Chapter Twenty-Six
Wild Nomad Cockpit
Val continually maneuvered the Nomad out of harm's way. More than once the gunship had been forced to take hits to its already damaged hull.
Val found himself wishing for Jade's help in this. Right now, he needed his new co-pilot.
Then again, if Jade had been onboard the vessel, there would be no need to rescue her. The entire mission would have been moot.
Now, Val wished more than ever for his new co-pilot.
"That destroyer's firepower is too strong!" Emdee pointed out as the Nomad was struck by more than one of the Star Destroyer's light turbolaser batteries. The impact would have knocked Val out of his seat had he not been wearing a crash harness.
"Not in the atmosphere!" Val responded. He angled the Nomad downward as he flew towards the skyhook. If he was flying in the exact right direction, there was no way a Star Destroyer would risk hitting any Imperial outposts on the planet's surface, or whatever osik they had down there.
"The fighters are still on us!" Emdee warned.
"Try not to let them make us a kriffing light show!" Val ordered.
"I hate this job…" Emdee grumbled.
Emdee's multiple limbs were useful when manning the gunner's chair, but she wasn't designed as a combat droid, and was never enthusiastic about her role.
The ship descended into the thermosphere, easily followed by the faster and much more maneuverable TieXs.
He just had to hope that Itecht didn't deploy TIE Marauders or other craft that worked better in these stormy conditions.
As the Nomad entered the troposphere, the sensors picked up a rainstorm that surrounded the spire's base for miles. The TieXs, lacking the ability to survive these stormy conditions, broke off.
Across the rapidly approaching horizon, Val could see the clouds brewing, lightning flashing and thunder roaring.
"Dim the lights, transfer power to the shields," Val ordered. The control panel lit up in response to Emdee carrying this action out.
"Here we go," Val said, taking a deep breath.
Rain splattered and lightning flashed, further weakening the ship's shields. The ship shuddered in the wind, just able to stay on course. With the lights off, the cockpit was filled with the dark blue-grey of Dromund Kaas' gloom, occasionally illuminated for a split second by the flash of lightning.
Val could just make out the spire, and the supply depot where it reached the ground. He was fifty miles from the drop off point, and five miles upward from the descending cruiser.
Val reactivated comms, "You holding up there?"
"It's a little bumpy," Riko responded, "And the lightning is scaring Niner."
"So, fine," Val summarized.
"Nothing we haven't dealt with before," Bao said.
Val felt much better hearing their voices.
"Marauders approaching!" Emdee yelled.
Val looked out the viewport, and he could just see them. TIE/md atmospheric fighters, nicknamed Marauders, were designed to operate in heavy atmospheric conditions, including storms.
Even as blasterfire added to Val's feeling of being on a ship in stormy waters, he didn't change course, eventually being able to make out the descending cruiser, its bow facing outward from the spire.
They were nineteen miles from the cruiser, and two miles from the ground. Val decided to wait until they were closer to the surface before deploying the Vagrant.
The Nomad circled around the spire, descending at the same rate as the cruiser, her port side facing the tall elevator, slowly descending, attempting to outrun the Marauders. One minute passed: The starboard power converter was hit, the ship swaying as if it had taken a punch. Two minutes: Three marauders fell: one struck by lightning and fell to the ground, another hit by friendly fire from the station, and the third falling to the Nomad's cannon. Three minutes…
"Point-five miles to the ground," Emdee finally reported.
"Launch now, quickly!" Val ordered, activating the intercom.
"Understood," Bao replied.
"Thanks, Val," Riko spoke this time. Val hoped that the kid would make it back in one piece.
"May the Force be with you both," Val said right as the Vagrant shot out of the socket. As he deactivated the comm, he could hear Niner saying, "But there are three of…"
"Emdee, aim for the fighters and turbolasers! Draw them away from the Vagrant!" Val circled the depot, attempting to grab their attention for as long as possible.
Bao accelerated the Vagrant to its best possible speed right after it detached.
"May the Force be with you, Val," Bao said to himself as the Nomad departed. Luckily, most of the remaining Marauders had followed the Nomad, with only four pursuing the escape pod.
Vagrant Cockpit
"This will be rough," Bao warned Riko and Niner as he maneuvered the pod towards the destroyer. Flying a hovercraft, in a rainstorm, onto a destroyer, even one with a flat dorsal hull. He was lucky that the destroyer was facing them, rather than turned away.
"Hold on, Riko," Bao warned, securing his crash webbing.
The Vagrant approached one of the destroyer's forward viewports. Curiously, the destroyer wasn't firing.
Tau's probably expecting us.
Bao activated the shuttle's proverbial brake, causing the vessel to slow down with only five miles left to go, causing the Marauders to pass it.
"Fire, Riko!"
Riko fired the pod's ion cannon, sparking out all but one of the formerly pursuing fighters.
"They'll be alright, they can eject," Bao assured Riko immediately afterward. His sensors quickly confirmed that all three of the pilots whose craft Riko had hit had ejected.
Bao resumed his course, and quickly skidded the Vagrant onto a maintenance platform, the pod bumping as it crashed into one of the ship's turrets.
Wild Nomad Cockpit
"They've landed," Emdee reported. Val then angled the Nomad away from the city, many of the fighters following. With luck, Dromund Kaas's atmosphere and terrain would be enough to hide the Nomad until the team was ready for extraction.
"Come on, follow me you mir'shebs, come on."
Corsair Hull
"We have to go! Now!" Bao moved out of his seat and opened the airlock. With difficulty, he was able to walk on the hall, unnerved by the same feeling of motion that he got whenever he was on a descending elevator. The wind and rain certainly didn't help matters as the cold of Dromund Kaas' unforgiving weather caressed his scales. Bao grabbed onto a railing, which presumably was used to help engineers move from airlocks to damaged areas of the ship during EVs.
"Come on, Riko!" Niner quickly ran out, grabbing onto the railing to steady themselves. Riko followed, his goggles pulled over his eyes.
Even over the clash of thunder and the howl of the wind, Bao heard the whine of a TIE engine.
"Riko!" Bao ran past Niner and tried to help his Padawan.
Sure enough, a Marauder opened fire on the Vagrant, consuming it in a spectacular fireball that threw both Bao and Riko over the railing. When they hit the ground, they slipped on the walkway's wet surface.
Bao tried to stabilize himself, but he could only grab onto the platform's edge with his manus, a fifty-foot drop awaited him. Whilst he might be able to survive the fall, he did not know if he could say the same for his Padawan.
Wild Nomad
"We're taking heavy fire!" Emdee yelled, "And we're being pursued again!"
The shields continued to weaken as Marauders pursued the Nomad through the cloud.
"One of the Marauders was hit by lightning!" Emdee reported, "the pilot's ejecting!"
Val was reassured.
As the clouds cleared, Val could see cliffs and peaks. A mountain range.
"Maybe we can lose them in those cliffs!" Val suggested, taking them in.
It didn't work as well as he hoped, and more than once the ship shuddered as it collided with rock.
As the Nomad approached a deep canyon, the display showed that the shields had failed completely.
"We could use a miracle!" Emdee yelled, continuing to fire regardless. Val wished that she wouldn't make his last moments annoying. Especially since she was mostly hitting the rocks instead of the Marauders, which were skimming close to the cliffs, flying in a tight formation.
Hitting the rocks…. Skimming the cliffs…a tight formation….
Val knew just what to do.
"Emdee! Take the helm!" Val got out of his seat and moved into the gunner's controls, arming the last of his seismic charges.
"Why?"
"I know how to take out the Ties! But I need you to make sure that we're flying deep that canyon! And prepare to pull out of the canyon at maximum speed!"
"Understood!" Val focused on targeting. He was sure that his ship would be caught in the blast, which was why they would have to accelerate their speed right before impact.
The ship flew deeper and deeper into the ravine, the Marauder pilots foolish enough to follow.
"Four-hundred meters to the floor," Emdee reported."
"Deeper, deeper…"
Their descent continued.
"Three-hundred meters…"
"Two-hundred meters…"
"One hundred fifty."
Val fired.
"Now! Accelerate!" Val yelled right before the force of the blast almost knocked him out of his chair. He heard the charge detonate and saw rocks begin to fall. The Dar'manda's heart hammered as the Nomad ascended.
Finally, the tremor that had seized the ship stopped, and Val, ignoring the subtle pain in his hip that was probably just a bruise, stood up and returned to his seat.
"No ships pursuing," he muttered as he checked his display, "Damage?" he asked Emdee.
"We've lost our rear cannon and the port engine is offline. We can't stay in the air for longer than thirty minutes."
Sweating, Val returned to the control panel, "Let me take the helm. Grab onto something."
After strapping on his crash webbing, Val angled the Nomad towards a cliff that had survived the blast. He felt the ship rock as it hit a small stone spire, causing Emdee to fall to the floor. At least, Val believed that was what the clanking sound he heard was.
He lowered the landing gear, engaging the emergency thrusters to move the bow of the ship away from the cliff's edge.
"Hold on!" Val said as the ship crashed onto the cliff and skied towards the edge, jolting him. The ship had turned almost 180 degrees and was continuing to move towards the edge. Val reactivated the working engine, hoping to stop the ship from falling off the precipice.
It worked. The ship skied to a halt half a dozen meters before the aft landing gear would have passed the cliff's edge. Val double-checked the sensor screen to make sure they were stable.
"Check for damages," Val unstrapped his crash webbing and ran outside.
The moment Val walked outside and saw the damage that had been done to his home, he immediately regretted signing on to this crazy mission.
The Wild Nomad had never looked worse; her hull was pocketmarked with dozens of blast craters, the circuitry around the port engine smoking, the bow warped from Tau's lightning attack, the paint faded, some hull panels near the turbolaser completely blown away, leaving the circuitry exposed. The ion cannons were fried, the rear gatling gun was gone, the missile tubes were empty, the point-defense cannon had melted. The Nomad's functional armament now consisted of one working light turbolaser, that was it.
It would take weeks, if not months, to fully repair her. It would take hours at least to restore the shields and engines.
"Emdee," Val said, "Let's never do that again."
Corsair exterior
Riko was trying desperately to prevent himself from losing hope, but only his grip kept him from slipping off the tower and potentially off the ship. The prospect of not only dying, but being lost in the storms of this dark world horrified him.
He was barely able to support his weight, especially since the platform was dripping with rainwater, his fingers straining to keep their grip.
"Try...each th...ling!" Riko could just barely hear Bao's voice over the storm. He suspected that Bao was trying to tell him to pull himself up and reach for the railing.
The railing.
Almost instinctively, Riko reached out. At that moment, he could feel the vibration of the railing in the storm, bolted down to the surface of the cruiser. He willed the railing to flex and turn to the edge of the platform.
The railing began to flex and groan as it was pulled towards him. He heard the supports snap as it was torn off the platform, the metal continued to groan as it was pulled to assist him.
He looked to his right, and saw the sturdy metal pole moving towards him, with snapped supports jutting outward.
Riko quickly moved his hand, grabbing the railing just above one of the jutted edges. He grabbed it with his other hand, and placed his feet flat on the wall.
"Come on," Riko heard Niner's voice. That gave him strength. Riko grabbed the next support beam, and tried to move upward. Miraculously, he didn't slip. He continued, eventually moving back onto the platform.
Even as water droplets blurred the lenses of his goggles, Riko could just make out Niner, clutching the unbroken part of the railing for dear life, practically hugging it.
"Riko!"
"Bao!" Riko reached out again, feeling for Bao's presence. He was only a few meters from himself.
Riko telekinetically grabbed the broken pole and moved it towards his master.
"Climb up!"
Riko felt the pole shudder as someone grabbed it. A moment later, he saw Bao's toothy head as the Trandoshan climbed, making his way over the platform and towards Riko.
Riko wiped his goggle lenses, clearing out some of the water. He could see that Bao was brandishing his teeth, but it didn't intimidate Riko, for he knew that it was a smile of approval.