His head felt like someone smashed it with a hammer.
Na'ag groaned in pain and rubbed the side of his head, fighting away the rising nausea and vertigo as he did his best to assess his situation. As much as he hated pain, it was good thing he felt it. Pain meant he wasn't dead. He blinked away the blurriness in his eyes and realized he was in some sort of dimly lit metal cell. A spacious one, with a small set of metal stairs leading to a sealed door. It didn't take a genius to realized he was imprisoned, but by the Empire? Why? They were supposed to help the Imperium! They owed them!
The Ssi-ruu got to his feet and—where was his beamer? No, where was his armor?! He rapidly pawed at himself, quickly realizing he was stripped of not only his equipment, but his armor too! Na'ag growled in frustration and paced around the cell. His sickle toe claws tapped at the ground with each step as the Ssi-ruu put his brains to work. He needed a plan, one far more thought out than the events that got him imprisoned in the first place. Escaping the cell was a given, but from there he needed to find a way to recover his items and equipment, but the easiest way of doing that was to apprehend and interrogate one of the humans foolish enough to imprison them, and that meant…
Na'ag hissed in frustration. He needed to remember what his father always told him when he was a mere spawnling; handle one problem at a time. First and foremost, a way out the cell.
He heard the door slide open. Na'ag whirled around and saw the same, black armored human from before, but with two of those white armored humans flanking him, armed with their blasters. "Ah, good to see you're already awake," The human mused. "now we can get started. From the top, explain why you thought it was a good idea to intrude upon Lothal, deploy unsanctioned probes in Imperial aerospace, and, most damning, assault a platoon of Stormtroopers."
Na'ag scowled. "In that order, human, your Empire promised worlds to us in exchange for our technology. The probes were something a friend asked for so he could understand this world's landscape and lifeforms. And, most obviously, I attacked them because they were to attack first. I don't quite know about you, but I would like to do without being shot. Bad for my complexion."
"Really." One of the Stormtroopers raised his blaster and fired. Na'ag hissed in pain when the red-tinted shot struck his knee, though he remained on his feet. The shot just stung like a hot fist. "Hmm, curious. You're yet another blaster resistant race…good. Means we can break out the heavy blasters." The damned human spoke. He could practically hear the glee in his voice. "So, best put that puny brain to use, 'Ssi-ruu', you are owed absolutely nothing, and nor are your people. We'll be sending out alerts to apprehend any of them should they prove to be as stupid as you. Rest well knowing those we capture will be executed on sight."
Na'ag growled at that. "And what makes you think you'll be a threat?"
The man chuckled. "Oh, you poor, ignorant piece of filth…I'll hope, for their sake, they're not all as foolish as you were."
"Were?" He got no answer, the man was already leaving with his cronies. The door resealed and for the first time in his life Na'ag felt fear. With all the tasks and jobs he ran for his father, never once was he actually placed in death's crosshairs until now. More importantly, what did those humans have planned? They mentioned heavy blasters, and those sounded like they could easily rip through his hide. And, in the room he was in, there would be nowhere to hide from such a messy death…death on an unconsecrated world. Death and endless wandering!
"No!" Na'ag snapped to himself, chasing away those fears as best he could. "I can salvage this…I can fix this…" He muttered to himself. His hands rested behind his back as he paced about the cell, mind working in overdrive to find any means to escape his situation. His eyes shot to the stairs and he had an idea. The Ssi-ruu placed himself beside them and extended his scent tongues, wiggling them about and taking in the myriad of scents and stenches in the air to determine how far his executioners were.
Close. Very close.
He had one shot at this. It had to work.
The door slid open. Two of those Stormtroopers entered the cell, one armed with a heavier, gaudy looking blaster and the other flanking him with a regular. The moment the second Stormtrooper walked past he acted, sweeping his tail to trip the fool and sending him plummeting into his friend, sending them both to the ground. The second the blasters clattered to the ground, Na'ag snatched the heavy one up, aimed it at one of the Stormtroopers, and squeezed the trigger. The weapon jerked about in his arms but did the deed and one of the troopers was dead, leaving a terrified companion. His heart hammered in his ears from the rush of adrenaline, his eyes locked onto the Imperial's body. Na'ag was no stranger to killing, no, but usually just beasts for hunting, never a sentient. And certainly not in such a gruesome manner.
He shoved those conflicting emotions aside and focused. Na'ag trained his sights on the remaining Stormtrooper. "Rise." He commanded. The troop slowly got to his feet, hands beside his head in surrender. "Now, listen and listen well, you are going to escort me to my stolen items. Failure to comply means you end up like your friend. Do you understand?" The human nodded and, with a flick of the blaster, Na'ag commanded him to move. A thought quickly occurred to him. "That includes contacting your cohorts for help."
Na'ag hoped the human's desire of self-preservation matched his own.
The hallways all looked and smelled the same. The same gray floors and walls with the same sterile scent. He found it surprising the humans didn't get lost in the depths of their own ship, but that wasn't his focus for the time. It was escape.
He kept his sights trained on the Stormtrooper who continued to lead him down the winding hallway. The troop came to a stop by a reinforced metal door, quickly entering something into a keypad next to it and backing off. "T-This is where your stuff should be."
"And where is this?"
"One of the lockups aboard the Star Destroyer, wh-where all confiscated goods from insurgents are taken." Na'ag raised a brow in curiosity and poked his head into the room. It wasn't very large, but it had shelves filled with various goods and items: armor, gadgets, resources, and even weapons. A treasure trove of things he never saw before back in the Star Cluster; he wished he could take them all, but his gear was first and foremost.
"Remain outside. Alert anyone to my presence and I aim for your neck first." Na'ag sternly warned. The Ssi-ruu stepped into the room and extended his scent tongues, flickering them about. A wealth of scents assaulted him instantly, but he waded through them and…found no trace of his scent. None of his items were in the lockup!
"Human," He snarled. "Where is my gear? You claimed they would be here."
"T-They may be in another lockup. O-Or claimed by one of the Imperial Moffs as a trophy."
Na'ag fought the urge to roar in irritation. Of course there would be a hiccup in the plan…but there was room to adapt. He was standing in a room filled with weapons and tools. He could make use of them.
Swiftly, he combed the room, grabbing what he recognized and what he deemed useful. By the time he finished, Na'ag…well his look was gaudy. A leather harness rested on his chest with a holstered blaster attached to it. He wore an old, metal backpack filled with detonators and other things. An odd, crossbow-like device was adhered to the side of the backpack with a curved blade resting on the other. Lastly, he wore a leather belt with another holstered blaster, just in case. He wanted to bring more but traveling light was for the best. That and he didn't know what most of the items in the lockup were, and he doubted his unwilling ally would tell him.
The Ssi-ruu stepped out the lockup and stared down at the Stormtrooper. "Curious, you're smart enough to stay put. Now, where can I go to escape this…Star Destroyer? Escape pods? Something a little more precise?"
"TIE Fighters. Th-They're in one of the hangars below us. They…they'll do the job. Does this mean I'm off the hook—"
"It doesn't. One final task and you're free to mosey along. For now, lead the way." The human proved useful. Then again, anyone was useful when the alternative was death.
He hoped it would last. Na'ag hated hoping, for it was never guaranteed.
The elevator doors parted. Na'ag was first out, blaster raised. The new room was, indeed, a hangar, with many more Stormtroopers patrolling about, alongside other humans and even droids. Along the wall a massive, translucent barrier was erected, and beyond that was the empty, soulless blackness of space. An eerie sight, yes, but one that meant he was close to escaping. Ships were parked in a uniform manner, and given their strange, oblong appearances those had to be the TIE Fighters the trooper mentioned. His way out. He had no idea how to fly them, of course, but couldn't be too different than flying the ships back home, right?
Still, he needed a plan to get to one of those ships. At a glance, those patrolling the room looked to be armed with blaster rifles and hand blasters. They would hurt, but they wouldn't kill him to get hit by. So, maybe he could sprint across the roo—
"Intruder!" He whirled around and fired. The Stormtrooper who was forced to aid him lay on the ground with a smoldering hole in his chest. Damn fool.
He heard shouts from the other Stormtroopers. Na'ag bolted across the floor and made a beeline for one of the TIE Fighters, hearing shots pass by him with every footfall. Two struck his flank and he hissed in pain, but powered through it and, with a leap, planted himself atop it. A wrench of the latch later and he dropped inside.
The interior of the TIE Fighter was…well primitive compared to the ships he was used to, but he figured he could understand them well enou—
The ship rocked to the side sharply. Through the window, he saw Stormtroopers gathering in a line and open firing together, perforating the front of the ship. Na'ag crammed himself into the pilot seat and fumbled with the controls, mashing his talon against various buttons and flicking various switches. He felt the ship lurch and rise, and with a push forward on the controls it shot forward with enough force to nearly send his head whipping back. He fumbled with the controls again and eased up on the throttle. Now all he saw beyond the TIE Fighter was the blackness of space, with a few planets in the close distance. Were any of them Lothal? He couldn't tell, but he doubted this TIE was meant to go very far, and he didn't see a switch for hyperspace. Then again, that could be because of its primiti—
The ship violently rocked, and the alarms blared in his ears. Na'ag cursed and gripped the controls just as another TIE Fighter shot by the window, and another shot towards him, red tinted lasers firing from it and towards him. Na'ag yanked back on the controls and sent the ship flying downwards. The whiplash made his head spin and the vertigo made him feel more nauseous than he already was. He eased up on the throttle and the ship straightened out, and it violently rocked again from another shot. Fury and fear blended; was this how he was to die? In a damn foreign ship in the blackness of space?!
No! He refused. Na'ag gripped the controls and shoved them forwards, sending the TIE Fighter hurtling towards the closest planet. He had no idea if the ship could stand entry into an atmosphere, but he was going to test that, and—
Another lurch, and this time the ship spun even more. Amid its spinning, Na'ag saw one of the wings of the ship floating in space. He had no control and was in a damn freefall! So, all he could do was try his best to straighten things out and make the landing a bit softer.
Considering how fast the visage of the planet was coming, he knew hard was the very least the landing would be.
[This one took longer than I'd like to admit, both because of researching and because of IRL issues. I recently got the vaccine and the days leading up to it my productivity dropped because of general aversion to the idea. Now that it's done, and I have no major aftereffects, I can resume working on this as best I can. I didn't really know the exact layout of a Star Destroyer, so I had to improvise and make some stuff up. I also had to reflect in the final part of the chapter that Na'ag has no idea what most of these things are and is a novice to ship combat. So, had to present it all from an outsider's perspective. Including many of the items he grabbed as well.
Thanks for reading, and hopefully the next few chapters are far more streamlined and interesting for peeps.]