Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. Was there any real doubt to that fact?
Simple Heroism
A harsh alien language snarled orders down the hall, forcing the Ithorian to run faster. His jumpsuit, custom made to fit his anatomy, made the tactical retreat much easier than his normal attire; a fact that he was thankful for. His race was usually known as a physically slow and calculating group, but his speed could almost match the humanoid world record holder that had been crowned at the most recent Galactic Games. It was the Force that aided his movements.
Orren stopped three meters away from the corner that he had just crossed, the eyes on the top of his hammer-shaped head studying the bulkheads in front of him; analyzing if they could withstand the pressure of the attack that would follow. Not that it really mattered, he thought. The civilians aboard this luxury space-liner were almost completely evacuated, leaving the majority of the living things on this ship to be him and the Yuuzhan Vong warriors assaulting it. Orren's mind spun slightly as he remembered the opening days of the invasion three years previously. His own home planet had been reduced to nothing but ashes, his father died by his side when a razor sharp insect thrown by one of the invaders imbedded in his throat.
It had taken all he could then not to fall into the trap of despair and lash out at invaders in a very un-Jedi like blaze of hatred and anger. Even though his mind burned even now, he knew that he would not use those emotions to power the very thing that made him so adept at protecting those under his care. He would not fall to the dark side.
There was another snarl in the alien language, only the word "Jeedai" being intelligible to his ears. They were closer now, only a few seconds away from turning the corner and then be in range for their strange ranged weaponry. He shut his lightsaber off and quickly placed it on his belt. This could be the only way to be able to gain an advantage and be able to fend them off. They couldn't be felt in the Force, or be affected by it. He had found that out before Ithor, but only truly learned the lesson that night.
He took a few breathes, each one of them growing progressively deeper. The fourth time, he sucked in all of the air that he could muster in, all four of his throats siphoning the thick air into his lungs. He could now see the seven Yuuzhan Vong warriors enter his line of sight. Like almost all of the other warriors of their kind they wore a living suit of armor that was incredibly resistant to lightsabers compared to the normal armoring that Orren and the rest of the Jedi had encountered. The leader of the squad was a mosaic of ritual scars and tattoos, his long black hair tied back in a topknot.
A disturbingly similar looking insect was hurled towards Orren; the Ithorian's enhanced combat senses making the speedy projectile move in slow motion as it spun its way like a discus towards him. It reached halfway before Orren let out all of the air that he had inhaled in a Force-enhanced bellow. A loud, low-pitched drone emitted from his twin mouths, overwhelming the Yuuzhan Vong as their eardrums partially ruptured. The razor bug began to slow down in his vision before changing direction. The bug tried to flap its wings and change its direction but was unable to do so before slamming into the head of its thrower, killing him instantly.
Then the Yuuzhan Vong began to be swept up in the violent winds and slammed into the bulkhead behind them.
Orren stopped as he exhausted his supply of air, breathing heavily for the briefest of moments before removing his lightsaber from his belt and igniting it. A blue beam of light illuminated the previously dimmed room as the Ithorian Jedi struck a combat stance. Three of the original five Yuuzhan Vong warriors stood up, slightly dizzy from the effects of the devastating bellow that had just thrown them into the wall. Two of their fellow warriors had died in the attack, the other one's neck having been broke when he had hit the wall at an awkward angle. They raised their amphistaffs and charged towards the infidel wielding the energy weapon that was the ultimate insult to their race.
Orren gathered up as much Force power as he could, focusing it inside of him. He knew that the Force couldn't affect the Vong, but he did know that he could use it to improve himself. His limbs now felt lighter. The first warrior approached a snarl on his lips. Orren sent his lightsaber into a wide arc that was blocked by the serpentine weapon. The snake head at the end of the weapon hissed at him and unleashed a globule of venom that missed the Ithorian Jedi by a few centimeters. Orren moved his head out of the way of another amphistaff headed his way. The wind disturbed from the missed slice blew across Orren's face as the Ithorian fell back a step.
He feigned a strike at the lead warrior who brought his staff up to block his strike. Orren changed his attack to a thrust that pierced the hard armor and went deep into the flesh of the Yuuzhan Vong warrior. The impaled Vong warrior slid off of the lightsaber and onto the ground, quickly being replaced by the other Yuuzhan Vong.
A well-timed attack by the second Vong warrior that was left opened up a several centimeter-long gash in his left arm. The pain welled up in his body, forcing Orren to do his best to try and suppress it as long as he could. He had to survive this combat, there were probably a few civilians on the ship that hadn't been able to evacuate. He fell back slightly, sending a couple of half-hearted strikes toward the Vong warriors as they followed. He changed his pace, somewhat, letting one of his retreating strikes have enough force to kill. A Vong head rolled off of the shoulders that it was formerly attached to and hit the floor with a sickening thud.
Now there was only one of the original five Yuuzhan Vong warriors left. The last survivor twirled his amphistaff as he readying himself for the duel. His ears were ringing from the assault minutes previously, but his will to fight and to kill had not been broken. Orren was tired from the fight and the run previously, and breathed in as much oxygen that he could. In his mind he could remember his first taste of hand-to-hand combat outside of Yavin IV. An Aqualish crimelord with a penchant for vibrobayonets had left several scars across his body before a Twi'lek Jedi was able to take him down. This would not end up like that combat four years ago, he thought.
Orren blocked the first attack that was aimed at him, the Ithorian Jedi resolving himself to fight this battle on the defensive. He deflected a few more strikes before finally making one of his own, a sideways swing that simply burned a gash in the living armor worn by his opponent. Several more ripostes from the Vong followed, each one of them ending on the edge of Orren's lightsaber.
Two pinpricks of pain shot through Orren's right arm as he blocked another attack, followed by a painful burning. Orren looked at the sight of the wound to see two fang marks and a hissing snake head backing away before straightening itself out at the end of the amphistaff. He knew what was stored in those fangs, having seen friends die slowly because of the poison inside of them. There was also no way to nullify it via the Force. The toxin, much like all other bits of the Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology, could not be effected by the Force.
Orren swung his lightsaber diagonally, finally hitting the Vong warrior and splitting him in two. As the dead warrior collapsed, the Ithorian breathed out a tremendous sigh of relief. Now, as the poison began to work, he could get to the civilians.
He walked the few meters towards a heavily sealed access hatch and used a simple manipulation of the Force to open it. From the inside, he could hear a panicked scream and the sound of cloth rustling. "Do not be afraid," he said, trying to calm down the hiding survivors. Already, his own head was spinning with the effects of the poison. He needed to enter a healing trance soon. "I'm a Jedi. We need to get you all out of here."
The civilians quickly—yet cautiously—filed out of their hiding place, seeing their rescuer leaning up against the bulkhead. They carried weaponry, but it was civilian only. Orren doubted that they could even remotely harm a Vong save for hitting it in the head.
"Are you okay, Master Jedi?" one of them—a teenaged human by the looks of him—said as he saw the wounds on Orren's body.
"He's been bitten!" a middle-aged woman carrying a stun baton said a few seconds later. "Poisoned."
Orren nodded. "I don't know if I can make it to my ship under my own power," he said. "You may have to carry me for the last steps."
"How many of those Vong are on the ship?" a female Rodian asked.
"I'd guess about 15, but not in this area," Orren croaked out. "We'd best hurry." The haste in his voice was evident. He knew about how long he could remain conscious with the Vong poison running in his body and nearly exactly how long he had before he needed to slip into a healing trance. He also thought that no one of the survivors knew how to pilot a starship as well as how to set hyperspace coordinates.
The group of survivors walked through the hallways, the lights constantly flickering due to the damage that the ship had received when the Yuuzhan Vong landing party had first attacked it. Orren was supported by two of the stronger civilians as the poison sapped the strength out of the Ithorian. His estimates on the Vong were correct, the rescued civilians were completely unaccosted by the extra-galactic invaders as they made their way to the hangar.
Orren's ship was a slightly modified Lambda-class shuttle. A few extra guns had been installed, as well as an upgraded engine that made it a few minutes faster in realspace, as well as a new Hyperdrive that shaved a couple of hours from the outer rim to the core. A few other ships lay unattended in the hangar as their owners had made use of the escape pods or had fallen to the amphistaffs of Vong warriors. A remote located in one of Orren's pockets opened up the entrance ramp of shuttle, filling the survivors and the wounded Jedi with a little bit more hope than they had previously.
Then a savage sounding pounding game from an adjacent, powered down door. A fierce and bestial roaring emerged as the sound of claws upon metal grated the ears of those in the hangar bay. "They've found us!" a panicked cry emerged from a few of the surviving humans, causing them to half-drag the wounded Jedi towards the ship.
Three quarters of the way to the ship, the door gave way. An ear-assaulting howl reverberated throughout the hangar bay, causing those with their hands free to cover their ears from the sound of it. Out of the mangled and wrecked door stepped a beast that none of them had seen before in their lives. It had six tall legs that stretched its height to almost a full meter. Greenish-black scales covered the long and muscular body, catching the flickering lights menacingly. Thick bristles traced along the creature's spinal column before reaching a powerful looking tail.
Two of the surviving humans turned to face their new attacker and opened fire with their blaster pistols. The blue bolts soared through the air and quickly struck the creature in the face. The powerful scales absorbed the bolts with no effort, barely even making the creature angry. A growl escaped the toothsome maw of the beast as it pounced towards the two pesky humans who saw fit to stand in the way between it and its real prey.
"My wife! That beast killed my wife!" the male human who had been carrying Orren cried out as the entrance ramp closed in front of him. Groggily looking towards him from the pilot's chair, Orren blinked his eyes in empathy.
"She is with the Force now," he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. A slick sheen of perspiration covered his head, the obvious result of the fever that burned throughout his body. "We must leave now before we prematurely join her." With the press of a button, the somewhat computer savvy Orren deactivated the containment field from within his own ship. The air rushed out of the hangar, taking the still hungry beast with it, the mad creature clawing superficial wounds into the hull of the shuttle as it went.
His mind now reeling, Orren "drunkenly" piloted the shuttle out of the hangar, his other hand bringing up the navcomputer as he did. Thoughts swam in and out of his consciousness as the group finally escaped the ship. Where were they supposed to go again? Yavin 4? No, he thought after a second's thought. The Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4 had been destroyed months ago. Ossus? Why would they need to go to there? It was a completely dead planet? "Coruscant…" he finally muttered, letting the Force guide his hand to select the New Republic's capital world. With what strength he could currently muster, the Ithorian Jedi pulled the lever, activating the Hyperdrive and sending them off to their destination. "Medbay…" he whispered to his companions, two of which helped carry him towards an offset bunk near the main quarters of the shuttle. Following his barely coherent instructions in setting up an IV that supplied basic nutrition to him. With a waking word given to the group, Orren collapsed into a Force trance.
With the trance came a nightmare. A valiant hero giving his all before ultimately falling before the spears of his enemies. It was then that what could only be described as a violent shock wave hit Orren as it did every other Jedi in the galaxy. One of their own had fallen. Someone powerful.