A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...
THE LEGEND OF
HIKARI-KIN
Book IV
FLIGHT OF THE CASTAWAYS
Since time immemorial, the Senate of the GALACTIC REPUBLIC ruled over countless worlds and systems. To maintain peace and order in the galaxy, the Republic called upon the Knights of the ANCIENT JEDI ORDER. Armed with the living force, a powerful cosmic energy, and their iconic lightsaber blades, the Jedi protected the innocent and brought the guilty to justice.
100 Standard Years before the Battle of Yavin, an official declaration from the Senate endowed the Masters of the Jedi Council with even more powers to prosecute those in violation of the dictates of their order. This legislation gave rise to numerous Republic-backed and Jedi-run arrests, trials and prisons. The peoples of the galaxy lived in safety, and the Jedi were praised.
In an unprecedented act of defiance, a stolen Jedi Exploration Vessel rocketed its way from the core world of Coruscant toward the galaxy's outer-rim. Several Jedi fighters were scrambled with an order to pursue and capture the vessel, or destroy it if necessary. Onboard, a lone droid awakens . . . .
Chapter 1
System Error. Chaotic flashes materialized before the droid's vision. His circuits scrambled to find any meaning to what he saw. A prison. A Jedi. A Battle. His friends. Protection. Protocols. Escape.
"T-99, get up!" A kind-looking woman in dirty gray robes tapped on the side of T-99's facial plate.
The droid responded. "I am. I am T-99. What happened?"
He scanned the woman's face. Her hair was straight and silvery white, falling just above her shoulders. Her uneasy smile was warm. She wasn't quite human. The ruby shine to her eyes betrayed a type of innocence. T-99 was sure he had seen her before. Her purple skin was the sign of her species. A file on the Keshiri people, from the Alancian region of the planet Kesh, was loaded and brought to the forefront of his processors.
"What happened?" Repeated the purple woman as she searched the faces of the ship's four dozen passengers, her breathing uneven. "Well, our ship was hit. You hit your head. Then we passed through a magnetic field, and…"
Two loud bangs echoed in the stuffy chamber. The ship jostled and rolled.
"There is no time to explain!" A hefty tank of a man picked him up and stood him on uneasy feet. His massive arm held the droid in place by his shoulder. "We need your help." He forced a sparking tool into T-99's open hand. The other held something metallic, heavy. T-99 tightened his grip on both items.
"My help? I require more data. Who are you? Where are we?" The robot surprised himself in his defiance. Something was deeply wrong, but there were insufficient returns to his internal queries into what it was. T-99's eyes sparked a bit brighter with clarity. Yes, his processors must have, indeed, been damaged.
The man gestured to himself and the kind woman. "I am Gen Namet and she is Doa-Tsuka. We are your masters." Another bang sent everyone into the starboard wall. Desperate yelps escaped from many passengers, most of them human, like Gen.
T-99 automatically created a working file in his memory banks on Doa-Tsuka, the red eyed and purple skinned Keshiri. Another was generated for Gen Namet, the clean shaven, pale skinned, bald and barrel chested man in what appeared to be Jedi robes. He was obviously anxious. What kind of a Jedi is anxious?
"I'll man the third turret gun, get him outside or we're dead." Doa-Tsuka turned and disappeared through a sliding door.
"GEN!" an angry call from the copilot at the controls. "I am his master too, leave me out again and I'll poison your flask!" The view to the copilot was obscured.
Gen cursed. "And she's Nis Kaaj. Follow me!" He slid down a ladder to the cargo hold. He sealed the cabin's air-lock. "Look droid," He pointed upward once T-99 joined him. "We don't have an astromech, and we'll all die if you don't go out onto our hull and reconnect the secondary hyper drive diffusion ports. Got it?"
T-99 searched his stored protocols, and nodded. He magnetically charged his feet, and turned away.
"Wait, I'll hold the saber." Gen reached for the object in T-99's right hand. "It is your duty to comply."
T-99 activated it instinctively. A buzzing and sparking blade erupted from the silver hilt. The blade illuminated the cargo-hold with an other-worldly brightness, shining a glistening yellow-gold in color, like the deep embers of a fire. Its hum was rich and deep.
"Get back!" T-99 retorted loudly. He froze. All prods into his programming and memory banks yielded no reason for this behavior. "I, um…" What was there to say? All he knew, is that he could not let his masters have the saber.
"Fine, FINE – what are you waiting for? We can't take another direct hit!" A helpless expression washed over Gen's face.
T-99 nodded and reflexively deactivated the lightsaber and stored it in a customized compartment within his forearm. With a few more steps, he passed through a side hatch, through the ships deflector shield and onto the side of the ship. Three fighters pursued them. Green lasers stabbed through the empty expanse, grazing the shields. Another set of laser bolts narrowly missed his humanoid shape. T-99 made his way to the hyper drive ports. An automated maintenance program kicked in from deep inside his systems. Short work was made of the diffusion port connections and he could feel the engines hum at the ready.
"T-99, stop playing around and get back in here so we can make the jump!" Nis Kaaj's voice resonated through the ship and up through T-99's magnetized feet. He moved to obey. One of the pursuing fighters burst into flames and disintegrated. Doa-Tsuka made a direct hit. Yet the other two circled around and back to the anterior of the vessel. Just as T-99 made it inside, Nis turned her head back and yelled at the passengers, "Hold on to something!"
The second fighter exploded and Doa-Tsuka let out a cheer. The ships' hyper drive whirred to life, just as a final and fateful blow from the last fighter broke through the shields, hitting the engine.
"We're hit!" Nis panicked.
Vibrations from the creeping cracks in the hull were picked up by T-99's sensors. The atmosphere inside the vessel began to whip out through the cracks. The calculations already ran in his circuits. In approximately 2.017 seconds, T-99 knew that the internal pressure will no longer be contained and the ship will explode. Gen's eyes met T-99's and he closed them. In a meditative trance Gen's hands moved as if he gripped a kind of invisible ball. He closed his hands and slowly sat, flooding his legs. The ship pieced itself back together. The stolen vessel reached light speed, and they were gone.
((This story is brought to you by the Rogue Saber Academy. Stick around for the next chapter, coming soon!))