AN: Sorry for the long wait there's been some unavoidable real-life issues for all of us, Chapter III's with the beta reader and the draft for Chapter IV is well on its way. Credit to Fuzzydemolitionsquad for her exceptional writing skills and eyeloch's (our beta-reader) keen eye to detail. Pictures/co-writing/story idea by DarkDranzer
Garazeb: Son of Lasan series
Saviour – Part II: Salvage
From orbit, the world of Ayin-Resh was tranquil. Swathes of green jungle and blue seas crisscrossed the surface, beautiful colours only slightly marred by the odd settlement or mine. Descend through the clouds though and you might get a sense of commotion, at least in one particular private hangar. Its owner was busy demanding a planetary lockdown from the local authorities since she'd just learnt her order from Kuat Systems Engineering had been stolen from right under her nose.
Many miles away, the thief – Kanan Jarrus by name – exited the fresher wearing a pair of knee length shorts and his favourite holey-but-comfortable tee shirt. Pulling his wet hair back, he fastened it into its usual neat ponytail. He turned to his partner, a green-skinned twi'lek on the other side of the room named Hera Syndulla.
"Boy….I'm starving to death, who'd've thought stealing A-Wings would work up an appetite?"
He eyed the minibar and ornate fruit bowl next to Hera, several ripe, tantalising fruits picked from their lush jungles filled the bowl, making Kanan's mouth water.
"Will they charge us extra if I sneak a meiloorun out?"
"Unfortunately, yes," Hera replied, keeping her attention on the portable radio – hoping for a signal. "And no, we don't have enough to cover their food tax."
Kanan scoffed aloud "Figures...charge us just for taking a piece of fruit that you can find anywhere…"
"Sorry love," Hera chuckled, "but I think we would've caused the Koppaya Inn enough trouble by the time Stormtroopers come marching in demanding to know where the A-Wings are." she idly flicked a few switches, keeping the headset pinned to her ear cone "Speaking of which, we'd better find another place to lie low for a while, preferably outside of Ayin-Resh, at least until the heat's died down."
The weary thief threw himself down on the hide–a–bed couch. With a sigh, he stretched his arms up over his head then folded them behind his neck. Reaching over to grab a holopad from the well-worn cushion beside him, he tried to read the room service menu, which happened to be written in no less than three Devaronian dialects.
"Yeah, yeah…" Kanan began flicking through the menu
"Find anything worth getting caught over?" Hera lightly turned a knob
"I'm afraid to order anything from this menu. Maybe Vizago can interpret it for us."
Hera looked up from her portable radio equipment and her shapely lips stretched into a sly smile.
"You want me to call him? After we conveniently 'lost track' of those CR-2 pistols, then did a job for the rebellion instead? He saw us with the ships, Kanan. He knows we stole them. Besides," she continued, her voice taking a teasing lilt, "there's nothing on that menu you'd eat anyway. Devaronian food is salty. And usually slimy."
"Glad you told me." Kanan replied, teasing back, "I was thinking of ordering number seven. Gul'rekrek ssar bem."
"Ah. Fermented rycrit calf brains. That's actually pretty good. When cooked the twi'lek way I mean."
Kanan blew out a puff of air and slapped the menu on top of the couch–side table. "We might have enough time to hit the Corellian restaurant down the street? We have to celebrate our victory some way."
Hera put a hand up against one of her earphones. "Mmm. You go ahead. The encryption breaker is working. I'm getting little streams of coherent basic. Military lingo. Could be the Empire."
"In that case, the food can wait." he offered her a wolfish smile
Hera switched to open speaker so Kanan could hear. He got off the couch and pulled up a chair next to her. A few truncated blurbs squawked from the radio speaker.
"Mission command . . . . . requesting orders . . . return. . . . . . . access. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . refueling on. . . ."
"Dammit! Refueling where?" Hera slammed the table with her fist. "We need a new fuel source!"
"Shhh, listen!" Kanan said, tweaking Hera's ear cone.
"Base–Delta–Zero, Liberation: Lasan was a success. . . . .No Known Survivors. . . . . . escape pods. . . –stroyed. I'm sending Captain Rhell's transmission over secure channel. Radio blackout. . . . "
A chill coursed down Hera's spine, "Di–did he say Base–Delta–Zero?"
"Yeah." Kanan's face was grim. He repeated "No known survivors. Lasan's nearby, I'm assuming?"
The twi'lek put her head in her hands and stared down at the tabletop. "Yes, Chopper has mentioned it a couple times, but I never questioned him about it. If the Empire is actively B-D-Z'ing random inhabited planets, the galaxy as we know it is doomed."
"Not if we take out their kriffing armada."
Hera appreciated Kanan's optimism. After all the things the former Jedi padawan had been through, he still remained optimistic. As positive as Hera was, she retained a certain amount of pessimism. If one didn't expect things to go right, they were never shocked when they went horribly wrong.
The twi'lek's lekku twitched when an idea popped into her head.
"They said they're moving out to refuel, right?"
"Yeah sounded like it."
"That gives us first shot for a salvage mission."
Kanan was shocked. "A looting mission might be more appropriate."
The alien woman caressed his chin. "We're not going to be robbing corpses, Kanan. Just looking for scrap or whatever technology we can find. That the Empire didn't take, that is. Believe me, I don't feel good about it, but we need credits. Our food–stores are low. Even the stowaway mice are starving. And the Ghost needs a few repairs, remember? I won't mention the outrageous cost of starship fuel these days."
"You just mentioned it."
"Smartass." Hera smacked his cheek lightly.
The man stroked his beard.
"So how do we find Lasan?"
Hera smirked. "Well, I personally know someone who lived there. He's short and crotchety and swears in binary."
"Chopper? Heh, that little scrap–pile will direct us into a star going supernova!"
"Not if I promise him a hot oil bath after we get paid."
The light freighter Ghost blurred into existence over the planet Lasan. Her owner, Captain Hera Syndulla, stared at the lonely gray–brown orb framed in her forward her head, she gave her human partner a sideways glance. Kanan Jarrus returned her curious expression.
"Well there it is, just where Chopper said it would be. Nice to know he's got some honor." The man cracked the knuckles of his slender brown hands. "Now to get down there and find some scrap."
He said it as if it were some easy task, like lifting a bantha with a teaspoon...
Hera's green head–tails twitched. "Hmm . . . That can't really be Lasan, can it? Doesn't look like that rock ever had life on it. The entire northern pole is slagged. Scarred. Like land after lava flows over it."
"Or after superheated turbolasers pass over it." Kanan added helpfully.
Hera's eyes narrowed. Her mouth was a straight, mirthless line.
"That's what I was thinking too. When the Empire's military sets out to destroy...they certainly do it right, don't they?"
"Yes, they do."
The two sat in silence. Hera knew what Kanan was thinking—she was thinking it as well. Attempting a smile, she placed her hand on top of his.
"We've got to remember that whatever we salvage, whatever we sell. . . it'll fund the Rebellion and help people who've been affected by the Empire. We can buy food, medicine. Fuel. Maybe some new solar generators for the people of Tarkintown."
"I've been telling myself the same thing all day long. I–I just keep thinking about the lasat. We're gonna loot their destroyed planet..." Kanan pointed to the lifeless gray–brown sphere in the viewport. "Talk about adding insult to injury."
"I just hope there's enough down there to warrant using my fuel." Hera said, frowning. "I'm starting to think nothing could have survived that bombardment."
"Maybe the good stuff is locked away in underground vaults?"
"We'll see soon enough. Preparing for descent." Hera flipped a set of toggles above her head and eased down the steering yoke.
"Pray to the Force that I can get through that ring of asteroids."
"Don't need the Force when you've got the best damn pilot in the galaxy with you" Kanan joked, hoping to ease the tension
Hera didn't pay heed to his joke and with a short, awkward cough Kanan scrutinized the weightless forms tumbling through the gravitational slipstream which flowed around the planet's equator.
"Uh, Hera, what's easier to navigate in, asteroids or space junk?"
"What are you tal– Wait a minute. . ." she trailed off. Shoving Kanan from the co-pilot's chair, the twi'lek's hands flew over the toggle switches and bottons, increasing the range of her sensors.
Then they both saw a scrapyard swirling and tumbling about in a soup of cosmic dust. Vacuum–crushed escape pods and disembowelled star cruisers spun in lazy orbits, leaving splinters of metal in their wake. Larger transports lay shredded, their hulls flensed like the bodies of leviathans. Few, if any, ships looked Imperial. Stone seemed to litter the debris field too as if attacks from star destroyers had not only obliterated the ancient architecture of Lasan's major cities but thrown it into orbit. Gazing out, Kanan almost fancied he could see pieces of the marble palace and its hallowed statue–gardens, rocketed up and out of the atmosphere. It made him shudder as they drew closer - it was like he felt the dead in his bones...
"This is odd, Kanan." Hera said, perusing her holo-projected star chart for the fifth time. "If this is Lasan, why can't I find it here? There's not even an unnamed planetoid or moon on this chart."
"You can't find it for the same reason Chop can't find us any info about the lasat species," Kanan said with a bitter growl. "The Empire has wiped the slate clean regarding Lasan. They know they went too far with this attack. Hmph, I wonder if any of them have enough of a conscience enough to realize how wrong this is."
C1–10P let out a growl of his own. His service arms flailed and his dome rotated from side to side "WHAAP wah woop ruh ruh . . ."
"What did he say?"
Hera laughed. "He's frustrated because he can't provide a data feed and has to rely on his own internal memory."
"Wop. Wop."
Easing into the vacated pilot's chair, Kanan patted the droid's stout torso. "So Chop...what were the Lasat like?"
"Wheeooh ah mow whaaap. Rup ruh eeoh ug waa. Wook wah wook wahh."
"That doesn't sound good. Hera?"
"He says, and I'll quote, they were furry, smelly and...uglier than humans."
"Nice." Kanan deadpanned.
"And stronger than wookies."
Kanan's brows knitted. "No wonder the Empire wanted them dead."
With her usual skill, Hera manoeuvred through the debris—neatly avoiding a collision with the nose of a destroyed transport—and dove through the atmosphere of the ruined planet like a great, gray bird set upon it's wounded prey. Greasy smoke from long–burning fires licked at the Ghost's hull and clouds of wind–blown dust made normal navigating a near impossibility. Hera hated having to rely on her ship–board computer to tell her where to go, but this wasn't a time for one's pride to get in the way.
Eventually, she set the ship down on the shattered remains of what was once a beautiful mosaic–work court in the hub of a once–bustling capital city. Here, below the whirling dust clouds was an eerie picture of the remains of an advanced civilization. Stone benches and withered trees lay atop piles of marbleized brick and cobalt blue tiles. A few abandoned landspeeders hovered where their owners last parked them.
Colorful pennants on poles snapped in the hot, suffocating breeze and the upper reaches of enormous stone buildings—bombed hollow and pocked by laser fire—lay in the streets, support struts jutting from them like black bones. A cold, prickling sensation raised the fine hairs on the back of Kanan's neck as he slipped a rebreather mask over his face. As she finished the last few system checks from the co-pilot's seat, Hera noticed his reaction. He saw the concern in her eyes through the duraplast shield of her own mask and felt a flush of embarrassment as she slipped her hand into his.
"You gonna be okay, love?"
'Love?' the word caught Kanan off–guard 'I kind of like it when she calls me that.'
"Yeah. Sure." He found himself replying. "Don't worry about me."
They descended the ramp and set their booted feet on the ravaged court. Pebbly stone crunched beneath their heels. Kanan's fingers drummed the grip of his blaster as he scanned the surrounding area, his mouth frozen into a severe frown. Inside his mind, a tiny candle–flame of light sputtered in the depths of a tangible darkness.
Immediately, they saw the bodies . . .
At first Hera thought they were statues—their postures bizarre and unnerving—carved from the volcanic stone of far–away mountains. She could see, in rough detail, pain–distorted faces, teeth bared, nostrils flaring. Some carried the ashy remains of weapons, others the bodies of their fallen. A ring of large statues encircled a gang of smaller ones, their arms spread out protectively over them. They were beautiful, in a horrific way, if only because they revealed the lasat's last brave efforts to save their loved ones from certain doom. A gust of wind removed the head from one of the statues. Its shoulders and chest crumbled soon after. Hera looked at her feet.
"I–I've never seen anything so terrible."
Kanan said nothing. All around him the dark side loomed, gnashing its teeth while it threatened to tear out his heart. Again.
A noise cut through the silence. Even as he brought his blaster up he saw, in the hazy distance, a trio of wild anoobas squabbling over a pile of bloated corpses. A family of lasat who were spared deaths by disruption got it by way of old-fashioned blaster–bolt, execution style, right through the head. The alpha anooba bellowed and clamped his vice–like jaws onto the flank of one insolent pup, causing it to yelp and drop the insect-covered arm held in its own jaws. Eyes narrowing, Kanan released a bolt into the middle of the rabble and the anoobas fled, howling.
"I'm going to search the ah, 'palace.'" He said, motioning to the bombed-out corpse of fancy stone, wood and coloured glass. "At least I think it was a palace."
"Good idea. I'll take the Phantom and go on a little further. I think we should consider taking some of the landspeeders. The speeders around here are in okay shape but I might find some better ones."
"Sounds like a plan. The Ghost's belly could probably hold ten or so."
"I'll contact you in one standard." Captain Syndulla looked at her chrono and then boarded the small ship moored at the rear of the Ghost.
"Hera?"
She turned before closing herself in.
"What?"
"Be careful."
"I will. If I get into trouble I'll call Chopper," she teased, He'll swoop down and save me like the knight in shining orange armour that he is."
Kanan could hear the droid's retort through his communicator. "Now what did he say?"
Hera sighed. "He said if either one of us tries to bring a live lasat on board the Ghost he will leave us here, sell our belongings and buy himself a new chassis."
"Don't worry buddy. The chances of that are about a billion to one."
They parted and went their own ways. Since Kanan had decided to search what remained of the palace, Hera chose to follow the roads and check the rubble piles stationed along them. If she had to guess what they were, she would have said homes. She flew lower and saw not only more dead lasat, but also dead Imperial troops. Unlike the disintegrated natives' bodies, the stormtroopers were either torn to pieces or bent into painfully–improbable positions.
Hera winced at the sight of a 'u–shaped' stormtrooper, his bootheels touching the back of his crushed were a number of vehicles laying or floating about, but all of them had some form of damage or another. It was a shame, as the lasat speeders were some of the most stylish she had seen. A wave of self-loathing smashed into her.
'We're doing this for the rebellion, Hera. For the rebellion...'
She continued flying low through ash and dust. Searching for factories, pieces of lasat technology or even places with salvageable metal or wood seemed fruitless - the only thing she came across was a destroyed factory that once produced bread and other baked goods. It was disappointing, but at least the large ovens inside could be pulled out and sold.
What she had hoped to find was the arms factory Chopper had mentioned to her earlier. To those who ran the hyperspace routes near Lasan, it was legendary. Much like the people of Ryloth, lasat seemingly preferred to use weapons made by their own kind. From the reputation, they got there was something special, mythical almost, about lasat weapons. No doubt the Empire got to the factory first.
As she flew on through the ash-clogged sky the roads thinned and disappeared altogether. A great expanse of desert–marred only by a singular service highway– panned out in front of the Phantom. Hot winds carved ricochets of ripples into the amethystine sand and bolstered the wings of large gliding lizards looking for prey among the dunes. Hera marvelled as she flew between towering purple buttes and tabletop mesas that rose up from the desert floor. Slants of sunlight, piercing the gloom, caught the crystals in the rock on fire. It was undeniably stunning, and for a moment she revelled in the joy of flight.
Suddenly, a dozen or so hulking land transports lying dead on the highway caught her eye. With a flick of her ship's control yoke, Hera dipped lower and made a pass by them.
"Yes!" She whispered to herself. The transports might have been stained with soot, but otherwise, they actually appeared intact. With the beginnings of a smile playing on her lips she whipped back around, hovered for a moment, then set the Phantom down on the alien roadway.
Not wasting a second, Hera unbuckled her seat restraint and grabbed a pry bar from the Phantom's utility locker. Mashing the hatch release button, she ran out into the dry desert air. Her hand paused by her rebreather mask. She took a deep breath.
The air was hot, so hot it nearly scorched her throat, but at least it was free of the scent of smoke and death. She afforded herself quick peeks into the cabs of the transports and wondered what happened to the drivers bodies. A shadow passed over her, followed by the dry rustle of leathery wings.
"Oh."
Using her pistol, she shot the lock off the first transport's rear hatch. She then took up the pry bar and wedged it into the area between the hatch and the frame. The hatch slid aside and a powerful, horrible smell nearly knocked the twi'lek woman out. She put her forearm up to her nose and looked inside.
It was fish...large, beaked torpedo–shaped fish with bioluminescent scales, long dorsal spines, and four serrated fins. Crate after crate of them. Probably destined for the palace and restaurants in the surrounding city. Hera huffed with disappointment and indignation - dead and decaying fish wouldn't help the Rebellion!
The next transport yielded a full batch of hard rubber parts. Hera had no idea what they were, or what they could possibly be used for. She picked up a thick yellow ring, examined it and tossed it back onto the pile of others. She wiped a trickle of sweat from her grimy neck.
"Talk about a whole lot of nothing. . ."
Hera checked one more transport and was just as disappointed as she had been with the last two. Boarding the Phantom, she went on her way. The shipboard computer announced that she was heading toward the coast. Encouraged, she sped up. As outside air cooled considerably, a ridge of high-backed dunes rose up ahead of her. With a flick of the control yoke she gained altitude and soared over them. What she saw on the other side made her gasp.
On the downslope, banks of smaller dunes graduated into a wide swath of beach, nestled among cliffs. What looked like homes seemed to dot this landscape, so she made a beeline toward a suitable landing spot on some high cliffs. Hopefully, this landing wouldn't be as much of a waste of time as the last...
The Phantom touched down near a cracked fountain, clouds of dust whirling around her landing skids. Attaching her breath-mask, she opened the door and gagged at even a filtered lungful of the hazy air—the smell of fuel, soot and decay made her eyes water. She locked the Phantom up tight and ventured forth, only to pause and draw her blaster at an odd sound. After a tense moment, she saw its source—three cat-like creatures with muscular forearms and wicked back–curving claws were lapping at the scum-covered water. Hera pulled her pistol and shot over the creatures' heads. They loped away, screeching angrily.
Letting out a breath, Hera found her gaze drawn to where the (ash-coated) pale lavender sand met a darkened sea. From her cliff-top view, Hera could easily see patches of marbled iridescence that marked the ocean in an eerie rainbow tint. It became clear where the Empire's machines of war had toppled. Dark tendrils of fuel snaked from the bellies of tanks and walkers, threatening to contaminate all of the shorelines.
Stilt homes, charred as black as the now-polluted sea, lay crumpled along the beachhead like a windowsill of dead arachs. Hera tried to imagine a once–pristine beach, the ocean lapping at it with swells of briny foam. She thought about the lasat—though it was hard to visualize what she had never seen—gathering seashells and driftwood embedded in the damp sand, a warm, salty breeze wafting in from the deeps at the end of the day.
Turning her gaze further inland, Hera saw a broken sign at the entrance of this large coastal town. Even if she'd known the language, she doubted she'd be able to make out what it said—scorch marks covered the wood. It seemed to be the only thing still standing from the onslaught, at least on the beach itself.
Sighing through her breath-mask, Hera turned away from the devastation and got on with the task at hand.
Looking at her surroundings, she realised she'd touched down in what looked like a neighbourhood of once–affluent homes. There was more of the same marbleized brick and blue tile which she saw on the palace grounds, beautiful even through the ashy coating that clung to every surface. These lasat, she deduced, must have been of a higher standing than the ones in their stilt homes on the shore. Hera fought the familiar little demon on her shoulder. This was the perfect place to look for valuables, gems, precious metals and the like. She had to remind herself that she and Kanan had agreed on finding salvageable scrap.
But who would it hurt if she accidentally came across something pretty?
Leaving her shuttle behind, Hera started walking along a pink marble path, stirring dust up with every step. She held her nose when she passed the dehydrated carcass of some huge quadruped mammal with a long, branched antler on its snout. Behind the body was a overturned ag–cart, its bounty of fruits and vegetables half-lost to insects and decay. Hurrying away, she misstepped and nearly fell into the caved–in floor of a lasat shop. Perching on the rim of the cavern and peeked down. She squinted, then flinched back - a half–dozen charred lasat lay dead in a row, their heads bored through with concentrated blaster fire.
'The smell of the large rotting animal must have masked their scent until now,' Hera realised, gagging as she kicked away from the edge. There were no survivors here, and still no salvageable items. Getting up, she checked the ruins of another shop.
A peaked roof (perhaps traditional) seemed to be the only thing still intact. An empty poison–smoke canister lay by the blackened foot of a sweet-faced little girl. A child's money–belt purse, its flap open, was still in one hand. Toy credits littered the ground around her head, framing her platinum purple hair and soft face.
Hera had seen her first intact lasat. An innocent child with pink ears and dull yellow eyes and a tiny snub for a nose. With the calm noise of waves the only thing she could hear, Hera could almost believe the girl was at peace. The twi'lek shook her head and hurried away from the scene, swallowing back down the acidic taste that had risen up her throat.
'I can't do this ... I can't see this.' She suddenly remembered her mother, carrying her through the war-torn streets of her home on Ryloth. Every so often her mother's fine-boned hand would close over her eyes and she would whisper into her ear cone, "Don't look darling. Don't look."
The twi'lek woman knew now what her mother didn't want her to see, and she doubted it looked much different from what she was seeing here. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, lungfuls of the salty air giving her something to focus on.
Opening her eyes, Hera crossed the street with renewed purpose. Small, bald–tailed carnivores with slender bodies like lengths of fuel line scrambled under her feet and disappeared inside the aqueduct that ran the length of the hilly city. Still listening to these few still-living creatures, she took a few more steps and stubbed her toe on an ornate carved wooden shield, its matching warclub peeking out from under it. A hairy behemoth of a being lay still in the scorched rubble a few feet away. There was dried blood in the matted fur on its head. Hera nudged the shield again, letting the dust disperse.
"Wookiees! So they were aiding the lasat. . ."
There was a crash. It came from behind a smouldering pile of debris across the street. Drawing her Blurrg pistol, Hera bent down, making herself smaller, and crept toward the source of the noise. As she drew closer, she could see a small spacecraft of unknown origin parked in a clearing next to the smoking pile. It wasn't anything Imperial, that much she knew, but who did it belong to? And furthermore, how friendly were they?
She quietly slipped behind the pile and held her pistol, business side up, next to her face. Edging around the pile, she slowly lowered the gun and took a quick peek.
In the middle of the clearing, dressed in layers of ratty cloaks and covered with bulging packs was a Ubese woman. Her gnarled white hands seemed to be in constant motion, while loose locks of hair the colour of dirty snow stayed still. She wore a strange mask with a toothed grate in the front, and when she talked to herself—and answered herself—her voice came out as a series of raspy electronic bleats. Turning, the Ubese woman stared at the twi'lek woman with the gun then, unfazed, went back to work, rummaging through the contents of the building without a second glance.
"You're a scavenger, aren't you?" Hera said, with poorly–masked disdain. She lowered her gun.
"Eohtu. Esso bloo!" (You're one to talk!) The Ubese spat back. Her hands continued to paw and dig. A greedy little fly. With a triumphant electronic blat, she unearthed a fancy hand mirror and an organic–looking trinket box still clutched in the rictus grin of a scorched lasat. She callously ripped the goods from the dead lasat's hands, breaking every blackened finger, and shoved the treasures into one of her packs. She continued searching.
Hera grit her teeth. She wanted to shoot the masked corpse–picker in the back of the head but put the brakes on her violent train of thought.
'Why am I mad at her?' She asked herself, bitterly. 'Aren't I doing the same thing?'
It was distasteful and morbid to steal from the dead, true, but in the end, who was it hurting? Dead lasat needed their possessions as much as Hoth needed snowstorms. 'Maybe the Ubese people are suffering because of the Empire too. Did you think of that?' Hera swallowed down her ire, turned, and walked away.
She put as much distance as she could between her and the Ubese woman in hopes that she wouldn't have to hear any more of her inane prattling and covetous scrabbling. Hardly looking where she was going, she found herself by a winding drive with a flattened family speeder. A hot–shot's swoop bike protruded from its windshield. At the top of the drive was the remnants of yet another fancy home. 'Someone here liked flowers,' Hera thought to herself. All around the former entrance were heaping compost piles of lace orchids, killows of paradise, yellow
'Someone here liked flowers,' Hera thought to herself.
All around the former entrance were heaping compost piles of lace orchids, killows of paradise, yellow philoss, bear ears and silver nova roses. For a moment, with only the smell of compost and salt, she could almost forget the devastation. But the sounds of the sea were all she could hear, eerie silence shaking her out of her revery.
When Hera stepped inside she was greeted with more of the same destruction. She leaned against one of the walls and kicked at the ground in frustration. The toe of her boot dislodged something. Something round, and golden as a newly–minted credit. Curious, she knelt and picked it up. There was some sort of runic markings on it, a series of concentric circles—smaller connected circles within the larger ones' margins.
Turning it around, she saw similar markings on the other side, clearly made with great care. She couldn't translate what it said, of course, but wished she could. This golden coin felt too heavy to be used for currency. No, it definitely looked more like a medallion of sorts. With a sigh, Hera stared down at the lovely thing, the only thing on this cursed planet that looked as it did before the war. She pressed it to her heart, wondering who its owner was. Had they gotten away? Did they fight bravely to defend their loved ones from the menace that plagued their land?
Hera thought about the bent, gnarled–handed scavenger and felt a pang of guilt.
'I'm no better than her.'
No. She wouldn't sell it. She would rescue it from its tomb and hold it until she could place it into the hand of the first live lasat she came across in her travels. It may have been a special piece or merely a paperweight, but she didn't care. It was beautiful and it was a survivor. She slipped it into her pocket.
Rising to her feet, Hera walked around the home's spacious floor. The walls separating rooms might be gone, but the crumbled bases remained—letting her imagine what it might have been like. In one room, burned clothes littered a section of floor where a closet once stood. In the same corner was a hinged metal box, like a safe box but flatter, with what looked like a serial number engraved in it. She raised an eyebrow and picked it up. Surprisingly, it was lighter than she expected—only as heavy as if it were full of meilooruns.
Turning, she headed out of the room and entered what was once a large living area. Burnt pictures still in their frames littered the floor, with shards of glass surrounding them. Cups and plates lay cracked near the table. By what was once a chair, a book with an ink pen wedged between the crisped pages showed a scene of domestic goings on—what must have taken place not so long ago before the home was destroyed.
Continuing on, she walked past a shattered stone fireplace, box under her arm, and looked down. Scattered on the floor were the bones of a pet anooba. There was a gem-studded collar around the part of the neck that still had flesh on it. She sadly sighed, the poor thing must have been terrified before it was gunned down by the troopers, dying to protect its master's home. The silence seemed to echo through the whole building.
Shifting the box under her left arm, Hera left the shell of the home. Crossing through the rubble of a plaza, she found herself at the foot of a stairwell that led to a massive, solar-powered repulsor bridge. She stepped out onto it, carefully, took hold of the spiral–cable handrails and began walking. Every footstep seemed loud like the bridge was trying to remember the noise of not so long ago. As she looked down, she noticed the pedestrian bridge spanned another one; with lanes for large vehicles, smaller vehicles and large domestic beasts. Speeders of every shape and size lay in ruin, their once–colorful surfaces now dusted with a fine coat of grey. Their owners were reduced to ashy near–forms, as were what looked like a herd of cow-sized flightless avians. Hera could see the remains of their saddles and sadly imagined a group of lasat out for a relaxing ride when disaster suddenly struck.
The Twi'lek leaned against the rail and folded her hands on top of it. A warm breeze coming off the ocean tickled her lekku, but did little to improve her lonely mood. There was nothing but destruction as far as the eye could see, and she knew that there was more of the same beyond the amethyst–colored mountains in the east. Patches of lavender sky peeked through holes in the noxious smog. The sun was a sad, pale bead on an invisible string, reflecting itself in the debris-clogged bay spanned by the pedestrian bridge.
Hera descended the stairs and jogged back to the courtyard, box still in hand. At the far end, she saw some clustered apartments and homes, ones which had survived the bombing. She ran to them, hopeful, but they too turned up empty—already looted by someone, Imperial or otherwise. Her shoulders slumped.
There were more homes all around her, but most of the fancy structures were reduced to gravel and puddles of melted glass. Only one other home in the whole area wasn't sitting in the bottom of a charred crater. She decided to give it a try, even though most of its walls had collapsed.
Before she started moving, however, Hera's communicator pinged. Lifting it, she answered as she lay it flat on her palm. A tiny, blue, masked man appeared, his hands firmly on his hips.
"Having any luck?" Kanan asked, something bleak in his voice.
"Hm...found a medallion and a box" Hera replied, suddenly aware of the medallion in her belt and the box under her arm.
"Maybe we won't come empty-handed after all," Kanan said, pausing to look away from his holo at something Hera couldn't see, "I think whatever's left of the palace's going to fall soon. It's not safe."
"I hope you've found something worth the risk of this scavenger hunt?"
"I'm still four floors under. Found some dead Stormtroopers on my way over. I think there might be a dungeon beneath me but I don't 'feel' anything there..."
"Well, that's not surprising. But what is surprising, on my way over here I found Stormtroopers with Wroshyr wood spears in them."
"Wroshyr spears?" Kanan's expression lit up. "You mean wookiees were with them?"
"I'd say so. I found skeletons and a body that didn't look like a human's or a lasat's." Hera explained, lekku slumping as she avoided another anooba skeleton. "They went down fighting, that's for sure. Lots of dead troops around them."
"Don't think there's anything here on this floor either" Kanan continued, faint sounds of wood being tossed carelessly aside giving Hera some idea of his current actions, "I'm getting sick of turning over rocks only to find another dead body. Kids are the worst..."
Hera's mouth curved into a frown as she recalled that small girl she found in the wreckage of the toy shop. She hadn't bothered searching the destroyed schools, and didn't intend to—the last thing she needed was to find broken classrooms full of children who died in fear. They would never have expected that this time they left home for another mundane school day it would have been the last time they would see their loved ones.
"...don't give up yet," she found herself saying, "even if there's no survivors we could find something worth this trip."
"Yeah, I'll try." Kanan said, his mouth a grim line. "Spectre One out."
Hera pocketed the communicator, sighing as she made her way into the next ruin. She only hoped she'd find something to give to Vizargo that wouldn't leave guilt plaguing her.
Kanan pocketed his communicator and sighed with relief. Hera was okay. Better yet, she was managing to keep her head about her which was more than he could say about himself. He bowed his head and closed his eyes. He breathed slowly through his nose. His mind was flint and his heart was iron. Struck together, they created a spark of memory.
"Everything is bound to the force Caleb, from the tiniest amoeba to the largest purgill."
"But I thought only those gifted with midichlorians could call upon the force, Master."
"No. It is a common misconception. Midichlorians are simply numbers of measurement, scales upon which the force is weighed. I do not concern myself with the science of the force but there are others who do. All things have the force, Kanan. Animals migrate by way of the force. Trees grow tall from the living force in the rays of the sun. Mountains contain hidden crystals which amplify it."
"It seems the force passed over the lasat didn't it, Master?" Kanan snarled to himself.
He regretted saying it before he finished speaking. There might have been dead lasat all around with every step, their desiccated limbs sprouted from openings in their intact armour while their helms lay upturned near their eyeless heads, but he still shouldn't have insulted her. Apologising to his dead master under his breath, he squared his shoulders and spurred himself to move on and look for salvageable scrap.
Some parts of the marble walls remained standing, but they were shadows of their former selves. Once high as the clouds, with glittering bands of precious ore running through the solid blocks, they were now nothing more than blackened ruins.
The floor shuddered slightly beneath feet, reminding him of how what once must have been grand, spear-like towers were bent and buckling. He had to hurry.
Four levels below the ashen surface, Kanan passed through a destroyed portcullis and entered into the visitor's hall where, miraculously, a melt–glass window still dwelled as its roof. Weak sunlight from passed through the artistically cut panes, throwing kaleidoscopic, coloured cloaks over the bodies of the dead lasat warriors.
There was nothing here but bodies, blackened furniture and artwork, and a wrought–ore chandelier, twenty feet across. While Kanan contemplated the chandelier, he looked around for a way down to the subterranean throne room. All of the lifts were in various states of disrepair. One even threw out errant sparks as the doors opened and closed repeatedly, and Kanan decided not to press his luck by trying it. He stalked over to the hall's elegant, railed balcony, cautious of the tilting floor, and looked down.
It was a long way to the ground, and the staircases on both ends of the visitor's hall were gone. With feline-like grace, Kanan leapt up on top of the balcony railing and peered into the dim chamber below him. He bent his knees and pushed off the railing, soaring high into the air. The padawan felt the tug of gravity on his body and called the force to himself to lessen it, but anger and fear distracted him. Kanan's fifty–foot free–fall was slowed. Partially.
He landed square on his feet, plumes of dust rising up around them. The force of the long fall caused a shockwave of pain to shoot up his shins into his knees. He buckled and fell to the sooty ground with a grunt. Gritting his teeth, Kanan raised up on one sore knee then pushed himself all the way up. He slapped the ash and marble dust from his trousers and swept his shirt with his hands. He took a few furtive steps and came upon one of the pillars holding the visitor's hall balcony up. An Imperial stormtrooper was wrapped around it. Twice.
Kanan whistled a single note.
"That had to hurt."
He walked away, casting a backwards glance at the pulverized man.
"Good."
The room was perhaps the most dismal yet. Here, the bodies were so thick Kanan couldn't help but step on some of them. The lasat, he realized with disgust, were easier to tread upon than solid–bodied stormtroopers. Lasat corpses exploded into clouds of cloying ash when his boots made contact with them.
"If this is the throne room, I'd hate to see what the dungeon looks like." Kanan hissed through his teeth. Then he nearly tripped over a trooper's helmet..
'Blast it!' He thought, 'There's nothing here! No thrones, no treasures, no tapestries. Just a burnt out hall filled with buckethead and alien stiffs. Obviously some lucky bastard beat us and cleaned this place out. They had to!'
A deep groaning rumble resonated through the palace's wounded levels. Marble dust sifted down from above. Kanan coughed and covered his eyes with his wrist. It was getting beyond dangerous here. If he was crushed, Hera would be on her own. He couldn't accept that. The padawan was about to get on his communicator to tell Hera he had abandoned his quest when he felt a repeating feather–stroke pulse, faint as a kitten's, and more importantly, not his own. The terrible hall disappeared. In Kanan's tunnel vision, he saw a candle in the dark, its tiny flame sputtering as it struggled to stay lit. Suddenly, he felt an incredible pang of empathy. For what or whom, he didn't know.
"What's going on?" Kanan said, rubbing the dust from his reddened eyes.
Another rumble. The floor heaved.
'Ignore it….gotta get the hell out.'
Kanan leapt from body to body, trying to plant his feet in the tiny spaces between them, but he wasn't very successful. Puffs of black, cremated–lasat ash rose in his was another colossal shake and a spate of gravel poured from the floor above. The padawan stepped back to avoid the gravel and banged his heel against a jagged piece of collapsed wall.
"Ow! Sith spit!" He shouted, rubbing his sore foot.
He waited there on the unsteady floor, wondering how long it would take for the palace's entire substructure to give way. As he waited, he scanned the shadowy hall with his eyes. Taking a light stick from his belt, he snapped the casing and threw it down. An intense yellow glow surrounded him in a radius of twenty meters. Now he could see the bodies of other lasat, those who had died of less cruel means. They wore armoured body suits and capes and a few of them had their helmets off their heads – and some had their heads still inside the helmets as they were gruesomely pulled from their bodies
They weren't a handsome species, at least not by Kanan's standards, but no one could say they weren't impressive. They had pointed ears, large, globular eyes and heavy brow bones. Their robust jaws were decorated with beautifully coiffed beards, some curled, others long and flowing, and they bore bony humps atop their heads. A pair of curved folds, like parenthesis, framed their slot–like nostrils and stern mouths. The females had less rugged features than their male counterparts but they were no less intimidating. Perhaps the most beautiful thing about them–besides those splendid beards–was their coats. Some were purple, others blue or red. All were accented with stripes, swirls or spots.
Kanan's foot fell victim to pins and needles, even though it hadn't fallen asleep. As he waited for the pain to cease, he looked down at the fallen slab of wall he was standing by. It was broken in half, the two separated ends jutting upward A slow–moving trickle of blood meandered down one broken side. Kanan stooped to catch some blood on his fingertips. He rubbed his finger and thumb together and grunted. The blood–darker than a human's– was just starting to congeal, but there was still a trace of warmth to it.
'Poor guy. Must have been crushed recently.'
Kanan caught something in the periphery of his sight. It was an oil lamp, dented, but obviously made of pure aurodium. Next to the lamp lay a long, extended weapon of a like he had never seen. There were strange writings on it, and some sort of leather wrapped around its twin handle grips. Below the rifle's barrel, on each end, was an energy conductor of sorts. Kanan made a clicking noise between his teeth and cheek. The gun was something very precious indeed.
"Ahhh. You two will fetch a pretty credit. Or a couple thousand."
As he bent down to reach it he started to feel claustrophobic, trapped. His heart began to beat with terror. He felt his throat close off, felt his body being compressed, like a grape being juiced by a giant millstone.
Then, as fast as they came, the harrowing sensation went away. Kanan clutched his heart and panted. He saw another one of those strange little carnivores lapping at the thickening blood. It wriggled between the slab and the one below it. The sound of that weakening pulse throbbed in Kanan's ear.
"It can't be...It can't."
'How full of doubt you've become, Caleb' he could hear his Master's chiding voice
A pull like a tractor beam drew Kanan in. He hunkered down and placed his palm on the top of the marble slab he had hit his heel on. Like the blood, there was a slight warmth to it. He heard a scratching sound deep below. This wasn't the little pipe–bodied critter that escaped between the compressed stone. This was something larger, with larger claws.
He attempted to move the large slab by both pushing on it with his body, placing a few well-placed shots with his trusty DL-18 (which only succeeded in scorching the slab) and lifting it by hand, bracing his legs. It was of no use, the slab refused to budge and Kanan, who landed unceremoniously on his rump, growled. There was no way a human could move the slab by muscle alone. He sighed heavily, he didn't want to resort to this but if there was someone still alive, buried under there he needed to take the risk.
He stood up and looked both left and right, ever on the lookout for a curious thief scavenging through the ruined temple. Once he was satisfied that he was alone, he directed all his concentration on the split slab. It was ten feet long, ten feet across and twelve inches thick, but that wasn't an issue. Size matters not to the force, he once heard Master Billaba say. It was something Master Yoda preached to her when she was a young and doubting girl.
The room rumbled once more. Kanan tried not to think about it. He closed his eyes and imagined a web of the force encompassing one heavy piece of the wall. He caught the bunched ends of the web–net and heaved with the force. A loud groan from the hall impaired his energy threads broke, sizzling faintly.
'Too hard.' The familiar voice chided him. 'You need only tug lightly. . . To be in the force is to be submerged in the force. Ignore the sounds in your ears. Be deaf to them. Let the force serve as your senses.'
Kanan tried again. The broken energy webs snaked over the top of the slab, reconnecting and repairing themselves. He gripped the bunched ends again and tugged lightly, hand over hand, as if he were pulling a fishing net out of a calm sea. His jaw relaxed. His brow smoothed. He took a deep, calming breath. One of the large pieces turned end up and floated in mid–air. Kanan directed it toward the far side of the hall where it settled gently. He repeated the process and the other piece followed. Mentally winded, Kanan sat down.
"Whew, am I out of practice." he grumbled.
He wiped his brow and looked into the pit– which the fallen wall had created– and saw a broken structural pylon and other smaller chunks of marble brick. Someone lay just below. A desperate someone. Kanan could feel the weak heartbeat and straining breath of an injured being who had lived much longer than he should have. He sensed a being with a strong, corporal desire to live.
And it was no stormtrooper.
He could not believe it, he had found a tiny ember of life within a sea of death and desolation, but something impeded it.
Aided by the force, Kanan pulled up the brick and shoved the pylon aside. He was presented with a dorsal view of a large alien skeleton and could see–through the ribs and under the fleshless spine–the barely–alive lasat beneath. The skeletonised corpse refused to budge from mere human strength. With a frustrated growl Kanan looked around to make sure he wasn't followed and tapped into the Force for a brief moment. The skeleton began to shake apart, and with a grunt of effort, the bones exploded with a deafening crack. The recoil was enough for Kanan to be knocked backwards and landed on his rear with a shout. His arms shielded him from most of the bone shrapnel.
Kanan coughed as bone dust irritated his mouth and throat. Once he opened his eyes he saw the living–albeit unconscious–lasat, laying on its back in a pool of its own blood. The lasat's suit was burned and torn, so much that only a pair of tattered shorts made of the suit's material remained.
The lasat's broad, muscular chest, rakish, half–burnt beard and bowed, tree–trunk thighs gave one the impression of a sporting gladiator or professional brawler. His head was tilted back and his mouth was open, allowing Kanan a good peek at his sizable, bloodstained canines. The man wanted the alien to be all right, but hoped beyond hope that he would remain unconscious for the duration of the flight to the med–station.
'Looks like you've seen better days, big guy…' Kanan grimly thought
The lasat was injured in too many places to count. Great oozing puddles of blistered flesh covered parts of his chest, shoulder, legs and right side of his face. Half his beard and one of his sideburns were completely burnt off, leaving behind charred, stubborn scruffs of hair and fur. A broken rib jutted from his flank while another, smaller shards of silver were poking out from his bare torso and arms.
Kanan's horrified gaze moved towards the object pinning the lasat to the ground. His shoulder was a piece of the pylon he had moved aside. The alien's entire chest and abdomen were dark with contusions and cuts and it appeared to be bloated with fluid. One of his closed eyes was so swollen and blue–purple it looked like a jogan fruit with a split in its rind.
It hurt to look at him. Kanan had seen bugs crushed underfoot with less damage done to them.
Still, his faint will to live was incredible. The lasat's massive chest bucked and quaked as he tried to suck air into his injured lungs. Kanan shuddered at the resulting sound, the noise was of sludge moving slowly through a drain pipe. There was little time to waste. He fumbled for his communicator–nearly dropping it–and held it tight in his shaking hand then hailed his partner with an equally shaky voice.
"Hera...you better get over here now! I've found someone!"
TBC