STAR WARS:
THE INFECTION WITHIN

Dedication to Joe Schreiber for ideas from his books Star Wars: Death Troopers and Star Wars: Red Harvest

Main Characters:
Kane Ti'rha- Prisoner, Tal's Younger Brother
Tal Ti'rha- Prisoner, Kane's Older Brother
Sergeant Tilan- Imperial guard
Brin Kahran- Bounty Hunter, Prisoner
Vok Salu-Imperial Commander
Kous Haran- Prison Thug, Prisoner
Chapter 1








Prison

"Accessing file 53801...processing...data found...location; Asteroid 1389, Prison stronghold, The Lockdown, coordinates 219?, 83?." the central computer said. "Identification is required to proceed."

Vok Salu, once a mandalorian, drafted to be an Imperial, had finally become a commander of the lockdown. "Commander Salu." said Vok.

The computer took a while to process what he had said. "Welcome back commander. Requests?"

"Scan all floors." said Vok

"Scanning floors." Once again taking a while to respond. "Floor 1-A clear, 1-B clear, 2-A clear, 2-B clear, 3-A clear, 3-B clear. Scan complete. All unauthorized personals are locked up sir."

"Good." said Vok, "How about our air supply?"

"Approximating 3 days of oxygen left."

Vok thought for a second, trying to remember what the drop off time for their air supply was, "Wasn't our oxygen tanks supposed to arrive 3 hours ago?"

"Affirmative."

"Try to contact that drop ship and see where they are."

The computer started to scan for the drop ship. "Commander I have found the drop ship. Their communications are down and there is no reading of any life forms on board. The ship is still proceeding this way."

Vok, still trying to understand everything was trying to think of something to check on the ship. "Can you access the data base on board the ship?"

"Affirmative commander, proceed?"

"Yes proceed on doing so."

The computer, while going through the data base, was pulling up many files on the screen. Then it stopped. "Commander I am in the data base."

"Check for any logs from the pilots."

"Commander there are no pilot logs submitted."

"Impossible! The pilots must record a log every hour. How long has the ship been activated?"

"The ship has been activated for 4 hours."

Strange, it's either these pilots are just plain stupid or something happened, thought Vok, I'm pretty sure everything will be alright.

Or at least he hopes so.

Chapter 2







The Boys

"Yeah and you stay on the ground if you know what's right for you." said Kous Haran, the prison thug, "And if you do come back to this area again, I swear you definitely won't be walking ever again."

Kane, only 12, was being held in the prison stronghold with his older brother Tal, age of 19. Hoping to get back to his cell the fast way was a mistake though. Kous had a thing against them, but if there was one thing he knew about him is that he was scared of Tal. He had a fear that Tal would stab and kill him like how he did to the last prison thug.

"You do know that Tal will come after once he finds out." Kane said trying to scare Kous in any way he could.

"Ha, what does that matter? I'll take him on along with you. You might think your brother is all that but guess what kid? He's not. He's a pathetic wimp."

Kane was trying his best not to get up and ATTEMPT to hit him. But he knew if he tried it would end really bad. Luckily one of the prison guards and the Sergeant prison Tilan came around. "Hey what's going on here?" said the guard.

"Nothing sir, just having a friendly conversation."

"Well you need to get back to your cells right now." said Tilan.

"Will do" said Kous and him and his "gang" left. Kane then left and headed toward him and his brothers cell. He could tell his brother would be pretty mad when he tells him what happened.

First thing Tal asked was "Where were you?"

"I got held up"

"By what? The officials? Please tell me it was the guards and not the Kous gang."

"Yeah, but-"

"But nothing!" Tal interrupted, "You know those guys will mess you up big time if they get the chance."

"Don't worry about it. Tilan showed up before they get do a lot of harm."

Tal didn’t put up with the Kous gang. He believes that if that had a chance, Kane would be dead in no time. No hesitation.

"Ok fine, but try not to even let them get close to you."

"Yeah, yeah whatever Tal."

"No you need to take this seriously Kane. If you don’t I swear-"

"I know you swear you’ll kill me yourself."

They are good brothers but lately they’ve been at each other's throats. Most of it was because of their dad’s death.

Tal finished the conversation with "Fine let’s just go to bed it is lights out anyways. Tomorrow is another day."

And tomorrow was definitely going to be a different day for all of the people on The Lockdown.

Chapter 3







A New day



Vok not only had to keep track of all the prisoners, but now he had to look over the delivery of the oxygen tanks.

The flight deck captain was keeping track on where the ship was. "The ship is about 200 clicks to the south sir."

"Good. Is the inspection team on their way?" said Vok.

"They are about 50 clicks to the east."

"Good, good prepare for their arrival captain."

"Will do sir."

About 10 minutes roughly, the inspection team arrived. An hour later the drop ship arrived.

The inspection captain asked Vok "What exactly are we inspecting?"

"Check for anything suspicious on board and any radiation on board."

"Ok sir, whatever you want us to do. But I don’t think we're going to find any radiation on a drop ship."

Vok didn’t like the sarcasm coming from the captain. He grabbed him by the collar, "You listen here, something went wrong on this ship and I don’t want to get anything off that ship until it’s checked." He released the captain.

The captain staggered backwards and straightened himself out. "Alright, fine. Give us a few minutes."
*******


The inspection team boarded the ship and started to search every area. No readings were coming in until they got near the cabin of the ship.

"Captain we have a small reading coming from the cabin."

"Probably nothing lieutenant. Just keep checking."

"Sorry to correct you sir, but the change in radiation is 15.0+/-."

"Then let’s check the cabin for anything." said the captain.

The team entered the cabin. The place was in ruins. The seats ripped up, controls were sparking, and the smell of decay in the air. They could kind of make out the look of blood on the ground leading to a storage unit.

"I don’t think we should look in that storage unit."

"Sorry lieutenant, but you heard Vok. We have to check everything.

The captain went and opened the door. It led down to a bigger area, probably where they were keeping the oxygen tanks. They headed down that way. There was an eerie feeling in the air.

"Sir, I have a bad feeling about going down there." The blood led down towards the area where they were heading. They could hear something like chewing and a gargling sound. They got to the end of the stairs, rounded the corner, and saw one of the most horrifying things in their life.

"WHAT IN THE HE-." The lieutenant was cut off by something and his teammates heard the sound of a snap. They turned to see him on the ground with a broken neck and one of those things standing over his dead body. It looked at them with yellow and rotten dead eyes.

The other one that was eating the ripped up body turned to look at them and growled. The only word that came out of the captain’s mouth was "Run."

Him and the private took off up the stairs while the things screamed behind them.

"Let’s go private were almost there." He turned, expecting to see the private right there but all he saw was one of the things dragging him down the stairs.

"CAPTAIN! HELP ME!"

He just watched the private get dragged down and turned to exit out the door. As soon as he opened it he felt teeth sink into his neck. As he fell he caught a glimpse of writing on the wall. It read: WARNING DO NOT OPEN DOOR TO STORAGE. DEAD ARE INSIDE. I WILL BE JOINING THEM AND I KNOW THEY DO NOT KNOW HOW TO OPEN DOORS. PLEASE, HEED MY WARNING. Now he understood why the blood led to the storage. Now he knew why there was a sign of radiation. All he could think of before he lost all vision and thought, was that the door was open and these things could out.

Now the infection was free and now began the fight for life and freedom from the prison.
Chapter 4







What To Do
When Facing the Dead


It had been a few hours and Vok had given the flight deck captain the responsibility of making sure the oxygen tanks were delivered to the Air Supply room. He had his own duties to take care of at that time. Now he was standing in the Air Supply room, furious, waiting for the flight deck captain to respond

"Captain, respond now, this is urgent." still no response, "We need those oxygen tanks now."

Vok was now too fed up with this. He headed toward the hangar to go see what was holding up the oxygen tanks. When he arrived at the deck he saw the deck attendants were unloading the oxygen tanks. This definitely bothered him. One of the attendants noticed him coming their way and walked towards Vok, he could tell he was angry.

"Sir, let me explain."

"NO! I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ANY STORIES RIGHT NOW!"

"But sir, if you just give me a sec-"

"No I do not have time for this. Where is the captain?" asked Vok

"That's what I'm trying to tell you." said the attendant, " We came to check on him and he wasn't here."

"Well, where is he?"

"We don't know sir. He never contacted us of where he was going."

This all wasn't adding up to Vok. Not only was this ship under bad condition and the deck captain disappearing, but the inspection team never reported to him or came to get their pay from him. "Well for the time being, take the tanks to the oxygen reserve and I'll make sure they get put in by the engineer's. Then go look for the captain. Understood?"

"Affirmative sir. Where will you be in case of needed contact?"

"On the command bridge. I have things to attend to."
*******

Unloading the tanks wasn't entirely the hard part because they were already taken off the ship. Though lieutenant Jones, the attendant that talked to Vok, found it suspicious why the doors on the ship were closed. But moving the tanks was just as hard because the tanks weighed at least 500 pounds, just a thought of the weight.

"Hey lieutenant, ever get the thought that you're being watched when we're walking to the reserve?"

"Private, I always feel like I'm being watched wherever I am on this damn ship."

"Ha, yeah I guess that's true."

In the silence though, there was sounds of gargling and creaking of metal, and the deck attendants could hear it at times. After a while the private brought it up again.

"No really sir, I think someone is following us."

"Why would someone want to follow us private?"

"Well I guess-"

"There is nothing to guess private. No one is following us, end of story. So stop being paranoid."