, gushing in from outside.

 

[Starlin Rand]

Isolda's barrier went up just in time, the wave crashing over the bubble of protective energy. But as they huddled together beneath the shield, Starlin sensed it beginning to waver. "I can't hold it!" Isolda cried out, arms raised heavenward as she tried to keep the ocean at bay.

"Hold on!" Starlin exclaimed, rewriting his half-finished spell: "--She can be strong without anger!" The rhyme worked immediately, strengthening the barrier. But it wasn't enough. Whatever horror the cultist had conjured, it was more than just water which flooded over them. It was the anguished final moments of the dead, the endless suffering of the survivors in the aftermath, a hurricane of trauma and destruction. It took Starlin's breath away, leaving him gasping for air as hot tears ran down his face.

Mom. Dad. Syd. Professor Nimdok. Miri. Eliphas. Tenn. Ceri. Kai. The Jedi Order. The Alliance. Coruscant. Home.

All gone.

The barrier shattered. Starlin's last sight was of Kyla and Lara huddled together, their screams of terror rending his heart. Then there was only the roar and rush of the water as it slammed into him and swept him away.

 

[Starlin Rand]

He had already lost consciousness by the time his limp body was spat out onto the beach. There he lay still and unmoving, unable - or perhaps unwilling - to get up. That is, until he felt pressure against his chest, and the sensation of cold, wet lips pressed against his, forcibly filling his drowned lungs with air...

He spat up saltwater and bile, coughing. Isolda leaned over him, her blonde hair and golden armor matted with wet sand. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"I'm sore," he replied, which was an understatement. "But I'll live. Where are the girls?"

She didn't respond. Starlin leaped to his feet, frantically scanning the shoreline. "Kyla! Lara!" he screamed, his voice hoarse and his throat raw. But no matter where he looked, there was no sign of the twins.

Please, don't do this to me, he begged the Force, or God, or whoever was listening. They're all I have left.

"I am sorry." He heard Isolda mumbling behind him and whipped around to face her. "It's my fault. My barrier failed. I should have--"

"We need to find them," Starlin interrupted. Now was not the time to cast blame. Brow furrowing, he focused. "I can't sense them." In fact, he couldn't sense anything at all. "What about you?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. There is nothing." She shivered. "I feel so cold. So strange. What did that woman do to us?"

Starlin took a deep breath, then wrapped an arm around Isolda, pulling her close. "Come on. Let's go back to my speeder. I have some supplies in the trunk we can use. Namely warm, dry clothes." Then they would resume their search for the twins. Starlin may not have been able to feel them, but he knew they were still alive. He wouldn't waste a single moment until he found them again.