In The Flesh?

Crim

Crim/Old Spice
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((OOC: This is a chapter for Ebiara's personal story. Sort of a means to jumpstart an arc involving all of my characters and a way to re-integrate them into the roleplay on my terms. Luckily that means frequent updates so yay. This chapter has some really heavy tones in it, especially my opener. Maybe possibly read at your own risk?))
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CZ-100 Deep Space Patrol Corvette Marrella
Somewhere on the border of Sith Space...

The pre-packaged scrambled eggs quivered on his plate, the greyish-yellow mound rolling around with Private Dregolt's fork. His head rested on his other hand, the bristly stubble poking and prodding his palm with each absent-minded chew. The hum of the ship's engines filled the ship's galley with an audible roar. He felt its vibrations through the floor, each pulse shaking his feet ever so slightly. He wasn't the only person in the galley - there were a good fifteen other people in the galley doing the exact same thing. Absently chewing food, not talking to anyone. Not talking about the big old bantha in the room, which was perfectly fine in Private Dregolt's book.

A pair of droids shuffled past, catching the attention of Dregolt for a short moment as the only moving things in that galley. In those brief seconds, the treads on the astromech and the insufferable babbling of the protocol droid filled the room, echoing off the walls. Once they'd passed, it was back to the silent cacophony everyone had been enduring before.

It'd been days since anyone on the ship had slept for more than a few hours. At least, anyone in the galley. It started a few days ago, when one of the hands on the lower deck started hearing voices. He was given some medication and told he was suffering from starship fever. Some people did not handle being in space for extended periods of time like this. It's not a fault in character, it's not a weakness. It's simply a case-by-case basis. Starships, especially ones that operated on long patrols like this, expected some people to crack. And then they'd threw some pills at them and saw what stuck. Of course, this was an excellent way to get hooked on whatever they were using to treat starship fever.

But the longer time passed, the more people started hearing voices. Little tingles at the back of the neck. At the tip of the ear. At the base of the skull. They could be eerie, indistinguishable murmurs. The ones that didn't have a voice, but carried a presence. The sense that something - or someone- else was in the room. Something terrible. Other times, it was distinguishable whispers. Sometimes even inviting voices. A soft, warm female voice who knew what was best for them. It carried with it an almost maternal presence, like something the crew was more afraid of disappointing than anything else. A few days ago, the yelling started. An angry voice that spoke venomous words and ill suggestions. The kind that scared you. It wasn't the voice that was the scary part either. It was the almost instinctual response to listen to it.

Yesterday, there were three suicides and two murders. Those people were already dead and cremated. Private Dregolt thought they were the lucky ones.

He tossed the eggs with the fork and sighed. She was back again. The sweet voice. "You don't want to eat those eggs. They're spoiled. Go throw them out," it said. He pushed it to the back of his mind. "Nobody's talking, are they? They're all sitting there. You should try to make them feel better." He pushed the eggs back and took a sip of his coffee. It poured over his tongue, the already-cooling drink creeping to the back of his throat, seemingly not touching a single taste bud.

"They're thinking about you, you know. You're one of the new guys. Nobody knows you. They wish it'd been you in the escape pod yesterday,
not Arik or Sharr. Or Gamby,"
it said. The voice was so close, it was like it belonged to someone sitting next to him. "You didn't even know who any of them were. Three months in space and you didn't bother to learn their names. You could have saved them," it said, an almost jovial tinge echoing in the voice. Dregolt put his fingers in his ears and shut his eyes tight, trying to center himself. He was in the galley. Nobody was talking to him. "You're so kriffing stupid, that's not going to work," it said. A chill ran down his spine. It was getting angry.

"YOU AREN'T EVEN AN ESSENTIAL MEMBER OF THE CREW. YOU ARE RUNNING THEM OUT OF ANTIPSYCHOTICS. END IT SO THE CREW CAN REACH REPUBLIC SPACE ALIVE," it screamed at him. He rested his head in his hands and scrunched his face in pain. Whoever, whatever was in his head needed to come out now. He wasn't sure how much more he could take. He felt himself slowly begin to sob silently before a sharp noise knocked him out of it. One of the crew members flung his food across the table and screamed before running out of the galley.

And just like that, it was silent. The voices were gone. Whatever was poisoning the minds of the crew was gone now. Satisfied... for the time being. But it would be back. It always would.
 
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Crim

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Sweat poured down the captain's back. Right down the middle. She grimaced as it trickled right along her spine, grazing it with a cold, brief trickle. She gripped the sink with both hands. That last fit was... intense. It was getting to the point where the newbies were cracking. She'd seen cracking before, but not like this. She wasn't expecting to lose so many people to this. Being a leader was hard, but losing people was a whole different kind of hell. When the stir craze started getting to the officers, she started getting a bit worried. Now, even she, Captain Gelmyre, a captain of nearly 30 years for the Republic, was starting to see psychosis after three months at space. Three months. That was nothing to her.

She looked at her face in the mirror, brushing a salt-and-pepper colored lock out of her face. She'd worn her age well, though she looked like she'd just aged ten years in a few days. She was haggard and tired. The ship was due back at port in three more months. Three more months that she frankly did not think the crew could take. At this point, they were operating on 'days left,' if not 'hours left' for some people. And the Republic wasn't letting them return to port early. She briefly cursed the idiotic leadership of the patrol fleet before adjusting her posture, re-assuring herself that everything was okay, and stepping out of her private refresher. A short walk through the captain's cabin took her immediately to the bridge.

It was a cramped, tiny bridge with six seats and a captain's chair. "Captain on deck," the XO said as the guards saluted. "At ease," Gelmyre said, easing herself into the chair. "Status report," she said. The comm officer turned his chair around.
"Comscan has picked up a few transmissions, but nothing of note. As far as our probes go, we have not found any settled worlds within three lightyears. Shall we go farther into Sith space?"
"No, we're too far as it is. And there's no way I'm going farther out. Not with the crew's condition," she said. The comm officer turned around in his chair and went back to work. Just then, two droids arrived on the bridge. Gelmyre motioned them over and said, "You two, I need the crew deck spotless."
"We are reduced to janitorial staff now?" the protocol droid pouted, much to the chagrin of the astromech droid. It beeped a scolding remark at the protocol droid that Captain Gelmyre couldn't even hope to understand.
"Very well. Come along, M3," the protocol droid said as it shuffled off.

Gelmyre ran her hand through her hair and called up the engineer. "Report," she barked into the intercom. There was a delay and a muffle of static. Jorak always took his time; he absolutely despised Gelmyre and she knew it. She didn't care; it was her ship and it was her job to command it. It befell the Givin engineer to keep it in working order. Sure enough, after what was surely a string of swears uttered on his long walk to the intercom, the engineer responded. "The engines are running a little hot. We're understaffed after-"
"I don't need a refresher. Are the engines operating?"
"Yes, but we don't want them running like this for too long. I think we should consider finding port, at least for-"
"Leave the captaining to me," she said, clicking the intercom off.

Running a ship was hell. Running a ship that was slowly turning into hell was a far different story.
 

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"I hear her in my sleep! I can't stop it!," the man screamed. Two medical droids worked to restrain him, holding his arms down. They were designed with unruly patients in mind; sometimes, people snap at doctors. Dr. Li'tlan stared at his patient files, a hand idly stroking his blue lekku. The Twi'lek paced in front of the man subconsciously. "No previous history of psychosis," he said, tapping the datapad with his pen.
"And you're not the only one. The boys we lost yesterday were healthy people. You all are; we wouldn't let you serve on a ship if you had a history of this," he continued, approaching the man. The patient sobbed and moaned. "I can still hear her!" he cried, heaving his chest in a sullen cry after his sentence. Dr. Li'tlan grabbed an observation tool and said, "It's okay, you're safe. If there's one place on the ship you want to be right now, it's here."

He casually sat at the end of the bed. "Who is 'she?' I've been hearing you guys talk about this woman, but I haven't gotten many answers out of anyone. Think you can tell me?" he asked. The man rested his head back and muttered.
"She doesn't want me to tell you," he said.
"She's in your head. She can't do anything to you."
"It got Sharr! You were there! Painted the inside of the airlock with-"
"I know what happened to Sharr. But he didn't talk to anyone. I'm trying to save you from her."
"She will punish me!"
"You're in deep space. In a way, there isn't a safer place you could be. You're onboard with capable people who are watching the ship closely. You won't be punished."

The man began to shudder with sobs. "It's... a woman's voice I hear. It's the same voice every time. Telling me what to do, how to feel. It's already told me to do terrible things. I mean, I haven't done them, but she has this... this scream that bores into your skull. This shout that fills your head, makes it so you can't hear or see anything else."

Dr. Li'tlan wrote something in his datapad and idly twirled the tip of his lekku around a finger. "Tell me about your sleep," he said. The patient grew quiet and pale. He nodded and said, "I... haven't been sleeping as much as I could."
"You're beating around the bush. Everyone onboard is having trouble sleeping. Some people are seeing things. Do you remember your dreams?"
"I... I don't want to talk about this."
"I can't help you if you don't let me."
"...I didn't just hear her in my dreams. I was seeing her in my dreams, too. She was a... a woman with green eyes and red hair. And her skin is just... sick. There's something about her that is very jarring to think about. Like she doesn't belong in the galaxy. She certainly doesn't belong in my head. She's like a witch from those old fairytales. She promises me things in my dreams sometimes. She compliments me, wraps me around her finger, makes me feel like a million credits. And then she destroys me every time. She makes me hurt people in my dreams. I... I think I'm dangerous, doc."
"You're doing the right thing by telling me. You're already ahead of the game."
"But I'm not. I... started seeing her around the ship. Walking the corridors, staring at me from across rooms, breathing down my neck. I saw her outside the viewport once, doctor. Outside the viewport. I've already lost my mind."
"And you will, too. Soon," the doctor heard. He jumped and set his datapad down. The patient sat up.

"Did you just hear her?" the patient asked.
"Why?"
"She's standing right behind you."
The doctor stood up and turned, seeing nothing behind him. In that moment, he was too afraid to move. He was paralyzed by fear. All of the superstitions he'd laughed off came flooding back into his head. His first inclination was to imagine it was a Starweird - non-corporeal entities that roamed through deep space, pulling ships out of hyperspace and haunting them.

And then his mind happened upon something far worse. Far more real. They were on the edge of Sith space, observing the Sith Empire. He'd heard stories of the powers of the Sith. Their unnatural abilities to warp reality at their command. It felt like reality had punched him in the gut. Hard. The world began to spin as he heard a faint chuckling. "There's... a Sith on the ship," he muttered.

The chuckling grew louder. The doctor began to fumble around the wall for an intercom. "We have to contact the Republic. Maybe they can-"

In a second, the ship lost power. The lights flickered off and the hum of the reactor was gone, replaced with a sound far worse. At the same time, every person affected by this acute psychosis began to scream. It was a pained scream, as if they were on fire. The patient he had just been talking to was wailing in his chair, piercing the doctor's ears. Without the lights on, he was unable to see anything. It was complete and total mayhem. He heard the droids straining, a metal tray falling over, and footsteps. He had no clue what was happening, even as the patient tackled him in the pitch-black room and wrapped his hands tight around the doctor's neck, the patient screaming in agony the entire time.
 

Crim

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Jorak was in the machine shop when the lights went out, a bottle of whiskey between his bone lips. One minute, he had been cursing the idiocy of the captain and fixing a broken water chip. The next minute, he was in total darkness, the sounds of screaming outside. He had no idea what was happening, but he was petrified. It wasn't an odd reaction, after all. He could hear the sounds of the sane begging the insane for mercy, a terrifying sound that was soon replaced with an even more terrifying sound: the sound of people trying to beat down the door. He knew there was no way they were getting through; the door was made of metal and they were unarmed people using their hands to bash open a metal door. He didn't need to be a Givin to know the probability of such was astronomically low.

So he sat by the door and waited. Waited for them to figure out the door locks and kill him inside. Waited for them to somehow break through that door and slaughter him in a myriad of different ways. Waited for anything to change. And for what felt like hours, all he could hear was screaming and pounding. Suddenly, as if a switch had been flipped, they stopped. The screams were gone and the pounding was over. He fumbled around for a flashlight in the dark machine shop, a thousand thoughts racing through his head. He knew people were getting a little stir crazy, but he'd served on a ship for decades. What would make them all do something this... terrifying? Unable to find one, he began to pace.

What was he going to do? How was he going to get out? He was trapped in the room without power and the people who had just turned on their crewmates were still outside. The old mathematician had been in a few tight spots in his time, but he truly had no clue how to squeeze out of this one. It seemed like the galaxy had finally caught up to the surely engineer. He took his spot near the door again and continued to wait for something. Anything.
 

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The deafening silence that followed those chaotic few minutes was almost as bad, if not worse, than the chaos itself. The bridge crew had retained its sanity, the terrified officers huddled against the viewport on the opposite side of the bridge door. Captain Gelmyre stood in front of the group, her hands wrapped tightly around her blaster pistol. Her clammy hands made the blaster pistol slip for but a moment as she lowered the sidearm. A chill ran down her spine, fear gripping her in a tight embrace. She had no idea what had just happened, but the gravity of the situation hadn't sunk in yet. The ship was completely silent. The roar of the engines was gone. The frame's constant rattling had stopped. The hiss of the ventilators had stopped. The constant beeping and other noises of the bridge computers was, for the first time since she became captain of the ship, had stopped.

They were stranded in space, travelling at a constant sub-light velocity. The fact the ship's sudden emergence from hyperspace didn't splatter the whole crew was indicative of the inertial compensators still being online. The artificial gravity seemed to be on. Some systems had power, which was the confusing thing. The reactor wasn't completely offline. Someone had taken the ship out of hyperspace deliberately.

"Report," she tried to say. It came out as a squeaky whisper.
"All systems offline. I can't reach any of the other officers," said one of the officers.
"What the hell is happening?" asked the helmsman, trying desperately to reboot his station.
"Is anyone on the ship even alive?" asked the quartermaster.
Just then, the bridge door opened and two photoreceptors stared at the terrified bridge crew. Gelmyre raised her blaster in panic and shot, briefly illuminating the bridge in red. The bolt hit the wall next to the door and erupted into sparks.

"Don't shoot!" said a protocol droid's voice. There was only one protocol droid on the ship and it was maybe one of the most useless crew members she'd dealt with in a long time. Gelmyre almost wished she'd hit the droid, but maybe it could serve a purpose for once.
"Get inside and close the kriffing door, are you crazy?" she asked. The droid shuffled in, an astromech droid in tow. She had no idea which one this was and she didn't really care. With a hiss, the door closed. The captain began to pace, finally holstering her weapon. "Did you see what happened?" she asked.
"Oh, it was a nightmare. The lights went out and the crew just started screaming! They started attacking each other in the hallway! Tearing them apart with their bare... I'm sorry, I can't go on. It's just too much, ma'am," it whined.
"Is anyone alive?"
"Yes. They're just... not moving. They're just standing there... menacingly!"
"This just keeps getting weirder."
"What could cause all of this?"

The helmsman spoke up. "We're on the edge of Sith space... it's the only way! There's a Sith on board using the Force to just-"
"This isn't the time for fairytales."
"What else would explain this?"
"I don't know. What I do know is we have to get back to Republic space. Hail a courier to pick us up and then burn engine."

The astromech droid beeped, the protocol droid looking at his short counterpart. "M3 says we have to power the primary reactor to send a distress message," he translated. Gelmyre sighed a short breath of relief. A useful astro droid. "Is it safe to leave the bridge?" she asked.
"The crew could attack at any moment!"
M3 beeped angrily, provoking the protocol droid. "We are not going back out there!"
"Oh yes you are," said Gelmyre.
"I... oh, dear. Captain, I must insist that we stay put. The crew settled down. Perhaps the power will return in time."
"I'm not waiting another minute in an unpowered ship. Get to the reactor and restart it. Both of you. That's an order."

The protocol droid hesitated while M3 beeped obediently. "M3, wait for me!" he said as the two left the bridge and headed back into the dark hallways.
 

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Curiosity had gotten the best of him. Or... perhaps resignation. Jorak rose to his feet and searched around for something in the machine shop to use as a weapon. His hands wrapped around a hydrospanner. He gripped it, considering the tool, before searching for more things he could use. Tape, a box of screws, all junk. Finally, he happened upon a turbohammer. He held the heavy instrument in his hands and pressed a button in it, the head rapidly thrusting up and down. The hammer would do fine. He held the tool in his bony hand and approached the door, considering one last time the ramifications of his actions. If he opened that door, there was a good chance the crew was waiting for him. Of course, he could just close it again, since it didn't seem like they could figure out doors, but would he have time?

Before he had even made a decision one way or the other, he found himself unlocking the door and opening it, staring into the dark hallway. Some mistakes were meant to be made. Starlight poured through a nearby viewport, which was all he needed to make out general shapes. He saw several swaying masses; it took an embarrassingly long few microseconds before he realized he was standing face-to-face with the crowd that had just tried to break down the door. He stepped back and raised the hammer. Not a single one of them moved. They were simply standing there, not doing anything at all. He lowered the turbohammer and approached one, looking into the vacant eyes of a crewman. He attempted to squeeze by, trying desperately not to touch them. He didn't know what would happen if he provoked them and he didn't exactly want to know.

He held the turbohammer in a defensive position, wandering through the halls. He was going to make for an escape pod and take his chances there. He carefully walked through the hallways, avoiding the crew. At the door to the dorsal corridor, he felt his foot slip in something wet. He rotated his arms to retain balance and stepped back. Jorak didn't dare look down; he already knew he'd almost just slipped in a pool of blood. It made his retreat that much hastier. He carefully walked through the pool and felt around for the door panel. Finally, his hand found the controls and pressed a button, opening the door. Sheer terror came in the form of a protocol droid standing directly behind the door. Both Jorak and the droid stepped back, the droid loudly screaming.

"Shut up, shut up, shut the hell up!" Jorak whispered.
"Oh my, you startled me!" said the droid. GE3-C. He hated that droid with a passion.
"Yeah, I could tell," he said begrudgingly. "What happened? Is everyone else like this?" he asked.
"Captain Gelmyre and the rest of the bridge crew are alive," said the droid.
"Yeah, well, tell Gelmyre I'm handing in my resignation. I'm out of here."
"Where are you going?"
"I'm going to take an escape pod and abandon ship."
"Engineer Jorak, I am ashamed of you! Abandoning your post without permission from the captain?!"
"Yep. Stand aside so I can get to the escape pods, droid."

He pushed past the droid and almost tripped over the astromech droid behind it. It looked at him with one judging photoreceptor and beeped at him. He'd worked with droids enough to understand it. Hell, he recognized its voice: B3-K5.
'Engineer Jorak = knows the pods will not launch // is panicking // should help us restart reactor.'
"A reactor restart requires a jumpstart from the engines. Someone at both the exterior conduit and the interior panel."
'B3 = going outside'
"And you expect Rose over here to competently time the engine pulses?"
'B3 = trusts Engineer Jorak to perform the task // GE3 = not suited for this task // Engineer Jorak = can escape after'
"...fine."
 

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"Do be careful," said GE3-C as the astromech droid approached an airlock. The astromech droid chirped at its counterpart, rotating its head around while it probed the airlock panel. The interior door shut and the airlock depressurized. Once the pressure had been normalized, the exterior door opened and B3 was staring at a starfield, the celestial backdrop rolling as the ship rotated chaotically. The astromech droid wheeled onto the exterior of the ship and began to approach the ship's aft section.

To restart the reactor, a pulse from the hyperdrive would be needed. It required a near simultaneous connection; the reactor simply would not start without feedback from the hyperdrive. And the hyperdrive had a finite amount of residual charge left. Enough unsuccessful attempts and the hyperdrive would be dead. No hyperdrive meant no restart, and then the ship would be without power forever. It would become a coffin, floating through empty space forever.

As B3 approached the reactor panel, it extended a buzz saw to cut the protective sealing off. Metal shards flew into space as the droid dragged the saw along the panel's seam. Once the panel was exposed, the droid contacted Jorak through his comlink. 'Are you ready?' it texted. After a short pause, the engineer responded with a curt, "Yes." The droid hunched over the panel and extended its probe into a socket.
'In 3.00 seconds, send the pulse. Please respond in the affirmative.'
"Ready."

The Givin timed the pulse just right; a puff of blue Rosenkov radiation blasted from the engines as the ship came back to life.
 

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In a cascade of light and beeps, everything came on in the bridge at once. The communications array. The navigator's panel. The air recycler. Finally, the overhead lights came on at once, the intensity a bit too much for the unadjusted eyes of the terrified bridge crew. They squinted, trying to adjust to the bright bridge once again. To Gelmyre, though, it was the biggest wave of relief of her career. She leaned back in her chair and rested her hands on her forehead. They'd done it. "All systems green, captain," said the first mate.

Outside came the rush of another round of screams. These weren't screams of anger and insanity, though. These were the screams of terror and shock at seeing unholy carnage throughout the ship. The crew had regained their humanity, as if a flip had been switched back off. It was the sound of sanity returning to the ship once more. The craziness of the situation shocked Gelmyre to her core.

"Send a distress beacon. We're staying put; I don't trust our reactor to get us to the nearest Republic world," she said, standing.

Captain Gelmyre walked to her cabin and paced. She needed to wrap her head around the events of the past few minutes. No, what she needed was a stiff drink. This wasn't stir craze. An Imperial bioweapon, a disease that festered in the cramped ship, anything to explain the carnage. She wanted it to be natural. For a brief second, she considered calling a few lost loved ones. Revelling in her survival. But she had a ship to lead.

Taking one last look at herself in the mirror, she stepped back onto the bridge. Standing in the center was an almost familiar woman wearing black. Her sickly, almost yellow skin was tinted red from a glowing lightsaber in her hand. The bridge crew lay around the bridge, looks of panic forever frozen on their faces.
"It has been fun toying with your crew,
captain,"
she said.
"I... are you going to kill me?"
The woman raised her hand and blue lightning shot from her finger tips. For the last moments of her life, all Gelmyre knew was pain and fear.
 
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