"Canonical Gas."

By: Anthony Hummerston.

STARRING

'Mama',   Rojic,   Jimmi,   Karnov,   Niall,   Kory,  
And introducing:
Joe-90 Hen3ry and'Lucky.' and 'Blinkie.'
as the droids.

AND
Storm Cutter
their ship.

“Of course,” says Kory, “I’d build a super weapon out of the remains of the previously destroyed Death Star space station. – And I’d have at least fifty cruisers on standby and an entire legion of my best pilots at the ready.”

“But why would you want to build such a thing?”

Kory looks sheepish. “I’m just massaging my ego. Nothing more. A megalomaniac is a person too you know!”

“So how are you going to fund this elaborate project?”

“Simple. I’ll make a fortune selling this crap and retire on the proceeds. This time next year, I’ll be a millionaire!”

Rojic interrupts. “Me too! In fact I’ll be a multi billionaire!”

Niall looks over at him. “I don’t know where you get your delusions, lightsabre-removed-brains!”

Karnov coughs. All this behaviour is conduct rather unbecoming the finest representatives of the Republic, especially as there is a prisoner in their midst. Niall is suddenly rather more business-like. “In the meantime, what are we to do with the prisoner?”

“Take him to the ship and throw him in the brig! Throw away the key! Feed him bread and bilge water!”

Jimmi is shocked. “What?”

But the others all pile in with suggestions.

“Soak him in oil until he sprouts a flipper.”

“Give him a taste of the bosun’s rope-end.”

“Stick on his back a mustard plaster.”

Jimmi interrupts before they get to the bit about the rusty razor. “I’m sure there’s a song in there somewhere!”

“Not the kind that you sing at the ambassador’s dinner!”

Rojic disagrees. “Oh I don’t know, I’d give it a try.”

“Rojic, there’s no way you’d be invited to the ambassador’s dinner. Unless it was Christmas and they tried to pass off Toydarian as turkey.”

“What kind of sauce do you have with roast Toydarian?”

“Concentrated bhut jolokia sauce. It’s the only thing that’ll take away the taste of the main course!”

“Actually we don’t have a brig. Nor do we have bilges. Or rusty razors. If you throw away the key, you can’t feed him bread, because the door’s locked. You should think about these things.”

“Okay. I get the point. Throw him in the secret smuggling compartment then.”

“Shhh! It’s supposed to be a secret!”

Karnov starts leading the prisoner away. Niall shouts after him. “-And Karnov!”

“Yes?”

“Remember to take out all the guns first, there’s a good chap!”

Karnov gives Niall a sarcastic smile. Then when he’s out of sight, he ties a knot in a tentacle to help him remember.

Niall turns back to the shuttle. “Now to business!”

“To business!” Rojic echoes.

“What?”

“Oh I’m sorry I thought that you were proposing a toast!”

“We’re not at the ambassador’s dinner now, you know!” Jimmi reminds him.

“How about some fruit-bread?”

“Always thinking with your stomach, Rojic. Besides, that stuff is rocket fuel.”

“How so?”

Jimmi sighs. “Let’s just say it produces a lot of gas. -Never a good idea on board a hermetically sealed spaceship.”

“I need ‘rocket fuel’ to stay buoyant. –And next time we’re in space, and it smells a bit, open the window!” Rojic says, somewhat unhelpfully.

“Now there’s a bit of sage advice.”

“Sage? Isn’t that a herb in the mint family?”

Jimmi shrugs and sighs. “See what I mean? Eat, eat, eat!”

Niall needs some information. “Rojic, how much and how long will it take to fix this shuttle?”

Rojic looks. He frowns. He shakes his head. He strokes his whiskers. He flaps around the shuttle before hovering in front of the others. There is a sharp intake of breath, and he theatrically takes a pencil and sticks it behind his ear. He looks grave. “It’ll be several hundred hours of specialist work. I’m estimating around thirty-million credits." The others look stunned. Rojic’s serious look is punctuated by the pencil dropping from behind his ear. It also punctures the mood. ^{[ 57 ]}

Niall isn’t in the mood for games and theatrics. He carefully arranges an ‘I’m going to slap you in a minute’ look on his face. Rojic stops messing about.

“Okay. Well, the hyper-drive motivator is depolarised, and needs recharging.”

Niall says, “I’ll give you two-and-a-half credits and half an hour.”

“Surely you’re not serious!”

“I’m joking. But Sarah-Jane is deadly serious!” Niall hefts the big weapon lazily in an arc that covers Rojic.

“Okay, Okay! In captain dummy talk, -it’s buggered!”

“But how long to fix it?”

“About three to four hours. And that’s before my usual multiply by ten and convert to the next higher unit.”

“Good. Get it done.”

“I’ll need tools.”

“-And?”

“-And the tools are on Storm Cutter, and my little wings can only carry one or two at a time.”

“So move the shuttle closer.”

“Closer!”

“Yes. Fly it over. The manoeuvring thrusters still work don’t they?”

“Yes. I suppose so.” Rojic thinks. “-And what are you going to be doing?”

“I’m going on board to check out the navigation computer.”

“What do you hope to find?”

“Well, a one way ticket to Ryloth.”

“Ryloth?”

“Yes. The thought of hot and cold running Twi’lek girls somehow sounds like paradise to me!”

Niall turns to go. Rojic stops him. “One more thing….”

“What is it, Colombo?”

“We’ll need a jump-start once we put the ships close.”

“Use a lead. We must have a heavy duty cable somewhere.”

“I don’t know. They might have been sold for scrap.”

“Well think of something!”

“Okay. Got it! I’ll hook up a few micro-USB cables. That should do it.”

“Good.” Niall is getting exasperated. “Can I go now?”

“But we’ll have to park the ships very close together.”

“-And why is that?”

“Because the lead is only about a foot long.”

“A foot! That’s right inside the room!”

Kory is looking at the box containing the solar sail. It is still undamaged. “I was wondering….”

Jimmi asks, “What?”

“Well, I was wondering what to do with a solar sail.”

“Well, as I understand, it’s several thousand square meters of translucent gold film, not more than a micron or two thick. I suppose you could fashion a gold lamé bikini with it!”

Kory wants to know something. “But what about my modesty?”

“I think with a gold lamé bikini, your modesty will be on full display, as well as your reputation!”

Kory shoots a glance at Rojic, who is preapraing a mental list of the tools he’ll need. “Okay. Bikini it is then. I’ll go and get my sewing kit and my scissors.”

In slow motion, Rojic flies right up to Kory yelling “Nooooooooo!”

Kory plays the innocent. “What?”

“Those things are worth thousands, if not tens of thousands! You simply cannot cut it up for skimpy underwear.”

Kory corrects him. “Swimwear….”

Jimmi interrupts. “Tens of thousands is a price I’d pay to see Kory in that outfit!”

“You’d never ‘see’ it anyway.”

“It’s the thought that counts!”

Kory rounds on Jimmi. “Think right away Jimmi. -Not going to happen!”

“No?”

“No. We’re going to offer it to Fleevah as payment for getting this stuff away.”

Rojic is about to do his ‘Nooooooo’ act again when a thought strikes him.

“Fleevah in a gold bikini -eew! I can’t even think about that!” Jimmi says.

Rojic interrupts. “I dunno, I could stand to imagine a little more!”

They move the shuttle. Niall is soon sitting in the cockpit. Kory wanders in. “There’s nothing much to salvage here. Other than the shuttle and the cargo.” She tells him.

“No. –But here’s interesting.” Niall taps into the navigation computer. “This shows no route as such, but an onward destination. Taanab system.”

“Isn’t that Tanaab?”

“Depends who you ask. Anyway it’s here on this trade run.”

“Which one.”

“The Perlemian trade route.”

Kory looks over. She taps a few keys. “Sort of blue-purple colour?” She asks.

“Yes.”

“Isn’t that the Metropolitan line?”

“Wrong map, Kory.”

“Oh. Sorry!”

They are about to go when four blips appear on the short-range scanner. By the time they’ve left the ship, the blips are four Noghri scouts coming over the battle-scarred horizon.

Karnov has sensed them too. “Hello there! Over here!”

Mayor Pleet comes out from the M.A.S.H. unit where he’s been helping Master Junn with the injured. After greetings are over, the scouts report the news. “The remains of the droid army are massing in sector five. They’ve put down a drop-table and are evacuating all remaining ground units. Our guess is that Honoghr has fallen. There’s no one left to kill.”

“How about us?”

“No-one worth bothering with, that is. -You’re just small fry.”

Jimmi and Kory try not to laugh. Karnov tries not to be offended.

Niall says, “With them all mustering in one place, surely that must present a target of opportunity. A few concussion missiles and a blast from the guns should put a crimp on their day.”

“You’d need more than that.” The scout stretches his arms wide. “There’s tens of thousands of them. Multi-troop transports, tanks, infantry, spider droids and everything in-between.”

“Why are they getting them off in this way?”

“Our only guess is that their landing craft fleet is depleted enough to try a manoeuvre like this. They’re probably loading a capital ship with the remaining equipment.”

Niall is adamant. “Still a target of opportunity. A chance to strike a blow for the Republic after what they’ve done!”

“So what do you propose?”

“I don’t know for sure. But we need time to think!”

Karnov looks sheepish. “That counts me out then!”

They all gather around to pitch some ideas.

“We could sacrifice the shuttle. Set the hyper-drive to overload, and fly it in.”

Rojic is cross. “I only just fixed the hyper-drive, now you want me to destroy it?”

In a deadpan voice Jimmi adds, “Ironic isn’t it?”

Rojic thinks. “Apart from the irony, it’s a sound idea, if we can pull it off.”

“This is from the Toydarian who cried at the though of atomising the shuttle not a few hours ago.”

Rojic is defensive. “A Toydarian can change his mind can’t he?”

Niall tells him that there’s no profit in it.

“Okay. I changed my mind again. It’s a stupid –not to mention expensive- idea!”

Jimmi says “I can see right through you, Rojic.”

“You can?”

“Well, I say ‘see.’ I mean ‘feel.’ –And I’m feeling a small wet-patch in the force!”

Niall can’t help himself. “One day that happens to us all!”

Kory wonders whether Master Junn might have any ideas. They ask him. “No ideas. I’ve been trying to get through to the Republic, but the droids must be jamming the signal.”

“How can they be jamming us if they don’t know we’re here?”

“Oh I think they must know. They just don’t consider us much of a threat.”

Karnov chips in. “So they’ve underestimated us?”

“We’ll soon change that!” Niall says, suddenly all business-like.

Karnov corrects himself. “Then they’ll have mis-underestimated us!”

“I think you might have misunderstood what I mean by underestimated!”

Karnov retires. “I think my head hurts. I’m going to get a headache pill.”

As he returns into Storm Cutter, Rojic laughs. “He’ll be lucky. I think Mama sold all the pills and replaced them with mint republics.”

“Not mint imperials?”

“No. We don’t have an empire. -Stupid!”

Kory says, “Well at least it’ll freshen up his breath.”

“We should be thankful for small mercies I suppose. There is a faint odour of the sea around Karnov.”

“There’s a faint odour of stupid too!”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say.” Jimmi reminds him.

Rojic stands by what he said. “Sometimes the truth hurts.”

“Maybe you need a mint republic too then!”

Master Junn suggests that they use Joe-90 to tap into the droid data feeds. They get Joe-90 and plug him in.

“It’s not an imperial code, sir.” Joe-90 says crossly.

“We don’t have an empire. -Stupid!”

Joe-90 is offended. “You’ve embarrassed me in front of these other droids. Of course, for a comment like that I’m going to have to kill you.”

“Oh yeah? Come over here and try.”

“Okay sir. You asked for it! Now…..Can someone re-attach my legs?”

Niall retorts. “No. We’re leaving them here on the table. No need for a restraining bolt, just detach the legs. It’s a lot simpler. -And more sadistic!”

Jimmi wanders in. “What’s for dinner? Not leg of droid again?”

Joe-90 goes back to work. “It’s an older code sir. A real stinker too. The programmer needs shooting.”

Karnov looks over at the numbers and letters on the screen. “It’s a ROT13 code. Damned fiendish!”

Joe-90 agrees. “It’s here to vex me and to irk me!” ^{[ 58 ]}

“And?”

Joe-90 continues. “-And it would appear that the droid army has lost many of their shuttles and drop ships. As we suspected, they’re putting down a landing platform of sorts, and landing a Lucrehulk on the top. -Quite an operation!”

Niall is still convinced they can do something. “So a couple of mines and a handful of missiles….”

“Won’t make the blindest bit of difference, sir. The table itself is three kilometres in diameter!”

“How do they load the ship?”

“I expect it has an AG-lift.”

Rojic chips in. “If we could overload that, then everything that steps on it could be blasted into space!”

“Like a rail gun!”

Rojic eyes gleam. “Yeah! Like a big old rail gun!”

Niall is more down-to earth. “What about the legs? -This thing’s got legs right? Take out a couple and the whole thing comes crashing down right?”

“I expect for a three kilometre table, the legs are several hundred meters across.” Rojic points out.

“What’s that in feet and inches?” Niall asks.

“More than you can extend the blade of your lightsabre, if that’s what you’re thinking!”

“Such a shame. I thought that extending the length was a good idea.”

Kory comes in to catch this last comment. “What’s this about doubling the length?”

“Er….Nothing. -Nothing that isn’t already grown bigger since you stepped in!”

Kory likes this kind of banter. “You boys and your toys!”

“It ain’t no toy!”

“Not what I heard! Someone said it was a one-seventy-second scale replica!”

Rojic is chortling to himself, and flying erratically because of it.

Niall turns on him. “Laugh it up, buzz ball! I don’t hear you coming up with any ideas.”

Rojic busies himself. Kory looks thoughtful. “Actually I was thinking of Rojic.”

“Really?” Rojic’s rhythmic wing-beats go up an octave as he comes over.

“Don’t get too excited. I was thinking of pulling our little trick with the transponder.”

“Yeah!” Rojic is excited now. “What about….Getting one of the battle droids to join the middle of the queue? Effectively pushing in. Then we get it to yell that Roger pushed in and start a big old fight. Then when all the fighting finishes and all but one of the droids are dead, we go along and kill it.”

“Where on Honoghr did you get an idea like that?”

“Actually I read it in a book.” He looks sheepish. “-Admittedly it was a book for the under-fives.”

“A child’s book?” Kory can hardly believe it.

“Well, I’m only twelve!” Rojic is defensive. “-And there’s nothing wrong with reading books for five year olds.”

“Only twelve! That explains a lot!”

Rojic points out a few things. “Well, a Toydarian is fully grown by the age of three, and we reach adulthood by ten. –We’re fast developed. We’re even born flying and take to the wing immediately.”

Joe-90 punctures Rojic’s exuberant mood. “Oh for an industrial can of Raid. -That would stop the infestation!”

Kory has an idea. “We could programme a virus. We use a salvaged battle droid to infect the others or even mess with the mother ship’s systems. That’d stop ‘em in their tracks!”

The others think this is workable. “Okay! Get to work on it!”

Jimmi offers to try to look into the future. Karnov indicates a quiet area for meditation. Jimmi sits down and starts to concentrate. After half an hour, the others prompt Jimmi for an answer. Then they poke and then they prod. Kory says. “I think that Jimmi has fallen asleep!” Niall is about to kick when Jimmi’s eyes open once more. Everyone gathers around eagerly to hear what the future might bring. Jimmi is apologetic. “Sorry, I fell asleep.”

“Did you see electric sheep?” Joe-90 asks.

“Did you dream of the future?” Karnov wants to know.

Jimmi apologises. “No. Only Miss November, twenty-five B.B.Y.”

Rojic is curious. “Tell me, can people detect you farseeing them?”

A pained expression crosses Jimmi’s face. “I hope not! Miss November will be on the other side of the galaxy by now if they can!”

They all think. “Any more suggestions?” Karnov asks.

Rojic says. “We can dig a pit around the drop-table and fill it with gasoline. A few million gallons should do it.”

“Apart from the digging, the availability of the fuel and the imperial units, might I remind you that we’re not looking for solutions from children’s books!”

Rojic is undeterred. “We could tamper with the lift-table’s AG lift.”

“It’d probably reject bio-matter.” Jimmi reminds him.

“How?”

“You probably don’t want to know. It’ll probably be obscenely biological.”

“Eeew!”

Kory asks about geological disturbance. “What about checking for geological fault lines? A few explosives in the right place could set off a major earthquake.”

Niall brings her down to earth. “But no-one here knows anything about geology.”

Rojic coughs. “I know something!”

“Correction. Anyone who’s important, that is.”

Rojic is offended. He looks over some charts on the scanner screen. He has to admit defeat. “Actually, no. No fault lines. There may be a cave or two. Rather insignificant, I’m afraid.”

Niall puts on a sinister voice. “Remember your failure at the cave?”

“No.”

“You will do.” He pauses. “You will do!”

Kory says. “Niall, sometimes you can be so dark!”

Karnov is still thinking. To save him from the strain, Niall suggests something else.

“How about scaling back our ambitions with the fuel in a pit idea? If we can find a few barrels of fuel though, we could use the air as an oxidiser and make a fuel-air bomb.”

“How would this be delivered?”

“Right to their door! We fill the shuttle with the fuel, atomise it with a controlled explosion, and then touch off the vapour with a simple spark.”

“What, like a spark plug?”

“Well I was hoping for a droid’s arm to reach out with a death-stick lighter, but essentially, anything would do.”

Rojic is excited. “Can you clarify that in Huttese?”

“Shuttlee fullyupper wii dan baddstufness fwoop stoppa. Rundee Tibanna smella fart’a fwoopee. Paawa blastoh! Kaboomy! Droida deaddy alloova puffy lumpa!”

“That’s what I thought!”

Jimmi stands, and offers to look for fuel. “I’ll recalibrate the sniffer-speeder, to smell for fuel.”

They all get started on their tasks. Jimmi sees them all beavering away and preparing. “What we need is some rousing montage music. Or a song at least. Let me ‘see’ I’m sure there’s something in my repertoire.”

Everyone stops what they are doing for a second. “It’s okay, I’m nearly done!”

“Just finishing up!”

“I need to check on something. Don’t start until I get back!”

Suitably discouraged, Jimmi recalibrates the speeder and is soon skimming along at a good pace – around R-16, and hoping that the modification to the sniffer programme will find some fuel soon. After a while, there is a blip on the sensor, and Jimmi slows to home in on the signal. As the speeder decelerates, a blaster bolt fizzes past the bow. Jimmi slews around and puts down. Another blaster bolt shoots skyward.

“This might be hostiles, or a warning, or a distress call.” Jimmi says aloud. After a swift dismount and scan around in the force, Jimmi can sense a life form nearby. Before it can be identified, the life form lets out a grunting that becomes a growling that becomes a greeting.

“M’Grr-ru-rruu-M-Mmm--Gru-GGr-ghthruu-R;R-ug-r-Gh-RRRmmmrrr’I”

Jimmi recognises the speech as Shyriiwook, the language of the Wookieees. There isn’t much point in coughing up a lung to try to communicate back, so Jimmi calls back in plain Basic. “Hello! I’m Jimmi!” –And after a thought adds. “I’m here to rescue you!”

“Mwrr-grr-Mr-Mr-Grr-Mrerrai-MWaERI-GGr-RmmGrra-WREE.”

“What’s that you say? Caught in the blast….Legs gone. Need to get back to friendly lines?”

“Gr-wru-Wrre-Ea’Ru’MMr’GGr Arrrreerra Rrr.”

“Okay. So you’re a general. We’d say ‘Ariverria.’ Is that about right?”

The Wookiee indicates that it is close enough in Basic.

Jimmi muses. “Question is….How am I going to get you onto the speeder?”

Looking around there are piles of debris that Jimmi can use. Finally, with a lot of pushing and shoving, Jimmi makes an improvised ramp out of a pile of droid bits and the protective skirts of a roller tank. After a try at healing, the Wookiee is no better. Jimmi abandons all hope of first aid, and hauls Ariverria up the ramp and onto the back of the speeder. “Okay I’ll use the winch….No. Okay! Not round the neck. I get that!” Eventually the Wookiee is aboard. Jimmi guns the engines, swoops over the remains of the fuel dump to ping the location to the others, and heads back to Storm Cutter.

Kory, Niall and Rojic are sorting scrap parts into piles when they hear a rasping, gasping breathing sound. Niall gets a funny feeling. “I’ll redouble my efforts!” he says. Rojic buzzes around. “I don’t see anything, although there is a strange slimy slug-like octopus crawling over the pile there. Eeew!”

“Why didn’t you say so before?”

“I was trying to think of a rhyme.”

“A rhyme?”

“Yeah. Slimy things did crawl with legs upon a slimy sea of debris…”

“Where did you learn a little ditty like that?”

“Toydarian kindergarten.”

“That’d explain why it’s so fresh in your mind then!”

They watch as the creature picks up a droid’s head and drops it down again. Kory shuffles over and whispers to the others. “I wonder if it’s even intelligent.”

“I expect it saw the three of us and wondered the same!”

Kory creeps up on the creature cautiously. The other two peer patiently from behind a pylon. The creature slimes, slithers and slides around. All along its translucent body are ripples of iridescent light. “A bit like a Shoggoth.” Niall whispers.

“What’s a Shoggoth?”

“A creature from a galaxy a long way away, and far into the future.”

“You must be going mad!”

“If I know what a Shoggoth is already, maybe I am!”

“Talking of mad,” Rojic indicates what the creature is doing, “That thing has no place in a sane world.”

“Oh I don’t know, it seems to be taking an interest in Kory.”

Kory approaches the creature. “Hello….”

“Quite a junk pile you have here.” The creature says.

“Thanks. We were wonder….”

The creature interrupts. “Of course, quite inferior technology.”

“Inferior?”

“Inferior to Gree technology.”

Kory is not deterred. “That’s cutting edge Trade Federation technology…..Er... You’re probably right, come to think of it. Those stupid droids can’t even shoot straight. I’m babbling a bit now….My name’s Kory and this is our junk.”

“Worthless. Useless. Unless….”

“If it’s so useless, then politely I’d be asking you to leav….”

“I’ll offer you five hundred for it.”

Kory stammers. “F-Five hundred?” She regains her composure. “It’s worth at least a thousand!”

“Five hundred.”

“Seven fifty. I’m cutting my own throat here!” Kory counters.

“Five hundred but….”

“But what?” Kory asks, wishing she hadn’t.

The creature’s hide starts to shimmer with psychedelic colours. It’s like an ever-expanding Bezier curve of trade route scribbles in the lime-green and lilac colours of both the District and the Hammersmith and City lines. If you can’t imagine this, try hitting yourself over the head with a Jackson Pollock painting.

Kory blinks stupidly at the display. She thinks that five hundred is vastly under-priced. “I think five hundred sounds perfectly…..Reasonable.” She says in a monotone. The others are also spellbound by the display of sharp colours and even sharper practices going on. Niall snaps out of it quickest. He’s cross. He’s very cross. “Kory! You’re being hexed!”

Rojic comes out of it too. A purely unconscious reflex action kicks in. “Your Jedi mind tricks don’t work on me… Only money!”

“He’s no Jedi!” Niall reminds Rojic.

“Then hypnotise away!”

Kory keeps up the pretence. “Six fifty sounds reasonable.”

The creature has been rumbled. It can’t slime its way out of this. “Okay. You drive a hard bargain. My people will be along…. Shortly.”

Kory takes offence. “Who are you calling shorty?”

“Shortly. They’ll be along to pick up the merchandise. Cash okay?”

The prospect of cold hard cash is music to Kory’s ears. “That’ll do nicely.”

Jimmi arrives back to drop off the injured Wookiee. The others gather around to lend a hand. As they unload the delicate cargo, Jimmi explains about the fuel. “It’s not much, just a few pressurised barrels of Tibanna gas. I pinged the location. It’s not too far.”

A little while later, and it’s time to pick up the gas from the fuel dump. Karnov goes to find Niall. He hovers close as Niall and Junn are discussing something.

(+ + + Deleted scene + + +)

“Join me and we can rule the galaxy as father and son!”

“Actually, you’re not my dad!”

“Oh, sorry! Oops!”

(+ + + End deleted scene + + +)

Niall says, “All this slaughter and killing, and for what?”

“The trade federation see it as a legitimate target. They strike and fade and the Republic can’t hope to defend on so many fronts. It’s all over the news.”

“But Master Junn, I feel so helpless!”

Junn nods, sagely.

“But I want to strike back! Give them a hiding they won’t forget. They’re only droids after all.”

“The force isn’t about anger. -Everybody knows that.” Junn says.

“I know master, but the Jedi don’t see things as I do. I know that fear and aggression are wrong, but injustices can’t go unpunished.”

Junn nods again. “I don’t know why you are telling me all this.”

“Because it’s difficult to be serious about these things with the others. They’re a great bunch and all that, but they don’t see me for who I am. Much like the Jedi order, in fact.”

“Maybe you should ask for a reassessment.”

“Maybe I will. Thanks for your help, Master.”

“It was nothing.”

Karnov comes in at this point. “What were you two talking about?”

“Nothing.” Niall is defensive.

“It didn’t sound like nothing.”

“Well it was. Now I’m busy. I’ve got things to do. -Things to do for the war effort!” Niall stalks off in a huff. Ninety minutes later, he could have stalked off in an hour and a huff.

Karnov looks to Junn for an explanation. “What was it then? Niall seemed impassioned about something.”

“Maybe that’s his problem. His passion sometimes clouds his judgement.”

Karnov asks, “Is that a problem?”

“You’ll have to find your own answer to that one.”

“Thanks. I think!” Karnov says. Then he adds, “Are you okay? Wouldn’t you rather be plotting and planning and fighting?”

“Someone has to look after the wounded. Plasters don’t attach themselves you know.” Karnov takes his chance to get one back at his master. “The self-adhesive ones do!” With that, he turns on his heel and leaves. Junn smiles to himself at the joke and taps into the console again. Still no signal. He looks frustrated. He goes to bang the console with a fist, but remembers himself in time.

Jimmi is asking Kory about the creature that she was negotiating with earlier. “What was it?”

“I think it might have been a Gree They’re a little known species from the planet Gree. That’s about all I know.”

“I expect that outside Gree that’s about as much as anyone knows.”

“Interesting though.”

“Yeah….It’s given me an idea for getting some extra cash out of Rojic too. –Hypnotism!”

Jimmi says, “There’s always the next best option.”

“Which is?”

“A crowbar. To threaten him. Then once he’s fainted, you use it to pry open his wallet!”

By the time everyone is ready it’s starting to get dark. By this time, they’ve contacted Fleevah’s crewmates and arranged for them to pick up all the collected debris and ordinance that they’ve collected. It amounts to a fair haul. There are remaining droid parts, guns, ammunition, spare parts and people that have been rescued. Niall has prepped the shuttle with a delivery device and a trigger. Jimmi has started to sing.

“I get no kick in a plane....

I shouldn't care for those nights in the air….

That the fair Mr. Niall goes through.

But I get a kick out of you!

I get no kick from sham-pagne.

Mere synthi-hol doesn't thrill me at all.

So tell me why should it be true?

That you’ll all end up in poodoo?

I can’t have a blast, out of the past, but....

I get a blast out of Tibaana gas;

-And I get a kick out of you!”

The others are already queuing up to kick Jimmi, who sings on undeterred. Soon the tune is drowned out by Rojic and Niall suddenly needing to test the shuttle engines at full revs. Two sets of howlings rend the night sky. When it is over, Junn informs the crew that General Ariverria has heard all about their plan. She offers to pilot the shuttle into the midst of the droids and supervise the detonation of the bomb.

“That’s a very brave proposal, general. However, I think that we’ll be okay. We’ve rigged ships up to fly on remote before. We’ll do so again in this case.”

Ariverria grunts her assent. They feel sorry for the once mighty Wookiee reduced to lying on a pallet. They consult her. “Any strategic advice you can offer?” Ariverria would like to, but nothing in her experience is much use. Once out of earshot, Karnov speaks what everyone is feeling. “Poor old girl. I hope that there is something that the Republic can do.”

“Maybe something artificial. Maybe the Ithorians or someone could create a clone, and graft the clone’s legs to Ariverria’s body. Anything is possible.”

Karnov is not so sure. “Surely a clone is a separate entity in its own right. One cannot simply use a clone for spare parts.”

“Yes. That is a factor. Maybe they can use genetic material to grow new limbs then. That strikes me as a less difficult and more ethically acceptable alternative.”

Rojic is more practical. “Of course surgeons can do wonders with prosthetics these days.”

“Whatever we do, Ariverria is not going on some suicide mission. She can go with the others in the transport. Agreed?”

For once, everyone does concur. “Agreed!”

They lift off with Storm Cutter and pilot the shuttle under remote control. They are planning to drop the re-programmed droids first. Then when they are confident that they are aboard the mother-ship, they plan to move the shuttle into the best place before triggering the bomb.

“I smell a whole lot of ‘if’ coming off this plan!”

“I smell that all the time.”

“Your cabin is next to Henry the cleaning droid’s recharge area. It isn’t ‘if’ it’s ‘Jif!’

When they are ready, Niall pilots Storm Cutter while the others supervise dropping off the modified battle droids. They plan to shove them off the ramp as Niall circles at low altitude. “Where exactly are we dropping them?”

“Anywhere is good. Spread them around randomly.”

“Random is good for me!”

“We’ve experienced your flying. You’re not wrong there!”

The droids are lined up on the sofa on the ramp. They look rather sad and pathetic sitting there, like naughty schoolboys outside the headmaster’s office. Niall swoops in over a ridge, and before him is a vista from hell. Lines of droids and equipment and tanks and multi troop transports and walkers and spider droids fill his vision from here to the horizon. A massive ship sits upon a massive table. Several hover tanks start to turn in the direction of Storm Cutter.

“Action stations!” Niall yells into the communicator. “Drop away!”

The others grab the end droid. Niall almost touches down. The droid is activated and shoved off the ramp. It lands in a heap, and they hold their breaths. As Niall powers out of range of the tanks, the droid stands, and much to the relief of everyone on board Storm Cutter, starts to make it’s way to a long straight queue. “The first droid is away!” Kory whoops. “Hooray!”

The tanks open fire on the ship. Niall fades left and the plasma bolts zing over the top of the cockpit. They repeat the process a little further out, and two more droids are successfully deployed, though they are slightly damaged on impact. “We need to drop them from a lower height!” Kory warns Niall. “I’m doing my best!” He yells back.

“Reduce altitude. –And while you’re at it, reduce attitude as well!”

Niall complies. The tanks are zeroing in. There are also S.T.A.P. speeders on the horizon closing fast and blasting. The next droid touches down with a smooth action, and is already on its feet at a trot. “Perfect!” Kory yells. At that moment, the droid is in the direct firing line between hover tank and Storm Cutter. A blast later and it’s in a thousand pieces all over the battlefield. Kory’s swearing is drowned out by the ship’s guns as Storm Cutter returns fire. The last few droids are dumped unceremoniously as Jimmi, Rojic and Kory turn their attention to the tanks and the S.T.A.P.s. Rojic hits a droid on its aerial platform. It merely flinches. He shoots again and the vehicle disappears from under it! By the time it has found its feet and complained, “You shot my ride!” Rojic has completed his coup de grâce and blasted the droid as well! Karnov fends one off with his lightsabre, and the guns are returning fire on the tanks. Niall sees more vehicles starting to turn in their direction and decides to make a tactical withdrawal.

“How many droids did we deliver?”

“Five out of six. That’s not too bad. Are we damaged?”

“Nothing a rebalancing of the shields won’t sort out. They’ll be completely recharged in a few minutes.”

“Part one of the plan is a go. Now for part two. Actually, we should really have an operation code for plans A and B. Any suggestions?”

“Toxic droid drop and big blow-up?”

“It’d be ‘Wrencha –Mukkerupski’ and ‘farka big-n Kabloowey’ in Huttese!”

Niall laughs, “Whatever works for you!”

They put down behind a ridge. Part two of the operation is ready for the green light.

Rojic points out a flaw in this plan.

“No green light. We’ll have to use the fridge light and a sweet wrapper as a gel-sheet!”

“Never mind. Look sharp people, incoming!”

NEXT EPISODE: "Table 'A' damage?"

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Footnotes:

[ 57 ]   Toydarians don't really have ears to stick pencils behind!
[ 58 ]   The words 'vex' and 'irk' are ROT13s of one another.