CHAPTER XXIV: Blockades and Crashes
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Atton drew them out of lightspeed just to the edge of the long lines of ships waiting to dock at Iziz on Onderon. Kiray stood to the side, with Lonna Vash manning the copilot's chair. "Looks like this is going to be a nice long wait," Atton grumbled as he sat back on the chair. Kiray nodded and frowned, muttering, "Haar'chak, shabla ram'or! Can we get past them?"
"I doubt it," Lonna replied as Atton gave Kiray a confused look. She muttered, "A damn, frakking siege, that's what this is." Atton "oohhh"ed in understanding as he settled in front of his consoles. Kahned walked into the cockpit and reported, "Everyone's strapped down and ready in case we need to get moving. If anything happens, we had better break for any planetoid nearby."
"True, and good job, Kahned," Kiray said, more than a little distracted. Kahned gave her a nod before returning to the main hold. Suddenly, a wisp of fog appeared in Kiray's vision, and as she watched, afraid of what would happen, she could see to another bridge. Standing together were two soldiers, and one, as Kiray could see, had the rank of colonel.
"What?!" the colonel shouted to the other officer, "The Ebon Hawk has reached Onderon? Dispatch the A-wings to drive them away, destroy, if need be, but get that freighter away from Onderon!"
The vision dissipated, and Kiray soon heard the colonel's voice over their own comm. system.
"This is Colonel Tobin to the Ebon Hawk. You are not welcome here on Onderon, and, unless you leave now, you will not escape from us!" Kiray's head snapped up to see three A-wing starfighters hurtling right for them.
"Atton, do you see them?" Kiray asked, almost getting ready to wrench Atton out of the pilot's seat, "How about you get us moving..."
"Uh, right! Right, yeah...Why are they coming after us?"
"Oh, get up, you di'kut!" Kiray shouted, grabbing Atton and throwing him to the side. She thumbed the intercom and shouted, "Kahned or Bao, get up in the turret and give it a workout, we're gonna need some cover fire!"
"On it, General!" Bao-Dur answered, and the thuds of footsteps running gave Kiray some kind of relief before sending the Hawk into a steep dive, weaving between ships to find an opening to edge out of. She could hear the laser turrets firing at the trailing A-wings, and she watched the shields slowly get washed away by each fighter's torpedoes or repetitive cannon fire.
"We're getting down low!" Atton yelled as he dashed for the main hold, "Where's that T3 unit, he needs to bolster the shield generator!"
"Too late, shields gone!" Lonna shouted, "We have to make a break for Dxun if we are to survive!"
"Look!" Mira called, "Seems like we started something!" Kiray spared a glance out the viewport to see all the other cruisers taking potshots at the blockade and dartlike fighters.
"Good, it'll keep them distracted while we make a swerve to Dxun," Kiray muttered before turning the Hawk away from the blockade around Onderon and towards the nearest livable moon: Dxun. She held the ship steady as they slid through Dxun's atmosphere undetected, and they landed in a small clearing near a beautiful, calming waterfall.
Atton marched back up to the cockpit, looking dejected and forlorn. "Pretty much everything's shot, and we're going to need some time for repairs, especially on the shield generator. I'm going to have to stay here 'til everything's patched up."
"In the meantime," Lonna put in, "seeing as this is Dxun, we should see if any Mando'ade have returned here to unite once more."
"Yes, and I still need to report to Mandalore, if you want to meet him," Kahned added. Kiray nodded in agreement before asking, "You do know how to get to the camp, right?"
"There are a few old trails that're still at least travelable," Kahned explained, "but I wouldn't count on not running across any cannoks or maalraas while we're out there; at worse, we'll meet a zakkeg."
"All right, Kahned, you're coming with me. Anyone else you'd recommend?"
"Probably Master Vash-"
"No, but I thank you," Lonna interrupted, "I'll be more helpful on the ship anyway. Take Mira; she's seemed a little restless since we've left Nar Shaddaa, and some action might do her good."
"All right, let's move out," Kiray said, leaving the cockpit with Kahned following. Mira was snagged by the shoulder and the bounty huntress also followed the Mandalorians out into the jungle.
"Just as I imagined," Mira remarked when she reached the bottom of the boarding ramp, "hot, humid, and rainy. What kind of strategic value could this place have had back during the wars?"
"It was close to a population center," Kahned pointed out as Kiray surveyed the area, "a few years or so, Dxun skims Onderon's atmosphere. That's how the drexls crossed over millennia ago, and we followed their path when we took Onderon."
"So Dxun's value relies on Onderon's," Kiray finished, returning from her glances up the trails. "Both sides have about three cannoks each, but the paths cross near another trio of cannoks and a maalraas. Mira, if you come with me on the high road, Kahned can handle the lower path." Kiray's brother grinned and gave her a salute with one of his vibroswords before jogging off to the lower path.
"Sounds to me like there's more to getting him off your back than just to take care of three cannoks," Mira stated pointedly as they set off towards the other path. Kiray sighed and ran a hand through her hair.
"Guess there's no getting around you," Kiray answered, "Lonna mentioned to me that you've been rather restless lately."
"Yeah, but I'm just homesick. Nar Shaddaa has its own life, y'know? Like its own rhythms, ebbs and flows, that kind of thing." Kiray nodded in understanding; hundreds of worlds were like that, and Nar Shaddaa was one of the more unique ones she'd felt.
"I noticed that too; maybe next time we're back we can take a listen." Mira gave Kiray a strange look and replied, "Now, don't try and get some kind of Jedi training onto me. If I wanted it, then I'd ask, okay?"
"All right, just thought I'd ask," Kiray backed off; Mira's temper rivaled her own sometimes. They sliced through the trio of cannoks in total silence save the rumbling of thunder. Kiray paused after the battle, hearing clashing blades and the growls of wild animals.
"Kahned!" she hissed, switching the blades back on. "What is the idiot doing now?" She ran into a second clearing, Mira hot on her heels, and Kiray saw Kahned dukeing it out, blade against claw, with three cannoks and two maalraas, with more on the way.
"If the ordinii isn't careful, he'll get a boma out here...or worse!" Kiray charged at the tight knot surrounding her brother, her lightsaber neatly slicing through the cannoks until she reached Kahned. "Ori'vod, vercopaanir gaa'tayl?" (Big brother, wishing for help?)
"Gedet'ye?" (Please?) Kahned asked as he swung a heavy punch at a leaping maalraas. Kiray whisked her saber at an attacking cannok and stabbed into its skull. There was a soft explosion from a grenade that Mira had fired, a stunner, and Kiray and Kahned took the opportunity to remove the rest of the beasts.
"Well, that was fun," Mira commented as she sauntered over to the battle site. Kahned was tired and scratched in a dozen places, and with a simple gesture from Kiray, they healed. "What say we keep moving?"
"That I'm all for," Kahned voted, and the three of them traveled deeper into the forest. Only one or two cannoks and maalraas crossed their path, and Mira was fast enough to shoot them down before either of the Mandalorians had to even get their weapons ready.
They did stop, however, at a crashed ship that was in even worse shape than the Hawk and surrounded by Duros bounty hunters. "Zhugs," Mira growled, "How perfect."
"More of them?" Kahned asked, twirling his blades in preparation as the lead Zhug approached and began speaking.
"Ah, I assume you are the one who started the fight up there." Kiray scoffed and answered, "And you know, it really wasn't me; it was that colonel's fault."
"But he was targeting you. And you are lucky that we landed in the same place, because, after your little stunts on the Smuggler's Moon, the bounty on your head has doubled. Now that would cause me to be afraid, no?"
"Uh, no. I'm not scared of small-time hunters who don't mind if the merchandise is dead or alive." The bounty hunter shrugged and growled, "So be it."
He and his compatriots readied their rifles, while Kiray leaped a good two meters to attack the leader. Kahned jogged at a steady pace to attack another hunter, and Mira's fire focused on the third. The bounty hunters, however, were not as well-trained as the three of them, and it was only after two seconds each that all the hunters were killed. Kahned's head snapped up at a few cracking twigs, and he gestured the two women down to the ground.
All he said was, "They're coming."