A/N: Sorry for the delay in this chapter. Strep throat makes you not want to really do much :( Hopefully you enjoy this chapter and it makes up for it!
Chapter 8 Eye of the Storm
Kaul violently locked up the airbrake, jumped off, and flipped his swoop over in anger. Around him in the hangar of Dalledo's building, the remaining members of the Sickle Riders shut down their swoops and counted their numbers. In all, they had lost ten brothers and eleven swoops. While they were all infuriated, all of their anger combined didn't come close to the rage that Kual was in.
The leader cursed aloud in over a hundred different languages, and when he couldn't find a word fitting enough, he described it as best as he could in Mando'a. Eventually he went silent, save for the heavy breathing that was coming through his distorted nostrils. None of the members of his gang said a word, though even if they wanted to, they couldn't think of anything to say anyways.
Dalledo heard the loud commotion that was coming from his hangar, and he drunkenly opened the door to see what the commotion was. "What's all this about? Those villagers history?" Dalledo asked; it was obvious that he continued to drink his brandy long after the Sickle Riders had departed. When no one volunteered any information, Dalledo's face turned a bright red and he started to yell.
"What the kriff happened?!? Where are the rest of your men? Did those villagers actually beat the Sickle Riders?!? What good are you?!? I thought I was paying for world class mercenaries, not a bunch of miscreants that can't even handle a village of yokels! I should have hired a bunch of kriffing Trandoshans! At least those scaly bastards would have done something! Mandalorian, now that's a joke! No wonder your people got wiped out by a bunch of extinct warrior monks! Maybe I should have looked for one of them to-" Dalledo's words were cut short by the durasteel-like grip of an enraged Kual.
"Watch what you say, Fatman. I'd hate for your last words to be a lie." Dalledo's red face turned a sickly shade of blue, and his choking only lessened when Kaul loosened his grip slightly. Dalledo raggedly inhaled and then looked at Kaul with a renewed anger.
"Let me go, or you'll never see a credit!" Kual stared him down for a long silent minute, and then released him. Dalledo fell back and inhaled several breaths deeply until his normal color returned.
"There," Dalledo said as he stood back up fully, a new found confidence in his voice. "Every beast can be controlled with the proper reigns." Kual briefly turned away, but swiftly turned around with his blaster now out and pointed directly at Dalledo's head. But instead of looking afraid, Dalledo merely smiled and shook his head.
"What are you going to do, shoot me? Who's going to pay you then?" Kual sneered widely, and looked Dalledo in the eyes with a wild insanity.
"Something'll come up," was Kaul's last statement to his one-time employer before he pulled the trigger and redecorated the far hangar wall with the fat man's brains. Kual watched the headless body slump to the ground, and reveled at watching the oozing goo slide down the far wall.
After he holstered the weapon and walked away from the corpse, several of the gang members exchanged a couple of looks and eventually one of the less intelligent ones spoke up.
"Uh, Boss? We're glad that the Fatman's dead, we all hated him. But, uh, exactly how are we going to get paid now?" Kual shot him a glare, and the speaker reeled back in fear. Kual then looked at the rest of his gang, and saw that though none of them wanted to ask themselves, they were all wondering the same thing. Kual cracked his neck and then motioned his head in the direction of the village.
"You all saw what they had up there, right?" he asked. Several of the members nodded their heads, but a different member spoke up this time.
"That wall?" Kual took in a deep breath and shook his head. How did he end up with this bunch of idiots?
"No, not the wall! The girl! That Twi'lek Jedi! She's our ticket to pay dirt. The Empire's offering a bounty of a million credits for any that can be brought in alive. And that's what we're going to do." Slowly, one by one, each of the gang members got a large wide grin on their faces, and soon they were all planning on how they were going to spend their share of the bounty.
Several hours after the last dust trail of the fleeing swoops faded away, the small mining village of New Beginning was living up to its name. After quickly removing the bodies of the dead swoop gang members and setting up some of the rubble as a makeshift gate, the villagers had returned from the safety of the mines and were now celebrating their victory over Dalledo and his hired goons.
Everyone was gathered in the center of the village where the long table used to be. Several of the people were playing music with an upbeat tempo and the children and several of the adults were dancing joyously. Others were handing out what simple food items that could be made in a hurry while even others were enjoying the simple treats. The adults were also sharing in taking part of drinking different alcoholic liquids ranging in all colors of the spectrum.
Several of the younger people, including a few of the older ones as well, were gathered around Rika and were pelting her with questions about the Jedi. She wasn't used to this sort of attention, but she did the best she could in answering their questions.
Randal listened to the barrage for a few minutes, and after catching Rika's eye and giving her a smirk, he took the bottle of Corellian spiced rum that he had been saving in his personal stash and started to walk around, giving pats on the back and shaking hands of the thankful people. After his hand started to get sore from all the shaking, he broke off from the main group to get some air. There sitting at a small table away from the others was Cal. Cal briefly looked up when Randal stepped up, and then returned to looking at his hands which were clasped on the table.
"You all right?" Randal asked with a concerned look on his face. Cal looked back up, a glassy faraway look in his eyes.
"I was just thinking about the fight. I didn't really think it was going to be like that," Cal said with a faint voice as he shook his head. Randal frowned slightly and took a seat opposite him.
"It never is. Holovids always make it out to be a certain way, but they never show the nasty parts." Cal nodded slightly and opened his hands. Randal could see that his hands were visibly shaking.
"You know, I didn't think when I saw Kayla being chased by that Nikto. I just ran out there after her. When I caught him, I froze for a second; I wasn't sure I could do it. But then I thought that if I didn't do it, he'd hurt Kayla, and I pulled the trigger. Blew his damned face off," Cal said as his voice shuddered, his control over himself was slipping. Cal shut his eyes and tried to contain himself, but his body started to shake uncontrollably.
"Here, kid. Take a drink," Randal said as he pushed the bottle towards him. Cal took the bottle and took a swift burning gulp and nearly coughed as the sweet flaming liquid seared through his body. "Just remember that it was either him or Kayla. He didn't give you much of a choice. Don't look at it any other way, that'll only drive you crazy."
"Yeah, it was either him or Kayla. I had no choice," Cal said as he slowly got control back over himself. Randal nodded and vaguely remembered what it was like for his first kill in self defense. The situation was different, but the outcomes were the same; it was either them or him. Randal leaned back and stifled a scowl. No matter how often one justifies it, it still dwells on the mind. Randal let out a sigh through his nose and pushed it out of his thoughts, the same way he always did when the memory resurfaced.
"Just remember, the only thing that separates us from them is that we pull the trigger in self defense, not in cold blood like they do." Cal nodded and then looked up at the evening orange hued sky.
"They're just animals, bad men. I'll do what I have to do to defend what I love. I just hope I never have to do it again." Randal smirked and nodded, and then saw Kayla approaching wearing a beautiful blue dress.
"Well, hopefully you won't have to. But of all the things you picked to defend, you picked one of the best ones I'd say." Cal hadn't seen Kayla approaching yet and at first looked at Randal with a puzzled look. But once he heard her walking up to them, he lightly smiled and turned towards her.
"Oh, just talking about stuff. Why don't the two of you go have fun, enjoy the party?" Randal said with a hidden wink at Cal. Cal opened his mouth to speak, but he got caught by Kayla's beautiful smile.
"Yeah, Cal. You want to dance with me?" Cal fought hard to find his voice, but had the mind to at least nod his head vigorously when he couldn't find the words. She smiled warmly at the young man and then turned to head back to the party. Randal grinned widely and motioned towards the bottle.
"Go ahead, Cal. Take another drink for courage." Cal laughed, and before he stood, took another swig from the bottle and jumped up running to follow the love of his life. Randal watched the pair walk together to the main group and reached for the bottle from the other side of the table. He took a drink of the fiery amber fluid and stood from the table. He was about to start walking again on a half hearted inspection of the defensive wall to see if everything was still standing properly, but Rika waved him over from where she stood.
When he got to where she was at, she playfully punched him in the arm and continued to tell a story that she was telling to those still gathered around her.
"So there we were, stuck on an old Separatist battleship and directly in front of us was not only one Imperial ship, but two!" Several of the children took in a deep breath of shock and amazement as they clung to every word she said. "And then it was Captain Sarn here, who came up with the idea of ramming the battleship into the larger Imperial ship. And it worked, and we were barely able to escape in the Destrier before the two ships exploded. BOOM!!!" At her wide armed and boisterous finale of her story, the children erupted into applause and begged for her to tell them another, but their parents came up and told them to stop bugging the young Jedi. As the kids pouted and grumpily walked away, Randal laughed and shook his head at Rika's display.
"You know, I remember it being a lot more stressful than that at the time." Rika shrugged her shoulders and smiled widely. She placed her hands on her hips, her left one playing with the belt connector of her lightsaber.
"It feels good to be able to wear this on my belt openly again," she remarked.
"Yeah, but it's only temporary. We're going to have to leave here soon, probably tomorrow," Randal said. Giles overheard him and came over to talk.
"So soon? We'd be more than happy if you stayed, as long as you liked."
"Well the offer's generous and we are grateful for it, but word about what happened here's going to spread pretty quickly. It'd be best if we weren't around once the rumors about a Jedi started to get around," Randal said. Rika nodded in agreement, but the slight frown she wore showed that she didn't want to leave so soon.
"Well, you have our thanks, and I doubt even if we kept saying it for the rest of eternity that it would be enough. But, something I was wondering; do you think those swoop riders will try and come back up here?"
"No, I don't think so," Rika said. "They were only being paid to drive you out of here because Dalledo didn't want to make much of a commotion out of it. But after what happened here today, he's going to be pretty hard pressed to try and deny what he's been doing to the proper authorities, even if he does have the credits to bribe some of them. When word gets out, even the most corrupt officials aren't going to be able to keep anything from being noticed. No, I don't think you have anything to worry about from Dalledo or his gang."
"That's good," Giles said. "But just to be safe, we'll keep someone posted up at the lookout just in case." Randal and Rika nodded in agreement.
The evening sky was beginning to turn a dark purple hue, but the quick flashes of light coming from the other side of the mountainside that backed up to the village caught everyone's eye.
"What's that?" Randal asked after the first cracks of thunder reached his ears. Tolas looked up, and after seeing a succession of lightning strikes, answered.
"It's a summer thunderstorm. They pop up unexpectedly and hit pretty hard. Looks like this is going to cut the party short." No sooner was he done speaking that the air temperature started to drop rapidly, and the wind began to blow into the valley with a ferociously rising speed. While the children laughed as the leaves and napkins flew away in the wind, the adults were busy picking up the dishes and started to head back to their homes. Before long, the first of the large heavy drops of rain hit the ground, soon followed by more and more of its brethren, until a torrential downpour started.
Randal and Rika helped the others finish picking up anything else that needed to be put up even through the heavy rain. When everything was up, and most of the doors to the homes were now shut tight, the two ran back to the Destrier's waiting ramp. The duo stood in the protective covering of the ship and shook of their rain drenched arms. Randal started to go up into the ship, but Rika slapped her forehead and made to go back out into the rain.
"Hey, where you going?" Randal asked.
"I forgot to check on Otzz. He said he was going to be fine but I just want to make sure." With a brief smile, she covered her head and took off back into the storm. Randal shook his head and watched her run back into the village, the entire area lighting up with a flash of lightning.
Ral Spero cursed his unfortunate luck at having to be the lookout as he tried to fix his makeshift covering. The rain was pouring down hard now, the lightning strikes flashing constantly and illuminating everything around him, though the rain was pouring so hard that it obscured anything beyond two meters. How he was supposed to see anything or anyone approaching the village from the canyon below, he had no idea. But everyone down there was counting on him, so he just grumbled to himself as he pushed a stick into the meager fire that was clinging to life through all the rain.
Something revealed in the latest lightning flash caught his eye, but when he tried to focus on whatever it was, he only saw more falling rain. He briefly thought about getting up and seeing if it was anything worth checking out, but the thought of getting even more drenched made him look back down at the fire.
But just as easily as he made that decision, he instantly changed it and wished that he had moved. A razor sharp deathly cold serrated knife blade pressed at his neck and slashed across, spilling his crimson blood out on the ground.
As Kaul watched the last breaths of life escape from the village lookout, he wiped the blade haphazardly on his sleeve and then stepped back into the deluge. The remaining members of his gang stood around, though they didn't seem to be as indifferent to the storm as Kual did. Kaul put his knife back into its scabbard on his vest and addressed his men.
"All right, listen up. You two are coming into the village with me and will grab the Jedi; everyone else will spread out along the trail here and fire randomly into the village. Wait for my signal flare when we get the Jedi, then open fire. Any questions?"
"Uh, what about that ship they have down there? When we were raidin' the place last time, I saw one of the cannons moving." Some of the other riders agreed, while others kidded him about seeing nothing. Kaul removed a grenade from his belt and tossed it to the one who asked the question.
"It doesn't matter whether it moved before or not. What matters is if it moves tonight. Take that ion grenade and when we sneak into the village, toss it up into the ship. That'll knock it out of commission but not make any noise for that Jedi to hear us. Remember, we need to catch her by surprise, otherwise we're just wasting time. Now everyone understand the plan? Let's move out!"
Randal let out an exhausted sigh as he entered his cabin and closed the door before he flopped down onto his bunk. His clothes were still dripping wet, but after the long day he had, he didn't care if he got the bedding wet or not. After relaxing for a few minutes, he begrudgingly got up to take the wet clothes off, but a strange metallic clanging sound came to his ear. At first, he didn't know what it was, perhaps debris from a tree or something hitting the hull from the storm. But after the third impacting sound, he realized that it was not coming from outside, but from inside the ship.
It only took a second before he realized what it was, but by then it was too late. The ion grenade bounced along the corridor and rolled into the main cabin area, where it began to whine fiercely while its power core went critical. With an eerily silent, yet dazzlingly brilliant display of blue-white lightning, the grenade detonated, sending its silent ionic tendrils of electrons coursing through the interior of the ship. As the overloading power flowed wildly through the ship, all of the ship's systems overloaded and then shorted out. The lights inside flickered and died with hissing and popping electronics as their circuits were overloaded and flipped the safety breakers.
Inside Randal's cabin, the lights flickered and died. And just as quickly as the attack came, it ended. Randal sat in absolute darkness for a moment, the only sound being his own breathing and the echo of the rain hitting the hull. After a moment, the emergency secondary lights turned on, filling his room with pale amber light.
Randal jumped to door, but in his haste forgot that the hydraulic system was now shut down and ran into the unyielding durasteel. After grumbling and being glad that no one was there to see that, he frantically undid the service panel next to the controls and began to prime the manual release of the door lock. After a few cycles on the small pump, the door released, and he had to push it the rest of the way open.
When he entered the cabin, acrid ozone hinted smoke still lingered on the overhead, looking strange as the amber secondary lights illuminated the cabin. Geefive came rolling in from the cockpit, excitedly twittering and beeping in his electronic language.
"Must have been an ion grenade. The only one I can think of who would do this is Kaul..." Randal trailed off and shared a look with the astromech. If Kaul and his gang had returned, it was for only one reason. "Rika!" Randal quickly pulled his blaster pistol and ran through the cabin to the entry ramp. The rain was still coming down hard, but he took off in a dead run, all the while having only one thing on his mind.
Rika shielded her head with her arms as she exited Otzz's home. The old Arkanian was recovering well, though it would still be a couple of days before he was up and able to work again. She was glad to see him smiling though; taking a piece of rock shrapnel in the arm was no easy task, but he was handling it as if it were merely a scratch.
Rika lightly ran into the rain and headed towards the Destrier on the other end of the village. But as she passed the small houses, all with their windows closed and the warm dry light from within pouring out, she had a strange feeling in the back of her mind. She slowed her run until she completely stopped.
Something wasn't right here; there was cold deep hatred coming to her, as if someone or something was determined to do someone bodily harm. It was the dark side of the Force that she was sensing, though it wasn't coming from a Force sensitive. No, this was merely a projection of the internal emotions of a person, and it was directed solely at her!
Instinctively, she pulled out her lightsaber, but before she could activate the blade, something sharp and small hit her hard in the neck. She fell back against a wall to a house and pulled whatever the offensive thing was, and when she held it in her hand she saw a poisoned dart.
From in front of her, she could hear the voice of someone giving an order, and she pushed herself away from the wall and ignited her lightsaber. As she stepped forward, her vision slightly blurred and she found it difficult to maintain her balance.
Someone in front of her tried to grab her, but an unbalanced swing of her lightsaber caught the attacker across the torso. As she tried to regain her balance, the screams from the dying man filled the village.
Again Rika felt the sharp sting from one of the poisoned darts, but instead of just one, she was hit with three more. Her vision started to swirl all around her and she called fully upon the Force to keep her standing, but even with the power of the Force fully flowing through her, she was barely able to stay standing on two feet.
From what she was able to make out in her dizzy state, she saw a large figure walk up to her and look at her with a sneer before he raised the butt of his pistol and brought it down sharply on her head. The last thing she saw was the mud covered ground racing towards her.
Kual sneered as he watched the Jedi female smack face first into the mud and then reached down and pulled her over his shoulder. He motioned to his remaining man, who was returning from disabling the smuggler's ship, and then pulled his flare gun out of his side holster. He fired the red glowing ball into the air, and then ran to where the villagers had grouped their "captured" speeders. He jumped on and fired the engine up, all the while holding the Jedi on his shoulder.
Randal ran around the corner of a house and saw the Mandalorian bastard taking off on his speeder. He fired a few shots at his general direction, but once he saw Rika lifelessly hanging off of his shoulder, he stopped. The other intruder was about to take off on another speeder bike, but Randal fired quickly and hit him in the back. As Randal pushed his body off and climbed onto the speeder, blaster fire began to rain down from the cliff side trail leading up to the lookout point. Those villagers that had opened their front door to see what the commotion was about instantly jumped back into the safety of their homes as the rounds began to pelt the village.
Randal kicked off from the ground and cranked the throttle to full as he took off in hot pursuit. He narrowly managed to fit the swoop through a gap in the debris filled gateway, and took off towards the rapidly accelerating Kual.
Kaul continued to speed away, but Randal was catching up. Randal cursed the swoop and willed it to go faster as the engine strained to keep up with his demands. He inched closer and closer, and just when he was within range of ramming Kual's speeder with the control ailerons, Randal's swoop suddenly began to shake violently and he had to hold on tightly to try and stop the swoop from spiraling out of control. But Randal wasn't as skilled at piloting a swoop as Kual was, and even though he tried to maintain control, he soon tilted too far to his left and tumbled off.
Randal rolled a few times and eventually came to a stop against a shrub that pierced his jacket in several spots. He quickly got back to his feet and ran to the swoop lying on its side, but by the time he got it back upright, Kual was long gone.
Randal let out a furious expletive that would make even the most seasoned lady of ill repute blush. With a fire of pure fury burning deep inside him, he turned the swoop back around and raced back towards the village. When he returned, several of the villagers, and most of the militia members, were standing outside.
"What happened?"
"What did they want?"
Randal angrily parked the swoop and stalked off silently towards the Destrier. Those members of the militia that had worked with Randal looked at each other in fear of the unknown side of their one time savior. Why was he so furious and what was he going to do?
Kayla pushed her way through the crowd, with Cal right behind her. As they listened to the people wondering about what had just happened, a few of them commented that Randal was acting rather rude. Something cylindrical and shiny on the mud covered ground caught Kayla's eye and she bent down to see what it was. Though she had only heard about them, and had only caught a brief glimpse of it earlier, she knew that it was a lightsaber; Rika's lightsaber to be exact.
"They took her," she said as she turned around to the others, showing them the weapon. "They came in here and took her. We've got to do something!" A few of the gathered crowd exchanged incredulous looks, while others sheepishly turned and walked away.
"What? You're not going to do anything? They risked everything to help us, and you're just going to turn your backs on them now?" Cal said accusing everyone there.
"It's not that, really. But we can't possibly go after her; we're too few. We can defend ourselves, yes, but attack?" Giles said as he shook his head. Cal shook his head furiously and headed off towards Randal's ship, Kayla close behind him.
"I can't believe them! All this time and they just choose to do nothing when it doesn't affect them!"
"They're just miners, Kayla. Just standing up to Dalledo and those goons was a stretch for them."
As they got to the entry ramp of the Destrier, they carefully looked inside to where the dim yellow lights were casting odd shadows. From within, they could hear Geefive twittering and whistling in an argumentative manner. Cal and Kayla shared a look, but before Cal could suggest waiting outside, Kayla walked up the ramp. Cal shook his head, but reluctantly followed.
"What? Well how bad is it?" Randal angrily asked. Geefive swiveled his domed head back and forth and teetered from one side to the other as he frustratingly replied. He said that the ion grenade had overloaded the ship's computer and it would take some time for the system to be degaussed.
"How long?" Randal asked flatly. Geefive answered shortly; at least two standard hours. Randal angrily turned around and kicked the base of the acceleration coach, and then briefly looked up at both Cal and Kayla. Without saying a word, Randal turned around and entered his cabin, where he pulled a long locked metal case out from up under his bunk. Cal peeked around the corner from the open doorway and watched as Randal undid the locks and opened the box.
"What's that?" he asked. Randal didn't turn around, but continued to pull the massive meter long cannon out of the box.
"It's a disruptor cannon. They're illegal on nearly every civilized system in the galaxy, and for good reason. A shot from one of these could melt straight through the hull of any starship." With the final word, Randal opened the massive wheeled breech and loaded in six of the large diameter energy shells. Disruptors were known for being highly devastating and destructive, but that amount of firepower came at the cost of consuming a vast amount of energy. Each of the six shells was only good for one shot before they were depleted. Randal loosened the fiber weave shoulder sling and then grabbed the one extra set of energy shells he had and exited his cabin.
"What are you going to do with that? Walk straight into their hideout and get into a shootout?" Kayla asked incredulously. Randal shrugged his shoulders and tried to step around her, but she sidestepped to continue blocking his path. When he realized that she wasn't going to let him get by, he sighed and then cocked one of his eyebrows.
"I haven't thought that far ahead yet. You don't know me that well, but I pretty much make things up as I go. Now why don't the two of you run along back home? I've all ready got enough on my conscience with them having Rika, I don't need your lives hanging over my head." Kayla at first just crossed her arms and stared Randal down, but when he stared back, she could see that there was something different and cold in his look. Whatever this new resolve was, it scared her enough to step aside. Randal went passed the entry ramp and entered the engine room, where Geefive had stored the undetonated permacrete charges that were planted in the canyon. As he stored those in a bag, Cal took Kayla by the arm and led her out and away from the ship.
Randal reentered the main cabin and hefted the weight of both the disruptor cannon and the bag of charges on his shoulders. Geefive whistled a brief question, and Randal shook his head.
"No, I can't ask them to do anything like that, they're just kids. Besides, it's not going to be pretty. Keep your comlink open. Once I get Rika back, we're going to have to make a quick exit from this planet. You should have the ship ready to go by then, right?" Geefive whistled and affirmative and went back to priming the degaussing coils.
As Randal walked back outside and made his way back to the swoop he had rode in on, the rain from the storm continued to pour down heavily, the lightning creating shadows from the trees that looked like skeleton fingers reaching out to grab the living. Randal jumped onto the swoop and fired up the repulsor engine, and thought that the description of the shadows was pretty accurate.
But as Randal was about to twist the throttle and head away from the village, another swoop pulled up alongside of him, Cal driving and Kayla holding on behind him. Randal looked over and noticed the two blaster rifles they had strapped to the sides of their swoop.
"Where are you two going? I thought I told you to go home?" Randal said.
"Yeah, we know you said that. But we're telling you that you're not going into that town by yourself. We're going with you whether you like it or not," Cal said. Randal at first looked as if he was going to get mad, but his frown turned into a smirk and he nodded towards the open canyon.
"It's not going to be pretty in there."
"We know," Kayla said as she pulled a hood over her soaked hair. Randal nodded and then shook his head.
"Well, follow me then." Randal throttled up his swoop with a quick turn of the throttle and he was off, followed closely by Cal and Kayla on their own swoop.