To be honest, it probably wasn’t the heavy, sharp odor which Drex was finding distracting this night. That he had to admit to himself as he stared out across the plain from his cliff-top perch. The eastern hills had many such cliffs and overlooks from which to view the spaceport. It was convenient, but in a way unfortunate since they didn’t provide a view of the full layout of the spaceport. There was no natural structure both far enough away and high enough to do that on Austeron. The heavy gravity of the world tended to limit the size to which the land could grow.
The damp, cold air was starting to seep into the opening in Drex’s thinsuit, which he wore underneath his light, camouflage armor. His naked face had long ago given up protest, but this new sensation of the cold seeping down his neck and into the torso region of his suit was new and unpleasant. It started him shivering involuntarily, which brought the notice of his companions.
“Are you alright Drex?” The gravel texture of the voice gave it away as belonging to Jiorden Crux, formerly an ore-processing-droid supervisor.
“Fine,” Drex nodded, “just getting used to the chill.”
“Heh,” Jiorden coughed out, “you got too used to your warm, cozy mines didn’t you?
“I haven’t been in a mine in more than two years Jiord,” Drex chuckled, “and since you’ve never been in one I can’t imagine where you got the idea that they’re ‘cozy’ as you call it.”
Jiorden could hardly keep a straight face, “I’ll tell you where, my friend Drex,” he wrapped his arms around his broad chest, “I got that idea from all of your whining about how cold, wet, and miserable it is up here on the surface! I’ve never heard such sissy-boy talk in all my life!”
“And this is what you ask me to put up with?” Drex was chuckling hard now as he turned to the closest thing they had to a commanding officer, “In addition to asking me to topple an interstellar corporate conglomeration with nothing but spit and a hand-full of hydrospans?”
The man to whom Drex spoke was sitting on his haunches not ten meters from them. He was tending the small campfire they’d built when they got here, keeping it at a low level as not to attract attention. He had been the one to teach them that. He had taught them many such things, such as how to hunt other sentients, how to go unseen, and how to cover their tracks as well.
No one was quite sure where this one had come from. He was a stranger to Austeron, that was easily apparent from his alien visage and narrower build. Yet despite the apparent lack of adaptation to high-gravity, he didn’t seem to feel the pull of the planet any more than Drex did. At some point in the past he had shown up dressed in light camouflage armor, like the type they all wore now, and started trading the furs of many of the dangerous exotic animals on Austeron in return for produce and supplies. He was never around for very long, and would disappear for weeks or months on end. However, he had always returned with fresh pelts, and occasionally, steaks made from his latest kills. When the trouble had started with the DSA, the WMPC had hired him on immediately to teach them guerrilla warfare.
The mysterious man, who Drex now knew as Dietrich, now glanced up from the fire to look directly at Drex. Dietrich had a level, lidless stare which could unnerve even the toughest of the natives of Austeron. His sloping forehead, pronounced brow, and large black eyes made him look almost sinister. Slate-gray skin and snow colored hair contributed to his alien appearance. Nictitating membranes flashed from side to side, clearing the man’s eyes of smoke as he rose and began to approach in response to Drex’s joking inquiry.
“How can you not fight so?” Dietrich asked in a deep, rumbling-yet-serene voice that was like distant thunder rolling in from across the plains.
Jiorden moved in closer to hear what their guru of war had to say. If he was trying to up his status by doing so, Jiorden had made a mistake. Dietrich stood at roughly the same height as Jiorden, but his presence dwarfed the broader and more muscular man’s by leagues. Jiorden, with his tanned skin and light brown hair began to look the alien now, instead of Dietrich, in Drex’s eyes.
“We fight with what we have,” Dietrich responded to his own question. He hadn’t shown a bit of humor during the entire exchange. He looked about to say something more, but caught something in Jiorden’s light blue eyes, and cut himself off to confront it.
One of the men was returning from patrol. “Sir,” he said to Dietrich, “the DSA forces are on the move in our direction.”
“We’ve been discovered,” Dietrich was all business. “Drex, it is time you and Jiorden got moving on your mission. Remember, you are going to Nar Dundo, and the man whom you seek is a Bothan called Kirdah Urka. You will find her a regular at a bar named ‘The Unlucky Moon.’ Don’t forget.”
“I won’t sir,” Drex responded. He looked nervously up at the sky, out towards the spaceport. Three lights were racing out towards them. Airspeeders, which no doubt, would herald the arrival of DSA droid-troopers. “May the Force be with you.”
“And with you,” Dietrich responded.
Jiorden cocked a smile before taking off ahead into the dark night.