- Joined
- Mar 9, 2015
- Messages
- 213
- Reaction score
- 15
Planetfall was never pleasant in his opinion.
He'd fought on a hundred countless worlds, since he was old enough to hold his blaster, gaining and losing ground for the Imperium. Never an end in sight, the war had raged, and ahead of the marching heavily armed shocktroopers had scuttled grunts like him; Militias, conscripts, children, and mercenaries. With every planet lost or taken, there'd been a corresponding pair of trips on a shuttle or freighter. A liftoff, and a landing. Being in space was quiet, and peaceful in a way. He could think. Leaving a place had always imparted him with some mild sense of adventure, the knowledge that he was going somewhere new, somewhere he might not have been before. A place where, even though his job was to kill the enemy, he might get to see something he was searching for.
He'd only recently realized what that thing was all along.
But landing was different. Everyone became nervous, the pilots concentrating, the soldiers or marines on board hoping they didn't encounter effective anti air, anticipating a hot touch down in the teeth of a prepared enemy, and he picked up on it in a way that he was beginning to understand was beyond what normal people could grasp. It wasn't the focused telepathy of his kind, but the force, feeding him the impulses of those around him, the fear.
So he had been told, right before the Sith had ordered him dispatched halfway across the galaxy. He didn't much care for the ideals of the Empire or the Jedi or the Mandolorians. He was a soldier. He followed his orders, he fought, he slept, he did it all over again. If he was to be trained in the ways of the Sith, then fine. He would learn. But this time would be different. He would grow strong, he would break free of the shackles that had oppressed him since he could remember, and leave a life or servitude behind.
The shuttle bucked beneath him, breaking him out of his self reflection with a jolt of turbulence. He glanced out the viewport, tuning out the nervous titters and machismo of the other acolytes and the legionaries being transferred to the Sith academy on the same boat as he, examining what he was told would be his home for now. It looked like just another desert to him, a bull of rusty silicate with a few buildings clinging precariously to the bedrock.
He hated sand. It got everywhere, into the crevices of his armor, the action of his rifle. The rifle always had to be clean. Sidrin set a hand on it gently, reassuringly almost. It hadn't left his side for the last fourteen standard years, it was a part of him now. A symbol of what he was running from.
The landing was nothing special, bereft of fanfare and ceremony. The troops offloaded with typical Imperial precision, though they lacked the combat discipline he was used to seeing. No perimeters were set, no security pulled, just soldiers moving from one place to another. The acolytes were more a nervous gaggle. Some had masters awaiting, others were like Sidrin, thrust into the void of the Sith and left to sink or swim. Somewhere in between both, he descended the ramp, squinting his eyes against the setting sun. He wasn't built for sunlight either.
A flight officer checked his data pad for assignment, and his own pad chimed with the received information. Being on the holonet was new to him, and it took him a few moments to figure out the interface. It referenced a dorm number, on a floor, in the large temple before him. A dorm. He got his own room and everything? Wild.
The Draethos shrugged, tightened his grip on his carbine and shouldered his meager ruck of supplies, hesitantly taking a few strides towards the academy, before realizing he didn't have any orders awaiting. Report to his dorm. End. What would he do next? He stood, his mind clicking along. He knew he needed to reach his dorm. From there he would decide on a course of action. Sidrin picked up his pace again, moving towards the stairs to his future.
@Andrewza
He'd fought on a hundred countless worlds, since he was old enough to hold his blaster, gaining and losing ground for the Imperium. Never an end in sight, the war had raged, and ahead of the marching heavily armed shocktroopers had scuttled grunts like him; Militias, conscripts, children, and mercenaries. With every planet lost or taken, there'd been a corresponding pair of trips on a shuttle or freighter. A liftoff, and a landing. Being in space was quiet, and peaceful in a way. He could think. Leaving a place had always imparted him with some mild sense of adventure, the knowledge that he was going somewhere new, somewhere he might not have been before. A place where, even though his job was to kill the enemy, he might get to see something he was searching for.
He'd only recently realized what that thing was all along.
But landing was different. Everyone became nervous, the pilots concentrating, the soldiers or marines on board hoping they didn't encounter effective anti air, anticipating a hot touch down in the teeth of a prepared enemy, and he picked up on it in a way that he was beginning to understand was beyond what normal people could grasp. It wasn't the focused telepathy of his kind, but the force, feeding him the impulses of those around him, the fear.
So he had been told, right before the Sith had ordered him dispatched halfway across the galaxy. He didn't much care for the ideals of the Empire or the Jedi or the Mandolorians. He was a soldier. He followed his orders, he fought, he slept, he did it all over again. If he was to be trained in the ways of the Sith, then fine. He would learn. But this time would be different. He would grow strong, he would break free of the shackles that had oppressed him since he could remember, and leave a life or servitude behind.
The shuttle bucked beneath him, breaking him out of his self reflection with a jolt of turbulence. He glanced out the viewport, tuning out the nervous titters and machismo of the other acolytes and the legionaries being transferred to the Sith academy on the same boat as he, examining what he was told would be his home for now. It looked like just another desert to him, a bull of rusty silicate with a few buildings clinging precariously to the bedrock.
He hated sand. It got everywhere, into the crevices of his armor, the action of his rifle. The rifle always had to be clean. Sidrin set a hand on it gently, reassuringly almost. It hadn't left his side for the last fourteen standard years, it was a part of him now. A symbol of what he was running from.
The landing was nothing special, bereft of fanfare and ceremony. The troops offloaded with typical Imperial precision, though they lacked the combat discipline he was used to seeing. No perimeters were set, no security pulled, just soldiers moving from one place to another. The acolytes were more a nervous gaggle. Some had masters awaiting, others were like Sidrin, thrust into the void of the Sith and left to sink or swim. Somewhere in between both, he descended the ramp, squinting his eyes against the setting sun. He wasn't built for sunlight either.
A flight officer checked his data pad for assignment, and his own pad chimed with the received information. Being on the holonet was new to him, and it took him a few moments to figure out the interface. It referenced a dorm number, on a floor, in the large temple before him. A dorm. He got his own room and everything? Wild.
The Draethos shrugged, tightened his grip on his carbine and shouldered his meager ruck of supplies, hesitantly taking a few strides towards the academy, before realizing he didn't have any orders awaiting. Report to his dorm. End. What would he do next? He stood, his mind clicking along. He knew he needed to reach his dorm. From there he would decide on a course of action. Sidrin picked up his pace again, moving towards the stairs to his future.
@Andrewza