"In the Desert.
A Bantha is Approaching."

Written and Directed by:
Paul Burton.
Fiction by: Paul Burton and (mostly) Anthony Hummerston.
STARRING:

Karnov,   Jimmi,   Niall,   Rojic,   Mama
And special guest stars:
Hen3ry , Joe-9T, Trio and 'Blinkie.'
as the droids.

AND
Storm Cutter
The tinfoil and durasteel wonder.

Rojic peels himself off the back wall. A stream of obscenities and curses echo through the internal intercom. All Karnov can see are the stars elongating behind her before becoming a rippling tunnel. Jimmi’s force ‘radar’ goes suddenly blank for a second. The jump takes Niall by surprise too. He was about to pull a fade-left, -one of his signature moves. Mama grins like a Cheshire cat.

When Rojic has finally calmed down, he opens the door to the engine bay, and hobbles on his stubbly legs to his cabin. “You’re crazy!” He tells Mama, who is casually giving Hen3ry a rub with a cloth by way of a thank-you. “I think we left half the shields behind…. Not to mention a big chunk of my life.”

Mama is unsympathetic. “Maybe if we jump unexpectedly again, you can leave the other chunk of life behind, and we’ll be rid of you completely!” Rojic sticks his tongue out from behind his tusks. “I’m going to change my underwear.” He says.

“You don’t wear underwear.” Mama points out.

Rojic has the last laugh. “You might need a few wet-wipes in the engine bay then….!”

Their journey time is a shade under eight hours. Niall clears a space in the passenger area, and activates a remote. He swishes at it with his lightsabre. Every few minutes, he calls Rojic to come and repair it.

“I’ve gone through about six rolls of sticky-tape already.” Rojic grumbles. “Anyway what are you doing?”

“Practicing a new form.”

“Form?”

“Form four.”

“I was in form four at the academy.” Karnov says, stepping onto the room, and narrowly avoiding having her head removed from her neck. Niall flicks his wrist, and reverses the cut, narrowly avoiding the same thing on the backswing.

“It’s about flexibility and reflexes, not about strength.”

“What?”

“Form four. It’s a new way of handling the lightsabre. Concentrating on finesse, not raw power.”

“Oh, I see.” Jimmi says, with some irony.

“Unfortunately,” Niall says, “It’s also a form that needs a lot of space as you develop it. – The later stages involve picking up objects at the same time, and leaps, jumps, kicks and throws.

“We’re heading for Tatooine. There’s a whole big desert out there. –That big enough for you?” Jimmi asks.

Karnov adds, “I suggest sparring around the Dune Sea. -Lovely expanse of nothingness.”

“What have you been doing anyway, Karnov?” Mama asks, coming to see what is going on. “-Oh, and by the way, has anyone seen Trio?”

“I was practicing my martial arts.” Karnov tells her. “I switched off Trio, and used her as a training dummy.”

Mama looks Karnov in the eye. “Is that why you’re covered in bruises?”

“I was also using the force to heal wounds.”

“Self inflicted wounds.” Rojic growls at him. Karnov looks embarrassed. She has to admit that being beaten up by a stationary droid is rather humiliating.

Rojic is dismissive of all this training. “Well Jimmi’s been staring into space for several hours. -Something to do with telepathic communications. It doesn’t work, mind you. I kept reminding Jimmi that, but there’s no telling some people. I pointed it out several times; -in fact every time I took a cup tea to Jimmi’s cabin….” Jimmi emerges with a smug look, and presents Rojic with a pile of empty cups. Rojic claps a hand to his forehead. Jimmi grins to the others who all fall about laughing. Rojic is still grumbling and complaining and telling everyone that Jimmi has hexed him. – All the way through the washing up and the drying up too!

“Your powers won’t work on me Jimmi!” Rojic growls, unaware that he is rubbing his tummy and patting his head at the same time. Jimmi admits that this is so, while Rojic recites the entire treaty of Coruscant.

After a light meal and a short rest, Rojic challenges Jimmi to a game of sabaac. Rojic has been practicing a few new tricks, slight of hand, misdirection and the like. Jimmi has been practising sensing this kind of thing. It leads to a tense game. “It’s a good thing you didn’t hex me into playing for money.” Rojic says, unaware that he’s peeled a hundred credits from his roll, and handed it to Jimmi. “No. To read people’s thoughts during a game of chance would be wrong….” Jimmi agrees. Mama has been watching intently. “You must join us at the table the next time the colonel comes over.”

Jimmi smiles, “I think this could be the start of a profitable friendship!”

Niall eases back on the hyper-drive and cuts in the sublight engines. “Coming up on Tatooine. The local weather is warm and sunny. Pinging the Mos Espa tower now.”

Niall signals some details, such as ship’s name, captain’s name and cargo. As they put down, Rojic and Karnov go funny colours. Jimmi senses their unease. “What’s wrong with you two?”

Rojic shivers. “I have a lot of unpleasant memories of Tatooine. I still owe money to the Hutts, and they’ll want considerable compensation for my absence. Also there’s my cousin…. I owe him money…..Not to mention a load of gear and a speeder.”

Niall doesn’t see a problem. “He can have the speeder back. It’s still there at the Eye-of-Anobis. –And besides, there’s no need to worry.”

“But now I owe tens-of-thousands of credits to the Hutts, My cousin will skin me alive over a wrecked speeder….Several people want my head on a plate….And you tell me not to worry!” Rojic yells at him.

Niall is calm. “No need to worry. The Hutts, your cousin, your creditors are all on Qun.”

Rojic claps his hand to his head. “Qun! Of course! Qun!”

“Easy to get the two confused. They’re dry, they’re hot, they’re both controlled by the Hutts.”

Rojic is very relieved. “Well that’s okay then….Let’s go!” He flaps off down the ramp into a scorching, dry and dusty spaceport docking pit.

Joe-9T watches him go. “He must’ve forgotten the bounty posted by Igbo of Rodia.”

“Shh!”

The rest of the crew follow Rojic to pay the docking fee and declare their cargo. A few dusty droids spin around the cargo bay and charge them one hundred credits import duty and ten credits docking fee. As Mama pays, Niall turns to Karnov. “You never said why Tatooine made you feel so uncomfortable.”

“No I didn’t. Let’s just say it was a harrowing experience that I never want to repeat!”

Niall knows not to press Karnov on the matter, so lets it drop.

When Rojic comes back, he shows them a list. “Prices are rather depressed.”

“So was the control tower.” Niall reports.

“How so?”

“It played the cantina music at me while I was on hold.”

“Every music player in the galaxy plays that….As well as every cantina band.” Mama says. “It’s a sad fact of life in the spacelanes.”

Niall sighs, “This one played it in the style of Harold Budd.”

“That makes me depressed just thinking about it!”

A noise makes them look back at the ship. Joe-9T is striding around it with Sarah-Jane. “At least Joe seems happy.”

“He heard the music too. He’s set his aggro-meter to ‘kill-kill-kill’ so in a way, he’s happy –in the way that only a homicidal maniac can be.”

They spend the afternoon researching the locations of the Storm ships and the bounty killers they came across on Naboo. They narrow it down to three possible leads, -or rather contacts who might have a lead. There are two Hutts and a Toydarian.

“Off you go then, little Karnov. Our diplomat in waiting.”

“I’m not over fond of the Hutts. Besides, there are complications.”

“Such as?”

Jimmi answers for Karnov. “Such as….The Hutts won’t tell us a thing unless there is something in it for them. We captured one hit-man and arrested the other. – Though technically she was a hit woman.”

“And?”

“And getting an audience with a Hutt isn’t something we can arrange any time quickly. They have a lot of minions for a reason….Their people go and talk with our people….Money changes hands….their people hold out for more money….It’s a long and complicated process.”

“Unless the Hutt wants to see you, or course. –Then you’ll be before one in under half an hour…. Though not necessarily in one piece.”

“I’ll go, if Karnov is chicken.”

“What’s a chicken?”

“Um….Kinda like a Bantha. Only with two legs.”

“-And feathers.”

“And about a foot tall with a beak.”

“So nothing like a Bantha then.”

“No.”

Rojic reiterates. “I said I’ll go.”

“That’s very noble and brave of you, Rojic….What’s your angle?”

“Rojic’s angle….I don’t know. -I was never very good at geography.”

“That’s geometry. –Stupid!”

“I’ll go and see the Toydarian.” Rojic insists, “It’ll be nice to hear the old tongue again, spoken by a native.”

“We’re not on Toydaria any more.” Karnov points out, pointedly.

“Quick fetch my ruby slippers!”

Rojic briefs Karnov. The Toydarian antiquities merchant is but a few streets distant. Karnov is greeted in the proper Toydarian way. A gravely voice asks, “What do you want?”

“Information.” Karnov says, forgetting her briefing.

“I didn’t do it! –Now go away, you’re bothering me!”

About to leave, Karnov suddenly remembers what she came here for and how to go about getting it. She replies with the proper Toydarian response. “I’ve got money!”

The shopkeeper counters with the proper check. “Cash…Or cheque or….” He spits on the floor, and forces the next word out. “Credit?”

“Cash!”

“Oooh! That’ll do nicely. Okay, come on in!”

The niceties continue until Karvov tells the Toydarian why she came. He stops her there. “You lot always bring trouble.”

“I only want some information.”

“That sounds like even more trouble.”

“I want to know a few details about these two hired killers, the ‘Storm’ ships and this Twi’lek woman.” She senses that the grizzly old Toydarian knows something. She lets him chew the end of a grotty death-stick before prompting him again.

“Okay! Okay….I get it! Info for favour….Favour for favour.”

“That’s more like it!” Karnov says sweetly.

“What do you know about racing pods?”

Karnov doesn’t know much. “Er….You strap two of the biggest skimmer engines to a deck chair with bits of string, add a power coupling and race them around at speeds in excess of R34. First around the circuit wins. -No rules.”

The old Toydarain chuckles. “Yeah something like that. Now I got a pod but no pilot. –And the pod won’t race too well without someone in the cockpit. –The pod’s a bit shabby too.”

Karnov senses where this is going. “You want me to fix this up?”

“And race it.”

Karnov gulps. “Er…Okay….I’ll have to run that by my people.”

“Do that. –But be quick. The race is the day after tomorrow!”

For speed, Karnov uses her portable holo communicator. “Rojic?”

“What do you want? Your kind are always causing trouble!” Rojic growls back at her.

“Rojic. If we want this information, we’ll have to fix up a pod, and enter a race.”

“No problem. A few rivets in the intake, a dodgy fuse in the power coupling, and a spring under tension in the driver’s seat….That should do the trick.”

“I….That is we….Want it to win.”

There is a gulp from Rojic. The holo goes quiet for a few minutes. Finally he calls back. “Okay. I’ll bring my tools and my team….And my best pilot!”

For the next day and a half the team work on the pod racer. There isn’t a book in the galaxy that could list all the things wrong with the pod, but they fix the worst faults, and make a ‘fixing the pod’ montage movie. They finish the major work the night before and spray it gleaming grey colour with red highlights.

“I can’t believe it’s the same pod!”

“Well ninety percent of it isn’t. -We had to ditch most of the parts.”

“Okay, time for Mama to climb in and we’ll make the final adjustments.”

Mama shakes her head. “Time for Mama to have a drink and a death stick and watch Niall get himself killed.”

They all turn on the captain. Mama is the better pilot, there’s no doubt about that.

“Okay joke’s over….Just climb in. We don’t have a lot of time.”

“I’m not getting in there.”

Niall rounds on Mama. “But you’re our best pilot!”

“Better. –But not stupid!”

They argue. They argue some more. Mama won’t budge on the issue. “Besides, half of the trick is getting the right power-to weight ratio. I’d only slow it down!”

There isn’t much the others can say or do about this. Niall probably only weighs two-thirds of Mama. Reluctantly he agrees.

“I’ll assist in any way. I’m just not flying it.” She says, and won’t be dissuaded.

Rojic manages the project, Mama and Hen3ry assist as best they can.

Karnov is sent running around for parts. “We could do with parts for a J-type 327 Nubian….” She looks over. Mama is taking a break. “I say Mama, would you put out for it?”

The others all stop what they are doing and laugh long and laugh loudly.

Karnov goes in for the kill. “After all, with your reputation, people all know that ‘if you do one for Mama, she’ll do one for you!’”

“That’s Mama Moreton from Cook county jail!”

“Easy to make that mistake!”

Jimmi is thinking. “I hear that these days, Kory has a bit of a reputation too.” Before the others can laugh about that, Jimmi continues. “Of course, she always did have three things that preceded her. –One was her reputation….-And I’m just trying to remember the other two!”

Karnov scratches her head. “Nope. Still not getting it.”

Niall puts on his deep voice. “-And you never will!”

In the final hours before the race, everyone is up early to fine-tune their racing machine. Karnov tries to help, but just gets in the way. “I….I’m not helping much am I?”

“Too true!” The others all say in unison. Later on. With a couple of hours to spare, Karnov and Niall scout the tricky first few streets of the course and the start line. The others have the pod on a sled and have slid it into their berth in the pit lane. By this time, the crowds have started to arrive and there is a build up of excitement. When the Toydarians arrive, there is a real buzz of tension in the air. Several Toydarians are taking bets at the pit wall. Rojic and Mama decide to wager fifty credits each on Niall. Rojic manages to barter two-to-one. “Shouldn’t have sprayed it grey. -A rust colour would have netted us a better price!”

“Never mind….It’s your money anyway!” Mama teases him.

“Now don’t start all that again you two!” Niall warns as hew settles into the cockpit of the pod. Rojic flaps around giving him some last-minute advice. “Now listen. Don’t go over twenty four thousand revs.” He points, “That’s the red section on this dail.”

“Okay….Why?”

“Because if you do, the manifold will work loose and get sucked into the intake. About forty milliseconds later and the compressor blades shoot out like fifty high-tensile swords. They’ll be doing over five-hundred miles per hour….At head height!”

Rojic prattles on. “I saw that happen once….A Nosaurian pilot got her scaly noggin carved into a thousand very thin slices of salami. –Horrible! –The crew needed a pressure washer on three gonk droids to clear that mess off!”

Niall gulps and tries to squeeze lower into the cockpit. “Not much legroom is there?” Niall says, trying not to go the shade of kolto.

“Of course we were hoping for Mama to be the pilot. –She’s a couple of inches shorter. I suppose we could take your legs off at the knees if it’ll help fly. –Of course, it won’t help to walk afterward….”

“I want to walk afterward. I feel that very strongly.”

“Okay… So revised figure….Don’t go over eighteen thousand revs for more than twenty seconds at a time….”

Niall makes a mental note about this. “Um….Where’s the turbo boost button?”

“There isn’t one.”

“Actually, that makes me feel better.” Niall sighs.

“Well, when hitting the canyon wall at three hundred miles an hour, I’ll be thinking ‘I’m glad it’s not four hundred miles an hour.’”

Rojic taps at a datapad. “You’d better think quick, coz I calculate that between impact and certain death is about fifteen milliseconds.”

“That’s ages!” Karnov scoffs. Then asks, “Er….What’s a millisecond?”

“It’s the speed of light between your ears!”

“The race doesn’t go through my ears does it?”

“No Karnov. It might go over your head though!”

Niall and Rojic snigger. Then Niall asks, “What about a parachute?”

“I took it out.”

“Out?”

“Yes. – A weight saving measure you understand. –Besides At those speeds, it wouldn’t deploy anyway.”

Mama interjects. “Besides, if the power coupling gives way, it’ll ascend to about sixty-thousand feet. By then you won’t need a parachute….Though you might need a priest.”

A call goes out to tell the pit crews to return to their positions. A large balloon ascends over the stadium, filled with race officials, the official starter and several diminutive Jawas having a party. Jimmi considers per-empting the starter and sending a telepathic message to Niall. However, further investigation shows that the start is purely electronic. There isn’t time to slice into the start computer, so their chance at a good head-start is dashed. The pods settle into position on the grid. There is a grand count down, and then the starter circuits send a flare into the air. As it explodes, the pods all surge forward. Niall shoots into an early lead, banking low into the first corner, and managing not to impale the pod on a high kerb on the other side.

A minute later, and he clears the town’s outskirts and is in the open desert. He leans on the throttle, taking the pod to high revs. Skimming the desert floor, he guides the craft along the dunes. A sleek red pod with Ubrikkian markings and a shark’s teeth paint job looms close. Niall manages to keep it behind him as they zoom into a canyon.

The race takes them on a long loop around the city, through canyons and the open desert before swinging back along a long straight and into the city again along the main street. By the time that they clear the desert, the red pod is close enough to touch. In the pit, Mama and Hen3ry are crunching the numbers. There is a delicate trade-off between slowing for a pit-stop and recharging the gas cylinders to maximum pressure, or keeping going at a slower speed without a stop. Hen3ry is leaving it a bit late to process all the telemetry from the pod. He reaches his conclusion just in time, and Karnov signals Niall to come into the pit. The others spring into action, and pump fresh tibanna gas into the fuel cell. Within two seconds they are clear. Rojic wipes Niall’s goggles and waves him off. Niall accelerates away, but crucially behind the red pod. They zoom off for another lap. Back at the pits, Red’s crew suddenly disappear into their dugout. Before Niall’s crew can investigate, they all emerge again. What on Tatooine is this?

“What on Tatooine is this?” Karnov asks, echoing the narrative. Jimmi stretches out into the force, but finds nothing. By this time, Niall has been waved through by Hen3ry and is indicating several minor faults, but there is nothing that the crew can do. Red pits in seconds. Jimmi isn’t quick enough to wrest the Tibanna gas canisters from the hands of Red’s technicians. With a boost of speed, Red overtakes Niall, who doggedly tails him in second place. Six minutes later, they round the last mesa and lining up for the final push to the finish line. Niall punches for more speed, hoping that in a straight line he has the edge. The revs needle is nudging the forbidden red line. Niall pushes it a fraction more.

Red rounds the final bend fast but wide, giving Niall a chance to seize the initiative and close the lead to a couple of meters. They are entering the city, when a slight kink in the road scrapes a cooling fin from Niall’s right-hand pod. They speed past the Marina – since dried up, along the long tunnel, around the Grand Hotel hairpin, and into the final few hundred yards. The gap is now inches. Red’s pit crew are dragging a large defunct gonk droid into their dugout. This raises some eyebrows. The two lead pods are now two hundred yards away from the line. Suddenly there is a dull thud, and all the pit lane screens go dead.

All communication relays are disrupted, and Hen3ry shrieks. Another thud follows and a small explosion propels the gonk droid, -now in several thousand component parts- onto the track on the left hand side – Niall’s chosen line! Red fades left to avoid it, leaving Niall facing a great deal of debris on the track. Jimmi decides that this is a dirty trick, intended to slow, incapacitate or even kill Niall. With the power of the force, Jimmi concentrates on lifting the debris from the track. Niall seizes the chance, and he too calls on the force. A big chunk of cowling separates from the pod, and the weight loss gives him the speed to punch through. The force guides his hands, and he rams the throttle wide open. Like parting the dune sea, the passage to the finish line opens, giving Niall a clear run. He dives for the line. The two pods cross as one. The crowds wait with bated breath. Niall tries to come to a sedate halt, but the steering vanes are buckled. He slews around in a cloud of dust to avoid ploughing into the casino on the bend. He stops with inches to spare.

It is a tense moment, but then Red’s team jump for joy at their victory. Red starts a lap of honour in front of the main stand. Rojic tears up his betting slip and tosses it to the wind.

A brief steward’s enquiry is held, and the decision is overturned. The victory is awarded to Niall! Rojic flaps around trying to recover the paper scattered over a wide area. As the announcement is made officially, the pit crew try their best to drown out the cheering of the crowd.

Niall climbs out. His hands are shaking. “That was close!” He tries to walk to his crew, but his legs are made of jelly. Karnov helps him to a chair. Mama places a large drink in front of him. Rojic is busy arguing with the bookmakers on the pit wall. Finally he comes over with a tusky grin on his smug face.

“How was it?” Rojic asks.

“Terrfying!”

“Good…. Good!” Rojic isn’t paying attention, he’s counting his winnings. Finally after settling up with Mama, he turns to Niall, whose colour has returned to ashen cheeks. “Did you….Um….Go into the red at all?”

“Only the width of the needle.” Niall tells him.

“Only I recalculated the stresses on the pod engines and realised that the maximum revs was about fourteen thousand. I couldn’t tell you or make a governor, so I simply painted part of the red line black. –Then I smeared the guage with grease, and hoped you wouldn’t notice.”

“Or blow up.” Karnov adds.

“So you see….” Rojic continues, ignoring Karnov, “You were over-revving from the start.”

Niall stands. The strength has returned to his legs. “You could have killed me!”

“Aw….But look on the bright side….Mama says I could have got eleven-to-four on that happening. –I turned it down!”

Niall is too tired to take any action. Instead he gives Rojic a particularly hard stare.

CODA:

“We won for the team!”

“Yay! Go team! Our contact had better come up with the info we want.”

“I find that when dealing with Toydarians, waving a few hundred credits in the air gets results.”

Mama adds, “I find that waving a loaded blaster in their face has the same effect.”

Karnov agrees. “True. That’s the best way.”

“So we didn’t actually have to send Niall on a death-defying spin around the podrace?”

“Nah…. A few credits the threat of imminent violence is a universal language around here. –Everyone knows that!”

Rojic laughs. “Everyone but Niall! And talking of which, He has got his ‘particularly hard-stare’ face on a lot at the moment!”

Niall keeps the look up for the rest of the day. Everyone keeps well away lest it fry their brains!

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Footnotes:

1) Matron Mama Moreton was the original inspiration for Mama's Character.

2) No Banthas were harmed during the making of this write-up.