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10-05-2023, 06:12 PM
Corporal Jens Curret had always been a little unusual - kindly, sensitive in his youth, the young boy had always been the first to step between a bully and their victim. His teachers had said that he was a good kid, and he’d have a bright future. Jens knew that this wasn’t quite right - he had always felt something from others that his classmates did not. Their anger was like steam billowing against the back of his neck, their joy like the warm sun on his face and their fear like a pick in his eye. Truthfully, the choice of intervention had been taken from him at birth - stand aside and he would suffer too. When he was a teenager his grandmother had opined over a warm bowl of Grox stew that he had something of the force in him, but that it wasn’t exactly strong enough to make joining the Jedi worth it. And besides, she would be damned if her little Jen was going to grow up in those cold halls.
Though he didn’t feel the pain of those on the worlds bordering the Empire from his home in the Core, that hardly stopped him from wincing at the news reports spilling in from those embattled planets. When he was in his cups, Jen couldn’t be quite sure if it was idiocy or bravery that made him sign up with the military, abandoning his nascent nursing career, but his grandmother had always said that the two were brothers - so he didn’t dwell on it overlong. The truth is that he had found military life a mixed bag, he treasured the safety he could offer to the civilians around him, and the brotherhood of his comrades, but killing had never sat easy with him.
No matter, that path had brought him to Anx Minor - a planet he was not overfond of, sitting behind the barricades of Ridgeside Camp. It was not a good day, the Empire was pressing against their lines once more, lancing fire stabbing between the trenches and their advancing foes. He wasn’t worried that they’d take the camp, they’d tried before and failed, and by all reports the campaign was going well. He shouldn’t be worried, at least, but he was. Amongst the countless discomforts of this post - the sand bristling in his boots and the sunburned skin baking across his face - a new indignity had emerged. A low, creeping pain in the back of his head. It was a headache, but not one he was particularly used to - it felt sinister, somewhere between a biological pain and an evil premonition.
“Corporal Curret!” A loud, coarse voice boomed. “Sitting around with your thumb up your arse again?” Sergeant Herreks was striding up to him, a cigarra crushed under his foot. Jens winced, and raised a hand to cover his forehead. “Sergeant - no, is there any word from the front?” Herreks shrugged. “Aye, lad. We’re kicking their cultist ranks back! The Bolraidas and the anti-air cannons will keep for us.” This was true - it had proven true several times, costing the Empire dearly on Anx. Still, Jens wasn’t entirely convinced. “Something feels wrong here, Sergeant. I don’t know what, but-” “Bah! You young bloods are always worried about something.” He pulled Curret close, slapping him on the back. “Green as a Mirialan’s arse, I say. Come on lad, we need to get ready to clean up, in case we can push them back to Mosila.”
Curret swallowed his concerns, following his superior back to their squad. It was then that the world seemed to slow, and then shatter - that same sinister feeling in the back of his skull erupted into blistering agony even as what seemed to be an explosion erupted far back from the trenches, in the deserts of no-man's land. As Curret staggered he quickly realised that it wasn’t an explosion - at least, not a physical one. An enormous font of something dark and sinister billowed out of the dunes, and just as he was about to compose himself he heard Herreks bellow something. “Aha! The bastards are sending their fighters to their death!” He was pointing to something, but as Curret looked up it was not a fighter, at least not to his eyes.
Something tenebrous and vaguely amorphous launched itself towards the trenches, a flock of beasts constructed of skeins of dark energy. They phased in and out of forms - most commonly a dark reflection of aircraft, crafted of twisted black metal imprinted with howling faces. Yet, occasionally they flickered, signatures of other hands showing through - a cold and bestial flock of winged beasts, licking blood from hooked maws. A shivering mass of corpulent, meat-swollen insects. A clade of graceful figures, snakelike and vampiric in their countenance, hungry eyes gazing directly at the corporal. It was all that Jens Curret could do to scream as the AA guns opened fire, their withering hail passing directly through the grotesque visage. The Sergeant turned to him. “Bloody force, Corporal, would you shut the f-” Then he stopped, the harmless nature of their artillery fire catching his eye in turn. He stared, dumbstruck, only to reel backwards as the true craft revealed themselves.
It was like something out of the apocalypse - the bombers and fighters screamed through the holes left by the confused AA guns, and the trenches erupted in fire. The Sergeant had a brief moment to bellow something about culty bastards, before a nearby shell turned him into a collection of giblets and red mist. Corporal Curret found himself flying backwards at speed, slamming into something hard as his vision went black.
Jens wasn’t sure exactly how long it had been when he awoke once more - minutes, hours? Either way, the screaming hadn’t stopped. The fires hadn’t died. The smoke still clawed at his lungs. He stumbled backwards from the lines, the pain of those around him stabbing into his mind like a vice. A sharp pain prickled along his skull too, and when he reached up to touch his face his fingers came away wet and red. His blood, or Herreks? It hardly mattered, he supposed. The Corporal stumbled down a small slope towards a mess tent, only to pause and peer at the old eatery. Something had come down and crushed it, a large chunk of metal, its sides scribed with a strange script he did not understand. He understood the Imperial insignia easily enough though, as well as the sole line of Aurabesh printed atop the runic writing. It read ‘Waver, Relent, Fall, Die.’ Above this line was a symbol of four hollow circles in a diamond pattern, the topmost one marked by a stylised bloom of fire.
The Corporal turned, scrabbling away and towards one of the assigned muster points. His gorge rose, and something ephemeral pressed against his neurochemistry - that same primal feeling a child gets when he feels he is being watched in the dark. Jens groped at his belt, coming away empty - his weapon was gone. He whirled, but the world was one of smoke and fire, gusting sand and collapsed structures. He could see nothing. “Oh, Force. Please, I- '' Something creaked to his left, and as Curret turned to face it his jaw fell open. It was a gundark, looming close out of the smoke. Concerning enough on its own, this gundark worsened the situation considerably through its sheer wrongness. Something had happened to it, it was covered in thick cancerous growths - no, not cancer, bone? Horn? Chitin? He stepped back, as the creature lifted its forearm, revealing what appeared to be an enormous scythe of that same bone structure, coated in a glinting sheen of blood, which reflected the flames of the camp.
Corporal Jens Curret died screaming.
Though he didn’t feel the pain of those on the worlds bordering the Empire from his home in the Core, that hardly stopped him from wincing at the news reports spilling in from those embattled planets. When he was in his cups, Jen couldn’t be quite sure if it was idiocy or bravery that made him sign up with the military, abandoning his nascent nursing career, but his grandmother had always said that the two were brothers - so he didn’t dwell on it overlong. The truth is that he had found military life a mixed bag, he treasured the safety he could offer to the civilians around him, and the brotherhood of his comrades, but killing had never sat easy with him.
No matter, that path had brought him to Anx Minor - a planet he was not overfond of, sitting behind the barricades of Ridgeside Camp. It was not a good day, the Empire was pressing against their lines once more, lancing fire stabbing between the trenches and their advancing foes. He wasn’t worried that they’d take the camp, they’d tried before and failed, and by all reports the campaign was going well. He shouldn’t be worried, at least, but he was. Amongst the countless discomforts of this post - the sand bristling in his boots and the sunburned skin baking across his face - a new indignity had emerged. A low, creeping pain in the back of his head. It was a headache, but not one he was particularly used to - it felt sinister, somewhere between a biological pain and an evil premonition.
“Corporal Curret!” A loud, coarse voice boomed. “Sitting around with your thumb up your arse again?” Sergeant Herreks was striding up to him, a cigarra crushed under his foot. Jens winced, and raised a hand to cover his forehead. “Sergeant - no, is there any word from the front?” Herreks shrugged. “Aye, lad. We’re kicking their cultist ranks back! The Bolraidas and the anti-air cannons will keep for us.” This was true - it had proven true several times, costing the Empire dearly on Anx. Still, Jens wasn’t entirely convinced. “Something feels wrong here, Sergeant. I don’t know what, but-” “Bah! You young bloods are always worried about something.” He pulled Curret close, slapping him on the back. “Green as a Mirialan’s arse, I say. Come on lad, we need to get ready to clean up, in case we can push them back to Mosila.”
Curret swallowed his concerns, following his superior back to their squad. It was then that the world seemed to slow, and then shatter - that same sinister feeling in the back of his skull erupted into blistering agony even as what seemed to be an explosion erupted far back from the trenches, in the deserts of no-man's land. As Curret staggered he quickly realised that it wasn’t an explosion - at least, not a physical one. An enormous font of something dark and sinister billowed out of the dunes, and just as he was about to compose himself he heard Herreks bellow something. “Aha! The bastards are sending their fighters to their death!” He was pointing to something, but as Curret looked up it was not a fighter, at least not to his eyes.
Something tenebrous and vaguely amorphous launched itself towards the trenches, a flock of beasts constructed of skeins of dark energy. They phased in and out of forms - most commonly a dark reflection of aircraft, crafted of twisted black metal imprinted with howling faces. Yet, occasionally they flickered, signatures of other hands showing through - a cold and bestial flock of winged beasts, licking blood from hooked maws. A shivering mass of corpulent, meat-swollen insects. A clade of graceful figures, snakelike and vampiric in their countenance, hungry eyes gazing directly at the corporal. It was all that Jens Curret could do to scream as the AA guns opened fire, their withering hail passing directly through the grotesque visage. The Sergeant turned to him. “Bloody force, Corporal, would you shut the f-” Then he stopped, the harmless nature of their artillery fire catching his eye in turn. He stared, dumbstruck, only to reel backwards as the true craft revealed themselves.
It was like something out of the apocalypse - the bombers and fighters screamed through the holes left by the confused AA guns, and the trenches erupted in fire. The Sergeant had a brief moment to bellow something about culty bastards, before a nearby shell turned him into a collection of giblets and red mist. Corporal Curret found himself flying backwards at speed, slamming into something hard as his vision went black.
Jens wasn’t sure exactly how long it had been when he awoke once more - minutes, hours? Either way, the screaming hadn’t stopped. The fires hadn’t died. The smoke still clawed at his lungs. He stumbled backwards from the lines, the pain of those around him stabbing into his mind like a vice. A sharp pain prickled along his skull too, and when he reached up to touch his face his fingers came away wet and red. His blood, or Herreks? It hardly mattered, he supposed. The Corporal stumbled down a small slope towards a mess tent, only to pause and peer at the old eatery. Something had come down and crushed it, a large chunk of metal, its sides scribed with a strange script he did not understand. He understood the Imperial insignia easily enough though, as well as the sole line of Aurabesh printed atop the runic writing. It read ‘Waver, Relent, Fall, Die.’ Above this line was a symbol of four hollow circles in a diamond pattern, the topmost one marked by a stylised bloom of fire.
The Corporal turned, scrabbling away and towards one of the assigned muster points. His gorge rose, and something ephemeral pressed against his neurochemistry - that same primal feeling a child gets when he feels he is being watched in the dark. Jens groped at his belt, coming away empty - his weapon was gone. He whirled, but the world was one of smoke and fire, gusting sand and collapsed structures. He could see nothing. “Oh, Force. Please, I- '' Something creaked to his left, and as Curret turned to face it his jaw fell open. It was a gundark, looming close out of the smoke. Concerning enough on its own, this gundark worsened the situation considerably through its sheer wrongness. Something had happened to it, it was covered in thick cancerous growths - no, not cancer, bone? Horn? Chitin? He stepped back, as the creature lifted its forearm, revealing what appeared to be an enormous scythe of that same bone structure, coated in a glinting sheen of blood, which reflected the flames of the camp.
Corporal Jens Curret died screaming.
