Chapter 4
Bargaining
He had no idea how long he had been following the wall of the tunnel. Time ceased to have meaning in the utter darkness. He knew he was tired. Fear and adrenaline had given way to exhaustion and hunger. When was the last time I ate something? He thought to himself. It could have been a few hours ago, it could have been a day ago. He had no clear notion. He thought that the tunnel had been angling down for some time now, but he dared not risk the flashlight to check.
Suddenly his hand that had been brushing up against the wall, felt nothingness. He immediately backpedaled until he could feel its stony surface again. The touch of the wall had become a comfort to him, and for a moment he had felt fear as he stood in the blackness without any clear indicator of what was around him.
He carefully stretched his hand out and realized the stone veered off to his right. It must be a turn in the tunnel. He tentatively walked out until he found the far edge of the tunnel and was able to put together that the tunnel he was in continued on, and he wasn't just at a sharp right turn, but was instead at an opening. He wanted to shine the light to get his bearings, but he was afraid the opening spilled out into another cavern. What if that thing is out there, and I shine the light to see if it's a tunnel and it comes for me? But, he felt along the stone wall a few feet and decided it didn't open up to anything so it might be safe to shine a light after all.
He took out the flashlight, and hesitated. He could feel its reassuring weight in his hand, just like his blaster he still held in his other. It should be safe to risk it, he thought. He'd been traveling away from that beast for some time now after all. Fear rose up within him, but he flicked the switch anyway, and light flooded into the stone tunnel.
For a moment he had to squint his eyes. The light was painful after so long in the darkness, but the light was also blessedly welcome after the endless void he had been walking through alone. He found himself at a three way juncture, off to his left on the far side of the tunnel it branched off, and curved around so that he couldn't see far ahead. The way in front of him that he had been following curved sharply upwards, and the one he had found went a short ways and terminated in a wide blast door covered in strange red painted symbols. The door had to be at least six meters wide and spanned the length of the tunnel itself.
No, not painted. That's blood, he reminded himself. He walked closer to the blast door and inspected the blood-daubed symbols. He couldn't make heads nor tails of them, and something in him told him that he didn't want to be able to understand them. He searched for access controls and found a small panel on the wall, the glass cover of which had a red handprint on it. He lifted the glass and pressed the controls and the door began to open.
He immediately regretted his decision. The first thing that went wrong was the noise. The door grated along its tracks and a loud metallic groan filled the tunnel as it struggled to open. The second thing was the smell. A thick, almost sweet, smell of decay flooded out from within the black vault-like room beyond that he had no desire to find the source of.
After what felt like a few minutes, but was probably no less than thirty seconds, the door slid back into its niche with a loud clang and Savage was left deciding if he wanted to go in, but his decision was made for him as he heard a deep throated roar echo in the distance. Though, from which of the three tunnels at the junction he couldn't tell. He had no definitive proof, but he was certain the Beast was still hunting him. The thing must have realized that Rieva was alone when it hunted her down, and now he had rung the dinner bell.
Against his gut feeling he ran inside the chamber, and began searching for another access panel. His flashlight jinked this way and that as he didn't see one at first. Then he spotted it behind a leaning piece of sheet metal that had covered it, and relief flooded him. He pushed the sheet metal aside which screeched against the durasteel wall of the chamber and opened the glass cover to hit the red close button. Nothing happened.
He hit the button again in rising fear, and wondered how good that roggwart's hearing might be. Could it have heard the sheet metal too? No, there's no way it was that close, it was probably far away still. Osik, what do I do about this door?
He shined his light around the doorway until he saw a metal cable that ran overhead of the door snaked down the far side along where the wall met the floor. He followed the cable with the light to try and find where it led, but he quickly found the problem. Someone, Force knows when, had cut the damn thing in half. It was cleanly severed, and Savage wondered why someone would disable the controls to go out of the chamber, but not into the chamber.
He'd have to close the door from the outside control panel mounted on the wall just outside. He walked towards the entrance, and debated if he really wanted to close himself in here. After all, if the door controls were severed, what if he just ended up locking himself inside. There were still two other tunnels he could take.
As he deliberated though, he froze as he heard a loud snort far back in the tunnel he had come from. That fething roggwart is sniffing out my trail! He couldn't tell how far away the sound was, but he knew the decision had been made for him. He ran out of the chamber and slammed the red button on the panel. The doors began their ponderous closure as he scrambled back to the dubious safety of the chamber that smelled like death.
As he had expected, the metallic groaning started back up as the doors began closing once more. Then after a few seconds he heard the rhythmic crunching of gravel as huge clawed feet came running down the tunnel. He checked the charge on his blaster, and set the flashlight on the ground pointed out into the tunnel. He pulled out his vibromachete in his free hand, and the subtle thrum reverberated up his arm as he thumbed on the switch. The doors were halfway closed now, and he willed them to close faster to no avail.
A huge clawed hand gripped the edge of the tunnel juncture suddenly, and its gruesome black leathery head peaked around the corner for a moment before pulling back unaccustomed to the bright light shining at it. There was a deepthroated growl in the darkness, before the Beast rounded the corner fully. It spotted Savage instantly, and began charging down the short tunnel at the closing door that was only two thirds of the way along its tracks.
It was the first time Savage saw the Beast in the light, and it was much worse than when he had seen it under the night vision. The roggwart was black as midnight and covered in scars. He noticed it was wounded on its shoulder and chest where it had been shot earlier and Savage felt elation as his adrenaline kicked in. He knew his blaster could hurt the Force-damned thing after all.
He wasted no time, and began firing down the short corridor to slow the Beast as it rounded the corner. But, the roggwart lowered its head as it charged, and the blaster bolts seemed to splash off its thick skull ineffectually. Savage kept firing as he stepped backwards, and the doors kept ponderously closing.
The Beast crashed into the blast doors with a huge blow, and the metal shutters stopped moving for a moment. It was only able to fit its head in between them as the blast doors had closed too far to admit the roggwart's vast muscular frame. Then it reached through with its claws and began trying to pull the doors apart as Savage continued to pour blaster fire at its head from no less than two meters away. But, it was to no avail. Part of his mind noticed that there were more of the strange blood symbols, Or perhaps they were sigils? along the durasteel spiked collar the Beast wore on its neck, and along its chain too. The other part of his mind was more concerned with the fresh blood and scraps of meat on the huge fangs that ringed its wide murderous maw.
Savage was not willing to see who would win in a contest of strength, the Beast or the blast doors, and leapt forward at an angle to slash at the roggwart's clawed hands that were pulling the doors apart. The blade sliced one of the Beast's thick fingers off entirely, and blood spurted out onto the durasteel grate he stood on. He was rewarded with a bellow of pain, and rage that physically drove him back a pace with its stench. He instinctively made a warding slash at the roggwarts's face as if it had lunged at him, and the blade sliced through the empty air between them.
The doors began to inch forward as the Beast lost its grip on the door closest to Savage, and pulled back its injured hand. Savage brought up his blaster and began firing again hoping the close range shots would have some effect. Suddenly its huge spiked tail slipped through the doorway to stab itself in the ground as a sort of makeshift wedge and the doors strained against the new barrier. Savage shifted his aim to fire at it, but with a devilish force of effort the Beast shrugged the doors back a few inches and lunged at Savage with its huge blood stained fangs.
Savage managed to jump back and to the right, but lost his grip on his blaster which tumbled to the ground in front of the roggwart. He slashed with the vibromachete instead which drove the fanged rimmed head back a pace, and gave him the time to draw his flechette launcher.
The doors had won a few inches as the Beast drew back from his machete slash, and Savage could hear the servos fighting against the strain. Part of him wondered how long they could go before shorting out. They certainly weren't designed for this sort of thing.
The Beast let loose another roar of pure anger and rage at its puny quarry that was fighting it here in its own domain. Savage took aim as it did so. Years of clearing ship hallways had given him a familiarity with the flechette launcher, and he hardly had focus to draw a bead on the exposed mouth the roar afforded him. The launcher let off a loud bang and hundreds of small metal flechettes shot outwards and embedded themselves in the soft mouth and throat of the roggwart.
With another bellow, this time of pain, the Beast pulled itself back from the unexpected sting of the flechettes, and the doors began shutting once again. Savage dropped the vibromachete and began fumbling for a second cartridge to load the launcher, but he need not have bothered. The roggwart's roar took on a high pitch keen as it twisted backwards, and crashed into the stone walls of the tunnel. As the doors clanged shut the last it saw of Savage was of a malevolently grinning Devaronian backlit by the cursed light that had brought into its domain.
"Sonofashutta…" Savage muttered breathlessly. The doors were shut, and he was safe. For the moment. He knew the flechettes were not enough to kill the roggwart, only to injure it. He took a few moments to calm himself as he stared at the blast doors that had so nearly failed to save him. There was a loud bang on the outside of them as the Beast slammed against them in impotent rage, and he flinched reflexively.
He finished reloading his flechette launcher, and stuffed it in his belt before picking up his other weapons off the ground and surveying the chamber he had possibly trapped himself in.
He picked up the flashlight and panned it around the room as a second loud bang reverberated through the blast doors, causing a trickle of dust to fall down from the stone ceiling.
The room looked to have once been used for storage. It was large and square, with durasteel walls and a metal grated floor over the rough stone beneath. There were random odds and ends of metalworking spread about the edges of the room, along with some crates stacked up against the wall on the far side, but nothing else of any interest, and he wondered how he was going to escape.
"Dank farrik, this just keeps getting better," he muttered to himself as he contemplated the futility of his situation. There was another loud bang against the doors followed by a muffled roar as the Beast let out its anger at being injured. Well, being locked in is better than being eaten I suppose.
He walked over and sat down in front of the crates using them as a backrest. He didn't know how long he had been awake down here, and the fatigue was starting to catch up to him. He supposed he ought to try and call Tonor and tell him what had happened. He tapped the mic on his communicator and waited. There was a scraping noise coming from the blast doors and he figured the Beast had given up trying to ram its way through, was now trying to pry them open. He tapped the mic a second time, and waited.
To hell with this, he thought. He knew Tonor was safe, wherever he was, because the damn roggwart was right outside the door with him.
"Tonor, it's Savage," he said over the comms and waited. He wondered if Rieva's comms would still be transmitting; his words echoing off the empty tunnel that marked her grave.
"Dank farrik, you trying to get me killed!? I thought we agreed to tap the mic first?" A voice responded after a few moments. Savage set down the flashlight and angled it at the heavy blast doors across the room from him where the scraping noises continued. He envisioned long, blood-stained claws digging at the face of the durasteel beyond.
"Relax, I know you're safe at the moment because the beast is here on the other side of a blast door from me. The bastard has me trapped," Savage admitted.
“What about Rieva?" Tonor asked.
"It got her. We were ambushed in a large mining pit a little ways back. I managed to wound it, but it still ran her down." Savage paused as he remembered being knocked down by Rieva. He decided not to tell Tonor how her giving into panic had gotten her killed, and consequently saved him. “I took off down a side tunnel out of the mining pit, but it hunted me down. I only barely managed to lock myself in a storage room before it got me to."
There was silence on the other end of the comms. “How bad is it wounded?"
"Nothing too serious unfortunately, I wouldn't count on it bleeding out. I pissed it off more than anything I think. It has a few serious burns on its chest and a mouthful of flechettes," Savage explained as the scraping started up again on the outside of the blast door. When will that thing give up? The flashlight rolled to the side as he adjusted himself against the crates and the light reflected off the exposed metal where the cable to the door controls was cut. He wondered if he could possibly splice them together.
There was silence on the comms again, and after a while Savage continued. “Look, I wanted to ask if there was any way you could make a distraction for me? Just make some noise to draw the damn thing off. I think I can unlock these blast doors I'm stuck behind, but not if that thing is sitting there waiting for me." There was a painfully loud screech as he spoke and he wondered if it carried over the comms, but again there was silence. “Tonor?"
“No," Tonor eventually replied. Part of Savage had expected the answer, but the weight of it still struck him deeply.
"Come on man, between the two of us we can grab all that cash, and get off this rock. One to haul it to the ship and the other to cover. What do you mean no?"
"You let Rieva die, Savage. As far as I'm concerned you can die down here too."
"I didn't let her die, that damn thing killed her. You need me, man. Who's going to fly the ship?" There was silence on the comms. “Who's going to fly the ship Tonor!?"
"Dank farrik!" Savage yelled across the empty room. Outside the blast doors the Beast had ceased its attempts at entry. All was silent. No Doubt the damned thing is waiting for me out there. But he couldn't even open the doors if he wanted to. After a while the fatigue overtook him, and he slept. His thoughts drifting away to a sweet black oblivion.
Chapter 5
Depression
He awoke with a start. The flashlight still illumined the room, and he cursed himself silently at wasting its battery. How long was I out? He wondered, his mind was still groggy. He heard a scuffling noise and half remembered hearing the same noise in his dream just before he awoke. The noise was coming from the wall to his left, and he wondered if he was still dreaming because it didn't make any sense to him.
He noticed he didn't hear anything coming from outside the blast doors, and he wondered if the roggwart was waiting out there. Walking over to the crates stacked by the far wall he still heard the scuffling noise. He took out his vibroblade, and managed to pry open one of the crates only to find it was completely empty. Nothing but dust. Again, he heard the noise, but now he could tell it was coming from underneath.
He had to shove away a few other crates that were stacked to either side, but he was eventually able to move it to see where the noise was coming from. As the plasteel box slid across the floor a womp rat shot out from underneath.
"Dank farrik!" He cursed as the furry little creature shot out between his legs and scurried out into the darkness of the room. I wonder if that's how that thing out there has stayed alive so long. Just eating rats in the darkness, he thought to himself.
He looked back where the womp rat had came from, and stopped for a moment. There was an opening under the crate. He walked over to grab his flashlight and brought it back to the hole to peer in. What he found puzzled him. Because through a narrow gap he could see what looked like steps.
He hurriedly shoved the crate the rest of the way off, and he could scarcely believe his luck. The crate had concealed a passageway in the floor. A narrow stairway spiraling down into the darkness. Despite his discovery of another way out of the trap he found himself in, there was something deeply unsettling about the passageway. He couldn't place his finger on it, and dismissed it as general anxiety from being stuck down in this place.
Now why would there be a hidden passage in this storage room, of all places? He wondered. He examined the edges of the stairway with his flashlight. He was no mason, nor was he a miner but the cuts on the stone looked distinctly different to him. Almost as if they had been chiseled out with old school hand equipment. The look of the rest of the mining tunnels he had been in until now had looked much cleaner. He assumed the miners had used big laser bores or the carbonite tipped drilling rigs, but this was different, older maybe.
He remembered then what Rieva had said about this place pre-dating the Clone Wars, and being used as an outpost by some group she called the Sith. How old is this place? He wondered as he examined the stairway. He wasn't sure, but it had to be some remnant architecture from before the mining collective took over. Which only partly explained why it was covered up by nothing more than a few crates. Almost like someone had wanted it to still be accessible.
What else had Rieva said? He wondered for a moment, but then he remembered. All the miners had disappeared here virtually overnight. The thought sent a shiver down his spine, but it wasn't like he had any other options for how to get out of this place. He would just have to go deeper in. He gripped his vibro-machete in one hand, and with his flashlight illuminating the steps he ventured down into the darkness.
As he descended the light from his flashlight began throwing strange shadows onto the walls. Out of the corner of his eyes he could almost swear that the random chisel marks were coalescing into alien symbols, but when he looked directly at them they turned out to just be normal cuts in the stone again.
He eventually reached the bottom, and he let out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding in. A stone archway adorned the exit of the staircase and he found himself staring at the strange carvings upon it. On each base of the arch were relief carvings of robed figures holding up a sword of some sort, but the blades looked strange to him. Then, at the crest of the archway was what looked to be a stylized dagger inside of a circle. The symbol was a deep ochre and he wondered just what had been used to color it like that. He only knew of one thing that dried in that color.
Stepping through the archway he found himself in a low ceilinged cavern that stretched far beyond what his flashlight could illuminate. Walls to either side of him stretched off into the darkness, while in front of him was open blackness as far as his light allowed him to see.
He hesitated there at the base of the stairs wondering which way to go. If I walk out into that past where I can see the wall, I'll be completely lost, he thought to himself. But, he saw no other way. The cavern he was in couldn't go on forever after all, and besides it's not like it mattered if he could find his way back anyway. The staircase only led back to the room where he had been trapped by that roggwart.
Feth it, he thought to himself, and he walked out into the darkness. Despite knowing it was going to happen he still felt panic rise up within him when he turned around and couldn't see the wall behind him anymore. Now, any direction he looked was only darkness hemmed in by the stone floor beneath him, and the stone ceiling above him.
How deep am I in this place anyway? I would've thought I'd have popped out the bottom by now. Part of him realized he was only trying to gauge the depth of his journey as a way to distract himself from the barely subdued panic, but he ignored that part of his mind and let his analytical side run free.
Still he walked, and still utter blackness. Suppose this all goes on forever. Or suppose I'm actually just walking around in circles down here and don't even know it because I have nothing to focus on. The walls could be just out of my sight, and I could just keep circling around and around, and around, and around. He forced himself to stop thinking as he continued to walk forward. He took extra care to place one foot exactly in front of the other so he didn't accidentally arc off to one side or another.
Maybe I should turn a bit to one side, and then the other later on. That way it will even things out if I begin to stray. The thought was so ludicrous he had to chuckle to himself in the darkness, but immediately regretted breaking the silence. It almost felt like the cavern itself resented the sound.
I'm going to go crazy down here, he thought with some clarity.
As he turned the analytical part of his mind inward onto himself to gauge whether or not he really was going crazy, his flashlight went out. Its battery finally spent from being left on for so long. Don't panic. It doesn't matter if you can see anyway, because the light wasn't showing anything. Light or no light just keep walking forward until you find the far wall, he told himself. He had to keep repeating the thought over and over again in his head as he tentatively walked forward in the pitch black.
He didn't know how long he walked, or how far, but eventually his eyes adjusted. In the distance he saw a red glow. Or, at least he thought he did. He tried blinking and closing his eyes before opening them again, but the glow was so faint he couldn't tell if he was imagining it or not. He walked towards it, not caring that he no longer was walking in his chosen direction. Any direction was good enough down here.
The glow began to get brighter, and he knew his eyes were no longer playing tricks on him. Then he heard sounds, and he wondered if he truly had lost his mind. The closer he got the better he could make it out. It was a drumming noise, and it was rhythmic. He soon realized he was walking to the tempo of the drums, and he wondered how long he had been doing so. He didn't remember changing pace, in fact he'd been taking the same measured steps he'd been taking since entering this cavern. Maybe I've been walking to this tempo this entire time. Maybe before I even came here, he thought to himself, and some quiet part of his mind logged the thought as irrational.
The red glow suffused the ceiling and the floor, but somehow didn't manage to dispel the darkness in the distance, and he wondered how that could be possible. Soon he could discern deeper shadows from where the floor and ceiling were etched, and it wasn't long before he was seeing strange symbols in the corner of his eye again. The shadows seemed to blend with the greater darkness and continue along the ceiling in one continuous sigil, but he knew that to be impossible. When he tried to look directly at any of the symbols or runes he thought he saw, focusing on the insubstantial shadows hurt his eyes and he would be forced to look away.
Then he found the source of the glow as the floor before him suddenly seemed to give way, though he knew it was an illusion from his only being able to see the ledge at the last moment in the dim red light. He stood on a precipice, though the drop wasn't sheer. The stone cliff fell away at just enough of an angle he thought that he could scale his way down. Deeper, and deeper I go. Where it will end, no way to know, he thought to himself while the quiet part of his mind screamed alarm bells in vain at the barest edge of his mental awareness.
That was when he heard the voices. They were faint, very faint, but then the drumming had been faint when he first heard it too, and so had the glow, yet now both had risen in intensity. They were coming from deeper beyond the ledge. He didn't consider why there might be voices down here, or if they belonged to people who would help him. No, the first thing he considered was why they sounded so familiar. He strained his ears as he stood there, stalling his descent down the ledge. Then it struck him; it sounded like Crix. It sounded like Crix and Dawson bickering back and forth like they had back on the ship.
He started forward before he realized what he was doing. How did they survive? He thought as he slid his way down the scree and loose rubble. How did they get down here before me?
He continued to scramble down the steep slope, not caring about the noise, because the voices were louder now. He could actually hear them, and he knew they weren't just in his head. He still couldn't make out what they were saying, but he knew Crix's voice when he heard it. Didn't you see Crix's body in the mouth of the beast? A clear thought finally forced its way up through his subconscious, even as he reached the bottom of the scree slope.
He froze there. Not because a rational thought had finally made its way through whatever haze was affecting him. Not even because the idea that he was hearing the voices of people he knew to be dead spelled out a descent into insanity. He stopped because the red glow finally illuminated his surroundings, and what he was seeing was certainly impossible.
"Wild innit, Savage?" Crix said from next to him. The darkness only partially hid his features. Savage turned his head slightly, not willing to look at the Weequay directly. From the side of his vision Savage could indeed see Crix. The Weequay was mangled and bloody. Savage couldn't be sure if Crix was missing half his face, or if it was just the shadows tricking his eyes. He didn't want to look closer to find out.
"Took me by surprise too. Always thought the afterlife would be more peaceful than this. Become one with the Force or something y'know?" Crix continued on somehow speaking through his ruined mouth. Savage dared not look the man in the eye. Thankfully Crix seemed to be looking off into the red suffused distance as well.
Below them seethed a writhing mass. They were in a great pit encircled by walkways cut into the stone that spiraled ever downwards. The darkness was no longer all encompassing, and Savage could see far down into the pit, but it never seemed to end. The stone walkways spiraled ever downward, but not into blackness. The harder Savage looked the farther he saw, but he never saw an end to it. His eyes rebelled against him and his eyelids shut of their own accord as he turned his head away from the spectacle.
His mind reeled. All along the spiraling walkways there were people. All kinds of people. He saw spacers in their flight suits. Pirates with their weapons strewn about them and bottles of liquor in hand. He saw miners covered in dirt and dust in their rough overalls. There were many miners, so many. Yet, not all wore the same uniform, and he wondered at that. Deeper down he had glimpsed what looked to be soldiers in armor and uniforms he had never seen before, and below them he could swear he saw men and women in black robes that had seemed to flow about them from an unseen wind. There's no wind down here, we're on a damned asteroid in space. I'm in a mine for Force's sake!
"No use trying to make sense of it," Crix droned on from next to him. “I mean come on, how many religions did you hear about out there? None of them described this. None that I ever heard at least. Come on, Rieva is down there you know. She wants to talk with you."
"Rieva?" Savage asked as he finally mustered up the courage to speak to Crix. Or, what was left of Crix, or Crix's spectre. Whatever the hell he was talking to.
"Rieva. You left her you know? Left her in the darkness to be hunted down by The Ferryman."
"By the ship? What the feth are you talking about Crix?" Savage asked both scared and confused at what he was hearing.
"No, not the ship. That was Charon, I'm talking about the actual one who crosses you over. The one that brought us here. The one that brought us over to the other side. Surely you met it. Through its jaws, our deaths we pause," Crix said as he fixed Savage with a crooked smile on a face that could no longer form that expression.
Savage stepped away from Crix then, he hadn‘t wanted to get anywhere near that endless pit, but he also couldn't stay next to whatever Crix had become. He stumbled backwards down the stone pathway to the edge of the pit. As he turned, Rieve was there. She was holding one of her arms in her hand, but it wasn't attached to her body. She was looking away from Savage, and he found that he desperately didn't want her to look towards him. He tried to take a step backwards, but she must have sensed him.
"You left me there, Savage. But, don't be afraid. It was meant to be like this. Better to be here then up above." She began to turn as she spoke and Savage felt terror in him at what he would see should she decide to face him.
She seemed confused for a moment then. “You didn't pass over yet did you, Savage?"
Savage finally found his voice again. "I don't know what the kriff you two are talking about." He gripped the handle of his vibro-machete painfully hard to ground himself and drew his vibroknife with his free hand. He'd had enough of whatever in the Force he was seeing here. He looked back towards Crix to gauge how far away the slope he had descended was, but Crix was no longer alone. Next to him stood Tannis, as well as a human and a Sullustan that he didn't recognize. The Sullustan had a large hole in his head, but didn't seem to notice it, while Tannis seemed to have been used as a canvas for an abstract painting by a crazed painter who only used crimson colors.
Well they've died once, wouldn't exactly be murder if I ended them a second time, Savage thought as he steeled himself for fighting his way out. He adjusted his grip on the vibroknife and decided he would go for Tannis first. The man had always seemed a little pompous for his liking, even in life.
"Where comes now a thing from the Light?" A deep voice suddenly boomed behind him.
Savage turned his head slowly so that he could keep Crix, and the others in his peripheral vision. Behind him stood a black robed figure. The figure seemed to be a man, but the hood was pulled up and the shadows therein were too deep to even see an outline of a face. On the figure's belt was a narrow hilt of some sort that looked like the odd stone carvings of swords he had seen on the archway earlier. But there wasn't a blade, and he assumed it must be some kind of energy weapon like he had heard the Jedi used to use.
"What the kri—“ Savage began to say, but suddenly there was a tightness around his neck. No, not just a tightness, he couldn't breathe. He knew this sensation though, he had been choked unconscious once before in the combat training of his youth so he didn't panic. The cloaked figure before him had an upraised arm with the thumb and forefinger curved inwards as if he was choking him from a distance.
Savage didn't understand it, but he knew he only had some much time so he had to do something. After all, everything he was seeing in this pit was impossible anyway so why should this be any different? With one hand he threw the vibroblade at the robed man, but he might as well have been pissing into an engine reactor for all the good it did him.
With a wave of his hand the robed figure caused the vibroblade to go flying. The figure laughed then, and Savage thought he had never heard a more merciless laugh.
"Placed here in between life and death, and all you can do is bring me violence?" A voice growled from within the imperceptible depths of the figure's hood. Then without preamble, Savage found he could breathe again. Not that it did him much good, however, as he found himself flying through the air towards the edge of the pit, propelled by some invisible force. The same force stopped him and held him midair over the edge. He dared not look below into its endless depths.
"This is no In-between. I've seen the endless waters between the stars you filth. This… whatever this is, this is a perversion," Savage managed to say even as some invisible force tightened around his entire being. Why did I say that? He thought to himself as the invisible force tightened around him. He half remembered fragments of a dream he had once of an endless dark sea dappled from above by stars uncountable, or perhaps it had been a vision. It had been profoundly peaceful there. The kind of place you could willingly linger, unlike this place which seemed to have a will of its own. Odd the things you remember at the end.
He became dimly aware of a chanting all around him. The figures below him, and above him as he now realized, had stopped walking their endless spiral. He couldn't quite make out what they were saying.
"What do you know of this place? You who has not crossed over? How is this different than the life you know? You live within an endless present. Past? Future? Both convenient concepts for things that don't really exist. All that ever existed was the present, all that ever will exist is the present. All those from what your small mind would call the past still are. Because I will it."
The robed figure walked closer to him as it spoke, its arm still outstretched controlling whatever magic held him over the edge of the pit. He would be damned if he gave the figure the satisfaction of understanding its mad ravings though. He was about to curse the man in his native tongue, but bit back his curses as the others began gathering behind the robed figure. His eyes settled on Rieva, and the state of her took the curses straight from his mouth.
The chanting had become louder. It sounded like nonsense at first, but he was eventually able to make out the words. Over and over it went until every voice within the pit seemed to be hissing the words at him. “Darth… Aba-ddon…. Darth… Aba-ddon… Darth… Aba-ddon."
"And yet, you can still serve me. We have work to do here, mortal. Work that takes longer than you have the mind to imagine. And I need bodies. Ever more bodies. The Ferryman brings them to me, and yet you seem to have escaped him. Now it will be you that brings me new flesh," the figure, Darth Abaddon, commanded him.
Savage found he could still move his hands ever so slightly, and managed to make an obscene gesture in response.
"Oh, but you don't have a choice in the matter," Darth Abaddon said, and for the first time Savage thought he heard amusement in the figure's voice. He didn't have long to consider it though as Darth Abaddon opened his hand and Savage fell.
There was screaming as he fell, and he quickly realized it was him who was screaming. Down the pit he went, past endless levels, down the spiral that seemed to loop back within itself. Beyond people of every description, as if he fell down the centuries, as if he fell down time itself.
Chapter 6
Acceptance
Savage awoke with a start as he fell out of his chair. Except he didn't remember falling asleep in a chair. The last thing he remembered was falling asleep in the storage room he had been locked in. That and a terrible nightmare about falling down an endless pit. Where the hell am I?
Some bottles fell over and clinked away on the tiled floor as he raised himself up off the ground and he opened his eyes to see a display bank covering the wall in front of him with various red lights blinking here and there as they mindlessly monitored the mine's systems. Bloody kriffing hell I'm in the Foreman's Center, Savage realized.
His head whipped around to find the large doors at the far end of the Foreman's Center were still wedged open from when they had first come here. How the hell did I get here?He wondered to himself even as a fresh surge of panic began to rise in him as he realized he was back out in the Beast's hunting grounds. He remembered it all then. His descent into the deepest levels of the mine, and what he found there. He instinctively reached for his blaster, but found the holster empty. He did still have his vibro-machete and flechette pistol though so not all was lost. Telling himself it was all a dream and wondering how he had inexplicably awoken here he tried to take stock of his situation.
Maybe it wasn't just a dream, he thought, but he felt his mind immediately shut the thought down and he soon forgot to dwell on it.
How long was I out?He wondered, but quickly realized there would be no way of telling. He probably needed the sleep anyway considering he wasn't even sure how long he had been inside this Force-forsaken rock.
What had they called that sorcerer? Darth Abaddon? No, no. That was just a dream, He told himself. But the thoughts persisted despite his will. What did that bastard mean by saying I'd bring him new flesh?
Savage quickly looked over the rest of the room. The whole place was still a mess, just like they'd left it. But the power was still on, and the display bank was still up. He picked himself the rest of the way up and stumbled over to the myriad displays along the wall. It took him a few seconds, but he eventually found the controls, and began sifting through the various visual feeds until he found what he wanted.
There in front of him, two screens up and three over was the freighter he'd flown in on. Still resting in the hangar bay next to the ship Tannis had flown, and in front of those ships was Tonor. Well, what was left of Tonor. The Beast had got to him before he could make his escape. Savage watched as the roggwart dined on Tonor's corpse. The Falleen had come so close to escape before he'd been caught.
The Ferryman crosses over another, he thought inexplicably.
He scrutinized the image feed. He realized then how intelligent the roggwart must be. He had evaded it down below, and rather than try to wait him out it had returned to where it knew he would return. But, instead of him it had caught Tonor. Savage watched as The Ferryman tore off an arm and began ripping off the muscle from it in sickening gulps. Well that cuts off that avenue of escape.
Savage glanced at the door again, still ajar from their forced entree with the hydraulic equipment. If I close the door now while it's busy in the hangar then I ought to be safe from it. I'll need time to clear the equipment, and force the door to re-seal. Tonor might have bought me just enough time.
He knew time was a luxury, yet still he contemplated. He looked back over to where he had woken up. There on the nearby control board was the emergency beacon. If he locked himself in here, he could light it and wait for help to arrive, but he realized that was exactly what that sorcerer had wanted. He still didn't know how he had ended up back here, or how that place he had found himself in was even possible, but he did know the sorcerer expected him to trap himself here and lure in more victims. Just like the last pirate he'd found here.
He stared at the emergency beacon. He couldn't choose that option, but he also didn't have much time to figure things out. He began frantically searching through the screen bank feeds. Feed after feed of empty hallways. and defunct equipment played out one after another. There's got to be something else here I can use.
On one screen he noticed an airlock with what appeared to be intact space suits hanging in a wall mounted utility locker. He noted the numeral indicator at the top of the screen, but without any sort of map it was useless to him. He left the screen up as he searched on the other image feeds, his eyes glancing at the screen showing Tonor being slowly consumed. Then he struck paydirt.
In a rough stone cut hangar with a deactivated magcon leaving it open to the void was a ship. It wasn't large, but it was long and had smooth lines. The aft engines looked powerful, and he eyed its gentle curves towards a blade-like prow. Along both the top and bottom lines of the ship were what looked to be tall mast poles that had been laid over down the length of the ship, and it dawned on Savage that it must be a solar sailer. He'd heard of the ships, but never seen one.
Hope briefly replaced the manic frenzy that was fueling him. It was quickly squashed however, because he had no idea where the ship was in the mine. Even if I could get there I have to get past that damn roggwart, he thought as he glanced back at the screen showing the hangar. He wondered how much longer he had, and if he should actually just seal himself in there after all. He quickly dismissed the idea, however knowing it to be fear and panic setting in again.
What I need is a map. He began searching the room as quietly as he could. He was painfully aware how close the hangar was, and he suspected that the roggwart had good hearing. He shifted through piles of loose papers and scanned the walls for fire escape diagrams, but to no avail. His eye danced across the chest he'd found the first time he'd been in here, but no amount of treasure would save him now.
He was about to give up and seal the door after all when he saw a row of binders inside an open equipment locker. Sure enough, when he slipped one out he found they were all printed on old fashioned flimsi. Why anyone would store information on these was beyond him, but it was worth a look. In the second binder he took down he found floor plans, and what looked to be blueprints, and his heart surged. He cross-referenced the identification numerals on the screen with the ship on it and it appeared to line up with an anterior maintenance dock far on the other end of the mine in an adjoining asteroid that had been tethered onto the operation at some point in the station's long history.
How in the force am I going to get that far with that roggwart in here hunting me? He wondered abysmally. Then he remembered the space suits he had noted earlier, and cross checked those ident numerals as well. A plan began to form in his head.
I just might make it off this rock, he thought to himself as he allowed hope to once again rise within him. The screen in front of him still showed Tonor's remains which were quite nearly cleaned from the hangar floor by now.
***
There was a dripping noise coming from somewhere nearby. He found it odd to hear a drip while deep inside of an asteroid in the middle of nowhere space, but still he heard it fall into a puddle somewhere. Miners must have had plumbing through here somewhere. Would have thought it would have all leaked out by now, he thought idly as he crouched in the darkness.
According to the schematics he had found he was two levels up from the Foreman's Center, and a little to the leeward side of the asteroid. It had been taxing making his way here. Despite forming a plan of escape there was something about leaving a place of safety that had taken some courage for him to force his body into compliance. Every step down that hallway when he just knew that roggwart was down at the end of it had been nerve wracking.
The further away he got though the more he became re-accustomed to the gloom. He'd found blood splattered goggles in the hallway that he assumed had belonged to Dawson, but by the Force they were still working. His existence had been narrowed down to a strict strategy. He'd move over short distances as quickly as he could while staying silent, then he'd wait. Then he'd move again, then wait.
He was determined not to rush himself into making a mistake. He examined each stretch of hallway. and then made his way to cover before stopping and listening until he could control his breathing. The self imposed pace was grueling mentally, but even so the rigidity of it kept him from lapsing into a panicked flight.
He eventually came to an access hatch. So far he'd been lucky. Each doorway or access hatch had been either open or easily circumvented by a side access route. This one however, led to his objective, and it was the only way in. And tragically, it was closed.
Savage found a conduit lead along the edge and began gently brushing off the dirt and grime of the years. Decades, maybe even centuries of dirt had caked into a layer, but it came off easily enough and he eventually found an indicator light spliced in along its length that showed the door had power. So it should open for me once I activate the access pad. The question is how much time will I have? He wondered to himself as one hand idly stroked his fléchette pistol.
He knew from every other door he'd been forced to use in this mine that it was likely to screech louder than a Corellian Banshee during mating season. Which would be like clanging the dinner bell for that roggwart. He knew he'd be safe once he was inside because he could simply lock the door behind him, but purposefully risking drawing attention to himself was still nerve wracking.
Here goes nothing. He groaned inwardly as he flipped open the protective cover and pressed the access pad. Then he pressed it again, and a third time. As it was, the servos must have simply needed some nudging because with a deep vibratory shudder the doors lurched apart in a short spat of motion, which made Savage jump, and then proceeded to trundle slowly outwards.
Then the screeching began. Savage had hoped at first it would be mostly silent but the ear splitting screech of metal on metal filled the corridor as durasteel tracks that hadn't seen greased since the Clone Wars were forced into motion.
Savage leapt through the doors as soon as there was a gap big enough for him to manage. Once he was through he raced towards the access pad, and slapped the icon to shut the doors back in place. Yet, still they rolled on screeching their mournful cry.
"Oh you have got to be kidding me. Close damn you, close!" He muttered under his breath as he slapped the icon repeatedly. He looked down the conduit attached to the access panel and sure enough he saw bare wires. Some filthy womprat had gnawed through the cables, and he doubted there had been anyone doing maintenance in this place since the force was young.
He quickly reviewed his options, painfully aware that he was corned should the beast be within hearing distance. I can try to splice the wires, but how long will that take? And what guarantee do I have that there aren't more splits down the line? Maybe I can run back outside and hit the close button from there and then run back through?
He heard something then, above the keening screech of the doors trundling on oblivious to his predicament. He heard a crash far back in the corridor as some piece of equipment fell over. The Ferryman was coming.
"Frakk it," He muttered as he ran back out the door, and slapped the protective cover completely off its mount and pressed the close icon before sprinting back. The doors shuddered as the ancient servos tried to reverse their course, and they eventually began closing again. Savage didn't wait to watch them, because across the room was the airlock.
He sprinted to it, and just like he'd seen on the monitor there were space suits hanging in the small adjoining room. He rushed over and stripped off his jacket and boots as he took down a space suit that looked to be close to his size. He began pulling it over his legs when disaster struck. With a loud clang and somehow an even louder screech the doors to the airlock station halted as the motor gave out. They stood barely halfway closed, and Savage found himself staring into the open black maw of the corridor beyond. The corridor The Ferryman would be coming up.
"Go salvaging, they said. We'll make lots of money, they said. The only risks are some pirates, they said. Bastards can all rot in that kriffing piss poor excuse for an alternate dimension for all I care," Savage muttered to himself as he zipped up the suit, and strapped it down airtight. He hesitated for a split second as he went to put the helmet on and cursed himself for his foolishness. In his haste to leave the Foreman's Center he hadn't brought another flashlight. He would have to risk getting his helmet on and sealed once the airlock opening sequence was initiated because he wouldn't be able to see the control panel without the night vision goggles. Which, naturally, wouldn't fit on his head inside the helmet.
He tucked the helmet under his arm, grabbed a spare air tank, and jogged over to the airlock as he tucked his flechette pistol in his belt. He'd had to use the largest helmet in the room to accommodate his horns, and he found one that just barely fit if he didn't mind cramping his neck uncomfortably. Thankfully the airlock opened with ease, if a bit slowly for his liking. He could see the control panel inside. He belted on his vibro-machete over the spacesuit as the doors slowly slid open before him.
Eventually he was able to step inside, and he quickly located the safety tether which he was able to latch on to his belt with only minimal fumbling. The controls were inexplicably in Aurebesh, but he understood it enough to find the activation icon which he pressed with a quiet prayer to the forest gods of his homeworld.
He took off the night vision goggles as a gentle humming came from the control panel, and his world was plunged into darkness. He jammed the helmet down over his horns, and attempted to lock it into the neck ring to seal it down airtight. He heard the airlock door he had entered through begin to close. But over the clacking sound of the neck ring not quite lining up with the helmet he heard something else. He heard fast paced pounding footsteps coming up the corridor.
The sound sent a jolt of fear through him and he slammed the helmet down blindly. He felt something give in his neck followed by a liquid burning sensation that poured down his spine as he assumed he pinched a nerve, but he also felt the lock catch as the helmet caught in place and he gave it a twist to complete the air seal. He could no longer hear the footsteps, but he knew they would still be coming so he backed up to the edge of the airlock, and drew his vibro-machete.
Even through the muffled helmet he heard the double crash as The Ferryman rammed into the partially open doors in the room beyond causing one of them to be ripped off its track and slammed into the floor. He could see none of it, his world was still total darkness. He could only barely hear the roggwart coming for him, and he had no idea how far the inner airlock doors had closed by now.
"Come and get me you ugly bastard!" He yelled into the darkness, and The Ferryman obliged.
There was another slam that Savage felt more than heard as the roggwart collided with the closing airlock doors. He pulled out his flechette launcher, intent on firing blindly but realized ricocheting blades in the enclosed area would simply cut his suit and get him killed once the airlock opened. The Ferryman roared somewhere within the impenetrable darkness in front of him. The sound filled the airlock with its fury.
Suddenly red emergency lights began flashing in one second intervals, and Savage wondered if the roggwart had caught the doors again. He had known the roggwart was in front of him, but even so he was taken by surprise when the lights began flashing and he could see it thrashing at the transparisteel windows of the airlock. It's stuck outside! The doors closed in time!
Savage slumped against the wall of the airlock as horrid screeching and banging noises came from the airlock door where The Ferryman attempted to tear its way in. He could just barely hear the air being pumped out, and he knew he was only a minute or two away from safety. As the red light flashed he momentarily saw the roggwart's collar with its blood symbols dabbed upon it, but when the emergency lighting flashed again the roggwart was no longer in front of the door.
Savage resisted the curiosity to look out the window, and took a few steps back. He had a bad feeling about this. There's no way it just gave up like that. The damn thing nearly ripped the doors off its tracks last time it had me trapped.
He remembered seeing the same symbol etched into walls when he had made his descent into the bowels of the mines, and everything he had found there. Including the salvage team, or what was left of them down there. It's linked to that sorcerer somehow. Those sigils have got to be some kind of blood magic. Something that traps the souls of everything it kills here.
He felt a brief reverberation of footsteps as his eyes strained to see through the intermittent red lighting. Then, just before the light flashed off again, he briefly saw the roggwart running full tilt for the door, its head lowered. The Ferryman's horns smashed into the transparisteel window just as the lights cycled off again. The concussive sound of it filled the airlock chamber with its force even while it filled his heart with dread, but when the lights flashed on again Savage saw the window had held.
He willed the airlock sequence to drain the air out faster as he lost sight of the roggwart again. A few seconds later there was a second crash, and the lights revealed that the transparisteel was cracking. That window has two more charges at best, he reasoned and took a panicked look at the screen to see the progress, but he had no luck deciphering the foreign language. Again The Ferryman crashed into the airlock doors, and he distinctively heard cracking this time. He drew his flechette pistol.
Wedging himself into the opposite corner of the airlock, Savage made himself steadily aim his flechette pistol at the window. He saw an impression of the roggwart charging at him in the flashing light, and adjusted his aim slightly. This time there was a horrendous shattering noise as The Ferryman forced its horns through the glass. It was immediately followed by a blared claxon as the airlock lost its pressure seal.
Savage waited to fire until he was sure of a target, as he was painfully aware how catastrophic a single cut to his EV suit would be. The light flashed again, and he found his aim was true, still level with the now shattered window and he immediately fired. But, the roggwart was canny, he had already shot it once with the weapon and it ducked its head as soon as it saw Savage aiming for it. The blast was deafening as the flechette pistol discharged, but the myriad blades embedded themselves ineffectually in the tough hide and thick skull of the top of the beast's head directly between its horns.
The Ferryman roared in pain. In between the flashes of the emergency lighting Savage could see the red light glint off the blades in the roggwart's head, and he knew the damage wasn't life threatening. He'd just managed to piss the thing off.
The Ferryman drew back to reach its clawed hands through the window, and Savage watched in horror as it actually began bending the frame of the airlock door outward. He could see the roggwart was missing a finger from their last encounter, and he drew hope from that as he began frantically slashing with his vibromachete. He focused his efforts on the roggwart's left hand, which was closest to him, and where he had already taken a finger. After three strokes in the flashing red light full of snarls, and roars he managed to sever another of the claws.
The Ferryman lost its grip on the door, and Savage stumbled backwards and attempted to find the safety override on the control panel. What in the Force does ‘override' look like in Aurebesh? He thought frantically. He found a button with alternating yellow and black bars patterned across it and guessed that it must be enough of a warning coloration to be an override. He slammed it, and to his relief he heard the air pumps begin sucking air from the airlock again as if it was fully sealed.
In the few moments Savage had fumbled with the control panel The Ferryman had been busy. It had gotten its claws back into the gap which it had now bent outwards, and in a fit of fury and pain filled rage it wedged its head through at an angle and managed to slip one of its horns through. Savage watched in horror as it twisted its head gruesomely to slip in its other horn. No sooner than it had done that, it tried to snap at Savage's hand that held onto the side of the control panel.
Savage fell backwards into the outer airlock door, and dropped his vibro-machete. The roggwart was hardly a meter from him now, and was steadily wrenching the shattered window frame wider. How much longer does this damn sequence drain the air out of here? He thought desperately. He desperately hoped it was a simple timer, and wasn't set to a sensor of any kind, which would keep it sucking out the air indefinitely.
He reached forward and retrieved his vibro-machete off the ground as the roggwart thrashed, and wrestled just a meter in front of him in the flashing red emergency lighting. He would just have to hold the thing off until the airlock sequence completed itself. He chose a claw to swipe at, but suddenly found he was being pulled backwards.
He glanced behind himself, sending a fresh spear of pain down his neck, and saw that the outer lock was at last opening. Ever so slowly the doors opened up and began sucking all the air from the chamber. What started as a gentle pull quickly became a gale force wind, and Savage had to grab onto a safety rail next to him.
"Come on you ugly Sithspawn! You want in here? Then come on in, don't be shy!" Savage yelled over the gale force winds that now swept past him. The Ferryman was no longer trying to get in after him, but was now trying to squeeze itself back out. I suppose roggwarts aren't void resistant after all. Thank the Force something can kill these damned things.
The force of the rushing air became too much as the doors were nearly fully opened and Savage lost his grip on the safety railing. He flung out the doors, but was roughly stopped a few meters out by the safety tether.
Savage watched as the spare air tank he had brought into the airlock flew past him, and he hoped he wouldn't need it. He looked back down into the airlock as the roggwart had mostly extricated itself now, having pulled its massive head back through. In the intermittent flashing red light Savage met its eye. He saw cunning there, and he felt fear, even though he was suspended out in hard void.
He watched as a clawed hand reached through the shattered inner airlock window and grabbed the tether cable. With a surge of panic he was completely unable to overcome, he felt himself being pulled back into the airlock. He heard someone screaming ‘no' over and over again.
With another sickening wrench he was pulled a full meter closer. He could see unidentifiable tools flying past him along with rocks and scrap metal. Without realizing he had done it, he grabbed the lip of the rock outside the airlock as he was pulled almost back into the gale filled space.
With a flash of clarity he realized he still had a grip on his vibro-machete, and he began hacking at the tether. The first few swings seemed to do nothing, and he could barely see it as the only source of light was within the airlock that he was so desperately trying to stay out of. Then with a sudden release of tension he slashed through and found himself floating free.
He let go of the vibro-machete as he quickly found he needed both hands to hold onto the rocky surface of the asteroid while the air escaped below him out the airlock. That gale died down to a stout wind, and then merely a breeze, and then nothing at all as the outer airlock finally closed back up. He was alone now, outside the Lethe Mines in the eternal emptiness of open void, and he couldn't have been more relieved.
Prologue
Savage sat in the cockpit of the solar sailing ship he'd located. The crossing had been hard. For one he'd had a limited air supply as the spare tank had flown out the airlock when the roggwart had attacked him. And secondly, he didn't have access to the map because he had foolishly stuck it in the cargo pocket of his pants inside the space suit. So, he had to go on memory and gut feeling to locate the open auxiliary hangar he'd spotted on the display bank earlier.
The magnetic boots of the space suit had been less than useful as well. The majority of the asteroid mine's surface was barren rock which he'd had to carefully navigate with handholds. However, he had been able to use the magboots to walk across the gargantuan durasteel girders that linked the smaller asteroids to the main mine structure.
Twice he'd thought that he had found what he was looking for but the shadows within shadows had turned out to be craters and not a recessed hangar as he'd hoped. After a long trek across the asteroid's surface though, he'd finally found her. And, what a beautiful ship she was.
He assumed she was stolen, stashed here by the pirates that had been operating out of the base previously. She had soft curves all the way from the blade of a prow to the twin engines on the rear. He noticed the twin masts, one on top of the ship and one below had suspended cables that disappeared into the hull and he had assumed they were for unfurling the solar sails.
The ship had been surprisingly easy to start up, and he sat in the cockpit feeling the gentle thrum of the engines. He took a deep breath, now that he was out of his space suit, and took the time to familiarize himself with the ship controls. After a short while he was confident that he could fly her home. Back to the Vigilant. Well, back to Toseng probably. He had no idea how he'd explain showing up back to his post with a stolen ship. Best to stash her somewhere planetside, he figured.
The ship rose gently as he retracted the landing gear, and he eased her out of the open hangar bay. The ship slid out into space like a sleek dagger. Once he was outside the asteroid he pulled the lever for the masts which rose up on both sides of the ship. He felt the reverberation through the hull as they locked into place. Another lever, and the cabled pulled up the glistening solar sail from cunningly hidden lockers along the ship's hull. The sails drew tight, and Savage felt the ship lurch as they caught the light from the system's star, and the ship began to pull away from the mine.
It felt like old times for a moment. Flying a stolen ship, headed to friendly territory with a fistful of cash. He patted his pants cargo pocket and remembered slipping a handful of the high denomination credits he'd found in that chest when they'd first stumbled upon the Foreman's Center. It felt like a week ago now at least. He'd slipped the credits while everyone else had been searching the room, and now they were the only thing he had to show for this venture.
He'd done it. Though everyone that had come with him had died, or worse, he had made it out alive. He shuddered to think about the things he had seen within the depths of the Lethe Mines. He truly wanted to believe that some of it had been panic induced hallucinations, but he knew deep down he would have nightmares about this place. That roggwart almost had me there at the end, he thought as the ship glided past the airlock he had escaped from.
He did a quick check of the ship systems and found that the ship had weapons after all. Nothing crazy, simple legal self defense weaponry, but it would be enough or what he had in mind. He came about in a long arc and tacked in towards the mine, careful to aim the bow where he wanted. The ship strafed in, and he let loose with the cannons blasting open the airlock he had escaped from. He was rewarded by seeing a fresh spray of rock and dirt as he opened that part of the mine to hard void. It took quite a few more passes but he located all the other airlocks he could find on the blueprints, and blasted them to oblivion before turning his ship out towards the stars.
I'd like to see that roggwart survive having all its air sucked out, Savage thought as he flew out deep into the asteroid field. He may not have seen that roggwart die, but he could take solace knowing he'd probably managed to asphyxiate it. He'd gotten some measure of revenge at the very least.
Some part of his mind remembered the abyss he'd entered though. A small part of his mind, actively being suppressed by his subconscious to preserve his sanity, knew that simply choking out The Ferryman wouldn't be enough to end the threat this place possessed. The Sorcerer was still there, inside his little side slip in the space time continuum forever conjuring his dark arts. Neither alive nor dead, but forever trapping souls into his embrace. Of that he would certainly dream of as well. But those dreams would forever be forgotten upon waking lest his conscious mind fall into madness.
The End
