Star Wars
The Chronicles of Horn
Corran Horn sat in the cockpit of his X-wing staring blankly at the colorless beauty of hyperspace. Whistler, Corran's faithful R2 unit, chirped meekly, but Corran, lost in thought, took no notice. It had only been two days since Corran's secret departure from Corellia and his life in the Corellian Security Force, or CorSec. He had not only left behind his job though, he had left his partner, Iella Wessiri and her husband, Diric, his greatest friends. Iella helped Corran find himself after his father, Hal, was killed by Bossk, the Trandoshan bounty hunter.
Now, Corran was alone with almost no worldly possessions. Well, at least I still have Whistler, he thought. It was true that being on the run in an X-wing was far better than being in an Imperial prison. Corran's blood boiled when he thought about Kirtan Loor, the loathsome Imperial officer who was assigned to enforce the will of the Empire in CorSec. From the moment Loor and Horn had set eyes on each other, there had been a mutual enmity between them. This hatred grew and festered until the day when Corran, flush with victory, brought Bossk in for sentencing, only to see him released on Loor's orders. It had taken all of Corran's self-control to keep from frying Loor right on the spot.
Only a short time later, Gil Bastra, CorSec's director, realized that Loor was planning to have Iella, Corran, and Gil arrested on false charges. Gil and Corran had long been rivals, but they both harbored a deep loathing for Kirtan Loor. Gil approached Corran one day and told him of Loor's plan. Bastra also offered to make Corran a new identity, and along with himself, Iella, and Diric, arrange for safe passage to a secure system. The catch was that they would be separated for their own safety. Iella and Diric were off to an unknown destination while Corran was on his way to Tatooine to start his humble life as a moisture farmer. Gil had certainly found the perfect way to torment Corran at the same time as saving him.
Whistler beeped and chirped again, this time more insistently.
"What is it Whistler," said Corran, breaking his reverie.
Whistler warbled and an icon blinked on the screen.
"Thirty seconds until reversion to realspace? I thought that we weren't supposed to arrive for twenty more minutes," said Corran with a confused expression on his face.
The small astromech droid tooted proudly about managing to give the hyperdrive engine a boost.
"Yes, I'm pleased." Corran rolled his eyes. " Beginning the countdown until reversion to realspace. Three…two…one…Mark!"
The kaleidoscope of hyperspace became thousands of white lines. These shortened into the individual pinpricks of stars. The X-wing streaked towards an ugly brown planet that looked like nothing more than a ball of dirt. In essence, the planet of Tatooine, which orbited the twin stars, Tatoo I and Tatoo II, was just a ball of dirt.
"Set a course for Mos Eisley" said Corran in a somewhat disgusted voice. Who would want to live here in the first place?
The planet grew larger in the viewscreen as Corran took the ship closer to the cesspit of a star port called Mos Eisley. Just before the ship entered the atmosphere, whistler squealed a frantic warning. Corran looked at his scopes.
"Sithspawn! Since when did the Imps station Star Destroyers around this dust ball," he asked no one in particular.
Suddenly, a cold, pompous voice came over the comm unit. "Attention unidentified X-wing, this is the Star Destroyer Watcher. Turn to heading three-point-two-nine immediately and prepare to be brought into our primary hangar or we will take you by force. Resistance is futile." As the voice signed off, the coordinates it had given appeared on the monitor.
Well, it can't hurt to bluff, thought Corran. He activated the commlink and hailed the Star Destroyer "This is X-wing T-65-0718-G calling the Watcher. Why am I being asked to board? This is a registered civilian vessel with no military background." Corran tried to sound curious and slightly defensive like any pilot being waylaid for no reason.
"If that is true, you have nothing to worry about," said the Imperial flight controller waspishly. "However, this system has had an increasing amount of Rebel activity and, as you are in one of the Rebel Alliance's primary starfighters, protocol states that you must be investigated. Also, the markings on your X-wing are identical to the ones on the ship of an outlaw from Corellia. You will stand down and prepare to be guided into our main hold. Watcher, out."
Loor must have sent out a galaxy wide warrant, thought Corran. I guess I have no choice but to head to another planet and hope that the Imps haven't popped up there too. Corran locked his S-foils in attack position and pulled back on the stick. He performed a flip so he was flying back along his original trajectory. He glanced at his sensors and noticed that the Star Destroyer was releasing TIE fighters…half a wing of them. This was starting to look very bad.
"Whistler, set a course for the Onderon system," said Corran frantically.
Whistler beeped and warbled. His reply scrolled across the display in the cockpit.
"Five minutes," Corran shouted. "That ship's releasing TIEs! They'll be all over us in half that time!"
Corran realized that he was going to have to hold off the enemy starfighters for at least two minutes. One X-wing against thirty-six Ties could not end well. Corran flipped a switch that put his lasers into quad-fire mode. While this setting made the lasers slower to fire, one well-placed shot could destroy a TIE fighter.
In the group of fighters released from the Watcher were two squadrons of TIE fighters and one squadron of TIE interceptors. Corran knew that the fighters would be unlikely to catch him before he jumped back into hyperspace, but the faster interceptors would be on him in seconds.
Whistler screeched a warning that an interceptor was on their tail. Corran responded by cutting his thrust back to ten percent and letting the interceptor overshoot him. When the small craft blasted by, Corran quickly skewered it in his crosshairs and fired. One of the four laser blasts hit the pylon that attached one of the TIE's canted wings to its ball cockpit. The blast sheared the wing off and sent the interceptor into a spin. Two more of the lasers glanced off the side of the cockpit, but the final blast hit the interceptor's twin ion engines directly. There was a bright flash of light as the interceptor exploded, pelting Corran's particle shields with debris.
"Whistler, how much longer," Corran asked while switching over to proton torpedoes.
Whistler blatted harshly at him.
"I know you're going as fast as you possibly can," said Corran consolingly. "I just want to know how many more Ties I have to kill before we can get out of here."
Whistler put a countdown on the display screen.
"Two minutes," mumbled Corran distractedly. "Okay, this might work."
Corran stomped on the etheric rudder pedal and his ship swung to starboard. Another interceptor was lined up nicely in his sights and he spitted it in his targeting brackets. Whistler started beeping as he tried to acquire a target lock and the brackets turned green. The interceptor started juking around, but Corran managed to keep it in his sights as Whistler's tone got faster and the brackets turned yellow. After another two or three seconds, Whistler's tone became constant and the brackets turned red. Corran launched a torpedo, which chased the interceptor for almost a kilometer before slamming into the interceptor's cockpit and exploding.
"Two down and ten to go with one minute and forty seconds until we get to go," said Corran in a tense voice. This isn't over yet.
Two more TIEs managed to lock on to Corran's ship and started firing. Corran performed a quick snaproll and came up behind the two fighters that had just been tailing him. One of the TIEs was faster and more perceptive. It veered away quickly only to be caught by the explosion of the other TIE, which had just taken a hit from one of Corran's proton torpedoes.
Whistler suddenly let out a triumphant string of beeps and toots.
"Coordinates set," said Corran with great relief. "Making the jump to lightspeed. Onderon, here we come!"
End of chapter one.