Qi'ra watched and waited, her heart pounding in her breast as her flagship, her home, The First Light, was pulled towards the gargantuan alien ship that had destroyed her fleet. It was… the brain couldn't even handle how big it was. Watching it was like watching a moon loom over you, threatening to crush you, just getting bigger and bigger until it blotted out the sky and everything vanished behind it.
The ship's hull looked very unusual; like it was made of some kind of jet black stone or shell, or something in-between. A huge door that looked disturbingly like a mouth opened, revealing a cavernous hangar bay, and The First Light was slowly but surely pulled into it.
Throughout The First Light, all of Qi'ra's followers were preparing for battle, grabbing all the weapons they could find; pistols, rifles, knives, swords, clubs… anything they could get their hands on. Then, they gathered together at the large door that was the main entrance into the ship.
The ship shook again, and there was a metallic clanging, grating sound.
Qi'ra and her men knew then that they would be boarded very soon.
A Zabrak male named Taren, who was the head of Qi'ra's security guards, watched the entrance door with twenty other thugs and four security droids, all armed and ready for action.
Suddenly, they heard footsteps on the other side of the door.
The men flinched. They had never encountered Asmodeus's minions, the Hork-Bajir before, because they had never attacked The First Light before. But they had heard stories of their ferocity and brutality as warriors… and none of those stories were pleasant.
"Steady, steady," Taren said, trying to calm his men. He was an experienced warrior, having once been a Nightbrother. And he knew how to inspire others.
One of the others, a white male Twi'lek called Ethern, trembled. "If those Hork-Bajir things are as powerful as they say, what good are we goanna be against them?"
"Shut up, Ethern!" snapped a big, strong, bulky, broad-shouldered Dowutin male called Brutus. "We're Crimson Dawn, we can do anything!"
For several moments all was quiet. Then, there was a horrible screeching sound as the door was wrenched open and a large piece of metal went flying towards the thugs.
"Look out!" cried Taren.
The thugs all dived for cover, but the droids and a few of the thugs weren't fast enough and they were crushed beneath the heavy piece of metal.
The remaining thugs looked back at the door… and they all flinched.
Standing in the doorway were five terrifying Hork-Bajir. Taller than Wookies, they had strong, muscular bodies covered in thick, dark green scales. They stood on two bent-back legs with large, bird-like feet tipped with razor-sharp talons, and they had two very long arms with huge hands that had long fingers tipped with black claws. On each of their arms there were curved horn-blades growing out of the wrist and elbow. There were two more blades at the end of their long, powerful tails. Their necks were long and snake-like, with two forward-facing red eyes on their pointed faces, which ended in a large, fearsomely curved beak. From their foreheads two or three dagger-like horns raked forward. Each and every one of the Hork-Bajir carried a large, strange-looking pistol. As soon as they broke the door down, they raised said pistols and began shooting.
"Open fire!" Taren shouted.
At once, all of his fellow thugs raised their blasters and fired at the Hork-Bajir.
The firefight was on.
But while Crimson Dawn were strong fighters and skilled shooters, the Hork-Bajir were better. They moved as fast as snakes and as agile as cats, avoiding most of the thugs' shots and firing their own with terrifying efficiency and deadly accuracy. There was something strange about the shots of the Hork-Bajir's guns too: the bright green bolts of energy were more powerful, and they looked different, more… real, natural somehow.
In less than a minute, half of Taren's men had gone down, and the Hork-Bajir had barely suffered a scratch.
"Retreat! Retreat!" Taren commanded. "We can't win here!" He and his remaining men began to run back to the bridge.
"No way!" shouted Brutus. He continued shooting at the Hork-Bajir, again, again and again, but the fearsome reptilians were too quick, avoiding most of his shots, and the few that did hit them seemed to have no effect.
Then, Brutus's gun started smoking and it stopped firing: it was overheated!
Seeing this, the closest Hork-Bajir seized its chance and it charged at Brutus.
Thinking quickly, Brutus picked up a nearby crate of spice and hurled it at the charging Hork-Bajir.
The crate hit the Hork-Bajir square in the face, shattering as it impacted with the creature's sharp head-horns and spraying spice all over it. The Hork-Bajir stumbled and dropped its gun, rubbing at its clogged eyes.
"Ha!" Brutus laughed in triumph, thinking he had stunned the Hork-Bajir. He swiftly drew his long, razor-sharp vibro-sword and charged at the Hork-Bajir, slashing wildly at its chest and neck. He scored several hits.
Suddenly, Brutus's eyes widened in shock. The Hork-Bajir had seized his vibro-sword in its bare hand, regardless of the blade's keen edge. The Hork-Bajir pulled Brutus in close. It squeezed its fingers and gave a sideways push, snapping the vibro-blade in two pieces.
Thinking quickly, Brutus began punching the Hork-Bajir in the beak with his powerful fist. WHACK! WHACK! WHACK! He scored three punches.
Suddenly, real panic gripped him. The Hork-Bajir had bitten down on his wrist, piercing it deeply with lots of sharp teeth that filled its powerful beak. Then, before Brutus could react, the Hork-Bajir lashed out with its free arm with the speed of a snake. Its wrist blade decapitated Brutus with one swift stroke.
Brutus crumpled to the floor, dead.
The Hork-Bajir looked down for a moment at the slain Dowutin. Then, it looked up to see the remaining thugs fleeing to the elevator. Very quickly, the Hork-Bajir picked up Brutus's corpse and threw it as easily as if it were a ragdoll at the retreating thugs. The corpse crashed into one of the thugs, knocking him down and pinning him to the floor.
The Hork-Bajir swiftly retrieved its pistol and pursued the remaining thugs alongside its brethren. They were fast, very fast, and they continued firing even as they pursued.
Taren and his thugs fled up the elevator, but the Hork-Bajir followed them, wrenching the metal doors open and climbing up the elevator shafts like the nimble, sinewy lizards they were.
To say Taren was shocked, horrified and impressed all in one would be an understatement. As a veteran Zabrak warrior, he had thought he knew speed, strength, ferocity and teamwork. But he did not. The speed, strength, ferocity and teamwork of the Hork-Bajir were at a whole different level from anything he had ever encountered.
By the time they were nearing the bridge, only Taren and two of his men were left.
From the bridge, Qi'ra contacted Taren through her wrist com-link. "Status report?" She asked urgently.
"They're too powerful!" Taren exclaimed. "They've overpowered us, they…" Taren never finished his sentence, for at that moment a Hork-Bajir shot him dead.
Back on the bridge, Qi'ra's thoughts whirled as she searched her cunning, yet frantic mind for a plan to defeat the Hork-Bajir.
"Should we surrender?" asked one of the pilots.
"Are you kidding?" exclaimed a Miralian male called Jimba. "You heard the reports of the attacks. Those things never leave any survivors. They will slaughter us."
Qi'ra nodded in agreement. "He's right. Everyone, ready yourselves for battle."
Her henchmen obeyed her, readying their weapons.
Qi'ra turned to Inu. "Inu, wipe all the ship's memory banks. Erase every record of our operations. I don't want Asmodeus to find anything more about my plans."
"Yes, milady," Inu nodded obediently. And he immediately set to work.
They had hardly finished preparing their weapons and wiping the ship's databanks when there was a hurrying sound of several pairs of huge feet coming down the corridor. "Asmodeus, Asmodeussssssss," hissed several sibilant voices in perfect unison.
"They're coming!" exclaimed Inu.
"Seal the blast doors, now!" Qi'ra commanded.
Inu pressed a button, and a second later, not one, not two, but three solid metal doors sealed off the entrance to the bridge. One closed horizontally, the second vertically downwards, the third vertically upwards.
"You sure they can't get through?" Qi'ra asked Inu.
"No way," said Inu in a confident voice, though his hands were shaking slightly. "Those doors are half a meter thick: cold rolled steel."
Qi'ra nodded.
The thugs all stood to attention, waiting for the Hork-Bajir to arrive.
The footsteps and the voices rapidly drew nearer and nearer. Then, they stopped.
For several seconds all was quiet.
Then, there was a horrible screeching, scratching and scraping as the Hork-Bajir slashed at the door from the other side.
The doors held.
The Hork-Bajir stopped for a moment. Then, they grabbed the first set of doors and wrenched them open with their powerful hands… only to find another two layers of doors still holding.
"See, they can't get through," Inu said, visibly relieved.
Qi'ra could tell that Inu had doubted the doors would hold. She had herself. But it seemed the doors would hold after all.
But then, there was a loud bang on the doors as the Hork-Bajir began striking them with their fists and guns in another attempt to bring them down, this time with brute force rather than sharp slicing or hard pulling.
The doors shook and shook. The sound was awful. It was like terribly loud knocking on a door… which it was.
Working together, the Hork-Bajir relentlessly hammered the doors with powerful punches. Little by little… bit by bit… inch by inch, the doors… the thick, solid, strong, cold-rolled steel blast doors… began to bend inwards…