Chapter Text
You should never have left Vassek alone. Pirates—they were after your cargo, you presumed; your Nella 342 light freighter was no match for their advanced weaponry. You wondered what had brought them to your corner of the galaxy, struggling to input coordinates into your navicomputer, cannon fire rocking the aft of your ship—your shields could only take so much.
You considered their impropriety—a terrestrial planet located in the Wazta Sector, Vassek was a small blue-green world that boasted no uncommon resources. It was uninteresting to most, quite distant from the Koda Spur hyperspace route. So why were these marauders after you?
As the daughter of a simple farmer, you grew staple crops like grain to feed outlying neighbors—planets like Mijos and Lutrillia—far off the beaten path, in a stretch of the Outer Rim Territories that reached toward the Western Reaches.
You were tasked with going to market, willing to trade for supplies that were scarce back home. That, or you hoped to earn sufficient credits to purchase them instead—keeping just enough to buy fuel for the long trek back. Yet you had barely made it to the first of three orbiting satellites when the flagship of the Nuro pirates descended upon your freighter.
Though dependable and rugged, it had been discontinued. It was outdated and only boasted one blaster cannon, though you did not have a single crew member to spare. You were the ship’s sole occupant, doing everything in your power to break away from the tractor beam that held you firmly in place.
“Kark it all,” you spoke aloud, hastily programming your ship’s computer for your original destination—Ryoone—a planet along the Koda Spur whose dismal atmosphere was clouded by a permanent suspension of ash, making the growth of crops and vegetation almost impossible—your family’s grain was sorely needed there, you imagined.
Your comm blared; someone was trying to hail you—those damn raiders.
“Lower your shields—we’re coming aboard. Best play nice, or we won’t be,” came the voice of a surly male.
“Leave me alone! I have nothing of value!” Though not totally a lie, not everyone would consider grain a top commodity.
“She sounds pretty,” you heard another pirate say. It caused you to cringe, your imagination running away with you, knowing what these types were known for—none of it good.
“Quiet!” the first man demanded of the other. Then his voice came back to the line, sugar sweet. “Now, dearie, don’t be daft—we’ll be the ones decidin’ that.”
“Kark off!” you shouted back, disconnecting the comm. Having finished inputting your coords, you pulled back on the lever that would activate the freighter’s hyperdrive, hoping the pushback of the engines would break the tractor beam and set you free. Just as the warp drive began to fire and you tore away, a barrage of lasers took it out, causing you to careen off course.
“Shit, shit, shit!” you cursed as the Nella 342 spun out of control. You grappled at the yoke; the blast had taken out the remainder of your shields.
Prevented from entering lightspeed at the last millisecond, you realized you were caught by the gravitational pull of Vassek 3—a moon enshrouded in perpetual mist. There were rumors of monsters living there, men half made of metal—the pirates did not follow once they realized where your ship would fall.
Alarms blared, and the lights of your console flashed erratically as you tried and failed to activate the ion engines. Your ship’s repulsors were dead, short-circuited in a chain reaction, one part of your starship exploding after another.
There was nothing left to do. You strapped yourself into the cockpit, fastening your body to the pilot’s chair. Fear coursed through your veins. You fought desperately to steady your breath, determined not to hyperventilate, silently wishing you were safe at home on solid ground—but fate had other plans.
You plummeted toward rough terrain, breaking atmo. You braced for an inevitable impact. You offered a prayer to your gods and shut your eyes, catching a glimpse of the moon’s rocky landscape—there was nothing to cushion the crash.
Tears trickled down your cheeks as you prepared to die, wondering if anyone would ever find your body.
---
Magnetic talons gripped bare rock, the electrostaff of an IG-100 MagnaGuard connecting with pure plasma in an impressive display that bore no witnesses. The fearsome general of the droid army parried the attack with a single swing of his duranium arm. There were seven styles of Jedi combat; Grievous was employing Makashi—the form he had first learned from Count Dooku—counterattacking with ferocity, his strikes quick and precise.
“Ha! This is child’s play!” he taunted, addressing his group of sparring partners—mechanical beings trained to his specifications. They were perfectly equipped to hone his skills, outfitted in Kaleesh capes bearing mumuu markings and matching headwear.
These MagnaGuards were a group of two, with another of the general’s combat droids flanking him from the rear—or attempting to—his powerful LX-44 robotic legs propelling him as if spring-loaded, the cyborg flying in an arc as he raised his saber above his head in a two-handed pose.
Sparks flew as the battle-hardened droids blocked each of Grievous’ deft blows, one of his artificial limbs withdrawing a second saber to ward off the IG-100 that continued to hound him from behind.
Then, a laugh—a cough. A dense fog rolled through the canyon, concealing the seven-foot cyborg in a layer of thick white mist as the light from his sabers went out.
All was silent, the combat droids on high alert as their glowing red photoreceptors scanned their surroundings, deep robotic voices echoing throughout the mountainous terrain as they communicated with one another in an audible form of droid language. These models were capable of fending off Jedi, loyal only to their primary directive—which, at this moment, was to defeat their master—even if it meant losing their heads.
Decorated with scorch marks and dents, they were not permitted to repair their damage—if they fell to Grievous here, if they were marred, so they would remain.
Though they could not feel fear, they felt the general’s reptilian eyes staring at them through a well-hidden armorplast face mask, its shape resembling his species. He had once been a frightful warlord, though some might argue he was now even more terrifying—trading his organic parts for cybernetic ones, with only a few organs remaining: lungs, liver, and a cold, still-beating heart.
There was no sound but the wind and the buzz of their servos, their master having visibly vanished. One of their ilk probed the fog, the point of his shock staff slicing through nothing but thin air.
Then came a disembodied voice: “Surely, that is not the best you can do!”
A shadow, a series of swift, exacting movements—one MagnaGuard nearly lost an arm; another yelped in surprise.
“Ha ha ha!” came Grievous’ monotone cackle, two limbs breaking apart—electronically driven—splitting in half by a dislocation of his shoulders. Each hand had opposable thumbs and articulated fingers. They all now grappled lightsabers, his wrists maneuvering in a tightly controlled spin.
The IG-100s prepared themselves, righting their weapons and facing their unrelenting adversary head-on. But now he was distracted, his violent helicoptering coming to a halt as he sheathed his sabers, black slit pupils focusing on something above him as he spoke aloud: “End session.”
The MagnaGuards released their defensive stance, waiting neither patiently nor impatiently for orders, but simply existing—their eyes drifting upward as all four beings present watched what appeared to be a starship descend, engulfed in flames and trailed by smoke.
There was a sound of grinding metal, a reverberation that echoed throughout the valley. For a moment, Grievous did not move.
No explosion came. The general listened, hearing only the faint crackle of flames in the distance. His immediate assumption was that there were no survivors, but considering his home rarely received visitors, he was curious as to who—or what—might be among the wreckage.
“Guards,” he began in a grating, gravelly voice, “come with me.”
---
You were pinned, your body jammed between twisted shards of durasteel and the remains of your communications console. Something did not feel right—in fact, you oddly felt nothing at all.
Your eyes fluttered open; unbeknownst to you, your body had gone into shock, a part of your pilot’s seat having lodged itself in your belly—the base bolting it down had been torn clean from its root. Though your hands shook, you began to feel around, the mist from outside the ship having breached through the cracks in your hull.
Then, you looked down. It was something you should not have done—panic overtook you as your heart began to race, seeing the protrusion jutting out from your gut. You scrambled to press the rescue beacon on the console next to you, unsure if it would even work, electric wires sizzling and sparking so near your face you had to close your eyes again, albeit temporarily.
“Oh, God,” you whined, unable to control the flood of tears welling in your eyes. You attempted to move your legs, but whatever was on top of them was much too weighty—where would you even go? What would you do? Vassek 3 was a barren moon, besides its fabled monsters.
You thought you heard a noise—the crunch of footsteps over rock and gravel. They were much too heavy. Inhuman. And there was more than one set.
Your eyes widened as a towering shadow took shape, rising up from the fog just outside your cracked viewport. Metal clanked against metal once whatever it was entered the remains of your freighter’s cargo bay—red pinpricks of light seared through the dark, visible through the door of your cockpit, torn from its hinges and lying on its side.
Droidspeak—you were sure of it. These were droids—large ones—with sinister photoreceptors and billowing capes.
You held your breath, though it hurt.
A voice, rasping and mechanical, tore through the silence.
“What do we have here?” it asked in a curious lilt.
You would have screamed, but the sound caught in your throat. What you were beholden to witness was one of the most terrifying things you had ever seen.
A figure pushed past the others and stood before you—the caricature of a man, more than seven feet tall. Its limbs were long and lithe, made of metal and alloy. Its legs were the same, feet spread apart in a shape that resembled claws. But its face was the most horrific thing of all—flesh and blood covered by a mask and helmet reminiscent of some otherworldly creature, the likes of which you had never laid eyes on.
Its slit pupils regarded you, though there was something about it—him—that gave you the smallest bit of comfort. He was not a droid like the others; he was a living, breathing, organic being. His lungs expanded and contracted as the creature coughed, having crouched down on one knee before you—studying you, perhaps, and the predicament you had found yourself in.
“Please—” you begged, your hand gripping the bar extending from your belly. You felt faint, certain you were losing too much blood. A terrifying thought crept in: if you closed your eyes again, would they ever reopen?
The last thing you witnessed as you succumbed to unconsciousness was the tilt of this being—this monster’s head. You felt what you thought was a sharp talon caress the soft flesh of your cheek.
Grievous saw himself reflected in you, if only for a moment—the victim of an error, a horrible crash—left for dead until some form of help had arrived. It was what had led him to this life, this form. His piercing gaze observed the pain on your face; he felt it vicariously, its mark etched into your features.
And you were comely, he thought. Beautiful despite your anguish, despite being clothed in the garments of a pauper.
He decided he would fix this—you—by affording you the same opportunity he had once been given. Not because it was right, but because he was selfish. No one needed to know—not even the count.
What harm would it do, having a little company for once? Someone who would otherwise die and be discarded?
In a single, fleeting moment, Grievous made his choice—it was a split-second decision, the general not thinking of the repercussions or the many possible outcomes that might come to pass.
There was no one present to challenge him, least of all his guards.
As you began to fade away, he spoke once more. Fear had left you. His voice was both calm and commanding— and possibly the last thing you would ever hear.
“Get out of my way! I am going to cut her loose.”