Soldiers of the Stars

Chapter 19: It's My Duty

FALLEEN, SEPARATIST INTERNMENT OUTPOST GAMMA

(CT-8628) WEAVE 

     Shouting rose from the cargo hold. "Is it possible for Bob and Mess to go five minutes without arguing?" I asked no one in particular. The commotion grew. "You wanna deal with this?" I leaned towards Peaches.

     He held his hands up. "Not my circus, not my Kowakians."

     I sucked in a deep breath. Bob and Mess were going to be the death of me. I rounded the corridor to the cargo hold, ready to snap, but held my words as I came face to face with an angry Contrail, who slowly tore his gaze away from the ship's diagnostics monitor. Bob and Mess dropped their heads down from behind him. "What did you do to my ship?" Contrail paused between each word, brows furrowed. The tattoo of contrail lines on his right temple folded as his right eye twitched.

     "Hey, I'm just the co-pilot." I held up my hands.

     Contrail forced a laugh, rubbing the side of his head. "Oh, ok. So it's only half of your fault."

     "We're alive, aren't we," I blurted out, restating the argument Peaches made to me moments ago. I should have held my tongue because the second those words left my mouth, the ship dramatically shifted to one side with a mighty crash. I braced myself against the ship's walls to keep from falling over. Bob and Mess both wore horrified bulging eyes and shaky smiles. While they remained silent, I could register their collective single thought. More bats. Unfortunately, our situation was much worse. Carefully minding each step, I followed Contrail off the shuttle to examine Peaches' wonderful landing skills.

     "My ship! Well, isn't this just peachy keen," Contrail spoke through gritted teeth as Peaches came up beside us. The shuttle lied on its left side. The front landing gears were no longer attached. Panels on the wings and hull were either loose or missing. However, the newly installed power cells were perfectly in place.

     Peaches glanced between Contrail and the ship a few times, his helmet exaggerating each movement. "Could be–"

     "Worse?" I finished. I gestured to the outpost, "There is no way they didn't hear that. Looking at our track record for this mission, I bet they're sending their sentries right now to investigate." We turned to look over our shoulders, watching the pathway to the outpost very closely. Nothing. "How long will it take to fix her up?"

     Contrail studied the damage to the hull. "The undercarriage retractile system is shot. When we leave we aren't gonna have any landing gear. That's the least of our problems. Our spoilers took some serious damage, but it's nothing I can't fix." He brushed the side of the shuttle as if he were comforting it. "I'll get this handled. It'll be ready for takeoff by the time you get Balao and Topknot back."

     Bob crept out from the shuttle, Mess hiding behind him. After a thorough scan of our surroundings, Bob quickly straightened his posture. "So what's our plan?"

     A distant pair of voices bounced off the cavern's walls, working its way toward us. Bob and Mess, currently the only two with blasters, jumped in front of us, pushing us behind them for protection. Two Falleen sentries marched their way up the cavern's pathway. It wasn't clear if they could see us, but we could see them as clear as day by the brilliance of their glowrods. One sentry stood tall and proud, roughly the average clone height, while the other stood taller and more built. They were both in long black and purple robes trimmed with bronze, long black hair tied back in a high ponytail protruding through the top of the huge bronze helmets that covered the majority of their faces, and heavy bronze armor with sharp and jagged edges. We remained frozen as they neared us.