Story HourPost your ongoing tales from your campaigns, and read those from others for inspiration. Lots of other RPG boards post "Story Hours", but this is where it started!
I wandered over here a couple days ago from the Rokugan game, and I'm glad I did. Awesome story, keep it coming.
I knew that sig line would work eventually. Thanks!
Note on the game: This is actually where the first adventure ENDED. I don't even remember now why we decided to end it on a 'we're all screwed' type of moment, but it somehow worked at the time. It was also only ever intended to be a one off thing, but everyone got into the characters so much that we decided to keep it going. Of course, it also got a lot crazier(well, the characters did) after this point.
[Did you not say that you were a pilot?] Loki’s voice inquired for the sixth time. Akan was sitting in the cockpit, frantically trying to figure out how things worked. He’d managed the weapons, and that had been the first time Loki had asked about his piloting skills. Mainly because the shots were so wide that it was like a small child was pressing button randomly. Which...technically, was what Akan was doing. But at least he was figuring things out as he was going along. Proof in that lay in the Z-95 he’d managed to shoot down. Well...no, the Z-95 that somehow managed to fly into the shot from the random button and switch pulling. But Akan was going to take credit for it as skill either way...especially with the ship actually questioning his ability. This was why no one ever wanted a ship that could talk.
“Yes, I’m a pilot!” Akan growled under his breath as he looked out the viewport, seeing the soft blue of the sky fading into the black of space, “Just not a you pilot...a normal pilot!”
[I am not normal?] hearing that, Akan sighed. Over their short conversations, Akan had figured out that Loki saw nothing wrong about being alive and being a ship. He did, however, not understand that other ships weren’t like him. It was the metal thing that got to him the most, but despite that he still believed them to be alive. Obviously, no one had ever told him otherwise, and he still wasn’t in much of a mood to believe Akan.
Not answering the question, Akan simply started reaching out for Voort and Jen again. It took a moment, but he found them, sending them a silent message. When you make it out, meet us at...oh, I don’t know. Endor. That’s out of the way enough.
Even in his mind he was rambling at this point. Looking over the maze of switches, buttons, and dials, Akan threw up his hands, “How the hells do I plot a hyperspace course?!”
[Um...you could ask nicely?] Loki said, almost sounding a bit timid and as if he was talking from behind a very large shield to deflect any further yelling at him.
For a long while as Loki wove through the mess orbiting Coruscant, Akan glared at the interior of the ship. Shadow had explained that, like she and Akan, Loki was still a child. The ship sure acted like one a good amount of the time. So did Shadow...well, only when she thought no one was looking. Akan did his best to calm himself down, and spoke a bit more quietly, “Do you know where Endor is?”
The ship suddenly shook violently, and Akan knew the source of that. Looking over what to what Akan had figured to be the equivalent of the scanner, he identified a small picket ship after them. Not too far ahead, moving in to cut them off, was a larger Strike Cruiser. That was not good.
Loki quickly interrupted Akan’s worrying. [Big green moon with lots of trees far away from here?]
“That’s one way to describe it,” Akan commented after rolling his eyes. His worrying soon came back as the Strike Cruiser began to open fire on them, “Um...Loki. I don’t know how strong your shields and hull are, but don’t you think that maneuvering while you plot that course is a very good idea?”
[Oh! Of course! Sorry, I’m just not used to doing everything myself] and then they took a sudden dive to avoid the barrage coming at them from both directions. Akan was doing his best to ignore the insult the ship had probably not even intended, trying to just hold on and pray that Loki could multitask well enough. As they fell away an out of Coruscant’s gravity well, other ships began to bear in on them. Starfighters mostly, and Akan soon was back to pressing the buttons that activated the weapons. He didn’t hit anything, but was pretty sure it scared the other pilots enough to keep them off of Loki. Then the ship shook again, more violently. Loki’s voice returned to Akan’s mind [You know how strong the shields are now...they’re gone.]
“Two shots?!” Akan yelped in panic, wondering if there was any chance of actually getting off of this dream and appearing back in reality with his nice X-Wing...the squardon...Mare...wait, where had that come from? He’d never before even though of returning to that. Strange...but, not the time. Loki was screaming, too.
[They hurt! I’m trying to avoid them but those little ships are making it even more distracting! You could at least shoot better!]
“I’m trying, dammit!”
[So am I!]
[Will you two just shut up and get us out of here in one piece?!] at that voice, both Loki and Akan froze. Well, Akan did, Loki mentally froze, while he continued his maneuvering to avoid being hit more. If they could have, the two of them would have exchanged panicked expressions, and run off to hide, teaming up to find the best spot.
Loki’s ‘voice’ was a near whisper in Akan’s mind. [She’s really cranky when she wakes up...]
[Damn right, I am!] Shadow’s mental voice growled again, and Akan could feel she was getting up and coming towards the cockpit.
Quietly, Akan whispered, “Loki...I think she heard you. Please...please just get us into hyperspace so there’s only one thing trying us at a time.”
At that, the stars extended, and they shot out into hyperspace. Good timing, really. Akan sighed with relief, but Loki’s voice sounded just as worried. [You should hide.]
[I’ll find him.] Shadow’s cut in.
“She will,” Akan admitted, standing up and starting out of the cockpit, only to run right into Shadow. Because he was bigger than her, and she was still a little weak and tired, it sent her to the floor. Shadow made a whimpering noise and Akan felt a quick pain in his tail. She’d landed on her’s....not a pleasant feeling. With a pathetic apology, he reached a hand down to help her up.
Shadow batted his hand out of the way and stood up by herself. When she looked beyond Akan, Shadow noted they were already into hyperspace. Slowly, she seemed to calm down, and Akan could feel the annoyance she felt from being woken up to yelling fade. Her expression softened, and she simply nodded to him, speaking in a much more quiet, almost timid voice, “Th...thank you.”
Akan shuffled his feet slightly, looking to the floor, “You’re...you’re alright?”
“I’m...alright now,” Shadow said carefully, looking off to the side before surprising the both of them and stepping forward to hug Akan. When her mind caught up with her actions, she pulled back quickly, entire body becoming a slight red colour, even her hair. Another interesting aspect of Alraxians. Strong emotions had a habit of affecting skin coloration. She stared at the floor intently, “Thank you.”
Akan just nodded, not completely sure what to do. Finally, he managed to turn back to Loki’s cockpit and speak, “We’re uh...on our way to Endor. I thought it’d be a good place to just...rest for a while. There’s enough uncharted land down there.”
Stepping over to the pilot’s chair, Shadow checked over all the systems and nodded, “It’s a good idea...” she then turned to look up, a smile slowly growing on her face, “Good to know you and Loki get along well.”
“Yes!” Voort growled as he wove the smoking airspeeder between two of the larger buildings at the edge of the city district, “Yes! I said we’re going to jump!”
“You’re insane!” Jen cried, having to yell over the sound of the laser blasts behind them and the fire on the back of the speeder.
In the distance, the folded wings of the shuttle on its platform could be seen. There wasn’t much time left for arguing, and Jen knew Voort was right. There was no way they’d have time to slow down and land the speeder without getting themselves killed. So...jump onto the platform and get the ship up and running and hope that it doesn’t get shot to pieces before lifting off. Again, unlikely.
“I can slow the fall with the Force,” Voort said, his voice growing strangely calm as they neared the shuttle more and more.
Jen was undoing the crash webbing over her and took a deep breath, “I thought they wanted to arrest us, not kill us.”
“Priorities can change,” replied Voort, hitting a few switches and undoing his own restraints, “We’ll pass in a way to need to go out your side. You go first, I’ll hold onto your hand and then slow us both.”
“They’ll see us jump,” grumbled Jen, taking Voort hand anyway and edging towards the side of the closed hatch.
Voort shrugged, “Hopefully it will surprise them so much that it’ll buy us more time.”
Another shot then hit the ship, shaking it violently. The biggest problem was how they were now shaking...not the fact that there were multiple other explosions in the back of the speeder. The ship was rocking so that the sides were moving up and down in such a way that ever few seconds, Jen lost sight of what was below her. Talk about a leap of faith...she glanced over her should to Voort, who nodded but said nothing.
Jen took one deep breath, then hit the switch for the hatch. It opened upwards, sending a huge rush of air caused by their tremendous speed to slam into Jen. She was surprised for only a moment, and then just jumped, not even having heard Voort yelling for her to go because of the roar of the wind. They were probably about thirty meters above the platform. Which meant another few...hundred meters to the ground below if they missed. But it was too late now, they were falling. Voort had pulled her back and grabbed onto her, and looked to be in a state of deep focus. He was...and they weren’t slowing. Jen got no chance to look back, but could hear the roar of the starfighters shoot past them, which was soon drowned out by a very loud explosion. The airspeeder.
The whole time, she was simply watching the platform below, rising up at a very alarming rate. Luckily, it looked like they were going to miss slamming into the shuttle and becoming a nice smear on the ship. Though Jen was starting to think they were just going to make a smear on the platform next to the ship. Then, finally, she felt something. It was like a large wall almost, surrounding them and pushing against the fall. As the force of the resisting push increased, Voort did his best to roll them around so he was under her, meaning he would take the brunt of the fall. Of course, now they were both facing upwards, not able to tell how close the platform was anymore. But they were slowing...hopefully it would be–
Jen’s thoughts were quickly cut off by the hard and extremely painful thud of landing on Voort who’d hit the platform less than a second before her. Pain shot through her spine, then neck, head, and entire body as she rolled across the platform. Her vision was blurry by the time she’d come to a stop, and when a hand grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet, she had trouble standing. Not just from dizziness, but also from the pain the fall had caused. But she didn’t fell all of it...shock hid most of that for the time being.
From what she could tell from the speed she was being pulled along, Voort was in about the same state. Except he seemed to have more willpower than she did. Before she knew it, Jen found herself inside the shuttle’s main cabin being placed not so gently into one of the seats. As her vision and awareness returned, she started to wonder which bones she’d broken. Left leg at least...the shuttle rocked. A laser blast. But it didn’t detonate. Which meant Voort had gotten the ship online and brought the shields up. Not a moment later, the hum of the repulsorlift engines sounded through the hull.
Feeling the ship beginning to rise up, Jen did her best to stand up and got to the cockpit as best as she could. Flopping down in the co-pilot’s chair, Jen watched the skyline of Coruscant fall below them. Voort had said something, but she didn’t hear it. She could barely hear much beyond the sound of the sublight engines, which had kicked in and were sending them out of the atmosphere of Coruscant. They were still being pursued, though Jen’s only notice of this was through the soft rocking of the shuttle as its shields were damaged. Thankfully, the shields were very strong. Though at the same time, Voort wasn’t at all a bad pilot, maneuvering the ship safely out of the way through the few things that the shuttle could manage. The debris and many ships in orbit around Coruscant was dizzying.
Jen caught sight of more than one capital starship angling towards them, with many other smaller ships doing the same. Her head was still spinning and the adrenaline was slowing down, pain and exhaustion returning in its place. She looked to Voort, deep in focus as he tried to keep them alive, and opened her mouth to say something. No words came out, though, and the blackness she’d been fighting back for the last few minutes finally consumed her.
Three months passed. Fast or slow, Akan didn’t take notice. Endor was strangely calm...or at least, the part they’d landed and pretty much camped out in was. Most of the time Akan had spent learning. Delving deeper into the Force, Shadow teaching him how to morph properly, ‘lessons’ in those other things about Alraxians that Shadow kept forgetting to mention, and even sparring. This, of course, was Shadow’s favorite, and she encouraged it as much as possible...though it never reached the point of their first sparring match. The one he’d not forget. Really, it was hard to forget death.
Shadow hadn’t spoken much at all about the Darkwing incident, and this in no way bothered Akan. Just thinking the word sent a chill up his spine. She had spent a good amount of time speaking with Loki, catching up as it were. Even Akan found himself just talking with Loki for hours at a time. It was interesting to hear the ship’s perspective on life and really anything else.
But despite the calm and rest they got, Akan never slept well. There had been no word from Voort or Jen the entire time. Akan had once mentioned going back to Coruscant not long after they’d first arrived on Endor, but Shadow quickly shot this down and Akan had to agree. They were fugitives now. That had been confirmed after Akan managed to link up to the holonet, and found the four of them listed with fairly high bounties. Thankfully, no one had any idea where Akan and Shadow were. The fact that the bounty was still up for Jen and Voort suggested they’d made it out alive, but Akan hadn’t been able to check it since that first month. To him, it meant the two of them had made it off Coruscant, but beyond that, they were off the scanners of the galaxy.
Sighing, Akan stepped around one of the larger trees, glad for the relative warmth of the forest moon. It meant he could wear a pair of trousers and the morphsuit and be nice and comfortable. Shadow only wore her morphsuit, and Akan had attempted that, but found it was just too awkward. He felt like he was walking around without anything on. This, he’ learned, was no trouble with Alraxians, as there weren’t the same stigmas against going without clothes due to the very young members of the species being all...fur covered. Shadow, still a child despite everything, had some of these old instincts wired into her.
Shadow...something...his mind went crazy. Not only the Force, but the link too. Thankfully, he’d learned to recognize that feeling in the past months. Quickly, he dove to the ground, hearing a loud crack against one of the trees next to him. Rolling to his feet, Akan bent low and looked at Shadow’s foot mark in the tree trunk. She wasn’t in as much of a playful mood this time...again, the feeling exploded in his mind. This time, Akan didn’t move, but planted his feet and put up his arms where the Force told him to. It was exactly where it needed to be. Shadow’s foot connected with his arms, and he slid back in the moss covered ground from the force of it.
She landed on the ground softly and only for enough time to push off again, diving at him with claws extended. Akan ducked enough that her extended arms went high, and he reached up to grab her wrists. Getting a good grip, his own claws extended into her wrists. A shadow pain shot through him but he had learned to deal with it in minor instances or if he was prepared. Using Shadow’s momentum, he pulled her around and over him, throwing her to the ground face first. She hit hard, a few small rocks and sticks adding to the bad landing, and as she attempted to get up, Akan was on her. His knee dug hard into her spine, and he held her down with an almost casual move.
Shadow struggled, but got nowhere. After a few moments, she sighed, stopped moving, and grumbled, “That wasn’t any fun.”
“Not in the mood today,” Akan said quietly, getting up and idly walking down the small path more. She wouldn’t have wanted his help getting up anyway. He’d learned to simply not offer. After a short walk, he found himself in front of a small, but fairly deep creek that was a good source for water and baths(as Loki had none). Akan sat down on the bank, letting his legs hang into the water and ignoring the heaviness that the trousers accumulated from the water. Despite his body’s aversion to cold, the cool water felt good. Soothing was probably the correct word.
[What’s bothering you this time?] Shadow’s voice invaded his thoughts as she approached from too far away to talk. She seemed to enjoy using the link more than her actual voice anyway. [Voort and Jen, again?]
His tail flicked slightly, getting a little dirt in it which would drive him crazy later. [No...just remembering what today is.]
“Oh?” Shadow asked as she plopped down next to him, kicking at the calm water to entertain herself, “What is today?”
Akan hung his head a moment, looking at his reflection in the water, yet against seeing how much he’d changed since the day should even matter. But for some reason, he still remembered it, and it still mattered. Slowly, he said, “Mare would be twenty two today.”
Shadow stopped kicking at the water. She knew about him and Mare. Or at least, how he’d seen it and from that, Shadow learned yet again that humans were both crazy and stupid. Especially when it came to emotions. Mostly, she dismissed it as a male thing, but that was most likely because Shadow had not had such intimate access to a female mind as she did with Akan’s. One thing she did know, however, was that she wasn’t good with this. She tried an old standby that had worked before, “Max never told me how old he was...”
Max. Akan had learned a lot about him in the last few months. He had been her smuggling partner for years. A human, from her description likely middle aged, with the usual roguish qualities that most smugglers had. But despite that, he was genuinely a good man. Shadow remembered him much like a father, teaching her about things she’d never experienced. Mostly emotions. As an assassin for so long, she knew nothing beyond what was necessary for her mission. But he’d died, killed by a group of Imperials who’d busted negotiations for shipment of gems. Shadow escaped, and not a month later found Ansion.
Akan had simply nodded at what she’d said, knowing that Shadow meant well just didn’t know what to do. He turned to her and attempted a smile, but failed, “I truly miss those days.”
Now he was getting even more depressive...Shadow knew that wasn’t a good thing. But yet again, she wasn’t sure what to do. Ah ha! She had an idea. An evil grin(well, all her grins were evil) appeared on her face, and she put a hand on his back, “Always one good thing to clear memories of the past!”
Then, she pushed him into the water. Sure, it was okay to be slightly cold on the legs, but being dunked like that. Akan yelped in surprise but was cut off when he went other. When Akan resurfaced, his blue stripe was shining brightly and there was a scowl on his face as Shadow laughed. Distracted as she was, she didn’t have a chance to defend herself when Akan reached up, grabbed her, and yanked her into the water, making sure to dunk her and smiling proudly before she pulled him under and dunked him again.
Moods changed quickly with Alraxians. Akan had gotten used to it only to a point...and the playfulness just was something one had to deal with. No matter how cold the water was, it satisfying to know Shadow was suffering as much as he was...even though she could hold her breath much longer than he could without cheating. In this case, that meant morphing.
Arik Landau had served in the Imperial Navy for longer than he could remember. Considering he had felt old for at least ten years now, that was a long time. He sighed and ran a hand through his slightly grey hair, stepping over to look out a viewport, seeing the endless tunnel that was hyperspace. Such a common sight, yet the galaxy seemed to have forgotten the amazement that had once come with such travel. Children still felt it. Landau wished he did. To him, though, it had grown to be the calm before the storm.
For the first time in his life, Landau was glad to have left the Empire. He’d seen too many young men die. He’d been the one to send too many of them to those deaths. He’d ordered the deaths of too many innocents. Not once in his life had he truly accepted the Emperor’s New Order. Yet still, he’d served as the perfect example of an Imperial Naval Officer. Now, he wondered why. The why had always been there, yet he’d managed to bury it with his strong sense of duty. But the more men that died, the more ‘inferiors’ killed, the more that the question of why had grown more and more. When he finally had become fed up with the lack of an answer, he left the Navy.
So now he stood in a small Lambda-shuttle, with another former Imperial Officer and an Alderaanian native. By both, he should have hated. Yet they had come to him for assistance. Landau always repaid his debts, and he owed his life to Titus Voort. So he had no real choice other than to provide what the man had asked for. A ship. Navigation charts. Latest New Republic warrants. The last of which, Landau had gone through much trouble to get a hold of, and finding Voort’s name up fairly high on it, he decided to go with them if only to find out what his old friend had done to anger the New Republic so much.
“It’s a miracle you don’t have every bounty hunter in the galaxy after you,” Landau commented, turning to look over to Voort, who was sitting in one of the bucket seats in the small main cabin. The woman, Jen Zaarin (interesting that she held the same name as one of the Grand Admirals, however no relation was likely, as the Grand Admiral had not been an Alderaanian), sat next to Voort, her blonde hair a mess and a look of pure exhaustion on her face.
Voort just shrugged, “Obviously, the bounty hunters are smarter than they look.”
Landau just nodded, tugging at the collar of his grey tunic, “You should have come to me earlier, Titus.”
“It was hard enough finding you,” Voort commented with a grin on his face, “You’re better at hiding that I’d have thought.”
“All you had to do was exactly what you did,” responded Landau, “Just leave that message on the old comm frequency. You know I’m always looking for an excuse not to sit around.”
“Even back in the old days you hated it,” Voort said, laughing shortly.
“Yes, well, those days ended for both of us,” Landau’s voice changed to a more somber tone, “Never thought I’d be going back to Endor though. What could you possibly want to do on that rock?”
“Hopefully,” Jen spoke up, sounding just as tired as she looked, “Hopefully there are friends waiting for us.”
Voort nodded, but Landau was the one to speak, “Those two you told me about, I assume. You think Sadrak is still looking for them?”
“I doubt it,” Voort said.
Jen gave him a stern look, “I don’t.”
“Either way,” Voort glanced to Jen a moment, “They need to know where he is.”
Landau sighed and stepped over to look through the empty cockpit and the viewport again, speaking over his shoulder, “You mean, where we think Sadrak is.”
The sound of Voort standing up was one that was hard to identify unless you had years of experience. It was not as much a sound really, as a lack of sound where one should have been. Landau could identify easily, and Jen was getting good at that also. Voort took a couple steps over to the other side of the cabin, saying, “Its out of the way, lightly populated, and off most of the charts. Not only that, but according to his file, its his home.”
“Files can be altered,” that was Jen. Strange though, as she had agreed with Voort on the matter up until that point. Though she was right, files could be altered.
“Not these files,” Voort said a little too arrogantly, “They were part of the Emperor’s private records. He gave them to me when I was assigned to watch Sadrak.”
Jen nodded, a smile slowly creeping onto her face, “I just don’t like deserts.”
Landau sighed again, nodding. He didn’t either. Without a word, he stepped into the cockpit and had a seat in the pilot’s chair. Noting the chronometer he leaned back and closed his eyes. The planet Arranis. It was a small world not all that far from Endor, bordering the Unknown Regions. About the same time as the start of the Endor project, Arranis had been used as a garrison planet. It was not rich in natural resources, simply in land. A never ending desert that some would liken to Tatooine. Those who did so, had never been to Arranis. The planet was three times as hot and dry as Tatooine. There was not even enough moisture for vaporators to pick up, and specially designed equipment could barely get enough for drinking water. Among those who knew of Arranis, and that number was few, it was synonymous with hell. And if the planet wasn’t bad enough, the natives were vicious. Landau had served there for three months before being transferred to a Star Destroyer at Endor. In that time, he’d learned that the natives could not be dealt with peacefully, and he’d tried many times. Out of that brutal, bloodthirsty environment, Sadrak had come.
Honestly, it explained a great deal about the Inquisitor.
[You’re sure its them?] Akan asked, running through the trees to get back to Loki. He’d been wandering the forest attempting to get into trouble. His childish efforts to get into trouble soon devolved into plotting how to cause trouble, but this was cut off by the fact that there was no one around to notice beyond Shadow, who would help him, and Loki had gone on talking about someone broadcasting a message.
Shadow was already back to Loki, having gotten the message and calmed the somewhat panicked Loki who’d liked being all hidden in the trees. [Akan, I think I know Voort’s voice by now. Yes, its them.]
Well, if Akan had worried about Shadow after the Darkwing incident, it was hard to tell if anything was wrong with her. She was back to her usual cold, barely filled with emotion, yet childlike when she thought no one was looking self. Akan was also finding himself getting back to whatever normal would be, though he found himself dwelling more and more on the past. Why, he wasn’t sure, but it was causing him to be jumpy and Shadow was getting annoyed with him more easily than usual.
[Where are you?!] Shadow’s voice sounded distracted [Loki’s ready to go already and if you don’t pick it up we’re leaving without you.]
Akan could see Loki, and noted that while the hatch was open and waiting on him, the general air was that of a ‘let’s go let’s go let’s go!!!!’. As he got to the ship, stepping in and taking a breath as the hatch sealed, he looked around. [What’s the rush?]
Before Shadow responded, they’d started to lift off of the ground, trees and other branches that had grown over Loki in the last months snapping easily. Akan started towards the cockpit and he was halfway there by the time Shadow said anything. [Sadrak’s alive.]
The would have stopped Akan dead in his tracks if he’d not expected it. But Shadow was the only one who didn’t actually know, and having assumed him dead, she’d not picked up on any of Akan’s thoughts on the matter. Of course, she was trying to ignore most of his thoughts anyway because they made no sense to her at all. He said nothing and simply continued to the cockpit. When he got there, he climbed into what had soon become ‘his’ seat on the left side(which was one of those things that bothered him for some reason, as he’d been used to most pilots sitting on the left of the ship and he wasn’t piloting...) and looked to Shadow, “I assume they know where he is.”
Shadow nodded, her attention out the viewport as the moon’s atmosphere faded away into the blackness of space. Not too far above them, the gas giant of Endor could be seen, and Akan just hoped they wouldn’t be in orbit too long. There were stories about the forest moon’s orbit where the Emperor had been killed, and Akan wasn’t one to test the truth of them. Turning his attention away from the dead of space, he caught sight of a metallic glint. As they got closer, Akan identified it as a Lambda-class shuttle. His. Well...Jen’s, but Akan had been present at the buying of it and had lost his Y-Wing in the process. He claimed the left wing, at least.
A voice came over the comm, sounding strange. Akan quickly realized it was because Loki was alive, all of his systems were just slightly different. In the case of the comm, the normal crackling and distorted voice was non-existent, instead sounding much more fluid and watery. Because of that, it took Akan a moment to recognize Voort’s voice, “Transmitting the coordinates to the planet now.”
Akan turned to Shadow again, “I don’t even get a hello?”
He received a glare from Shadow, and she’d opened her mouth to say something when Jen’s voice interrupted, “Hello, Akan.”
At that, he smiled proudly. [Ha.]
[Shut up.] Shadow’s glare intensified to the point where anyone that wasn’t made of the same stuff she was(literally), wouldn’t have survived the burning pain from it. Quickly realizing it was having no effect on him, Shadow gave him a mental punch(which actually hurt somehow) and turned back to the viewport. When Voort’s voice sounded on the comm again, Jen could be heard laughing quietly to herself behind him, “We’ll meet you there. Its better to explain all of this in person, anyway.”
Then the comm shut off. Voort was as military as ever, it seemed. After only a few minutes, the shuttle turned, and shot off into hyperspace. So much for the ‘how are you?’ that went with the ‘hello’. Akan sighed and leaned back. When his eyes closed, he allowed his mind to wander and before he knew it, they were in hyperspace and on their way. He had a feeling that when Voort and Jen met up with them(if it ever happened, of course), that they’d at least talk about what had happened before jumping off into another adventure. But then again, he’d forgotten to think about both Voort and Shadow.
[She doesn’t mean to be like that all the time, Akan] Loki said interrupting his train of thoughts and even figuring out where it was leading. The ship wasn’t a Force user in that sense, just very good at figuring out people. Especially, Akan, it seemed.
“Shut up, Loki,” Shadow grumbled, also leaning back in her seat.
[You know I’m right.] the ship responded, a little too quickly if it had been anyone else. But Shadow wasn’t one to claw at her own ship until it cried.
She just looked up at the ship and then closed her own eyes. Unlike Akan, she didn’t let her mind wander. Honestly, she had no idea how to. All her life, she’d been perfectly controlled, no emotion or action coming through that wasn’t planned ahead. It was how she had been brought up. It was impossible to be any other way when you were a real killer. But she wasn’t brought up that way...she was a clone. She wasn’t Marix BlueIce. She was Shadow...Alrax...both worked, as they fit who she was. Slowly, her controlled thoughts started wandering without her realizing it as she started to wonder if her family knew. If they did, they wouldn’t have let her live...
Slowly, she opened her eyes and turned to Akan. He was asleep. Sitting up, Shadow sighed and tried to relax. What of him? Everything would have been just fine if she’d not given him that body. But now...could they really justify killing her now? Maybe they did know...but clones were never allowed to live long enough to have their own Nothlit. She’d complicated matters far too much. The worst part of it all was that she was fairly sure she wouldn’t be allowed to live. It wasn’t as if they could just undo what she’d done for Akan. So now, despite how hard she’d tried to escape it, she was back to being a killer.
To make all of that worse, Sadrak was still alive...as was the Darkwing. Buried. Something that strong could not be killed, and barely controlled. Shadow struggled to keep it down and had a little success. But every few nights she’d not allowed herself to sleep for the worry that it might come back. And yet again, her thoughts returned to Akan. He should have just killed the Darkwing. It was the only way he could have done so and lived. But, of course, he was idealistic and always thought people could be saved. Turning her head, Shadow glared at him again.
[I’m glad you’re okay.] Loki’s voice made her jump slightly, but it calmed her thoughts and a smile slowly grew on her face. At least, no matter what, she had Loki.
Arranis sat in the blackness of space, orbiting its nearby blue star. Three of the four moons could be seen, misshapen rocks that was long ago Arranis’ sister planet. Technically, they orbited Arranis III, though since it was the only habitable planet in the system, it was normally referred to as Arranis. The tan colored planet held no clouds in its sky, only long and winding tracks of different colored sands and rocks could be seen. Within the largest of the rocky regions was the small, Imperial Garrison town of Haladin. However, it was no longer the home to that Imperial Garrison that once was the back door to Endor. Now, the only occupants of the town, and the planet as a whole, were the two native peoples.
One, the true natives to the planet, were a small in number species of reptilian humanoids calling themselves Topsiders. It was assumed they call themselves that because of their refusal to hide from the sun and natural predators of the planet below ground shelters that the other inhabitants of the planet used. The Narani were near humans, likely to have once been colonists in the early days of the Old Republic. Both groups coexisted well, simply ignoring each other and trading when it was required.
Landau had explained all of this to both Voort and Jen, also trying to explain to them how important is that the understand the most important thing about Arranis. The lack of water. It was worth more on Arranis than a Corusca Gem would gather on any of the Core Worlds. There was just enough to live on, but that kept the numbers of both groups very low. When the Empire had set up their garrison, they had brought a huge supply of water...which was quickly raided. As were the subsequent supplies of water. No matter how well it was guarded, the natives managed to get to it. Landau expected this kind of treatment the second they landed, no matter where it was. Because of the lack of traffic to the planet, a single ship would be an easy sight, and considering the last encounters with offworlders, they would be expected to have a good amount of water on the ship.
“We’ll head close to Haladin,” explained Landau as he brought the shuttle closer to the planet’s atmosphere, “There’s a good amount of valleys and such near there, so we should be at least mostly hidden.”
Voort was sitting next to him, watching the sensor readings with interest. Behind Voort, at the small comm station, sat Jen, who was relaying the information Landau was giving them to Shadow in Loki not far behind them. Landau figured that if Sadrak had returned, he’d first go to Haladin. Even though it was no longer under Imperial control, it was the only real organized city on the entire planet and was perfect for making one’s presence known among the natives. Voort failed to mention to Landau that Sadrak probably didn’t have a physical body, but either way, Landau assumption was likely correct.
So the first leg of their hunt had started. Voort found it interesting how set on it Jen had been. She was fairly pacifistic, though liberal with that as Alderaanians were, yet she seemed more set on finding Sadrak than he did. Even after a short talk with Akan, he’d sounded set on finding Sadrak and dealing with him. Of course, this didn’t mean Voort was against finding the Inquisitor, he was simply surprised at the two other’s reactions. Especially Jen’s.
All of their thoughts were cut short by an alarm that went off in the shuttle’s cockpit. Voort cursed and said, “Something’s getting a lock on us!”
“Haladin had turbolaser batteries on the ground,” Landau said, starting to weave the shuttle through maneuvers that were never meant to be made with it, especially within the ever growing gravity of the planet’s atmosphere.
“You forgot to mention this, why?” Jen asked flatly from the comm seat, strapping in and holding on at the same time. She was also avoiding looking out the currently spinning viewport. Landau was a good pilot, yes, but even the best pilot pulling these maneuvers with an aging inertial compensator such as the one in the shuttle would have trouble not getting sick.
“They were in pieces!” Landau growled. In a moment, bright green bolts of turbolaser fire could be seen rising up from a section of the dark rocky region below. The desert itself was directly below them as the shuttle dove at a near ninety degree angle, with the rocky regions that were the source of the turbolaser fire able to be seen through the upper section of the cockpit’s viewport. The shuttle suddenly pulled hard up, leveling off slightly and narrowly avoiding another barrage of fire.
“Friendly greeting,” Voort grumbled, holding on and trying to pinpoint where Haladin was. He could see some metallic glints within a valley, and at least four or five sources of the turbolasers surrounding it. They were expected. Or, someone was and they’d gotten caught up in it. Unlikely. Landau maybe? No...Voort knew he could trust Arik. So the best assumption to make at this point was that Sadrak knew someone was coming.
Then, as they got close enough to see more detail in Haladin, the inevitable occurred. The three of them had been expecting it, so there was a disturbingly eerie lack of emotion when they took the first hit. It was dead on, and completely knocked out the shields. Luckily, if you could call it that, at least two of the batteries had taken aim and were firing on Loki instead of their small shuttle.
Landau had managed to keep control of the shuttle, this time pulling it to the side in a roll, trying to come in towards Haladin closer to the eastern edge where the rocks met with the desert. He managed to maneuver around three more close shots when they were hit again. The left wing, Akan’s wing, took the hit, sending the ship into a spin and knocking off the wing completely. There was no way to keep control of the ship in the spin they’d managed, and all Landau could do was try to keep them from hitting any rocks. Voort was out cold, having hit his head hard on the console next to him. Jen was watching the spinning mess outside the viewport. It was impossible to tell what was what, except for when the sky came into view, a small dark shape could be seen briefly. Loki.
“Hold on!” Landau said, stating the obvious thing to do in such a situation. Jen had no chance to respond or even to grip the console in front of her tighter. There was a sudden, extremely violent impact from the back end of the ship, which was followed by two more and a roll. By the time Jen distantly heard a third explosion above her, she could feel blood on her forehead. It didn’t last long, as another violent shock occurred, sending her head into the console and pulling her into blackness.
“You could have explained how these things work!” Akan growled as Loki attempted to pull up. Yet again, he was doing the ‘press buttons that are probably weapons and hope’ routine. Except this time, it worked even less than before. They weren’t even firing this time, and Shadow said it was something to do with how the power was being routed to keep them alive. Keeping them alive apparently meant wild maneuvering and Akan wishing he could pilot because he was much better at this than Shadow was. Shadow was getting ready to yell something at him, but a loud explosion that rocked their ship could be heard. But it wasn’t Loki. As Loki pulled through a tight roll, Akan caught sight of the Lambda-shuttle spinning in a fiery mess before slamming hard into the sand below.
Sand was thrown up so it was impossible to tell the damage that was caused by the impact. However, Akan could still feel...something. So at least something was alive. Though, it could just as well be a native creature in the general area that had managed a lucky escape. But there wasn’t time to pay attention to that. Now, all of the turbolasers took aim on Loki, and hits on them were easily distinguished by painful sounds from Loki and the shaking of the ship itself.
“Hang on, Loki!” Shadow said through clenched teeth, trying to bring them down low over the rocks at the edge of the sand. It managed to keep three of the turbolasers blocked by higher rocks, but another two still had good sights on them. This was made apparent by a hard hit to Loki’s aft region, getting another mental yelp from the ship which was suddenly muffled and cut off when two more shots hit. The lack of restraints had surprised Akan, and now he was holding on to the edge of the chair tightly, claws digging in a little. Amazingly, when Loki’s nose caught a rock and they tumbled into a violent roll through a cloud of sand, the claws in the seat actually helped keep him in place.
Loki made no noises at all, and Akan assumed that the ship was unconscious. It didn’t cross his mind that it may not be possible FOR a ship to be unconscious. The continued jolts from what were likely rocks went on for another three minutes when they finally hit something large and hard in front of them. With that last jolt, they stopped. It was then that Akan’s equilibrium caught up with him, and he realized Loki was firmly dug in on his side. There was a long, strange silence before a yelp from Shadow and a ripping noise from both seats. The first noise was Shadow’s claws losing their grip, and the second was Akan’s losing their’s as Shadow fell onto him, sending him out of his seat and pinned against the consoles that were at one point, on the wall. Akan managed a whimper from hitting his head, but after having the finer points of morphing ground into him by Shadow(especially since she hated him getting hurt and letting it linger because she had to feel it linger), he remorphed the cuts and simply whimpered at the crushing mass of Shadow that was pinning him to consoles that were not designed for comfort.
Shadow made a grumbling noise, and got up. Of course, she got up by pushing down on Akan, getting a curse and a kick(which missed) out of him. She did her best to step on the less sensitive consoles, finding a section of the wall outside the cockpit that felt safe to stand on. [Loki...?]
Nothing responded.
When Akan got up, he noticed the lights and such were all out. He followed her to the hallway and said, “I think he’s out...”
Shadow just nodded, starting towards the hatch, which she knew was going to be buried from how they’d landed. Akan followed her quietly, then said, “I think we hit in the rocks instead of the desert.”
Shadow nodded again as she knelt next to the hatch that was now at her feet, “The last hit sent Loki spinning towards a canyon. I think we found the end of it.”
The hatch irised open to sand. Lots of sand. Shadow and Akan sighed at the same time. She looked to him, but said nothing. He knew she was going to do...and what he’d have to do. Shadow changed noticeably, her shape becoming hard to distinguish as she shrunk down to the same feline form she had used many times. She’d called it an Alarix. Distant cousins to Alraxians. Akan was starting to get tired of all the naming conventions being so similar, but that wasn’t nearly as annoying as the blue motif which, surprisingly, had not shown up in at least a month.
The large cat like creature padded to him, pawed at his leg, then turned back and started digging through the sand. Apparently, Alarix were very good at digging. As Shadow soon demonstrated. Though after a good sized tunnel was made, she padded back over to him, growled, and pawed more roughly. She wanted help.
[Damn right, I want help.] Shadow’s voice grumbled before going back to the digging. Akan sighed, and gave up on his procrastinating. He had no problem with basic remorphing of injuries and such, but something still bothered him about not being...well...him. Even though, of course, he hadn’t been himself as he was born for a while now. Sure, Shadow had taught him how to do it, and he was good at it, but he didn’t like it. Was it really surprising to want to stay in one body? To Shadow, apparently it was.
So, he was soon right next to her, a second feline with the metallic blue stripe assisting in the digging and trying to ignore the strange smells and such that the more sensitive nose was picking up. Thankfully, Shadow had nearly finished on her own, so it took only another few minutes to get to the surface. Akan was immediately morphing back to himself as he climbed out of the hole and dusted himself off. She was right. There were in a large canyon, rocks all around a random cliffs everywhere. After being growled out for attempting to help Shadow out, he stood back and looked to Loki. The ship looked as bad as the general area. Long scratches, almost painful to look at, twisted across Loki’s hull. Across the ground itself, many small pebbles and rocks were scattered. That finished the explanation of how many rocks they’d hit.
Shadow made a whimpering noise as she inspected Loki. Akan, however, was looking down the path they’d plowed through while trying to ignore the large black scorch marks near Loki’s aft. Off on the horizon, he could see a large amount of sand still in the air. It was impossible to tell if that was from the shuttle or Loki’s crash. He sighed and turned back to Shadow. One thing at a time.
“Will he be alright?” asked Akan, knowing Shadow knew to which ‘he’ was referred to.
Stepping back, Shadow gave Akan a strange look. Worry, “I don’t know...”
Akan just nodded slowly, “I’ll help where I can if you explain things.”
She picked up on his other thoughts easily, “Jen, Voort, and that Landau...”
“Will have to worry about themselves for now,” finished Akan as he looked over Loki one last time. It was a choice between friends, and he had chosen Loki. Not because Loki was worth any more than the three humans, but because Voort would likely be able to take care of the rest of them. This all depended on the fact that they were alive, but Akan did his best to completely ignore that variable for the time being.
After a long half hour of work, Akan had given up. Of course, he didn’t mention this to Shadow, who was still diligently cross...well, not cross wiring as much as cross veining. Yet, all they ever got out of Loki was a dispassionate moan. Then, back to the nothing. Shadow was getting more annoyed at the lack of anything working. After finishing with what Shadow said were some neural cords(which worried Akan to touch), Akan wandered off to gather a couple of things. Namely, blaster and lightsaber. Of course, the once easy walk back to the room was now extremely complicated along the walls. The worst part was that his room was now the floor, so he had to open the door, and jump down to the opposite wall.
At least he had it better than Shadow. She would have to climb up into her room, and considering the width(now height) of the corridor, that would have been an interesting sight for someone of her height. He wasn’t stupid enough to mention that one to her, though. Akan had been surprised to find the furniture all in the same place, but then realized that Shadow mentioned it was attached. So, he pulled on the belt, jacket(not that it was cold), and then looked up. He looked up and cursed.
The first problem was one that was simple. The room was very large, putting the hatch a good distance above him. That could be solved by climbing onto the front section of the upright bed, which he did to find that a good jump would get him up to the right height. That is, if only the hatch hadn’t closed. That was the second problem. A small part of him was laughing at the situation, but the rest of him was doing its best to ignore that and find a way to open the hatch. He’d jumped once, slipped off the bed frame on his horrible landing, and fallen back against the ‘floor’ head first.
There was a pause as the dizziness subsided, then Shadow’s voice suddenly sounded in his mind. [What did you just do?!]
Akan cursed again. He should have thought of that, too. Obviously, she’d felt the fall, and she didn’t ‘sound’ too happy about that either. Very carefully, he ‘said’. [Just...um...can you come back here and give me a little help?]
[I’m busy.] Shadow replied with a good amount of venom. Which meant she was probably doing something she thought would work. For what? The tenth or so time now.
Akan sighed and got to his feet, shaking his head and then carefully climbing back onto the bedframe. [We can’t do anything for Loki right now. He’s alive. We need to go find Jen and the others.]
[Fine...] Shadow sounded more reasonable than he’d expected. For a moment, Akan latched onto part of a thought that Shadow had fought back. She was going to add something to that...but no, he couldn’t figure out what. He also wasn’t going to ask, as Shadow had gotten annoyed at him asking questions like that lately.
In another minute, the hatch above him opened, and Shadow’s head looked down at him. The grin on her face was nearly concealed by her hair, but she was glad it was short enough so he could see the stupidity of the situation from her eyes. Which he could. Which made her grin more. There was a long silence, then, finally, Shadow smiled and reached an arm down, “You’re an idiot.”
He growled, but said nothing. Carefully, he jumped, hoping he wouldn’t have to come back down at attempt another landing. Thankfully, grabbed onto her arm, and she pulled him up. Once he was on his feet again, he gave Shadow a curious look, “You didn’t let me fall.”
That got a shrug out of her, “It hurt enough the first time.”
Then, she walked off towards the hatch and their makeshift tunnel. Akan stood there for a long moment, knowing something was wrong with what she’d just said but not able to pinpoint it. She rounded a corner when he realized what it was, and kicked the ‘wall’. [You were outside the whole time!]
In the distance, beyond the corner Shadow cackled. Akan allowed his instincts to get the better of him, and charged. Her head glanced around the corner just in time to see Akan about to round it. She yelped, turned and sprinted towards the hatch. It was still open, and the sand was strong enough here to hold the tunnel they’d dug out earlier, so she had no trouble sprinting out into it. Akan was right behind her. In fact, he was so close behind her that the second she stopped, he plowed through her and flattened her into the sand.
She cursed and pushed him off, but didn’t get a chance to sit up. The reason she had stopped had moved closer, and was now holding large, outdated looking blaster rifles aimed at the two of them. Akan followed the barrel of the blaster to the holder, noting they were all roughly Shadow’s height, wearing heavy wrapped robes and cloths that were as dull colored as the planet looked from orbit. Under the heavy hoods, masks covered their faces, though there was a transparent section over the eyes. Akan noticed that the transparent material became opaque when their heads turned so that the sun was in the way, but as they were mostly looking down the barrels of their blaster rifles, eyes were easy to see.
One of the figures spoke, muffled and in a language Akan didn’t recognize. He also couldn’t figure out which one of them had spoke. Another responded, and one of the blasters motioned towards Shadow. Akan and Shadow exchanged glances. [I don’t know what they’re saying but I don’t like the pointing of weapons at my face...]
[So we’re done just laying here, then?] Shadow responded, sounding happy and like a kid that just got a new toy.
Akan allowed the robed figures a few more moments to speak, but then two more blaster rifles were aimed at him. The voices were also sounding more hostile, and the general tone of things was getting worse. Akan was going tell Shadow to wait another moment, but the quick, almost hard to notice, image shot through his mind. One of the blaster rifles fired. As quick as it had came, it disappeared and Akan knew it was meant. There wasn’t time to say anything, and he instead rolled to the left, a blast bolt sending the sand, where his head had been, up in a cloud. He was getting to his feet when he heard another shot, and caught sight of Shadow also moving. As his hand went for his lightsaber, there was a painful sounding crack from behind him, and he took no time to see Shadow cracking the neck of one of the figures.
An arm grabbed his own, stopping him from drawing the weapon on his belt. His other hand grabbed the arm, and he tossed the attacker over him and to the ground. The butt of a blaster caught him across the face a moment later, and before he could recover from the blow, a strong fist slammed into his spine.
Shadow, on the other hand, was having no trouble at all. The second she’d rolled out of the way of the shot, she dug her claws into a an ankle then pulled the body down onto another. She flipped back, landing on her feet behind two others. Spinning around, Shadow caught a hand thrusting at her with a long, sharp knife. Twisting the wrist, there was a sudden crack and the knife fell to the sand. Another came at her from the second figure, and she reacted by pulling the figure she still held into the path of the knife. The blade thrust into the back of the figure’s neck, and Shadow ignored the red mess in the face mask. She pushed up off the now dead figure’s shoulders, landing gracefully behind the knife holder. Her opponent was quick, almost as fast as she was, and reacted by spinning around and sending the knife in towards her neck.
Her arm came up and she pivoted to the side, parrying the strike as best one could do without a weapon, which was impressive. But no one was keeping count, especially when Shadow was too busy again pivoting, this time away from a kick and returning with her own. The side of her foot caught the figure across the head, shattering the mask and sending the figure into the sand. Shadow took no notice, instead turning to see two others bearing down on Akan. He was on his knees, and took a hard blow to the face from a knee. Feeling the echo of the pain, Shadow winced and dove forward, claws extended. The figure was surprised, and was therefore easy to take down while digging her claws into its neck. By the time she was getting ready to move to the last, Akan had remorphed the broken nose(which was odd to see the blue colored blood on the sand with no source left) and swept the feet of the last figure out from under him. Before Akan could stop her, Shadow pounced and killed the figure.
Sighing and letting the adrenaline rush fade, Akan stood and looked over the bodies around them, “Should have left one alive to figure out what was going on.”
“It would have been pointless,” Shadow commented, almost sounding like a droid, “We could not understand them and could not have gathered any information,” a pause, then her voice returned more to normal, “You should be more careful.”
“Hand to hand combat isn’t my speciality,” Akan said with a weak smile, “I’d suggest we bury these bodies in the sand just in case anyone else drops by.”
The attackers had been human. Or at least, extremely similar. Akan couldn’t tell any physical differences, but then again, he wasn’t an expert on species. To add to that, all of the attackers had been bloodied enough that it was even harder to tell, especially the one that had taken a foot to the face, then claws to the neck. It had been a mess to move it. After kicking over the last of the sand to cover the blood on the ground, Akan turned to Shadow, “The shuttle’s going to have hit a long way back there.”
Shadow nodded slowly, looking back to Loki for a long moment and then to the streak in the sand created by the crash, “Lets get this over with...I don’t like leaving Loki alone.”
Starting forward, Akan looked along the canyon that they’d assisted in carving. On the left, the rock wall went up at least thirty meters, but likely even more than that, with many jagged sections, smaller cliff faces, and cave formations. To the right, it fluctuated more, from even higher than the opposite cliff face to a few large boulders scattered around. This went on for a good while, almost to the horizon, before the wall on the right completely opened up into the desert. Normally, Akan would have been complaining about the intensity of the sun. Of course, ‘normally’ meant ‘if he was human’. His Alraxian body was strangely comfortable in the heat, but it was the sand and lack of moisture in the air that bothered him instead.
Shadow was ignoring it, the only focus on keeping her tail above the ground so it didn’t drag in the sand. That would just be one more thing to deal with. She was busy with wondering why they’d been attacked. No, actually, that one was easy. They were attacked because it was their luck. Then, they’d been tracked, and attacked again simply because it was their luck. It had nothing to do with the Force. Both the Force and luck existed together, with the former having a habit of screwing up the fun that the latter always had. For some reason, though, luck was managing to keep the Force out of any situations concerning herself and Akan.
She blamed him. It was the noble, self sacrificing Jedi thing. She was trained in the use of the Force, sure, but no foolish distinctions that weakened the mind. Dark...light...it didn’t matter. All of it was the Force. Balance was the important thing, and when one only held Light, one was not balanced. Seeing how unbalanced Akan was in regard to both the Force and his mental state in the last few months, Shadow felt justified in placing the blame on him. Not only that, but he was such an easy target and he had a habit of squirming under pressure. Far too entertaining.
It took an hour to reach the actual dunes of the desert that grew out of the rocks. Shadow had taken a seat on a rock, waiting on Akan. He was showing off, though his excuse was ‘trying to see the shuttle’. But the way he’d climbed up the rocks was showing off. No one jumped and flipped around like that unless they were trying to get attention. He was up a good fifteen meters up, standing in one of those poses that the old holodramas would use for the hero. Shadow had only seen a couple of them, but attributed his stance to more of the comedies, and was waiting for the moment when he slipped, tumbled down, and landed with a good ‘thud’ in the sand. Sure, she’d feel it, but the laugh would be well worth it.
Finally, he climbed down, but much slower and carefully. He didn’t fall, and after watching him for a minute, Shadow got bored again. He could have come out here and played around on his own. She had things to do with Loki. Giving Akan a glare as he walked over, she turned it into what he’d started to call ‘The Look’. Apparently, it could burn a hole in durasteel if one wasn’t ready for it. She’d used it to unnerve people for as long as she could remember. But for some reason, Akan had gotten good at ignoring it. That didn’t stop her from trying.
“There’s a dark patch off on the horizon,” he said, pointing and completely ignoring her expression, “We can make it in about an hour and a half if we keep up the same pace.”
Shadow nodded and hopped off the rock to her feet, stretching a little once on the ground. After a moment, she looked off to the bleak, sand covered planet ahead of them, “You could have done this yourself.”
The two of them started walking at the same time, and Shadow nearly stopped dead in her tracks when he responded to her comment, “If there’s anymore of the natives out there, I don’t think I can take them alone.”
Now, Akan wasn’t nearly as arrogant about his abilities as she was, but he’d never once admitted to needing her help. At that, Shadow grinned. That was, in her mind, a victory. And by her count, it was about five to two, with her in the lead.
“You’re still keeping count?” Akan asked over his shoulder, catching onto those thoughts easily.
Grinning still, Shadow nodded and said, “Of course. Just have to prove to you why you should be listening to me. Especially since you’ve forgotten something very important.”
“Oh?” he raised an eyebrow as they stepped across the top of the first of the dunes, relatively small in comparison to the ones they’d soon be walking over. Hm. Forgotten something. Blaster. Lightsaber. Clothes. Shadow.
“I am NOT a possession, thank you very much,” she growled as he allowed his thoughts to be ‘heard’ easily. Of course, he ignored her and kept thinking. Shadow. Her clothes. Her brain. Her—, “You forgot your own brain, Jedi boy. We’re wandering out into the middle of a desert without water. Didn’t that cross your mind?”
Akan stopped, nearly slipping on the softening sand, “Oops...”
“Damn, right, ‘oops’,” Shadow snapped, fighting back a grin for as long as she could before he saw it.
“What?!” he looked ready to turn and go back. In fact, he was. How could he be so stupid to have forgotten water of all things?
That evil grin grew on her face and she laughed, “You didn’t think of it because you don’t need it. Not human, remember? The deserts uncomfortable, sure, but this walk will be nothing.”
“I hate you,” Akan grumbled under his breath, glaring as best he could manage at the moment.
“Hmm...you know, I don’t like the idea of walking all this way anymore,” her grin didn’t fade, “I have an idea.”
He rolled his eyes, “Should I worry?”
As he was finishing the last word, she turned and ran. It wasn’t nearly as fast as on solid ground, as the sand was too soft to truly run at full speed, but it was still fast. [Race ya!]
[Cheating!!!] the Alraxian competitive spirit appeared out of no where in Akan, and he found himself charging after her into the desert. All the while, he was not thinking about the fact that though he and Shadow wouldn’t need water, it was going to be tough on the three humans. If they were alive. They’d find out soon, and the problem was going to be a difficult one. With three weak humans, it would be an even longer trip back. The depressing part is it would be easier if they didn’t find anyone. But then...what would they do?
I'm amazed by the frequency with which you update this SH. It's great being able to come here and find something new everyday. I'd ask how you have the time, but I used to live in Gainesville, so I know how little there is to do in that city.
I'm amazed by the frequency with which you update this SH. It's great being able to come here and find something new everyday. I'd ask how you have the time, but I used to live in Gainesville, so I know how little there is to do in that city.
Truthfully, I have no life at the moment. Working on GETTING one, but that won't slow down the updates. Funny, I used to live up in the Atlanta area...9 years. Must be a common move.
Slowly, the blurred vision began to focus. Head hurt. Badly. It could be lived with, though. Arm likely broken. Legs alright. A few bruises. Voort blinked a few times, his eyes finally managing to focus through the daze. The shuttle was a mess. He couldn’t tell exactly how bad things were at the moment, but could feel a strong, and hot, wind that suggested at least one hole in the hull.
He was on his back, still in the pilot’s chair. It had been ripped out of its position and now rested against what the had been the ceiling. It was now the floor, and the transparent viewport had been shattered in multiple places, allowing a small amount of the sand beneath to coat the interior. Voort unstrapped the crash webbing, glad he’d strapped in and surprised he’d taken so little injuries. The rest of the cockpit was empty, though the door to the main cabin was open. Slowly standing up, Voort looked to the mess that was the cabin and found the hull breach. There were many, and some small fires that were burning themselves out. The cabin itself was only half the length it should have been, torn apart at an angle from the impact. The bright sun poured in through a large open gash through the hull, and Voort climbed up out onto the sand above.
The ship was buried to a point, and it was hard to tell how deep. Outside the ship, next to one of the large wings of the shuttle that had torn off, stood Landau. He was facing the other direction, looking off towards the rock formations to the north. The man looked in about as bad shape as Voort was in, and at the sound of movement, turned to see Voort, “Sorry I left you there...didn’t want to move you. Couldn’t tell how badly you were hurt.”
Voort nodded, understanding Landau’s decision. It was the correct one, and Voort took that moment to snap his shoulder back into place. It hurt, but one had to learn to deal with pain. A question came to his mind suddenly, “Where’s Jen?”
Landau sighed, wiping a red streak of blood from his forehead, “There are tracks leading to the rocks there. When I woke up, she was gone.”
“You didn’t go after her?” asked Voort sounding annoyed.
The other man shook his head, “Wasn’t going to leave you here to bake.”
Emotion drained for Voort face, and he simply nodded again, “It is hot out here.”
At that, Voort unsnapped the jacket he wore to get a little air. Annoyingly, the air wasn’t anything but more hot. From the look of Landau, he’d already attempted this and failed. Voort was glad he hadn’t worn the cloak. Though it was comfortable on other planets, it would have just helped to cook him here. The problem of not having it was that it revealing the weapons on his belt. The blaster pistol was no surprise, but Landau gave a long look to the large metallic cylinder. Voort ignore this as best he could, then looked towards the rocks again, “The tracks go that direction?”
“I followed them for a short while, but didn’t go to far,” Landau commented as the two of them started walking, “The tracks were well covered, but after a short time on this planet you learn to notice things like that. Boots. Which means it was Narani.”
“Why would they take her?” Voort asked after crossing the first dune. It was going to be a long way, and he was already feeling dehydrated.
Landau shrugged, “I’m surprised we’re still alive. They should have killed us.”
“Obviously, they had better things to do,” grumbled Voort, hating this long trek already. Nothing made sense.
“There’s movement off in the distance,” Landau said, interrupting the start of Voort’s thoughts. Arik pointed off towards their left, near a somewhat closer outcropping of the rocks. Of course, closer was still very near the horizon. Stopping on top of the second dune, Voort looked closely. There was movement. He knelt down to make himself at least a little harder to see, though the colors he wore would make him easy to spot no matter what.
Landau knelt beside him, pulling out a pair of electrobinoculars from the small pack of salvaged equipment he’d gathered while Voort was still unconscious. He focused them, then made a confused look, “Well, those aren’t Narani...don’t know what they are.”
Voort took the binoculars when Landau offered them, and zoomed in. The image was obvious. Alraxians. At first, he’d only seen Akan, looking tired but walking in a way that showed he was bored. About ten paces ahead of Akan, Shadow looked like she was sulking. Almost like a child told that play time was over. A grin grew on Voort’s face. That was probably what had happened.
He handed the electrobinoculars back to Landau and stood up, “Looks like the two of them made it out alright.”
“So that’s what they look like...” Landau commented to himself as Voort started down the dune to cut off the two Alraxians. Catching up, Landau raised an eyebrow, “You know how easily we can get lost out here, yes?”
Voort just nodded, “Think about this. We were shot down on approach without a word. Then, Jen was taken by a group who had to be waiting on us. Couldn’t have been unconscious for more than half an hour.”
“We were expected then?” Landau asked.
That got a shrug out of Voort, “It would seem that way. If not us, someone else was...but that still doesn’t explain why they took Jen. Or even where.”
“That one’s easy,” said Landau, motioning back towards the rock formations, “The Narani are the ones who took over Haladin after the Empire pulled out.”
“And Sadrak was one of them...” Voort said, thinking out loud as he tried to figure things out, “Just why Jen? And how did they know she was here? They had to be waiting nearby. Its Sadrak’s style to leave people alive to set a trap, so it hints at him being here like we expected...but...”
“But it goes back to the same thing,” Landau finished as the started on their fourth dune, hoping the two Alraxians would spot them so they didn’t have to walk the whole way and back, “How did he know we were coming?”
“Well, whatever it is, I know it wasn’t you,” Voort commented, alleviating a small fear in the back of Landau’s mind, “But that makes it even more complicated. I already don’t like this.”
At that, Landau laughed and patted his friend on the back, “Now you know how I felt when I was stationed here all those years ago. Consider this my revenge.”
“For what?” Voort asked, a smile creeping onto his face, “I only recommended you needed a better command than aboard a small Victory Destroyer.”
Landau scowled, “I had assumed I’d get an Imperial class after that, but no, they put me in charge of this rock. I’m so glad you made that recommendation.”
It was Voort’s time to laugh, but it was short and almost forced, as there was too much else on his mind, “You’re right, you do deserve revenge. Just next time, how about taking that revenge on a planet with some water? The dry air is getting to me already.”
Akan had spotted the two former Imperials from a good distance off. Shadow confirmed who it was, or at least, she confirmed that it was Voort and likely the man named Landau. Upon meeting up, they exchanged greetings(which were short) and then, the inevitable question was asked by Akan.
“Where’s Jen?” he sounded like he already knew the answer to it, though.
Voort shook his head, “Don’t know. Landau said the Narani took her.”
“Violent robed people?” Shadow asked, shifting her weight and looking bored at just standing still.
Landau gave them a confused look, confirming the description was correct. Akan shrugged, “A group of them were waiting outside of Loki.”
At that, Voort just nodded and motion towards the rocks formations, “Tracks lead back in the direction of Haladin.”
“Well then,” Akan said, stepping past Voort towards where the man was pointing, “Onward.”
He didn’t think about the effect of the planet’s conditions on the two humans. It wasn’t noticeable in either of their appearances, and even if it was, the fact that Akan(and Shadow for that matter) was quiet comfortable despite the dry air meant that the thought that it was hard to survive with didn’t even cross his mind. Neither Voort nor Landau felt bad enough to comment on it, so they simply followed, with Landau eventually taking the lead as he knew which direction was the correct one.
After three dunes, fatigue was showing on Landau’s face. He didn’t speak of it, but it was obvious in his expression and the way he moved. Even Voort was showing signs of fatigue, though he was much better at masking the effects of it. Shadow could tell, though Akan wasn’t paying enough attention to. Somehow, he’d come to terms that this Dark Sider and man still loyal to the Emperor was not currently a threat. But it was bothering him. Voort was, no matter what, an evil person. He did not have anyone else’s best interests at heart other than his own. Akan had no idea how wrong he was, but the truth in his mind grew stronger with each passing moment. But now was not the time.
Suddenly, as Akan took a step over the dune and was ready to start down the opposite side, the sand around them exploded into the air. But not an explosion of flames. In the reversed rain of sand, dark brown robes could be seen shooting upwards out of the sand. In a quick moment, the sand was falling back to the ground and the four of them were surrounded by at least fifteen of the robed Narani. Akan would have already been attacking them if they’d been armed as the last ones they’d encountered. Instead of knives, though, these Narani aimed weapons. Not blasters...more likely, advanced slugthrowers. They looked about one step behind the leap to blaster technology. In other words, primitive, but still very dangerous.
Shadow was moving, but when she latched onto his thoughts, she froze. Not because she couldn’t handle them...but because they had slugthrowers. Which meant they fire a physical projectile. As advanced as the slugthrowers looked, it was a safe assumption that the ammunition was a metal. Next to cold, that was one of the most dangerous things to an Alraxian. In fact, it was the reason all of their technology was organic and not metallic as much of the rest of the galaxy’s. Yet again, one of those things she’d not told Akan, and he didn’t pick up on it this time either. Voort had his hand on the lightsaber at his belt, but was also frozen in place, not out of shock but waiting for the right moment. They hadn’t shot...so they wanted to at least speak for a short time.
Landau had been so close to the explosion of sand that he’d been sent to the ground on his backside. Currently, he looked up into the barrel of a slugthrower. Following it, his eyes met with a pair of dark green ones behind the visor. The silence continued for a moment, and then the one who Landau was watching spoke. Not in the strange tongue, but in Basic, even sounding like he had a hint of a Kuati accent, “Arik?”
It was muffled behind the mask, but Landau recognized it. All eyes were on him at this point, and he tilted his head. Another long silence, then Landau’s mind connected the voice, though muffled, with a face. He looked closer at the eyes behind the visor. Then, “Hansen?”
At that, the robed figure threw back his...no, her hood. Either that, or it was a man with long, wavy brunette hair. When the hood went back, the visor tinted to black to protect the wearer’s eyes from the intense sunlight. Two straps were undone from the back of her head, and pulled the mask and visor off. Which then confirmed that this Narani was female. She looked surprised, paused a moment, then reached down to pull Landau to his feet, “I’m so sorry! I didn’t think you’d ever come back!”
Akan and Shadow exchanged looks, stepping closer with a ‘safety in numbers’ feeling running through both of their minds. Not that they didn’t trust Landau, but there were far too many coincidences occurring on this planet far too close to their arrival. Akan then caught sight of Voort. The man had a surprised look on his face, though he was fighting it back.
The woman seemed to notice this, and her eyes widened, “Titus, you too? Its been even longer!”
“Ten years,” Voort commented quietly, looking to the other Narani who had lowered their weapons. This, of course, did not mean he wasn’t ready to draw his lightsaber at a moment’s notice.
Landau looked around, not feeling comfortable out in the open. Hansen seemed to catch onto this, and motioned back towards where Loki had gone down, “We should get out of the open. I’ll explain things there.”
Landau and Voort nodded, and then followed her and the Narani without a single question. Akan and Shadow were weary of this, not liking the lack of explanations but eventually followed anyway.
[Keep your eyes open.] Shadow ‘said’ quietly, even though no one else would hear it.
Akan just nodded, saying nothing and watching the way these Narani moved. Quickly, yet in a way that they were walking in one another foot prints. One of them took up the back, covering the tracks as best as possible while keeping up with the group. So they hid...from what? Things were making less and less sense as time passed. Or rather, it made sense to everyone except Akan.
Her name was Annika Hansen. Neither she, nor the fifteen among her group were actually Narani. They were former Imperials all. According to her, not long after the Battle of Endor, the a large group of Narani assaulted Haladin. Those with her were the only ones who managed to get out alive. They had managed to get a hold of Narani robes and equipment, disguising themselves as the desert people and have simply lived posing as a Narani tribe since then. As the tribes had little contact among each other most of the time, it was not hard to simply stay in the caves and live. No one ever spoke of leaving the planet, simply surviving.
That explained how she’d known Landau, as they had both served on the planet together. Hansen as his second in command until Landau left. It didn’t explain Voort, though. Once this question was brought up, Hansen explained that they’d graduated from the Academy in the same class. She had been a good friend of his wife, who was a civilian, and through Hansen, the two had met. So, in the small cave network among the larger rocks just south of where Haladin was reported to be, the three Imperials talked of old times. This left Akan and Shadow feeling awkward.
First, they were the only non-humans among the group. Getting stared at drove them crazy to the point where they found a nice, quiet place, morphed human, and got no looks other beyond ‘you’re the new people’ after that. Well, except from those that had seen them before, and both Akan and Shadow just shrugged at the questions of their current appearance. Shadow was having trouble as a human. Lack of tail was causing her balance problems, so she had taken to leaning against the wall for assistance...not that she’d admit it. Akan had been forced to argue with her to convince her to morph human, noting that it would be harder for them to be noticed by anyone after them if they weren’t Alraxian. Once she’d finally morphed, only to shut him up, she’d been amazed by the immense heat of the place.
Akan was ignoring the heat, trying to listen to the three Imperials talking and keeping an eye on the people who would walk back and forth. He didn’t feel comfortable in this place...the Empire had fallen, yes, but these people were still Imperials. Only Landau truly considered himself no longer among the Empire. Even Voort, despite his speaking otherwise, was still loyal to the long dead Emperor.
“And you think its Sadrak?” Hansen asked, looking to Voort. Akan had missed most of what they’d said, but it was something to do with more organized movement by the Narani and crude starships that were being built in the city.
Landau was the one to nod, “It fits.”
“You said you killed him, didn’t you?” asked Hansen, her eyes still on Voort.
He just shrugged, “There are ways he could have escaped that fate. And I’d not put any of them past him. Nor would I put it past him to have made it here and be working towards getting some of his power back.”
The three of them went on babbling about something when Shadow poked Akan in the arm. He glanced to her, and she ‘said’. [Look over towards the hallway over there.]
She didn’t point, but rather mentally pushed him in that direction. Around the corner, he could see the two guards that were there the entire time. The two men were standing around facing the other direction, talking among each other about nothing in particular. But it was past the man to the right that Shadow was pointing Akan towards. He’d never have noticed if she’d not done that. A face could be seen between the wall and the guard. Small, probably kneeling against the wall opposite the guard. Akan looked closely, identifying the face as that of a girl probably a year or so younger than him. Strange...that would mean she was a child when Haladin was assaulted if his time sense was correct.
The girl’s eyes widened a moment, and then she was gone. Akan looked back to Shadow, raising an eyebrow. [Spying on us?]
[On you.] Shadow corrected quickly.
[What do you mean?]
Shadow shrugged. [She was only watching you.]
Akan was about to respond, but a man walked into the room, still covered in robes and taking off the face mask. Hansen caught sight of him and quickly stood up, stopping the conversation she was having with Voort and Landau, “What are you doing here, Caars? You should be in Haladin.”
“I’m sorry, Annika,” the man Caars shook his head, looking exhausted, “Don’t worry, the rest are still there. But there was news too important to risk being intercepted.”
Hansen nodded, but looked worried suddenly, “What is it?”
Not taking notice of either Voort or Landau, Caars said quickly, “A group of scouts returned from one of the downed ships two hours before I left. They arrived with a woman. One of the passengers aboard the shuttle that went down.”
Voort, Landau, and Akan all exchanged looks, and moved enough to look like they were all going to speak at once. But Shadow beat the three of them to it, saying simply, “When do we leave?”
Hansen, for the first time, really looked to the two false humans standing on the opposite wall. She seemed to be ignoring them and acting like they didn’t exist. It annoyed Akan, because he’d seen it before from Imperials. The way they treated non-humans. But what was this prejudiced Imperial to do now that the non-humans wore human skin? At that, he couldn’t help but smile.
But Annika’s mind was working on other things, and she quickly said, “Caars, get yourself some rest. Once you’re rested, we’re going back with you.”
The man nodded, seemed to relax, and left the room. Silence hung in the air for a long while. Eventually, Voort spoke, “We’ll need a holo of the city layout.”
“And anything else you’ve got,” Akan added, stepping over to the small table for the first time. Shadow didn’t follow him, but she did move slightly closer and seem to pay more attention as the six of them started working on a plan to get into the city. Honestly, it was suicide. To Akan, that just mean more fun.
After six hours, Caars was ready to go. All of them were given the robes to wear, and Akan found it interesting that under the main heavy robe was a light almost leather-like material. Spread out along the material were small cooling units. The mask also had this, and a water pack was hidden underneath the robes near the belt with a tube connected to the face mask. Something was bothering Akan, though. On their way to Arranis, Landau had emphasized that there was less water on this planet than Tatooine...yet, it seemed like there was no problem at all getting a hold of it. Again, something was missing in the chain.
Without any words spoken, they had left the small cave and began the navigation of the rocks, ledges, and sharp drop offs that led to Haladin. Though they didn’t speak, Shadow was constantly complaining(mentally) about still being human. She’d not fallen over at all, but the thing she was complaining about the most was being the shortest. Eventually, it just devolved into her thinking in a language Akan didn’t understand. Strangely entertaining to listen to while trudging through such horrid terrain.
Caars led them through pathways that led up to the highest of the rock faces. The paths wound back and forth as they slowly rose upwards. From a distance, they would be impossible to see. Even up close, Akan had a little trouble keeping on the actual path and not falling off and having that wonderful fall down the jagged surface to the next ledge about forty meters below. But thankfully, they were reaching a ledge that Akan had figure was the ‘top’ as it were.
He was soon proved right, though taking up the back of the group with Shadow meant that everyone else knew first. The rock ledge did level off into a huge plateau that expanded to the horizon. Well, not all the way. The horizon was quickly cut off by the risings of a large stone wall with buildings that topped it within. The architecture was strangely similar to that of Tatooine, or perhaps it was just the sand blasted color of the wall that gave that effect. The turbolaser batteries were easy things to see, though most of them were well defended again rocks or in small valleys that cut through the top of the plateau. The designer of Haladin’s defenses was an extremely intelligent tactician. It looked so much more open to attack than it really was...of course, the designer did not seem to expect an attack from the ground. Evident from the report of how the city was lost, and the ease of their approach.
“Stay close, stay quiet, and don’t attract attention,” Hansen commented over her shoulder as they approached.
“Where are we going, exactly?” Landau asked.
Caars was the one to respond, albeit quietly through the mask, “A safe house of sorts. Get updates there on where the woman is, then go from there.”
Akan and Voort both ended that in the minds with a simple, ‘but not with Caars’. Not that they didn’t trust him, but he had nothing to do with this. Though Akan didn’t exactly care about Hansen going, she knew the planet and Landau trusted her. Somehow, Akan felt he could trust the man. Unlike Voort, Landau had an aura about him that just showed him to be an honest man. No matter how many times he tried to convince himself that the Empire was full of evil men, someone like Landau would show up and prove that it was like anything else. People fought for the Empire for the same reasons people fought for the Rebellion. For a great many, that was family. Landau was like that.
Upon entering the opening in the wall that was the entrance to the town, they were all surprised. Well, except for Hansen and Caars. But the others had expected to at least see guards. Nothing. Sure, there were people walking here and there, some speaking next to buildings or conducting whatever kind of business they did. None of the humans they passed wore the heavy robes or masks. Instead, they wore light, comfortable looking clothing. In fact, the city itself was much more modern looking on the inside. Consoles against buildings, older landspeeders and even a couple of airspeeders were parked in a local garage that they walked by. There were no buildings that seemed to indicate a central defensive structure as had been expected, and the only way Voort had identified the old Imperial garrison building was a sand blasted and faded insignia.
About three blocks from that building, Caars led them to a small building that looked like a good place for a shop, considering the market stands that were all along the street side. They entered the building, and Hansen waited until last to step in and make sure the door was locked. Once that was done, Caars removed his hood and mask. The others followed suit, looking around the small room that was only decorated by a faded green coat of paint and beat up chairs. Caars motioned for them to sit, which Landau, Hansen, and Shadow did. Akan had thought about it, but Shadow had taken the seat he’d been eyeing. He knew she did it on purpose.
[There’s still sand in my hair...] she grumbled one last complaint out and dusted herself off.
Caars walked over to console near the wall and accessed some information. Voort found himself checking the room. Not noticeably, but he was looking over every inch in a casual way...just in case. Akan had noticed it, but said nothing. Even if he didn’t trust Voort, checking for any kind of listening devices or anything similar was a good idea.
“There’s a report of an airspeeder being prepared to leave to the deep desert in an hour,” Caars said over his shoulder.
“This is unusual?” Voort asked, running an idle hand along the rough textured wall.
Landau was the one to answer that, “Two things wrong with it, if you ask me.”
“Anything interesting?” Shadow asked, sounding bored though she was obviously trying to find some kind of entertainment out of it.
“First, other than the random Topsider settlement, there’s nothing out in the deep desert,” Landau commented, giving Shadow a look and obviously trying to alleviate her boredom, “Second, the sand always gave us trouble with any kind of airspeeder. We brought them down at first, but the intakes got clogged too easily. Combat landspeeders never had the problem, but it was pointless to go exploring out there.”
At that, Caars nodded, “We’ve gotten reports for the last few weeks of more activity out in the deep desert.”
Akan and Voort exchanged looks, thinking the same thing. Sadrak. This time, it was Akan’s turn to ask a question, “Where’s she being held at the moment?”
Caars turned back to the console, then said over his shoulder, “The old Imperial detention center. There’s only two cells left in there...looks like they’ll be moving her soon.”
Shadow was the first one to stand up and start towards the door, “Well, what are we waiting for?!” quickly she pulled the mask back on and got the hood up, “Lets go! I’ve had it with all this talking!”
“What do you mean stand guard?!” Shadow asked in the most annoyed voice she could manage as a human and through the mask. It was strangely funny because her voice was higher than usual and she didn’t seem to notice. When Akan grinned, she somehow knew and backhanded him hard in the chest. [Shut up, Jedi Boy.]
There was no answer to Shadow’s question beyond Voort saying swiftly, “Just do it.”
Then, the three former Imperials stepped into the Garrison leaving the two not-so-humans to stand around annoyed and amused. Well, only Akan was amused. Shadow, obviously, was not. More standing around. More boredom. More of this damned planet that was already getting on her nerves. Forget all of this. Loki needed help. As best as a human could manage, she growled under the mask. And the being human just didn’t help. Too many things were just wrong. She felt weak, slow, and half blind. All of which were true when compared to her Alraxian body.
The two of them were spared the fun that was already occurring inside. The door had opened to a short hallway, which then led to a single guard room. This was occupied by a middle aged Narani who was wearing what looked to be half of an Imperial uniform with other random pieces of clothing with it. Landau was the only one not annoyed by this, but it did not change any actions. The moment of their entrance, the Narani’s eyes widened, and he nearly fell back in his chair trying to get to his feet while drawing a blaster from under the desk. He managed to get as far as leaning back before Hansen put a blaster shot into his face.
“You had slugthrowers earlier,” Voort commented as he searched the man’s body and got out a small keycard.
Hansen nodded as she moved to the door on the other end of the room which led to the cells, “They’re common outside of Haladin. Here most of the blasters are from the old armory.”
“Lightly defended in here,” Landau thought aloud, remembering the days when the small detention building was guarded by at least five men.
Again, Hansen nodded. Voort was moving over and slid the keycard into the slot. When the door opened, Hansen said, “They don’t get many prisoners. Its easier to just kill someone and make a mistake than try to hold them.”
“Wonderful way of thinking,” sounded a voice from inside the now open door, “Glad they make exceptions.”
Voort smiled and stepped in, seeing a room with two large doors on the opposite walls. The doors each had holes cut out of them, through which one, Jen’s face could be seen. Despite her lighthearted words, Jen looked terrible. Even only being able to see her face, that fact was obvious. There were cuts and bruises along her forehead, and her left eye was only half open. Managing a smile, Voort stepped over and got the door open. This revealed Jen to be worse off than expected.
The main thing that caught his attention was her leg. There was a long, crude brace strapped to it. Broken. That meant they’d be slowed down, and getting out was going to be trouble. Jen noticed his expression and shrugged weakly. She noticed Hansen, and the two women’s eyes met. Something there bothered Jen. What exactly it was, and if it was even anything beyond paranoia.
The moment passed when Voort helped her to walk, albeit slowly, out towards the main guard room. Greetings where exchanged quickly, and it was decided to leave anything more to once they were out. The plan meant that they weren’t going back to Caars’ safe house, but all the way back to Hansen’s base. Voort had decided that Jen could be carried when the rocks got steep if they needed to move quickly. He didn’t mention this, though, noticing something about the way Jen looked at him that said she was fine and if he tried anything she’d injure him.
When Landau made it to the exit and reached for switch, he suddenly stayed his hand. When Hansen started to bark at him to keep going, he waved for her to keep quiet. They all followed the signal, more out of curiosity than anything. It took only a moment after they all went silent for the reason Landau didn’t open the door to be apparent. A low, constant hum could be heard outside. To Voort and Jen, the sound was obvious. Landau had stopped out of surprise, not actually identifying the noise. Hansen was in much the same boat.
It was the hum of a lightsaber. But it wasn’t as constant as it sounded at first. The sound changed in pitch every few seconds. Again, Voort and Jen recognized this. Movement. The two exchanged glances, and Voort started forward, “Trouble,” was all he said.
Landau reached an arm out to push the other man back, “If its trouble we’re safest in here until its passed.”
“I can help him,” Voort said flatly.
“The less of us they notice, the better,” answered Hansen, also keeping Voort back. He sighed, but nodded. Jen was going to need all the help she could get, whether she wanted it or not, in their now ruined escape. Or at least, it sure felt ruined. A quick in and out with no flashy heroics was the plan. Voort hoped that Akan hadn’t fallen victim to said flashy heroics.
It was ironic that Voort blamed the current situation on Akan. Sure, he’d activated the lightsaber and drawn the attention of near twenty people. But most of them scattered. And besides, it was Shadow’s fault. If she hadn’t cursed in her native tongue, they wouldn’t have been noticed by the passerby as anything but two Narani. But no...Shadow was complaining about being human again, and she’s spoken a curse out loud and in a language that these people wouldn’t have known.
At the accusing comment(or at least, it sounded that way, neither Akan nor Shadow actually understood it) from the passerby, Shadow had knocked the Narani out. She had failed to remember that there were many other people all around them. She also didn’t know how very out of character that was. These were both quickly proved as facts when those that did not scatter brandished either knives, blasters, or an interesting combination of the two while yelling the Narani word for ‘offworlder!’. Again, neither Akan nor Shadow knew that was the word, but it had to be that or something similar from the context and tone.
And that was the point when Voort’s blame on Akan could be considered correct. He reacted to the brandishing of weapons without thinking that it wouldn’t be a good idea to respond in kind. By the time Akan had realized this, his lightsaber had already been drawn from underneath the heavy robes, and the blue-green light of the blade was illuminating the hood and relfecting off the visor to create a strange mix of black and transparent sections. The noise heard inside the door was that of Akan moving back and forth...swaying in anticipation for the first move to be made.
[I’m going to draw them away.] he said to Shadow in the moment of inaction. [Disable anyone that stays behind and get out of here.]
Shadow had thought to respond to that, but the idea was a sound one...for once. As long as he didn’t get them killed. That’s when Akan made what would have been considered a rash move if it hadn’t been planned. He charged the nearest of the Narani. Plowing over the surprised man after arranging a meeting between the butt of the lightsaber and the Narani’s face, Akan ran down the street. He stayed in sight, but kept close enough to the walls of buildings that the blaster shots caught that instead of him.
It worked. In fact, it worked better than Akan had expected. The Narani had been so outraged and surprised by the sight of an unknown in their own garb killing one of their own that they’d ignored Shadow and charged down the street after Akan. Shadow started to go after them, but instead did what needed to be done. She opened the door to the garrison, seeing a very surprised Landau.
“No time to explain!” Shadow said quickly through the mask, “Just come on!”
She grabbed Landau’s arm and started sprinting towards the way they’d entered. Hansen was right behind them, not asking for an explanation as it didn’t sound like she was going to get it anyway Voort put an arm around Jen and helped her to keep up. As they ran, Jen called out to Shadow, “Where’s Akan?!”
Shadow just glanced over her shoulder, and made an annoyed look. Sure, it could only be seen in her eyes, but Voort picked up on it. He glanced to Shadow, following around a corner and grumbled, “Flashy heroics.”
Akan had only rounded two corners when he’d started having second thoughts. After being cut off by ten more Narani and having to quickly turn around at the third corner, barely managing to slip past his original pursuers to another street, he started having third thoughts. They had been shooting at him for the first leg of the run, but had quickly stopped as Akan found more populated areas to run into. But after that third corner, he’d found that the word must have gotten around to get out of the area. It was empty. In fact, it opened up into a huge, wide open market area. He’d not planned on falling into the horrible and usually fatal cliche of stopping in the exact center of the market, but Akan had present with no choice.
Well, there was another choice. That was to plow through a group of twenty other Narani who were aiming weapons at him. Seemed like all of Haladin had gotten annoyed of his killing of just one of them. Akan would have admired that if he wasn’t the one who they were stalking. When he came to a stop in the center, he brought up the lightsaber and thumbed the activation switch again. The snap-hiss and sudden appearance of the blade caused most of the Narani to jump back slightly. This gave Akan a good twenty meter distance between him and the now large circle. So, very slowly, Akan found himself circling in his position so that none of them had a long look at his back. During the run, he’d already pulled the hood down so that he had better peripheral vision, an was glad for it now.
The mask still on, his vision was limited just a little more than normal. It was acceptable though, and the mask was keeping his sand filled dark brown hair out of his eyes. Part of him wished he couldn’t see the current situation though. The Narani were not moving in to enclose him further. They didn’t need to. Seeing as there were well over thirty of them, most with rifles aimed on him, getting any closer was not required to just shoot him. But they were hesitating. Akan could only assume the lightsaber was what bought him time.
But there was a feeling growing among them that Akan could detect. The surprise the weapon had caused was quickly fading, and they were going to act. Akan’s mind raced in those few seconds he had before one of them was going to forget that there were comrades on the opposite side and fire. Not really even thinking, just letting the Force guide his actions. It had gotten him out of worse things before...Akan found himself drawing upon the Force, weaving it around and under him. His eyes only half open as he concentrated on the timing, Akan heard the first shot of a slugthrower ring out as an impossibly loud noise when compared to a blaster. It nearly broke his concentration, but he used that moment to release the energy he’d collected.
In a flash of movement, Akan was no longer where he’d been, and a Narani opposite the one who’d fired was on the ground, the shot having caught him in the heart. The only Narani that managed to see what actually happened were the two that Akan had leaped over. Their eyes followed the blur of motion up and over them, landing behind them, running for a few steps before performing another amazing leap to bring Akan on top of the nearest building. By the time Akan landed on the building, the other Narani had caught sight of him. More loud shots from slugthrowers sounded, nearly catching Akan’s arm as he turned to run out of sight.
Leaping from one building to the next, over the short alleyways between them, Akan ran as fast as he could in whatever direction he was going. With his spinning around in the circle, he’d quickly lost track of the direction he’d come from. The lightsaber had once again been deactivated, though he still held it tightly in his right hand. Though his legs were aching horribly from the continuous run with only that short break, Akan didn’t seem to be noticing how exhausted he was. He found out the hard way.
It was the fourth leap to another building, and Akan hadn’t judged it well. His left foot caught the edge of the roof as he was coming down, and his run was ended with a hard, face first meeting with the roof of a building. He didn’t roll, but slid on his face against the sand covered and coarse roof of the building. There had been a very loud crack when his face had hit, and sharp pains ran through the skin along his brow and disturbingly close to his right eye. Despite the sudden wave of fatigue that overran him when he’d fallen, Akan was on his feet again as quickly as he’d stopped sliding.
Pain shot through the palm of his hands when he pushed himself up, and he looked down to see the sharp pieces of his shattered visor all across the roof. He could now see through a strange mix of tinted visor that was cracked and destroyed in so many places that he was half blind from the intense sunlight. Nearing the edge of the building and preparing another jump, Akan realized he’d dropped his lightsaber. Spinning around and easily seeing the metal cylinder off near the left side, he reached out with the Force and pulled it to his hand. He caught it easily in his right hand, ignoring the sudden pain from the impact, turned and jumped across to the next, much larger building.
Akan made this jump with no trouble, but nearly slipped from a misplaced foot on an uneven patch of the roof. Keeping his footing somehow, Akan realized the problem at this point was that he was letting the pain get to him. That problem, currently, was mixed with the blood trickling into his eyes from the cuts the shattered visor had made. While he continued his run across the roof, Akan remorphed the injuries on his face and hands, glad to feel the pain subside. Annoyingly, this didn’t cause blood that was already out to disappear, so he still had to deal with that.
But quick thinking was about to be required again. The line of buildings was about to end in an intersection of streets. Sure, he could try for another very long jump, but they’d likely still be looking on the roofs for him. He managed to get a quick look over the street before jumping down, and was glad to see it was empty. Reaching the edge of the building, Akan came down to the sand covered street hard, stumbling and not able to keep his footing. Yet again, Akan’s face met with the ground underneath him, this time getting sand in the mask and his eyes. Yet again, though, he didn’t let the fall stop him. At least this time he’d been more ready for it.
Shaking his head to get the sand away as he stood up again, Akan looked to his left. Why he didn’t look to his right, he didn’t know, but it didn’t matter. He simply saw the left street was clear, and tore off in that direction, not looking back to see if anyone was anywhere near him. With the planet’s sun having been directly above them the entire time, he still had no idea what direction he was running in. But he did see the wall around the city. He was running right towards it...that meant he needed to turn at the next intersection and hope to go in the right direction for getting out of Haladin. But when Akan got close to the intersection, he saw that a door to a building directly in front of him was open. Standing in the door was a figure. Not aiming a weapon. Not looking ready to kill him. But motioning towards him. Frantically motioning for him to enter as he approached. If he’d not seen that, it was unlikely that his body would have given in to the exhaustion that was consuming every muscle.
However, his mind saw a place to rest. There was no warning through the Force. His mind was just as tired as his legs and aching body to second guess this. Everything just shut down two steps out from the doorway. The figure saw this, and moved in to try and slow Akan’s third fall. He didn’t have a chance to enjoy it, though, as his vision had blurred and head was spinning so much from the non-stop run that Akan finally let himself go. Mid fall, Akan blacked out.
“We cannot go back,” Hansen said flatly. By now, the group had made it out of the city and to the path leading down from the plateau. Though they had not been spotted by anyone, and made it without any trouble, they had heard slugthrowers firing. When the sound stopped, worrying over what had happened started. It was quickly put to an end when Shadow pointed out she wasn’t dead. She did not add, however, that if Akan landed on his face one more time she was going to make his face hurt much harder when he got back.
Jen took one more look at the walls of Haladin before allowing Voort to help her onward. Shadow was right. If she was doing fine, it was proof that Akan was okay. She did not mention going back for Akan again, and simply did her best to make it down the steep slope of the path through the rocks. The splint on her leg, though crude, did its job perfectly. Shadow, Hansen, and Landau were moving quickly, but not so fast that it was impossible for Jen to keep up. Voort was part of that, but not all of it.
They were silent for the rest of the way back to the protected cave network that Hansen’s people lived in. Jen did notice that every so often Shadow’s expression would glaze over very slightly. A subtle hint that she was trying to speak with Akan. Jen didn’t completely understand how, but had noticed that expression on Shadow’s face before. Voort did take some time to explain what was going on, emphasizing that Hansen was someone they could trust.
Jen didn’t keep track of time well enough to know how long they had taken before finally arriving. She did know that it had been well over an hour, at least, and she was tired. Not having to say anything about this, Hansen indicated a room for each of them(something that wasn’t important upon their first arrival). Voort helped Jen to the bed, and once she’d sat down, she thanked him and asked, “Are we going to go back?”
He shrugged, “I doubt it will be easy to get back into the city now,” quickly, and almost awkwardly, Voort changed the subject, “Are you alright?”
It had been the first time he’d actually opened up and asked a question like that with that kind of tone. Nodding, Jen dusted herself off some and tried to forget about the bruises and scratches, “There’s something out in the desert.”
“Sadrak?” Voort asked, taking a seat next to her.
Jen shook her head, “Maybe, but I think there’s something else. Those...people are almost afraid of what it is. It seems like they’re doing everything out of fear.”
At this, Voort raised an eyebrow, “You think its worth checking out?”
This time, Jen nodded, “I’ve just got a feeling about it...can’t really explain it. Almost like...”
“...like something’s calling to you?” Voort suggested.
Jen eyes widened slightly at Voort’s words. Exactly what she’d hesitated to say. Again, she nodded slowly, “Exactly like that.”
Voort took a moment to think about this, and a hint of a smile crept onto his face, “Get some rest first. I’ll talk with Hansen and see what we can figure out.”
He then stood up, starting to leave. But he was stopped when Jen caught his arm. Turning around to ask what it was, Voort found that Jen was standing in front of him again. She smiled and embraced him. This wasn’t as much of a surprise as it should have been. Neither of them moved for a long time, but Voort eventually pulled back, “Get some rest, Jen.”
Slowly, Jen stepped away and sat down on the bed again. As Voort left the room, he heard her say, “Thank you.” very quietly.
Voort found his mind was strangely blank as he walked off towards the main room where he expected Hansen and Landau to be. He passed a few of the other former Imperials, finding that he still looked at them that way. Imperials. Honestly, he’d given up that life many years ago, but continued living it out of some strange nostalgia. Ever since Calina had died, the light had just left his life. He’d embraced the darkness even more than before, and now found himself feeling the true effects of it. It had eroded his family, his friends...his life. But now...maybe, just maybe, the light was back. Dim, yes, but light. He would not be sure until the situation with Akan was finalized. Hopefully, not in either of their deaths. He hoped for the light, but wasn’t sure he could reach for it anymore for fear of losing it again.
Finding Landau, Hansen, and even Shadow in that main room. Shadow was leaning back in an older looking chair with her eyes closed. She didn’t look asleep, but was somewhere near it. Upon seeing Voort, Landau said, “They sent out a team to the shuttle wreckage to salvage what they could.”
Voort took a seat and thought about this, remembering the things that were on board, “Hopefully there’s still something there to salvage.”
A silence then came over the table as the more important topic was avoided by all of them. Hansen was the first one to broach the subject, speaking carefully so as not to gather any ill feelings, “We can’t go back to Haladin.”
Both Voort and Landau had expected this, and nodded slowly. Landau was the next to speak, asking carefully, not sure if Shadow was listening, “So what do we do about the boy?”
Another silence. Landau risked a glance to Shadow, who had not moved. Or at least, he didn’t see that her ear had turned ever so slightly towards them to listen easier. Next it was Voort’s turn to speak, “There’s nothing we can do. What he did was stupid, but I think he knew that,” the man paused and closed his eyes a moment, “He is resourceful, though. Jen mentioned that she believes there is something else out in the desert besides Sadrak.”
“You think we should go and see for ourselves,” Hansen commented, knowing how Voort thought and correct in her assumption. She thought about this, and eventually said, “We’ve got an older landspeeder with modified intakes that don’t have trouble with the sand. It can seat four.”
Thus, the next problem. Hansen would have to go, as she knew the terrain well. Landau was just as experienced, and had good eyes for such a scouting job. Voort wanted to go, and saw no reason why he shouldn’t. But Jen was injured, and it probably wasn’t a good idea for her to travel.
“Take Jen with you,” Shadow said suddenly, not having moved and still showing no signs of really paying attention to anything they were talking about. Slowly, she opened her right eye and gave Voort a casual look, “I’ll go get Jedi boy out of whatever mess he’s gotten into.”
Hansen started to protest, but Voort waved her silent, saying instead, “Good luck.”
“I’ll need it,” Shadow grumbled as she leaned forward and then got to her feet. She started towards the exit, then paused and ran a hand through her hair, “Do me a favor. Next time Akan tries to show off or do his heroic ‘I’m a Jedi’ thing, hit him. Alright?”
Voort laughed, “Only if I can do the same to you, animal.”
For some reason, she laughed too, “I’ll keep that in mind, Imperial.”
Many times, Akan had awoken after blacking out. It was something one got used to in the profession that he had pursued. Not pilot, but commando. Usually, capture was a common thing, and that meant either a stun blast or a hard hit to the back of the head. It was common that one awoke in a daze, head spinning and vision blurry. Rarely did one awake as Akan was. Comfortably was the best word for it.
Sure, his vision was blurred, but it focused very quickly. He tried to move, and found the aching muscles of his body protested vigorously. So, he sighed, and just went back to laying on his back and looking up to a bleak and boring ceiling. His head was resting on a soft pillow, and the bed(it had to be a bed) was just as comfortable. Again, not something one expected after the events that led up to his previous memories.
“I was wondering when you were going to wake up,” a voice said from off on the other side of the room. Akan turned his head very carefully, trying to ignore the muscles that even remorphing couldn’t convince to stop hurting. When he did managed to get his head to the side, he saw that the room he was in was a combination kitchen, bedroom, and living room. Akan had never actually seen a true ‘one room’ apartment before, but this one sure qualified as such. Sitting over at the single table in the room, giving him a curious look, was someone he’d seen before.
Of course, at first his brain only registered the person as a young human woman with long, dark brown hair. In fact, for a quick moment Akan swore he was looking at Elizabeth Mare. When his brain caught up and processed the information his eyes had taken in, he recognized her as the girl who had been watching him back in the cave. Figuring this out, Akan suddenly worried she was a spy or something worse. But why the comfort, and why wasn’t he dead?
Finding his voice, Akan asked the most obvious question, “Who are you?”
The girl smiled warmly, again it was hauntingly similar to how Akan remember Mare looked. Thankfully, her voice sounded different...or maybe just younger, “My name is Shira. I was supposed to...keep an eye on you.”
“Really?” Akan asked, not sounding the least bit interested despite the fact that he was, “Who wanted you to do that?”
Shira paused, went a little red and turned to stare at the floor. Akan wasn’t sure how to interpret this, and was glad that he didn’t have to. A moment later, she turned back and said carefully, “My...um...I mean Annika.”
Hansen. Hmm. Something was still wrong here. Why would Hansen keep an eye on him? Really, Shadow was much more worrying of the two of them. Unconsciously, he braced himself to get hit. It didn’t come, and Akan found himself feeling at a loss of what to do without the usual retaliation. Under his breath, he grumbled, “Been around Shadow too long...”
“What?” Shira asked, head tilted to the side slightly.
Not having meant for her to hear, Akan quickly waved his hand, “Nothing...you were about to say something else. What was it?”
Again, Shira’s face went red. She didn’t look away this time. Seemingly ignoring the color in her cheeks, she said quietly, “I...asked her if it was alright.”
That wasn’t the answer to the question Akan had asked, though it was going to be his next question. Akan took a moment to study her again, both with the Force and other senses. Satisfied that she truly didn’t have any ill intent, Akan tried again, “No...you said ‘my’ and then changed your words.”
“Oh!” somehow, Shira seemed relieved by this question and said with an awkward smile, “I was very young when we were driven out of Haladin. My mother was...killed. Annika raised me. I uh...sometimes call her mother without thinking about it.”
At that, Akan couldn’t help but smile. An interesting thing considering what he’d just run out of. That’s when he realized he was only wearing the cooling suit that was worn under the heavy robe. Looking around quickly, Akan saw what could only be his robe hanging against the door. What surprised him were the many small circular holes and tears he didn’t recognize from before. Thinking about it, Akan realized where they had come from. A grin suddenly grew on his face. Somehow, it felt like it was an honor to have been shot at and missed that much. And he’d only been in range for a matter of seconds.
“What?” Shira asked, turning to follow his gaze and not really understanding what was causing him to hold back laughter.
Again, he said, “Nothing. Don’t worry about it,” Akan then paused and let his mind focus. It was only Shira here...no one else. It had obviously been some time since he’d fallen unconscious, and the others were likely out of Haladin. If they weren’t, Akan had a feeling he’d have found out the hard way. His mind then found its next course of action to be taken, and he sat up(with a cringe, of course), saying, “I need to get back.”
Shira shook her head, “Haladin’s gone crazy since your now famous escape. The Narani are crawling all over looking for you and the others.”
“The others...” Akan trailed off, then, “Did they get out?”
Nodding, Shira motioned to a small comlink resting on the kitchen unit, “Annika told me they used your diversion to get out and I was supposed to look out for you. That’s when I opened my door.”
“Amazing luck,” mumbled Akan under his breath, slowly turning and stretching to get his human muscles used to moving again after the strain they’d been put through, “So am I just suppose to sit here and wait until things die down?”
Nervously, Shira bit her lower lip and managed a slow nod, “Its not...safe out there right now. They haven’t gotten to searching private homes yet, and we shouldn’t give them any reason to.”
Sighing, Akan looked around the small room. Very small. And he was stuck here. Again, he looked to Shira. So much like Mare...too much. In his life, he’d learned that there was no such thing as a coincidence. Everything happened for a reason. Everything. He’d even convinced himself that Mare’s death had occurred for a reason, though he had no idea what and the very thought of any reason for that hurt deeply. But why was Shira such a mirror image of a long dead friend? And why the hells was he stuck here?
Grumbling, Akan got to his feet and started towards his robe.
“What are you doing?” Shira asked, turning in the chair and nearly getting to her feet.
As he pulled on the patchy robe, Akan gave her a strangely cold look, “I’m leaving. You can come with me if you want to get back, but I’m not going to wait on you.”
That was a lie. He knew it. There was no way he was going to leave this girl behind. He’d failed Mare once already, years earlier. This was not Mare, yet part of him was sure there was something important about this. So, whether he liked it or not, he was not going to let Shira get killed. The other part of him should have been intelligent enough to realizing how dangerous of a situation he was setting up for himself for the second time in his life. Especially since the first had nearly driven him to the dark side and destroyed his mental state so much that he’d assumed a completely new life.
But Akan was too caught up in the moment to think. If Shadow was there, she’d have finished that with an ‘as usual’.
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