Chapter 3 - Dantooine escape/Tatooine Escape

(Tatooine- Present day during Episode 6)

The town had been far more run down than she remembered. Stormtroopers were crawling all over the place and it took a lot of work to convince the first set she had legitimate business in Anchorhead. She finally made her way on foot to Tachi Station. The sand spread around her feet with each step as her toes sunk into the hot desert sand.
The station's atmosphere was mellow with an old Max Rebo song wavering from the corner. She'd heard that song many of times and danced to it herself but now was not the time to reminisce about the past. Now was the present and the future and she had to find out about her ship, if she even had one.
The bartender stood at a small station in the corner and she made her way up to him.
"Can I get you something?" the small blonde human asked her.
"Information?" she replied calmly.
"Lady, this ain't no databank. But I'll tell you what I can." the human laughed back to her.
"I'm looking for a ship." she began.
"Just any ship? or a transport. Mos Eisley is the place to be." the human countered.
"No. I'm looking for one that belonged to me." Mala continued calmly.
"What's the ship's name?" the human asked after a minute raising an eyebrow with interest.
"Thiefs Jewel. It was a modified blast boat." she told him.
"You talking about that GAT-12j that was parked over there for the longest time. Hell that ship had more dust on it that Tatooine itself!" the human let out a hearty laugh. "Last I heard, imps confiscated it and impounded the thing on Mos Eisley. Couldn't tell you which docking bay but its there. If that's your ship Hun, you're gonna be severely disappointed when you see it again."
Mala slowly nodded and reached into a pouch around her waist. She produced several small credits and handed them to the man. He took them and gave her a weird look as she left.
As she walked away her bare feet burned with the hot sand but she couldn't help but think back to that fight more than three years prior. Her efforts on Dantooine saved the alliance but the cost to her, was grave. She mounted her swoop as the stormtroopers nearby began bustling again with activity. She gunned up the engine and goosed the throttle aiming the front vanes toward Mos Eisley and then sped away. The last thing she heard was "Hey! You!"

(Dantooine - past time before Episode 4)

"Copy that base, my flight will hold here." Mala reported in over her comm link tugging at her helmet as a droid chirped crazily behind her.
"Blue Leader is launching now with the rest of the squadron, Blue Five, stand by. Alpha base, out." came the last transmission to her X-wing fighter.
She brought her X-wing into a holding pattern just above the Ionosphere of the planet and turned out toward a shallow circle. She was being flanked by three other X-wings, Blue Six, Seven, and Eight.
It took a total of eight long time parts for the other eight fighters to come into view and after three minutes they had formed up with her four.
"Blue five, this is Lead, private channel please." chirped over her comm.
She pressed the appropriate switches and replied, "private channel go ahead."
"What the hell happened up her, Mal? The whole base is in a frenzy." Jenko's voice slightly distorted asked her.
"Imp scouts hit this sector, we were spotted. Dispatched them but I'm not sure if they got a hypercomm message off. If they did, we'll have company real soon." Mala replied into her helmet's comm unit.
"Dammit, Mal! That means..." Jenko exclaimed.
"I know lead... I know. Time to move the base out." Mala said gravely.
"Well tighten up. This may get interesting." Jenko told her and then switched back to squadron frequency. "Guys, listen up. We may have a lot of company real soon. Let's take care of this and do a switch. Two flight recharge from your pods and hold them as long as you can. If a lot of imps show up dump your spare fuel pods and we'll dog them up here. The rest of blue group may launch to help but as far as I know, don't expect it. We have to hold the imperials back long enough for them to launch. The rest will be up to us."
Mala groaned but didn't key her comm. She knew this was going to end badly. She just hoped for a sparse lucky chance that they got the squints before the hypercomm message was sent out.



(Tatooine  Present)


The twin suns were further in the east as Mala reached her destination. She barely recognized the house just outside of Eislingrade. A sandstorm had shifted the sand probably sometime in the past year and the sand level was clear over the door. If she could use telekinesis well she would have just moved the sand with the force but as that wasn't the case, she reached into the pouch on the swoop and pulled a small entrenching tool and a pair of hydrospanners from it. Cursing and sweating already she began her labor.
The suns had almost set by the time she cleared the doorway. She used the hydrospanner to pry some of the grit away from a hidden access panel and placed her palm against a small readout. The readout was powered by a battery so she was almost certain that it would still be working, even if nothing else in the house worked. Surely enough, she was rewarded by the door sliding open with a heavy groan spilling the last couple of inches of sand inside the house.
The inside was dark and she flicked another panel inside the door but there was no response. She had no power in her house. That meant the generator had been damaged. That was no surprise since the rebel base nearby had long since been destroyed and the generator out front still stood but looked badly beaten. She walked over to it and used the hydrospanner to pry off the access panel. Being a pilot, she'd acquired her own knowledge of mechanics and technology. It only took several more minutes and a little bit more of purple and orange stretching across the sky before her house lit up.
She walked back to the house leaving the generator open and whining as its gears groaned. The inside of her house was as she had left it, which surprised her. She would have thought curious Jawas would have broken into it by now and cleaned the place out. Her droid detector still worked and her protocol droids remains still stood tall even covered in millions of cobwebs.
The first hallway passage was almost completely blocked by the workings of busy gava bugs. The small 10 legged insects native to Tatooine used webs like most offworld spiders to catch prey and Mala suspected she had an infestation. She ignited her purple saber and sliced through the webs clearing a walking path into the house. As she entered the main room, her holonet terminal was chirping with a message. That didn't surprise her since she probably had millions of messages on it. She gave a sidelong glance at her weapons displays and several of her clothes displays. As she went back into the room disguised as her party room, a small whirring and beeping drew her attention to the rear of the room.
Several laser beams shot across the floor in a weaved network causing her to freeze in her tracks.
"Squealer...." Mala said with a wavering in her voice. "Override protocol three tango alpha."
An astromech chirp answered her and the lasers shut off as a jumping purple and white R5 unit rounded the corner. It left off a series of chirps and whistles happy to see its owner again. Mala kneeled and hugged the droid.
"Good to see you too, Squealer." Mala said as she gave it a long embrace. Several of its gears grinded as she let it go and it caused her to smile. "We gotta get you an oil vat. Give ya a good dip, but I don't have the time right now."
As Mala turned the droid let out a long groan but followed loyally behind its master. Mala grabbed one of her field packs from the upstairs closet and returned to remove a few of her weapons from the wall. She checked each charge and was satisfied with a T-21 sniper rifle and the DL-44. She removed a few small detonators from a hidden drawer in her party room and then grabbed a filled oil can from the kitchen and poured it inside Squealers dome, hoping the oil would help the droid move better. It was a quick fix to the desperate need of an oil bath but it was all she could do.
She finally returned to the main living room with her satchel over her shoulder and a long black robe in her hands. She keyed the transmit unit and plugged in the old codes for the Dual Suns Comm bunker hoping they still worked. She was rewarded with a small Emblem of Kaisers organization followed by the face of a radian she didn't know.
"What do you want?" the radian said in Huttese.
"Speak basic, @$$. I hate that language," Mala replied in basic.
"Fine... have itttt your way." the rodian shot back at her.
"I wanna speak to the Emir," Mala said plainly.
"Yea, you and everyone else, bantttttha poodoo. Whattttt makes you so speci-al?" the rodian cockily.
"How about if you don't let me speak to Kazer Kal'racken. I'm gonna come down there and personally castrate you," Mala replied igniting her lightsaber with an erupting snaphiss so that the holo recorder could transmit the light to the Rodian.
"Errrr... Kazer said he no wanna be distttttturbed." came the weak reply.
"Then disturb him... now." Mala shot back plainly, hitting the activation stud on the lightsaber and shutting it off.
The emblem came back after a few moments and finally the head of her favorite Twi'lek appeared on the screen.
"What in the frack do you think you're doing threatening a brigand? If I ever find out..." Kazer paused and squinted into the recorder. His braintails twitching in anger. "Holy hell. Mala?"
"In the flesh," Mala replied calmly.
"You threatened a brigand, Mala," Kazer returned.
Mala smiled and nodded, "only way I could think of getting your attention. I figured your pawn would run and tell."
"Well, I personally thought you were dead, how have you been?" Kazer said nodding to her.
"I've been fair. Jabba treats his Tera Kasi fighters better than he does his dancers," Mala said sarcastically. "Speaking of which you owe me."
"I owe you." Kazer almost exclaimed. He snorted out a laugh and then cocked his head at the holorecorder. "I don't owe anyone shoot. But since you've mentioned it. What do you want?"
"My ship back. I need a set of credentials that will give me access as an Imperial hacker. Maybe a freelance one hired by the Empire. There's supposed to be another slicer coming in tomorrow and if I can beat him tonight, I can steal my ship away," Mala explained.
Kazer almost laughed again. "Fake ID and credentials before morning. Yea... not gonna happen."
"Then I'll need backup. That place is crawling with Imps and I'm not excited about shooting my way in." Mala countered.
Kazer shook his head and smiled with a sleek grin. "You still got the gonads girl. I'll respect that. I think I may have someone in the area. Be in the cantina in an hour. You know the one." Kazer's picture flickered and the transmission died.
"Well, that went better than expected..." Mala muttered pulling the black robe over her head and heading to the droid. Squealer followed her warily and as she shut the lights out and strapped him to the swoop he groaned again before shutting down. She hit the latch and the door slammed shut. Then she mounted the swoop and rode off in the direction of Eisley again....



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
(Dantooine Orbit - Past before Episode IV)

"Incoming!" the comm chirped, opening Mala's eyes real fast. Before she could glance at her scanner herself the second report came up.
"Two Ess Dees and a Dread... we're screwed!" that was nine.
"Blue Squadron, this is leader tighten up." Jenko's voice ordered.
Mala was thinking fast tallying up the TIEs that would bring down if all of those ships opened up with their full package. Two wings and two squadrons, splitting that up between the Squints, Dupes, and Eyeballs would have been a chore. Three hundred and fourteen fighters of mottled assortment to tie up one squadron of X-wings. They were screwed.
"S-foils in attack position," Mala ordered over her now keyed comm unit, flipping her own switch to split the wings. "Quick recharge and then dump the fuel pods. We'll need some strategy for this."
She was right. Strategy would be needed but strength in numbers had the odds against them. She knew Jenko was already frantically calling back to the rebel base on the planetside desperately begging for every reinforcement possible. Her scanners lit up and another pair of ships dropped from hyperspace. Tental Six and Hard Charge. Both were small corellian corvettes.
'Are they out of their minds?' she thought as she guided her X-wing to attack position. 'Those corvettes will be swallowed alive. And we can't even get close to the Dreadnaught.'
Then more friendlies dropped out of hyperspace. Nothing real heavy but three squadrons of Y-wings and a squadron of Z-95 Headhunters looked real nice considering the odds.
"Oh my god! Bombers! Against all those-"
Nine didn't get to finish, "Cut the chatter!" Mala ordered, still adding a strategy to the numbers. This evened the odds but still stacked against them. If it were a hand of sabacc, she'd have folded.
"Rebel base reporting. Blue squadrons three and four are launching we have ten minutes. She's launching the evacuation ships now." that was Jenko's voice again.
The scanners were filling up with red dots. Her HUD was materializing as many targets as were produced by the pair of Victory class Star Destroyers.
"Any suggestions....? Anyone?" Jenko's voice was wavering at this point. The situation was grim and they all knew it. Piloting by the seat of their pants couldn't even save them now.
'Personally, I say cut our losses and jump to hyperspace... but then we'll loose General Dodonna and we don't wanna do that.' Mala thought to herself before keying the comm.
"Split bombers. Some of those are duped right? They should have ions?" Jenko's response came back positive. "Shock the Eyeballs, give 'em chatter. They didn't launch full load but we're still looking at a wing. Punch a squadron of bombers through and give the Ess Dee with the full payload a full package of shock and strafe. Maybe with a central targeting we can blow through the hanger and cripple its TIEs and even our odds. We still got a wing airborne. Let the vettes play with the Dread, steer clear. Slants on Squints and ninefives on the bombers." Mala spit out in a long chain. It was a desperate ploy to try to blow a hole in the Star Destroyer that still had TIE Fighters on it, but it was worth a shot. Ordering the X-wings on the three squadrons of TIE Interceptors was suicide but it was all they had. "Lock and load."
Jenko repeated the order over general frequency and then switched back to squadron. "Switch all shields to forward deflector screens. Throttle to full, pick your targets and go. We'll slash attack first."
Mala nodded strapping the breather to her helmet over her face. She turned a dial on the left and punched shields forward. Squealer was already chirping and buzzing with target locks so she throttled down on one of the Interceptors and switched over the Proton torpedoes. One was enough so she pressed the trigger when the rangefinder went down and the HUD went red.
A blue and silver streak followed the pink glowy warhead. She rolled and throttle hopped switching to single fire on her lasers and cycled with a spray of random energy. The warhead traveled the distance from her to the Squint and rewarded her with her first kill of the day with a large cloud of expanding ion gas. She pulled a tight roll and stomped the throttle dial up to full.
Her shields glowed with a few hits but her jinking was enough to keep them all glances. Once she was through she dialed shields back equal and pulled through a loop as the squadrons started to break up. A bright explosion off her rear brought her attention behind her and it turned out her wingmate was gone.
'Did six eject?' was her first thought as she dove back into the furball. Lasers flashed around her cockpit. Most were green which gave her an advantage. She flew on instinct and linked her lasers to quad burst. She only pulled the trigger when it felt right and each time was rewarded with an explosion of gaseous clouds and little pieces of TIE fighters and Interceptors....
The imperials secured Dantooine space that day. Her strategy worked but the cost of life was grave. Her own squadron suffered seven losses. The most important of those losses to her was her best friend Jenko, her commander and her comrade, and her long time wingmate, Cerie. The corvettes had been killed and the dreadnaught was bagged by a pair of Y-wings running a solo strafe. One got a lucky missile in and the dread went nova. The Star Destroyer attack she ordered went better than expected. Her squadron of Y-wings made it through the fighter shield and delivered a full payload on the center of the ship. A fiery hole ripped from one side to the other and out the hangar bay before those Y-wings finished dropping the first load of proton bombs. All three headhunter squadrons were lost but a few pilots were able to be grabbed up by a passing shuttle before it launched to hyperspace. General Dodonna made it safely from Dantooine but many rebels lost their lives for him. Maybe the next base would prove to be worth the hiding. She heard the rendezvous was in the Yavin system. This war was taking its tally in lives and the Rebels she fought for were wondering now if it was worth the fight at all.....

(Tatooine - Present day during Epi VI)

Mala parked the swoop near the bank and powered it down. Her droid was still strapped over the back end and she knew a pair of passing Jawas would love to have both the swoop and the droid but she through a blanket over it and hoped as she pulled the cloak tighter in the winds picking up over Tatooine. The twin suns were now over the horizon and the sand was being strewn about by the nightly winds. She made it inside the cantina and heard a familiar jingle from the local band there. She couldn't remember the race or the band's name but she went with the tune and shrugged it off. She remembered Wuher perfectly well though. It was him she walked up to first.
Before pulling back the hood or ordering her drink she scanned the cantina. Most of the locals were there and added imperial security ever since that one cantina incident everyone bragged about some Jedi taking off that poor guy's arm. There in the dark corner both were two welcome and very familiar faces. The first was none other than the famous Booster Terrik's daughter. She knew of Booster from his exploits earlier on Tatooine and his Spice trade to the inner rim. She kinda remembered a Corsec putting him on Kessel a few years back, leaving a young sixteen year old Mirax to fend for herself. Now at eighteen she was doing well, running shipping ops for Kazer Kal'racken if Mala remembered right. She couldn't remember if Mirax ever recovered the Pulsar Skate from the imperial impound but she hoped she had.
The other sitting across from the young woman known as Mirax was a zabrak male. His hair was dyed a bright pink and one of his arms was gauntleted in a chitinous bone-like armor. Both wore a simple brown shirt and a low holster, Mirax with her father's DL-44 and Madak Stary, the zabrak across from her wore a different pistol that Mala didn't recognize. Each wore a pair of black pants but Mirax had a jacket slung over the booth next to her. The dim light added shadows to Madak's facial tattoos and the horns on his dome added to the shadows as he gulped down the last bit of brown liquor from a dusty cantina glass with a hearty laugh.
Mala looked up at Wuher and nodded her head to the pair. "Give me another round of what they're drinking and then add a lominale to it." Wuher nodded as she handed a few credits across the bar, "Set all three on their table, I'll be there shortly."
Mala looked back over at the stormtroopers as they motioned for a sweep around the area apparently looking for something, and watched the three white armored figures move through the cantina and exit out the back door as Wuher went about setting the drinks as the table. When the armored figures were completely gone, Mala got up from the bar and made her way to her lominale.

You are not authorized to comment here. Your must be registered and logged in to comment