Star Wars: Tails of the Old Republic
Chapter 052
Ebon Hawk — Refuge
Carth Onasi rubbed his eyes. It had been sixteen hours since their jump from Taris. The Ebon Hawk had suffered only minor damage in their escape, nothing a few days' work couldn't fix. But now, with the adrenalin long gone and only twitchy nerves in its place, Carth felt himself crashing. He couldn't sleep, however. Few could. The hyperspace vortex outside the ship was too hypnotic for its own good, though, so he closed the shutters on the cockpit windows. There was nothing to see out there, anyway.
Groaning wearily, Carth checked the autopilot systems one last time and got up.
After opening the bulkhead door to the main hold, Carth was confronted by the aftermath of their escape once more. Thirty-nine people now crowded the interior of the Hawk, a ship designed for a maximum crew of twelve. He met their detached, despondent faces with a weary understanding, but there was only so much empathy Carth could still spare. He was simply stretched too thin right then. Not everyone was in the main hold — many were scattered around the cargo hold, the garage, the port and starboard dormitories, and the corridors connecting them. The cockpit, engine room, and gun turrets were sealed off from most of the passengers, though.
The Ebon Hawk was now a refugee ship.
Carth could scarcely believe these people were even here. Only Miles Prower could have been such a suicidally stupid do-gooder to jump back into a planetary exterminatus just to save a few more people, and even more unbelievably, it worked. Tails actually managed to pull more than thirty people off that street before it collapsed. Carth didn't understand the boy's obsession with stupid heroics, but he was consistently impressed with the boy's results.
Carth found Bastila in the starboard dormitory. She used her connection to the Force to help heal their injuries and calm frayed nerves, though she herself was far past exhausted. Carth saw the bags under her eyes.
"Carth, you need to sleep," said Bastila, as she finished healing a young girl Tails had managed to chuck aboard.
"So do you," he said, not sure now snappy his response was. He looked to the six bunks, three on top of three, and tried to find Tails. All the bunks had at least one person in it, many of them had two. Carth's eyes settled on the bunk with the shutters closed. "So… how is he?"
Bastila let the little girl go and sighed. "He finally got to sleep about a few hours ago. He just couldn't stop shaking, or wheezing… or trying to throw up, even when there was nothing left in him to void. All my attempts to calm him just made him curl into a tighter and tighter ball, until he just hardened those tails of his around him." Bastila pinched the bridge of her nose, and added, "I can't get that thousand-kilometer stare out of my head."
Carth knew the feeling all too well. And now Taris had become another Telos IV.
Tails phased in and out of consciousness. He lay curled tightly in one corner of the bunk, squeezing the life out of his pillow. The hurricane of rage, hatred, and agony had subsided, leaving only a vacant deadness. The boy still twitched and trembled, and his jaws pressed so tightly he could break his own teeth. Behind his eyelids, Taris still burned. He watched as fire and smoke consumed everyone he had met or helped. Every corner of his vision was filled with their screaming faces, each trying to escape the flames, all of them crying for Tails to save them. But, he couldn't. He was too slow, too weak, and too afraid. The screams died as buildings collapsed into dust, and only ghosts remained.
There was a light rap on the shutters to his bunk. Tails sprung awake, ready to attack, but the boy sunk back into his pillow as he remembered where he was.
"Go away," he rasped weakly. There was a pause, and Tails thought he heard shuffling through the shutters.
"I know you're exhausted, little one, but if I may see you for just a moment…"
'That voice,' Tails thought. It sounded like a ghost from his nightmares, but could it really be…? He slipped his shoes and gloves on. His hands trembled, but with a touch of a button, the shutter retracted from his darkened refuge. Even the dim light of the ship's dormitory made him wince, but it took only a couple of seconds for the mystery figure to sharpen into focus.
"Doc!" cried Tails. He couldn't believe his own eyes. Zelka Forn stood right there in front of him, not a ghastly apparition, but alive! Though looking rather worse for wear with torn and charred clothes, and quite exhausted as everyone else aboard the Hawk. Tails stumbled out of his bunk, but Zelka caught his fall. Fresh tears soaked into fur as the boy hugged him. "I can't believe you're still alive."
Zelka recovered from having all the air squeezed out of him. "I'm rather surprised myself. I'm still trying to absorb everything that's happened. Though I'm a little surprised you don't remember — we were the first ones you caught on that collapsing street. You hit at what felt like a kilometer a second and I was about knocked unconscious! How'd you learn to fly so fast, little one?" He chuckled a bit.
"I… ha. Just years of chasing… wait." Tails looked up at Zelka's face. "We? Is… is she…?"
"Sarna is aboard the ship, too. I was trying to carry her to safety when I saw the beams falling from the sky. Then you snatched us up barely moments later."
Tails stepped backwards until he rested against the bunks, then sat down on the edge of his mattress and buried his face in his hands. "I couldn't even see who I was saving. I just… I just grabbed everybody I could. All those people… so many people I let die, just because they were out of arm's reach!" The boy's head sunk into his lap.
"You didn't fail them, Tails," said Zelka. His voice was calm and fatherly, but betrayed by the slightest crack. He knelt down and continued, "There is literally nothing else that could have been done. Don't hate yourself for what the Sith have done! There are almost forty people on this ship who wouldn't be here without you. Look at them, Tails, and see the good you've done. Don't blame yourself for events and circumstances completely out of your control."
Muted sobs squeaked out of the shaking fox, and he blanketed himself with his oversized brushes in an attempt to hide himself. "If only it was that simple."
Zelka sighed, and produced a handheld hypospray. "Here, I have this for you. It'll help calm your nerves."
"I don't want any 'happy meds', Doc."
"They're not 'happy meds'. But, you'll feel significantly less awful. It'll help you get some proper rest later."
After a bit of fidgeting, Tails acquiesced and let his namesakes drop away. "All right, Doc."
Zelka gently held Tails by his jaw and injected the medicine into his neck, then stood back up. "You'll start feeling better in a few minutes. "Would you like to see her?"
A full minute passed before the boy answered. "Yeah. I would. I want to see she's okay."
Just then, Tails noticed a child behind the threshold of the dorm. She ducked back a little so that Tails could only see her hair and forehead, but her eyes reappeared after a few seconds. Tails felt his anxiety spiking.
"There's a lot of people who would like to greet you, Tails. Follow me and I'll take you to the ship's medical bay."
The medicine was already taking effect, but Tails' heart raced faster, and his breaths felt more restricted and labored. The boy followed the human doctor out of the starboard dormitory, and gulped as he crossed the doorway. A mass of people crowded the corridor to the main hold. As he walked, they extended their arms to touch him. They placed their hands on his head and shoulders. They touched his chest and back. Others stroked his tails as he passed them, and he had a lot of tail to grab. Tails nearly choked at all the unwanted contact, but he accepted it with all the grace he could. He knew this routine all too well. It happened to Sonic all the time. And less often, it had happened to him, too, on Mobius. These people were practically worshipping him. They offered their thanks and praise. They present what few credits or possessions they had left, but the fox declined them. Words and gestures blurred and smeared together, and Tails felt at the center stage of a giant auditorium. It was too much. His whole nervous system felt like it was going to vibrate out of his body.
'I don't deserve this praise!'
Tails found solace behind the door of the Hawk's medical bay, which was little more than a tiny room with a bed and assorted equipment, and he shook himself back to his senses. There, he saw her. On the bed lay Sarna, former officer with the Sith occupation force. She looked so calm and serene.
"How is she, Doc?"
Zelka touched a screen on the wall. "She's still in a coma. Her vibroblade wound is mostly healed, but there is other trauma I can't treat here. I'm not even sure what it is — whether it was from battle injury or the, er, method of transport you used to get her to me."
Tails' ears and whiskers drooped. He knew trying to carry Sarna like that might have unintended effects. 'I was just trying to save you, Sarna. Please pull through.'
"The good news is that Miss Sarna will probably live, though possibly with complications. I've gone through the other passengers and their injuries were relatively minor. They'll be fine. How are you feeling?"
The boy rubbed his neck. "Okay I guess. A little better than before."
"I also patched up the stab wound to your abdomen while you were out. There's no risk of it tearing open again."
Tails reflexively prodded his stomach. 'Just another scar now,' he thought. "Thanks. And Doc… get some rest yourself, okay?"
Zelka sighed and bumped his head against a cabinet. "Yeah. I'll work on that. Probably whenever we arrive… wherever we're going."
Tails steeled himself and exited the medical bay. The crowd of hero worshippers hadn't diminished any, but the boy was less anxious now and merely resigned himself to the attention. He made his way to the cockpit and fortunately the threshold from the main hold sealed behind him. There he found Carth and Bastila. They were arguing over something, but stopped when they saw Tails' approach.
"Um… hi guys," said Tails.
"Welcome back," said Carth. "We were a little worried for you."
"I'm feeling better," the boy said. "Zelka gave me some medicine. So… where are we going, again?"
"Dantooine," said Bastila, with audible relief in her voice. "It feels like a lifetime since I last set foot on her surface, though in truth it was only been a few months. We should be safe from Malak there… for a while, at least."
"Safe?" snapped Carth. "You saw what his fleet did to Taris — there wasn't a building over two stories high left standing! They… they turned the whole planet into one big pile of rubble!"
"Even the Sith would think twice before attacking Dantooine, Carth," said Bastila. "There are many Jedi here, including several of the most powerful masters of our Order. There is great strength with in this place."
"And a very tiny Republic presence, Bastila. Any focused assault could swat the few ships there out of the sky. Are your Jedi going reflect an orbital bombardment back with their lightsabers?"
As Bastila fumed, Tails got the mental image of an army of Jedi swinging gigantic, tree-sized lightsabers through the air. The fox was unsure if he should giggle at the thought or slap himself. "Would it matter if we kept going?" he asked.
Bastila sighed. "We can't just keep running; Malak will find us eventually. We need to regroup, we need a plan. And we have refugees who need sanctuary. We can get supplies on Dantooine and recuperate. The Jedi Academy there is a place of mental and spiritual healing… something all of us could use after what we've just been through."
Carth groaned and rubbed his eyes, then plopped down in the pilot's seat. "Maybe you're right. It… isn't easy witnessing the annihilation of an entire planet. I know Mission must be taking this pretty hard."
"She will find a way to come to terms with her grief," said Bastila. "She is stronger than she appears. We just need to give her time."
'What about me? Is anyone going to care about MY grief?' thought Tails.
"In any case," Bastila continued, "I need to speak with the Council on Dantooine. "I need their advice on…," she eyed Tails oddly— "recent developments."
With that cryptic remark, Bastila left the cockpit to Carth and Tails. The Republic officer stretched and yawned; the two-tailed fox just scratched his head.
"So, uh… how much longer until we reach our destination?" asked Tails.
"About twenty hours at our present speed. Damned fast for a little freighter like this; a stock Dynamic class couldn't go a third this speed. Makes me wonder what else Davik did to it."
That piqued the boy's curiosity. "How far apart are Taris and Dantooine?"
"Mmm, a little under twenty thousand lightyears," said Carth. "We're about three-fourths of the way there now."
Tails' eyes popped out of his head and his jaw crashed through the ship's hull. "We've… traveled sixteen thousand lightyears in the span of sixty hours? I don't… I can't… HOW?"
"Impressive, isn't it?"
"Buh-buh-but…," Tails sputtered as he crunched some head math, "That higher than warp nine point nine-nine-seven! The deep-space ship I commanded, the Blue Typhoon, was a kilometer-long flying engine and it had a best cruising speed of warp factor five, and could do maybe warp six point six in an emergency!"
Carth raised an eyebrow. "What's a warp factor?"
"A stepped asymptotic scale between zero and ten that scales geometrically with speed. Warp factor one equals the speed of light and ten is infinity. You don't use it?"
"No," Carth said flatly. "And what do you mean commanded a ship?"
Tails allowed a smirk to grow across his face, revealing a few teeth. "Not just commanded it. Built it."
"What."
"Oh yeah. About three years ago a species called the Metarex tried to turn all life in the galaxy into plants. You should be thanking me you're not a spruce right now."
Carth's own face started to curl into a frown. "Prower… you've said and done a lot of crazy things in the last two weeks, but I'm calling bullshit unless you can provide some proof of all that."
Tails smirk didn't leave, though he didn't have an answer to that. "I'll go check out Engineering."
At the opposite end of the ship, "Engineering" turned out to be little more than a walk-in closet. The little mad scientist was sorely disappointed. There were a few blinking panels, bulkheads which appeared to house engine compartments, and a weird central console which controlled the Hawk's hyperdrive, but little else. There were crawlspaces for maintenance he could easily fit through, but he was too exhausted, physically and mentally, to go on any excursions through the ship's plumbing. Despite the doctor's meds, all he really wanted to do was go back to his bunk and sulk until he fell asleep again.
Unfortunately, he had to cut through either the cargo hold or the main hold to get to the starboard dormitory again. The crush of survivors was unavoidable. He was their one beacon of light and hope and they practically ate him up. They touched him, hugged him, tugged on him, kissed him (or tried too; he made particular effort to avoid lip-to-lip contact), and he even suffered solicitations for sex as "gratitude". Tails was too tired to show much revulsion, but nonetheless politely declined.
With strong shutters and a noise-cancelling environment, his bunk was a refuge from the nightmare cruelly called reality. Tails felt guilty hogging up one-twelfth of the available beds all to himself, but he needed peace from the universe right then. So of course, someone had to knock.
'I swear if it's that same woman who wants to ride me "all the way to Coruscant" I'm gonna—'
"Tails? Are you in there?" mumbled a soft voice.
"Mission?"
The boy opened the shutters part way, and true enough, Mission's blue face and lekku appeared. She looked horrible. Rivulets of salt stained her face, her eyes were puffy and bloodshot, and her whole body twitched.
"Do you th-think… I c-could come in? I-I just… I just need… someone…," she choked.
"I, er…"
Zaalbar stood outside, and the big wookiee still looked stoic as ever. He let out a throaty rumble. "Please, Master Tails. As a friend, she needs you more than me right now."
Mission sulked. "Big Z, you're embarrassing me."
Tails pondered how much the three of them had bonded that Mission could ask him to share a bed and it not feel terribly awkward. At least he didn't have to worry about jealousy from Zaalbar. Probably.
With a resigned sigh, Tails acquiesced. He scooted to one corner of the bunk. "Sure. Climb on in." While Tails could hoist himself up with his oversized namesakes, Mission more awkwardly did have to climb into the upper bunk with him.
"I will stand guard for both of you out here."
Mission made a noise. "Thank you, Zaalbar."
Tails turn on the overhead light to its dimmest level and closed the shutters. Being in a sound-suppressing chamber with her suddenly felt a whole lot weirder, but he let it go. "You can avail yourself of a tail, if you want," he said. "Or both."
The Twi'lek girl shifted until she took up the other two-thirds of the bunk, and took him up on his offer. Mission wrapped herself up in the boy's tails until they formed a loose spiral sleeping bag around her. She sank into the ultrafine fur as much as his tails could physically allow, her entire weight supported by an airy cloud of fluff. Her arms were deep enough into his tails to touch the serpentine flesh inside them, and the boy really did his best to ignore the sensations her hands made in there. Mission bunched a mass of fluff into a kind of pillow and rested her head on it… and wept.
"I'm sorry Tails," she said. "I'm just thinking about Taris. I still can't believe it's gone! I mean, I grew up there and now it's… it's… it's just gone."
Tails finished repositioning himself to accommodate her. They both lied on their sides, feet at opposite ends of the bunk, and with their faces meeting close to the middle. "I'm sorry, Mission. I… just don't know what to say."
Mission stifled a sob. "I don't think… there's anything you can say, Tails. But, I thank you… for everything you've done. I'll just have to deal with it for now. I just need some time."
"There's no rush, Mission."
She sniffled and wiped her face. "Look… I'm not saying I can't go on or anything like that. It's just… it's a shock, you know? I mean, I knew the Sith were evil and all, but the reality of it just kind of slaps you in the face."
The two of them said nothing for a moment. Tails frowned as he contemplated grim reality.
"That's why we're going to stop Malak and the Sith," said Tails.
"Huh?"
"I can't allow any more planets to get wiped out. I won't allow it!" said Tails, showing nearly all his teeth.
"If you need my help against Malak or the Sith, Tails, then I'll be there for you," said Mission. "You got a plan?"
Tails' ears flattened against the side of his skull and his lips curled all the way back. He shook and wheezed, like every fiber of his being was revolting against him. But, he steeled his nerves with the cold, calculating logic of what he had to do. "Yes. I'm going to find this 'Darth Malak'. And when I do, I'm going to kill him."
