Maya-202, a Star Wars-inspired Story!:
Chapter 3 – Desert Antics
Maya and Leo arrived on Fortralin surprisingly smoothly – not a single one of Thomanius' troopers had shown up to even try to stop them, a fact May had found a little too odd. The planet reminded Maya of a combination of pictures she'd seen of Tatooine and Geonosis. It had many steep rocky hills, but its pathways comprised mostly of very deep sand, verging on quicksand. The sandy walkways were a surprise to them both; as soon as they exited their ship, they both almost sunk as they stepped onto the ground, expecting it to withhold the weight of both of them. There was one settlement that came close to civilization on this planet, a small village called 'Plimsey'. The rest of the planet was mostly a completely barren wasteland.
Plimsey was not far from where the two troopers had landed – in fact, there was a sign right beside where they parked saying 'Welcome to Plimsey' in Fortranese. This was when Maya realised that she and Leo did not really know what they were looking for, other than some sort of warlock guy, but they didn't expect him just to be simply hanging about the village in plain sight. They decided the best plan of action would be to ask around – they had already tried contacting Onasisu by their DCSs but he didn't reply, presumably he was still busy answering questions about the war from some of the more inquisitive dreamtroopers – Maya could guess at about 100 troopers who would probably be questioning the Prince at this moment. The trouble was, neither Maya nor Leo knew any Fortranese, other than 'hello' ("oshynhau"), so it would be tough. Who knew though, maybe some Fortranese people knew a little English, after all, she had seen species like Sullustians speak in English before.
Maya and Leo trekked down a little path, before arriving atop a hill, where they were met by an incredible view of the village. Even though it was the only settlement on the planet, it was relatively large, and its streets were filled with market stalls selling goods from all over the galaxy. Logs from Endor were being sold by an Ewok, beautiful bright red berries from Kashyyyk were being sold by a giant Wookie – one Rodian even had droid parts for sale. The troopers climbed down the steep hill, and the sand got so deep towards the bottom that they were almost sliding into the village. After that, they entered a 'gateway' of sorts to Plimsey. Maya noticed a speeder bus was making its way around the village. 'Think we should catch the speeder bus to take a quick tour of the whole village and see if we can see this guy?" Maya asked. They were right beside the platform as it greeted visitors as soon as they arrived. Leo peered at the sign near the platform, before exclaiming '20 credits for a ticket?! I think I'll just walk'. Maya laughed. He had always been this way with money, not willing to spend more than 10 credits at a time on basically anything when there was a free option. 'How did I know you were going to say that?' Maya sarcastically joked.
They began their walk around the village – had this trip been under different circumstances, it could have been actually a very nice daytrip. Onasius had taken the dreamtroopers on trips before as a reward for them, and to be fair they had really been fun trips, not like the schooltrips they had heard young children talk about. They had been to Theed, Coruscant, and Endor before on some occasions – there was an almost nostalgic quality for Maya to those memories now. Onasius always wanted to prove that he would not treat the dreamtroopers like slaves to him – they were his friends. All the troopers almost treated Onasius like their father, or at least Maya and Leo thought of him like that. They tried to ask some of the villagers if they knew a warlock, but they were having no luck due to the languages barrier. Eventually, they had been round everyone in the market, and it looked as if they were going to have to start knocking on doors, something that neither of them wanted to do, when suddenly they heard a voice. "You're… searching for me…" a deep, rusty voice faded in. The two troopers turned around to see a hooded figure, in a red garment, his face mostly hidden other than his mouth. "Woah! How'd you know that?" Leo was shocked, but impressed, even though they did not know this was the correct guy yet. "I am a Force Warlock. The Force… it tells me things… Onasius sent you… Ah… my old friend… I heard about the invasion… come inside…" the mysterious man gestured to a hut, in the shape of a long cylindrical tower. As suspicious as Maya was, she followed behind Leo into the Warlock's house.
The inside of the hut was a dark sandstone colour. The only windows allowing natural light in were right at the very top of the building, so candles had to be lit at the bottom level in order to see anything. There were some droid parts on the wooden table – the parts were a white colour, and it reminded of a sort of droid she had seen in a history book a few months ago, but she couldn't remember this droid's name. Now that she thought of it, this might have been a cyborg in fact, rather than a full droid… But it didn't matter. There was a cauldron in the room, something Maya found surprising – she would have thought that warlocks would have hated that stereotype, just under the idea that they all flew around on brooms. "It is Thomanius, you seek. That boy… such a nice, polite child… he could have become a very skilled Jedi. It is a tragic, tragic shame what happened to him, and the rest of their family." The warlock poured them a cup of caf, without using his hands. It was pretty cool, Maya thought. She was about to ask him about Thomanius after he had first mentioned him, when he answered her question without her hsving the need to say anything. "His ship… is headed past Gaterall.. the Nightmare Allegiance Order have a station there…" Gaterall? It seemed a strange place to put a station. Gatter Beach was more treacherous than it sounded – a snowy coast with freezing waters that battered against the stone cold rocks. Not the sort of place people would think of when planning a seaside vacation. Maya knew they were short of time, so they couldn't stay long, but she was curious to hear what the warlock had to know about the Orance family, since Onaisus had mentioned this warlock being a family friend for years. She decided to ask him about Thomanius, what he was like before they lost their father. "He and his brother were as thick as thieves. They couldn't be torn apart. They trained together, played together and so on… an to be honest, whilst Thomanius used to be the more controlling of the two, I don't see any reason why either would have done that to their father. Erasmus and Elia, their mother, were good friends of mine. They ma- let me take care of those lovely children, I hope that the fighting between them will stop sometime soon." The warlock mused. There was something almost fake about his last sentence, especially the pause before he said 'let'. But Maya decided not to question it, as their time was up. They would have to rush to Gatterall quickly. They both thanked the warlock before leaving. "My pleasure. Feel free to return any time…" They both exited the hut.
"Is it done?" a small hologram of Thomanius appeared on the Warlock's DCS.
"Yes my lord. Is my debt repaid yet?"
"Not yet, Scald. Not yet. Don't forget, I'm the only one who knows your secret. So you work for me, for however long I decide. But this is a start." Thomaius' little hologram vanished.
"Is it just me, or was there something really… off about the way that dude spoke about the Princes?" Leo asked. "I was just going to say the same thing!" Maya agreed, and Leo nodded his head. "What was that weird pause thing he did – was he going to say they mad-" Maya started, but she was cut off as they both noticed something. "Get down!" Leo whispered to Maya. There were three Nightmare Troopers, and a woman that looked like an officer – she had blonde hair in a ponytail – all surrounding the F-Fighter Maya and Leo had arrived in. "But Moff Gorma, our Lord told us not to engage the targets." One of the Nightmare Troopers started, but the blonde woman, Moff Gorma, simply rolled her eyes. "Yes, but he didn't say anything about the Dreamtrooper scum's ship, did he?" her voice was high-pitched and annoyed. The Nightmare Trooper shook its head. "Well then. I want it taken to the scrapyard and melted." Moff Gorma commanded. 'Tsk.' Maya thought. Iryxium copper had an extremely high melting point, they would waste all of their energy doing that, energy that could be used to power their dreadnoughts instead. Oh well, if they were going to self-sabotage Maya decided to let that be, although she could not let them take their ship. She would let them self-sabotage another time. At that moment, something kicked into Maya – she didn't know what it was, but it felt like a powerful, almost spiritual energy that sparked inside her, giving her an ultimate confidence boost. "Follow my lead." She told Leo, before getting up and approaching the Nightmare Troopers and their officer. As soon as they approached, the nightmare troopers and Moff Gorma all glanced up and pulled out their blasters when they realised who it was. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Maya warned them. Leo was ultimately confused – he had no idea why Maya hadn't pulled out her blaster, prepared to fight. He was about to tell her, but Moff Gorma laughed arrogantly and teased "Please, what are you gonna do?", before commanding "Troopers, take 'em down! … Well, don't kill, but capture these scum!", being careful not to disobey her Prince's orders either.
"Roger roger!" the nightmare troopers replied, and pulled their triggers, but before a single blaster bolt even actually fired, Maya defeated all of them, with punches, rolls, kicks and many other hand-to-hand combat moves that she appeared to perform at the speed of light. It felt unreal to both Leo and Moff Gorma, the latter of whom was lying on the ground as a result of the impact. Not even Maya knew what on Earth just happened, but she wasn't going to stop showing her newfound confidence because of that. "You have 3 seconds to get out of my sight, unless you want to end up trooper droids now splayed across the ground, fizzing with electricity. Moff Gorma clambered up, and surrendered almost immediately. "That's more like it" Maya said, but before they could grab and take Gorma as a prisoner, she threw down a flash grenade, blinding both Maya and Leo, and as soon as they could see again, one of Thomanius' fighters was zooming away into the sky. "Oh, shab. So close, yet so far…" Maya mused. But Leo had other things he wanted to discuss.
"Can I just ask what on Coruscant just happened, Maya?!" he pondered, bewildered by the events that had just taken place. Maya answered honestly. "I… I don't know…".