Tomb Spyder

Starblight. LOG-003.

Starblight.

LOG-003.

The fashion that came about from what was effectively a small civilisation of scavengers was…interesting.

My daughters had all naturally started out with nothing, even if that hadn’t seemed to bother them all that much initially, but as they’d explored the various settlements left behind from the minor apocalypse my own birth had seemingly wrought...

To Stand And Defend. Chapter One.

To Stand And Defend.

Chapter One.

Defend. Verb, resist an attack made on someone or something. To protect from harm or danger.

This is one of the first things I know as I come to be. A core value, one fundamentally ingrained in whatever driving force wills me to exist.

The second thing I know is that there is a little old woman smiling up at me, a sword longer than s...

Buzzkill. LOG-004.

Buzzkill.

LOG-004.

“Jackpot.”

The word, long since burned into his processor via exposure to the human force of nature that was Miko, escaped in a burst of Cybertronian morse code as Bumblebee continued to inspect what would, with a bit of work, hopefully be his new basecamp.

At least for the time being.

Aside from a few other helpful finds, including the ...

Buzzkill. LOG-003.

Buzzkill.

LOG-003.

He’d needed to explain the purpose of a dedicated Autobot scout to Raf once. In the end, after some extensive research and comparisons to human military forces, the both of them had found a decent enough match to what he was, in terms of purpose and experience.

Namely, an isolated unit used to operating behind enemy lines with little to no support. Or i...

Buzzkill. LOG-002.

Buzzkill.

LOG-002.

“Arcee?”

The singular piece of Cybertronian morse code escaped his makeshift vocoder before he could think to stop himself, the femme almost seeming to flinch at the two toned beep.

“What…no.”

She shook her helm, servos already receding into her arms to be replaced with a pair of particularly vicious looking blades as she began to ...

Buzzkill. LOG-001.

Buzzkill.

LOG-001.

Sword to the face plate.

They had won.

He had won. In every way he could possibly imagine.

He’d gotten lucky, in truth. His voice box returned thanks to the Omega Lock’s energy core. The final blow delivered to Megatron by his servos, thanks to the Star Saber suddenly deciding it liked him enough to be wielded by anyon...

Starblight. LOG-002.

Starblight.

LOG-002.

The veritable swarm of daughters I’d spawned were…a lot more self-sufficient than I’d initially expected, if I was being entirely honest with myself.

I mean, they’d effectively come out of their bulbs as what looked like adults, at least from a human perspective. They were struck with what seemed to be an almost instinctual wanderlust a...

Starblight. LOG-001.

Starblight.

LOG-001.

“Buh.”

That was the first word out of my mouth. Or maw. Or…many, many maws, actually.

Huh.

You ever feel like you’ve just…unravelled? It’s such an odd experience. You’re just in so many places at once, perceiving so many things…

Like fire. Screaming. Sporadic blast...

Lekku. LOG-020. Breath Between Wars.

LOG-020. Breath Between Wars.

The station’s called Uvio’s Spine, though no one seems to know who Uvio actually was.

Nonetheless, the whole place spans out across a broken ring platform barely held together by old repulsors and greed. Trade lanes thin out this far, so it’s Wild Space proper, not mapped and most certainly not wanted.

Which makes it perfect.

Lekku. LOG-019. Targets Of Opportunity.

LOG-019. Targets Of Opportunity.

The contract’s clean.

Separatist aligned, but routed through a third party broker who doesn’t ask questions unless someone’s late paying. Target’s a Republic forward listening post, small, modular and largely automated. There’s a few mid orbit relay dishes with a marine garrison and a reinforced signal tower.

No civvies. No unwanted c...

Lekku. LOG-018. Dust On Glass.

LOG-018. Dust On Glass.

The message comes coded in old Concordian sigils.

Encrypted through four dead relays and no return trace. No formal salutation.

Just a location. A time. A symbol burned into the footer in blue and black.

Death Watch.

I read it twice.

Then once more with the lights off.

Trix leans over my shoulder in the nav booth, eyes scanning ...

Lekku. LOG-017. Quiet Between Explosions.

LOG-017. Quiet Between Explosions.

The cargo bay smells like detcord and sweat.

Kedo’s rigged the place with enough simulated charges to flatten a hangar deck. Not real, mostly. Some are rigged just close enough to spark if Hex (where the clone got the name from, I’m not sure of) screws up.

Which is the point.

Torren paces the upper catwalk, calling the dri...

Lekku. LOG-016. Bite And Burn.

LOG-016. Bite And Burn.

The ship’s called the Iron Gambit, though that’s giving it too much credit.

She’s an action VI freighter. Far, far older than most of us. Hull patched in places where bulkheads used to be. Turrets bolted on where they shouldn’t fit. Scanners show a heat signature like a wounded animal, too many reactors, not enough cooling.

It dropped ...

Lekku. LOG-015. Hard Lines, Soft Targets.

LOG-015. Hard Lines, Soft Targets.

The job’s clean on paper.

Local militia. Republic aligned. Small outpost. They’ve got sensitive tech, tracking arrays, encrypted relay beacons, a few crates the local sergeant won’t talk about. They need protection for seventy two hours while the engineers run calibration.

They hire us because their soldiers are green, their command’...

Lekku. LOG-014. The Clone Wars.

LOG-014. The Clone Wars.

Ordo space feels different when you're not living and training in it.

Ships docked, hulls cooling, boots on old ground. Kedo says the hangars smell the same as they always did, burnt metal and dust that never quite settles. I believe him.

The crew's scattered for now. Loose. Comfortable. Everyone’s still wearing armour, but it’s unlatched. Relaxed...

Lekku. LOG-013. Teeth Of The Dragon.

LOG-013. Teeth Of The Dragon.

We gut the forward storage bay and turn it into something mean.

Mag locked harness rails. Shock sealed breaching door. Rigged the floor for grav cycle deployment too. Kedo welds in a retractable launch frame for low atmo drops. Trix swears through the whole process, but programs the breach AI without blinking.

We don’t build for comfort.

...

Lekku. LOG-012. Krayt’s Teeth.

LOG-012. Krayt’s Teeth.

We meet in a scrapyard bar outside the Roche sector.

It’s neutral ground, with enough droid parts stacked between us and Republic jurisdiction to keep things civil. The kind of place where no one asks what your armour means, just whether you’re going to pay before or after the drink hits the counter.

I buy the first round.

Neither of them t...

Lekku. LOG-011. A Knife In Both Hands.

LOG-011. A Knife In Both Hands.

The spire isn’t stable.

It sways just enough in the wind to remind me I could fall.

Thin, jagged stone rising from the canyon floor like the broken tip of something ancient. Maybe it is. I don’t ask. Don’t need to.

I’m crouched near the top, knees bent, boots braced, helmet on. Visor clean.

Breathing slow.

Not meditati...

Lekku. LOG-010. Two Eyes Open.

LOG-010. Two Eyes Open.

The bounty was supposed to be clean.

A low tier data thief, real name Carthen Jull, operating under a half dozen fake ones. Minor charges. Fraud. Access violations. A stolen ship. Half the underworld wanted him for debts. I didn’t care why.

The important part was that the price was decent.

The location was better, an orbital freighter docked at...

Lekku. LOG-009. Hired Blade.

LOG-009. Hired Blade.

Saleucami’s the kind of place that makes you itchy even before the blaster bolts start flying.

Big flat valleys. Cracked mesas. Fungal forests that rot while they’re still growing. Civilized enough to pretend it’s stable. Lawless enough that the pretending doesn’t last past local sundown.

My contract’s clean. On paper.

A mid level weapons...

Lekku. LOG-008. Debt Paid In Full.

LOG-008. Debt Paid In Full.

The rain on Kaller smells like metal and rot.

Not the poetic kind. The real kind. Like rusted water tanks and dead things rotting behind prefab walls. The city’s half sunk, built over its own bones. Walkways above flooded levels. Mold climbing up durasteel supports like it's trying to take the place back.

Fitting place to make a name.

I’m...

Lekku. LOG-007. The Edge Of The Flame.

LOG-007. The Edge Of The Flame.

I’m fifteen years old, and I don’t fight kids anymore.

They moved me out of the foundling pit rotations six months ago. I think they got tired of seeing their best prospects get dropped by a half sized red Twi’lek with a knife in her boot and something wrong in her eyes.

Now I spar with adults.

They don’t go easy.

Neither do...

Lekku. LOG-006. Krayt.

LOG-006. Krayt.

Tatooine tastes like ash and contempt. I idly ponder whether it’d be possible to find Anakin at this point in time, question whether he even exists yet, and give up the idle tangent.

Thoughts aside, the wind doesn’t howl here. It hisses. Like it’s crawling inside your armour just to see what happens when you break. Sand gets into everything, ...

Lekku. LOG-005. Cage Of Bone.

LOG-005. Cage Of Bone.

I turn twelve today.

The jungle breathes. 

That’s not a metaphor. The whole moon exhales in wet, heavy lungfuls. Every few minutes, the fog rolls in like a tide, and all the plants start dripping like they’re sweating out the last hour’s humidity. The air tastes like green rot and thunder.

Perfect place for a training op, apparently.<...

Lekku. LOG-004. To Stand, You Crawl.

LOG-004. To Stand, You Crawl.

Pain doesn’t surprise me anymore.

It just pisses me off.

I hit the ground for the third time in eight minutes. Sand in my teeth. Bruised elbow. Dagger knocked clean from my hand, again. The Zabrak foundling (Rok, I think) grins at me with one chipped fang like this is his idea of fun.

It probably is.

I push up. Slow. Careful not to l...

Lekku. LOG-003. Foundling.

LOG-003. Foundling.

Time passes.

I burn my name in a bowl full of carbon scoring and lies.

It doesn’t go up quick. The cloth’s too worn, too soaked in sweat and skin and memory. Takes a few seconds for the flame stick to catch, and then it sort of limps along the edge like even the fire’s not sure it wants to be here.

I watch anyway.

It’s just a piece of...

Lekku. LOG-002. The Last Thing I Remember.

LOG-002. The Last Thing I Remember.

I don’t remember walking onto the gunship.

I remember being dropped. Roughly. Like scrap. I remember metal under my knees, too cold for a place this hot. And I remember the hum. That low, rising whirr that shakes your teeth and lets you know you’re about to leave something behind forever.

I don’t cry. I don’t scre...

Lekku. LOG-001. The First Thing I Remember.

LOG-001. The First Thing I Remember.

“Buh.”

I wake up wrong.

Not in the ‘ugh, slept on my lekku again’ kind of way, but more in the ‘oh hey, I don't remember having lekku’ kind of way.

My eyes, too big, too dry, snap open, and I immediately regret it. Dust. Sand. Heat. Screaming. Blaster fire in the distance. Something wet...