Author's Note
Weaaaaaah! What is wrong with me?! I posted chapter 19 directly after chapter 17 and only found out last week. Sorry to all those who read 19 and got confused. Well here's the proper chapter 1.
Note to self: Next time don't be such a lazy butt and actually name your chapters. That way you may not post the wrong ones.
Well, since I'm here I might as well do something that I don't think the readers need me to do but because I value whatever little money and time in the sunshine I have, I'll do it anyway.
Disclaimer Alert!
The concept of Star Wars or any characters originally appearing in LucasFilm or Disney media (not limited to print and video) do not belong to me. Yay for not getting sued!
Chapter 18
The Stromtrooper armour that Buck had on had begun to be tainted red with a layer of dust. They had entered a more maze-like structure with raised rock walls and sometimes uneven ground. The maze however could easily be navigated through to the other side.
Zack was walking ahead, followed by Buck and Kisto was behind the, trying to keep up. "Aren't any of you tired?"
The two humans turned and looked back at Kisto. Buck had been through a tough Stromtrooper training so he could soldier on, even as his legs began throb with exhaustion. Zack, on the other, was driven by something else. So for him, exhaustion had not even creeped into his muscles.
"No," they both said to Kisto.
"Well, I am." Kisto said. "We should rest for a bit."
"We need to get to the prison as soon as possible." Zack said. "Right Buck?"
Buck kept quiet for a while, which made Zack sigh in irritation. "Maybe we should rest." Buck said.
"You just have to disagree with me on everything, don't you?" Zack said.
"Better to rest now while we still can." Buck said, ignoring his tone. "And anyways, this will give us a chance to hydrate and get some food into us."
"Food food food, honestly, you're as bad ad Dyna." Zack said.
"I am not!" Buck defended himself.
"Guys, please, I don't have the energy to pry you two apart when you start fist fighting." Kisto said as he walked between them and slid down the side of the wall onto the ground into a sitting position.
Zack and Buck exchanged hateful looks as they also began sitting down. Buck took off his helmet and breathed in a grateful gulp of air. He looked up at the red sky and the red tinted clouds. "Do you guys think this planet has a night time?" Buck said before taking a swig of water from his bottle.
"Probably does," Kisto said. "the planet orbits a single star, so it most likely has a night time."
"Why are you guys talking about night time?" Zack asked, annoyed.
"I'm just trying to make conversation." Buck said.
"We can make conversation when were walking. When we are not, I suggest we sit down rest as quickly as possible and then leave." Zack said.
Buck sighed loudly before eating his cracker. A few minutes after silently resting a pebble fell from above and landed next to Kisto. Kisto looked at the pebble and then up to where it may have come from. There was nothing on the rocky walls above him so he shrugged. A shower of dust suddenly began falling from above, which caused Kisot to jump to his feet. Boulders soon followed ,raining from above. Zack had to pull Kisto out of the way of a giant boulder that would have flattened him. Buck grabbed his helmet and rolled away just a as a giant boulder crashed onto where he had been sitting.
Soon the cave-in ended. In between Buck and the other rebels was a wall of red rocks of different sizes. He cautiously approached the wall of rocks. "Hey, are you guys okay?" Buck shouted to the other side.
"Yeah, we're okay!" Zack answered. "What about you?"
"No broken bones or anything." Buck said. "But now this thing is blocking me!"
"Can you climb over it?" Zack asked.
"It looks unstable!" Buck said. "And it would take too long for me to climb on the sides."
"Great!" Zack said.
"There was a left tunr that we passed a while back," Buck said. "I'll just retrace my steps to it and continue moving on through a different path heading west. I'll find you guys at the west end where this structure ends."
"Good," Kisto's voice sounded from Buck's communicator. "Hopefully we'll meet on the way. Keep your communicator on."
"Copy that," Buck said to his communictor before putting it away and returning his helmet on his head. He began walking the way he had come.
"Let's continue," Kisto said.
Zack felt a little apprehensive and lingered a little longer at the rock structure. He had a bad feeling for some reason.
"Zack?" Kisto said.
"Yeah, I'm coming." Zack said walking away from the wall of collapsed stones.
/
Buck finally found the correct place and soon was on the right track to heading west. After a few minutes of walking, he heard a sound behind him and he turned around with his blaster raised. There was nothing. Buck shrugged it off as his imagination before resuming the trek westwards.
As oon as Buck turned forward, his stalker resumed following him. The creature was a large worm-like being. It had two giant red beady eyes at the top of its long head. It was fat with an uneven surface and narrowed out at its tail. One could see that it was white but was unevenly dyed red and maroon over most its surface thanks to the red earth of the planet. It crawled on the side of the wall, following Buck.
It was spurred on to quickly advance on the unsuspecting man. The former Stormtrooper turned around in time to see the creature on the side of the wall. He raised his blaster rifle but the creature spat out a spherical green blob which exploded on Buck upon contact, driving him on his butt and his gun away. Buck drew his pistol form his holster and began firing out desperately blindly as his visor was covered in green goop. He wiped with one hand while completely missing the creature with his pistol being fired by his other hand.
When he had successfully cleared the goop from his visor, well enough to see, he took proper aim but his gun was knocked from his hand by a fast moving projectile which looked like a spear. Buck had no chance to question where the spear came from as the beast had now slithered over him. He raised his hands in defence as the giant worm opened its mouth and descended on him.
"Naaaaaaooo..." Buck's scream of horror were cut short when the creature devoured him in one whole bite. The creature faced up to assist in swallowing the whole man. On its back was a small creature sitting on a saddle attached to the creature. The little humanoid creature seemed to be the one controlling the giant worm as it turned away and disappeared amongst the rocks after having completly devoured Buck.
/
Kisto and Zack waited at the west end of the rocky maize like structure as they had agreed upon with Buck. They sat on a rock together while they waited.
The silence was beginning to get to Zack and attempted to start a conversation. "So, how is this planet's night time, huh?"
Kisto looked at him with an amused look on his face, "Really?"
"What? I'm tired of waiting!" Zack said getting up from the rock. "How long have we been waiting anyways?"
"A standard hour or so," Kisto said.
"That is too long." Zack said taking out his communicator. "Buck, where are you? Kisto and I are still waiting for you?" Zack kept quiet for some time to give Buck a chance to answer. "Buck? Buck come in?"
"Maybe he's preoccupied?" Kisot offered.
"Buck Johnson? Mr. Boy scout? No, if he said he would have his communicator on him, he will. If he doesn't, then something is seriously wrong." Zack said.
"So you think he's in trouble?" Kisto said.
Zack nodded thoughtfully. "This will be another delay but I think we should go after him."
"What if he makes it out and doesn't find us here because we went in to find him?" Kisto asked.
Zack dug out a holo-disk from his backpack.
"Hey, isn't that the holo-disk I..."
"Yes it is," Zack said. Zack pressed a few buttons before holding the holo-disk in front of him. "Buck, this is Zack. We got worried waiting for you, so we're going out to look for you. If you arrive before we find you... wait." Zack said before turning the holo-disk off. Zack placed the holo-disk on the boulder. "Let's hope he sees it," Zack said. "Alright, which path should we take?"
Kisto looked at the different entrances of the maize. "Whichever path we take, it won't make this less of a bad idea."
"Left it is!" Zack said walking forward into a rightward entrance and being followed by a reluctant Kisto.
A few minutes later into the structure, Kisto and Zack still were not finding Buck.
"Buck! Buck! Buck!" Zack and Kisto shouted out.
"We shouldn't have stopped to rest," Zack said. "Now we've lost one of our members."
"Buck!" Kisto shouted out. "Hopefully we don't get lost ourselves."
A few more minutes of searching they finally found something.
"Hey, what's that?" Kisto said pointing to something. They both walked to the spot. Kisto picked up a pistol. "Isn't this the pistol Buck had?"
"Yes, it is." Zack confirmed before looking around. He saw some green substance on the floor. "What is this?" Zack asked crouching near the green stuff.
Kisto joined him at his side. Kisto withdrew his pistol and made the edge touch the green substance which acted like slime.
"Yuck!" Zack said.
"What, I'm not touching it." Kisto defended his actions.
"But you will be touching your gun later." Zack said.
Kisto ignored him as he brought his gun blaster closer to his face and took a whiff of the substance. "I don't know what this is but things are looking bad. His pistol is here and he's not answering his communicator."
"Do you think someone attacked him?" Zack asked. "But why did he not contact us? Ask for help or warn us?"
"Maybe he didn't have a chance." Kisto said. "Maybe he was ambushed quickly."
Zack got to his feet and took a deep breath. "Then we need to find him."
"Zack... I don't know how to say this but Buck may already be dead." Kisto said.
"Well, if his dead," Zack began, "then we'll kill whoever or whatever killed him."
/
The worm arrived at a group of caves. Creatures, similar to the one riding the giant worm began to slowly come out of the numerous caves. They began to gather around the worm rider. Some of them had spears, a little taller than their bodies and others had grass skirts, tinted red. The creatures were mostly red with black hands, feet and face with yellow eyes. They had three fingers and two toes that were like a cross between hoofs and hands. The tallest of the creatures were hip height.
One of the creatures hobbled over to the giant monster worm rider. This one was obviously older than all the other bipedal creatures and had a green circular reed around its neck. The elder creature and the one on the worm began exchanging sounds that involved a lot of clicking and whining noises. This continued for some time until the worm rider patted his worm on the back three times.
The creature began coughing out air until something began sliding out of its mouth. The creature regurgitated something that was man-sized and in white armour. The elder creature hobbled closer to the newly dumped package. The regurgitated package, covered in green slime, was in a transparent cacoon. In the cacoon was Buck, whose arms were trapped to his side while his body did not move.
The elder creature looked out to the other assembled creatures and began making more sounds. One of the creatures made a high pitch clicking sound, followed by another, then two more joined, this continued until all the creatures made the same noise.
/
Kisto and Zack were still looking around. Zack pulled Kisto behind a rock and gestured for the Twi'Lek to keep quiet before pointing to something in the distance. They saw a small red creature with a spear.
Kisto looked at it curiously. "You think that thing may know something about Buck?"
"How about we ask it?" Zack said, sneaking forward. When he got close enough to the creature, he jumped out of his hiding place while activating his lightsaber. "Hey! I have a few questions for you!"
The startled creature began running away at the sight of Zack. Zack sighed before giving chase. The creature turned around and threw a spear at Zack. Zack was lucky that the throw was ill-aimed and knicked him on the cheek. However, the creature had made the mistake of slowing down which gave Zack an opportunity to catch up to it.
"Haaaa!" Zack shouted before he swung out with his lightsaber. He cut off an arm and the creature screamed out but continued to run away. Zack stopped and allowed his adrenaline to to ebb.
Kisto finally caught up and saw the little twitching arm on the ground. "You didn't have to attack it!" Kisto shouted in anger. "Now it's escaped."
"No," Zack said, looking at the trail of blood the creature had left behind in its flight. "I simply slowed it down by hurting it. Now we follow it to where it lives."
/
Buck began coming around. He was firstly aware of being surrounded by little red and black creatures. Next he noted that he was partly on his knees. His arms were bound to two rocks that jutted out of the ground like two fangs. He tested the reed-like bonds binding him and found he could not free himself.
"Hey, where am I?" Buck said.
The elder creature with the green reed necklace began walking towards Buck. It began making sounds and clicks that formed part of its language.
"I-I'm sorry but I don't understand what you're saying." Buck said. "Can you please release me?"
The elder creature poked Buck with his walking stick. "You white man," the creature said in Basic. "You die!"
