Timbra Ott, fifteen years ago.
The smoke hangs heavy in the air, mixing with the morning fog to create a heady cocktail that reduced visibility to little more than twenty meters. The air is cold, and every exhalation mists in the air, barely visible amongst the smog that seems to permeate everything. Sound is muted, but you can still hear the occasional scream or blaster shot from somewhere in the distance. The food riots have been going on for two years now. Two years since the food supply on the Timbra Ott prison colony, forgotten by the galaxy, ran out.
The planet is a barren, shattered rock with no soil capable of supporting vegetation. The only shelter from the winds and the cold is in the colony itself, a shattered pre-fabricated construction of ferrocrete and durasteel completely free of any aesthetic value. The only reason that any sentient life exists on the planet at all is because when the Republic looked throughout the galaxy for a planet truly inimical to sentient life, where they could dump the worst criminal scum in the galaxy and forget them, Timbra Ott outshone every other shit-hole in the galaxy as the worst of all.
As he peered out from a small crack in the pile of rubble he had concealed himself in, the young Sam Dunn had to admit that Timbra Ott was truly the asshole of the galaxy. That made him, by definition, the shit hanging out of it. His face was caked in soot, dirt and dozens of little scars, and his blue eyes darted around in his head like a paranoid beast of prey. The large room, originally a mess hall, appeared to be as empty and silent as the blackest depths of space, but still Sam did not dare move.
Something told him not to.
His patience paid off as a large creature, a Barabel from the looks of it, stalked silently into the room from the hole where a pair of blast doors had once stood. The scaly, reptilian creature had the rolling, predatory gait of a cold-blooded killer, but that was nothing new on Timbra Ott. Only the meanest survived two years of food riots, and from the red around the creature’s muzzle, Sam guessed that it had come to the realization that there was a food source that remained readily available on Timbra Ott.
The other convicts.
Barabels, Sam knew from bitter experience, had retractable claws and thick, scaly skin that was akin to armour. Not even the riot stun-blasters were able to slow them down. He tightened his grip around the improvised shiv that he was holding. The only way he was going to be able to take a monster like that down was if he managed to punch the blade all the way to the hilt in an armpit or under the chin…and he didn’t see that being very likely, given the creature was so tall, he’d never reach. Better to sit this one out.
He slowed his breathing and remained very still, like he’d learned. Hopefully, the Barabel would just pass through and not notice him. The sooner the creature moved on, the better. Sam hadn’t eaten today, and if there was a Barabel around, he wouldn’t be able to. Big scary lizard creatures with retractable claws tended to scare off the local prey.
He saw the creature glance at the direction of his pile of rubble, and stopped dead.
Don’t move a muscle. He thought to himself, hoping like hell the creature didn’t notice him.
”Hello, little crrreature. I sssseee you. I’m hungrrrry.”- OOC:
- WC so far: 600 words.