Waking the Dead

Posted on Wed Apr 15th, 2026 @ 8:19pm by Kalen "Rex" Vickers & Mentis

4,097 words; about a 20 minute read

Chapter: Chapter IX: The First Verse
Location: Mos Entha, Tatooine
Timeline: Dusk

The street had settled into an uneasy, sick rhythm that came with the loss of light in this dead city. Shapes lingered in the alleys now rather than retreating from them. Movements that had been sluggish under the suns had found a steadier cadence, feet dragging less, bodies carrying themselves with a crude, growing intent. A few drifted without direction, colliding with walls or each other before correcting in small, irritated turns. Others had begun to cluster, drawn toward the same narrow stretches of shadow, more animated before. They no longer hid in darkness, but claimed it.

Something shifted near the old Vickers workshop. Not a sound at first - more a change in the air, subtle but sharp enough to pull movement toward it. Heads turned in uneven sequence, and one figure stopped entirely, posture tightening, its ruined features angling toward the boarded entrance.

Then, came the fizzing snap-hiss. It cut through the street with sudden violence, a hard, electrical report that did not belong to blaster fire or machinery. For a fraction of a second, everything nearby stilled, caught between motion and whatever instinct remained.

Light followed. Blue, clean and unnatural against the dust-choked gloom, it flared once within the workshop and spilled in thin lines through the gaps in the boarded windows. It held for only a moment, but it was enough.

The nearest figures reacted at once. Movement surged toward the source, no longer drifting but converging, bodies snapping into a faster, more deliberate pace. More shapes answered from further down the street, drawn in by the same signal, the same sudden rupture in the dead, rot-filled air.

As the infected gathered around the space, the door did not simply open - it blew outward.

Hunks of metal from the door, as well as various pipes and fragments that had been used to reinforce it, were flung in all directions, buffeting several of the undead clustering around the doorway and pinning one to the ground under a larger fragment.

From the doorway, shimmering blue dust and sand particles blinded the hungry eyes from what lay on the other side save from a bright rod of vibrant cyan plasma that hovered in the air. But they were not deterred, wrenching themselves forward towards the newly-formed entrance with rabid desire. One reddish-pink Twi’lek male lurched forward, only to be caught by a red laser bolt on his bulbous forehead and dropped to the ground.

Several more rounds followed, taking down those foolhardy enough to swarm the doorway before the blue plasma swung forwards and Mentis’ pale figure erupted through the settling particles and swung his mighty beam of light down upon a larger encroaching figure, a Gamorrean. The weight of the plasma burned smoothly through the mottled flesh, bringing the beastly figure down to the ground. Mentis retracted the blade, which spluttered slightly with the strain but continued to burn brightly.

Mentis dared to pause and sweep his gaze across the small square, formed on the corner where several roads intersected. His brow furrowed as he shouted back, no longer caring for the noise he made.

“I can’t see the rancor,” his voice echoed back as Rex’s familiar face peered cautiously out of the doorway, sideburns twinkling with sweat catching the pale light, “Stay behind me and keep em’ peeled.”

Rex stepped out just enough to take in the square, blaster still raised but no longer firing, eyes moving quickly across the bodies, the angles, the routes. The dead were already shifting again, filling gaps, dragging themselves over the fallen without hesitation. The air stank of heat, scorched flesh and that deeper rot that never quite left since they had arrived.

Then, his gaze settled on the newly-forged hilt, on the work they had just done. For a fleeting second, something almost boyish flickered across his face. A quiet, crooked satisfaction. He let out a short breath through his nose and gave a small, approving nod, eyes tracking the roughly-hewn weapon.

"Not bad," he muttered, just loud enough to carry. "Not bad at all." His eyes stayed dipped toward the hilt, to where he knew the peggat now sat buried within it, doing its job. "Told you it'd hold."

There was a trace of smugness there, subtle but unmistakable, before it faded just as quickly as it had come. The moment passed, swallowed by the sound of movement returning around them and Rex’s expression tightened. He stepped forward another pace, boot nudging the smouldering remains of the fallen Gamorrean. The body shifted with a wet, heavy drag, the burnt wound still faintly glowing where the plasma had cut through it.

"Big entrance, glowing sword, yelling orders..." he said dryly, glancing sidelong at Mentis. "All you're missing is a cape and a bad reputation. Some would-be gangster around probably rolling in his grave you beat him to it."

Another shape lurched into the edge of the square and Rex snapped his blaster up, dropping it with a single, efficient shot before it could close the distance. He did not watch it fall. The humour bled out of him as quickly as it had surfaced. His eyes moved again, faster now, scanning rooftops, alleys, the gaps between buildings, and listening. The nervousness was coming back.

Something big was still out there.

"Don’t see it either," he said, lower now, of the rancor. His jaw tightened slightly as he flicked a glance toward the darker end of the adjoining street, where the shadows ran deeper and the movement thicker. "We’re burning time," he went on, more firmly. "That cooling rig at the port isn’t gonna fix itself, and if that thing’s still breathing, it’ll find us soon enough."

He shifted his stance, angling himself slightly off Mentis’ shoulder, covering a wider arc as more of the dead began to press in from the edges of the square.

"Old quarter’s behind us now," Rex added, voice steady, slipping back into that practical cadence. "We cut through the side streets, stay tight, keep moving. No getting pinned, no stopping unless we have to." Another distant, warped bellow rolled faintly through the streets, low and heavy enough to be felt more than heard. "Yeah," he muttered under his breath. "There you are."

His grip tightened on the blaster as he flicked his eyes back to Mentis for a fraction of a second.

"Alright, Mantis Hotshot," he said, a thin edge of that earlier humour returning. "You're up."

With a firm look in his eyes, Mentis nodded back, "You got it. I think we've got a fighting chance thanks to your old dad."

With a small, but genuine smile thrown back towards Rex, Mentis jumped forwards, blade in both hands making fast but careful strikes with the unfamiliar blade. His form, sometimes fittingly referred to as 'The Way of the Sarlacc' flowed through him with stability much like the stabilised energy in his blade.

Every so often, he would release his hand to push or throw an opponent, before sliding back into the smooth motions. Before long, they had almost made their way down to the end of one of the longer streets, leading back towards the spaceport. Their adrenalin raced, but they had managed to keep the claws and teeth of the undead horde well away from their flesh.

But then, another bellow. This time from behind as the terrible beast tracked their path of destruction back to them.

Mentis looked back and saw it: the undead rancor hauling its massive frame upright, bones grinding beneath patches of greyish, leathery hide. One clouded eye lolled uselessly, but the other, more animated orb was fixed on him. A low, guttural rasp leaked from its half‑slack jaws, more like air being dragged through an empty cavern than any living roar. Then it lowered its head, claws gouging furrows in the dirt as its hulking body tensed in a series of jerking, spasm‑like shudders. It was preparing to charge straight at them.

"Oh kark!" Mentis exclaimed, eyes wide and desperately searching the narrow street edges for cover, "We're penned in here."

He motioned to Rex urgently, "You start running to the end there and get out of its way. I'll try to slow it down so just call me brave or stupid now then start pegging it."

Rex did not argue. "Yeah," he said quickly, already moving, voice tight but steady. "Brave. Definitely brave."

He took two steps as if to follow through, then his eyes snapped upward instead, catching on the sagging line of old awnings strung between the buildings to his left. The fabric hung torn and sun-bleached, but the support poles and brackets were still intact. He veered hard, boots skidding in the dust as he broke toward the wall.

A thin, long-limbed figure lurched into his path from a recessed doorway, jaw hanging loose, arms reaching. Rex did not slow. His blaster came up and fired twice in quick succession, bolts punching through its chest and shoulder and spinning it aside into the stone. Another shape followed it out, smaller, faster, something with too many joints in its limbs. Rex caught it mid-leap with a third shot that snapped it backward into the wall in a smear of blackened fluid.

He hit the first awning pole at speed, planting a boot against the wall and hauling himself up with a grunt, fingers catching the metal strut as it groaned under his weight, and he silently cursed his lack of fitness regimen. Sand and dust cascaded down as he dragged himself onto the narrow support frame, boots slipping once before he found purchase. From there, he climbed higher, scrambling onto the upper brace where the awning met the building, gaining just enough elevation to see back down the street.

Inwardly, he was screaming again. He should have just run and hidden.

Behind the Rattataki, the rancor had started moving. The charge began in a series of violent, disjointed spasms, its massive frame jerking into motion as if dragged by something inside it rather than driven by muscle. Then, momentum took hold, and the creature surged down the narrow street with terrifying force, smashing through anything in its path. Infected bodies were flung aside like debris. One vanished beneath its bulk with a wet crunch, whilst another was struck by a swinging forelimb and hurled into a wall hard enough to burst apart on impact.

Its broken foot hit the ground wrong, twisted and crushed beneath its own weight, bone visibly out of place beneath split flesh, but it did not slow nor even falter.

Black, viscous fluid poured from its mouth and nostrils in thick strands, flinging outward with each ragged exhale, spattering the ground and the walls as it came. The remnants of old shackles clung to its limbs, lengths of chain snapping and dragging behind it, clattering wildly against stone. The street seemed to narrow around it as it thundered forward, its bulk filling the space, its claws gouging deep furrows through stone and sand alike as it bore down on him.

Rex adjusted his stance above, bracing against the strut, tracking the line of the charge, jaw tightening as he calculated distance, timing, angles.

Below him, he could see Mentis holding fast; half crouched his his fizzling blue blade now held in one hand outstretched to the side. As the necrotic rancor continued to rage towards his companion, it was painful to see Mentis holding still like an clueless womp rat in the laser sights of a skyhopper. A part of him wanted to cry out and warn him, even though he knew Mentis was well-aware of the approaching beast.

His eyes flicked from the rancor to the Rattataki, the saccades growing shorter and shorter until, as the creature's claw wrenched towards Mentis, the young man's body seemed to flicker and he was suddenly in the air, travelling above the charging beast as though walking along the wall of the narrow passageway. His boots skimmed the wall, barely finding purchase as the Force hauled him upward. He dipped the blade as he passed, the plasma biting deep with a hiss like boiling fat. A horrible, gut-wrenching scream erupted from the creature at the impact and it began to topple forwards; its claws no longer finding its prey before it.

Mentis dropped out of the air a moment later, landing hard behind it. His knees buckled as he landed, the Force abandoning him as abruptly as it had surged. The tranquil dance was broken and Rex saw him panting as his head shot around to see if the rancor would get back up. However, he was interrupted quickly by more shambling figures approaching.

Rex let out a breath he had not realised he had been holding. For a fleeting second, something close to a grin broke across his face as he watched Mentis clear the charge, the blue blade carving its mark and the beast’s momentum finally betrayed by its own mass.

"Show off," he muttered under his breath, relief bleeding through the word despite everything.

The grin had not fully faded when something moved above him.

A scrape and shift of weight on the rooftop he had just climbed, but he did not have time to turn. The impact came from behind and above, a wiry, half-rotted body slamming into him with enough force to tear his grip from the strut. For a split second the world tilted, sky and stone spinning together, and then both of them went over.

They hit the ground hard. The air was driven clean from Rex’s lungs as his back struck the ground, the shock rattling through his bones and leaving him stunned, vision flaring white at the edges. The creature landed with him, tangled in limbs and rags, its weight pressing down as its head snapped forward with a wet, broken crack.

Rex sucked in a ragged, useless breath as clawed hands scrabbled at his jacket, the thing’s jaw hanging wrong, unhinged at an angle that should not have worked and yet still snapping blindly for his throat.

"Get... off!"

He drove his forearm up into its neck and twisted hard, managing to fling it sideways just enough to break the immediate pressure. The creature hit the ground beside him, rolled once - and began to rise again immediately, joints resetting in small, sickening jerks as it dragged itself upright.

Rex tried to push himself up, but his arms trembled, strength not quite there, lungs still refusing to fill properly after the fall. He got halfway to his feet before dropping back to one knee, one hand braced against the dirt as he fought for air.

Shapes were already turning. The nearest infected, drawn by the fall, the movement, and the sudden proximity, began to converge. Heads snapped toward him in uneven sequence. Bodies that had been shambling a moment before found direction again, their pace quickening as they closed the distance.

Rex’s eyes flicked between them, still low, still trying to recover, his blaster coming up a fraction too slow as the first of them broke into a lurching run.

"Kark..."

Below him, the sound of the sparking blade whipped through the air followed by the wielder's frantic voice.

"Keep going Rex!" he yelled, as he paced backwards away from his foes and narrowly avoiding a frantic swipe from the downed, yet still animated rancor on the ground, "I'll be right behind you so don't stop."

Rex gave a double glace at Mentis and the approaching figures, spying a couple more infected Jawa leaping up towards his position.

"Yeah," the Human sputtered between catching his breath, then spotting how close a few of them were - close enough to smell. "Yeah, don't need to tell me again!" He rediscovered his legs and started running.

---

Slowed but not yet broken, Mentis pressed on. Now immobile, the rancor's body served as a roadblock for the others and he was able to sprint on, following Rex's path towards the spaceport. Yet, every corner and every doorway spilled yet more snarling figures that dragged themselves towards him with ever-increasing hunger.

He switched to a faster one-handed form, dodging and weaving, only striking when at the furthest distance from the beings. He could feel the creatures more in the Force now, awakened by the darkness: more dangerous, yes, but easier to avoid. Yet, as their numbers swelled, he could not avoid them all.

To his left, a cluster of ravenous Jawas skittered out from beneath a collapsed. Their movements were fast and sharp, giving Mentis little time to react. He swept his blade low and wide, scattering them in a burst of sparks and shrieks. Those not caught by his swipe, vaulted away, peering back at him with their dead glowing orbs.

Mentis panted. His lungs felt sore with exertion and his blade splattered with another unstable crackle.

"Just hold together," he muttered, not certain if he meant the weapon or himself.

He kept running until a comm tower finally came into view: a crooked silhouette against the dim sky. He was fairly certain this was the right way but the streets were unfamiliar.

Then he heard it: a struggle somewhere nearby.

Rex had found a line and was holding it. He stood just off the service entrance to the GalactaWerks spaceport they were seeking, the familiar black and red logo of the Company plastered across it. Great blast doors had been embedded within the native sandstone style, and all of the windows and ports of the large circular port had been sealed with reinforced metal. Whilst no offensive systems, such as turrets, were active or defending the location, power could still be seen streaming through its system.

Rex had his boots planted wide in the sand and dust, one blaster already cycling heat in his right hand while a second blaster he had found barked in his left in sharp, staggered bursts. The rhythm was not elegant, but it was controlled; one firing while the other cooled, switching without pause, bolts punching into chests, heads, joints, anything that slowed the forward press.

A Twi’lek lurched too close and he stepped in rather than back, driving a shot up under its chin that snapped its head back and dropped it at his feet. He kicked the body aside without looking and pivoted, firing twice more into a pair of crawling shapes in GalactaWerks Marines kit dragging themselves through the dirt, limbs missing, jaws still working.

They had come from a nearby hollowed tank that still smoked faintly, its ruined chassis casting long, broken shadows across the approach. Something else inside it shifted and tried to pull itself free; Rex turned quickly, sending a blind shot over his shoulder that silenced it with a wet collapse.

More were coming - they spilled from the side streets in uneven waves, some fast, some dragging, all drawn by the noise. Further out, beyond the immediate crush, came other sounds, thinner but sharper; distant shrieks like the ones they had heard when they first arrived in the city, answering the chaos here, carrying across the darkening Mos Entha like signals.

Rex adjusted his stance a fraction, edging back toward the service door, angling his fire to keep the approach choked. A large Gran pushed through the others, half its face gone, an eyestalk missing. It took two shots to the chest and kept coming. The third, placed higher, dropped it heavily into the sand, where it twitched and still tried to rise again. He stamped down on its throat, using the leverage to wrench his blaster free from its grip and finished it with a final shot.

Then, he spotted the Rattataki.

"Mentis!" Rex barked, voice cutting through the noise as he fired again, bolts flashing past the Rattataki’s approach to clear a path. "About time! Get over here!" He shifted position again, stepping forward this time to meet the surge rather than yield to it, both blasters flaring in quick succession to drive back a cluster pressing toward the entrance. The move bought a sliver of space, nothing more. "We ain’t holding this all night!" he called, not looking back as he fired again, forcing another body down into the growing heap near the door. "Pick it up!"

"Rex!" Mentis shouted the name in relief as he quickly cut down a pair of slower infected that were just starting to turn towards him, "I'm coming."

The crowd thickened the closer Mentis pushed toward the spaceport's main doors, bodies surging forward before collapsing against his bright blade. Every step forward felt like wading against a heavy tide. He kept his blade tight to his body, cutting only when he had to, using momentum and footwork to slip between the infected rather than carve a path through them. The Force thrummed at the edges of his awareness, warning him of every lunge before it came, guiding his weight just enough to keep him moving.

He felt a shift and heard a choking hiss from above: clambering atop the smoking tank was a Gand, or what had once been one. Its dotted eyes were sunken, as though deflated and its respirator hung askew, revealing sharp, bloodied mandibles that snapped in his direction.

With a shriek, it launched itself down into the crowd.

The Force-user brought his hand out in time and slammed it down unto the ground. He pressed into it, but it wrenched and grappled the ground with such frenzied strength that he struggled to maintain the hold as he continued swiping away at the other figures that mobbed him.

"Rex, I can’t hold them!" he groaned, muscles burning as the Gand pushed against his telekinetic grip. He was so close. He could see Rex through the shifting bodies, pinned near the spaceport doors yet, once again, the swarm held them apart.

Rex’s eyes snapped past Mentis and onto the nearby wreck.

The tank was not completely dead. The hull had been torn open along one side, blackened plating peeled back just enough to expose the inner compartments, where something still glowed faintly beneath the smoke. Not power - not clean power - but heat trapped in something that had not quite finished failing.

"Hold it!" he barked, barely audible, already moving. He shifted his stance and fired, not at the swarm, not at the Gand forcing its way forward, but straight into the exposed cavity of the tank. The first bolt vanished inside with a dull flash. The second struck deeper.

A violent, concussive burst tore out from the split hull in a plume of fire, dust and fragmented plating, the blast rolling outward into the clustered infected and hurling bodies aside in a ragged arc. Limbs and torsos were flung clear, others simply collapsed where they stood as the shockwave punched through them.

The pressure hit the Gand mid-lunge, knocking it off balance and slamming it sideways into the dirt. Mentis held in place courtesy of his superior athleticism and Force control.

Rex, however, was barely able to find cover in time before the explosion rocked him, too. Yet, within a few seconds, he was already moving. He stepped into the gap the explosion had carved where infected had faltered and been blown from their standing positions, both blasters up and firing in tight, controlled bursts, cutting down anything still trying to rise within the opening. Bolts flashed past Mentis, precise enough to clear space without touching him, forcing the remaining shapes back just long enough.

"Now!" Rex shouted, voice sharp, urgent. "Through! Move!"

Mentis did not need to be asked twice. He shot through the field of flattened foes and straight at the man, his arm connecting with Rex's shoulder so they both fled onwards in a single fluid movement. Mentis threw a hand forward to cast open the doorway to the terminal building and they flung themselves inside like another explosion was threatening to catch their tails.

Mentis released Rex a moment, quickly summoning a row of connected seats and a ferrosteel barrier and thrusting them against the entryway. There was no knowing how effective it would be but it would at least buy them a moment.

He swung around, his eyes gazing at Rex as they stood, hopefully alone, in a dark, empty terminal. Something about it felt foreboding - like he had just sealed them in their own tomb. Without a clear plan of escape, he might as well have...

 

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