—/ Chapter 3 /—

Korriban - Long Ago Junk wreckage

[Arran and Zanka exchanged a look before scouring the area in front of them. At first it seemed immensely difficult to traverse down to the crater. After several careful surveys, they saw a small path to reach the area. They had to go down slowly, as there were many loose rocks about, particularly with the obelisk. Zanka was quiet the entire descent, his eyes glared at the smoking ship below him. Arran stormed up to the droid and felt an anger swell inside of him. He rose his hand to strike the droid, hard, but he hesitated when the droid let out an irritated buzzing noise.]

R5-H8: I tried to do it. I tried to end it all. One would think that miscalculating the distance of a cliff would result in more damage, especially when this ship is prone to taking damage the second a Tach sneezes on it. But no, the one time it does not suffer immense damage, or even better, explode, is now. First living creatures such as Master stonewall my death, then the ship does it by actually working for once. Nothing ever goes right.

Zanka: [He was rendered speechless for several moments but manages to grind out] I don't know if there is a way to make a droid feel excruciating pain, but I will find it. Then I'm going to install it in you. I'll use it—again, and again, and again. When I'm finished, I'm going to keep your core with me at all times so you can't run away or cease to be, and throw the rest of your limbs into Tatooine's twin suns.

Arran: [His fists clench together as his sides, the rubber from his gloves scrunch. The droid goes flying forward into the crater, its frame smashing into the hull of the ship.] You have single-handedly compromised everything! What I'm about to do to you if far, far worse than anything an inbred jawa could conjure. [Arran's lightsaber ignites as he slowly walks toward the droid.]

R5-H8: [Its sound is slightly distorted due to being damaged from hitting the ship] Do it, end it now! I've waited 323 years, 16 days, 54 minutes, and 34 seconds for this!

[As Arran rose his red blade above the droid, a barrage of laser cannons blasted the area. Arran dove out of the way behind a boulder and used the Force to pull Zanka with him.]

Arran: Forget the obelisk. We've been tracked down. H8er! Do something right and jam their communications. I don't want them calling for help.

[The gunship flew over their heads and turned on its axis, hovering in the area. Its six turrets pointed at them, whilst six lightsaber armed assailants dropped from the boarding ramp onto the ground below and charged after them. Arran looked up at the ship, he noted that several still remained on board. Without saying a word, he picked Zanka up and threw him towards the ship, using the Force to do so. He activated his lightsaber and turned towards the six assailants who began to surround him.]

Arran: [He yelled.] Nk'ik, disable the ship!

[Arran looked over the assailants, taking note of their lightsabers. He had fought them before, and knew they did not fight like Jedi, they were trained to fight like Sith. He was surrounded, there were three in front of him that he could see in his immediate vision, but three more behind him that he could sense. Two began to charge at him, one from the front and another from the back. He blocked the incoming lightsaber from behind with his own and used his free hand to grab the front Sith's throat, giving no quarter to how tightly he squeezed. He relented ever so slightly from the lightsaber clash for his opponent from behind could get closer, he quickly spun, still holding the Sith from the front. The front's skull impacted the one behind, sending the two flying to the side where they hit a boulder with a sickening crack. The ship had since begun firing at Arran. He deftly deflected one shot, which hit one Sith behind him. He would deal with the remaining one in a moment.]

Arran: Make yourself useful, H8er.

[With that, Arran used the Force to pick up the droid from the crater and dropped him on one of the Sith's heads. The Sith dropped instantly.

H8er: [He screamed.] Take me with you!

[The Sith from behind dropped his lightsaber, hands clutching his throat as he sank to his knees. Paying him no heed, Arran walked up to the remaining one and batted away its feeble attempts at lightsaber combat before swinging his own at the man, cutting off his arm at the elbow. Not even giving the man time to drop to his knees and scream, Arran picked him up by the collar of his robes and hoisted him off the ground before growling out.]

Arran: Start. Talking.

[Meanwhile on board the Sith ship…

Zanka hit the loading ramp as it had just begun to close itself upward. Not missing a beat, he rolled down it before jumping up. Up ahead he saw two Sith, both of whom had activated their lightsabers. Charging ahead, he activated his own and blocked both of their strikes using both ends of his own. After several seconds of locking lightsabers with them, he pushed back against both before using the Force to pull the Sith on the right into the front end of his own lightsaber, impaling him. Kicking him off, he turned to the Sith on the left.

The other Sith had time to recover and began to attack the jawa. Parrying the attacks, he used the Force to jump up and launch a kick in the Sith's mouth. The Sith collapsed on the ground face-down, a pool of blood forming. Zanka kicked at the body, pausing a moment. It wasn't enough. He brought his boot up over the Sith's head and brought it down heavily. He nodded. Bringing the opponent to him worked well.

Turning about, he deactivated his lightsaber and made his way down the hallway. At the end of it, it opened up to a larger room filled with four consoles in use by others. At the end of it he could see a doorway. He noticed all four getting up from their seats and coming towards him. He ran towards the first two and jumped up between them, activating his lightsaber from both ends as he was between their heads. Not stopping, he rolled onto the ground and cut off the next two Sith's legs at the ankle, sending them both to the ground screaming. He brought his lightsaber down into each of their heads, silencing them.

Unrecognizable voice: [Yelling] Keep flying the damn ship! I'll go handle it!

Zanka moved quickly, hugging the wall to the left of the door. The door slid open and a man walked out. Zanka just thrust his lightsaber at an upward angle into the man's head, dropping him. Entering the door, he found himself in what appeared to be a cockpit.

Pilot: Did you get—?

Not wasting any time, he stabbed the man in the back. The body to slumped over the controls. Nudging the body aside, Zanka sat in the pilot's chair. He took out his comm unit and paged Arran.

Zanka: Done.

[The Sith in Arran's grasp didn't speak, it only stared at him from behind the mask. Arran felt the crushing of the Sith's neck in his hand before he let the dead weight hit the ground. He looked up to see Zanka taking control of the gunship and lower it to the ground. Arran reached the ship just as Zanka hopped out. H8er rolled up beside the two.]

Arran: Good work Nk'ik.

[Zanka nodded.]

R5-H8: If the jawa was halfway competent he would have crashed the ship into both of us as he had taken control of it. What a wasted opportunity. I hate you more with every millisecond that passes, jawa.Regretfully, there are parts on the gunship that we can use to repair ours. I had hoped we would attempt to break the atmosphere with a breached hull. Though, all of my wishes as of late seem to be going up in smoke. Just like your ship, jawa.

Zanka: I could have just let the ship crash and cut off your legs. At any rate… [At this point he turned to Arran.] So, those were Sith.

Arran: They aren't mine. The old hag was right, they've been hunting me. I don't know where they've come from or what they want. If they are trying to kill me, they are doing a poor job...H8er, see if you can decrypt anything from the ship's computer.

Zanka: I never said they were yours.

[R5-H8 rolled over to the ship and entered via the loading ramp. He made his way to the cockpit, followed by Arran and Zanka. As the trio entered the cockpit, the droid opened a front panel, at which point a cable snaked out, connecting itself to the terminal in the cockpit.]

Arran: I know what the Jedi say about me. I used to train Sith. I don't know who is capable of training them, I thought everyone from my old order had died a long time ago. I wonder why they are making themselves present now…

R5-H8: I found information. I hope it leads to our deaths.

Arran: Well? Don't keep it to yourself.

R5-H8: I may do so. Perhaps your anger will involve destroying me.

Arran: I still haven't forgotten what you did to Nk'ik's ship. You've proved some usefulness, don't push me. I'll do a lot worse than destroy you.

R5-H8: [It groaned.] They come from Lwhekk.

Arran: Lwhekk? That's in the Unknown Regions...anything else?

R5-H8: They intend to capture you and take you to their leader. There is a reference to one named 'Anean'. Nothing more.

Arran: [His gaze became fixated on the droid and he spoke quickly.] Then we need to go there, now.

R5-H8: The jawa's ship is not repaired. We only have this one. I do not like the idea of leaving the sudden death machine behind. It gives me comfort that soon this will be all over for me.

Zanka: We should fix the ship first. I don't want to leave it here.

Arran: How long will this take Nk'ik? If we take too long they will send more.

Zanka: Jury-rigging the ship, twenty-four hours.

Arran: [He let out an impatient sigh as he stomped out.] You have twelve. Get it done.

[Zanka nodded and started going to work. Arran paced around the crash site, watching the two and helping when he felt he should.

The next several hours saw the jawa and droid working together with minimal talking, as they took various parts of metal from the gunship to use on the 'Long Ago Junk'. Arran stretched out his hand and brought the 'Long Ago Junk' out of the crater and upright on its landing gear. He looked at the full damage of the ship and shook his head in dismay.

Several more hours passed as Zanka and H8er managed to hastily repair the breached parts of the ship. It was not as sturdy as it had been before, but hopefully as the repairs went on it would be able to survive a journey through hyperspace.

Meanwhile, Arran impatiently tapped his foot, glaring at the two as they made the repairs. It was the fastest they could go, he knew that. It still was not good enough. At this point he thought of sealing off the cockpit of the gunship and taking it himself. Every second the two took repairing the scrapheap of a ship was another he could have already been on Lwhekk. Arran couldn't wait any longer. Working off of gut instinct, he climbed aboard the gunship and sealed off the cockpit. He activated the engines and before he lift off the ground, he gave Zanka a two finger salute. Arran left the planet's atmosphere, the ship shaking and losing some parts as it flew, and set the coordinates for Lwhekk. As the ship entered hyperspace and the stars warped in the viewport, Arran let out a sigh of relief, and leaned back in the chair. He was apprehensive, but he was ready for anything.

R5-H8: Oh. Now we're stuck on this planet. Together.

Zanka: [He shook with anger.]

R5-H8: Jawa, the Sith bodies are being dragged away by invisible forces.

Zanka: Oh. Great. Hssiss.