Star Wars
The Chronicles of Horn
Chapter 2Corran let out a huge sigh of relief. He was puzzled at the Star Destroyer's presence at Tatooine. His encounter with the TIE fighters could have been disastrous. What am I going to do now, he thought. I can always sell my X-Wing and buy a freighter. Gil's plan is still good if I can just get on Tatooine without being detected.
"Easier said than done," Corran thought out loud. Whistler beeped out a question. "No Whistler, I was just thinking out loud."
After a few more minutes of silence, Corran began to wonder about his choice of Onderon as his destination. His father had always told him to take his hunches and gut feelings seriously, and they hadn't let him down yet.
"Whistler, pull up all the data you can find on Onderon. I want to know what we're getting into"
An information display scrolled across the screen.
Onderon: A large planet with several moons in close orbit. One of the moons, Dxun, shares atmosphere with the planet. The planet is sparsely settled with only one starport, the city of Iziz. Onderon is ruled by a monarchy. The current ruler is King Argan Talia IV. Onderon has been removed from galactic events for many centuries, although it played a major roll in the Sith Wars four millennia ago. The moon Dxun has several Sith tombs on its surface. The most prominent of these is the tomb of Freedon Nadd, the Sith Lord who conquered Onderon and began the royal bloodline that still exists today…
The display went on like this for quite some time, but nothing interesting came up.
"Great," Corran said sarcastically, "Now we're going to an old Sith stronghold. Things can't get much better than this."
After a few hours in hyperspace, Whistler chimed his usual warning that meant it was time to reenter realspace. Corran hit the controls and watched as the starlines resolved into individual points of light. He was immediately greeted by a much more impressive sight thanthe one he saw when he approached Tatooine. The planet was large and dominated by green. The nearest moon also had green over most of its landscape, though it seemed much darker and gave Corran the chills.
"This is Onderon flight controller to incoming starfighter," said a voice from the comm. It sounded angry. "You are intruding in Onderon space. State your purpose or you will be destroyed."
"This is Jake Gasrin," said Corran, using his false identity. "I have no hostile intent, I simply need a place to land and refuel."
"Denied. No ships that do not hail from Onderon can land. For all we know, you can be a spy. You have two options. First, you can turn to bearing ninety-three-dash-oh-four and dock with the freighter. There, you will be imprisoned until a trial can be arranged. Second, you can try to escape and be shot down; it's your choice. Onderon control, out."
"Sithspit," Corran said vehemently. "This just keeps getting better."
Corran looked at his HUD and his stomach dropped. There were two squadrons of Z-95 Headhunters coming towards him…and one squadron was at the hyperspace jump point. Corran knew that he could never hope to beat them all, but his instincts told him that he would be killed if he turned himself in as well. Well, what can I expect from a government started by a Sith?
"Whistler, we're probably not going to get out of this, but I'm not going down without a fight."
Corran turned his starfighter towards the hyperspace jump point. He knew that if he had any chance of escape, it would be there. The first wave of Headhunters would be on him in a few seconds, so Corran locked his S-foils in attack position and set his lasers to dual fire. He bracketed one Headhunter and waited until it was within his range. As soon as the targeting reticule went red, Corran fired. Twin bolts of coherent light shot towards the oncoming fighter. The first two blasts were absorbed by the Headhunter's shields, but the second set bored straight into the cockpit, disintegrating computers, components, and pilot in a nanosecond. Corran did not watch to make sure that the craft was dead though, he turned to the next in formation and tightened up on the trigger. The second Headhunter had started firing, but the shots were deflected by Corrans stronger shields. Still, his shields could not hold out a barrage forever. Corran did not dare pour all of his shield power into the front though, he still had the squadron coming up from behind to contend with. Just as he was about to shoot down the second Headhunter, his ship shook violently and all of the systems went dead. One of the ships from the second squadron had launched a concussion missile.
"Whistler, why didn't our HUD pick that up?" Corran started hacking as smoke filled the cockpit. There was only one explanation as to why the HUD didn't detect a target lock. The missile had been dumb fired. The HUD couldn't detect a lock that didn't exist. Life support was failing fast.
"Whisler, what's our engine status?" The droid tooted mournfully. Zero engines.
Whistler was working frantically to repair as much as he could. He managed to get the life support back online and Corran sighed in relief as the smoke was vented from the cockpit. Now that the view was unobstructed, Corran could see that they were tumbling towards Dxun. The Headhunters had obviously left him for dead…or soon to be dead.
"Whistler, how are our repulsorlifts? Can we land on Dxun safely after we enter its atmosphere?"
Whistler beeped that the repulsolifts were functional. Corran now had to wait as they drifted closer and closer to the dark and foreboding surface of Dxun. Corran suddenly recalled the information on Dxun. Towards the end of the data stream, Dxun had been referred to as "the Beast Moon."
"Whistler," said Corran with trepidation. "Why is Dxun called the Beast Moon?"
Whistler's reply filled Corran with dread. The data spoke of cannocks, bomas, zakkegs, and, worst of all, drexyls. All of them were described as fearsome predators. Corran looked at the rangefinder and activated his repulsorlifts. Now almost touching the moon's surface, Corran looked again at the dark trees and imagined the terrible beasts that called them home.
The ship settled down to the ground and Corran unclasped his safety harness. He sat for a moment and decided whether he really wanted to get out. Eventually he decided that the ship wouldn't repair itself and popped the hatch. After he had stretched his legs for a moment, Corran drew his blaster and stepped around to the rear of the ship to survey the damage. Whistler had come out of his droid socket and was twittering loudly at Corran to let him down. Something nearby roared.
"Shut up!" Corran said to Whistler. " I'll get you down in a minute but attracting something big and nasty won't help us."
Corran climbed up the fuselage and helped Whistler down. After the droid was safely on the ground, Corran went back to examining the ship. It was lucky that Corran had left his rear shields up as they had taken the brunt of the blast. There was plenty of damage, but little of itwas irreparable. Corran was actually starting to feel happy until he noticed the fuel lines. They were utterly vaporized along with some of the wiring around them.
"I don't suppose there is a place we can get som spare parts around here, is there?" Corran had meant this to be a rhetorical question, but Whistler chirped a happy affirmative. "There is? Where," asked Corran, barely daring to believe his own luck. Corran took his datapad out and attached one of the leads to Whistler. The droid's response appeared on the screen.
"An old Mandalorian camp with hidden caches of supplies hidden around it? Just how old is it?"
Whistler blatted harshly in response. It didn't matter how old the supplies were, there was no other way to repair the ship.
"Okay, okay, you're right. Lets get you back in the ship so we can go down there."
After helping Whistler back into the droid socket, Corran hopped into the cockpit and sealed the hatch. He had no engines, but repulsorlifts were sufficient for atmospheric travel. Whistler designated the Mandalorian camp as being five hundred kilometers to the south.
After an hour's steady travel, the repulsorlifts let out a screech of protest and all but one of them failed. Corran had just enough power left to land the ship safely before the final repulsorlift engine sputtered and died.
"Whistler, how far are we from the camp?" asked Corran. He hoped it wasn't far. Whisler responded nervously. Thirty kilometers. "Well, I guess I'm legging it from here. You stay and repair what you can, but don't leave the top of the ship. If anything comes along, go back into your socket and don't move. A predator is less likely to attack you if it doesn't see you moving around."
Corran grabbed a pack of rations, his blaster pistol, and his blaster carbine. He bade Whistler farewell and trekked off into the gloomy forest. Whistler moaned one mournful note and got to work.
End of chapter 2
Part 3 coming soon!