entryone

Synopsis: Terrans find their way into the Star Wars Universe. This is mostly background info on how it was that 'Ria ended up in Maul's hands.

I awoke in darkness. It wasn't the bruises littering my flesh that had woken me up; it wasn't the skittering sounds I kept hearing in the cell's corner. It wasn't the dampness, and it wasn't the chill that kept making my bare and lacerated skin shiver. It wasn't even the manacles biting into my wrists.

It was the rough tongue that was slowly licking its way up the back of my leg.

I know, where was normal when I needed it? I hadn't seen anything approaching normal for a good six months now, but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself...

Earth is gone, you know. I don't know the name of the species that wiped it out, but I have a sneaking suspicion that, whoever they were, they were in the pay of the Hutts. Nasty creatures, the Hutts. Lucas wasn't far off in how he "imagined" them, and it makes me wonder where he had been getting his information from.

Yep, you heard me right. Hutts and George Lucas. The "Star Wars" universe is real, people, and it was right next door, under our noses, so to speak. Well, there we were, just being our happy, oblivious selves, and then one day a bunch of alien fighters attacked us. The world governments put up one hell of a fight, I'll give them that, but what got humanity was our inability to band together and cooperate. Our fighter pilots got thrashed, and then the aliens proceeded to wipe out the headquarters of every government on Earth, as well as most of the more populated cities. I know for a fact that Detroit was one of the cities that burned

Most of us that survived the initial attacks did so because we either lived in the less-populated areas, or we were smart enough to hightail it out of the cities when the attacks began. Me? I'd just gotten lucky. I had gone upstate to visit some relatives, and the aliens attacked while I was on my way back home. I ended up being a bit better off than most of the people I ran across, by the simple virtue of being armed. I usually carried two knives in wrist sheaths, and one in each of my boots. I am a firm believer in the concept of "be prepared". Handguns can be useful, but carrying one is a little too close to premeditated violence for my taste. On that particular trip, I had only taken one of my wrist knives, and one of my boot knives with me, as well as my scythes. I had been planning on leaving the scythes at home (locked up with the rest of my weaponry) as I didn't expect my cousins to get that out of hand. But, my baby cousin had begged me to bring them with me. By the time I had managed to find my way off of the expressway and into one of the national forests (hey, there is something to be said for taking the scenic route), I was glad that she had.

I remember driving down the expressway when the station I'd been listening to suddenly turned to static. I'd flipped through all of the channels, but most of 'em were out, the people having either fled or died, until I ran across a station coming out of Detroit, and I'd had to pull off the road to keep from running off of it. What the DJ had described...it was chaos. Aliens had landed on Earth, they had knocked the satellites out of orbit, and they were not only destroying Detroit, they were, as far as he could tell, either executing people or dragging them off. He admitted that he had been hiding in the basement, and only knew what was going on by having watched everything on his stations' security cameras. But, the aliens found even him, two hours after I'd pulled off of the road, still numb with shock. I remember his screams...

I left my car then. To go back to Detroit would've been suicide, and I'd already wasted two hours that I should have used to make myself scarce. I went back to my car's trunk, and got out the bare minimum that I could take with me. My wrist knife went on; my smaller knife, kept for emergencies, was already in my boot's lining; hidden, so that even if a cop patted me down, the cop would've had to strip me to find it. My scythes...they had been a gift to me, when I was twelve and my teacher felt that my arms were finally developed enough to train with them. I had caressed the metal, nicked and worn by use, but still shiny and sharp from my care: had run my fingers over the symbols etched into the blades; a tiger on one, a dragon on the other; tiny matches to the small tattoes that I have on my back.

I slid them into my belt. and unzipped my jacket so that they were covered, but I could still reach them. I got back into my car, and carefully drove it off of the side of the road, hiding it in the brush. I didn't know if I'd be coming back for it or not, so I left it unlocked, the car's keys in the visor. Without looking back, I got out of the car and made my way into the woods.

I managed fairly well in there, for a few days. I could find what I needed, and the few people I ran across left me alone once they found out I was armed. But, the aliens still caught up to me. I'd been sleeping in a tree, and the sound of alien chatter underneath me woke me up. Two soldier types, wearing camouflage and well over seven feet tall, were quietly arguing with each other. At least, I think that they were arguing: they sure weren't speaking English, and though my Spanish isn't great, I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that they weren't speaking that, either.