Star Wars: Tears of Fire (Book II)

Chapter 12 - Thief in the Night

"Well it wasn't me! And it wasn't you. So who was it?"

An aggravated Vess paced back and forth in front of the large dark green shuttle. It sat with its wings folded upward towards the rear of the hangar on the large Selvarian ship known as the Liberator.

Hepka stood stationary as he watched the short but visibly agitated Latero pace in front of him. Still pacing as Hepka watched on, Vess folded his top set of arms as he rested the hands from his bottom set on his hips.

"I don't know of anyone among us who would have the mechanical expertise to disable the quantum drive of the shuttle," Hepka replied calmly. "Nor would they have reason to."

"Was it an animal?" Vess asked. "Do they have animals like that on this world? You know, those clever ones that can open doors and such? I'll ask Shayla! She's from this planet."

"I very much doubt it was an animal, Vess," Hepka uttered as he held his hands out in front of him, doing his best to calm the shorter figure before him. "There was a unique skill set involved with this, and not something the wild behavior of even the most clever creature could understand."

Stopping in front of Hepka, Vess asked, "But who? And more importantly, why?"

"Are you certain it wasn't already like this when we regained our own consciousness?"

"Yes! Well...almost yes," replied Vess. "I was here when the Trandoshan leader at the time—Nhos, I think his name was—landed after his last trip to Selvaria. No issues were reported but admittedly, I wouldn't have been the first to know. Then they had a few of their own issues after the locals blew up their command ship. I think Shayla hinted that she may have killed Nhos. She has a talent for that, you know."

"I think it's best that we look at what we know," Hepka expressed after a deep breath. "The shuttle is here and operational but there's a problem that is present with the quantum drive. A drive, I might add, that is beyond our own mechanical expertise to understand."

"Hey, give me some credit!" exclaimed Vess. "I was one of the pilots on the Liberator so I had to know how to fly everything, including this shuttle!"

"You're also the only pilot we have left but continue, please."

Slightly annoyed, Vess proceeded to make his point.

"I know this shuttle from the inside out which is why I was poking around in here to begin with." Tapping a finger against his head, Vess remarked, "Our previous overlords were kind enough to upload all of the information on it into my noggin here."

"So is it repairable?"

Tilting his large head back and narrowing his eyes towards Hepka, Vess inquired further.

"Why do you ask that? You planning a getaway anytime soon?"

The audible sound of Hepka sighing as he lowered his head was enough of an answer.

"C'mon, take a joke. Yes, it's repairable. And you're in luck. I'm probably the only person on this planet who knows how to fix this thing. Actually, I've found a few ways to improve upon it too. I mean, I'm no hive mind engineer like the ones back on Selvaria. It looks like the quantum drive does what it does well but not the most efficiently."

"How so?" inquired Hepka.

"The quantum drive accelerates the ship many times faster than that of conventional ship engines like the ones on the Liberator and it enters something called quantum space. Super scientific stuff, I know but I think it could be even faster and more efficient."