The planet was a highly developed slum, with only pockets of civilized society scattered across its rusting surface. Its ecosystems had been destroyed long ago by the Hutts and their relentless greed. Huge city-sprawls sat between narrow strips of dead foliage and acidic rivers. The sky was so contaminated that it glowed at night, a pale green, sickly glow, and spat acid down upon the earth in daily death-showers. The air smelled constantly of ozone, oils, and filth. Offworlders not yet used to the levels of the planet’s toxicity could be seen throwing the contents of their stomachs up near the spaceport on a daily basis.
It did not take the Brightstar’s Flame long to reach this sorry excuse for a world. The sickly planet orbited an angry red-dwarf sun which bathed the system itself in is volatile solar winds. The look of disgust was evident even across species lines as the mottled sky of hyperspace gave way to the stars of realspace and the rusty, black planet before them. Drex knew instantly that the Nindas had never visited this particular hell-hole.
“What is that?” Oz whispered aloud.
“R3, still with us?” Drex ignored the boy, speaking into the comm..
AFFIRMATIVE. RIGHT BEHIND YOU, 199 DEGREES OFF YOUR BOW.
“Good,” Drex nodded. Then turned his attention to Lyaia. He was nervous, feeling uncomfortable about what he was about to ask. He began, “I hate to ask, but can you take us down to this region of the planet?” Drex pointed to an area on the sensor panel readout of the planet before them.
“Won’t ground control direct us elsewhere?” Lyaia asked, and yawned. They’d arrived here in the middle of the ship’s night cycle and she’d just been woken up from the first decent sleep she’d had in days.
“Not here,” Drex shook his head. “Nar Dundo doesn’t much care who comes in. Getting out might be another matter, but don’t worry about that. I have some contacts here.”
Oz was sitting in the sensor-panel’s chair, and so noticed the sensor-blip before the alarm even sounded. “There’s a ship coming in,” Oz said, puzzled. “It’s big, and it’s transponder is reading it as the 'Eclipser'. Does that mean anything to you?”
Drex felt a cold shot travel up and down his back. “Yes, and we should keep away from it. Make a run for the planet…please.”
Lyaia gave him a look, which soon faded into the look of sad apathy he’d seen so often on this trip. “Sure,” she said, “Oz, raise the shields and man the weapons. Drex, you better strap yourself in.”
Drex nodded and did so. “R3, make a run for the planet. Take evasive action and we’ll regroup on the surface.”
CONFIRMED.
“Hang on,” Lyaia said, and then punched the accelerator to maximum thrust.
The ship lurched and then roared. The engines straining wail filled Drex’s ears as the ship shot forward at incredible speed, pressing the three of them back into their chairs. Ahead, the gloomy world grew ever bigger.
“Once we’re in the atmosphere, the planet’s radiation will block our signal and EM emissions. The planet’s toxic atmosphere will effectively cloak us, so there’s no need to run as fast once we’re there.” Drex thought the information would be useful.
“Thanks,” Lyaia said, somewhat sarcastically. “I hope you don’t expect us to breathe down there.”
“We won’t have to breathe the outside air for long if all goes according to plan.” Drex attempted to assuage her fears.
“Who are we running from?” Oz asked pointedly.
“The Dentari Shipwright Association,” Drex spoke truthfully.
“The ones we need not worry about?” Lyaia returned as she swerved the ship in evasive patterns. Nothing too fancy, but they would do the job against standard capital ship gunners against a ship of the ‘Flame’s size.
“No reason why you should have,” Drex offered in way of an apology, “they’re power is limited to Lord Ledax’s territory. I wasn’t expecting them to show up here.”
“Your expectations were wrong, weren’t they?” Again the sarcasm, “why are they here for you?” Lyaia asked.
“I’ll explain later,” Drex returned. “Just get us to the planet.”
Oz gave Lyaia a look, but his older sister merely shrugged and pressed onward. Ahead of them the much faster Z-95 was already aglow with the heat of entry into the planet’s black air. Behind them the much larger Eclipser crawled along the line between it and the planet. The larger ship had no hope of catching the ‘Flame, and any thought about the lone starfighter was a fleeting fancy, but all it really had to do was get close enough to activate its tractor beams and the Brightstar’s Flame would be ensnared and easy prey.
The Eclipser’s weapons blisters cracked and opened up as the large cigar-like vessel maintained its course. From those cracks multiple gray tubes began to emerge –the barrels of the turbolaser batteries. She was getting ready to fire, and Drex could easily see why.
He was no combat veteran, but he had been in a scrap or two with the DSA Security Forces already. DSA ships didn’t show their teeth unless they were certain they’d have a chance to use them. The fact that the ‘Flame’s sensors were detecting the weapons of the capital ship powering up was making his heart race in his chest. He was grateful for the gravity difference between Austeron and that maintained by the ship. If he had been home he was sure that his racing heart would be aching from the pounding it was giving itself.
“That helmsman is no crop-duster,” Lyaia muttered, “he’s got the angle right for the planet’s gravity to pull the ship in faster than it could close on its own.”
“Will we make it?” Drex asked.
“It’ll be close,” Lyaia responded. “Unless…” She began to cast about the console for something, even looking underneath the control yoke.
“What are you looking for?” Drex asked.
“You don’t know much about smugglers do you?” Oz questioned, glancing over from the weapons control. “They always have surprises up their sleeves, comes from playing Sabaac so much as they do. As a general rule, the older the ship a smuggler’s piloting, the more surprises are on board; and this ship is pretty old.”
“Oh,” Drex nodded, pretending to understand what the boy was talking about. “Six seconds until the Eclipser is in range,” Oz told his sister.
“I hope this is it,” Lyaia said, fingering something beneath the control board. She jumped suddenly and yelped.
There was a cracking sound, and then a low hiss like the sound of cooking meat. “Nope,” Lyaia said shaking her smoldering fingers vigorously in the air, “that was a circuit junction, hope we didn’t need that.”
Drex stared incredulously.
“Three seconds,” Oz said nervously. He flipped a switch on his board, and poised a finger over a big, candy-red button. That didn’t help Drex’s heart-rate either.
Lyaia bravely stuck her hand back under the control yoke, while ahead the black planet grew large enough to block out nearly all the stars through the view-port.
“They’re in range,” Oz said, alarms began to sound. “They have a lock-“
“Found it!” Lyaia said triumphantly.
The ship shuddered, and the engines cut off. In the sudden silence, Drex closed his eyes and began to rehearse what he would say under torture. He calmed himself, accepting what seemed to be inevitable now, and his heart slowed to something more normal a rate. It was then that he heard the engines re-engage, only at a much higher pitch.
“Hold on,” Lyaia smiled, just before Drex was thrown back into his seat, and pressed so hard into it that he felt that if it had been any harder, he would have been strained through it.
The Brightstar’s Flame lunged forward, becoming a blur of motion as its engines flared brightly enough to outshine the sun, and plunging rapidly into the planet’s atmosphere at insane speeds. Behind, the Eclipser withdrew its turbolasers and closed its weapons blisters.
All kinds of sounds now filled the bridge of the ‘Flame, most of them alarms. Drex’s vision was beginning to have blank spots in it as the ship shuddered violently and continued its dive. He could barely hear the alarms and screams as the Nindas yelled at each other, for it seemed that someone had jammed Nerf fur into his ears. He did manage to make out Lyaia straining forward to reach something, and remembered having the thought that there was no galaxy in which this could be a good thing.
Then he blacked out.