And so, after nearly 2 months, it's here. Enjoy and review.
Chapter 4: Hungover...Welcome To Malastare
Hungover...
"What's wrong with Ahsoka?" Asks Gidget after seeing said girl sitting at her desk with her head slouched in her hands.
"You see, kiddo." I teach. "Ahsoka has what we call a 'hangover,' which is nature's way of telling you that you had a little too much fun last night." I can see Ahsoka glaring at me though her fingers. "So let's give Ahsoka a big hand for this achievement!"
Upon clapping my hands, everyone joins in. Interestingly, so do Dakk and Cleone. I guess they just wanna teach her a lesson. Well, the only way you can learn that stove is hot is to let curiosity put your finger on the burner.
Anyways, the clapping must have sounded like smashing drums to her. She recoils, attempting to drown out the sound. After a couple seconds, she snaps.
"STOP IT! Damn it, why'd I agree to this?" She mutters the last part and rubs her temples in agony. "This hangover's killing me."
"Well, you know what they say: The only way to cure a hangover is another drink." I point out, chuckling a bit.
"You are preaching to the choir." She sighs. "I really don't feel like talking. Dakk, do the honors?"
"Right." He motions for Cleone to hand him some kind of file. He then passes that file to me. Looking at it, I realize it's a pretty straight-forward listing of assignments. Mostly espionage, a couple search and destroy/rescue bits and a classified one. Classified? What's the point of that? Is there an Employee of the Month thing going on?
"Multiple different assignments. We need to form a squad to accomplish them. You're good candidates for that squad."
"Is that an alternative reason to our being here?" I ask, curious.
"No, just lucky." I hear Ahsoka say, pain in her voice.
"What about the people downstairs? They seem capable." Asks Alea.
"Those are new recruits. Still civilians at heart. We can't just send them into combat so early. They're not ready." Cleone points out, moving to stand next to Dakk. "You guys are more... battle-hardened. More 'qualified.'" I could hear the subtle sarcasm behind that last line.
"Right... So what assignment are we doing?" I ask.
"I vote espionage." Scope speaks up. "I'm a specialist in this field." One more piece of the puzzle. He smacks a look at me. Holy crap, did I just say that out loud?
"Yes, you did. Anyway, I know the art of the silent kill." His voice is almost a hushed growl. He pulls out his knife to show off.
"We're Bounty Hunters. We don't kill silently. We kill for a price. Put that thing away. You'll poke someone's eye out." I order him, rather harshly. He sheaths the blade and turns away, scorned.
"What about this classified one?" Questions Gidget. Dakk walks over to the desk and reaches into a drawer to pull out something. Ahsoka doesn't even notice. She might be sleeping.
"Not much info on that one. All we have is this." He holds up a holo. A drought of silence befalls us as he activates it. The holo turns on, revealing a figure dressed in similar attire to our friends here. I can't tell if it's a he or she, but what I do notice is that its posture is rather stiff, like every muscle in it's body is tightened. The head is slouched, looking down.
"This is a priority alert to nearby fractions of the Rebel Alliance from the Malastare base." The figure speaks, in a effeminate voice. Well, that answers that. Sounds muffled, though."We are in need of assistance of clearing out a nearby Empire garrison. Please respond and send assistance." With that, the message ends.
"That's it?" Scope asks. "What's the big deal?"
"We tried responding to the call and weren't able to." Cleone informs us. "We've had radio silence from that base for nearly 3 weeks. Needless to say, we got a little paranoid."
"Is there anymore to this message?" Asks Alea.
"That's all we got."
"Can you play that back?" I request.
"Why?"
"Just do it." I tell Dakk. He does so and the message restarts. The message restarts and the girl appears again, restarting her little speech. This time I don't pay attention to it, instead I pay attention to smaller details.
"Her stomach's not moving. She's talking but not exhaling or inhaling. Her lips aren't moving, either."
"What does that mean?" Asks Cleone.
"She's not talking. That combined with the fact that there's radio silence at that outpost means that-"
"She's dead." Says Gidget suddenly, in a voice laced with doom. I hear a couple gasps in the room, but don't figure out who makes them.
"That's right." I say, ignoring the creepiness of the remark made by the girl. It makes sense. The stiffness? Rigor Mortis. Her head is slouched because nothing's holding it up. The voice sounds muffled because it's likely being thrown from someone outside of the holo's transmitting range. She's a corpse, and someone's using her as a puppet. Sick. My guess is the one who's throwing the voice.
"Someone wants to lure us there." Scope breaks the uncomfortable silence.
"Empire?" Someone, I think Alea, asks.
"No." Ahsoka says, finally alive. "Even the Empire, cruel and tyrannical as they are, have standards." She stands and moves up to me, still a little out of it. "Every big fraction in this galaxy has some bit of 'etiquette,' so to speak. I'm pretty sure most of them don't allow using corpses as holo bait. That's just..."
"Sick?" I fill in.
"I was gonna say disrespectful."
"It is pretty fucking sick, though." whispers Gidget. Such terrible manners.
"Gidget, watch your mouth." I scold her. Ahsoka looks at me, for reasons I don't know. "What? We don't think young children should curse. We're bounty hunters, not animals."
"So what's the plan?" Dakk asks her.
"We humor them. We'll go there and find out what's really going on." Ahsoka says.
"And if it's a trap?" I ask. Always set up scenarios at every angle. You'll live longer. Something shows in her eyes. It looks like confidence mixed with anger and a dash of humor.
"Then it sucks to be them."
...Welcome to Malastare
Our ship is... not the best looking thing in the galaxy; but The Medusa flies and fights like a dream. As our only mode of transportation, she's seen a lot of action. Interestingly, the Medusa was not a fighter. She was actually a cargo ship that we "rescued" from the factory of a corrupt corporation. We modified her with a shield generator, weapons including twin laser cannons, and the usual gear for the adventurer's ship. Trackers, smuggling compartments... the works.
Dakk and Cleone stayed behind, so it's just my team plus Ahsoka. She seems like the kind of person to have flown a few ships, but irregardless, I'm driving. I'm the only one that drives. Whenever Scope drives, we end up trashed on some remote planet.. Alea's a bit of a, for lack of a better term, tightwad and won't even use the hyperspace jump. Gidget... Well, I don't have to tell you that, do I?
After whacking the hyper jump, we're flowing through a wormhole that has a touch of psychedelia. Any pilot can tell you he or she felt a bit of sensation the first few times they hyper jumped. You know, one time I flew through hyper-space while high on Deathsticks. There's no word to describe how insane the feeling was. Jeez, I was so mind-fucked I passed out. Not something I'm ever gonna do again.
The low frequency hum of flying through hyperspace makes my body loosen up and the dark chains of exhaustion bind me, so I set it on autopilot and doze off. I think I was asleep for maybe a half hour before I hear the chair next to creak. I creep out of nap time to find Ahsoka sitting next to me. She looks stressed, to say the least. Well, I couldn't blame her, with all she has to do. Plus, she has to put up with us. That takes willpower.
"You know, Alea used to be a masseuse. Perhaps a massage would ease you up." She put some kind of look before gently shaking her head. I think she actually considered it.
"No, I'm good. Besides, the last thing I need is to relax. How can I at a time like this? People are hungry for action. The smell of mutiny's in the air." Her eyes squeezed shut for a brief moment and rubbed the side of her head with the heel of her palm.
"Headache?"
"Hangover's still got me."
"Liar. The stress is getting to you. I can see that much." The look she gives me says I'm right, but she hates it. Yeah, a lot of people hate it when I'm right.
"You know, I had a friend who was a workaholic. Never made time for his personal life. Took a couple years before he finally learned to relax."
"Wow, how did he do it?" She asked, actually curious.
"He died." I blurted out. Ahsoka appeared shocked to say the least."Wanna know the irony? He was due for a promotion the day after he keeled over. When the bosses told me that, I found it hard to contain myself from giggling at the funeral. Thank God I didn't have to give the eulogy."
"That's terrible." She spoke, sounding repulsed by at the same time trying to repress laughter.
"Life can sometimes be that way." I point out. Ahsoka lost her urge to laugh and laid her head on her hand.
"Why are so wrapped up in this rebellion thing? You don't seem like the kind of person to care about what others want."
"I do care, but you're right. There is an alternative motive to my madness, so to speak."
"What's that?" After my question, her eyes shift from peacefulness to coldness and anger.
"Revenge."
"Huh?" ...Is my response.
"I want revenge against that bastard Vader. Revenge for what he put me through. For how much he made me suffer. I wanna burn that traitor on a stake."
"If you don't mind me asking..." I try to sound polite (and not nervous) as I change the subject. "What was he like before he went to Hell?"
Ahsoka gets that offensive look again and she turns away. I try to get a word out, but she somehow senses me about to speak and cuts me off.
"Listen, this is a rather... personal subject for me. Can we please drop it?" He voices is kind of faint, but easy to hear over the surrounding silence.
"Personal?" I repeat. "Last night, I picked you up at a bar where you were stone drunk and crying. How do you top that?"
She doesn't do anything which surprises me. I patiently await for her to say something, and after a bit she speaks.
"I just don't want to talk about it."
"What's the harm? It's not like I'm gonna tell anybody."
"I don't want to!" She shouts after facing me.
"Why not?" By now, our voices were raising.
"I just told you!"
"You're a selfish jerk!"
"I don't care what you call me. I'm not telling you!
"Why not?"
"Why should I, you asshole?" I scramble my brain for a split-second.
"I'm driving! I'll crash the ship into a planet and kill us all!" I lower my voice trying sound like I'm not fucking around. I actually am, though.
"Fine! I'd rather die!" She screams, then turns from me furiously. For some reason, that cools down the argument between us. No more words are exchanged, and we sit in silence.
"I'm sorry." She says after a minute of awkwardness. "You shouldn't have heard that."
"Jeez, it sounded like you actually meant that. Did you?"
"It's just been such a rough life."
"Running out of options, are we?" I try not to sound like a first-class jackass with that last remark. It seems to work... for once. She lets out a dark, humorless chuckle.
"Let's just say there have been days where I didn't even feel like getting out of bed."
"I've gone there before. It totally sucks."
"Yeah. It does."
We stop talking for a few minutes. She looks at me, conflicting.
"Listen, I'll tell you what you want to know if you tell me what I want to know."
"Like what?"
"Hmm... Tell me about that group of yours. Start with- what's her name? Alea?"
"Yeah, that's it." I pause, trying to collect my thoughts about Alea. "Former masseuse turned slave turned bounty hunter. She's a real sweetheart. One of the nicest girls I've ever known. She's also a heck of a fighter. Specializes in nerve points, or more specifically, hitting them. It's from her masseuse days. Met her on one of my first assignments as a bounty hunter. She 'worked' for this family, can't remember the name."
"Worked?"
"You know..." Insert air quotations here. "'Worked?'"
"Oh, I see. That must have been hard for her."
"Yeah, I know she danced and did other things in that manner. Not sure about the touchy stuff, no pun intended. Anyway, she helped me kill the big boss and I offered a spot in my forming group. I guess she figured it was better than being a slave."
"OK... What about that Scope guy?"
"Jeez, where do I start? Well, I actually knew him before I became a bounty hunter. Nice and funny guy, had a wife and kid."
"What happened?"
"Said wife and kid was killed by the Empire. Kind of sad. He took work as a mercenary where I ran into him. He changed drastically since the last time I saw him."
"How?"
"Well, on the positive side, he became exceptional in weaponry and combat. He's also loyal to those he holds close, like yours truly. On the negative side, however, he became a humorless DICK! He was no-nonsense then, but now he's just one-dimensional. The only emotions he'll make these days is indifference and anger."
"Is that actually his name?" She asks bluntly, as I expected.
"I don't quite know. He says it is and that his mother called him that, but I don't believe him. I don't think he even knows his real name."
"Interesting. And Gidget? What kind of name is that anyway?"
"Her real name is Neema Gidethan."
"Her? Gidget's a girl?"
"You couldn't tell?"
"Well, she's wearing a helmet and goggles. Plus, her voice is kind of..."
"Borderline between feminine and masculine?"
"Yeah, let's go with that."
"Yeah, she is a bit androgynous. Even I couldn't tell at first glance, especially with a name like Gidget. She says it's what her friends called her, and that it's a portmanteau of 'Girl' and 'Gadget.' Plus, it's spelled similar to her last name. Apparently, she was quite the tech wiz in school on her home planet of Raxus Prime, right before their economy went to hell that is. She lived on the streets for a few years until one day I caught her trying to steal from my ship. None of us had the heart to kill her, so we took her in."
"You took her in after she was caught stealing from your ship? That sounds familiar. Where have I heard that before?" She questioned herself.
"Yes, it is very clichéd. What can you do? Alright, I told you about my team, so fill me in." Silently groaning, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a holo. After handing it to me, reluctantly, I lit it up and made it reveal the still life of a young girl who I quickly came to recognize as Ahsoka along with a man appearing in his early 20's. His hand rested on Ahsoka's shoulder and he gave an aura of compassion. It was weird seeing Ahsoka in this scene. She was practically radiating innocence. Her head tails were shorter and she looked more energetic. Wonder what it would've been like to know her then...
I notice she restrains herself from looking at the holo, which kind of made me wonder what the point of carrying it around was.
"Wow." Really all I can muster. "Seems I was wrong."
"About what?"
"About him being a jackass."
"Oh, right."
"Yeah, so no hard feelings?"
"No. Don't worry about it."
"Good."
We wouldn't say much again after that. The rest of the trip would be uneventful until we finally reached Malastare. Then, trouble came on us like an unwanted pregnancy after a one-night stand.
"We've been scanned!" Gidget yelled over the intercom. "Weapon fire inbound!" Evidence of that was quickly discovered upon the shaking of the hull combined with a loud screeching sound.
"Oh, shit. That didn't sound good." I pointed out. Our damage readings showed fire in the engine and a lost wing, so flying was no longer an obligation. Again, I say "Oh, shit."
And so, as a great ball of fire in the sky, the Medusa proceeded to fall through the atmosphere and zoom to the ground at high speed.
"Brace yourself, everybody. We're going in hot!" I yell through the intercom. After hitting and thrashing through the ground, water and mud flying everywhere, the ship comes to a loud, smoking halt and finally dies.
A sigh escapes my lips as I smack my head onto the controls. "Damn it. I just cleaned her."
"She's totaled. It's gonna take a while to fix." Said Gidget, after an extensive evaluation of what was left of the Medusa.
"Right now, let's just be thankful we crashed on the right planet this time." Alea points out with faint optimism. I walk over to where Ahsoka's standing. She's eying the ship, with a rather disappointed look.
"You know." She finally says. "I'm not surprised this didn't hold together. It's a real piece of junk."
"It's a first class piece of junk." I counter.
"It has flames painted on it!"
"That was Gidget's idea." I hear Gidget move up from behind me to next.
"Actually I wanted to paint a cool looking silver dragon on it, but just like this ship, that wish was shot down in flames." She sounded miffed.
"You're still mad about that?" I asked her. "Get over it. At least we painted it like you wanted to."
"It would've looked so much cooler with a-" Cutting her off, a whistle sounded in the air as a spear flew over head and pierced the ship's hull. Talking stops immediately as we stare at the invading object.
"What the f-?" This time I was cut off. Multiple spears flew in the air. Each landing dreadfully close to someone. Before anyone says anything, everyone's focus goes to glowing eyes seen in the trees. People know we're here, and they're coming for us.
"Attacked by angry natives." I head Alea whisper. "I know how that movie ends."