R2-D2

The Orchid’s Shadow Darth Scabrous, the academy’s iron-fisted lord — a towering figure in ebon armor, his pallid skin etched with ritual scars, eyes burning like coals — obsesses over immortality. Ancient Sith texts promise it through a forbidden alchemical formula: the blood of a Taung warrior, rare herbs, and the essence of the Murakami orchid, a black, Force-sensitive bloom that bonds with its caretakers. Scabrous dispatches agents across the galaxy, but the perfect specimen eludes him until whispers reach him of one nurtured by the Jedi Agricultural Corps on the verdant world of Marfa. Enter Tulkh, a hulking Whiphid bounty hunter with tusks like ivory spears and fur matted from a hundred hunts. Hired by Scabrous’s emissaries, he infiltrates Marfa’s greenhouses, a serene enclave where Jedi rejects — those whose Force talents lean toward life rather than combat — tend exotic flora. There, Hestizo “Zo” Trace, a young Mirialan Jedi with intricate facial tattoos and an extraordinary affinity for plants, communes with the orchid. It whispers to her through the Force, a living entity of shadow and potential. Tulkh strikes without mercy: stuns Zo, seizes the potted orchid, and blasts off in his ship, the Spiral, delivering both to Odacer-Faustin. Scabrous is pleased — the orchid’s bond with Zo makes it potent, her life force the key to unlocking its power. But Zo’s capture ripples through the Force. Her brother, Rojo Trace — a seasoned Jedi Knight, human, with a scarred face from battles against Sith marauders — senses her peril from afar. Defying Jedi Council orders, he commandeers a stealth shuttle and races to Odacer-Faustin, his blue lightsaber at the ready, driven by familial bond and premonitions of doom. At the academy, tensions fester among the acolytes: Rance Lussk, the arrogant top student, a human prodigy in the dark arts; Jura Ostrogoth, his scheming rival; Kindra, a fierce Zabrak female honing her rage; and others like Scopique, Maggot, and Hartwig, all vying for Scabrous’s favor in brutal trials. The HK-74 droid — a protocol-assassin hybrid, its chassis gleaming durasteel with red photoreceptors — serves as Scabrous’s enforcer, patrolling halls and executing failures with blaster precision. “Query: Shall I terminate the weaklings, Master?” it intones in the recording, its voice dripping with programmed sarcasm. — The Sickness Awakens In the tower’s alchemical labs, deep beneath the ice, Scabrous begins the ritual. He sacrifices a captured Taung descendant, infuses the orchid’s petals into a bubbling cauldron of Sith poisons, and injects the serum into a test subject: a hapless acolyte named Mnah Ra’at, already broken by training. At first, success — Mnah’s wounds heal, strength surges. But then… mutation. His skin blackens, eyes glaze over, vines of dark, thorny biomass erupt from his flesh, twisting like serpents. He screams, not in pain, but hunger — and lunges, tearing into a nearby assistant with feral savagery. The Sickness is born: a virus fused with the orchid’s essence, turning victims into undead abominations — rotting flesh animated by insatiable craving, superhuman strength, and plant-like tendrils that lash and infect on contact. Worse, the infected retain fragments of intelligence, commanded dimly by Scabrous’s will through the Force. The virus spreads like wildfire. Mnah escapes the lab, biting and clawing through the academy. Acolytes fall one by one: Lussk fights valiantly with his crimson lightsaber, severing limbs, but a scratch dooms him; Kindra barricades a dormitory, only for vines to burst through vents. The halls echo with screams, blasters, and the snap-hiss of blades. HK-74 records it all: “Observation: Meatbags are remarkably inefficient at containing biological errors. Addendum: Amusing.” Blizzards rage outside, trapping everyone as the undead horde grows — former students shambling through snow-filled corridors, vines coiling from gaping wounds, their howls a symphony of torment.