Janna was cold. She, like her friends, had not had the luxury of time to don her cold weather gear before beginning their rushed exodus from the hideout. That hadn't been a problem in the lift or even in the basement where the base was heated. The freight elevator, however, was not, and she shivered as she sat on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest for some semblance of warmth.
Come on, Pony, where's that distraction?
Star and Marco lay in a heap in front of her. Janna was worried about the Padawans, Star in particular. While Marco at the very least had his hoodie, Star was clad only in her lightweight, sleeveless blue dress and leggings. Her bare arms were tinged blue, as were her lips.
But, despite Star's complete lack of protection, Tom was in the worst shape of all. Simply by the unfortunate circumstance of being a Demonicite, the cold was taking an even greater toll on the young smuggler. He shivered uncontrollably, the chattering of his teeth the only sound inside the freight elevator. He had drawn his arms inside of his bantha leather jacket to conserve heat, and the exposed purplish skin of his face had drained of all color. "Janna," he whispered. She met his eyes. "We're gonna have to- ...we can't stay in here much longer. We'll freeze."
Janna nodded. "I know. But we'll never make it to-"
"Hold on. I think I've got something."
The faint sounds of an electronically broadcast voice accompanied by the steady beeping from some piece of scanning equipment cut her off. There were at least a pair of stormtroopers directly above them, their voices muffled, still searching for the freight elevator shaft.
"Scanner shows a large depression in the ground directly below us."
"Let's clear some of this snow. See what's underneath."
The smugglers' eyes met. "Guess the jig is up," Janna muttered, already drawing her DC-17.
Tom nodded, sliding his arms back into his sleeves, his shaking hand curling around the grip of his WESTAR-32. "They must have caught Pony."
"Yeah." Janna paused as scraping and shoveling began overhead. "I really thought she'd come through..."
A loud clang resonated from the shovel in the stormtrooper's hand. "Oh, yeah, there's something there alright."
"Inquisitor! We found the hatch!"
The Jedi hunter clenched a gloved fist in triumph. "Finally." It took two steps toward the hailing stormtroopers-
-and was suddenly tackled to the ground by a huge quadrupedal cat-like creature with spiked blue fur. The inquisitor landed on its back, the creature pinning it down with a crushing paw, fanged jaws gnashing inches from the inquisitor's helmet as it struggled to hold the creature back. A white-furred Talz sat astride the saddle on the creature's back.
"Inquisitor!" The twelve stormtroopers searching the ice field all turned their attention to their commanding officer's precarious predicament.
That was a mistake. Charging from behind the hideout came two dozen more of the blue creatures, called narglatches, and their riders, along with another twenty Talz on foot. They brandished long spears hewn from bone, hurling them toward the stormtroopers running for cover.
And accompanying the Talz rider in the saddle of the lead narglatch was PY-HD.
The inquisitor called one of its lightsabers to its palm with the Force and ignited it through the lower jaw of the the narglatch pinning it to the snow. The creature collapsed, dead, and the inquisitor found itself now trapped beneath its massive, furry body.
The stormtroopers, finally composing themselves, scrambled for their blasters and returned fire. The Talz and their narglatch broke formation to evade their lasers.
The battle was on.
The blaster fire caught Tom and Janna's attention.
"Is that-?"
Janna hopped to her feet. "A distraction if I ever heard one."
A ladder ran the duration of the freight elevator shaft, cutouts in the lift deck allowing clearance. Janna scrambled to the top and attempted to release the maintenance hatch, but the latch was frozen shut. She jammed her blaster back into its holster and grabbed Star's lightsaber from her belt, flicking the blade on just long enough to blast a hole through the spot where the latch had been. The hatch flew open as she jammed her shoulder against it, and she wasted no time climbing through into the ice and snow. All around her, Talz hurled spears and sent stormtroopers scrambling, the troopers barely having an opportunity to fire back.
Yup. Good distraction.
"Hand Star and Marco up to me!" Janna called.
Warmed by a rush of adrenaline, Tom holstered his blaster and hoisted Marco up by the padawan's midsection. Laying on her stomach above, Janna was able to reach down through the hatch and catch Marco beneath his arms. She hauled him up and dropped him rather unceremoniously in the snow, then reached back down to repeat the process with Star.
Meanwhile, the inquisitor had managed to extricate itself from beneath the dead narglatch. Amidst the pandemonium, it frantically searched the ice field. This is a distraction! It must be! It looked toward the spot where the stormtroopers had summoned it just before the attack began. Sure enough, there they were. Those same two kids from Corellia, the Demonicite and that human girl it had dueled on the roof of the maglev, each lugging the limp body of one of their Padawan friends.
"Gotcha."
Twin crimson lightsabers ignited in the inquisitor's hands-
-and it was clobbered from behind by the snout of a narglatch, the animal scooping the Jedi hunter off its feet and sending the inquisitor sailing through the air, plummeting back to the ground and landing dazed in a snow drift.
Lugging their unconscious friends along was even more difficult in the snow. Tom and Janna tried very hard not to attract any attention to themselves, but the Talz kept the Imperial troops' attention occupied so well that they made it all the way to the Raventalon, extended the boarding ramp, and made it into the cabin without incident despite the time consuming slog through the snow.
"Made it," Tom gasped.
They propped Star and Marco up against the bulkhead.
"Okay, Lucy," Janna said as she turned back toward the boarding ramp, "get up to the cockpit and fire up the engines."
"Huh? Where are you going?"
"I gotta go get Pony Head."
"Oh, right. I'm on it!"
Janna hurried back toward the din of battle outside, but only made it two steps down the ramp before she froze, as did the inquisitor, who itself had just started up.
"Well, well, well," the Jedi hunter chuckled. "Look who it is. The girl who fancies herself a Jedi."
"Look who it is," Janna mocked. "The Sith who got their butt handed to 'em by a girl with no Force powers who had never fought with a lightsaber before."
"You didn't beat me. I wasn't trying to kill you because I needed information from you." It took a menacing step closer as it ignited both crimson lightsabers. "I don't need anything from you this time. Now you're just in my way, girl."
Janna snatched Star's lightsaber from her belt and ignited the emerald blade, holding the laser sword at the ready. "You don't scare me."
The inquisitor chuckled, a low evil laugh. "I should."
Both hands gripped tightly around Star's lightsaber, Captain Ordonia stared her opponent down. The inquisitor gave it's blades a twirl and advanced, rearing back both blades, poised to strike. Janna braced herself.
And then, lightsabers in mid-swing, the inquisitor froze. Visible tendrils of crackling blue electricity coursed across its trembling body as every muscle rapidly contracted. The lightsabers fell from its hands, extinguishing as they clattered to the boarding ramp and rolled out of sight. Janna stood shocked and confused as the current vanished and the electrocuted Jedi hunter fell over, tumbling off the side of the boarding ramp after it's weapons.
And there, directly behind where the inquisitor had been standing, was PY-HD, a thin metal arm extended from the droid's cylindrical body. The arm ended in a pair of electrodes, an arc of electricity crackling between them.
Janna breathed a sigh of relief and extinguished the lightsaber as the Raventalon's engines whirred to life above them. "Great timing, Pony. Pretty sure I was seconds away from death."
The droid gave a sarcastic bleep.
"Not the time, Pony. Let's get out of here."
They scurried into the ship, retracting the boarding ramp behind them. The stormtroopers were still so occupied with the Talz that they didn't even notice that their quarry was escaping until the YV-560 lifted slowly off the ground and zoomed away.
That was the Talz's cue to leave. They vacated the area just as quickly as they had arrived, leaving ten remaining very confused stormtroopers standing in the ice and snow. The other six had fallen to the Talz's crude weaponry.
Rosado had been watching the battle between his stormtroopers and the Talz from the pilot's seat of the Mentis Mal. He had been ordered to stay aboard the ship, and that was exactly what he was going to do. When the Raventalon lifted off and bolted for the upper atmosphere, he briefly considered firing up the engines and pursuing...but he didn't. Why didn't he? He convinced himself it was because his troops and the inquisitor were not on board and he didn't want to leave them stranded in the freezing cold...
...but he knew that couldn't be further from the truth.
Well...the most accurate reason is because I can't fly...
Once the Talz had vacated the area, the remaining stormtroopers composed themselves and carried the unconscious inquisitor aboard the ship, laying it in the bunk in its cabin. Over an hour passed before the Jedi hunter regained consciousness. Rosado waited by the inquisitor's bedside. He briefly considered removing the inquisitor's helmet, but considering that he had never once seen the being underneath without it, there was the possibility that it needed the helmet to survive, so he decided against it.
Although...
But that helmet rose off the bunk in due time.
"Where are they?"
Rosado quickly stood and took several steps backwards as a precautionary measure. "They fled the system, sir."
The inquisitor sat up. "I don't feel the ship moving, Rosado. Are we not pursuing them?"
A chill shot down Rosado's spine. Choose your words carefully... "They had already left the system by the time everyone made it back onboard."
"Were you not already aboard the ship?" There was bite in the inquisitor's tone. "Could you not have pursued yourself?"
"I don't know how to fly," Rosado said. "I don't even know how to fire the engines."
The inquisitor slid off the bunk, staggering unsteadily to its feet. "Well, let's go."
"Go where?"
"They aren't on this worthless frozen rock anymore so we might as well get out of here."
"Right..."
Stumbling slightly, the inquisitor led the way out the cabin door, but it suddenly stopped in the doorway. "Oh, and Officer Rosado?"
"Yes, Inquisitor?"
"If those miserable brats escape again, I will hold you personally responsible."
"But I wasn't even-!" Rosado froze as the tip of a crimson lightsaber blade was suddenly aimed between his eyes. He gulped nervously. "Y-yes, Inquisitor."
The blade vanished. "Good. Glad we understand each other."
Rosado swallowed again, assuming that the next time that humming blade was aimed between his eyes would be the last. "Oh, yes. Understood. Crystal clear."
Star awoke with a splitting headache, surprised that she seemed to be in Tom's bunk aboard the Raventalon. When she put a hand to her left temple wincing in pain, she touched something that felt like a bandage on her forehead, which surprised her.
Thoughts flew through her mind in quick succession: Why am I on the ship? Why do I have a bandage on my head? What happened? and lastly, Where's Marco? as she pushed aside the heavy blankets covering her and found that she was alone.
Her headache got worse as she gingerly slid off the bunk. Every footfall toward the cabin door sent a shock of pain pulsing through her cranium. By the time Star made it to the corridor outside she nearly collapsed to the floor from the migraine's severity. It made her feel nauseated to the point she thought she may vomit, and she sank down to the floor, physically unable to remain upright. She wanted to call out to her friends, but she could only manage a feeble moan.
Why does my head hurt so badly? What happened to me? WHERE IS MARCO?!
After several minutes passed and none of her friends appeared, Star staggered to her feet for a second time, hunched over for fear that her stomach would empty itself if she stood fully erect. With every bit of strength she could muster, the young Padawan made her way up to the cockpit. She could hear the sound of light snoring as she approached.
The rest of the crew were all present at the Raventalon's helm. PY-HD was at its terminal but had gone into low power mode. Janna and Tom had fallen asleep in the pilots' seats, each wrapped in a blanket. Marco was the only one not asleep, though his eyelids were heavy and he was fighting a losing battle attempting to stay awake. He was seated behind Janna, watching the swirls of hyperspace shift and change outside the forward viewscreen.
"Marco..." Star moaned quietly as she entered the cockpit.
He slowly turned, his eyes growing wide with concern as he saw his best friend hunched over in pain. "Star!" He hopped to his feet to assist her, guiding her into the seat behind Tom. "What's wrong?"
"My head...hurts...soooooooo bad..."Marco returned to his seat behind Janna, and Star rested her head on his shoulder. The swirling colors of hyperspace only made her migraine worse, so her eyes remained closed while Marco gently stroked her hair. "What...what happened, Marco?" she whispered. "I...I remember...us...rushing up to the command deck or...whatever...but I don't..."
"The Empire found us," Marco replied, his voice hushed. "They fired missiles at the Raventalon, so you and I made a Force-shield. Apparently it worked, but the shockwave from the exploding missiles knocked us into the desk-control panel thingy in the middle of the room." He pointed to the bandage on Star's forehead. "Janna said you must have been hit with a piece of transparisteel when the window exploded."
"How much...of it...do you...actually...?"
"About as much as you. Not much more. I can remember seeing the ship approaching out the window but...that's about it."
"If we...fainted...how did we...?"
"Get on the ship?"
Star nodded against Marco's shoulder.
"Janna said she and Tom carried us." He looked forward at their snoozing friends in the pilots' seats. "It was quite the adventure, apparently."
Star snaked her arms around Marco's midsection, a bit awkward from her position. "We have...such...good friends."
Marco smiled. "We sure do."
They sat in silence for a while. Star's migraine waned from a throbbing pain to a dull ache as time passed. "Did they say where we were going?"
"I didn't get a chance to ask before they fell asleep." Marco glanced behind him at the astromech. "And I can't understand Pony Head, but I'm pretty sure she refused to tell me when I asked."
The silence resumed once more. Eventually, both Padawans drifted off to sleep, but it wasn't long before they were roused by the sound of a chiming alert on the control panel. Janna snapped back to life, her eyes flittering over the monitors and indicator lights. The alert woke Tom, too, and he promptly fell out of his seat.
"We're here," Janna announced shortly as she flicked switches.
Her copilot hauled himself back into his seat. "I'll start the landing cycle."
Star and Marco sat up, peeling their limbs apart. "Where is exactly is 'here'?" inquired Star.
"Mid-rim. Tashtor sector of the Western Reaches."
Janna and Tom reached up and grasped their respective hyperdrive control levers and pulled them smoothly back in sync, dropping the ship out of hyperspace. A planet filled the viewscreen, its surface a tattered patchwork of green and blue. Janna gestured to the planet as if she were a tour guide. "Welcome to the neutral world of Takodana."
So sorry this chapter took so long, I was busy writing a bunch of other stuff. I promise it won't be...
*checks date of last chapter upload*
...Holy crap, two and a half months?!
Yeah, I promise it will not be anywhere near that long before the next chapter.