Author's Note:

Yay!Haitus is over. Now I can continue this in earnest! Hope any readers still remember what's going on.


Chapter 14

Saza's squadron was lined up to attention. She walked in the room and said to the assembled men, "Oh good, you're all here." A Stormtrooper followed in her wake pushing a trolley with blasters. "We have scanned all the weapons and it turns out that everything is on the up and up." Saza said as the Stormtrooper redistributed the blasters back to their owners. "A shame really, I was hoping on having some fun." She said as she casually looked at her nails. "Another piece of good news is that we're almost at the prison planet. Then we can leave this ship. Dismissed."

As Canoe was leaving Saza stepped in front of him, forcing him to stop with their bodies inches apart. His eyes darted around and he noted that he was alone with her.

"I was glad to find out that you were speaking the truth about your blaster." She said with her eyes glancing at his blaster.

"Of course ma'am, I'd never betray the Empire." Canoe said.

"You say that but for some reason I don't completely believe it." Saza said. "Don't get me wrong, you might actually have nothing to do with Buck Johnson's betrayal but something tells me that you will not always be loyal to the Empire. And when that day comes, you should hope that I am not given the responsibility to deal with you because although you are my favourite Stormtrooper," Saza said running a slender hand down his chest, "I will not take any less pleasure in causing you pain." Saza smiled and looked to the side as if she was contemplating something. "Actaully, it may be even more fun causing my favourite Stormtrooper pain. Let's hope for your sake we never find out."

Canoe nervously gulped before he was dismissed. When he was out of the room and away from Saza he breathed a sigh of relief. He silently scolded himself. By now he should be used to her antics but something about Saza threw him off balance. He feared her but he could not deny that she brought out other feelings within him. Canoe sighed. "I need to get a transfer out of here," he quietly said to himself before he looked out one of the window. He could see the fast approaching prison planet with its red atmospheric hue. He hoped that everything would end on the prison planet.

/

"You coward!" Zack shouted at Buck.

"Just because I don't want to risk anymore lives on this doesn't mean I'm a coward." Buck defended himself.

Kisto was looking at the two argue. It had been going back and fourth for close to an hour now. He sat with his arms crossed. When the two had begun to raise their voices, he suggested that Dyna leave before things got nasty. The Twi' Lek girl was defiant at first but Kisto was able to convince her to go, leaving him with them.

"Oh, you are a coward Buck. And I'm sure Kisto will agree with me." Zack said looking at Kisto for support.

Kisto was surprised that he had been dragged into this argument. "Well I..."

"Kisto has nothing to do with this!" Buck said. "In fact, Ru' Bik has nothing to do with this. The only reason you want to do this is because you want revenge. This is all about your vendetta!"

"Oh and it wasn't for you?" Zack said.

"No it wasn't..."

"Don't lie to me, Buck!" Zack said with disgust. "The only reason you wanted to save Ru' Bik, the only reason why you placed all our lives in danger was to ease you conscience. You killed Ru' Bik's wife and your the reason Lona is dead!"

"What? Say that again!" Buck got closer to Zack with fists clenched and Zack did the same.

If Kisto had not jumped in between them, they would have fought right then and there. "What kind of crew are you guys?" Kisto said as he struggled to keep them apart. "One of your members is gone and all you can do is allow your conversations to devolve into a fist fight?"

/

Dyna sighed as she heard the argument in the other room. Lona would usually be the one to stop the fights between Buck and Zack. She wondered if both men could work together without Lona being the voice of peace and cooperation. She exited the ship as she heard movement like people fighting coming from the other room and Kisto criticising the two humans.

The wind outside had picked up and it blew the green tendrils attached to her head about. She hugged herself as she walked through the wind. There was a cloud of dust knee high over the whole rocky plane. She looked across her and saw the Good Boy Express sitting alone and empty for its pilot was dealing with the crewmembers of The Diversity.

Dyna walked the length of The Diversity and when she came to the back she had to duck behind a corner. She slowly peeked out of the corner to confirm what she had seen. Near the ship with a red scanning light on the ship was a droid. It had a spherical flat head with a red dot at the front that served as its eye. Hanging from the spherical head were pieces of metal and it floated above the ground. Although she did not know it was an Imperial scouting droid, Dyna knew that its presence was not a good thing.

As the droid scanned the ship, she slowly backed away. When she was sure she was far away enough, she began running for the dust fog that was knee high was beginning to elevate, partly blinding Dyan. She hoped that the fog would blind the droid too. She looked back to make sure that the droid was not following her. It was gone. Where is it? She thought to herself. When she turned around she had to come to a complete stop because the droid was now in her path! She fell down on her butt and began kicking to get away from the droid. The flowing dust cloud that hid the ground also partly hid her. As she back away the droid persued closely, she could not get up out of fear. Two black metal sticks unfolded from the droids head and at the end shun with a red light. The droid pointed the two shining sticks at the partly hidden Dyna. The dust fog rose to completly hide Dyna as the droid let out two shots. The red energy projectiles illuminated the low dust fog with red light for a moment. The droid leaned closer to the ground and found that Dyna was no longer there and its energy bolts had hit the empty ground. Its artificial mind knew that it could not have incenerated her and therefore, she was most likely still alive.

The droid hovered higher and looked around, its AI calculating where the little Twi'Lek grirl may have gone. It became apparent to it that she was using the low lying dust fog to hide herself but without peaking above the fog, she would be blind to where she was going, unless... The droid quickly hovered below the ship and saw Dyna crouching there, slowly moving for the entrance. Her eyes widen in surprise at being caught before she jumped back into the dust fog as the droid shot at her. The droid shot a few more times without any luck in finding its target.

Droid rounded until it found a space bug enough for it to go under the ship and appear on the other side. AA red scanning light came out of its eye as it esumed its search for its quarry. Unkbeknonst to the droid, Dyna had scaled some distance up the ship. However, her hands found it hard to grip the ship and were slowly slipping . She knew that she would be discovered and decided that if she was, it would be on her terms. Dyna let go of the ship and dropped right on the droid's head. She began to shout and club the droids head with her hands. She hoped the others would hear her screams through the howling wind; the thick walls of the ship and their argument.

Dyna's sudden attack surprised the droid and made it panic. It began spinning wildly as Dyna tried to hold on while simultaneously hammering it with tiny green fists. The scouting droid spun faster and faster until all Dyna could do was scream and hold on. One of the places she was holding onto with her hand fell away, exposing wire. Dyna reached for the wires and ripped them out which caused the spinning to stop. The droid slammed into the ship in an effort to get her off and in response, she ripped out a few more wires which caused the droid's thrusters to activate. The droid began speeding away from the ship in an upward diagonal path. With a few more ripping of wires, it began moving in an up and down zig zags and left behind a trail of white smoke as it got higher and further away from The Diversity.

Dyna looked back in helplessness as she got further away from the ship. She ripped out a few more wires which only caused things to get worse as the thrusters were not only activated to full power but the droid began spinning again. Dyna held on tightly as the droids path became more horizontal and faster. After somE time, there was an internal explosion in the droid, sending out a shower of sparks and fire all around it. Smoke rose from its spherical head and little licks of fire could be seen trying to escape its mechanical insides. The thrusters died and the droid began falling diagonally to the ground. It crashed and skipped like a stone thrown on water. When it did its third and last skip, it threw Dyna off to the ground.

Dyna slowly got up and immediately fell down again. The world was still spinning in her head from the turbulent ride on the droid and the resultant landing. She began walking away from the droid in case it could still hurt her but because of the spinning and the way she got to where she was, she had lost her bearings and was walking in a direction that was away from the ship.

/

Saza entered a room. It was dimly lit and in the center was a hologram projector. The projector came to life and on it was a fellow Inquisitor, The Seventh Sister.

"Seventh Sister," Saza said slightly bowing her head.

"Sister, it is good to see you." The Seventh Sister said.

"Have you had any success with what I requested?" Saza asked.

"Ah, yes. The boy you spoke of. You said he would be old enough to be a Jedi, right?"

"Yes." Saza confirmed. "Or a newly knighted Jedi."

"Well, there are no records on him in the Jedi Archive." The Seventh Sister said.

"That is disappointing." Saza said rubbing her chin in thought. "Why could that be?"

"Maybe someone erased him of the system; maybe he was expelled so long ago that he was forgotten; maybe he was never a Jedi to begin with." The Seven Sister offered. "But I did find out something about the lightsaber you described."

This visibly perked Saza's interest and she looked up, "Yes?"

"It belonged to a Jedi name Sauvvin. Apparently his lightsaber and holocron were kept in the temple but were lost during The Purge."

"This makes it more important for him to be caught." Saza said. "If he has important Jedi artifacts, then it may help our cause to obtain them. Thank you Seventh Sistser." Saza said bowing slightly. The sister returned the gesture before the hologram disappeared.

/

"I'm sorry you had to see all of that." Buck said to Kisto as they were preparing to eat rations for dinner.

"I get the feeling that both of you haven't been a crew for long." Kisto said sitting opposite Buck.

"No," Buck said. "We were going to team up only to save Ru'Bik and then go our separate ways."

The doors suddenly slid opened and in barged Zack. He looked slightly panicked. "Buck, I can't find Dyna!"

Buck looked at Zack. "She's probably exploring the ship."

"No Buck, you don't understand. Its dinner time and I can't find Dyna." Zack said.

Buck's eyes went wide. "Oh no, we need to look for her."

Within minutes they were already outside. The planets winds had picked up with the night, caking the surface in a cloud of dust. Kisto went over to his ship while Zack and Buck looked around with flashlights.

"Dyna!" Zack called out making sure to pass his flashlight over every inch of surface he could. Buck came from around the ship to join Zack. He shook his helmet-hidden head to gesture that he had not found her. they waited for Kisto who arrived and like them had failed to find her. "I don't understand, did she wander away?"

"Well, we have come from a combat situation." Buck said. "It's possible that..."

"Don't you dare Buck!" Zack said. "We're not losing another one of our own!"

Buck looked away, the flash lights on either side of his helmet illuminating his path of sight. "We should split up, cover a three point direction. I'll take that way, Zack you go in that direction and Kisto, if your willing to help, go in that direction." Buck said pointing the directions out.

"Of course I'm willing to help." Kisto said before turning to go back to his ship. "I'll take my hover bike to cover the distances quicker."

Buck nodded before he and Zack went to their respective directions.

/

Dyna was walking steadily on. She began to come to the horrible realisation that she was lost. She looked behind her and saw the sand fog stretch all the way to the horizon. The dust removed any tracks that she made, which would make it difficult for anyone to find her. She sighed as she considered stopping and staying in one place until she was either found or... starved to death.

She held her stomach as she could feel the impending hunger pangs. She was startled when something moved from underneath the surface of the migrating sand. It burst through the moving layer fog dust to show its domed brown shell and the green flesh that could be seen through the front opening of the shell. Two yellow eyes shown menacingly at her. The rest of the creature's body was hidden beneath the blowing dust.

Dyna moved back when the creature raised two green tentacles from beneath the sand. "Careful now, I don't want to hurt you. I'm a Jedi in training you know?" Dyna warned as she backed away. She tripped over and fell back on her butt as the monster continued its advance. Dyna screamed in fear as the monster prepared to pounce, opening its mouth which was lined with sharp jaggered teeth.