Star Wars: Offspring

Chapter 3

On the bridge of the Perseverence, Huhunna sat behind the navigator seat. Fidgeting, agitated, her light brown fur ruffled and standing on end in some places. How could she let the man Jace Diran convince her to watch his youngling and stay out of the battle when her offspring was in danger. These Jedi were overconfident. But if she was honest, she’d have to admit the fact that she was the best pilot among the three and her rage and anger would probably cause her to misstep and ruin the element of surprise.

Amidst her fuming, she felt the tugging of little hands on the fur of her leg. She looked down to see Leelah looking back up, a wide playful grin on her little face. “Doggie, Nuuna. Doggie Nuuna.” Hununna stood, let out a huge Wookie sigh and barked out a short grunt, gesturing with her head. Leelah gigged and grinned bigger, the coast was clear. The little girl started the two meter climb up. Gripping handfuls of fur at a time the toddler climbed up the back of the Wookie until she hooked her legs around her neck and sat on Huhunna’s shoulders. It was a ritual she’d gotten used to over the past few months being with the humans and their Duros friend. The Wookie sat down, giving Leelah more room to bounce and play on her shoulders, occasionally enduring a painful tug on her fur.

There was a ping on the navigator’s console. Jace Diran’s voice followed. “Huhunna, I have a large grouping of life forms several meters away from our position. It looks like they’re too clumped together to get an accurate head count. Fire up Peedee-three and send him up overhead.” PD-3 was a semi automated drone droid that Diran used for surveillance and assault. The remote pilot could control the drone and control its suspended blaster mounts.

Huhunna was curious what Diran’s plan was and grunted out an inquiry.

“Well, here’s what we’re gonna do …” he couldn’t finish the sentence. His daughter had recognized his voice even distorted and crackled by low band frequency noise.

“Dadeee!” Leelah piped in, wiggling and bouncing at the sound of his voice. If she was smiling earlier, she was reflecting sunlight now.

“Hi sweetie, Daddy’s just playing with some friends…” she stopped wiggling. “Anyways I’m going to distract them, get the caravan to stop. Brine’s going to start picking them off from the underbrush, make them panick. You use Peedee’s turrets to cause more confusion from up above. I’ll break out the lightsaber, lizard parts will fly everywhere…”

“Daddeee … fight? Daddee … fight?” Her eyes seemed to double in size, she balled both fists and held them close to her body. Huhunna snored the Wookie version of a giggle.

“No baby, we’re rescuing some friends.” His voice changed to the patronizing, artificial tone adult use when they are lying to their kids. He quickly recovered his intensity. “And so … I’m going to need the five pack of stim-syringes out of the med bay after everyone is … down. After the coast is clear, I need you to break into the wooden crates and inject Mawrowyr and the rest of the captives and get everyone back to the Perseverance.”

Huhunna made another inquiring growl.

“I don’t know, Wookie-smash it or something, I think it’s just wood.”

Huhunna argued with him insinuating that it was ridiculous to imprison a wooking in a wooden cell.

“That’s why they sedate them so they can’t smash through it, I don’t even think they use manacles on them.”

Huhunna struck the console and roared. The thought of her son so helpless and vulnerable made her angry. She started a series of enraged roars and grunts.

“Easy, easy, girl! Easy.” He had to control the volume of his voice. Speaking over her he reasoned with the Wookie. “I need you to stay there and pilot the drone, okay … shoot Trandoshans. Once everything is clear you can come down and get your son and his friends but until then we need the cover fire from the drone.”

Huhunna grunted once more in resignation and concentrated on the view screen. In minutes, she had the drone sky high over their location. The overhead count was seven. She moved her large Wookie paws across the control board with fluency and accuracy one would think uncommon for such a large and primitive looking creature. She uplinked the images to Brine’s hand held scanner.

 

Out in the trees, a green light on Brine’s scanner blinked and a real-time video feed overlaid the map. “Looks like seven of them, sir. The scanner must have gotten muddled by the life forms … err… Wookies in the crates. I’ve got two ridin’ a dewback, two on either side guardin’ ‘em. There’s two more coverin’ both sides of the crates and one bringin’ up the rear coverin’ their tail.” He looked up at Jace.

“Outgunned.” Jace stated with eyebrow raised

“Outnumbered.” Brine answered

“Unprepared.” The human smiled.

“Underestimated.” His Duros friend retured.

“Let’s do it.” They said in unison, bumping forearms. Brine slung his refurbished DXR-6 Disruptor rifle over his shoulder and sprinted across the dirt path and found cover in the trees. His grey-green skin blended in with the shadows of the desaturated tree bark. He’d have to be invisible but at the same time be able to survey the whole field of conflict. He had an advantage over his human associate, the Duros species didn’t exude one tenth the natural oils and sweat that humans did. For that reason, the Trandoshans and their heightened sense of smell would not detect him in the trees amongst the other natural life of the forest.

Since humans could be smelled from a quarter meter away, it would be Jace Diran’s job to be the distraction. Jace rummaged through some of the wreckage that lay in the forest until he felt a twinge of inspiration.