#Xera Shaw

[catcucumber-salad]

IMMORTAL HEART Season 1: The Executor

Chapter 3.

The hallways of Sector Zero were nearly empty at this time of night, nightguards and the graveyard shift being the only people walking around like disembodied ghosts in the low lighting. A woman in black and turquoise Mandalorian armor walked out of an elevator. She had her helmet off held at her side as she walked down the hallways aimlessly. These walks were comforting to her better than the great unknown she was being trained for, the unknown she’d refuse to die for, and might die for anyway.

Xera ran a hand through her chin length silver hair as she yawned, it almost 0400 and she hadn’t slept a wink. She brushed off her exhaustion and kept walking, figuring she’d just chug down a gallon of caf at early meal. She passed a few scientists exiting the main laboratory chattering something about a new subject.

Huh, must have been that crate dripping with blood they brought in last night, she thought as she passed the laboratories.

Xera spent the downcycles just walking aimlessly in the facility lately, and she wasn’t the only one who couldn’t sleep. She still remembered when her bunkmate was redesignated a SS- unit. She was sent into the super sublevels and was never seen again. Not long after, the files started popping up on the facility computers… video footage of the new experiments.

It seemed the entire facility had died with how quiet it had gotten since then, everyone dreading redesignation even more than they already had. The graphic carnage that was freely accessible to all of them, of their friends being injected with an unnamed serum and then the entire gruesome process of mutation which inevitably killed the victims in less than half an hour, was definitely a means of control from the lead scientist, a Kaminoan named Aldwa Ztarr.

Ztarr was a sadistic dark empath who used her power and her twin lackeys to keep everyone in line. No one called her Ma’am or Doctor as she rather forcefully demanded to be called “Mother”. One could only dream of why she demanded such. Xera had heard that before she started Sector Zero she was a mother to a force sensitive Kaminoan child, that her daughter was ripped from her arms and murdered, the act driving Aldwa to madness. Another rumor was that Aldwa was so self-centered, she saw herself a goddess, hard not since she also possessed strange unnatural abilities.

Early meal finally arrived as Xera entered the mess hall. She was given a grayish goop on a tray with some rehydrated fruit and bread that looked like a moldy dish sponge. Xera grabbed two cups of caf from the dispenser and went to sit down, by herself as always. She ate slowly, so as not to choke on the truly vile substances given to them as a poor excuse for food and she drank the caf which had the aroma of radioactive battery acid. Vaguely, Xera wondered if Tipoca City had some better food options back in it’s heyday.

After finishing early meal, Xera dumped what remained of her food that she honestly couldn’t stomach down and left the mess hall with her other mug of caf. She walked down the halls, Helmet under one arm and caf mug in the other hand as she passed more and more people as the facility woke up.

She was walking again, but this time it was not without purpose. The door to Aldwa Ztarr’s personal office looked just any of the other ones around the facility, except it just had that feeling around it. She drank the last of her awful caf and threw away the cup before taking a deep breath. Xera pressed the buzzer and awaited permission to enter. After a moment, the door unlocked and slid to the side, allowing her to walk in. “ST-01, I would say good morning, if mornings actually existed this far below” Aldwa spoke, an odd attempt at humor as she looked up from the datapad in her hands.

“Mother,” Xera bit out, bowing her head.

“I have an assignment for you,” Aldwa spoke, “it seems like your persistent requests to be sent out on field missions weren’t fruitless after all.”

Xera felt like an overloaded datapad whose processes just froze up. True, she had been bothering Aldwa for years about getting sent off world, not because she wanted to be useful, but because she wanted to escape the awful underground facility, not like she’d be able to hide from Aldwa or him anyways… “I’m afraid I don’t understand” Xera spoke, not raising her head.

“Soon we will have a success in the Executioner Project, a one in a million SS- unit” Aldwa spoke and Xera felt her gut twist at the cursed designation, “I want you to become familiar with the outside galaxy, you will begin researching as much as you can as soon as you leave this office, and when you leave this planet I want you to volunteer to become a bounty hunter.”

“A bounty hunter?” Xera questioned, “why not move within the shadows? And why me?”

“Because Bounty Hunting has you picking up all kinds of intel, and I chose you specifically for your… interests.” Aldwa spoke, gesturing to the Mandalorian style helmet under Xera’s arm. “Mandalorians are a dangerous people, you will immediately be welcomed into the fold and your combat and killing skills are unquestionable. They will accept you as a Mandalorian without a second thought.”

Xera hummed, that made sense. Deep down she was grateful that Aldwa had taken notice of her interests and abilities and reacted positively, that usually meant better treatment, and possibly a promotion. “I will begin as soon as I can Mother” she spoke and the Kaminoan smiled.

“Very well, you are dismissed.”

Xera was relieved to exit the office and as soon as the door closed behind her, she walked a little faster until she reached the elevators. She stepped inside and pressed a button that lead to the barracks level. Once there, she walked out and headed straight for her living quarters.

The quarters on Sector Zero weren’t as stark and bare as the ones on Tipoca city. Aldwa actually gave them freedom to decorate as they saw fit, so, taking advantage of the lighter rules, Xera had decorated her place with paintings of a forest and green fairylights. She sat down on the edge of her bed as she plucked up her charging datapad and began hacking her way into the Holonet and went straight to the search engine and pulled up several news articles.

“They may be biased and mostly comprised of political garbage, but it’s not a bad place to start…” Xera muttered as she began to read.

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[the-hyma]

Xera Shaw / ST-01

A false Mandalorian who throws herself into the bounty hunting business, nobody knows where she came from or what Mandalorian clan she is a part of, all that is known is that she is silent, deadly, and on a secret mission...

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