Gravity Rex

Posted on Tue Oct 28th, 2025 @ 9:15pm by Kalen "Rex" Vickers

3,108 words; about a 16 minute read

Chapter: Chapter VIII: Broken Chains
Location: Red Raptor, Cloud City, Bespin
Timeline: Concurrent with initial posts and Reave detonating his bombs

The Red Raptor was not made for silence. Even at rest, its bones creaked with the old freighter’s uneasy breath: a vibration in the hull plating, the gentle buzz of power couplings that never quite stopped humming. Rex sat in the pilot’s chair with his boots up on the console, watching a pazaak hologame flicker on the dash and grumbling under his breath as his opponent, the squat, dented astromech called Brick, let out a triumphant ascending trill, which garbled slightly with its damaged speaker.

“Yeah, yeah, rub it in,” Rex muttered, tossing his last card onto the table where the droid’s side had already lined up a perfect +20. “You know, for a walking dustbin with half a memory core, you sure got a knack for cheating. Must’ve picked it up from me.”

Brick gave a sharp whistle that might’ve been laughter. Its dome spun and projected a tiny holographic dancing figure over the game board - the universal symbol for “you lose.”

Rex blew a long sigh through his nose, pulling the unlit cigarra from between his teeth and popping it behind his ear. “Should’ve stayed a grifter,” he muttered to himself. “Would’ve been cleaner. Funnier. Bit o’ easy money, little drink here and there… no cults, no Jedi, no kriffing madmen with fancy speeches.”

He leaned back, chair groaning beneath him, the disturbed dust in the room curling lazily toward the cockpit lights. “Don’t get me wrong,” he continued, talking more to himself than the droid, “the whole ‘save the galaxy from mystical lunatics’ thing’s real noble, but I know I’d rather be the one sellin’ relics than nearly dyin’ over ’em.”

Brick beeped something low and inquisitive.

Rex waved him off. “Yeah, yeah, don’t start with me, bucket. I know, I know - they’re my crew, now. I guess. Or somethin’ like that.” He rubbed a hand over his face, grimacing. “I mean, look at Mantis. Kid’s been through the Void and back, all scarred up and brooding like a holo-drama extra - and I’m what, his bodyguard? His chauffeur? Nah, it’s… it's more’n that. Damn fool’s actually gettin’ to me.”

He caught himself mid-thought and snorted a short laugh, shaking his head. “Nope. Nope, not doin’ that." No way, he insisted mentally to himself. " That’s how people end up dead, Rex.”

Still, the silence that followed made the denial ring hollow.

He pushed up from the chair, stretching until his spine cracked, and stepped toward the forward viewport. Outside, the orange haze of Bespin churned and folded in endless motion, stormlight flickering deep in the clouds. The docking platform stretched empty around them, the city’s silhouette barely visible through the mist.

Then, something shifted.

A smear of motion, faint and wrong, like a shadow crossing too close to the glass. Rex froze, his brows furrowing. He leaned forward, squinting through the viewport, but saw only the reflection of his own face and the faint glow of the control lights.

“…Probably just pressure shear,” he muttered, half to reassure himself.

A moment later, a sharp metallic clang echoed through the ceiling. Then another. A scraping sound that tracked from the bow toward the dorsal hull, deliberate and uneven, like claws on sheet metal.

Rex’s expression flattened. “Pressure shear, my ass."

He reached for his holster, hanging on the back of the pilot's chair, and pulled free his blaster, checking the charge with the ease of long habit. The weapon hummed softly as it powered up.

Brick let out a questioning warble.

“Yeah, I heard it,” Rex said, flicking the safety off. He stepped toward the corridor, ears straining as another metallic clack rolled overhead. “If that’s one of Mantis' old pals, they’re about to get a warm karkin’ welcome.”

Another sound - closer now, right above the cockpit. Something heavy dragging across the plating.

Rex adjusted his grip and moved toward the maintenance access ladder, muttering under his breath as he muttered to himself. “Every damn time I tell myself to stay put, it turns into this. Should’ve stayed a smuggler.”

The ship creaked again. Something was definitely up there.

Freezing halfway up the ladder, the Human held the blaster steady as another dull thunk echoed above. Whatever was crawling on the hull had weight. He let out a slow, measured breath through his nose and muttered under it, “Yeah, nah. Not playin’ that game again.”

He slid back down to the deck, boots thudding softly, and gave the ceiling an unimpressed look. “Dark Jedi, cult freaks, space wizards - whatever they are, they can keep their karkin’ rooftop acrobatics. I’m still breathing because I know when to not be the hero.”

Brick let out a questioning, slightly scolding chirp.

Rex jabbed a finger toward the droid. “Hey, don’t start. You didn’t see everything they did on Korriban. Bastards had lightsabers the size of starship winga. If they’re here, I’m not giving ‘em a clean shot. Damn droid, developing a conscience."

He holstered the blaster long enough to start rummaging through a nearby storage bin, pulling out bits of wire, a half-melted ration tin, and an old detonation charge that looked far too expired for comfort, some Mandalorian script scraped into it. “Right,” he muttered. “You get up to the corridor junction and make noise. Clank around a bit, spin that dome of yours - sound like you’re panicking. I’ll be two rooms over, not dying.”

Brick warbled sceptically.

“Yeah, I know, ‘brave of me.’” Rex grinned humourlessly as he yanked a length of conduit from the wall and began setting it across the floor. “Trust me, bravery gets you killed. Being clever gets you paid.” Not that I been paid anything in months...

He jogged toward the lounge area, eyes flicking over the dimly lit interior. The dejarik table blinked faintly - its holo-grid still operational despite years of abuse, probably courtesy of some of the overpriced, unneeded renovations the Gruesome Twosome installed. Rex flicked it on, dialled the volume to maximum, and let the monsters start their low, guttural growls. “There we go. Ambience.”

Next, he hit the galley’s door release, letting a few old ration packs spill out and scatter across the corridor. The air recycler kicked on, carrying the faint smell of stale nerf jerky through the ship. “Perfect. Smells like we’re alive and messy. Exactly how Mantis says I live.”

Then, with a tap on the wall intercom, he called out in a calm, loud voice that echoed through every compartment, “Attention all crew - intruder alert. Probably another one of your spooky laser-wieldin’ maniacs. Please assemble in the cockpit for immediate self-defence or certain death. Over!”

He cut the line before any reply could come from Useless, the holodroid who tended to also beat him at card games.

A shimmering blue figure blinked into being just inside the open medbay hatch, regardless. “Emergency detected,” Useless droned. “Please refrain from dying on the deckplates; they stain.”

“Good talk,” Rex said, sidestepping the projection and crouching near the corridor corner, blaster back in hand. “Just, uh, keep them distracted if they come through.”

“If I had hands,” the doctor remarked dryly before fading out.

Rex exhaled, positioning himself behind a bulkhead with a clear line of sight down the main hall. He flicked the blaster’s power up one setting higher and whispered to himself. “All right, you old fraud. Time to prove you’ve learned somethin’ from the weirdos on board. Trick the bastard, hit ‘em fast, then run like a Dewback stampede at your back.”

The ceiling groaned again, metal straining under shifting weight. Dust fell from the overhead panels, catching in the cockpit’s dim lights.

Blinking as some it went into his eye, Rex’s grip tightened on the blaster, and he murmured just loud enough for Brick’s sensors to catch. “Showtime, buddy. Make it loud.”

Brick gave a long, rising whistle, being the kind that promised chaos, and rolled off into the shadows.

A second later, the ship filled with the whirring and banging of the astromech’s deliberate racket. The sounds of skittering and scraping above paused for the briefest moment - then began to move again, slower this time, hunting.

Rex smiled grimly, leaning around the corner, finger resting on the trigger. “C’mon then,” he whispered. “Step right into the con.” Internally, he was screaming. He was going to die.

The sound came sooner than he expected - a hollow thud on the outer hull, followed by a hiss of pressurised air. One of the dorsal access panels had been pried loose. Rex held his breath, hearing the telltale whump of magnetic boots locking onto the deck plates overhead.

“Okay,” he mouthed quietly. “Definitely not a scavver."

The next sound was unmistakable to Rex these days: a lightsaber igniting - not clean and humming like Mentis' and the others', but angry and crackling. Red light flashed through the narrow grates of the ceiling vent as molten metal dripped down in glowing drops.

Rex swore under his breath, already moving. “Alright, Rex, think. You can’t shoot through a roof, and you sure as hell can’t duel with a laser sword.” He ducked behind a bulkhead and whispered into his wrist mic. "Brick, Plan Two.”

The astromech’s reply was a single whoop as it spun down a side corridor.

Rex bolted, weaving about until he reached a set of reinforced doors set flush into the hull — the vault. Heavy durasteel plating, biometric locks, multi-phase shields. Thane’s personal obsession, and, in this moment, Rex’s best shot at survival.

He punched the access code, scanned his palm, and muttered to himself as the doors hissed open. “Never thought I’d be thankin’ that pompous bastard for paranoia.”

Inside, the vault glowed dimly in cold blue light. Rows of secure compartments lined the walls, each marked with combinations of Sith and Jedi symbols alike. Relics, Kaiburr shards and other artefacts - every piece hummed faintly with its own restrained energy. Rex shivered as he stepped in; even without the Force, he could feel them, the air thick with invisible tension. He hated this place, but could not help calculating a rough value contained in the mysterious chamber.

Behind him, sparks rained as the intruder finally cut through the hull. The smell of scorched metal filled the corridor.

Rex grabbed a nearby crate and tipped it over, scattering bits of scrap across the threshold. Then, moving quickly, he ducked behind a nearby console, holding his breath.

The first thing that entered was shadow, and then heavy black boots, leaving trails of molten residue. An Iridonian Zabrak stepped through the smoke, his horns filed to jagged points, his face marked with burned ritual sigils. His lightsaber was crimson, its core unstable, pulsing.

He looked around slowly, taking in the chamber, the relics, the glow. “So this is where your masters hide their treasures,” he rasped, voice low and metallic through a damaged vocoder. “I smell the shards...”

Rex did not move. He just waited, crouched behind the console, the blaster trembling slightly in his grip.

The Iridonian took a step forward, dragging the tip of his saber along the floor, leaving a glowing scar behind. “I can feel it calling… the Kaiburr. They’re close.”

The freighter gave a faint creak, being a sound that echoed down from the corridor, courtesy of Brick’s careful sabotage of the environmental vents. The Iridonian’s head jerked at the noise.

Rex grinned silently to himself. “That’s right, you spooky bastard,” he whispered under his breath. “Follow the noise. Vault likes new guests.”

He reached out to the console beside him and tapped a small control switch Thane had shown him, for a function labelled Containment Lockdown.

The vault’s magnetic seals hummed to life.

Rex ducked lower, heart pounding. “Let’s see how you like his security system.”

The Iridonian took another step into the vault, his breath rasping through the damaged vocoder. The glow of his blade painted the relics in arterial red, reflections shivering across the crystalline shards embedded in the cases.

Rex stayed still as stone, hand hovering over the small control stud beneath the console lip - a dull, unassuming button marked only with a Caanan sigil, looking like a bird of prey. Rex has little idea - Thane had peculiar reflections of his homeworld, given his Jedi upbringing. Rex tried not to think about homeworlds too much.

“Step right into the con,” he muttered under his breath again, thumb flicking the switch, as he pushed the stray thought aside. For an instant, nothing happened, and Rex briefly doubted himself. The hum of the ship held steady, the only sound the steady throb of the intruder’s breathing and the lazy, sizzling purr of his lightsaber as he glanced around, body lightly shifting.

Then, the floor groaned.

A deep vibration rolled through the deckplates, rising to a low-frequency whine, and the relic cases rattled in unison. The Iridonian faltered, frowning, as motes of dust lifted from the floor - and then dropped again, as though the ship exhaled.

Gravity multiplied instantly.

There was no sound, no flash, no warning. Just an invisible hand slamming the intruder down with an unseen, huge weight.

The cultist hit the deck hard enough to dent it. His lightsaber clattered from his grip, extinguishing as it spun away. He tried to rise, but the effort tore a strangled snarl from his throat. His limbs trembled violently, muscles locking, horns scraping sparks from the floor as the artificial gravity spiked higher still.

Rex winced from behind the console, shoulders tightening. Even through his boots, he felt the pull. He wondered if it was more in his head.

“Sorry, pal,” he murmured with a small degree of genuine sympathy, watching the Zabrak’s fingertips inch futilely toward his weapon. “Captain Dark and Broody built this room for people like you. Think he made some grand metaphorical comment, some grand imagery. Wasn't really listening."

The Iridonian roared in pain, his markings flaring under the strain. For a moment, it seemed he might push back, and the floor beneath him shuddered as he gathered the Force, trying to lift himself clear. The vault lights flickered under the backlash.

Rex aimed the blaster at the back of the intruder's head and fired twice.

The field then disengaged with a faint, rising whine. The ship’s lighting returned to normal, the faint blue glow of the vault bathing the now-motionless body on the floor.

Rex stared at it for a long second, the acrid smell of scorched metal and blood thick in the air. “Force users,” he muttered finally, holstering his blaster.

He stepped gingerly over to the fallen alien, nudging the man’s arm with his boot to make sure he wasn’t faking it, in spite of the smoking, melted holes in his cranium. When the body did not move, he sighed and keyed the intercom.

“Brick, buddy,” he said, voice shaky but smug. “Trap works. Remind me to send Pasty a thank-you note.”

The droid’s warbling beep echoed faintly from somewhere up the corridor.

Rex flicked the gravity control to lockdown and leaned against the wall, finally letting the adrenaline shake through him. “Alright. One problem solved. Whole kriffin’ city of them left to go…”

For a few blessed seconds, there was nothing but the hum of the ship and Rex’s own heartbeat in his ears. He straightened slowly, cracking his neck, and gave the fallen cultist one last, suspicious look.

“Stay dead, my good man,” he muttered, toeing the lightsaber hilt away into a corner.

Then came the boom.

It started distant - a low, rolling concussion that rippled through the hull plating. Some dust shook down from the ceiling in tiny avalanches. A moment later, another blast followed, sharper and closer, vibrating through the air vents.

Rex’s head snapped up. “Oh, fantastic. That’ll be Reave blowin’ up half the city.”

The third explosion was strong enough to rattle the vault doors. The ship groaned in protest, warning lights flashing amber across the corridor.

“Brick!” he barked, jogging for the hatch. “Patch that hull! Priority one! Don’t care how - weld it, tape it, spit on it, I don’t care!”

The astromech’s urgent chirping echoed back from the corridor as it rolled unevenly past, extending it's lacklustre repair torch. Sparks began to flash overhead as it started sealing the newly cut panel.

Rex slapped the intercom. “Useless, lock down the medbay - anything that leaks or smashes, I don’t want it airborne when we take off.”

“Understood,” came the holodroid's deadpan voice. “Please avoid excessive crashing this time.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Rex grumbled, sprinting back toward the cockpit. He slid into the pilot’s chair, flicking switches in rapid succession. The freighter’s engines coughed once, twice, then rumbled to life — that familiar, disjointed thrum like an old bantha waking from a hangover (one of the less pleasant things Rex recollected from childhood).

Outside, the stormlight over Bespin had deepened, flashes of orange lightning now strobing infrequently through the mist. The view beyond the viewport looked like a furnace coming alive.

“C’mon, girl,” Rex muttered, fingers flying over the console. “We’re gonna need every watt of thrust if we’re gonna pull this off.”

The comm panel pinged a proximity warning. He glanced at it, frowning. The sensor showed movement; not just the blasts from the city, but shifting masses all along the upper docking platforms, and his jaw tightened.

“Ah, kark it,” he muttered, throwing the final toggle to power the main repulsorlifts. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

He leaned back into the seat, the hum of the engines swelling beneath him. The lights across the console shifted, and the Red Raptor began to rise, slowly, carefully, the deck vibrating as it peeled away from the platform.

“Hang on, Mantis,” Rex murmured under his breath, watching the flames bloom in the distance where Reave’s explosives were still cooking off.

The freighter banked hard to port, turning its prow toward the burning sprawl of the city, toward the chaos below where the rest of the crew fought.

Rex adjusted his grip on the controls and muttered one last time to the ship itself: “Alright, sweetheart… let’s go be stupid.”

TBC

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