Kurik Otela – Pirate Carrier
The clones had performed far better than Kurik would've suspected. Jedi were indomitable warriors to his eyes, their victory practically assured no matter how many pirates or soldiers they faced down. The Republic's mass-produced soldiers, on the other hand, were a people that could easily be shot or killed with stray shrapnel.
Yet the clones had somehow managed to push through a far greater number of pirates and automated defenses, earning some respect in Kurik's eyes. Even further, they'd kept him protected the whole way.
The corridors of the vessel were difficult for him to find the outline of, at the speed they moved. It was all a swarm of grey smoke, occasionally interrupted by the darker forms of the clones. He was hardly even using his sight to navigate anymore, simply following their footfalls as they ran.
The Miralukan pilot would estimate that they were closing on the bridge, if the starcruiser conformed to conventional design. The clones had already forced the vehicle into hyperspace and to Tatooine, now it was just a case of taking the navigation console over.
Kurik's lungs burned with effort, and all the running was starting to make his legs burn. He wanted nothing more than to ask them to stop, but he knew that Tank would just favor him with a sigh and give his fellow clones a knowing glance.
Not that he could fully begrudge them. They were soldiers, running endlessly was something expected of them even with all their armor. He was just a pilot, more versed in shooting and lounging around a ship than doing laps on it.
The sounds of battle were clear ahead of them, and the clones stacked up at the door in preparation. Kurik loomed right behind Dreamer, the most bearable clone of the group.
"We all ready?" The smuggler couldn't' help but note that Tank was looking directly at him when he asked the question. When he didn't get a response, he nodded. "Okay."
The wide hallway ahead was clearly the entrance to the bridge, and the two Jedi they were ferrying were holding fast, deflecting fire from a group of Weequay pirates crouched in the corridor ahead of them.
Kurik found his eyes drawn once again to Neria, to the strange look of her. Not shining with blue like her master but simply slowly pulsating with it like the beat of a heart. Yet that vein of red was still there, yet to dissipate from the teaching.
He wondered that the rest of the Jedi didn't seem capable of seeing it. Perhaps it required someone of sight, like him, to sense something buried so deeply.
General Durel didn't even look at the team, swinging and knocking a blaster bolt back toward a pipe that shrouded the pirates in steam.
"Quickly, now!" he shouted. "Lay down fire."
Kurik wasn't sure what he expected the clones to hit, but they did so anyways, filling the gap with enough blaster fire that the pilot was sure anything inside must've been vaporized. It came as quite a shock when something small and round came flying out of the entryway.
"No!"
Neria thrust a hand out, knocking the grenade backward and into the gap again. With a blast that shook the floor, the steam-filled entrance was a sudden maw of fire and debris, quickly quelling under the moisture.
Unfortunately, whatever else the grenade had hit along the corridor set off alerts that weren't quite the same as the intruder alarms they'd been hearing all through their infiltration. Kurik was unfortunately all too familiar with the sound, having heard it more than once while repairing their vessel on the ground.
"What is that?" General Durel asked.
"That...would be the environmental systems," Kurik said. "We better wrap this up fast and find a way off this ship, or we're gonna be sucking down the void."
"How long do we have to Tatooine?"
"It...shouldn't be too much longer."
"Then maybe we'll just borrow their atmosphere."
"You mean..."
"I do."
"This ship's not equipped to set down, Master Jedi."
"I'd argue that with as much metal is between us and the ground, it's well-equipped to set down. As long as we have a pilot we can trust, I'm comfortable putting this big ship right down in front of Jabba's Palace."
"If you say so, Master Jedi."
"Tell our captain to brace himself, this will be a rough landing."
Kurik did just that, lifting the communicator on his forearm to his lips. "Dilt," he said. "Dilt, come in."
"I'm here, kid, calm down."
"Dilt, we're gonna be landing this thing in the desert. You should probably...you know...prepare for that."
"Oh, good. Exactly what our girl needs, crash landing inside another ship."
"Just brace, Dilt. It's not like we haven't done...something like this...before."
"I'll be ready."
Kurik gave the Jedi Knight a nod, and he moved without further ado, his padawan following in his steps and the rest of them rushing to keep pace. The two Jedi opened the door with merely a pull from afar, and they were through to the bridge.
There were still nearly a dozen pirates left, and the captain himself stood tall at the center.
The sight of the man's armor gave Kurik pause. A Mandalorian, something he hadn't thought to see on a pirate ship. He'd thought Mandalore would be too busy with its civil war for Death Watch to send one of their troops out.
But then, what exactly would a Death Watch soldier be doing on a pirate ship?
"You've made quite a mess of things, Jedi," he said, his voice modulated and growling. "I don't know where you're taking us, but I can't wait to space your bodies when we get there."
No more was said, the Mandalorian utilizing a pair of pistols to fire out at the Jedi. They deflected it away, and the clones moved around them, trying to mop up the crew.
Kurik followed the Bothan soldier, the sneaky little alien moving to a console and peeking around. A trio of crewmembers were aiming up at the clones form the floor below.
He leaned over the alien, who didn't even acknowledge his presence as they fired. From the side, they were able to mow down the three crewmembers before two could react. The third threw himself behind a terminal, but Kurik reached out and—with the same trick with which he'd guided the grenade—nudged the pirate back out into open space.
The Bothan took care of him, then they were on to the Mandalorian.
The Death Watch operative was keeping Padawan Halai busy, standing at surprisingly close range to the deadly teenage Jedi. He'd holstered one of the pistols somewhere during the brief engagement, a sword in his free hand.
As Kurik tried to figure out exactly what he was going to do to a Mandalorian that a Jedi couldn't, she lashed out at him with the lightsaber. The warrior met the weapon with his own blade, deflecting it and trying to angle the blaster at her chest before she used her free hand to push his away.
That gave Kurik an idea. The pilot reached out, covered by Gebb-Ti, who fired at a pirate nearby.
When Neria swung down, the Mandalorian moved to block. Kurik nudged his arm out of the way, leaving him wide open for for her to cut right through.
The Madalorian cried out in pain, stumbling backward with everything below the elbow missing. Kurik raised a hand up to shoot him, only for something small and metal to drop from the man's hip.
With a hiss audible even over the sounds of fighting, smoke began to fill the room.
Padawan Halai and Knight Durel both worked to quickly clear it from the bridge, but by the time they had, the Mandalorian and two pirates who'd managed to survive the brief fight had fled the room.
"Should we go after them?" Kurik asked.
"No," General Durel said. "Tank, you and yours keep security at the door and be ready to hold on to something. Gebb-Ti, find a transmitter and prepare to get in touch with Jabba's henchmen—he should know we're expected."
"Not expected in this," the Bothan said.
"Kurik, you're on the controls. Hurry, we don't have a lot of time."
He wasn't wrong. Already, the ship was barreling toward the sandy planet, a crash landing that would kill them all if Kurik didn't manage to steady them.
"Right, I'm on it."
As the ship pushed into the atmosphere, the shielding up front began to rattle. The pressure was intense without any sort of gradual decline to ease it. A small crack appeared over the shielding, growing only larger as they continued to furiously descend toward a small set of shimmering circular buildings in the distance.
"Padawan," Knight Durel said, eyeing the cracks in the shielding. "I need you to help me with this. Keep glass from flying through here and cutting us to shreds."
"Yes, Master."
Kurik could feel the power pushing past him as he quickly pressed a series of small buttons. He could see a soft glowing blue press against the shielding, catching any glass that fell away from the cracks and sparing those on the bridge the damage they would've done.
That left Kurik able to focus on his sole job, trying to even the ship out as best he could.
But it was no easy task. They were on a very large ship that had practically dived into the atmosphere, leaving him little room between sky and the surface.
He still did the best he could, engaging the engines in short bursts while keeping the nose of the vessel up. Halfway down, he figured them for as good as they were going to get and set the engines for the bare minimum while still operating.
It would be a hard landing, regardless. Some vessels came with emergency flaps or parachutes for just this kind of situation. The old starcruiser they were riding nosefirst toward the ground did not. Kurik engaged some boosters at the front of the ship last, hoping to pull the nose up just a little bit more before they landed.
His job as close to done as it could get, he turned to Knight Durel. He and his padawan were still holding against the glass, standing strong in the middle of the bridge. He didn't know what they thought they were doing; Jedi or no, they would be flung into the shielding upon impact just like anyone else.
"I've done all I can, but we're going to hit hard," Kurik said. "That chamber back there might be our best option to ride it out."
"Agreed," Knight Durel said. "Everyone get behind the door."
Thankfully, the clones were already close enough to the door that they were able to just slip through into the next room without bunching up at the entrance. Kurik fled past Durel and Padawan Halai, and the Jedi were last in the room.
The padawan held the door behind them closed whilst bracing herself against it, and the knight did the same with the door to the bridge. The clones, Gebb-Ti, and Kurik all found something to cling to and brace against.
Nobody said anything but for the small alien corporal across from him.
"This is Corporal Gebb-Ti, Republic Diplomatic Envoy," the Bothan said to somebody on the other side of the line. "I'm here with the Jedi you requested. Apologies for what's going to be a very rough entrance, but we were losing atmosphere, so we needed to land."
Some response that Kurik was unable to hear, then a thundering crash, a jolt, and Kurik's grip on the pipe overhead failed. He stumbled backward, there was anolther hit, and he slammed into the door that the padawan was holding closed.
Everything went fuzzy, his 'gaze' darkening and his thoughts becoming slippery and difficult.
Then things stopped moving, he felt a warmth that was strange and alien to him. The Force, applied from without. He was momentarily lost, only clawing back to lucidity when a pulsing blue figure appeared over him.
"Kurik." It was Padawan Halai, concern thick in her voice. "Kurik, are you still with us?"
"I...Yeah," he slowly managed to ease himself off the floor, assisted by the Jedi Padawan. "Yeah, I think I'm alright."
"We'll get you some medical attention, just to be sure," Knight Durel said from the other side of the small corridor. "Dreamer, see to him once we're off the ship."
"Yes, General."
The clones and Corporal Gebb-Ti seemed to be in good enough condition. Taking stock of themselves and their equipment.
Then their Jedi Knight threw the door open, revealing them to a bridge that was practically destroyed, a mess of glass, twisted metal, and plastic. The nose had been buried within a dune, spilling sand into the bridge.
General Durel was unflinching as he led their small party beyond the nose, where a skiff was already waiting. A full score of Jabba's thugs had their weapon up at the ship, and the Jedi seemed none too concerned by their hostility.
"Greetings, gentlemen, I'm Jedi Knight Durel," he said, a cheery smile stretching onto his face. "We're a little later than we meant to be, in a ship a little larger than we flew out on, but here we are. And we even brought you a gift."
As they looked up at the crashed starcruiser whose innards they could strip for scrap, packed to the brim with pirates whose bodies could be looted for gear, they realized that they truly had been delivered a marvelous present.
They lowered their weapons, and Kurik released a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding.