"Cutting the Storm."


Part II

Directed by:
Paul Burton.
&
Written by:
Anthony Hummerston.

STARRING:

Karnov,   Jimmi,   Niall,   Rojic,    Ta'alan,  Mama
And special guest stars:
Hen3ry , Joe-9T, Trio and 'Blinkie.'
as the droids.
AND
Storm Cutter, their ship, all redecorated in Republic mottled green drab version: 449-1-B.

“You need to address the crowd.” Nara advises them. None of our heroes are cut out for public speaking. They go into a huddle. “We need to convince them that this battle is worth fighting.” Jimmi says.

“Agreed, but what can we offer? The war isn’t going well. They’re scared, downtrodden and oppressed. We haven’t heard from the fleet, which is concerning me.”

“I tried to raise them. Nothing but static.” Karnov reports.

“Never mind.”

“Any other angles we can work?” Jimmi asks. This is met with silence.

Ta’alan speaks up eventually. “Okay so we’ve liberated the hostages,” He says to the others, formulating a speech in his head. “Now all we need to do is liberate them from their virginity.”

Niall rounds on him. “Padawan! Nara’s sister is only fourteen. Touch her inappropriately or even think about it and I’ll put you in the iso-cube myself. –In cubes!”

Ta’alan takes a step back. He’s rarely seen Niall’s temper. It is not an experience he wants to repeat any time soon.

“I’m sorry master.” He apologises.

Rojic flaps by Ta’alan’s ear. “Sans ballons! –As they say in Twi’lek.”

Niall calms down. “Apology accepted.”

There is an uncomfortable silence.

In the end, Mama breaks the tension. “Besides, a red Twi’lek is a tier four girlfriend.”

“Tier four?”

“Yes. Blue Twi’leks are a starter girlfriend. Then the sequence goes indigo, violet, red, orange, yellow and then green.”

“Mmmmm…. Green Twi’leks.” Jimmi croons.

Rojic picks up on Mama’s theme. “Then you can start on Togruta girls. Only the colour sequence is different. They run black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, grey, violet, blue, white.”

“At tier eighteen or so, you can go to Farghul girls.”

“Wow!”

Niall chips in, “Then you go to the crème-de-la-crème….”

“Which is?” Ta’alan asks, eyes wide.

Mama rounds off. “About tier twenty, you progress to Cathar girls.”

“There was a Cathar girl at the academy.” Karnov says, “Meow!”

“Cathar girls. –Oh yes. That’s a real man’s girlfriend.” Rojic states.

Ta’lan’s head is spinning. “So….Do the boys come in tiers?”

“If you have a Cathar girlfriend, there will be tears- when she scratches your eyes out.”

“Not tears, tiers.”

“Oh right. Yeah. Let’s see if I can remember…..” Rojic scratches at his chin where a single whisker is clinging on. He looks Ta’alan over. “Would you say that your stripes are blue and white?” He asks.

“Oh yes!” Ta’alan says, stroking his montrals proudly.

“Just as I thought. –Mid blue or royal blue?”

“Royal blue.”

“Sure?”

“Yup.”

“So…..Royal blue…..” Rojic taps at a datapad. “That confirms it.”

“What? Tier twelve, fifteen? Eighteen? What?”

“Nope. Can’t remember.” Rojic teases him, and flaps off.

Girlfriend colour codes.

Mama’s holo sounds. Jules appears. They exchange pleasantries and whisper sweet somethings to one another. “You need to swing the balance.” Jules advises, “Your contact is Al’penan. The seps wiped out his village. –His son with it. –But he’s scared to move. The sep leader has threatened a ten-to-one reprisal.”

“We need a bargaining chip.” Mama tells her husband.

“Good luck with that!” Jules grins. His mood changes. “I gotta go. –Bye!”

“What did Jules say?” Jimmi asks.

“The usual. –V.H.B.T.4.Zero.”

“Eh?”

“Very helpful, but thanks for nothing.” Ull and Ta’alan say in unison.

“Okay. I’ll address the crowds.” Mama says. Thy follow her to a little dais used for public speaking. There are maybe two hundred Twi’leks below.

“You need to rise up! –Overthrow the separatists. Re-take Ryloth!”

There are some agreeable murmurs from the crowd.

“But the separatists have thousands of droids.”

“True, but they are not immortal. We can supply arms, men, munitions, heavy weapons, air-support.”

“But we fear reprisals!”

“That’s a leadership thing. The droids do what they are programmed to do. –We’ll deal with the leaders.”

The Twi’leks are coming around.

Rojic steps in. “I have nothing to offer but blood, soil, tears and sweat.”

Jimmi hisses at him. “Toil!”

“No. I mean it. -Soil.”

“Okay.”

Mama takes up the gauntlet again.

“You are a rabble army.” She says, “But together we can topple empires!” The crowd are swayed. “The enemy are strong. But Twi’leks are stronger!”

A stiff wind blows across the square. “Let’s show ‘em some Ryloth grit!”

A big cheer resounds around the area. Mama passes the microphone over to Ta’alan. She forgets the second microphone on her collar. “Hmmm….Not bad for a bunch of stupid tail-heads.”

Suddenly there is a hush over the crowd. The wind blows a few tumble weeds across.

“Bigoted woman!” Mama says, thus ending her political career.

The gang are losing the argument again. Ta’alan grabs the microphone. “Do you like being oppressed?” He asks, “Being lackeys and slaves to the seps? Being subjugated, tortured and treated like dirt?”

“Soil.” Rojic says. Ta’alan ignores him.

The crowd remain quiet. Ta’alan searches for another killer line. “From worker to slave to grave!” He shouts. “Is that what you really want –‘Coz that’s where you’re headed. Maybe it’s what you deserve!”

A young lady says, “He’s right you know. –Ryloth is better than this!”

The crowd rally again. Soon they are chanting. “Ryloth! Ryloth!”

The older members of the crowd pat the young girl on the back. “You know,” one says to her, “That young Togruta hasn’t got a girlfriend….”

“Pfft! He’s a Jedi. They don’t have attachments.”

“But….” The man says, slightly too loudly. The crowd hush, just as the girl dismisses him. “Besides,” She says to the hushed assembly, “Can I just say TIER ONE boyfriend!”

In order to stock the rabble with munitions, Karnov and Niall decide to return to Storm Cutter. A Twi’lek guide shows them a back door, cutting a couple of hours off their journey. – From there they descend into the foothills and disappear into the scrubby outback that passes for a forest on Ryloth. –Or indeed as outback for anywhere else.

Suddenly Ta’alan stops. The others stop too. “What’s up? You smell something?”

“Shhh!”

Ta’alan stands bolt-upright, sniffing the wind. His only movement is the quivering at the tips of his Montrals. Jimmi gives a “?” look.

Mama whispers, “Ta’alan’s stiffened. His gone all rigid.”

“Probably thinking of the Twi’lek girls….Or maybe that young Padawan.” Rojic jokes. “What was her name again? Adso…Andso….Anderson….And-so-not-in -your-league.”

“Droids!” Talan says in the end.

Ull asks, “Shouldn’t you say ‘I-Spy with my little eye….Something beginning with ‘D’’?”

“I hope your punctuation is correct in that question.” Jimmi says.

Ta’alan explains, “I can see ‘em with superior vision. I can hear ‘em with my superior hearing, I can smell ‘em….I can….”

Niall interrupts. “If you stretch out with your feelings, you should be able to sense them in the force too.”

Karnov says, “Wait another thirty seconds and you’ll be able to touch them too! Here they come!”

“I can’t see them.” Ull says.

Karnov sighs, “That’s ‘coz you’ve got the hyper-binoctic glasses the wrong way around.”

“At least that way a Tusken Raider can’t sneak up on me!”

“But if you put mirrors on the larger lenses….” Jimmi starts to say, but the rest of the sentence is drowned out by the sound of Mama’s blaster firing twice and the sounds of two droids falling to the floor.

Jimmi starts up another force whirlwind, Niall and Karnov go to the front and rear of the remaining patrol. Two shots later and two more droids are felled. Rojic takes careful aim. “Not gonna miss.” He says, “Not gonna miss….” He shoots………………….. And hits!

“A hit! A hit! A palpable hit! Take that droid scum! Scoffo do poodoo droida rustoobuktuut!” He draws a big breath. “A HIT!!”

It is so important the statement actually warrants a double exclamation mark.

Niall is not excited a bit. “Great Rojic, but that one was already dead!”

Rojic swears a word that only Jimmi can understand. –It will take a week to wash that word out of Jimmi’s ears. The remaining droids are spun faster. Jimmi adds sand, grit, pebbles, rocks and boulders into the maelstrom.

Ull and Ta’alan have some innocent fun chucking in rocks and branches and dead droid bits, until someone sucks an astromech out of the ground and nearly gets hurt.

“Always someone to spoil the fun isn’t there?”

They proceed onward. There being nowhere for droids to hide among six-inch high shrubbery, they manage to avoid more patrols. It is also reasonable to imagine that the droids are actually avoiding them.

They skirt along a cliff edge. “Droids can’t sneak up a three-hundred foot cliff can they?” Ull asks.

“Nope. We’ll be perfectly safe here.” Rojic says confidently, flapping in people’s faces. At this point he launches himself six-hundred feet into the air. “Waaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhh!”

The others look up. They should be looking down. As two Lyleks come over the lip of the cliff and attack. Mama’s snap shots miss. Ta’alan strikes home with two shots, his guns blazing. The lead Lylek swipes at him, catching him a stunning blow to the head. Karnov dodges a tentacle with a deft sidestep as the creature snaps with its jaws. Karnov disappears into the monster’s mouth.

“Karnov is dead!” Ull wails. As he does so, an aquamarine lightsabre blade erupts from the Lylek’s cheek. It roars.

“Roar like sushi!” Mama quips, but the gag is lost on the others. Her giggle is cut short as a whip-like tail lashes at her. Jimmi stands stock still and raises both hands.Using the force, the Lylek raises an inch, but Jimmi’s power in the force is not that great. “It’s too big!” Jimmi curses.

“Only in your mind!” Niall reminds Jimmi.

“Is that why my master can’t lift a pebble?” Ull asks.

“MFwww.w…ay…….hrrrdd…….ffww.w.w…..that!” Karnov says form the creature’s maw.

Niall rushes to Ta’alan’s aid, who shoots from a prone position. Mama puts two good hits into the Lylek. It screams.

“I said shoot it in the tentacles!” Rojic quips.

The non-lifted Lylek manages to get its stinger into Niall’s back. It pumps poison powerfully into the Jedi for a second before the stinger is swatted away with a lightsabre.

Karnov manages to articulate herself inside the beast’s mouth. A second later her lightsabre cuts a long gash through the jaw, and Karnov’s little legs pop out and dangle under the chin like a straggly beard. The Lylek bites at Karnov instinctively. Karnov whizzes the weapon around its mouth.

“Oooh! A lightsabre on the tongue must be several billion on the Scoville scale!” Niall jokes, deflecting the pain of the poison in his system.

“Don’t go licking the blade of the lightsabre!” He warns Ta’alan.

Jimmi attempts the force lift again. This time a thumb sticks out of an upraised fist. Jimmi channels the force from the living things around. The second Lylek is lifted aloft. Its legs dangle for a second before Jimmi makes a smooth sweeping motion. With arms extended, Jimmi pitches the creature off the cliff. It falls with a scream onto jagged rocks below.

The active members of the company all rush to the edge to see the damage. They curse their luck when they see that the creature has impaled itself on a purple spike!

Karnov shouts form the other creature’s mouth. The others turn their attention to the thing, and pepper it with many blaster bolts. Niall steps under its guard and plunges a lightsabre into the beast’s innards, killing it. Karnov drops down relatively unscathed.

“Great place to hide from the stinger – in its mouth!” Karnov says.

They make the clearing and Storm Cutter later in the afternoon. They spend several hours in the clearing trying to find the ship. Only when they locate the missing paint where Ull banged his head do they realise that it was there all along.

Joe-9T is in his usual belligerent mood. “Statement: I would have let you know.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

“Additional: After several more hours had elapsed.” The droid chortles at them.

They dust off and fly the short hop to Kalau’un.

The news when they arrive is not good.

“The separatists have started bombing outlying towns and villages. Several casualty reports coming in.” Numbers tells them.

Our heroes can’t believe their ears. Fearing a revolt among the partisans, they resolve to hit back immediately.

“What, we’re not gonna discuss this endlessly?” Rojic asks.

There is not time to answer him. They pull up a holo of the hangar complex in the next valley. “We need to strike here, here and here.” Karnov says, indicating the main hangar and two smaller ones in the complex.

She splits her forces.

“The rebels we’ll keep outside with RPGs. They can snipe at any ships that emerge from the hangars. Jimmi and I will take the northern hanger. Niall, Mama and Rojic can take the centre.

“Vulture droids in the south hangar.” One of their Twi’lek scouts reports, “They have a landing craft in the main hangar. There are also Hyena craft.”

“Numbers?”

“Unsure. A few squads of droids, some mercenaries maybe. We suspect whoever is in charge is there also.”

Karnov rallies her troops. “We’ve not a moment to lose. Let’s go!”

They move out. Niall and Karnov lead the charge across the minefield under the cover of daylight. The clones take out two sentries. The Separatists are over-confident about their security. Karnov makes the main hangar and starts to peel left. “Ta’alan, you’re our vanguard. –As soon as we engage the droids, make for the control room. From there you need to find to computer room. If you can slice the controls for the hangar doors or even slice the bomber commands, that should slow them down.”

“Wilco. Roger! Roger!” Ta’alan jokes imitating the droids.

Naill and Mama’s job is to punch through the droids defending the main hangar. Karnov’s team peel off as planned. The clones head southwards. Niall comes across a squad of droids. A few deft sweeps of a lightsabre later, they are noting but spare parts. This clears a path for the rebels, who advance cautiously, mopping up the stragglers and not-quite destroyed droids. A second close-packed squad of droids blocks the top of the stairs. Mama tells Niall to duck and she launches a droid-popper grenade. –Unfortunately for her, she throws like a girl and the grenade drops to her feet, where it rolls under Niall’s. The droids exchange glances and raise their blasters. Niall deftly flips the grenade with his feet to knee height, where he expertly punts it into the precise centre of the droids. It explodes with a soft pop, and the droids are stunned. A lightsabre and a blaster soon finish them off.

More droids appear from a side-entrance next to a barrel. We can all see where this is leading. –Except that the separatists aren’t stupid enough to leave an explody-barrel in their midst. Niall leaps in and grabs them by the aggro. This lets Ta’alan and Rojic slip in behind them into a computer control room. In the end there are two droids left. One on the far left and one on the far right.

“Damn! A split!” Niall curses.

Two shots ring out. Two droids drop as one. Ta’alan grins from the doorway, then disappears.

“Remind me to knock very carefully when he’s in the head!”

Meanwhile, Karnov and Jimmi are being pinned down by a detail of mercenaries in the north hangar. Several bombers are powering up. The mercenaries are crouching behind barrels – Empty barrels. Karnov is about to leap into the fray, when Jimmi calls on the force. A moment later Jimmi’s blaster shoots three times almost as one shot. Three mercenaries fall dead.

“No power in the verse can stop me!”

“Verse?”

“Okay galaxy then!”

By this time, Karnov has heeded Jimmi’s words and trashed several droids and mercenaries. The clones come up behind picking off the stragglers.

Back in the control room, a pillar begins to move by itself. For a few milliseconds, Mama stares open mouthed at it. It half turns, and turns out to be a Skakoan, who was standing stock still staring at some small screens.

“There!” Mama shouts as a warning. “The sep commander!” As she does so, several super battle droids slide silently up behind her. “Karking ‘S’ key!” She mutters. As she does so, a slim, svelte, sexy Twi’lek woman peels away from the console and goes for a weapon. Mama instinctively changes target and shoots her. The woman is unfazed and continues to cross her hands over her hips. A moment later she draws two torch-like objects from hip clips and ignights two lightsabres. She advances on Mama, all the while covering the Skakoan, who is bolting for a corner of the room. The woman’s hand rises. Mama starts to choke for air.

“Grrrr….gluuuuurrrrkkkkk!” Mama says.

“I think she’s trying to say….Han!” Rojic tells Ta’alan, whose head appears in the doorway to the computer room.

“Glllkkkkklllkkklllllllll!”

“Shoot her!” Ta’alan corrects him.

“Oh right!”

Niall steps in, spoiling Ta’alan’s aim and no longer covering Mama’s rear. This gives the Super Battle droids a massive target. They open fire.

Mama tries to shoot again, but the force choke becomes a force choke and lift. –Only the lift part is hampered by not drawing on the force from miles around to lift Mama’s extensive frame. Mama lifts up by about an inch.

“I could use you next time I stand on the scales!” She jokes and chokes.

The woman fends of Niall with two lightsabres. –Two against his one.

Ta’alan rushes to his master’s side. Now at least the number of lightsabres is evened out!

The woman drops Mama. By this time the Skakoan has pushed past a false panel into a passage. He is fleeing for his life. The Twi’lek woman covers him, fending off blows from Niall and Ta’alan, who are pressing their two-to-one advantage. Mama regains her weight and wits and takes no time to start thinning the ranks of the Super Battle droids.

By this time, Rojic has pulled the schematics of the base. He wrestles with the controls for a while, but most of the systems are locked out. He starts slicing into the system with some success, but it is taking too much time. He switches tack, by simulating a dust-storm, by carefully slicing the computer. He also blows hard on the sensor.

Back in the North hangar, there is no abbey, but Karnov and Ull are carving into more defenders. When two mercenaries go down in rapid succession, the others flee. This frees up the general and her padawan to use the RPGs. A few well-placed shots see off one of the bombers. It quietly smokes and smoulders to itself. A second starts its launch preparation. As it spins around, it narrowly misses Jimmi, who desperately tries to stop the launch. –But no power in the galaxy can stop a determined bomber from leaving. Jimmi changes tack from holding it back to giving it a gentle shove. With the force slewing it sideways, it scrapes along the hangar wall. Two mercenaries appear, sneaking up upon Jimmi, who apparently hasn’t noticed them. –Until they raise their guns. Jimmi does the same. Two shots ring out. Jimmi has spun around and without apparently taking aim, has felled the mercs with two shots between the eyes.

“No power in the ver….Galaxy can stop me!”

“Creepy.” Ull says.

“The force….” Karnov corrects him.

Karnov and Ull start on the vulture droids, slashing with lightsabres and using the RPGs. The vulture droids are deadly against massed ranks of infantry, but against two determined Jedi, they fail spectacularly. The master and her padawan dance the dance of death. The vulture droids try in vain to shoot them at point blank range. The clones arrive to RPG another bomber. Karnov runs another through with a lightsabre, cutting a ten-foot gash through the engine. This transforms it from sleek war machine to a pile of Desh in about two seconds.

Back in the control room, the Super Battle droids and Mama trade shots. Mama shoots wildly. The droids press forward, sure of a kill. Mama drops her last grenade and all the droids are fried. As they quiver with ion radiation, Mama grins like a Cheshire cat.

Meanwhile, a ferocious lightsabre battle is going on in the passage. The Skakoan is hustling along at a fast walking pace. The Twi’lek is covering his retreat. As they proceed, lightsabres flash in the darkness. The woman’s two red balanced with Niall’s orange and Ta’alan’s green. Mama and Rojic can only stand and watch. The chance of getting in close with a blaster is balanced with that of losing 1d6 limbs. Niall is gaining ground. His style somewhat hampered by the narrow passage and the fact that he doesn’t want to take home a padawan and a padawan’s head in separate boxes. The Twi’lek woman is putting on a frantic multicoloured light show, which hides a deadly game of cat and mouse.

“Can I try something?” Ta’alan gasps, amid frantic lightsabere whirling.

“Go ahead!” Niall yells back, “I kinda got my hands full here!”

“Talking of hands full....” His padawan says, as the woman twists, turns, flips and dodges. “I think I might try a force push….But my skill isn’t great….So…..”

Ta’alan stops what he is doing for a second. Niall covers the gap in their defence. With the force, Ta’alan reaches out to grab at the woman’s bottom.

If she reacts, it is undetectable. She takes it out on Niall, who slams himself against the wall to avoid a decapitating blow. He shoots a look at Ta’alan. If they survive this, there is going to be some explaining to do!

In the console room, another set of Super Battle droids clump up on stumpy legs and open fire. Mama dives for cover. The sound of a heavy gun spinning up is heard over the flurry of shots. Joe-9T has arrived with Sarah-Jane. He sets about the droids.

“The maker marked you….It’s nothing personal!” His slightly ring-modulated voice calls over the sound of awesome firepower. He mows down three droids. He would pause for breath, only he doesn’t breathe. Instead he uses this unused run-time to obliterate yet another squad. Sarah-Jane chatters her song of destruction. Mama pings two, Joe merely splits-the-arrow by putting superheated plasma into the scorch marks. In the end there are no more droids to blast. Joe takes his frustration out on the consoles. One of the opponents manages to get a post-mortem shot off at Joe. He wears the carbon scoring like a badge.

“Good shooting, Tex!” Mama says.

Joe merely paints a scorecard on the blackened area of his chest.

“More targets please….” He says. Mama shivers at his unfeeling brutality.

“Joe….” Mama says, “I need you to patch the comm through to our forces. Can you do that?”

“Affirmative.”

“Good. Then put them through to Niall and Karnov.”

“Okay.”

“Okay mistress.” Mama prompts.

Joe-9T makes a noise that sounds like a derisive raspberry.

“What?” Mama demands, “Was that?”

“Nothing…..Faulty vocabulator. Nothing more!”

The woman takes her surprise out on Niall, who has to desperately fend off a flurry of blows. The Skakoan makes the ramp of a shuttle. He trundles up the ramp. At some unseen signal, the Twi’lek woman rushes Niall and Ta’alan. They back up several yards back into the passage. Then she back-flips onto the ramp and with the force, pushes the button for it to close. Niall grits his teeth in frustration. The woman grins evilly. Quick as a flash, Niall whips a thermal detonator from his pocket and lobs it at he woman. She slices it to square leg with an across-the-knees sweep, cutting the bomb in half. Ta’alan’s eyes open wide. Niall is powerless to stop the shuttle launching. He can’t show Ta’alan his frustration, so instead he stalks off silently, his padawan at his side.

By the time they have reached the control room and picked up Rojic, Niall is calmer.

“What was with the force pinch?” Niall asks.

“I thought I’d pinch her bottom, master. As a distraction.”

“Force grope more like!” Rojic gurgles.

Ta’alan is still impressed with the woman cutting the thermal detonator in half.

“That was some trick!”

Niall isn’t so impressed. “When I was a Padawan, my Mistress made me do that hundreds of times….With thousands of ball-bearings spinning around my head. – select one, cut it in half. Select another…..-And each one no bigger than the width of your little finger.”

Ta’alan looks at his hands. He thinks hard. “Wow!”

“Exactly.” Niall says.

Rojic returns to the display screens. “Oh no….!”

“What?”

“Someone’s overridden the lockdown. Fighters and bombers are launching.”

“Then the villages are doomed!” Niall says.

Mama tosses him a pilot’s helmet. “Time to fly!” she grins at him, “Alert the clones and partisans.” She orders Rojic. “Get us some backup.”

She and Niall cross the room and enter the hangar. Niall calls back “-And don’t let our backup target us by mistake!”

Jimmi and Karnov have seen several bombers leave. They race to unoccupied fighters.

Karnov picks up the comm. Joe-9T patches him through.

“This is Jen Tannic, Republic storm leader.” A woman’s voice intones. “We are inbound…. E.T.A. One minute….Where are our targets?”

Karnov looks out of the empty hangar. “In the sky!” She says. Then adds, “-Stupid!”

“Did not copy that last word.” Tannic responds.

“The bombers are bound for the villages. I’ll see if I can ping you a marker.”

“Wilko.”

Mama and Niall race to their fighters. Niall is first in the air, but his fighter is facing the wrong way and at the back of the hangar. Mama pauses only to slide the seat back. Right back. She considers removing it altogether and sitting in the rear seat….Only there isn’t one. They roar out of the hangar at thunderous pace. Mama squeezes her thighs together and pulls a dozen-G climb. The squeezing keeps the blood in the top half of her body. She levels off at a thousand feet just to see the tail fin of one bomber. A sharp turn left and she spins the craft along its axis. The bombers are setting up for a run over the nearest settlement. She squeezes the blaster cannon controls. Two bursts cough from the guns. They streak to the lead bomber. The first rips through the shields, exposing its heart. The second lances right through the bomber, which explodes spectacularly.

“This is Jen Tannic. We have your marker. Approaching vector five.”

Not to be outdone, Niall swoops on his prey, -two bombers side by side. He narrows the gap and places a shot. From the fuel spillage and interference on the comm, it would appear that he has pierced the hyperdrive of the first. Ta’alan is right behind his master. He rises from Niall’s shadow and puts a great shot into the other bomber. It lumbers on and for a fraction of a second Ta’alan wonders whether the hit was true. When the bomber ploughs into the canyon wall in a massive fireball, he whoops his delight.

“One shouldn’t delight in killing.” Niall warns him.

“They’re only droids master.”

“Oh, in that case whoop away!”

Karnov is pursuing her prey carefully along the canyon. Even stopping and giving way to oncoming traffic at the junctions. “Mirror signal manoeuvre….” She says to herself. “Give way to….Arrrrrgggghhhhh!”

A V-19 wing of starfighters barrel down the canyon the other way, pull a fast half-loop and blast a fighter on Karnov’s tail. A vulture droid has popped out of a narrow gorge under Mama and plants a few shots on her soft underbelly. Her fighter rolls with the blows and soon the tables are turned. Karnov and the V-19s are dog-fighting with several vulture droids. Mama spies another target and swoops down into a gully to pursue it. Her shots go wide as it jinks for dear life. Storm Two blasts another bomber with ion cannons. The hull ripples with blue lightning. This opens the way for Niall, who lists lazily to the left and gives it all guns. The bomber scrapes a wing along the cliff side before crumpling into a heap of more desh.

“Now that’s flying!” Niall says.

“You can’t fly….!” Karnov baits him.

“Can too!”

“Can’t!”

They turn their craft toward one another. They are about to blast each other, then Storm three shoots between them, scoring hit after hit on another bomber. The bomber falls into a crevasse, where it explodes with a geyser of debris.

“What’s this?” Rojic asks from the safety of the com-tower. “My midichlorians are bigger than yours?” This stops the Jedi bickering. They decide to team up and find Rojic. Maybe a concussion missile or six might shut him up.

“Like shooting fish in a barrel!” Mama says, finishing another vulture droid. This sets off Karnov’s enrage timer. Try as she might, she can’t get Mama’s ship in her sights.

The V-19s are mopping up the stragglers. The Corellian pilots know their stuff. Despite this, one bomber manages to unload its deadly payload before being destroyed. Our heroes get a few assist medals and the sortie is over.

Back in the hangar, Joe-9T reports that the cities took a pounding from other bombers, but the Republic have arrived just in time to stop them wiping out the Twi’leks. Several hurried communications ping back and forth. The fighting is intense in other sectors, but the Republic push the separatists back. Ryloth is liberated!

Two days later, we rejoin or heroes. They are in their smartest clothes and are paraded in the streets of Kala’uun. This ends in speeches and medals. A large Twi’lek named Orn Free Ta addresses the crowds.

“I have great honour….” A large Twi’lek dignitary announces. “In awarding these noble heroes…..The Order of the Storm.” A great cheer rises up.

Orn Free Ta hands out the medals and shakes hands. He gives Mama a big sloppy kiss.

“Mfwwwwfffwww!” Mama says.

Orn Free Taa.

“I think that means don’t stop!” Karnov jokes.

Joe-9T steps in. “Actually it means ‘My husband is over there!” Jules strides over to break them up. “May I cut in?” He asks, pointedly.

Mama grabs him and kisses him. Joe-9T hands Jules a card offering descreet assassination services at a reasonable rate.

Several Twi’lek boys and girls offer their services to our heroes. Draped over Jimmi is one of each. “This is why I don’t have a girlfriend!” Jimmi grins. “Or boyfriend.”

“Vida Tarkona me wanna wanga!” One of the girls giggles.

Jimmi understands and says something back to her.

“I think that means type-one playmate.” Ta’alan says, “I, on the other hand am up to level three already!”

“But still stuck at first base.” Rojic says, which kills the mood stone dead.

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Footnotes: None today.