The Old Republic: KOTOR

As soon as you finish the thought, a wave of intense vertigo overwhelms you and your vision goes black. Just as quickly as it came, the darkness vanishes with a thunderous crash and you're jolted awake.

You sit up in confusion as a klaxon alarm blares in your ears, and you find yourself in a crew berthing on the Endar Spire. It appears that your journey is going to begin at the very start of the game's storyline, which suited you perfectly fine. You stretch out your senses across the chaos of the battle and you immediately notice one of the Republic's soldiers, Trask Ulgo, running down the passages to your shared quarters but before he could reach you, a power circuit discharges in a spectacular display of electrical fire and shrapnel, instantly killing him. You held nothing personal against the man, but he was doomed from the start anyway. At least this way he wasn't subjected to a torturous **** at the hands of Malak's apprentice.

Swinging you legs from your bunk, you quickly make your way over to your footlocker and dress in the garb of your chosen profession, the Smuggler. Charming, clever, and roguish, you answered to no one. Holstering your heavy blaster pistol, it was time to get off this tin can.

You quickly press forward when you hear blaster fire echoing through the blast door, a door whose operating mechanism was sparking furiously. Frowning, you raise your hands and reach out with your Godly ****, gripping each end of the offending barricade and, with an outward swing of your arms, rip the reinforced steel open with a screech.

You're met with the sight of two Republic soldiers being gunned down by blaster fire, an attack that soon redirects to you as you peek out into the passageway. Drawing your blaster with a grin, you aim and fire at the two Sith soldiers, your bolts impacting dead center in their visors, instantly killing them. Your journey is soon interrupted when you here a voice over the intercom, a voice you recognize as Carth Onasi's urging all personnel to the bridge to cover Bastila Shan's retreat.

Your journey takes you through another skirmish at an intersection, the fighting once again ending in a Sith victory and forcing you to clean up the mess. You lob a couple fragmentation grenades you've looted from some bodies into the tightest cluster of soldiers, killing them instantly. You then finish off the stragglers with your blaster and proceed further towards the bridge.

As you approach another blast door, you can hear the tell-tale cracks and hums of lightsaber combat. On the other side, you find a Jedi knight wielding a blue lightsaber against a Dark Jedi. You remember her brief appearance from the game; a slender woman with dark hair tied into a ponytail, garbed in the traditional robes of the Jedi.

Back and forth the two clash until the Jedi lands a fatal cut across her dark counterpart's chest. He drops to the floor lifelessly. In that moment, you feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, like a disturbance in the ****. Acting on instinct, you reach forward and grasp the Jedi with a **** pull, yanking her backwards just as the plates she was just standing on erupted in a brilliant display of fire and shrapnel. She slides along the floor and stares at you in disbelief.

"Did you just-"

"No talk time. Fight now," you cut her off abruptly.

Stepping forward, you grab the fallen Sith's lightsaber whilst ignoring the Jedi's protest and make your way over to the sealed blast door leading to the bridge. Igniting the crimson blade in your hand, you plunge center mass into the locking mechanism to revealing a small squad of Sith forces, the bridge crew already dispatched before your arrival. The sizzling heat of a stray blaster bolt flashes past your cheek as you shift your grip upon the lightsaber and hurl it at the closest Sith trooper, impaling him in the chest and sending him to the floor. Within a split second, you draw your blaster and fire off three bolts of your own, striking each soldier in the helmet visor. The lone survivor of the group panics at your lethal display and breaks off at a sprint, smacking desperately on the release to the blast doors leading down the starboard side of the cruiser. He too met a quick end to your gun. A brief lull in the action at last falls over you, broken only by the groans of the hull subjected to intense blaster fire.

"I... suppose I owe you my life," the Jedi accompanying you starts, sheathing her blade.

"You can thank me when we're safely planet-side," you brush her off, to which she silently nods.

With the knight following your lead, you proceed down the passageway towards the escape pods but as you reach another intersection in the ship, the blast doors in front of you slide open with a hiss revealing a second, more powerful Sith.

He stood tall and imposing with his dual-bladed lightsaber humming menacingly, intent to strike the both of you down. You can feel the sudden urge to run coming from you companion and for the time being, you agreed. The Endar Spire wouldn't last long beneath such a furious **** and you couldn't waste time playing around with an overeager Marauder. Drawing your blaster, you fire a pair of bolts into the controls on the bulk head, forcing the doors to slam shut on the furious Sith before he could set himself upon you.

"Nice thinking," complimented the Jedi. "That should hold him off for a little while."

No sooner than the words had left her mouth did a crimson blade pierce through the doors from the other side. Not out of the woods yet. Ushering her along with you, you rush down the passageway, sealing the blast doors behind you as you went to buy as much time as possible. You run into a few more Sith troopers in the final stretch of your escape, troopers easily dispatched by your blaster or your companion's lightsaber and within minutes, you arrived at the escape pod bays to an anxious Carth Onasi waiting for you.

"You made it just in time!" he exclaims. "C'mon! We can hide out on the planet below."

"Don't have to tell me twice," you readily agree, before blaster fire erupts over your head.

It seemed another squad of Sith troopers were hot on your tail, with the Sith Marauder you evaded earlier at the head of the formation, golden eyes burning furiously at you. A cry of pain follows as the Jedi you saved earlier takes a stray bolt in the leg, sending her crumpling to the floor as Carth drags her to cover. Saying a quick prayer to God and the ****, you draw upon your powers and thrust your hands forward, lashing out with an immense **** push that blasts the Sith troopers off of their feet, sending them flying a considerable distance down the passageway. The Marauder, to his credit, manages to remain upright as he crosses his lightsaber in front of him in a guard but he too is sent skidding backwards with his men, giving you enough time to seal the last blast door and join your party in the escape pod.

"Punch it!" you yell to Carth as you shut the hatch behind you, to which he promptly agrees.

You never welcomed a sensation with more joy than the sudden lurch of the pod's launch, the Endar Spire a rapidly shrinking, tumbling mass of steel in the distant black of high orbit, its engines sporadic sputtering finally dying down as all systems lose power. Thankfully, it didn't appear as though any of the buzzing fighters circling the craft like a swarm of wasps was giving you any pursuit. Breathing a sigh of relief, you turn to your Jedi companion hastily strapped into her seat with sweat beading upon her brow. Towards the front of the pod was Carth searching for a medpack.

"Any luck?" you ask him.

"Nothing," he answers with a shake of his head. "We'll have to patch her up when we hit the surface. Strap in. We'll be in for a rough landing."

You seat yourself opposite of the Jedi, finally able to get a good look at a character who was quickly killed off during the game's tutorial. She had olive skin and an angular jaw, framed by dark hair held back in a loosened ponytail. Her robes you noted were much tighter and formfitting than what you normally expected, belying a cut and athletic body trained for battle. She also must be fairly young and inexperienced in her knighthood as you could detect a clear undercurrent of fear radiating from her despite the more calm demeanor she attempted to portray. She held onto her safety harness with a **** grip that turned her knuckles white, and so you lean forward and place one of your hands over hers.

"Michael," you tell her, ignoring her look of surprise whilst sending her calming energy through the contact. "My name is Michael."

"Jaina..." she manages with a weak smile, a smile you return.

Not even half an hour into this new universe and you were already altering the story. A good start. The game was, for all intents and purposes as far as you were concerned, a masterpiece. Experiencing it first hand like this was a dream come true for you, and your mind swam with all the opportunities opening up to you to make an impact... including the opportunity for the story to have an impact on you. Literally. Ripped out of your day dreaming, you barely catch Carth's yelling before a sharp jolt rocks the pod followed by a much stronger shock of your landing. As the whiplash tears through you, your head cracks heavily against the bulkhead and searing pain erupts in your skull, and blackness overtakes you.