(Keisa's View)
(Two Hours Later)
(Near the TIE Fighter Hangar)
"Finally! Father has entrusted me with an exciting mission!" I sneer coldly in my mind as I trek through the crowd of patrolling Stormtroopers with my three droid siblings: Troy, Amber and Mighty close to my side. Though, despite my negative feelings about Father's hesitance to give me any mission, a smirk is shown clearly on my face. Amber, who is at my side, tilts her body back a bit, aiming her eyepiece at my face.
What's the smirk about, Keisa? She asks. I laugh at this, amused at her curiosity. I pat her head, seeming to surprise her. Lowering my head, my smirk eases in intensity, morphing itself into a sincere smile.
"I'm just so excited for this mission!" I hum out in a tiny squeal with us four turning a left corner. Amber rolls in front of me and continues her path by rolling backwards. Her head turns 180 degrees, making sure she won't bump into something or someone.
But why? It's just finding a little BB droid. That's what the pilot told you after you interrogated him, right? Amber asks, rotating her head to see me for a quick second. I nod.
"Precisely." I hum. "But I must say he is a snippy one, thinking idiotic humor could somehow save him."
I liked his humor! Troy hollers from behind. I roll my eyes.
"Of course you do." I sigh out loudly. Even with Troy's agreement, my smile returns to a full-out smirk. We soon make our way down the three flights of metal stairs. At the bottom step, I leap off and do a backflip, a "tradition" I've kept up from when I was younger. With a quick turn and with a short lift of my head, I holler for my droids to pick up their paces before dashing to my ship.
This time I shall beat you, Amber! Troy beeps out harshly, a hard clanking sound of metal heard after. Another clank shoots back, leading me to turn around, finding my two droids rolling full speed with their metal bodies rammed on each other. The high amount of friction of their metal legs, the part above the wheels that drag against the metal floor screeches out its high pitched, ear-piercing noise. I wince, turning my head a bit at the sound. The battle of strength between the sibling rivals ends with Troy knocking Amber off balance.
Alright! Troy shouts out, speeding into Infinity's interior all the while unintentionally (well, maybe) rolling over my boot. I holler out, lifting my foot up to grab it. I shake my head.
"Silver piece of junk!" I fire out, bolting towards my T3 droid, who responds with a wail, rocketing away, which is preceded by him whamming into the storage room's door. He spins backwards, toppling over from the recoil.
"You deserved that." I remark coldly.
Shut up. Troy scowls back when I lift him up onto his leg struts. I roll my eyes. "I'll only shut up if you shut up and I believe that won't happen anytime soon, now will it?"
Troy groans as his response, whacking his metal arm on my knee in frustration. I yelp out, clutching my knee in pain as it throbs for a moment with gritted teeth, even though every part of my being desired to lash out. That though, I come to realize a second later is too far for a feeble action. My response is a groan.
Standing to my feet, I adjust my black cloak by lifting my shoulders to have some of the tucked up fabric loosen and drop. Then I run my hand through my hair, getting it out of my cloak's light hood. With a quick shake of my head, moving my black hair out of my face, I proceed into the cockpit, take my seat as pilot and turn on Infinity's engines, which purr to life with a mighty hum. Mighty and Amber join me in the cockpit, where I laugh.
"Amber, sorry to say girl, but you are going into the spare gunner station in the back."
What?! But my system checks… She whines in a saddened tone. I like feeling important.
"For the LAST time, Amber. You ARE important! I just need another gunner ready to fire. Troy can't have all the fun, now can he?" I laugh. Amber, hearing this, chirps out happily, bolting to the gunner station in the back, directly parallel to Troy's. Taunts and threats in "binary" as others call it (even though I don't think a big language should share its name with another one, even though that one is in coding and programming, something I don't understand.) I roll my eyes with a large smile.
Keisa. Your holo-communicator. Mighty suddenly announces, causing my attention to turn to the flashing yellow button. I sigh quietly. I should have expected this…
"What do you want, Father?"
"Just to wish you luck, even though you don't need it." He laughs under his mask. I nod. "You're so right." I laugh back, logging off of my side of the line as the other TIE's await my departure. Flicking two switches, I ask for the TIE's pilots to announce their presence, something I hate doing. It's too much chatter.
The last pilot accounts himself present. Mighty pops a suction cup onto the dashboard, pulling himself up so he can rightfully lower himself into the droid socket. Hums come from there, signaling to me that he's wired in and ready to fly high. Quickly, I press a button to connect to the other TIE's.
"All forces follow my lead." I order firmly, moving my hand to the steering mechanism, which is basically two thick, rather heavy and partially connected metal that stick out horizontally from the control board. What I mean by "partially connected" is that, at rest, the two halves are connected but if I need to accelerate faster than the foot acceleration can muster out, I can push either side inwards to kick up the pace. When this happens, Mighty usually takes control of the steering. If that's not the case however, the other lever acts as steering, though it's extremely tricky to control.
With the steering mechanism now being used, Infinity glides smoothly out of Starkiller Base, through its atmosphere and towards Jakku. Luckily this time I got air conditioning.
(30 Minutes Later)
BOOM!
The sound of a TIE Fighter's ion cannons pummeling its bolts upon a desert outpost erupts from the quiet aura of Jakku. Troy, from the back whines out, his voice being heard from my speaker. I flick my comlink to talk back to him.
"Troy! If you want to destroy something, fire damn it!"
But there's nothing to destroy, Keisa!
"Oh my gosh…" I grumble out.
This is when a dark shadow glides over me. I look out the dashboard to find a YT-1300 light freighter zooming past me with TIE Fighters on the ship's tail before going low. When my eyes lock on the ship, the air in my lungs seems to be kicked out, much like the visit to Dromund Kaas, yet this time it's from a more unfamiliar aura of sorts. I bend forward, trying to catch my breath while Mighty briefly takes control of my ship. With a hoarse gasp, I regain my breath, clutch the steering mechanism and literally kick the accelerator, blasting off towards the worn down YT-1300 freighter. Mighty looks at me in confusion.
"Don't question me, Mighty! There's someone Force Sensitive in that ship and whoever that person might be is going to PERISH!" I bellow out, accelerating even faster to catch up with the TIE's.
Why isn't that ship firing back? Troy asks from his station in curiosity.
"And why aren't you FIRING AT IT?!" I snap out. Troy squeals out and begins to rather carelessly blast out ion bolts at the freighter as my group and I follow it towards a fallen fleet of Imperial star destroyers. The YT freighter curves to the left in hopes of having the TIE ram into the metal wall of the star destroyer. However, that doesn't happen. Instead, for once, one of the TIE's nails the YT on its right side.
"Hell yeah!" I holler out.
This celebration doesn't last long as the YT's own ion cannon grazes the wing of a TIE, making it spiral out of control into the sand below. I grind my teeth with a smirk and thrust my lever for even more speed, swerving to the right.
"FIRE!" I holler out to one of my droids. The command immediately registers with them and one of the bolts collides with the opposing cannon, causing it to dip down, now nonfunctional.
"Nice shot!"
Thanks! I'm gonna keep 'em comin'! Troy laughs, continuing the onslaught of bolts. I laugh back, though easing up on the ignition. The YT freighter soon kicks up its pace and heads towards…
"Is this pilot for real?!" I holler rhetorically when I realize it's heading straight for the interior of a star destroyer. I flick some switches and fly my fingers on some buttons.
"Mighty, my boy! Get ready for a wild ride!" I shout out. Mighty doesn't care to nod, yet instead has his eyes staring at our windy path as the fearless chase (with my heart rapidly beating, seemingly almost to the point of exploding) through the innards of the rusting destroyer.
The YT makes a sudden right. My instincts take over and I copy only to find the whole ship gone.
"What in the…?!" I whisper until a huge bang erupts from the side. Keisa looks from the window, seeing the YT-1300 for a split second before Infinity begins to plummet as, I come to realize, her two ion thrusters were severely damaged and definitely out of order. I crank the steering to the left, having my ship have its hull aimed to land horizontally as the ground comes closer and closer at record pace.
BANG!
Infinity slams spirals and skips across the sands of Jakku until the twirling ends. The recoil knocks me off of my chair, my head slamming on the metal floor.
Keisa?! Are you alright!? Mighty asks as I sit up, the back of my head throbbing.
"No…My mission…Father's going to be pissed."
Well...he'd be more pissed if we just stay here.
"Yeah, buddy. I know." I whisper, grabbing my portal holo-communicator.
"We'll be back home, but...don't expect a friendly welcome…"
