Location: Uncharted planet in The Periphery (Former Hutt Space)46 ABY (After the Battle of Yavin) 6 months after The Battle of Kesh.
The peculiar looking aliens stood gathered in small groups among the mud-bricked huts of their peaceful village in the early morning chill.
The 3 fingered bipedal creatures sported a long curved neck which supported a head that reminded one of waterfowl: Low profile, wide set eyes, and a long bill instead of a mouth. Instead of being covered by feathers, however, their bodies were adorned with short brown fur.
Around them, cooking fires flickered, and exotic livestock complained, through warbles and moans, about their hunger.
They would have received the ungracious title of "Primitive beings", if the galaxy at large had even been aware of their existence. Nevertheless,they were a race of individuals who thought, reasoned, schemed, loved, and hoped just like all the other sentients of the galaxy did. They populated this forgotten planet by the millions, and they could be found on ever continent. Undoubtedly, after a few millenniums, they would join the rest of the galaxy, but at this moment, the chances of that ever coming to fruition were shrinking exponentially.
They had no way of knowing this of course. What they knew equaled only what they could see with their own eyes. And in this particular village at that particular moment, all eyes were fixed skyward.
In their naïveté, they saw two massive floating beasts strike out at each other with bursts of fire and light.
The exchange filled the air with crashes and booms, that rebounded off the nearby cliff faces. This, in turn, set off a wave of unsettled gasps from the adults and cries from the younglings.
They had no way of knowing that these massive beasts that hung magically in the heavens, where in-fact starships engaged in a massive "to the death" battle. A battle that had started light years away in the Sriluur system.
The planet that shared its name with the system, was experiencing a revolution of some sorts. No, not a political revolution or a slave revolt. After years of neglect the inhabitants of the the world, the Weequay, were finally exploiting vast amounts of natural resources (specifically copper and other metals) that laid just under the surface.
The industry was promising but new and fragile. As such, the methods used were ancient and crude, and involved large amounts of potent chemicals; chemicals that just so happened to be valued by black market weapons dealers for their potential use as (no suprise)... weapons.
The 25 mile long hauler (filled to capacity with chemicals of unimaginable toxicity) had just entered the system expecting to deliver its contents to the orbiting station when the marauders struck.
They came in the form of two relics from the past: A pair of Republic-Class star destroys.
They were nearly 40 years old and they looked it, but they still had the capacity to live up to the "Destroyer" title. Since their goal was piracy not destruction they hit the command centre, located at the back of the hauler, fast and hard.
Though the cargo ship was enormous in size it was virtually defenceless. This deficiency was offset by a group of escorts, ranging from corvettes to single pilot fighters.
On their first run, the pirates managed to take out the shields protecting the bridge of the behemoth mover.
It reacted by turning in a way so as to keep it's bridge out of the crosshairs of pirate gunners. It was a ponderously slow maneuver, but it bought itself just enough time for the defenders to engage.
And engage they did...
The Protectors targeted the nearest destroyer and hit it with every they could muster. The effect was spectacular!
After 5 seconds, the destroyers aft shields failed. After another 4 seconds, their hyperdrive and sub-light engines were down. This left it still every bit a threat, yet now it was stationary threat.
The immobilized destroyer made peace with its change of fortune by sending wave after wave of turbo blasts at the defenders, wiping out and disabling a large portion of them. The freighter used the opportunity to jump out of the system.
A ship normally would've stretched off and be gone into hyper safe in less then a heart beat, but for a ship that massive, it was a different story.
The large hauler, froze in space and then the bow began to stretch off into infinity. The stretch continued on for the rest of the ship but at such a gradual pace that it telegraphed to the pirates it's intentions, and gave them enough time to do something about.
And do something they did. The remaining destroyer gave up on attacking the bridge and launched a barrage at the engines of the slowly disappearing ship. The Bolts and missiles hit the target with all their destructive force.
But in the next second the fleeing ship was gone. The had escaped!
Or so they had thought.
It had become almost standard practice for pirates to replace one of the missile's warheads with a tracking module. The ship was gone, but they would be followed and overtaken. After all, it was all part of the plan. And the plan was working perfectly.
After only 30 minutes in the loving womb-like protection of hyperspace, the giant tankers engines succumbed to its injuries and they were unceremoniously spat back out into real space.
They hadn't travelled far on the galactic scale; they had only made it to the region of space known as "The Periphery".
A planet loomed close by... Too close, in-fact,for a ship this size. The crew had just set a course to distance themselves from the planet, when an old danger paid them a vist:
The Pirates had found them!
The tanker gave up on it previous course and instead began to hug the unknown planet's atmosphere, trying to use a tight orbit around the planet to give it much needed velocity.
It was no use though. The ship was too big, too slow. The Pirate's Destroyer once again took aim, being careful not to damage the large tanks that contained their payout. But before they could let loose again on the massive target, the tanker betrayed its deadly and desperate secret.
Several hidden missile ports extended out from the hull and fired their impressive but limited payload. The 12 missiles brought the the Destoyer's shields on the port side down. In response the Pirate Captain lashed out in rage and ordered the gunners to fire hard at their victim's sub light engines.
The moment the turbo laser volley tore asunder the haulers remaining engines, the fate of the tanker was sealed.
Not just that of the tanker. The planet below and the primitives that called it home would suffer from an unrecoverable disaster.
Without engines to fight against the planet's gravity, the tanker began to drift deeper and deeper into the atmosphere. Escape pods began firing away from the dying hulk. There were only 6, which might have seemed like a grossly small number considering the ship's size.
But the ship was all hauler with only a small command centre and engine room, a modest mess hall, med bay, and crewer cabins.
The crew watched out the viewport of their escape pods, with mixed feelings of relief and latent guilt, as the 25 mile long ship started tipping it's bow toward the planet like a sinking ocean faring vessel, plunging its head toward the distant sea bed. If they didn't exactly know what would happen next, they certainly could have guessed.
The ship would most definitely crash into the ground or explode in mid air. Either way the effects on the planet would be the same. Trillions of tons of concentrated poison would be thrown up into the air and into the clouds circling the globe until everything living thing was dead or wished it was dead.
In the doomed village on the doomed planet stood the doomed villagers. Their eyes were taking in information that their brain could not process. They saw the world in predictable cycles:
The Sunrise. The Sunset. The full moons. The new Moons. Winter. Summer. Light. Dark
A large ship, filled to the brim with death, falling out of the sky directly on their village?They could only stand there like wild eopie in a speeder's headlights.
And the ship fell...
At that same moment, a hooded figure made his was to the edge of the cliffs that stood direct behind the village. His steps were neither panicked, nor timid. They were steps of iron; firm and smooth. On either side of him were individual footfalls that's shared the same rhythm and purpose. The three interlopers stood at the cliffs edge unnoticed by the frightened aliens down below. That is until two of the figures ignited their glowing blue blades with a snap hiss.
It was a small baby that craned it's long neck back and upward to the cliff top, and let out a honk/wail from its tiny beak. Some of the adults were able to unglue their eyes from the spectacle in front of them, and caught sight of the spectacle behind them.
They may not have known what was going on.
But there are some things that transcend sophistication and primacy or knowledge and ignorance.
The sense that these strangers were this villages only hope was carved on stone within their hearts and souls.
Luke Skywalker, was not here by accident. The force had pulled from him from his sanctuary on Naboo, to correct a forming imbalance. At the time, he didn't know where he was going and he didn't know what action he would take, and yet he was at peace with the knowledge that he had to right the scales.As long as he drew breath, the conflict between light and dark would not leave oceans of blood in it wake. No, never again.
He took up a bracing stance and closed his eyes. By this time, the ship was trailing flame and debris, as its trajectory was too steep to avoid the stresses of reentry. Minor explosion were sending hunks of wreckage off in every direction. Luke stretched out one hand toward the mountain of flame and poison. At first nothing seemed to happened. He then bore down with greater concentration and feeling. This must have sent a unspoken signal to Tahiri and Raynar, for they deactivated their lightsabers and turned their attention to Luke with outstretched arms.
They we shoring up their master, adding their strength to his.
It was then, that a fourth figure came to join the trio. Dena Yus came running up to them with a large blaster rifle covering the group against attack as they poured all their focus onto doing the impossible.
And the impossible started to happen.
Though debris continued to be blasted away from the hulk, and rain down to the planet's surface, the ship itself did begin to slow down. By this point it's mass filled up the majority of the sky from the perspective of those on the ground.
That's when Luke raised his second hand toward the sky. In the palm of his left hand, a glowing purplish blue orb formed. It got brighter and brighter until it had no color at all. It was just a blinding brightness that was rippling and churning with power and energy.
He waited for a moment only he could recognize and then...
He pushed out the contents of his left hand with all his might, all the while emitting a cry the signal his strength was at the breaking point. The glowing ball of energy impacted the carrier right on the bow. It burrowed through the hull without puncturing it.
The freighter began to erupt with explosions sending hull plating and poison off into all directions. But half a breath later all the debri and toxins expelled from the eruptions began to draw back inward toward the ship.
In fact, the whole ship was shrinking!
No! Not shrinking! It was imploding in on it self.
The thing looked like a dying beast curling itself in a ball in one last futile attempt to save itself. Several minutes passed as the ship seemed to simultaneously tear itself apart and devour itself. It continued until it was a glowing turbulent mass the size of a land speeder. Then the mass released all it transformed energy in to one powerful (yet harmless) energy wave that spread out from the centre until until all traces of it dissipated into the morning sky.
To the villagers that were dwelling at the foot of the cliff, A deity had arrived from the realm of forever, to save them from a impossibly large spike that threatened to impale their world. The events of that morning would impact their culture for centuries to come, as a whole mythos and belief system would undoubtedly be built around this day. At least they were alive to face another day.
To the four that stood on that alien cliff that morning, their mission was a spectacular success.
It was further proof (not that any of them still needed proof) that the force was with them and their new order. It galvanized their resolve to play their part in this new peace that had settled in to stay.
High above that world, in the darkness of space, the pirate ship finished tractoring in the 6 escape pods from the doomed tanker. The crew were led up to the bridge of the Republic class Destroyer. They were not brought to the captain in chains and shackles, but as respected peers. The captain of the fallen hauler, walked right up to the captain of the destroyer and said:
"Well, that was quite the Karkin show! I still can't believe it!"
The Pirate replied: "Oh you can believe it, I have it all right here." He then lifted up a data card so that it was eye level with the other man.
"What's that?"
"That my friend... Is our payday."