The Secondary Saga

[Zack Fair]

Group 1: Christa,Urg,Bucky,Abner

At the end of the hallway there was a room with significantly more space, even if it was just as poorly lit. Abner was able to slow himself to a jog, and then a stop near the entrance of this room, taking a few deep breaths. Somehow he hadn't lost his cigarette in that chaos, but he was already thinking about how he didn't plan on running like that again, if he didn't have to. Even more importantly, though, he just couldn't express enough how much hell he was going to raise when he got back to Coruscant.

Frustrated beyond belief, he turned around to see Bucky and Urg approaching him and immediately frowned. He didn't see Christa anywhere. What happened wasn't too hard to guess: she was either too slow or hadn't paid attention to the blades. Of this group, she was the only one he could somewhat stand, so he figured it was worth it to make sure. Though Bucky had stopped by now, Urg appeared to still be in full sprint. Abner dismissed it as just the zombie getting away from the traps.

"What happened to the gir-"

Abner's question was cut short by his undead companion slamming into him like a freight train. The stormtrooper was stunned by his supposed ally's sudden turn, not to mention his sheer momentum, and he was very quickly knocked off his feet and onto his back, with the creature right on top of him. Abner was jabbed by the dull end of several of the weapons that were impaled in the creature, which he quickly realized was the best case scenario, here. The zombie's snarling jaws were close to his face, and Abner had to keep his left forearm against Urg's neck just to hold him back from feasting on the only being of flesh in sight.

"That didn't take long, you son of a bitch!" the stormtrooper snarled as he struggled against the the zombie, trying to collect his bearings. He could feel blood flowing from his head as a result of his impact with the stone floor.

Abner was furious, yet he immediately knew his own severe disadvantage. Bucky was dismissive, the droid writing off Abner and Urg's interactions as typical human intimacy, although slightly out of place. Abner was on his own this time. He felt the burning of his arm as every nerve in his mutilated limb screamed at the pressure the zombie was placing on it, so shortly after he had roughly patched it up. Luckily, he still had a perfectly functional right arm, which he decided to put to use.

With all the force he could muster, Abner threw punch after punch at the zombie's face, enough that his own fist was starting to badly hurt from the repeated impacts. Urg paused, momentarily ceasing his attempted assault about the same time Abner was deciding he couldn't stand another impact with this thing's skull. The zombie almost looked like it was hesitating and trying to control itself, but Abner wrote it off as the thing being stunned from the repeated strikes to the face. In any case, he knew to act while he had the moment, so he shoved the zombie back and then kicked it in the gut with both legs, which sent it stumbling away.

Urg landed on his feet, and stumbled the opposite direction. Abner, meanwhile, rolled to his stomach and brought himself to his hands and knees, coughing and shaking his head as he did. Abner could only climb to his feet as the zombie appeared to shamble over towards where they had come from.

"Good work, Bucky," Abner groaned, sarcastically. He was so over this assignment. "Solid teamwork."

He couldn't believe what he saw next. Christa was here now, bloodied and battered. How in the hell she had managed to claw her way through those traps after they were deployed was completely beyond him, but she looked like she'd taken a hell of a beating in doing it. More importantly, the zombie had taken the approach of any smart predator, and was going for the easier prey.

Christa was in no condition to stop the zombie from approaching her, having collapsed from her own adventure over the abyss. Urg was nearly on top of her but then, suddenly, he stopped.

Not that it was the undead's choice. His legs continued to move, but his feet simply dragged across the floor and didn't move him anywhere. He looked confused for a second, but a quick glance over his shoulder and he saw the cause.

Abner had grabbed two of the spears protruding from the zombie's back in his hands, and was using all his strength to hold the zombie in place. At the first sound resembling a snarl from Urg, Abner leaned back and spun one hundred eighty degrees, hurling the zombie into the room. He dropped to a kneel, exhausted and drained from the effort it took to try and deal with this thing, but Urg was back on his feet as soon as could be.

Afraid of another inexplicable charge forward, Abner drew his pistol and aimed it at Urg. His sights were lined up and the front bead was right at the creature's center mass. The irony that now he was the one aiming at the zombie wasn't lost on him, but was just thankful that he didn't have twenty people screaming at him to put the gun away at the moment.

Urg, however, appeared to think the opposite. The zombie shambled forward a few steps, but then paused. Despite it's decaying flesh, Abner could see something of a new expression on it's face. It was less aggressive, and though it was still looking at the two humans like they would be a fine snack, it had that same look when it wasn't attacking them.

Abner lifted himself up a bit, staying crouched as he moved back towards Christa. One thing was for certain, she needed help. With the zombie under control for now, Abner figured it would be best to try and get her patched up. He dropped back to his knees beside her.

Slowly, he lowered his sidearm, watching the zombie as he did. He didn't holster it, but instead set it on the ground so that he could quickly have it back in his hands if he needed. Whatever was preventing him from blowing this thing's brains out like so many other mindless drones he'd dealt with in his career was beyond him, but it was powerful at the moment. It was just a zombie, but it had displayed more sentience that he'd ever seen in one of them, which was enough to make him temporarily hesitate. Regardless, his will to live was stronger, and one wrong move would spring him to action.

Abner slung the rucksack around again and carefully pulled the disorganized medical supplies from it. He checked Christa's wounds quickly, noting the severity of them. He wasn't remotely close to being a trained medic, but he could stop the bleeding at minimum. While he got to work on her injuries he kept glancing at the zombie, making sure it wasn't about to lose whatever mind it had again. With any luck, Bucky was keeping an eye on it, too.

"Hang in there, I can help a little bit," Abner said in what passed as his comforting voice. Still, he couldn't help but throw in something a little more reassuring. "One thing about us stormtroopers is we don't leave anyone behind."