Endor

[Emerald]

They were bigger than she expected: she would at least concede that to the sorry excuse of a poacher that they had commandeered for their own devices here. To his credit, he put down the first pair of angry little teddy bears without much resistance. But the roars squealing from the corridor that led to the cockpit did nothing to bolster her optimism, and it suddenly became clear to Emerald what had happened.

 

The damn teddy bears had taken over the whole kriffing ship.

 

The path to the cargo hold was now accessible to their flank. With a sudden bout of decisiveness, Emerald quickly changed targets, no longer pressing her blaster into the poacher's back. Instead, she aimed it at his leg.

 

"I'm sorry for this," she murmured, before firing two shots at point-blank range into his calf. "Ray shields, now!"

 

The Lemnos droids seemed to react before her words had even finished vibrating the air. Ray shields snapped into place along the corridor, creating an effective barrier with the Gems on one side and the poacher--and approaching rabid Ewoks--on the other. The blonde paused, reviewing their handiwork. "On second thought, I'm not sorry. You want a kiss so bad, you can ask the furry little cretins to give you one."

 

Leaving the droids to hold the creatures at bay, trusting that the bait would keep them occupied for some time, she stalked quickly in the direction of the cargo hold and the pelts that awaited her there.

[Sapphire]

Upon reaching the cargo bay, the Blood Gems took no chances. Sapphire quickly sliced into the system and opened the cargo bay doors just a few inches; enough to blow out all the air, but not let the cargo spin out into space. Then she slid the door back down and took the extra thirty seconds needed to repressurize it. Satisfied that any lurking furry maniacs would be dead, they opened their door and stepped inside.

 

The cargo bay was not as full as the two pirates were hoping, but it looked like there was still enough cargo for them to make a pretty pile of credits. And these gents weren't going to be needing it anymore, that was for sure. There were several bodies scattered around the bay, most of them chewed on. Sapphire wrinkled her nose in disgust and crossed over directly to the crates, her blaster still at the ready in case of any surprises. "FR-328, scan the containers," she ordered one of the three Lemnos droids that were still with them.

 

There was a pause. "Containers contain Ewok pelts, dried. 23% are tanned. Range in freshness from four weeks to two days."

 

"Any life signs?"

 

"Negative."

 

"Alright, let's grab them and get out of here. I'll hack them open later."

 

Between all of them, they got the cargo loaded very quickly. Just as Sapphire was grabbing the last box, she felt a subtle vibration in her back molar. Tapping it with her tongue to activate her in-ear comlink, she listened to Alira's message. A scowl crossed her face, her mood suddenly soured. Suddenly, she was ready to be done with these kriffing cannibalistic teddy bears and get the kark out of this blighted burning system. She had asked Alira to keep an eye on Kalen, and this was exactly why. She didn't know why she had convinced herself that he was the right man for the job. He had the qualifications, sure, but there were other managers out there they could have hired. Managers with more experience. A thought wriggled deep in her mind, but she firmly shoved it away.

 

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's move. Back to the ship."

[fuzzy_ewok]

As the cargo bay depressurized, a faint "EEEEEEE!" followed by a whump was heard, followed by a scream. A lone Ewok sauntered in and started eating the remains there, caught in Sapphire's trap. He didn't get blown into space, but ended up getting caught against the door. Through a very grizzly, graphic process that's unfit for this message board and about as pleasant as sharing a thread with Archer, he ended up not only losing all of the air in his lungs, but most of his internal organs went out into space too, leaving a somewhat meaty, uncured Ewok rug slumped against the closed cargo bay door, wedged against a heavy box.

 

The Ewoks were now down to 7 remaining between the four killed by Malin and now this one. Two remained at the controls, trying to pilot the ship, but the four that went on the offensive were a force to be reckoned with. Five feet tall, frothing, and with bloodshot eyes, the Ewok colossus carried a double bladed battle axe made of a irradiated metal. One with a spear kept his distance behind him, but the second and third held onto blasters taken from the other poachers. They were set to stun, having figured out after killing one of the poachers with a fully powered shot turned the meat into well done and that just cooked out all the flavor.

 

With the colossus leading the charge, the small horde bore down on the last poacher trapped in front of the droid's shields, the heavy axe whistling through the air with bits of bone-encrusted flesh still stuck to the edges. The two blaster armed ones hung back, being both smart enough to figure out to use these advanced weapons and to know it was much better to let someone else do the fighting.

[Pinckz]

It was a joke lady… Folk these days got no sense of humor.

 

Fire and flame filled the smuggler’s mind. Burning plasma separated leather from mesh and synth fiber. And it’s twin parted flesh from bone. They broke the tenuous sinew of his Achilles tendon and scorched the calcium underneath, making a large concave dent in the back of his leg and bleaching his fibula. The wound didn’t bleed, which was fortunate. But the smoking flesh left a terrible stench.

 

Malin’s stark sapphire eyes dilated. His heart beat rapidly in his chest and his breath caught in the back of his throat. White hot pain surged through his dying nerves to the fore of his brain. And, as the Smuggler collapsed on the cold durasteel deck plating, he felt a strong sense of vertigo grab at his stomach. It was icing on the useless cake of sensation that threatened his body. But Malin’s thoughts were miles away.

Dust kicked up into his face…

A woman with jet-black hair looked distraught…

A tow-headed bundle of hair fell to the ground in a messy lump; more screams.

 

“Don’t worry darlin’ daddy won’t let anything happen to you...”

 

Tiny fingers rubbed the rough calluses of his hand. A small metal heart was pressed into his palm…

 

The smell of sulfur and copper brought him back. Horizontal on the deck of the ship, Malin saw the blurry forms of more carpet monkeys as they barreled down the walkway. The ‘Colossus’ barely missed his mark when the smuggler fell, grazing Malin’s shoulder, but looked like he was going to try for another. The others were no less ready for the fallen poacher and looked like they’d found fresh meat. Which, under any other circumstances, would be incorrect. But Malin could smell the meat of his leg still cooking. The pain was gone. His eyes were vibrating and his heart was hammering away. But he was still kicking, metaphorically speaking.

 

His mess of tousled charry hair washed into his eyes and some mysterious energy pulsed through it all. In the breadth of a moment that spanned barely a hair past the eye of a needle, even in the grips of aftershock, he could still feel the strength of his hands on his blasters and the clarity of his eyes didn’t hesitate. Even with his shoulder pressed against metal, the blaster in his left arm was just one click away. Four clicks, that’s all it would take. You can do it, Malin, ease your right arm up and fire.

You can do it, Daddy! Bang bang!

 

The smuggler wrestled his right arm while his left arm took stiff aim and fired. One powerful shot plowed into the head of the Colossus and another from the same gun smashed into the spear carrier that trailed behind. The smuggler rolled across the scorched and stained steel, ignoring the twisted ache of his charred calf and when his right hand emerged from its place under his center-of-mass, two more shots rang out at the Ewoks holding blasters. The shot leveled at the Colossus was finely placed and powerful. The shot at the spear carrier was a bit messy but looked as if it still hit the furry cretin in the chest. The last two shots rang out wild and crazy. He almost thought they didn’t make their mark, but the ‘electricity’ that passed through his body indicated otherwise.

 

If this was to be his last stand, he would not pass gracefully into that good night. He also might trip one of those pirates should they veer too close to him on their way out. But he hadn’t hit a lady to this day and he wouldn’t start now… Even if they deserved it.

 

He didn't expect them to save him. They were vultures, picking off the dead. And there wasn't any honor in thieving anymore.

[Emerald]

Something in Sapphire's tone caught her attention, and Emerald gave her a perturbed frown. "What's put the Evil One in your sabacc deck?"

 

Following the droids out of the cargo bay, she arrived just in time to see their erstwhile poacher blast the brains out of a towering Ewok that should not have been possible. Something out of a Sith alchemy nightmare, it towered over the others, far larger than any furry little bastard had any business being. Snickering, she turned back down the corner at a steady jog, only to find the droids unsuccessfully tapping away at the substantial lockboxes within the hold of the disguised Glory.

 

"Mistress Emerald," said one of them in a clean monotone, "we are unable to open the lockboxes.It seems they may have been voiceprinted."

 

"Voiceprinted? Don't you have highly developed vocabulators? What's the code?" she snapped grumpily.

 

"Unknown. Lockboxes will detonate after five unsuccessful tries," the droid returned. "Recommend caution."

 

"Yeah, yeah," she grumbled, shouldering her blaster and pressing back down the hallway through the airlock.

 

"Hey, Sapph, we have a bigger problem than whatever's rattling your molars right now," she yelled. "That sucker that I kicked into mutant graham snack land might be the only one who can get the damn boxes open for us."

[Sapphire]

Sapphire shook her head. "Amethyst," she gritted out. Not saying another word, she headed back to the airlock. She hesitated briefly to watch the scoundrel attempt to take on some of the mutants, but then kept moving. They owed nothing to him.

 

She was just rounding the corner when Emerald's voice came floating down the hall. She scoffed. "If there's a lock I can't open, I'll kiss a Hutt!" she called back. Turning the final corner, she crossed through the docking tube connecting the two ships. The Lemnos droids were gathered around the cargo, setting down the last box into the Glory's hold. "Two of you get back there and guard the airlock," she ordered. "You," she said to the third one, "watch my back for a sec."

 

Pushing all lingering thoughts of Kalen away, she knelt down and examined the first of the boxes. It was indeed sealed tightly, and it was voiceprint locked. Hypothetically, this meant that only a certain person speaking a certain phrase or code word could access the contents, and it was fairly secure, deterring your common thief. But Sapphire knew several workarounds for voiceprints. Pulling out her datapad, she connected it to the lock via some wires, punched in some parameters, then ran a quick scanning program. The datapad scrolled through several of her decryption programs until it landed on two that would likely work. There was an added wrinkle; the boxes were set to blow up if there were more than five tries at the code. Sapphire frowned. Who laced their cargo crates with explosives? She leaned closer and saw a tiny trademark stamped at the bottom corner. Suddenly Detonite™. Sapphire rolled her eyes.

 

"Looks like a good lock," Sapphire called back towards Emerald, "but I know of at least two different ways to get around it. Your call, but I don't think we need the Ewok-bait to be more than bait."

[fuzzy_ewok]

The two Ewoks who hung back regretted their hesitation. Dinner not only killed the Big Guy, but killed their friend too. Growling, they trained the blasters on Malin, ready to stun him and eat him alive. They failed immediately, their paws unable to work the trigger easily, then realized they had to disengage the safety. In the precious seconds as all that was happening, the Ewok "Bridge Crew" started pressing more shiny buttons, setting off more mischief.

 

Attempt at engaging the thruster buttons did no good, the ship's engines still shorted and ionized. A wild comm on a distress beacon was sent out but only a short intra-system range. Last, and most immediate, was how the artificial gravity turned off, all over the ship.

 

"Chautoa! Chauto! Whooop!" [Translation: I'm flying! I'm flying like the golden god of yore! The one who lead us to dine against the many meats with the white armored shells!]

 

"Afotta! Afoota Gnurt!" came the retort. [Translation: I think you just turned off the gravity, dummy.]

 

The third member of the bridge crew was trying to make his way to the fight by the cargo holds when he went flying and went into the ceiling with an audible "whump!"

 

At the battlepoint with the pirates and the poacher, the two Ewoks found themselves flying up too, their blaster shots hitting the ray shields of the security droids as they tried to establish a fix on Malin, where presumably the poacher, the droids, the pirates, and the various items in the cargo-hold would all start floating around unless measures were taken.

[Pinckz]

The shock that kept Malin’s pain at bay, blew out like the back of a Hutt who’d had way too many Dantooinian kidney beans. Chutes of raw sensation tore through the nerve clusters of his leg and ravaged his mind, causing a moment of hesitation. A moment that, Malin thought, would be the end. With two rabid beasts bearing down on him – ignorant of their weapons or no – they would eventually get the best of him. However, fearing that his goose was cooked, Malin was surprised when his body started to float. He was so surprised in fact, that he cried out, thinking that he was rising to meet his maker. When, instead, he bonked his noggin on the ceiling of the hallway and found that the gravity had been turned off.

 

Heh… Not your time yet.

 

The pirates were busy scrambling. About now, they’d probably found his little surprise on the lockboxes. It was a trifle, but it might give him time to pop off the remaining fuzzy terrorists before limping away. It all seemed a little complicated at this point, but there was nothing he could really do other than continue plowing away at the mutant puffs of irradiation that maliciously raided the ship.

 

But now he was floating. And they were floating. This established two things. One, Malin’s insides were going to be hideously off-balance and probably rebel against the food he’d eaten a few hours ago. Two, he was going to have a hell of a time shooting moving targets while he himself was involuntarily moving. However, none of that mattered. He was here. He had guns. He had a job to do. Taking as much aim as he could, he popped another two shots off at the frantic fuzzies that desperately tried to get a bead on him with their blasters. The ejection of plasma from his DL-44’s sent his body whirling in the opposite direction, end over end, right into the wall of the corridor he was in. The shots strayed a little from their ideal targets, but due to the rotation and spin of everyone involved, the targets shifted back into the path of his shots. He wasn’t sure where it would hit them, but if it hit them, he would be happy. The less mutant maniacs on this ship the better.

[Emerald]

A metallic clang echoed from within the ship somewhere, and with a spike of dread growing in her gut, Emerald paused, her eyes scanning the ceiling. When nothing moved immediately, she made as though to continue down the hallway, calling back behind her, "I'll try to get him to open it on the comm. Maybe if he does that for us we'll let him go. You work on it in the meantime."

 

With a sudden lurch, the ground parted ways with her, sending her spinning toward the roof of the hall. No no no no bad bad bad bad no no no OOF she thought irritably as she made contact with the ceiling, pushing off of it down the hall away from the airlock. Sapphire and the lockboxes were secured in the Glory, whose gravity had not been affected by the sudden release, and as she shot through the open air around the corner, she was relieved to find that the Lemnos-made droids were magnetized securely to the ground, their shields largely unaffected.

 

For the time being, anyway. The way the crazy fuzzballs were trading shots with Emerald's spaced poacher, they'd blow the whole damn ship up from the inside.

 

"Hey, scuz-face!" she yelled over the din of blasterfire, coming to a sudden halt and transferring her momentum into one of the hulking Lemnos monstrosities. "You want outta this mess? Give me your voiceprint to open the boxes. If it works, you have my word that you'll go free, even if I have to come in there and save your sorry ass."

[Pinckz]

Lordie Lordie…

 

Lemme get this straight. The woman that went all kinds of salty at the slightest bit of humor, left you to die, and shot you in tha leg, is now asking for help. The irony is palpable.

 

Malin’s stomach fought a balancing act it couldn’t keep. His insides were not meant to slosh in so many ways. But, whether through foolish luck, or fate’s unkind timing, his latest meal had not yet decided to rejoin the waking world. And for that, he was thankful. Still, the telltale bubbling of his gut did nothing to settle his nerves. His only distractions from that rainbow of possibility were floating a few feet away from him, blasting the hell out of the open air as they spiraled in a crazy pattern around the room, chittering like manic squirrels. A few wild stun-bolts singed the edge of Malin’s face and the thick fabric of his duster. He’d need to take it in… If he could afford it. Gorram carpet monkeys.

 

“Imma bit busy at the moment ma’am. But, give me a few seconds to line up a shot or two and I’ll give ya yer voiceprint. I think it’s the least you could do for my poor boot,” Malin said, lining up his next shot on one of the wild-eyed terror teddies, “Lefty will be missed.”

 

The pain of his leg helped him focus and the phantom sensation of floatin’ in the air gave him an unnatural zen. The chaos and noise that rattled all around him gave him a paradoxical sense of serenity. And, as he lined up the rough iron-sight of his DL-44, he tugged the trigger to the sound of a large BOOM! Then, as if tied to the other arm’s motion, his other DL-44 rose to greet the other carpet monkey with speed, slamming the next shot in his direction, knocking the smuggler in the opposite direction with the weapon’s kickback.

 

The Smuggler plonked into one of the fancy droid’s shields and twirled for a little more. When he could see straight again, Malin’s pale blue eyes found Emerald’s beautiful rich green ones. He smiled his deep roguish smile and nodded his head. A few bits of char and smoke rose from his coat, his hat, and his facial hair, but the cheeseball of his grin shined through as if nothing had happened.

 

“I’m ready when you are, miss,” Malin muttered with a level of guff that even his roguish smile couldn’t contain.

[Emerald]

"You're not in much of a hurry for someone who's about to get eaten alive," Emerald observed sardonically. Nevertheless, she produced her comlink and held it at the ready. "Now's your chance."

 

The connection of her comm to Sapphire's meant that the reaction of the voiceprinted lockboxes to his command would tell them instantly whether or not the poacher had told the truth.

 

Though, Emerald thought with half a grin, she never would have extended him the same courtesy.

 

She halfway hoped he would lie to them; allowing for the droid to send his pulverized body as a parting gift down the corridor to the psychotic furballs that had wrested control of the ship would mean a simplified retreat, and cleanse her conscience in the meantime. In any case, as Sapphire had suggested, they certainly had other ways of getting inside those boxes. This would be the easiest way, but in either case, she was not about to risk her own life to save some half-witted redneck scum from the mutant boma bears that chattered and clamored in the direction of the cockpit.

[Pinckz]

Never taking his eyes off the pirate, Malin's bright pale blues took on an unusual solemnity. Until now, the smuggler enjoyed a great deal of flavor and fun. But, startlingly, his big blue eyes began to water ever so slightly. And yet, he didn't turn away. He did not hide his tears. He knew she'd probably be lying. He knew more ferocious furry mongrels were probably on their way. In fact, although he was certain he'd cleaned the floor behind him, loud chittering noises echoed off the durasteel deck plates. They'd be in soon and he would need to hurry.

 

He leaned in closer to the comm link and adjusted the distance between himself and Emerald until the faint scent of his juma berry shampoo filled the air. It tickled the overall cocktail of sweat and exertion, but even in the midst of battle and destruction, the sweet smell of fruit was undeniable.

 

The smuggler tilted his head close to the audio receiver.

 

Small warm hands opened and closed tentatively in the center of his big scarred, calloused ones. Grasping, the tiny curious fingers made their way to his trigger finger and held on with all their little might. And then, just like that, the feeling was gone. Silent tears ran fresh down the smuggler's weary face but he cleared his voice and spoke plainly into the microphone.

 

"I will always love you, my little Felicity."

[Sapphire]

As the scoundrel's last word came over the comm, there was a click and hiss, and the boxes unlocked. Sapphire was a tiny bit disappointed; it was always fun to hack a complicated system, especially when there was the threat of it blowing up in her face if she made a mistake. "They're open, Em!" she hollered. "Get out of there, now!"

 

She ordered the droids to finish securing the now unlocked crates, and to stand guard over them. Then she ran up to the cockpit and started the procedures required to untether from the other ship. Emerald had thirty seconds to get back through the docking tube; the red-head only hoped she wouldn't bring any nasty critters with her.

[fuzzy_ewok]

At the bridge, the two Ewoks struggling with the controls finally wriggled there way back down to the consoles, and one re-established the gravity, bringing everything down with a crash. Two seconds later, the gravity shut-off again as the Ewoks devolved into an argument over: 1) Whether it was cool or not to float and 2) Whether or not having not gravity would make it easier to find and catch their prey and bring it back home. The net effect was the two Ewoks, fighting over the console, caused the gravity to shut off, then suddenly turn back on, every couple of seconds.

 

The three Ewoks trying to close in on the meat found this disturbing. They missed Main completely, and their tiny, spinning furry bodies were also hard to hit targets as well, adding to the confusion, at least until they got vaporized into char. A few if Malin's shots came close before then, singeing the fur off one Ewok's backside, causing a loud yelp and then more cursing in Ewok before it was taken. They were joined by their clanmate, who, only having his spear, launched himself forward, crawling, then jumping, having enough sense to stay close the ground as the gravity seemed to randomly turn on, then off. He caught the end of the fight and tried to claw his way closer. One fuzzy paw latched onto Malin's ankle and his spear raised back, ready for shish kabob.

 

Meanwhile, the Ewoks, still fighting at the controls got really into it and started slamming other buttons. There was a red alarm sound and the ship's cargo bay started to open up again, causing decompression, along with all of the other hatches and doors. Gravity was shut off a final time as they found themselves not only launched away from the console, but slowly being drawn out of the cockpit, feeling the air remove itself.

 

"Yub yub?"

"Yub woohoo!"

[Pinckz]

Within the odd clarity of Malin’s emotional moment, wriggling between the tingling phantom sensations upon the rough skin of his palm, something wooly latched to his ankle. A sharp instinct pounded the back of his skull and he reacted by rolling the other direction, strafing across the broadside of the droid’s shield. Unfortunately, the Ewok’s weapon still dug into the ankle of his left foot, further mangling the terrible wound and ripping the cauterization apart, which caused a pool of blood to gather in the air (due to the lack of gravity). Still gripping his military-issued DL-44’s as he turned to face the malicious muppet, he aimed at the center of its head and gave a swift click of the trigger, blowing what was left of its irradiated skull to the depths of wherever it crawled from.

 

It was a tragic yet merciful end compared to the deaths that these rankling ragamuffins caused. And yet, there was a type of poetry to it. And, as Malin began to muse on the finer points of his success, he could feel the subtle drag of pressure against him, pushing with increasing intensity as time drew onward.

 

Gorram it…

He wasn’t sure of it. But dread built up in his gut like a titanic kidney stone. Thinking quickly, the smuggler holstered his weapons and grabbed at his coat. But, when the push dragged him into the droid's ray shields, he realized that the breach wasn't on his side. It seemed implausible, but the mongrels must've blown through a room on that side. Of course, they could have accidentally opened the cargo-bay doors, but he wasn't sure exactly how bright they were. What he did know was that, if he didn't remedy this situation, his only shot at a way out of here would be sucked out into space. Yes, she wasn't the best person in his world right now; yes, she did try to kill him, but if Malin gauged value on who did and didn't try to kill him, he'd have no friends.

 

Malin's pale blue eyes flicked to the crew quarters down the hall. The door was open with dried blood crusting on the entryway. He wasn't sure whose blood it was, but he didn't have an abundance of time to consider it, nor did he have the energy to invest on speculation. It did him nothing. And it only took his mind off of the subtle loss of pressure that spread throughout the ship.

 

When, through a creative use of floating and grappling, the weary smuggler made it to the crew quarters and the console on the wall, he looked at a readout of the ship's systems. It was small and it didn't include the suite of different options offered in the cockpit, considering that the panel was rigged to the crew quarters. However, every console featured an emergency command. That emergency command would lock all bulkheads, doors, and viewports. The crew wasn't able to get their way to a console earlier. And even if they did, they weren't sure if they were going to seal themselves in a room with a rabid teddy bear or not. But, seeing as how there were few of the malicious meddlers left, and even fewer poachers left, Malin saw no harm in triggering the emergency protocol and locking down the ship. With a few flicks and switches, Malin initiated the lockdown and tried to float his way back toward the droids.

 

It would be a tight fit because one of the bulkheads was only a foot away from the ray wall that the droid's had established, but Malin found a way to cram himself between the bulkhead and the shield before the former could crush his foolish self into a meaty paste.

 

From the other side of the ray shield, his face pressed to the energy like an immature child flattening his face against a transparisteel window, it was hard to make out the pirate. But Malin was a bit out of luck for options at the moment. He attempted to signal to her in askance for her to fufill her part of the bargain. But his fate was really up in the air at this point.

[Emerald]

Up. Wave of nausea.

 

Down. Cold, hard deck.

 

Up. Dizzy freefall.

 

Down. Cold, hard deck.

 

Up. Decompression.

 

Decompression?

 

Shavit.

 

The Mistryl curse flashed through her mind to the punctuating sound of the hissing of blast doors, and from her vantage point halfway down the hallway, Emerald watched her redheaded cohort disappear behind plate steel and the heavy airlock.

 

Out of the gundark's nest into the rancor's den. This whole caper seemed doomed to failure.

 

"You kriffing lunatic!" she screamed at the ray shield as the clueless face of the smuggler peered at her from the other side. "You locked us in here with the damn furballs?!"

 

The wall served as her launching pad, a strong kick sending her floating in zero-grav to grab hold of the back of one of the Lemnos droids that stood resolute to maintain the ray shield. Now, if she could only figure out how to keep the poacher and the post-apocalyptic furballs on that side while sending the droids to blast her escape route on this side.

 

With a tap on the shoulder of Deimos-1006, she jerked a thumb in the direction of the airlock. The other droid stayed behind, impassive even in the attempts of the wounded smuggler on the other side to make contact, the shield still sealing the whole of the passageway, though any assault would find it less fortified than previously.

 

Ten-oh-six, however, plodded with magnetized feet along the corridor, dragging the hovering Hapan behind him, until he stood mere meters from the airlock door, his facets dissolving and folding out of sight to produce his impressive arsenal of standard weaponry.

 

Emerald flicked her right rear molar with her tongue, the comm activated once more. "Sapph, stay back and set up a shield on your side. I'm gonna kick the door down."

[Sapphire]

Back in the cockpit of the Glory, Sapphire was just ready to separate the ships and get away from this mess when the readout from her scanners indicated a depressurization on the other ship. She swore aloud, and with the tiniest moment of hesitation, cancelled the detachment procedures, leaving them in standby.

 

“BB-666! Get in here!” she shouted as she pulled out her datapad. The black droid rolled up after a moment, and she immediately linked her pad with his datajack. “Time to show off all that fancy circuitry. Get me a link with that ship’s computer.” The droid whistled excitedly. Meanwhile, Sapphire began coding. If she couldn’t wrestle control of the ship from a bunch of glorified teddy bears, then she’d never be able to show her face to Ruby again. Her fingers flew, and at just the right moment, the BB droid whistled confirmation.

 

“Excellent!” A moment later, her code was input, and the computer hesitated only briefly before she had full control over the system. It was a simple program, really, much akin to setting up a slave rig on the poachers’ ship. Every ship was different of course, but at the heart, they were all the same, and Sapphire had done something like this before, a few years ago.

 

Just then, Emerald’s voice came over her internal comm. “No, don’t!” Sapphire returned. “Hold off just a moment!” A few taps of her fingers disabled the cockpit controls, then another few taps sealed the external hatches and doors that had opened themselves and sent the ship into repressurization. Then Sapphire opened the airlock hatch on the other ship’s side. “Okay, get in here, now!” she commed back to Emerald. While the hatch was sliding open, she switched over to the internal cameras, flicking through them rapidly to see if all the Ewoks were dead yet. They weren’t.

 

A slow smile spread over her face. That was something she could quickly fix. One more signal set the ship’s automatic self-destruct. A calm feminine voice began counting down one minute over the speakers on the ship. The pirates had until then to detach and get away, and if Emerald moved, they’d be clear of the blast by the time the other ship blew itself and its cannibalistic commandeerers to space dust.

[fuzzy_ewok]

The last two Ewoks aboard the ship realized they were in deep trouble. The rushing sounds of wind told them that the ship was decompressing and for their part, they didn't intend to go down with it, even if they became its unofficial captains with the actual captain having been eaten.

 

They weren't in a position to interfere with the escaping trio, and the sudden count down from one minute gave them pause. Those basic words sounded like the words used when the commanders were counting down to launch bombs. The big flashy kinds that lit up the sky and made you go blind if you looked right at them. Or made where if you got too close, you'd either start growing really big, strong and green when angry, or in about every other case except or that one-off, just get sick and have your fur fall out.

 

One tried running into the ship's mess, kicking off walls in the zero-G and using his spear to pull himself on. He called out to his his friend:

 

"Yub yub!"

 

And with that, the tiny Ewok ran into the ship's refrigerator, hoping it was lead-lined, sealing it shut behind him.

 

The other, stared, sure that wasn't actually the legendary Han Solo he was thinking of, but having no better options since the icy cold jaws of space and death awaited, joined him in the fridge.

[Emerald]

"Aye, Captain," Emerald muttered with a grin. To the Deimos droids, she hollered, "Let's go, boys!"

 

Arms wrapped around the first droid's neck, she brought her feet neatly down behind him as he plodded towards the airlock, such that when she entered the artificial gravity of the disguised Glory, it didn't end with her facefirst in the decking. A total of ten seconds saw her feet back on solid ground. The other droid, who stood in the corridor maintaining the ray shield, held the teary-eyed poacher at bay. For a moment, Emerald considered the bargain she had struck with the unfortunate spacer.

 

But only for a moment.

 

A sharp whistle alerted the droid that she had made it safely back to the ship. The hum of the shield plunged in intonation, dropping its pitch as it evaporated into nothingness, the heavy mechanical footsteps of the war droid reverberating as its magnetized movement carried it towards the airlock, irrespective of the lack of gravity within the poachers' vessel.

 

Emerald trained her blaster down the hallway, prepared to drop the man should he try and take advantage of the release of the ray shield in the thirty seconds remaining before the ship blew itself into space dust.

 

"We're on board, let's go," she yelled in the direction of the cockpit.

 

Head tilted as she grinned evilly at the poacher, finger on the trigger and every muscle primed to blow him away, she called, "Sorry, pal. Rescue missions aren't good business."

[Pinckz]

The droid walked, his ray-shield fizzling into dazzling sparks and the guns on his chest priming with all the force Malin needed to stay away.

 

The Ewok corpses floated aimlessly, like a trio of macabre party balloons. Their weapons, crude and useless, floated along with them.

 

All that remained were Malin and Emerald; Emerald stood on solid ground, feet away, the brilliant eyes of her namesake glistening under the low light. Malin floated a foot or two above the ground, his ravaged leg throbbing with phantom pain. His own eyes, focused on freedom and the corridor behind her, were shrouded by hovering viscera.

 

Fog filled his mind. Ideas sprung like wildflowers, tempting his hand or his good leg to push from the bulkhead and jettison his body into countless unknowns. He looked at the door closed on the other side, picking apart the steel, looking for the smallest fissure or crack. He tensed his hands, moments away from another spherical surprise or his faithful iron sights. Yet, Malin’s hands scurried away to the safety of his duster. The leather pockets felt warm and comfortable. And, with the casual gesture of someone who had an unhealthy habit, Malin withdrew his last cigarette and lit it with a small rusted lighter he kept right beside it. The initials ‘H.O’ were scrawled on the side, and could vaguely be seen before he placed the lighter back in his pocket.

 

“That it is darlin', that it is,” Malin said, tipping his wide-brimmed hat to Emerald and resting his somber electric blue eyes on her greedy stare. “You run along now, mustn’t keep your conscience waitin'.”

 

Malin drifted back a little, letting the flat back of his duster rub against the metal bulkhead and the brim of his hat to cover all but one eye and the tip of his cigarette. “You know where I’ll be.”

[Sapphire]

Emerald's shout carried through the ship's hallways, signalling that she was clear. Sapphire slammed the other ship's airlock closed, detached the docking tube, and then closed their own. Detaching took only moments, and then Sapphire gunned the engines and raised the shields.

 

The self-destruct continued to count down on the other ship, ticking slowly away....3...2....1...

 

And then in a bizarre twist of movie magic, the countdown stopped at 1, the self-destruct frozen one second away from blowing the ship to oblivion.

 

Not that the Gems knew or even cared. The disguised Glory high-tailed it out of the system, and as soon as they were clear of the planet's gravity well, jumped to hyperspace, their cargo hold full of appropriated goods.

[fuzzy_ewok]

The Ewoks heard the countdown reach one and winced and braced themselves, waiting for the inevitable explosion as the countdown reached one. The waited for the big, Forest-Moon Shattering kaboom... and then nothing. They looked at each other, one shrugging. On Endor, Supreme Glorious Leader Willet made sure if there was a countdown, there was always an explosion, so this defied logic.

 

How did this happen?

 

A few days back there was an unlucky, unlikely member of the Ewok raiding party. Mi'tchalad the Skull Eater, Crusher of Bones, Devourer of Sentients, and Welder of the 12-Fold Spear. He was also known as Mitch for short. A fierce warrior, he also had an incredible sweet tooth. He was relentless in scouring the poacher ship for signs of meat, even getting into a small crawl space near the ship's engines, using a stolen flashlight. One poacher had been flushed out by his efforts before. Now he found something that interested him. Off marooned space farers and even more hapless poachers in the past, Mitch discovered the joys of candy. There was one that translated out to Wrapzlers, red spun pieces of sweet candy in little vines. There was either a whole bunch of wires or a while bunch of Wrapzlers in this crawl space. Mitch, trusting it was the latter, bared his tiny Ewok teeth and took a big old bite.

 

He was promptly electrocuted to death and his charred corpse remained stuck to the very frayed wire, which finally broke when null gravity lifted his burnt corpse away and ultimately stopped the countdown.

 

The two Ewoks decide to finally get out of the fridge. They pull and push at the handle. They were very stuck.

 

"Garooooo!" warned one.

[Pinckz]

Here lies the incredibly unfortunate and incredibly good-looking roguish Malin who foolishly ran off in the hopes of relieving yet another debt...

 

3

 

Force only knows what Malin was thinking when he ambled out to Endor. And after Malin gave fond farewells to, his boot, 'Lefty,' Juk, Jim, Jaro, Hairlip, Leffim, and the rest, Malin prepared to kiss his ass goodbye…

 

2

 

He will be missed by very few. And the few friends he made in his history will remember him fondly while drinking hard liquor and enjoying life in his absence…

 

1

 

Malin squeezed his eyelids together and gripped the handle of one of his guns, preparing his mind and body to feel the full force of the explosion. He would not greet death without a gun in his hand. His grip tightened, white knuckles on steel. He even said a silent prayer as he closed out his mock sermon. But, just as he began to sing the final notes of his own ballad, the stillness of the ship’s air filters brushed against his nose.

 

Cautiously, he opened his eyes and re-adjusted to the fluorescent light. The wearied smuggler looked around at the three locked doors and the fizzing light above him.

 

Either this was a facsimile of Purgatory, or nothing happened…

 

"Well... that was anti-climactic" Malin commented to no one in particular.

 

The pain in his leg throbbed dully, but the blood had stopped for the moment. He would need to bandage it soon, but the light touch of gravity was a boon. Less pressure on his leg granted him a decent level of mobility. He looked to the nearest control panel and found that the triggers for the bulkheads were locked. He would have to open them manually. Joy.

 

Malin grunted and floated his way around the small enclosure, keeping his eyes peeled for any sudden movements. He figured that all the furry buggers were dead, but he wasn’t about to go check. It was just a footnote observation as he sailed over to one of the bulkheads and started the arduous process of cracking open the manual override compartment and pulling the lever with loose hands. He placed his gun back in its holster and gripped the glaring red plastic with his calloused hands. But he had to use his entire body to provide enough leverage to trigger the mechanism. Gravity was a tricky thing and you never knew how much you missed it until it was gone.

 

When the lock clicked and the bulkhead released, Malin spotted another bulkhead a few feet away and groaned.

 

This was going to be a lot harder than he thought.

 

_____

 

Hours passed.

 

Malin had manually made his way to the cockpit and not only disabled the emergency code, but also released all the ship-based door locks and regulated the gravity. The doors between corridors and the sealed bulkheads were now removed and the rest of the ship was accessible. The self-destruct was disabled and he was balancing himself with a broken spear, which was loaned to him by a deceased Ewok. More repairs were necessary. He was glad that the poachers thought to put enough fuel in the ship to get them where they needed to go; and even happier that the Ewoks had not sabotaged the fuel. But the little terror teddies had bitten through a lot of the ship’s systems. Not to mention, there were a plethora of corpses that were smelling up the place and causing quite a few tremors to build in the ailing smuggler’s stomach.

 

Hyperdrive systems were disabled. Life support systems, though stable, needed a little tuning. Electrical connections to certain ship terminals were chewed clean through. Plating in certain places needed to be replaced. And, to top it off, watching the onboard ship surveillance, which was surprisingly untouched, he found that two Ewoks had not only found their way into the galley, but they had locked themselves in a refrigerator. Why? That was anyone’s guess.

 

But, for now, there were bigger nuna to roast.

 

Malin hobbled his way down the blood-strewn corridors to the med bay. It wasn’t a fully stocked infirmary with all the trimmings. And, between the poachers and Ewoks, it had seen better days. But it had a decent stock of medical supplies and all the supplies were in locked cabinets, inaccessible to the mangy moppets unless they smashed them apart. Which, the Ewoks had attempted to do. Some of the cabinets were smashed to pieces with medical tools scattered everywhere. Some Ewok carcasses were riddled with needles puncturing their furry remains. Others died clutching burn patches and medical tape. Yet, Malin managed to find a few of the cabinets that were still untouched. He worked his way over to one and pulled a small sliver of metal from the space behind his ear. He worked the little piece of metal into the lock affixed to the side of the box and pressed his ear to the metal of the lock. Nothing happened.

 

Malin grunted a little, re-examined the lock and placed the sliver back into the opening, working it around. He felt the tumblers of the rudimentary lock flick the edge of his pick and remembered that he needed another piece of metal to turn the lock and activate the mechanism. It didn’t take much snooping. The floor was littered with glittering pieces of broken metal and glass. Malin glanced at a broken syringe on the ground and grabbed the metal part. He pried it into the small hole, wrenched it around with his metal pick and heard a satisfying click. The cabinet opened, revealing antiseptic, bandages, and a few other medicinal items.

 

Malin grabbed greedily for the medicine and fell backward onto the floor, griping at the spike of pain that afflicted his leg. That evil witch…

 

The Smuggler struggled to his feet – well, more like ‘foot’ – and grabbed for the antiseptic. He turned, levying himself on an examination table, removed the stopper and applied it to his wound, wincing as the chemicals neutralized the building infection. He grabbed a few stabilizing metal and wood pieces from the weapons that littered the med bay and tied them together with the bandages and medical tape from the cabinet, fashioning a very crude splint. He looked down at the bundle and grimaced. But, there was medicine on his wounds and they were bandaged. Anything else was just icing on an unfortunate cake.

 

Deciding against bothering the Ewoks sandwiched in the galley, for the time being, Malin set out on the various repairs, prioritizing the hyperdrive and life support.

 

___

 

 

More hours passed...

 

The hyperdrive was… Kind of fixed. Malin was skilled with improvised solutions. But he didn’t have the proper tools to completely fix the drive. It had a few jumps at best, but it would break down when they got core-ward. The Life Support on the other hand only had a few hiccups in its internal wiring system. With minor adjustments, the ventilation systems regulated and finally managed to properly circulate the stale air.

 

After that was finished, Malin started looting and skinning. He fleeced all the dead poachers, and skinned the useable fur from the dead Ewoks, hefting the furs into a crate and putting all the poacher’s belongings into a big bag. It wasn’t his best moment. But there was no sense in leaving the stuff lying around. That and the corpses were starting to become a nuisance. When he found the time, he dragged all the visible corpses to the airlock chamber and flushed them into space.

 

When it was all over, the Smuggler finally collapsed into the pilot’s chair and sighed deeply. He rubbed at the grease covered, sweat-matted, blood caked skin of his left and right temples and lit one of the cigarettes he ‘liberated’ from one of the dead poachers.

 

His bones were rattling. He’d left his hat on the cockpit control panel before he went to make repairs and now his hair was a brackish mess of black and brown. Sleep plagued the deepest parts of his mind. Yet, the thought of Ewoks in the fridge plagued him deeper still.

 

It had been almost half a day, they might be dead. He thought. But, if they weren’t dead, they could take advantage of his fatigue.

 

Malin’s thoughts turned to thoughts of sleep, but nightmares of frozen Ewoks prayed on the fringe of his hopeful ideal.

 

Gorram it…

Malin pushed himself out of the comfort of the pilot’s chair and limped to the galley. He found a table close by, used it to hold himself up, grabbed one of his DL-44’s and poked at the door of the fridge with the broken spear he was using as a crutch. He didn’t unlock the fridge, he simply pounded at the door and talked to the metal as if the Ewoks could understand him.

 

“Hey, you alive in there?” Malin said. His voice was hoarse, but he managed to raise it enough that anyone or anything in the fridge would be able to hear.

[Pinckz]

The smuggler prodded at the metal door of the fridge once more, prompting the carpet chipmunks to say something. But all he got was the subtle hum of the ship’s life support. So, shuffling his way over to the door with his gun and his crutch, Malin pulled at the door to release it from its resting place. It was a little difficult. Malin fell once or twice to the harsh tile floor before the door finally popped open, revealing two – very dead – Ewoks. They’d died from suffocation; being locked in a fridge with no airholes for twelve plus hours will do that to you.

 

He darn near fired at the corpses before hauling them out, but when they didn’t move, he pulled them in earnest and skinned them when he gathered them all together. All told, he had about five furs in scrap, two pristine furs, and about five hundred thousand credits in valuables and poacher loot. Today was a very interesting day.

 

Exhausted, pained, and vulnerable, the Smuggler dragged himself and his haul to the cockpit and plotted a course to an unmarked destination near Coruscant.