Chapter 2
Aeron
Aeron Katana slowly trekked across the blazing sands of Aicrillon. He knew something was out there, but he didn't know what.
"S3, Scan for life-forms," He ordered his blue and red astromech droid. S3-E3's head slowly whirled around as he scanned the dunes. S3 beeped,
"Two life-forms approaching from South!" Aeron had trained himself to understand his droid's beeping.
"Get down!" He ordered. S3 spun around, and slowly burrowed into the sand. A few muffled beeping noises could be heard as the tip of the droid's head was covered up.
Spinning around, Aeron pulled his staff from its harness on his back, and sank into a fighting stance. He pressed a button on its shaft, and the Electrostaff came to life, with purple electricity flickering around the tips. Aeron had found it in the wreck of a Separatist starfighter crashed on the planet. It was one of his luckiest finds, along with the E-11 blaster rifle he had traded, along with other parts to get S3-E3.
"I know you're there!" he shouted, "Are you going to make me come and find you?" Aeron heard scuffling noises, and two helmeted and armored troopers popped out from behind the dunes. They drew blaster rifles, and aimed them at him.
"Drop your weapon," one trooper ordered.
"Come and make me!" Aeron retorted, spinning his staff.
"You're really going to make me do this," the other sighed.
"Yup!" Aeron replied lightly.
The troopers aimed their weapons, and fired. Two red-hot red bolts of energy came hurtling out of the muzzles.
Aeron whirled his staff, and swatted the bullets out of the air, scorching the sands where they hit.
They fired a second volley, and this time Aeron wasn't fast enough. He hit one aside, but the second scorched his arm, burning through his makeshift armor. Blinded by pain and rage, he lashed out with his staff. It collided with the side of one's head, and cracked his helmet open with a sickening crunch.
The trooper crumpled to the ground, blood trickling out of his helmet. Aeron turned on the other one and challenged; "You want to end up like him?" he asked challengingly as he jerked his head toward the other trooper.
"This is just the beginning," the trooper replied. He dropped his blaster, and pulled out a vibroblade from a sheath on his back.
The first strike came with blinding speed, and Aeron barely had enough time to raise his staff to block it. The trooper followed up with another quick strike that glanced off the tip of Aeron's electrostaff, more of a lucky deflect than a block. As they faced off, he noticed S3 pop up out of the sand behind the trooper and make his way to Aeron's custom M-004 speeder bike, wheel it around, and start speeding towards him.
"Look behind you!" Aeron challenged. The trooper spun around, to be promptly slammed to the ground by S3. "Let's go!" he shouted, as he leaped up onto the speeder, and sped off into the desert, as the trooper grabbed his rifle and shot after them.
Once Aeron was sure that they had lost them, he zoomed back to his home. Aeron's home was a gorge that he found one day searching for scraps, and had now made different caves and buildings with the help of some droids he hired by trading valuables from a crashed Imperial Star Destroyer. He was sorting through his scraps, when he heard it. A horrible screeching sound shook the air, followed by a the sound of an engine choking and running out of power.
That must've come from the outpost! he thought. Aeron climbed the side of the gorge, just in time to see a Delta-7B Jedi interceptor shoot overhead, smoke emitting from the right thruster and crash, sending dust flying from the impact. He ran over, and once the smoke had cleared, took in the shape of the ship. There were scorch marks on the body, the glass dome was cracked, and one of the thrusters was lying in the sand around 20 feet away. He pulled out his Electrostaff, ignited it, and warily walked over to the starfighter to see a boy crumpled in the cockpit, blood trickling from his forehead.