Chapter I: Inyri and Gabe's Starship Hideaway
"Hurry up slowpoke," Inyri Forge yelled though her gas mask as she ran through one of Kessel's thousands of canyons.
"Slow down Iynri," Gabe called after her.
"Not a chance," She called back. "It's not much further."
Ahead of them the canyon slowly widened until it opened up into a large area large enough to hide a fleet of star destroyers. Inyri stopped at the opening of the area and smiled. As her brown haired, human friend caught up, her smile broadened. "Isn't it amazing?" she asked him.
It took Gabe a moment or two to realize what he was seeing. Stretched out before him were dozens of meters of scrap metal and destroyed electrical components. But past that, half buried in the ground was a small ship. A fighter.
"Whoa! That's a headhunter," Gabe said running up to it. And there's another over there. And there too. There must be a dozen of them."
"I know," Inyri said running to join him as he peered into the cockpit. "I saw the from over head when me and Lujayne were riding around in the sky hopper."
"I wonder how it is they all crashed in this one place?"
"Hello, Kessel to Gabe. They landed here and were fired on from above."
"How do you know that?"
Inyri pointed underneath the headhunter. "Landing gear smart one."
"Oh so now you think your funny do you?"
"Funny, no. Of superior intellect, definitely."
They both laughed at the joke. As they laughed something caught Inyri's eye over head. "What that?" she asked.
Gabe looked where she was pointing. "I don't know," he said. "Lets find out." He walked to the canyon wall beneath the cliff and fastened an attachment to his blaster. He pointed the barrel at the cannon and fired. Instead of a laser a long cable shot out and caught on one of the rock up above. He fasted the blaster to his belt and held his arms out to Inyri. "Unless your afraid," He said with a grin.
Inyri smiled back and grabbed onto him. Gabe hit a button on his blaster and it started reeling in the line slowly, taking them up to the cliff.
The object they had spotted from below was a medium sized defense turret. A large hole had been blasted in the side of it and the skeleton of a trandoshan lay inside seated in the chair.
"Wicked?" Gabe said peering into the hole. He pulled a blaster rifle from the trandoshan's body. "This is great."
"Your gonna love this then," Inyri was looking out over the entire area. In all there were fourteen headhunter below, some completely destroyed, others relatively intact. There were also a few "uglies", fighters put together from parts of other ships, on the canyon floor. The canyon walls supported three other defense turrets, each one seemingly destroyed. And behind the destroyed fighters lay a battered Corellian Action VI bulk freighter.
It took them nearly half an hour to climb down and when they got to the freighter they found that it had the name "Logar's Vengeance", painted on the side.
"I wonder who Logar is," Inyri said as Gabe tried to get the cargo hatch door open.
"Probably a smuggler," he said. "We can look it up when we get back to the compound"
The door hissed and sparked then slowly opened. Inside was pitch black. Suddenly a large spider jumped out and latched on to Gabe's faded brown flight jacket.
"Get it off me," He yelled wrestling with the huge energy spider.
"Just a second. Stop moving," Inyri fired at the spider blasting a large hole all the way through it.
"Thanks for that," Gabe said getting up and brushing off pieces of the spider's exoskeleton.
"Yeah well someone has to look out for you, yah ol' nerf-herder." She replied. Now lets take a look inside.
Together they walked into the main cargo hold. Gabe found a light switch and turned it on.
Where they thought to find crate upon crate of riches they found only a few empty durasteel containers. "Sithspawn, someone beat us to it," Inyri said.
"Any idea what they were hauling?" Gabe asked. "Maybe there's like a manifest or something somewhere."
"Corusca gems. And a lot of them. Man we're really out of luck this time old buddy," Inyri said as she read a data card she had found. "Just one of those would be enough to get us off this dump."
Gabe ignored her and walked over to the wall circuit where he had found the light switch. He pushed a button and another set of lights came on. The next button he pressed opened a large set of doors that lead to the ship's secondary cargo hold. They walked through the doors expecting to find more empty boxes but instead found a mostly intact Y-wing starfighter.
"Dibs," Gabe said.
"The things almost an antique. Ten credits says it doesn't even fly."
"Jealous there Inyri?"
"Nope! Just wondering how your gonna get it out of here when the doors to this hold are below the ship."
"I'll think of something." Gabe climbed onto the craft and peered through the main view port. The co-pilot's chair was empty. The pilot's couch however had another skeleton of a human in it. There hand was on the trigger of the top mounted ion cannon. And his flight suit had five blaster holes in them that matched the five on the main view port. Looking over at the doors the ion cannon was pointed at, Gabe saw a few destroyed droids and two other skeletons holding there own blasters. "Last stand," Gabe whispered.
"Gabe get down from there and lets go find the bridge," Inyri called up impatiently.
"Alright! I'm coming," Gabe yelled back. As he climbed down from the top of the cockpit he noticed something shining inside the cockpit. "You go on ahead, I'll be there in a second." He yelled.
Inyri shrugged and threw her hands up. "Fine," She said and walked off.
"Gabe pulled with all of his strength until the usually automatic hatch slid back and he was able to get his hand into the cockpit. He pried the skeletal hand open and couldn't believe his luck. The man had been holding a Corusca gem. It caught the light beautifully yet it was no longer then his index finger. He pulled from his belt a small cutting torch he had brought under Inyri's order and turned it on. Using it he was able to drill a small hole into the gem and then feed a chain through it. He wrapped the chain around the gem and pocketed it then ran to catch up with Inyri.
He finally found her just outside the bridge. "About to time you showed up pokey."
"Sorry," He replied. "That Y-wing is in wicked condition."
"Yeah except maybe those laser holes in the transperisteel. You'll have to wear a deep space suit in that thing. You still got that cutting torch?"
"Right here," Gabe handed her the torch and she fired it up. She slowly cut through the locks and then opened the door.
The bridge was empty. Inyri sat down in the captain's chair and started hitting switches. As Gabe walked up behind her a small image of a middle aged man appeared in front of them.
"This is captain Morson of Logar's Vengeance. If your viewing this now then I am dead. I would appreciate it if whoever is watching right now would contact my wife and son for me, or at least send a message out to them for me. Maybe we shouldn't have betrayed Logar. He's tracked us and the goods all the way here to Kessel. I would offer him the gems and the ships in return for my crew's life but I fear he would just kill us anyways. So we'll fight them. I just hope he doesn't find our little hiding place here on Kessel so…..Oh sit spawn." A large explosion and then the image dissolved.
"So!" Inyri said. "Pirate steals from bigger pirate. Bigger pirate blasts pirate all the way to Bespin."
"We should probably head back now," Gabe said. We can come back with some salvage crews tomorrow. It's getting pretty late."
"Salvage crew?" Inyri looked at him in awe. "No way Gabe. This is our place now. Inyri and Gabe's Starship Hideaway that's what we can call it."
"Why not Gabe and Inyri's Starship Hideaway? "
"Because I found it and I'm a lady," Inyri tossed her hair over her shoulder and batted her eyelashes at him. "Now lets go get a tent set up."
A few hours later they both lay on there backs sharing the front view port of one of the headhunters. Nearby they had set up a tent and started a fire.
"That one we could call…..Lujayne," Inyri said pointing to a star.
"Why Lujayne?"
"I don't know, I'm just running out of good names."
"And that one there?" Gabe pointed to another star.'
"That planet can be…..Nokkforge."
"Oh so my name comes first this time does it?"
Inyri giggled and gave him a playful punch in the shoulder. Gabe smiled warmly and reached into his pocket. "I uh…I found this today. I was able to put it on a chain and I thought maybe you would want it. You know to wear from time to time or whatever." He showed her the Courusca gem.
"Gabborro Nokk, are you asking me to be your girl?" Inyri said with a smile.
"Well, yeah I guess I am. I mean if Inyri Forge can handle a gorgeous guy like me."
"Dream on nerf-herder." Inyri replied as she fastened the chain around her neck and let the gem hang there. "It does look good on me doesn't it?"
"Is that a yes then?" Gabe asked.
"No," Inyri leaned in and kissed Gabe passionately on the mouth. "But that most definitely was."