Disclaimer: I can claim no ownership of the characters or settings used in this fiction.
The Hag and the Scoundrel
"Awaaaaaaken" droned a voice in the handsome, buffed man's head. The fluid he was floating in drains from the tank and he is thrust forward onto a round platform with pretty blinky lights. He slowly regains consciousness and looks around. He's in a medical facility of some sort and there are four other kolto tanks besides his own in the room. In amazement he stares at the four identical quadruplets in the other tanks. They don't look so well. Perhaps they are clones, he wonders.
No one seems to be working nearby so he wanders out into the hall and sees a smoking, malfunctioning door up ahead. Not a good sign, he thinks as he turns the corner into the lab. Where the heck is everyone? He spots the medical lab computer terminal and notices the Emergency Lockdown warning on the top of the screen. Fiddling around with it some more he finds the medical logs. A holograph of a woman comes on and explains that he was the only survivor found on the Ever Hunk. There was also a dead old woman and a T4 unit brought from the ship as well as a protocol droid.
"What the hell? The Ever Hunk! I was on the Hard Liquor Binger, a republic rehabilitation ship," he thinks. "How did I get on the Ever Hunk? And how did I get here? What is this place?"
Another holographic log entry tells him that they suspect he's a Jedi! He looks down at the tattoo on his bicep that says, Jedi have the biggest light sabers, and says, "Damn, they know!" The woman's image continues to say that they contacted the republic and are waiting for instructions. Then she goes on to explain about some boring explosion in the ventilation shaft and how it killed the miner clones. A survivor said a droid did it. A log from yesterday continues to explain about more explosions and how the droids seem to be malfunctioning. "Yeah, yeah," mumbled the man, "talk more about me."
The last log shows the woman as she frantically exclaims about the emergency lockdown and how she's got to high tail it out of there. The man hit the terminal in frustration and said, "Yeah, but did she think I was cute?" Next he finds the medical logs for the patients in the Kolto tanks. The clones were all treated for plasma burns. A lethal dose of sedatives was given to all tanks, including his. "They tried to kill me!" There is no record of who ordered the treatment but if he finds a computer spike he'll be able to track down the last order.
"Well," he decides, "if they are trying to kill me then I don't feel so bad about ripping them off." He uses the terminal to open the medical storage compartment behind him and the morgue door across the hall. He steals med pacs and chemicals from the storage room and heads over to the morgue. "The stiffs won't need their items anymore," he says to himself.
There are only two bodies in the morgue, a dead old hag and someone lying under a sheet. The hag doesn't look like she'd have anything of interest so he goes to the body under the sheet and pulls out a plasma torch. "How come I get stripped bare and the dead get to keep stuff? Just doesn't make sense," he mumbles to himself.
"Find what you're looking for," a crackly voice behind him says making him jump in fright.
He spins around to see the old woman has risen from the dead and is looking right at him, "I thought you were dead!"
"No, it was just gas," she replied.
"Never mind," he said with a look of disgust. "Who are you and what is this place?"
"I am your rescuer, Krusty, and now you shall rescue me. You were the only survivor of the attack on the Hard Liquor Binger. You look troubled."
"Well, what do you expect? I wake up in some god forsaken medical facility where someone has been trying to shoot me with enough sedatives to kill a bantha and now I have an old woman by the name of Krusty telling me I have to rescue her."
"Sedatives?" she says in surprise.
"Yeah, and they killed the clones in the tanks but not me!" he answered.
"It must be your Jedi training that kept you alive. You put yourself into a Jedi trance."
"How did you know I was a Jedi?" he asked.
Her arm raised and a boney finger pointed out of the cuff of her robe at his tattoo.
"Oh, yeah," he said in embarrassment. "I was a bit drunk when I got that tattoo," he laughed nervously. "I'm not really a Jedi anymore. There was a bit of trouble with the order."
"Yes," said Krusty, "but let's concentrate on getting out of here. It is too silent here. We should find the ship we came in and leave quickly. I fear your attackers will not give up on you."
"What do they want?" he asks.
Krusty shrugs and says "I don't know. I just rose from the dead for crying out loud. I'm going to sit here on this floor and interrupt you with my psychic abilities while you try to find the ship. Now go!"
"Fine," grumps the man, "you just better hope I come back for you when I find a way out." He leaves with his plasma torch and easily opens the jammed door with it.
In front of him burned bodies and smashed droids lay in the room. "Eww," he says as he pinches a vibroblade out of a blackened, crispy corpse. The door to the dormitory level is jammed shut and he is unable to open it. "Damn! I bet that's where all the good loot is. There has to be another way in."
The next door he tries opens easily but he's surprised by the damaged mining droids that turn and fire on him. "Oh yeah," he yells as he runs up to them in turn and hacks at them with his vibroblade, "take that and that and that too." Every new room he comes to seems to have more droids and he turns them into scrap metal ever time. One of them even had a mining laser that he took.
In one room, a door marked 'emergency hatch' is locked tight. The man is startled when his head goes all fuzzy and a picture of Krusty comes to his mind saying, "In my vision that door is open."
"Krusty? Is that you? How can you talk to me in my head?" But Krusty doesn't answer. "Weird old freak," he mumbles and goes into the next room labeled 'security room'.
He frisks another dead body and acquires a security tunneler to use on a nearby locker. "Cool, some ion grenades!" he says as he turns to check out the security terminal information. The holograph of an angry security officer comes on screaming about some guy named Corky who brought explosive weapons into the tunnels. The officer can't figure out why the droids are going wacky and turning on the miners and he is suspecting it is because of the Jedi. "Yeah, always the Jedi's fault! Anything goes wrong it's 'let's blame the Jedi'." The holographic man then explains how he uses stealth to get to the administration terminal and shut down the droids.
The Jedi checks all the security cameras and can see that the next room has three droids in it. He also sees that a man is still alive in the prison. He leaves the terminal and before he can open the next door Krusty comes back into his mind and tells him to try to sense the droids in the next room. "I know that already Krusty! I've seen them on the camera," he says.
"Feel the energy… can you feel it," says Krusty in her creepy voice.
"Look, this is really starting to freak me out. Could you please give me a little privacy? Like if I have to take a wiz or something I want to know that you're not watching."
The Jedi opens the door and hacks up the droids, finding a stealth field generator as well as more med pacs in the metal lockers. "Oh yeah, invisibility!" he exclaims as he equips the belt and walks into the main administration room. There are about six of the mining droids waiting around. "Little bastards," he mumbles, "I'm just going to take you all out." He goes up to each one in invisible mode to attack them by surprise and hacks away. This turns him visible each time but somehow the other droids don't see him until he attacks them individually. "Peace of cake," he says as he now has a clear path to the administration terminal.
He flips off the force shield in front of the prison room doors and heads over to it. Before he steps in Krusty comes to his head again and says not to fear the prisoner, he might be useful. "Yeah Krusty, sure, whatever you say."
The prisoner watches as the man enters the room. "Hey, what's going on here?" the prisoner asks. "I'll have you know that I'm not going to just bend over and take it! You're in for a fight."
The Jedi looks at him in confusion, "What are you talking about?"
"You, coming in here naked!" the prisoner says. "If this is the way Perilous Mining Company treats its prisoners then I'm going to make sure the republic hears about this!"
"I'm naked because they took my clothes," the Jedi says.
"You're not going to rape me?" the prisoner asks in surprise.
"What? No! I woke up in med bay and discovered that everyone was gone. I was hoping you can tell me what happened."
"I'm not sure. There was some talk about some Jedi. Some people wanted to turn him over to the Exchange for the bounty on his head. The others didn't and that's all I know. Hey, wait… you're that Jedi," said the prisoner as he noticed the tattoo.
"Yeah, yeah, what's your name?" the Jedi asked.
"Atomic Randy, and you are?"
"Just call me Exile," the man said, "I could tell you my real name, but then I'd have to kill you."
"Whatever," Atomic rolled his eyes, "can you just get me out of here?"
"That depends, who are you and why are you in prison?" Exile asked.
"Look I'm an ex-soldier and why I'm here is not important. I can help you find a way off this asteroid if you get me out of here," Atomic said.
"Which war, the Panderinglorien?
"Yeah, that and the Jedi Civil War," Atomic answered.
"Jedi Civil War?" Exile asked in surprise. "The Jedi fought each other?"
"Where the heck have you been?" Atomic answered. "You know, that business with Reven and Malak?"
"They were lovers, right?" Exile said.
"Oh Jeez, I thought Jedi were suppose to be smart," Atomic said in exasperation. "Reven turned on Malak and killed him."
"That was harsh," Exile said. "What did he do, cheat on her? Couldn't they have kissed and made up?"
"Forget it! Just get me out of here!" Atomic snapped. "You must have been very far away not to have heard about the war."
"Not sure. I was stinking drunk most of the time. All the planets could have exploded for all I knew. I was on the recovery ship the Hard Liquor Binger when I was attacked. I must have really pissed someone off somewhere, but I can't remember who. The last five years are pretty much a blur to me," Exile explained.
"Hey, that's great, but can you just flip that switch over there and get me out. I'm pretty handy with the computer and I think I may be able to open some of those doors for you," Atomic pleaded.
"Alright, but if your some sort of psycho killer I'll have you know that I've got a plasma torch and I'm not afraid to use it," Exile warned.
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If you've read this far, please let me know what you think! I'll continue if you like it so far.