Daven Skyfe had had the worst morning of his life.
At first, there was blessed darkness. Red flashes and distant, metallic clunks intruded on his consciousness, until he began an ascent through the murky void. Daven fought to swim against the current, return to that peaceful place, until splitting pain jarred him awake.
The youth's head hurt. Lots. Getting pistol-whipped by Hutt security, being beaten with shockgloves in an alley on Tokmia, the hangover after his drinking contest with that Zeltron—none of it compared. Well, maybe the last one, almost.
Harsh, bright, unforgiving light seared his eyes behind closed lids. Sensation returned, starting with head pain, followed by chest and leg pain, which then progressed to his fingertips. Somehow even his fingernails ached.
The ground was uneven. Jagged edges dug into his spine. He lay prone, legs and arms splayed out in all directions. When dancing lights coalesced into neon spots, he took the risk. Daven blinked his eyes open.
Above, black rain clouds marred an otherwise-perfect, clear blue sky. This took him time to process. Not clouds. He noticed the billowing smoke all around at the same time he began coughing. The sudden activity sent fresh lances of pain through his everything.
Hard, cold black rock surrounded the lanky human. He could not sit up. Nonetheless, Daven knew he had to get moving. He remembered why several moments later. This was no starship. He was supposed to be in one of those.
His head lolled on the rock, first left, then right. He peered blearily at the wreckage of his boss's ship. His boss's elegant, expensive, one-of-a-kind, severely uninsured starship now took after abstract art. One wing stuck out the top of a nearby rubble pile, like the caudal fin of some seriously-lost Naboo ray lurking beneath.
Molten slag, the fused remains of engine and hull pieces, littered the area between burning sections of fuel tank. Red-and-yellow flames shook and spun atop the ruin, rose high into the poisonous air.
Stupid autopilot. If I say 'land on that plateau,' it's not my fault when some idiot computer ignores me.
He did not remember escaping the wreckage. It was fortunate he had. When Daven stood, there came an ominous, metallic groan.
Were he still inside the ship, he might have joined the rest of its crew in death. Ten seconds after he limped away, a stone pillar that held the craft's right wing suspended above the ground collapsed. It missed him, barely. By some miracle, Daven escaped this entire sequence of disasters with a mere scratch on his forehead.
Several hours later, he sat on a boulder, staring into space. I'm so lucky, I could jump for joy.
Across from him, the bent and twisted remains of a door was wedged in the front of a dilapidated wood-and-metal shelter. Several dozen more such shelters—in slightly-worse condition—dotted the furrow his ship carved across the plateau. Daven hid his face, breathing raggedly. A shaft of light penetrated the smokey canopy above. It shone off the vonium-gilt frame of the door.
Elsewhere in the Galaxy, vonium was worth many-times its weight in gold. The only known, legal mining operation was on Ando Prime. He knew for a fact there was a much smaller, less-legal operation on Tokmia. Rumor claimed Nubia saw similar goings-on.
And then his newest boss heard another rumor. Supposedly, the Lupr'or found a deposit. With limited access to other metals, they constructed their entire settlement from driftwood, rocks, mud and kill-your-aunt-for-ten-ounces-of-the-stuff vonium.
Daven was hired for his prior experience. The youth grew up around mines and miners, making this the one time he could be grateful for that fact.
He took the job gladly. Easy, low-risk. Just use the tools aboard the ship to chip-free a metric-ton of the stuff. Thankfully, there was a fully-outfitted crew quarters too, with a refresher and food to last a twelve-person mining operation months. I can hide in this house. I bet that'll be just as comfy.
He circled the plateau awhile. He found millions-of-creds worth of vonium. The stuff did not chip-off in his hands - he tried. The boy also found two corpses, half of several other crew members, a quarter of at least one, and a rock with a rude charcoal drawing. He laughed at this last until his sides hurt, and then cried.
Back at the crash site, he gave serious consideration to contact with the R'ora. Daven slapped his knees and stood. Enough was enough! There must be a village nearby. Luprora was supposed to be infested with those creatures. Maybe one had a ship for sale. Stranger things had . . .
He sat. No. No, they haven't.
Another small explosion made him flinch, but he did not look. Fuel was leaking into fissures in the ground. As the fires spread, or sparks were carried on the brisk wind tugging at his clothes, these fuel puddles ignited.
The ship was mining the plateau all on its own, a massive, wildly-inefficient drill.
Cracks spiderwebbed the barren surface. Ebon stalagmites ringed its circumference like teeth on a boneworm. Several were foreshortened by the collision with his ship.
Piles of rock-and-metal marked where houses might have been when the Lup'ror lived here - they were spread-out, far more so than was normal for a proper, cohesive settlement. Maybe the former inhabitants were loners by nature. He could sympathize.
Blue-green waves, a carpet of shimmering glass that caught and reflected the brilliance of Luprora's sun, jumped and rolled and crashed as far as the eye could see. In all directions, they assailed many identical pillars, the closest of which had to be ten-miles away.
He could not hear them smash into the rock. The sounds were muffled by great distance, and drowned-out by the omnipresent roar of the waves battling to topple his pillar.
Daven would drown. If he survived everything else here, he would drown, and there was not a thing he could do about it. What kind of poodoo-brain schuttas would try to settle this pit?
It was all Coorta's fault. Their pilot proved unable to hold it together, just a little longer. When Coorta had some kind of health issue and exploded, they were lost. Miners and thugs, not a one of them could fly a top-of-the-line cargo freighter.
Daven successfully got the autopilot to crash them and kill the other eleven crew, which given his inexperience he considered a rousing success. One-for-eleven is a C - at least. The salty sea breeze stung his cut. Daven wiped blood from his right eye, for the third time that hour.
This entire pillar might end up submerged, unless he had guessed right about the stairs. Steps were carved into the side of a cliff twenty meters to his left. He assumed they were for the benefit of the savage, heavily-armed, probably-flesh-eating R'ora natives. If the tide got any higher, one assumed the R'ora might seek shelter up here.
He kept an eye on the horizon. Clear skies, for now, but he did not know how the weather on Luprora worked. The mission briefing mentioned the Tsw’ells, giant aquatic monsters that—well, the point was, Luprora had a hundred unique ways to kill him.
He sneezed. And now I have a cold. Superb.
Daven was a city-boy. He did not know how to survive this place, where there were no trees or berries or, as far as he could tell, edibles. Unless the Tsw’ells were edible. He would never last the night. He needed a solution.
Daven stared at the shiny, reflective vonium doorframe. He was scrawny, cadaverous, short, with a wild mane of brown hair and sunken eyes. To Daven, the boy in the reflection looked dead already.
It dawned on him how much trouble he was in. True, most of that danger was more immediate than his boss feeding him to kath hounds for a week. Nonetheless, it was hard to forget who he worked for, or that she would not take kindly to the loss of her crew and equipment.
Daven personally blamed a faulty autopilot, but possessed enough self-awareness to know that explanation, along with any other he might invent, would go down poorly. Perhaps, then, there was indeed a silver lining. Storms and the R'ora could not hurt him as badly as the syndicate; they could only mercy-kill him.
He was watching for storms when a dot appeared on the horizon. He tracked the dot, believing it an animal of some kind—seeking shelter in a nest on a nearby pillar.
The dot grew larger, very fast, resolved into an angular, metallic object. Daven sprang upright, his gaze fixed. It can't be. When the roar of thrusters became audible, a broad grin split his face.
He waved his hands, jumping up-and-down to catch the pilot's attention. He was delighted when the ship, now just a few-hundred meters out, began to land nearby.
Too close. A powerful gust scattered pebbles in all directions. He hid behind a debris pile, covering his ears. The roar of the thrusters was deafening, quite literally.
When the engines died, he reached for the shockboxing gloves in his belt. He tugged them on, and scampered into plain sight. He kept his hands up, far from the BlasTech DL-18 blaster pistol at his hip, as though surrendering to police droids. Gloves made it hard to draw, or even to stick his finger inside the trigger guard, but Daven lacked faith in his capacity to hit a moving target regardless.
His default tactic—hide and shoot when they come down the loading ramp—was out. The pilot saw him.
Still, he could make this work. Daven was semi-charming when he tried, sort of. Not 'hey, can I hitch a ride on your ship' charming, but perhaps 'let me get close enough for a sucker punch' charming. Lies and misdirection are a form of persuasion, are they not?
With a subtle hiss, the loading ramp came down. He kept back, for now. "Thank the—!" Daven choked on his words.
Over seven feet of muscle and sinew, covered in matted fur, the alien wore jet-black armor that enhanced his already-imposing physique. Metal rang on metal as he stormed down the durasteel walkway. Wide, mad eyes, bright as molten gold, glared down his snout at Daven. Maybe if I hit him really hard?
None of this bothered him quite so much as did the shiny hilt, hanging suspended from Death Giant's belt. Clawed hands big enough to throttle a bantha never strayed far from his lightsaber.
Black armor, a light transport, no backup or crew, and a lightsaber. Daven never did, but he knew people who worked under the Sith before. Everything they described, the barbarous tattoos—a white diamond above the alien's grey-and-beige snout—the brisk stride, eyes like a hungry kath hound, he observed in this being.
"—thank, um—By the Force!" That should ingratiate him, right? "I'm so lucky you're here!"
"Is that so?"
The cultured voice made the hairs on his nape stand up. Daven blurted, "Do you think you c—"
He leapt back screaming as another monster shot down the ramp. The Anooba landed beside its master, head low, rear legs tense in preparation to spring.
"Does Hadzuska frighten you?" The alien—a Togorian, he recalled vaguely—had a low, sibilant voice that seemed to emanate from the bottom of a deep pit. This was how it came across to Daven, who fought to control his bladder. He almost missed the mocking edge.
The Anooba, or whatever it was, seemed far bigger than it should have been. It had the right shape, and the striped fur, though, and Daven knew of no other creature that resembled one. Dagger-sized teeth shone bright as vonium spikes. Their sharpness hypnotized him, until the Togorian's voice snapped the boy out of it.
"Hadzuska, huh? Nice name." He bent to make direct eye-contact with the beast. "Who's a good—?"
A roar that would have caused avalanches on Kaerls sent him staggering, hand-over-heart. Two upraised fingers by the Togorian silenced his companion. "Would you like to play with Hadzuska?"
Daven saw a saturnine smile expose many big, sharp teeth. Now he could see the family resemblance. Knees shaking, he forced a smile. His reply came out high-pitched and uneven. "I'm-I'm good, actually, thank you!"
The sibilant effect in the Sith's voice grew more pronounced. "Hadzuska likes to have playmates. In particular, he enjoyed the last one very much."
"I'm . . ." Daven took a breath. "I'm sure. Definitely, let's do that later. Listen, ah, while you're here—"
"Move." The Sith began to advance, and wondering at his own sanity, Daven blocked him.
"Whoa, hey-hey, wait! You're here for that Sith artifact, right?"
The giant stiffened. "The what?"
"Glowy-thing, big black metal box? Surrounded by whispers of death and destruction, tried to get me to strangle my mother?" He was babbling. Having never seen a Sith artifact, that sounded like one to him. He had heard stories in the cantina that mentioned similar details.
Daven would have crossed his fingers if there was any chance the sharp-eyed Togorian might miss it. That gold gaze bored into him, causing a borderline-physical sensation akin to red-hot pokers on his skin. He swallowed, hard. Daven had just bet his life on his ability to sell a farfetched lie.
The Togorian spoke, low and threatening. "Show me."
"Yeah! Absolutely! It's right over there. Can't miss it. Between the—" Daven turned to point, never fully taking his gaze off Hadzuska.
The Sith snapped, "Take me there! Walk in front of us."
Daven hesitated. He was running out of ideas to steal the ship. He swore the distant waves got louder in just the last couple minutes.
At last he said, defeated, "All right. It's a bit of a trek, actually. We're going that way." He gestured again, mind racing. The plateau was small. Even if he took the Togorian and Hadzuska right to the precipice, this ploy only bought him a few minutes. "Just follow me. We'll get there in no time."
A pause. Then, instead of moving, he asked, hands still held high and with palms turned out, "So, you aren't here for the artifact? What, then—"
Hadzuska halved the space between them in a single bound. Daven gave a small shriek, stumbling. His thoughts scattered like a flock of mynocks at the approach of a . . . well, of Hadzuska. "Get that thing under control!"
"Do not stall!" the Togorian snarled. A similar noise came from his beast. Daven's eyes darted between them. Panic rose in his chest.
He's going to kill me either way, he thought. He's going to find out I lied, or he's going to get mad right now, and he'll cut me in half. He'll bite my head off, and then he and Hadzuska will fight over who gets to eat me.
"Hadzuska will follow two paces behind you," the huge alien continued. "If this is a trick, he gets a new playmate."
Daven retreated, pointing at the animal. "You know what? No, no way!" Slobber dripped from its maw. Was it his imagination, or did it sizzle?
He let his mouth run while his brain analyzed the shortest route to the ship. Might he lock them out somehow? Hope the door held long enough for him to slice the navicomputer?
"No, just—no! You find someone stranded on a rock, you're supposed to help them, no questions asked! I'm not getting bossed around by some angry nexu-looking schutta like—"
He was already diving sideways as the word 'schutta' left his mouth. Social intuition over speed. It was the only reason he kept a split-second ahead of the lightsaber. Its ruby blade made a diagonal sweep through the spot where he just stood.
Daven rolled aside as Hadzuska leapt, scrambling and thrashing on the ground while that thing alit between himself and its master. He pawed clumsily at the DL-18, but gave up, reached his feet and backpedaled toward some durasteel wreckage.
"Called it!" he yelped. "Angry schutta!"
