Chapter 4
The medpac that Grakkata expertly applied soothed his wounds, and Avery was shortly feeling like himself again. "Thank you," he said, twisting his torso this way and that, "that stuff really works."
"There are only so many of that variety of medpac to go around," Arro-Six told him. "We found a secret cache of them when we-" Interrupted by a quick word from the Wookiee, she abandoned the train of thought, and opted to rest her metal body in one of the lounge chairs, instead. "Anyway, I'm glad the two of you have returned. This demolition unit you left me with is not the most garrulous of droids."
Offended, Dot rumbled out his eloquent rebuke. "Rrrhr."
Avery turned his attention to the Wookiee. "So what now?" he asked. "I assume you have some repairs to do, and I'm as wanted as I ever was. Do you need any help around here?"
Grakkata barked out an affirmative, and he was pleased to hear it. I could sure use the time to think about what I'm going to do next; he mused, completely out of ideas.
"Dibs on the electric astro feed line tracing!" Arro called out in her nasal, metallic voice, and strode away toward the cockpit. Dot, knowing nothing about starships, promptly fell asleep, while Grakkata pulled out a toolbox full of hyperdrive instruments that were completely foreign to the young human. "So, where does that leave me?" he asked.
Avery sat atop the Treespirit, digging away at a mass of scorched, blasted debris that covered a good-sized area of the vessel's hull. A blaster burn like this one looked pretty ugly up close, and smelled even worse. Many of the softer hyperdrive components had been liquefied under this section of the hull, and Avery would have to clean out all of the blackened mess before Grakkata could get the new parts in properly from underneath, inside the vessel. Scooping out another couple of handfuls of acrid soot, he held his breath and threw them over the side of the ship.
The day was hot and moist, clouds covering most of the afternoon sky. The Treespirit looked far different under daylight, Avery noticed. The entire vessel had been painted in the vibrant greens and browns of forest camouflage, the colours fading into one another seamlessly. It wouldn't really hide the vessel from the probing eye, of course, but the colours did create a beautiful effect. Avery supposed that Grakkata had had the craft painted this way for sentimental reasons – he'd heard that these Wookiees came from a heavily forested world.
A small vacuum brush Grakkata had given him served to clear away the last of the debris, and then Avery was on his way back to the ship's dorsal hatch. Pausing a moment over the round opening, he leaned back to study the overcast grey sky. Gonna rain, he mused, I guess I should get back to Stav's cabin sometime soon. The thought made him feel strangely sad, and he descended the ladder back into the ship with a heavy heart.
Grakkata was busily fitting parts into a panel in the ceiling, while Arro, her tasks completed, stood motionless and deactivated in the centre of the maintenance area. Avery continued forward into the crew lounge, where Dot slept soundlessly. What am I going to do with this droid? He asked himself. What am I going to do about anything? Feeling hopeless, he continued further forward into the Treespirit, finally forced to come to a halt in the cockpit.
Sliding into the co-pilot's chair, he rested a foot on the console, and leaned back. A squeaking from the ceiling stole his attention, and Avery's eyes followed the noise to find a pair of wrist-binders hanging there, broken, in a place where most spacers would have hung an air refresher, or lucky charm. It appeared to Avery that, no matter how bad his situation, Grakkata might just have seen worse. Imagining what hair-raising adventures this Wookiee woman and her droid may have experienced, Avery closed his eyes, and was asleep in moments…
Poom.
Avery was lying in a fathomless, black void, but was not afraid. It was peaceful here, that old demon Fear choosing to make its home in colder climes.
Poom.
There was a surface beneath him, which glowed with its own soft, blue light.
Poom.
Stripes of the blue light curled up around him, protecting him as he-
Poom.
-realized the stripes were fingers, several fingers of a-
Poom.
-luminous hand in whose palm he now lay. But-
Poom.
-something was approaching, something-
Poom.
-from below, something horrible, and the-
Poom.
-hand curled him up further, but the-
Poom.
-dark things started to eat away at it, tearing-
Poom.
-ragged holes in the ghostly fabric and-
Poom.
-they were coming for him…
Poom.
Avery snapped awake with a start, taking a second to recall just where he was. He could hear Grakkata cleaning up back in the ship's hold, noisily putting tools away and replacing access panels. It was a little darker now, and the rain that had threatened to appear earlier was just now beginning to manifest itself in little drops on the cockpit glass. Avery was watching them fall, when he saw something moving further outside the window, accompanied by a sound.
Poom.
Straightening up in the chair, Avery beheld a sight that, until now, he'd only seen on news holovision. A vehicle stood outside, a tall, two-legged vehicle whose evil head stared back at him with soulless eyes, inside of which two troops covered the Treespirit with the vehicle's laser cannons, two fearsome tusks on the front of the beast. An Imperial AT-ST walker was an impressive sight, this one accompanied by eight grey-clad army troopers who fanned out to cover the ship.
"Grak…" Avery croaked softly, and cleared his throat. "Grakkata!"
The Wookiee growled from somewhere in the rear, and came running forward. Clearly, she'd heard the noise too, and erupted with an angry roar when she saw what waited for them outside the cockpit. Arro-Six was right on her heels.
"Oh no!" she shouted, "They've caught us at last!"
"Attention, Treespirit," called an amplified voice from inside the walker, "lower your ramp and prepare to be boarded."
In reply, Grakkata hammered her fists on the console, hastily activating the ship's drives. The troops surrounding the vessel opened fire immediately, and the area was alight with laser fire. Grakkata howled at Avery, pointing frantically at the gunnery controls in front of him.
Avery didn't need Arro to tell him what the Wookiee was suggesting and, as the walker began to join in the assault, he switched on the controls to the Treespirit's turret laser, swinging the cannon in the direction of the enemy vehicle.
The army troopers danced around frantically as the starship's weaponry roared to life, ripping up the ground around them and cracking the surrounding trees. The walker's cannons hammered the vessel as it lifted into the air, it's hull holding strong. Avery lined up the AT-ST in his sights, and pounded the controls. Hit with multiple blasts, the walker exploded in a ball of roaring fire, raining down pieces on the hapless troops below.
The Treespirit climbed up over the landscape at dizzying speeds, making for high orbit. Puncturing the cloud cover, the ship was bathed in sunlight as it left the surface of Bodrin behind, and headed for the stars. Avery looked down at the shrinking ball he had called his home for twenty-three years, and heaved a sigh. I guess my mind's been made up for me, he mused, as the ship's sensors began beeping for attention.
"Star Destroyer!" Arro announced, the tension bleeding through her tones, "the Thunderflare!" It was redundant, for the wedge-shaped warship floated dead ahead, nerve-wrackingly close.
"It must have been waiting here for us," Avery said in awe, holding onto the cannon controls desperately.
"Now's the time to test out those stolen parts!" Arro cried, while Grakkata prepared to take the Treespirit into a blind jump. The Wookiee pulled back on the hyperdrive levers, and Avery Kranzt just had time to bid his old life adieu as the stars bent themselves into screaming white lines around him…
"Well, they've gotten away."
Captain Tanda Pryll noted the announcement without looking at the lieutenant, made a note in her datapad. "Yes, I see. Was the quarryman with them?"
"We believe so, sir. He was part of that robbery… it makes sense." He scowled at the woman's back, and sighed for all the bridge crew to hear. What some petty civilian had to do with all this was truly beyond him. "With all due respect, sir, my battery crews could have reduced that junk heap to slag, and this case could have been closed. The Treespirit has been verified as a pirate vessel. There's no need to reel everyone in for questioning."
"I am aware of your thoughts in the matter, lieutenant Trenta, " she admonished him, "and would remind you that it is I who sits in the big chair." She played with her long, brown braid absently, a habit that annoyed the lieutenant to no end. Walking to the giant window, she stood silently for a time, while Trenta tapped his foot impatiently, waiting for some kind of order.
"Contact my team leader on the surface," she instructed the man. "Ask him what he needs, and give it to him, lieutenant. The time has clearly come to proceed…"
