THE JEDI RANGER CHRONICLES
COLD AS ICE
Since the reformation of the Jedi Council under Master Luke Skywalker, a group of elite Jedi was assembled to conduct missions outside the normal expanse of Jedi operations. Known as the Ranger Corps, they are few in number, never numbering more than fifty at a time. Armed with lightsabers and an array of blasters, they are sent in as search and rescue teams or used for recovery missions to retrieve lost or stolen items. Always up for the challenge, the group has, for last six years, been led by three highly decorated Jedi: Kendor Nishio, Mace Rannick and Zadok Starfire. These are some of the stories from this elite group, and while many of their deeds are kept secret, some have slipped out into public knowledge...
Hoth. A cold, nearly inhospitable world, where next to no life forms existed. It had been where the Rebel Alliance had been driven from by the forces of Darth Vader roughly forty years before. The old ruins stood as a silent reminder of the rebels' fight against the Empire. Now, two Sith warriors, Mano Jeet and Zaru Harrit, stood before the ruins, looking for something.
They had been told that the rebels had left, or perhaps, forgotten, a set of datacards that contained plans for new battle cruisers that would have rivaled the Imperial Super Star Destroyers. But now, both sides had called a truce and worked together to colonize and spread hope around the galaxy.
They reached out with the Force, and sensed no life in the ruins. Cautiously, they entered the ruins and searched for the datacards. It took nearly two days in the frozen base to find their quarry, and soon, they were back on board their ship. A large Zabrak, Assaud. approached the two humans, his hulking figure casting a shadow over the other two.
"Did you find the datacards?" Assaud grumbled.
Both nodded. He stuck out a large hand, one nearly twice the size of either of theirs, and Zaru laid the datacards in it.
"Very good."
"What about our payment?" Mano asked. "Master Hako promised us payment for our efforts."
"So he did..." Assaud smiled, his gnarled teeth presenting themselves. In a flash, his hand was on his lightsaber, and both warriors were cut in half a second later. "There is your reward," he sneered. He dumped their corpses in the snow.
Onboard the Jedi cruiser, Whiplash, Jedi Rangers Zadok Starfire and Kendor Nishio sat at the controls, preparing for a jump into hyperspace. They had been tasked by Master Luke Skywalker with investigating the alarms that had been set off on Hoth inside the old rebel base. They had also been told to look for the old datacards with the battle cruiser plans that had inadvertently been left behind. By the time anyone thought to look for them, the base had been abandoned to the Imperials, and the cards were presumed stolen. But nothing was certain.
"Prepare for jump, everyone," Kendor announced over the ship's intercom.
In the cabin, four other Rangers, including Mace Rannick, readied themselves for the initial jump. These men and women were six of the best Rangers in the Corps. Magena Kaster, the team's mechanic, sat to Mace's right. She was one of the younger Rangers in the Corps, but no one underestimated her skills with a wrench. She was also Kendor's girlfriend.
Ryorel Ashleshas and Nantle Corelighter sat behind them. After the jump, it was a two-day flight to Hoth. They all settled in for the long flight, and spent the next few hours eating and sleeping. Since Mace and Zadok had been put in charge, they spent most of the flight going over the layout of the old base. The plan was split into two teams and search the base that way.
Nantle was the medic, so she prepared a large med pack with everything she needed for quick emergency treatments.
Ryorel was the linguist, so he would be the translator if need be.
The flight went quickly, and they came out of hyperspace into the Corellia System. The big planet loomed large in the viewing screen, and Kendor quickly identified the old base on the radar. He plotted the course and dropped the ship out of orbit.
A heavy snow storm enveloped the Whiplash as they neared the ruins. They skimmed the landscape, staying just high enough to clear rocky outcroppings that dotted the landscape on the flight in. After an hour in the storm, they touched down and put on their parkas, and entered into the freezing landscape.
Kendor scanned the ruins with his scanner, then paused as he found two anomalies in the snow near the entrance to the base.
"What is that?" he said, pointing in front of them.
Zadok and Nantle moved forward, blasters drawn. They stopped on top of two mounds of snow, and cautiously dug into them. Suddenly, they came across the two bisected bodies of the Sith warriors.
"Oh, man!" Zadok said. "Looks like someone's beaten us to the punch."
They excavated the bodies and discovered their lightsabers.
"Sith," Nantle announced, lifting Harrit's lightsaber. She turned it over in her hands, and looked up at the ruins.
"Great! Just great!" Ryorel kicked at the snow. "Betcha those datacards are already gone if they were even still here."
"Let's look anyway," Kendor said. "Maybe they were hidden somewhere."
Leading the way, Ryorel swept the main room as he entered the cavernous base. Satisfied it was safe, he moved further, and the others followed.
"Magena, Zadok," Mace said, "go with Ryorel. Kendor, you and Nantle will go with me. We'll meet back here in an hour."
Everyone nodded and they split up. Ryorel's team went room-by-room, looking for hidden safes and rooms. While they found several hidden safes, the datacards were nowhere to be found. Mace's team didn't fair any better. That was, until they came across the old officers' dorms.
While searching what had been General Rieekan's old room, Nantle discovered another safe. She used her lightsaber to cut the locked door open. She gasped.
"What is it?" Kendor asked, turning to face her.
"I think we hit the jackpot, guys!" she announced.
Inside, she saw a stack of datacards. She pulled out her reader, and inserted one of the cards. A fuzzy blue ship appeared to float in front of her. It appeared to be an Imperial Star Destroyer.
The guys were soon flanking her, staring at the image.
"Nice find, Doc," Kendor said, put a hand on her shoulder.
She smiled, and Mace pulled out his comlink.
"Ryorel, it's Mace. We've found the readouts. Let's assemble back in the control room in five."
"Copy that, Mace."
They gathered the datacards in a shoulder bag Nantle was carrying and headed back to the control room. After a few minutes, the other team joined them.
Mace sent a message to the Jedi Temple and to Princess Leia's office at the New Republic's headquarters informing them of their success. But as they proceeded back to their ship, a huge transport dropped out of the blizzard, landing right in front of them.
"I've got a bad feeling about this!" Nantle shouted over the blizzard. Suddenly, the ship's turbolaser spun towards them, and they ignited their lightsabers. The first blast of laser fire slammed into the snow behind them. The second hit Magena's lightsaber and deflected into the storm. The Jedi scattered, moving out of range of the ship's forward turbolaser... and right into the aft weapon. The lasers came fast and wild. But a lucky shot hit Ryorel in the chest, killing him instantly.
Nantle leapt at the weapon, her lightsaber a faint green glow in the darkening storm. A bolt hit her in the midsection and she was dead before she hit the snow.
"Surrender, Jedi!" a voice boomed from the ship. "Surrender... or die!"
The rear hatch opened, and a giant figure appeared, silhouetted by the lights inside. They saw it was a Zabrak, his horns clearly visible in the backlight.
Assaud was suddenly flanked by four Sith warriors with blazing lightsabers.
"What do you want?" Mace yelled at Assaud.
"That is a good question, Jedi!" the big Sith answered back. "I want the rest of those datacards!"
"I don't know what you're talking about!" Mace replied.
"Do NOT toy with me, Jedi! I have half of the datacards. We have been monitoring you! You seem to have found what we could not! I want them!"
"You want 'em?" Zadok shot back. "Come and get 'em!" He grabbed the bag from Nantle's corpse and leapt onto the ship's hull.
The Sith flooded out of the ship, and the Jedi scattered into the blinding snow. Zadok leapt again, this time in the direction of their ship. The ship's turbolasers began firing in all reachable directions, inadvertently killing the Sith warriors.
Zadok reached the Whiplash quickly, turned the vessel on, and locked the turbolasers onto the Sith ship. With the shields down, the big ship quickly began to sustain heavy damage.
Assaud ran to the cockpit, and tried to escape, but the damage was too much. The ship careened sideways, and slammed into the ruins of the base. The cockpit buried itself in the command center, and the unstable roof collapsed, crushing the cockpit and Assaud with it.
The Jedi converged on the wreckage, and their ship dropped down nearby, turbolasers ready to fire.
The ship was littered with bodies of the crew.
"I hope those datacards are still on board," Magena said, stepping up to the still-open landing ramp.
"It was smart to separate those datacards," Kendor added, his blaster at the ready. Magena led the way, sweeping her blaster around the sparking wreck. They heard a loud creaking as the ship's cockpit began to cave in more.
The trio searched the ship, and didn't find anything.
"Must have been in the cockpit with that Zabrak," Mace said, heading for the remains of the cockpit.
As they closed in on the front of the ship, something metallic caught Magena's eye, half-hidden by the body of a crew member. She was impaled on a broken piece of durasteel that had broken off in the crash and impaled her through the stomach. Blood soaked the floor. Magena eased forward, listening to the ship creak and groan some more.
"Easy," Kendor said, his eyes sweeping the ship.
As her hand touched the case, the hull cracked and broke open, dropping some twenty feet as the ruins of the base's upper level gave way under the added weight. Magena snagged the case as she began to slide down the sloping hull towards the now gone cockpit. She screamed in surprise as she slid, and managed to catch the broken steel beam the woman had been impaled on.
"Mags!" Kendor yelped.
She flung the case towards the rear of the ship and Kendor pulled her back.
"Nice save, kid," Mace said, rubbing her head.
They retrieved the case, and popped it open. Another set of datacards lay inside.
"I guess this completes the whole set," she said, popping in a datacard.
More readouts relating to the ship displayed themselves before them.
""Let's collect our dead and get outta this frozen hell," Mace said, heading towards the back hatch.
After another two-day flight, the Whiplash and her remaining crew touched down on Temple grounds on Yavin 4. The number of datacards totaled twelve, and there were more than just ship schematics there.
Zadok and Magena turned the datacards over to Leia while Kendor and Mace debriefed with Luke Skywalker.
That night, two funeral pyres were lit and the bodies of Nantle and Ryorel were burned in traditional Jedi custom. Tahin, Nantle's sister, who was a librarian at the Temple, stood near Master Skywalker, her eyes full of tears. Mara Jade Skywalker stood on the other side of her husband, watching the twin fires illuminate the darkness. She wiped away a tear from her cheek.