Shadows of Heroines and Heroes
.:The Trouble with Tusken Raiders Part 1:.
Rick was woken from his rest rather rudely as the shuttle they'd dubbed 'The Mynock's Last Meal' landed.
"What's wrong?" He shouted, pulling on the black tunic and pants and the dark red leather vest that made up his robes. He left his cloak in his footlocker for now. He doubted he would need it on the desert planet.
In the cockpit, Kail and Kinraar struggled to steady the shuttle, which proved difficult even though they were in Tatooine's atmosphere.
"We seem to have hit a sandstorm. Between it and the condition this bucket of bolts is in, I'm surprised we've remained airborne this long." Kinraar growled. "I take it back, we are no longer airborne." As soon as she had said that, the Mynock crashed into the sands of the dune sea.
"Is everyone okay?" Rick groaned, sitting up, groaning again when pain shot through his body. "Oh, I think I fractured a rib or two." JAINA stood, her blaster rifle in hand.
"Statement: Meatbag Master, we are to expect company. Several sand-bags are approaching from various directions, and will be upon us in exactly 15.4 seconds."
Rick looked up, and saw about a dozen Tusken Raiders rushing forward raising their Gaffi Sticks.
"Oh, this could be a problem." He said, trying to stand. He managed a standing position, but couldn't move much aside from that. Kail, Padme and Kinraar seemed less injured then he was; Kail and Kinraar had crash webbing and Zabrak bones didn't break that easily. They ignited their lightsabers.
"JAINA; enable lightsaber training level 18 for enemy sand-bags." Rick said.
JAINA's glowing red eyes flashed to blue, and she placed the blaster rifle in a sling on her back, pulling one red and one blue lightsaber from the compartment between her robotic chest and legs.
"Sand-Bags Must Die!"
She said, igniting the lightsabers and cackling with more inherent evil than an average droid. The Tuskens reached them in exactly the time JAINA had said. JAINA and Padme were the first to engage them in battle, attacking them with a flurry of twin lightsaber attacks that were ruthless in efficiency. Kail and Kinraar waited for them to get closer before doing battle, though their attacks carried more power.
Rick tried to hide himself in the ruined shuttle, knowing he wouldn't do much good in battle. But one of the Tuskens found him and alerted some of its group.
Gathering the Force around him, Rick unleashed a wave of Force energy that threw the Tusken's backwards, some landed unharmed but stunned in the sand, and some were thrown into the wall, breaking their necks as they hit the durasteel.
Kail saw the Tuskens thrown out of the Mynock, and guessed who'd done it.
"Rick." He shouted at Padme, who was temporarily free of a Tusken's grip to kill. The fiery haired Zabrak sprinted over to the Mynock, finding Rick lying on the floor of the shuttle.
"Padme, behind you!" Rick shouted as one of the Tusken's regained his senses. He was too late; the Tusken hit Padme in the back of the head with a Gaffi stick. Rick narrowed his eyes, letting his anger get the better of him.
The Tusken dropped its Gaffi stick and tore at the neck of its strange robes, but it couldn't escape the death grip Rick had on it and died from strangulation.
Three more Tuskens ran into the Mynock. Rick prepared to unleash another Force Wave, but one of the Sand People raised its hand and fired a tranquilizer dart from a wrist launcher.
The small, three point dart hit Rick in the side of the neck. The sedative on the tips took effect immediately as Rick slumped over onto the ground. He got a small cut from a piece of the Mynock, just above his left eyebrow as he fell.
Kail and Kinraar felt their comrades as they fell, leaving them alone against the small army with the homicidal droid. Not that that was a bad thing, but with three against six-dozen, they were beaten quickly.
They weren't captured before the battle got to Kinraar; the capture of Padme and Rick and the fierce battle caused her to enter her Wookiee Frenzy. She killed every Tusken that came within reach of her saber or fists.
The Tusken that carried the wrist launcher fired two shots. One hit Kail in the chest and he was out. The second hit Kinraar in the arm, but in her frenzy it did little to stop her. It took a dozen more Tusken's and at least two-dozen tranquilizers to knock her out.
"Well, this certainly isn't good." Kail's voice echoed as Rick woke up again, an acid aftertaste residing in his dry mouth. For the second time in about an hour Rick woke from one near lethal threat to another. This time he was in some kind of hut. He was sure a moisture farmer had once owned it. His hands were tied behind his back to some kind of pole.
Padme and Kail were in about the same position, though Padme was still unconscious from the blow to her head, and Kinraar was being held in a small cage. Rick guessed that she'd already been tied to a pole and broken free, due to the rings of missing fur around the Wookiee's wrists.
"So, does anyone know what happened?" Rick asked.
"From what I could tell when I woke up, we are being held captive to be sacrificed in some kind of ceremony in honour of the mighty sarlacc, whatever that is." Kail said. Rick groaned, in pain and fear (pain hid the fear well).
"Just what we need, I leave Dxun to avoid becoming leader of the Mandalorians, only to crash onto Tatooine to be fed to a man-eating pit with an attitude by a bunch of two legged kath hounds in freaky robes."
Kail laughed quietly despite himself. Even with death facing them, Rick still found a way to joke about it.
Rick tried a couple of times to untie the ropes with the Force, but somehow the Tusken's had managed to nullify the Force inside the hut.
After hours of silence, Padme stirred, her eyes opening slowly, wincing slightly.
"Oh." She murmured, seeing where they were. But unlike Rick and Kail, she didn't just sit there. She started to twist her hands around. Rick heard a sickening crack and Padme smiled as she slid her hands out of the ropes. Her double-jointed thumbs had snapped under her palms and then back again as she walked over to untie Kail.
"You do know it's very freaky when you do that, right?" Kail said as Padme began trying to untie and break ropes.
Kinraar suddenly roared. "We've got company!"
A dozen Tusken Raider's filed into the hut, and were astounded to see Padme free. Half of them rushed at her while the other half divided into three groups to take Kail, Rick and Kinraar.
After a bit of a fight, the Tusken's managed to subdue the seething Zabrak girl. Four lifted Kinraar's cage while the two left split up, both untying Kail and Rick from poles but not their wrists. Then they were pushed toward the exit of the hut, probably their death.