Chapter 1: Waking in Dust
POV: Oliver
Consciousness returns like a punch to the gut.
Sand. In his mouth, between his teeth, grinding against his tongue like broken glass. The taste of copper and grit and something else—something wrong. His eyes crack open and twin suns burn white-hot daggers straight through his skull.
Twin suns.
That thought hits him harder than the headache. He's never seen twin suns before in his life.
Oliver tries to sit up and realizes he's buried waist-deep in sand. His legs are numb, tingling with the effort of circulation returning. The sand around him is disturbed, as if something—or someone—had dug him out partway before abandoning the task.
He claws at the ground, sand cascading between his fingers as he fights to free himself. His hands are wrong. Too weathered, too scarred. Calluses in places he's never had calluses. A thin white line across his left palm that speaks of old violence.
A memory tries to surface—sterile white walls, the hum of machinery—but it dissolves like smoke the moment he grasps for it.
Finally free, Oliver staggers to his feet. The world tilts, and he nearly face-plants back into the sand. His reflection catches in a shallow puddle of collected moisture between two rocks.
The face staring back is not his own.
Weathered skin, deep lines around gray eyes, a nose that's been broken at least twice. Stubble that's going gray at the edges. This is the face of a man who's lived hard and seen too much.
Oliver opens his mouth to scream.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE]
[NEURAL INTERFACE ACTIVE]
[WELCOME, USER]
The words blaze across his vision in electric blue, floating in the air like some kind of hallucination. Oliver stumbles backward, blinking hard, but the text remains.
[HOST CONTROL INTERFACE V.3.7 ONLINE]
[LEVEL: 1]
[HP: 200/200]
[MP: 86/86]
Oliver tries to say "What the hell is happening to me?"
What comes out is: "Purple monkey dishwasher apocalypse!"
He claps both hands over his mouth, eyes wide. Tries again, concentrating.
"Help me!"
"Cheese volcano magnificent!"
Terror claws its way up his throat. His voice is wrong, his face is wrong, his hands are wrong, and now his words won't obey him. The blue interface pulses gently, as if responding to his distress.
[SKILL UNLOCKED: BASIC CREATURE CONTROL]
[SKILL UNLOCKED: FLORA MANIPULATION]
[SKILL UNLOCKED: DANGER SENSE]
What the fuck is this?
The thought comes through clear, at least in his head. But when he tries to voice it, all that emerges is a string of nonsense about dancing refrigerators.
A sound echoes across the desert—the low rumble of engines. Oliver's head snaps toward the noise, and something in his peripheral vision flashes red.
[DANGER SENSE ACTIVATED]
[THREAT DETECTED: MULTIPLE HOSTILES APPROACHING]
Through the shimmering heat waves, Oliver can make out shapes moving toward him. Speeders, three of them, kicking up clouds of dust. Even at this distance, he can see the occupants are armed.
Oliver runs.
His legs feel like they belong to someone else, but they carry him across the sand with more endurance than he expects. Behind him, the whine of the speeders grows louder. Blaster fire begins to pepper the ground around him, red bolts sizzling past his head.
He spots a cave opening ahead—a dark slash in the rocky outcropping. It's his only option.
[DANGER SENSE: IMMINENT THREAT]
The words flash just as Oliver dives, and a blaster bolt sears the air where his head had been a split second before. He tumbles into the cave, scraping his knees and palms on the rocky floor.
Behind him, he can hear voices. Rough, guttural. Not human.
"Lost him in the rocks."
"Can't have gone far. Spread out."
"Boss wants him alive. Fresh meat's getting scarce."
Oliver presses himself against the cave wall, heart hammering. The voices are getting closer. There's nowhere deeper to go—the cave is barely ten meters deep.
Think. Think!
Something skitters across his foot. He looks down and sees a rat—no, not quite a rat. Something alien, with too many teeth and eyes that reflect the dim light like mirrors. It's watching him with what seems like curiosity rather than fear.
[CREATURE DETECTED: WOMP RAT]
[THREAT LEVEL: MINIMAL]
[CONTROL COMPATIBILITY: HIGH]
The words appear as Oliver stares at the creature, and somehow—he doesn't know how—he understands. The blue interface isn't just showing him information. It's offering him a choice.
The footsteps outside are getting closer.
"Check that cave."
"Probably hiding like a scared nexu cub."
Oliver reaches out, not with his hand but with something else. Something that feels like extending a part of his mind. The womp rat's eyes suddenly glow with the same blue light as the interface.
[BASIC CREATURE CONTROL ACTIVATED]
[MP: 66/86]
It's not just one rat. Oliver can feel them now—dozens of the creatures living in the network of caves and crevices throughout the rocky formation. They're hungry, territorial, and they don't like the smell of the approaching raiders.
The first Nikto appears at the cave mouth, a scarred humanoid with reptilian skin and predator's eyes. He raises his blaster, scanning the shadows.
"Come out, soft-skin. Make this easy."
Oliver doesn't move. Instead, he sends a single thought to the womp rats: Hungry.
The attack comes from all directions at once. Womp rats pour from cracks and crevices, a chittering wave of teeth and claws. The Nikto screams—a sound cut short as the creatures swarm over him. His companions outside shout in alarm as more rats emerge, flowing like a living carpet across the desert floor.
Oliver hears speeders roaring to life, the high whine of retreating engines. When the sounds fade, an exhausted silence falls over the cave.
[COMBAT COMPLETE]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: +50 XP]
[FIRST SKILL ACTIVATION BONUS: +25 XP]
[TOTAL XP: 75/1000]
The womp rats scatter, their eyes fading back to normal as Oliver releases his hold on them. He slumps against the cave wall, suddenly exhausted. His head throbs, and his vision blurs at the edges.
What am I?
Hours pass. Maybe minutes. Time feels elastic, unreliable. Oliver searches through the pockets of his jacket—a rough, worn thing that smells of machinery and old sweat. His fingers find a handful of credits, a blaster he doesn't know how to use, and something else.
A datapad, its screen cracked but functional. When he powers it on, most of the files are encrypted, but one message is accessible:
"If you're reading this, Voss, they found you. Run."
The name means nothing to him. He tries to say it out loud.
"Cardboard elephant symphony."
The curse again. Oliver wants to throw the datapad against the cave wall, but something stops him. This device, whatever it is, might be his only clue to understanding what's happened to him.
The sound of engines reaches him again, but different this time. Deeper, more powerful. A ship landing.
Oliver creeps to the cave mouth and peers out. A pre-Imperial gunship sits in the sand about a hundred meters away, its hull scarred with years of hard use. A figure emerges from the vessel—humanoid, encased in gleaming armor that catches the light of the twin suns.
Beskar. The word surfaces from somewhere deep in his borrowed memory.
The armored figure moves with purpose, scanning the horizon with what looks like a rifle. Even at this distance, Oliver can sense the controlled violence radiating from the stranger.
[DANGER SENSE ACTIVATED]
[THREAT LEVEL: UNKNOWN]
The warning flashes, but it feels different this time. Not the immediate malice of the raiders, but something more complex. Dangerous, yes, but not necessarily hostile.
Oliver looks around the cave. Empty water containers. No food. No shelter from the elements. He can stay here and die slowly, or he can take his chances with the armored stranger.
Some choice.
He steps out of the cave, hands raised.
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