Disclaimer: Things that I own: Taivas, Malchiel, Nyeri, Aerik, Sk'th, Jack Swallow, all the other pirates from the Paler Black, and the Paler Black.
Things I do NOT, repeat NOT own: Indiana Jones, Leia, Luke, Han, Chewbacca, R2-D2, C-3PO, the Millennium Falcon, and all other Star Wars paraphernalia, all of which belong to Steven Spielburg and George Lucas. Anoia, Billious, and Topaxi belong to Terry Pratchet's Discworld Series as does Dunmanifestin and the Forests of Skund. The 3/17th's occipital left-leaning heterodyne wrench belongs to the wonderful Girl Genius Comics people over at Studio Foglio. (Go Google their work, you will laugh yourself silly.) The title comes courtesy of "Sweet Baby James" by James Taylor. One of my all time favorite songs. I would wish that you listen to it if you can. So pretty.

Notes to the oh so faithful reviewers:
Anonymous: I know, I know. My updates ARE appalling. It's terrible, but if you KNEW the workload that I've been under for the past two years you'd probably be a little more sympathetic. Still, I am TRYING to get this done by June of 2009, when I graduate and go abroad for the summer, so the frequency MAY pick up. We'll see. Anywho, thanks for reviewing and I hope you stick around!
Hope's Tears: Thanks for the review! I'm glad that you like that line and the fly. I'll try to put some Han/Leia stuff in later chapters…this one is a little more action driven.
Isis the Sphinx: Glad you like the flies, that is courtesy of Terry Pratchet's Discworld Series. Most fun I have EVER spent was reading through those books. As for my fandoms, Avatar and the good Doctor are just the tip of the iceberg. If I were to list them all out, it would probably be longer than the chapter I'm trying to post. Anywho, thanks for reviewing!
Khaur: HUZZAH FOR NEW REVIEWER!!! Glad that you like the story and I'm glad that you like TOD. I didn't. I mean Indy was incredible (as always), and Shortround was pretty funny but Willie was just so cheesy. All she did was scream. GAG! Marion would have been so much better (I was SOOOOO happy that they brought her back for Indy IV). Anyway, thanks for reviewing and do stick around.
Psycho8: HUZZAH FOR NEW REVIEWER!!!!! Glad that you are enjoying this. Though please do not make your grades suffer on my account. ;D Anyway, I'm really glad that you like this and please stick around!
Saisei no Suzaku: Thanks for the review. Yeah, Taivas is amazing. She's heavily based off of Catwoman as portrayed by Chris Dee (go search for her on Fan Fiction, you'll thank yourself later)
SwordMasterZ: Thanks for the review, mate. And I'm glad that you liked TOD. I didn't. (See rant posted under Khaur's name.) Do stick around.

Chapter 36
He Lives in the Saddle…

The third moon of Isosis was, by all accounts on every star map ever made in the history of the galaxy, dead. There was no life, no movement, no wind, no atmosphere, no water, no phosphorous, nothing; nothing but compressed grey dust, the testament of planetary creation from an eternity ago. The moon held absolutely nothing of value, no natural resources, and no strategic placement, and should not by any means be getting this kind of attention.

The Paler Black hung motionless above the moon, seen only as a stretch of starless sky, a black mass of nothingness, not moving, just hanging there. The Millennium Falcon was resting on the moon's surface, also motionless, and nearly blending in to the dusty grey surface except for a soft yellow glow coming from the cockpit. A few yards off sat a small jumpership, colorless, lifeless, grounded, and dead, lay undisturbed and uncared for. But these three vessels were nothing but backdrop, as boring as the moon, compared to the screaming ball of twisted metal that was hurtling towards the planetoid's surface.

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"HAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!! PULL THE KRETHING HELL UP!!!!" Leia's voice exploded from the rear of the little vessel, as the princess tried to make herself heard over its death wails. Han was trying his best not to crash them all and practically failing. He had smoke blinded eyes and oxygen starved hands and was devoting all his functioning brainpower to calculating the descent vectors needed to bring them in. And now his ears were suffering, but he couldn't even pause long enough to tell Leia to shut up.

What could he tell her?

That the explosion had ripped apart the engines and blown off their main oxygen tank?

That his guidance systems took their coordinates off the Black, which was offline, so he was practically flying blind?

That nothing short of a miracle was going to get them down on the planet in one piece and, even if that miracle did occur, they didn't have any means to get over to the Falcon?

Or that the cabin was slowly depressurizing in this vacuum and they had about ten minutes of usable oxygen left?

Oxygen her hysterics were draining that much faster?

How could he convey all that while still trying to keep a screaming, metal deathtrap from becoming a silent, twisted grave?

We need a miracle…

How the hell did this happen?

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I am going to kill Nyeri! Freaking stupid krething SITH LORDS! What the bloody krething hell?!? Taivas was stumbling back out into smoke filled hanger, trying to scan around the still-burning hairballs, swearing pirates, the activated propulsion system on the shuttle, and the misty haze of useless fire extinguisher, to find the hanger controls. Find the archeologist, he says, track him, he says, no problems, he says, easy way out, he says. Krething bantha-herding know it all. If I ever cross that skrujjing kullnecker I will hack his—She slid on a pile of slimy wookie fur and slammed into the console, momentarily forced to stop cussing Nyeri as she turned to the task at hand.

Until she found the console dead.

Stupid power surge. Last time I EVER take advice from a skrujj-krething voldekked man! And who the gruap knows that Wookie fur burns that well? She dropped down to the bottom of the console and started ripping cords and wires out to try and short it back online. Unfortunately that meant running the risk of getting the entire ship's power back, but, krethit, that was NOT her problem.

Only it was.

She had to get every last krething one of them out alive so they could find the krething valley so Nyeri would get off her krething back. Frustrated, Taivas started snapping and splicing wires to set up a backdoor that would enable her to keep the pirates distracted if she couldn't drop the power again. That earned her shocked fingers, a pungent odor of burnt ozone in her nostrils, and blinding afterimages in her eyepiece. The pirate who fell over her was almost lucky from her half blinded and very distracted predicament.

Almost. Unfortunately for him, Taivas had been trained to fight by Aerik and that kullnecker was without a doubt one of those twisted individuals who believed that if you woke up with amnesia you should still be able to tear someone's jugular out with a ball-point-pen, whatever the kreth that was. So now her fingers were sticky with blood, which just made them that much more conductive to the electrical charges she was playing with.

Life just was not fair.

MEN! The wires snapped with electricity as she went back to her original task of bringing the power for the hanger doors back online. Just when I think I've gotten away from one of those pribbling dizzy-eyed giglets ANOTHER one has to go and make my life miserable. There was a quick humming that came from the console as the power came back online. First Aerik with his drilling… She stood up and began punching controls. Then Nyeri with his power-mad-egotism… half the controls were still dead so she had to circumvent the main computer array. Then Sk'th with his stupid cockered annoying AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Another circuit snapped and fried her already tender paw-tips. Now it's these stupid humans!!! You're the only one who can do it, Taivas. I'm not leaving without them, Taivas. I have a great plan, Taivas, let's throw burning balls of Wookie fur down to create a distraction. Yeah, that's a krething great idea! The hanger doors finally began to rise, as the main power for the entire ship began to come back online. The Macskian howled in rage and began pounding on the backdoor she created, instantly bringing the Black's main power crashing down. She turned, still cussing, and began stumbling back to the shuttle.

Only to fall headlong onto the Paler Black's fire-fighting teams.

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"Leia! Just give the man time to think!" Indy barked from the back of the shuttle, immediately paying for his comment by hacking up a lung. Still, it got the princess to stop yelling in his ears, and Han was immensely grateful.

Isosis had no atmosphere to speak of, but that did not stop the destroyed engines from eating up what precious oxygen they had left in great, long, plumes of fire. The shuttle looked like a massive metallic phoenix falling to its death. The controls were still unresponsive, and the moon's surface loomed bigger and bigger.

Han was flirting with unconsciousness, trying to focus on landing in an unlandable situation, and his mind was fixed on the too-still form on the floor beside him.

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They can't be human. They're too krething big. Iron masks with rubber breathing apparatuses and great glass eyepieces stared down on her prone position. The five giant creatures where covered from head to foot in what looked like chainmail. They held long, thin rods in their hands that where attached via snaking hoses to huge containers on their backs. They seemed almost as shocked at the lithe cat-creature running into them as Taivas herself had been.

Unfortunately for them, Taivas recovered from shock very quickly.

She slid around on her right leg and slashed razor sharp claws at the leg of the closest fireman. Red blood exploded from his calf and a shrieking sound emanated from behind the monster's mask. One of the other firemen pointed his rod at her threateningly as she swooped upward away from the wounded to attack the others. She pivoted on her left leg, curving her right foot towards the rod, swiftly knocking it out of the creature's hands. Taivas was almost ecstatic at the thought of venting all her frustration on these pirates, until the engines of the small shuttle revved.

Quickly, she ducked under one of the firemen, cut between two others and bolted towards the shuttle. She wrenched open the door, threw herself inside, and slammed it shut.

"GO!" Taivas yelled at Han, who needed no second prompting. The shuttle lifted off the ground and began to move forward out the open doors when the floor jerked beneath them.

"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT!?!" Han yelled from the cockpit. Taivas glanced out the back viewport: one of the firemen had the bright idea to begin shooting his chemical extinguisher at the engine exhaust turrets. One turret had been completely covered with the thick, quickly hardening, foam, and the other one was still firing, making navigation practically impossible.

"Oh Malchiel," she whispered hoarsely; fear, for the first time since she was a kitten, choking up her brain. Indy lifted his head up to the glass, glanced out the viewport at the metallic firemen, and then staggered towards Han.

"There's some kind of monster out there. They're attacking us."

"Right, well, it won't matter much longer." Time seemed to slow as Taivas turned to try and warn Han. She stretched her arm out to him, trying to get his hands away from the engine controls. If he pushed the engines too hard too fast, the closed off exhaust turret would explode like a plugged cannon.

"STO—!"

The rear of the shuttle exploded in white light.

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Chewie growled something from the floor, but Han was entirely too consumed with the task at hand, and too brain-dead, to even automatically translate the Wookie's speech. The moon was racing even closer and once again, Han tried to grapple with the controls to pull them out of their death spiral. Only this time, the shuttle actually responded.

Chewie must have fixed them, he thought sluggishly. His brain was moving as slowly as the controls were. They had some maneuvering room, but it was too little, and there wasn't enough time to really alter the descent vectors. Not that it really mattered. There wasn't enough time to get over to the Falcon. Not enough air.

The exhaust turret had been blocked by hardening extinguisher foam. The pent up heat, fuel, energy, and chemicals had found the weakest point they could to try and escape from. And that point had happened to be the shuttle's oxygen-scrubbers. Now having a vent, the exhaust system rushed away from the shuttle craft, propelling the vessel away from the Black. But it had taken the majority of the shuttle's oxygen with it. Chewie had acted quickly, shutting off the oxygen-scrubbers, so what little air they had left inside the cabin wouldn't go leaking out into space. But their air was choked with smoke from earlier and quickly being replaced with carbon-dioxide as they breathed. There was no way that the team could survive long even if they made it through the crash. And if, by some miracle, they could hold their collective breaths and stagger towards the Falcon, there was no way they could do it while carrying Taivas's body.

Han risked a glance down at the unconscious Macskian. She had been thrown forward by the explosion, cracking her head on the control bunker as she fell. There hadn't been enough time to check if she was alive or dead. And right now, Han had other things that needed his attention.

So why couldn't he stop thinking about her?

Because she saved us all…and I might have been the one who killed her.

The shuttle slowly began to level out of its nosedive towards the moon. Han had finally been able to get the descent vector on a normal level, but he couldn't really maneuver the vessel well. Which meant that, though they may not now be plowing towards the surface of the moon to die in a fiery explosion, they were now drifting towards a small craft parked near the Falcon to die in a fiery explosion. Han had no idea who's ship it was, but it was about to get smushed beneath the bulkier shuttlecraft. He just prayed to whatever god just happened to be listening that somehow the shuttle had enough structural integrity to protect them.

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Anoia, Almighty and Benevolent Goddess of Things That Stick in Drawers, just happened to be listening. And being the Almighty and Benevolent Goddess of Things That Stick in Drawers, she maneuvered her vast control over the universe to make it so that a 3/17th's occipital left-leaning heterodyne wrench altered its position ever so slightly so as to jam itself between the back and the lid of the small drawer in lower right corner of the emergency tool cabinet in the back of the shuttle. No one would ever be able to open the drawer again.

Seated high above the astral plane, in the cloud-covered hall of Dunmanifestin, Anoia looked down upon her handiwork and smiled.

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The problem with pirates, mused Captain Jack Swallow, is that they are either fiendishly clever or hopelessly stupid. If the latter, they can be a very good sort of minion or thug who carries out orders to the letter and does what is told. If the former, they are very good at giving orders that can best lead to the greatest amount of money being got from the smallest amount of effort (and usually have dashing good looks, a propensity to drink large quantities of rum, and exquisite taste in hats). While in the normal course of piracy, having both kinds of pirates in a healthy balance is considered to be quite wonderful.

The problem comes when you have a given situation, say a large group of escaped prisoners loose in the airducts who then set fire to the main hangers, cut power to the rest of the ship, steal a shuttle, and fly away, and no one can present a good way to solve the problem. The hopelessly stupid pirates just stand around waiting for someone to give them an order and refuse to do anything. The fiendishly clever pirates don't see the possibility for profit and refuse to do anything.

So here was Jack Swallow, scourge of the Outer Rim, most feared pirate captain in the entire galaxy, with a dead ship crewed by a worthless bunch of gotch-eyed, wobbly-legged, rum-soaked pirates. He felt like hauling out a sword and banging away at something…or getting himself soddingly drunk and praying to whomever was listening to fix his bloody krething ship.

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Bilious, the Oh God of Hangovers, caught wind of Swallow's plan to drink himself into a stupor and was greatly angered at the thought of having to endure the after affects of some pathetic mortal's drinking binge. He stretched out his hand and was just about to smite Swallow for his impudence when the Oh God upchucked all over the cloud-covered hall of Dunmanifestin. Wiping vomit he did not earn from the corners of his mouth, Bilious reached out for an icepack and made a (painful) mental note to smite Swallow later.

DXVJKE

It was very muggy in the cave.

And echo-y.

And hard.

And apparently the cave was experiencing an earthquake because absolutely everything was shaking.

It was the shaking that woke her up. Parts of her brain were screaming at her to get out of the cave. Parts of her brain were screaming back that nothing was going to move anytime soon. One lone part protested that they were not in a cave at all but on a small shuttle careening down to explode on the surface of a moon, but no one wanted to listen to that part so it went off to have a sulk.

There were voices in the cave, but they were distorted by the walls, echoing in and out. The only clear sound that she could hear was a deep growling that was unintelligible. She wasn't exactly certain if it was the cave walls groaning in the earthquake or some monster poised to kill her.

Monster.

The word brought back a hundred thousand images in one red rush. Pirates. Cell-block. Leia. The cartographer. Airducts. The archeologist. Nyeri. Aerik. Matches. Han. Jones. Smoke. Fire. Coughing. Shuttles. Jones. Controls. Pirates. Back-doors. Hangers. Firemen.

Indiana.

The shuttle! Got to get back to the shuttle. Skirt the monsters. Slide in. Slam the door. Indy. The glass.

The monsters.

foam

fear

Exhaust Systems!

NO, HAN DON'T DO THAT!!

STOP!!!

Her eye snapped open and she gasped oxygen into her lungs, only to start hacking at the burning choking smoke that swirled through cockpit. Taivas struggled to focus in an oxygen deprived atmosphere, pinpointing the cave voices she heard earlier. Chewie was closest to her, half crawling half lying on the floor with wires and tools strewn about him. He was turned backwards yelling at someone in the back. Above and on her left, Taivas looked up to Han, who was also yelling, translating apparently, through blue lips as he tried to wrestle with the controls.

Taivas turned slowly to see Indy, Luke and Leia clustered in the back corner, alternately tugging and kicking and cursing a small drawer that did not want to come open. She turned back to Han and slowly began to stand so as to see the viewscreen.

"BRACE YOUR SELVES!" Han's voice hollered in her already throbbing ears and Taivas ducked back into a crash position, digging her claws into the floor-plating. She had only gotten a glimpse, and that was all she needed.

The shuttle was about to crash into the moon.

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When the explosion had forced the oxygen scrubbers away from the shuttle, it had torn out a sizeable portion of the shuttle's lower hull, including the heat plating, and left a gaping hole to the soft underbelly of the ship. This was, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most dangerous situations any pilot could find himself in. There was literally no protection between the cabin and the ground and, while this could be a problem in any landing situation, when the vessel is practically uncontrolled and about to crash on top of another vessel, there is no chance for survival.

The shuttle slammed into Taivas's ship with the force of a bullet train hitting a mountain side at full speed. But it came in at such an angle that the exhaust turrets snapped off before the shuttle actually hit the surface. The volatile force of crushing the vessel beneath them was now channeled back through the hole the original explosion and seeking the easiest way out. That way would have been through a weakened seam in the rear of the shuttle craft, had not a certain drawer been jammed shut with a 3/17th's occipital left-leaning heterodyne wrench. Now the pent up energy exploded out the rear of the shuttle, through the broken exhaust turrets, and rocketed the vessel forward and towards the Falcon.

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After the initial shock of realizing that A) he was alive, B) everyone else was alive and C) he was alive wore off, Han quickly came to the realization that they were still moving. Usually crashed ships stayed crashed and did not go careening off along their landing strips. Usually crashed ships remained exactly where they struck. And usually crashed ships didn't threaten his baby.

A few milliseconds after realizing that they weren't celestial street pizza, Han was once again frantically grappling with the controls to avert ramming into the Falcon. He needn't have bothered. The friction of the moon's surface that they were dragging along coupled with the very limited supply of energy channeled from the first collision served to stop a second collision from occurring long before Han even had the chance to blink.

The shuttle ground and screamed along the moon's surface, leaving a tortured trail of wreckage behind, and ever so gently bumped against the lower hanger of the Falcon. Had there been no protective shielding between the cockpit and the outside, Han could have quite literally reached out and hugged his ship. The other passengers, recovering from their crash positions, were moving slowly and silently towards the viewer.

"That...that's incredible," Leia breathed.

"Talk about deus ex machina(1)," Indy muttered. No one even looked askance at him, as all eyes were transfixed on the silvery grey hull sitting before them.

"So…" Han started. "Um…we could probably hold our breath and get into the Falcon…"

"How will you open the bay door?" Leia, ever the pragmatist, asked.

"Luke, you got your comlink for the droids?"

"No," the Jedi sighed. "They took it from me." His face drained of what little color he had left. "Along with my lightsaber!"

"No they didn't," Taivas, still seated on the floor, growled. "They didn't even take anything off this shuttle when they brought us up to the Black. The idiots." Five sets of eyes swiveled to her in amazement. (Elsewhere, in the leaf-covered halls of the Skund Forest, Topaxi, the God of Great Ideas that One Forgets to Write Down and Will Never Remember Again, laughed gleefully at the consequences of working his power on that poor, pathetic, pirate who was recently made responsible of cleaning out the shuttle craft and didn't keep in mind checking the weapon's locker.)

"How do you know that?" Han asked skeptically.

"Because all the stuff is inside this bunker. The one you're practically sitting on. The one I smacked my head against. And the one which is now partially open." She slid out of the way as people began rooting through the small container, extricating guns, bags, lightsabers, and other bits of stolen gear. Luke delightedly found his comlink and activated it.

"3PO? 3PO, do you copy?"

"I'm here, Master Luke. And it is so good to hear your voice, sir. R2 and I were getting rather worried what with the earthquakes goin—" Han snatched the comlink away from Luke.

"3PO, this is Han. Open up the bay doors. Now."

"I will do so immediately, General Solo. And please let me say that it is good to hear your voice too, sir."

"Just open the doors." Han rolled his eyes at Luke, as the others let out quiet cheers at the doors opening.

"Right, so, deep breaths everyone."

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(1) Just for anyone who doesn't have a fascination with the idiomatic roots of our fair language, deus ex machina (pronounced: DAY-us ECKS MAH-kuh-nuh) means, literally, god from a machine. It comes from ancient Grecian plays when the protagonist was in such a pickle, the author figured that the only way to rescue the hero was for one of the pantheon of gods to come floating down (usually done by attaching a statue of said god to a system of mechanical pulleys) and save the day. In literary circles, to employ deus ex machina means for an author to "magically" solve all the problems facing a hero in such an improbable way as to make it seem like divine intervention. Only in this case, there was actual divine intervention. Several times in fact.

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Okay peoples, that's it for this chapter. It's shorter than what I wanted, but I needed to stop it here so the next one will flow well. I already have it outlined and partly written and I really, REALLY want to get it up by November 18th, which marks the third year anniversary of this story. THREE YEARS PEOPLE!!!! But more on that when I hit the anniversary chapter.
For anyone who likes the "gods" in this chapter, they have been borrowed from Terry Pratchet's Discworld series. If you like my style of humor, Mr. Pratchet's is a bazillion times better. Discworld is a imaginary planet where the magic-reality ratio is far higher than on earth. So witches, wizards, demons, gods, goddesses, trolls, dwarfs, elfs, time-monks, werewolves, yetis, heroes, and anthropomorphic personifications all live comfortably together on the flat, disc-shaped world, as it is carried on the back of a giant turtle throughout the universe. Mr. Pratchet's books can be read in order of being written or randomly (half the fun is trying to figure out where this book came in the chronological order of Discworld). The best books center around Moist Van Lipwig, former con artist who was put in charge of Ank-Morpork's Royal Post Office and Royal Banking system, Sam Vimes, former Captain of the Night Watch of the city of Ank-Morpork, or Death, the compassionate and humanistic anthropomorphic personification of the act of dying. You will LOVE THESE BOOKS!!!!!!
Okay, enough plugging. Got to jet. Please review people and come back on the 18th, I'll try to have the next chapter up by then. You people are the best reviewers in the business,
Later,
DarkX