STAR WARS
MANDALORIAN
BROTHER LOST
CHAPTER 1
As he began waking
from his trauma induced sleep, Captain Ridge became immediately focused. His
training in special ops would not let him panic. On the flip side, he was
fairly certain he was up to his shebs in trouble. Question was what kind of
trouble. Where was the rest of his squadron? Why were there no incoming comlink
transmissions requesting his status? Where in the universe had his blind hyper
jump landed him?
The automated
systems of his ship were shrieking so many warnings and alarms that an ordinary
man would have been driven beyond distraction into pure panic. He knew panic
only as an act of a cornered animal lashing out to survive at all costs. That
is what had driven him to this moment. But, now was the moment for the actions
of a decisive man. His survival depended on it.
One glance out the
forward viewport and he knew he was in deep bantha poodoo. In the battle he had
been engaged in before his hyper jump, he had been dodging everything from proton
torps, asteroids of every size, friends and foes locked in heated dogfights and
the flotsam of rampant destruction, including the lifeless bodies of his
comrades gone evac. There had been no time to mourn then and there was no time
for it now. If he hoped to rejoin his cadre some day, he had to act swiftly
now.
“Nine-Eight, kill
the autopilot now!” he yelled into his helmet mic. “Give me a status on hull
integrity and life support!” “And kill those alarms too!!”
“Hull integrity is
at 90% and life support is failing. There is a hull breach in the repair bay. Captain
Ridge, you must return to autopilot and make immediate repairs on that breach
or your survival is not likely.”
A temporary oxygen
supply helmet ejected from its cubby to the left of his seat. He pulled off his
bucket, replaced it with the survival helmet and rushed down the corridor for
the repair bay door. He came to an abrupt halt when he remembered that his
flight crew had installed a new generation astromech droid just before this
last battle. He opened his comlink and shouted an order for the droid to take
care of the breach ASAP. Ridge spun
about and double-timed it back towards the ships command center.
He received a
barrage of buzzes, clicks, and screeches that let him know the droid was on it.
Upon re-entering the command center Ridge was
confronted with his ever concerned security droid. “Sir, we are coming in too
hot. I cannot recommend this course of action at this time.”
“Nine-Eight, can
your pleasantries now or I’ll pull your tinnie plug!”
“Yes sir!”
Go help the new R
unit with the fixes in the repair bay now. That’s an order!
“Absolutely sir.”
Ridge threw the
last of the switches that relinquished full control over to him and immediately
he was in his element. All of his pilot training and experience on the
battlefield kicked into high gear. The world before him was rapidly filling the
forward viewport. He had little time to notice how beautiful it was, with its
massive oceans and continents with almost every terrain imaginable. All Ridge
knew was that if he did not slow his descent, then he would flame out like just
one more non-descript asteroid burning its way into the atmosphere.
“Nine-Eight,” he
said, “do you have the systems up enough that I can bring the braking thrusters
online. I need them at full power. Tell me some good news!”
He desperately
needed some good news. The memories of the battle that landed him here were
starting to flood back to him now. The desperation to help his many brothers
and the inability to be ten different places at once were nearly enough to
drive him mad. The dogfight he was forced into that caused him to pull a truly
desperate act. A micro-jump while in-system and surrounded by thousands of
ships and randomly drifting asteroids. Knowing that it was probably just
suicide and possibly the act of a coward, he needed to live long enough to turn
his flight from avoiding slaughter into something redemptive.
“Nine-Eight, where
are those thrusters?”
“Coming online now
sir!”
He slowed his ship
to the point that he could enter the atmosphere at a less steep angle. Suddenly
a proximity alarm began screaming for his attention. “Where am I?” “How can
there be a missile lock on me?” No time to waste.
It’s going to get
rough back there!” Hang on to your shebs!
“Sir?!” Nine-Eight
shrieked. “Ohhh, we’re doomed!”
“Not yet, we
aren’t,” Ridge said reassuringly.
Systems showed the
missile coming up fast from the port side. He could not get a read on the make.
The system just labeled it as explosive. The yield was enough to vaporize a
medium size city on an average world.
“Overkill if you
ask me! Here goes! Hang on!”
Ridge knew that
even though this ship was a good deal larger than the one or two man fighters
he had formerly spent so much time in, this one was a rare bird. It was rumored to be modeled after a
prototype ship that Vader’s now deserted apprentice, “Starkiller,” had used as
a mobile base in his hunt for the rogue Jedi that had escaped Order 66.
The missile was
fast, but how maneuverable?
Ridge yanked the
control yoke hard to starboard and began a nearly out of control descending
spiral down and away from the missile. As he spun the ship down and around he
caught sight of his adversary.
“That thing is
huge! And, what an antique!” The missile was actually spewing fire out its
backside and the ships computer indicated that the propellant was something
that had not been used in the Republic for centuries. Ridge was confident he would be able to
outmaneuver the piece of outdated tech, but he had no idea what its kill radius
was.
“Nine-Eight!! Use the scanners and find me some orbital
junk!
“Absolutely sir!”
He had to lose the
missile before it was joined by any friends or worse yet, any starfighters.
“Sir, I’ve found
what appears to be a failing space station about 20,000 clicks to our
starboard.”
Ridge wrenched the
control yoke and brought the ship out of its rolling spiral and accelerated to
maximum towards the as yet unseen space station. A few moments later, it came into view.
“You call that a
space station!?” It was barely bigger
than the ship he was in now. The hull
appeared to have been compromised and if there ever was life in the station, it
was long dead judging by the state it was in now.
No time to worry
about investigating now. Luckily, there
was a trail of large and small parts from the damaged station trailing out for
hundreds of clicks beyond it. This was
the break he had been looking for. He
began weaving the ship quickly through the debris, hoping that the missile had
no advanced tracking abilities onboard.
Since Ridge had
straightened his trajectory, the missile had immediately begun gaining on
him. He hoped that his gamble would pay
off. Shortly after Ridge cleared the
debris field the missile connected with the station. He immediately found out what the missile’s
payload was.
Thermonuclear!
“Oh, shab!!”
The shockwave caught
up in a split second and suddenly the whole world was buried in the roar of his
ship being hurled planetside.
In an instant
Ridge was airborne and remembering why locking down his crash harness was
always a good idea. And the shrieks of two suddenly weightless and tumbling
droids confirmed this thought.
Somehow, Ridge
clung to consciousness and clawed his way back to the command chair. He had to get this baby back level and bring
the atmospheric drives up before he turned into a shiny metal comet.
“Nine-Eight! Is that R unit done with repairing the burned
out atmospheric drive conduit?!” “I need
to be online yesterday!”
Ridge received a
frantic static filled reply.
“What do you mean he’s
not done,” Ridge barked into his mic.
“Sometimes I
forget why we ever created you tinnies.”
Ridge bellowed to no one in particular.
“Because we needed something to be more expendable than us meatcans,
that’s why!” “Ha! C’mon you two, let’s
get this fancy ship operational so I can at least avoid ending up as a pretty
red puddle in the middle of a crater!”
Then over the com
he heard a fast chorus of beeps and whistles.
“Nine-Eight, what did that stubby can just say?”
“Sir, he says you
can light up your braking thrusters now. And, I hesitate to say this sir, but he says
he thinks we’re not alone.”
“Really? You think?
Remind me to give “stubby” a trophy later for stating the obvious.
Ridge flipped the
toggles to kick in the braking thrusters and was greeted with an unwelcome
cough and shake from the now active system.
“C’mon baby, give
me a little break here!” He pounded the
control console in frustration and in an instant was greeted with green lights
and a growing roar as the braking thrusters suddenly came to life. The system immediately maxxed due the speed
in which the ship was rocketing toward the planets surface.
“Give me a status
report!” He shouted, “I need to know if
any of the braking flaps have been damaged.”
Ridge could hear
the astromech whistling and screeching rapidly over the comm. system. Nine-Eight responded in a voice as close as
exasperated as Ridge had ever heard from a tinnie. “What do you mean, the flaps
may not hold! Get back to work and
re-calibrate the actuators and hope that you don’t get us all vaporized!”
“Captain Ridge,
sir. Our little friend will be
correcting the problem with those flaps immediately.”
“Well, we’ll know
all too soon if the flaps will hold.
Prepare for a heavy pounding back there boys!”
The instrument
panel began flashing out a warning. No alarms blared, but the ablative
shielding on the forward sections of the ship visible from the forward viewport
began glowing in the reds and oranges one would expect in a foundry. The ship began shaking and an ever growing
rumble, more felt than heard made its way through the deck and command
chair. This brought a grin, almost
feral, to Ridge’s face. Living one
moment from death was nothing new in his brief experience in the universe.
Ridge had a brief
thought whether he should have taken Kal Skirata up on an offer to walk away
from the GAR only a short time before the battle that had so unceremoniously
dumped him here. Wherever here was. But there was no time for such thoughts when
one was about to become one with the universe by flaming out in some backwater
world’s atmosphere.
Ridge’s attention
was pulled back into focus by a cockpit alarm and then the ship’s automated
systems voice explaining that the ship would overheat and burn unless something
was done to slow it down, soon.
Ridge called out,
“Where are those braking flaps?!
“Coming online
now, sir.” Nine-Eight called out from the engineering compartment.
Not for the first
time, Ridge wondered why he ended up with a protocol droid on this ship. He
would rather have had an assassin droid or better yet, one of his brothers,
once again, a question that was loaded with irrelevance at this point.
Various groans,
metallic squeals, and bangs rang out throughout the ship as the braking flaps
came online and strained to catch the outer atmosphere to slow the ship to
speeds somewhere below suicidal.
To make matters
worse, a new warning came up on the threat display. Ridge shut down the warning klaxon but waited
for the computer to explain the situation.
The voiceover explained that the threat was two unknown atmospheric
craft rapidly approaching from the continent directly below him. Though their speed was high, it was not
remarkable. Ridge was more concerned
about any weapons that they carried and he wasn’t sure how much abuse his
shielding could take after the beating it had taken in the last
confrontation.
Ridge set the
computer to search for any communication signals either coming from the craft
themselves or the ground. The computer
chimed almost immediately and began piping in the audible signals it was
picking up. At first Ridge was unsure
what he was hearing, but then he remembered to set the switch for translation
mode. After cycling for a few seconds the
computer indicated it would provide the best approximation of the local dialect
since it did not register as known by the computer.
A hard edged male
voice could be heard talking, apparently to the other pilot. “Can you see it yet?”
“No, no visual on
the target yet,” Said a clearly female voice.
Ridge thought to
himself. Were these civilian craft? He knew it was not unheard of for females to
be in the military, but he had never encountered one on the battlefield. That is unless you counted the Jedi. And, he had tried not to spare them too much
thought recently.
Ridge’s comm. board
lit up and the voices were now more urgent.
The male voice
barked, “I’ve marked him. He’s south of
us and approaching at a steep angle from your 2 O’clock position.”
“Where... I don’t…
Oh wait, I see him. He’s trailing a lot
of smoke. Look’s like he’s gotten a bit
scorched on re-entry.”
“Yeah, that’ll
make him an easier mark.”
Ridge barked, “I
wouldn’t count on it!”
Ridge began
cycling through his weapons systems to see what their status might be. After the beating that his ship had taken
recently, he hoped he just had at least a few tricks to surprise these aruetyc
offworlders with.
It was good and it
was bad. Only one of his four missile
launchers was functional. His particle
projection cannons were offline, but his two medium laser cannons were almost
back in the green. He only had a few
seconds before he knew what he was truly up against.
The male voice
came back with, “Unidentified craft.
State your allegiance and your intentions immediately or you will be
shot down!”
No choice but to
hope that the reverse translator was online.
“My ship is damaged and needs repairs.
I’m not sure what you mean by allegiance, but if you are referring to
who I serve, I serve the Grand Army of the Republic. This is a military craft and I need to set
down for an assessment and repairs.”
“You serve
who?!” said the female voice.
“I said, that I
serve the Grand Army of the Republic.
You know, the GAR. What planet is
this anyway?!”
“What the..? Who or what is the GAR? Listen whoever you are and wherever you’re
from, we need you to stand down your weapons systems and ground that scrap pile
yesterday!”
Ridge was grinding
his teeth in anger now. He was not about
to be ordered about by some aruetyc female.
Especially not one who called his precious ship a scrap pile. It might be scorched and damaged, but he was
sure he could pull out some surprises on these two pilots.
“Nine-Eight, have
that little astromech scan those two craft for any shielding that could stop
the lasers or the electromag guns.”
“Yes sir.
Tweetles and
buzzes could be heard as the little droid did his job.
“He says they are
coated with something that appears capable of absorbing most of the laser
energy, but it will not repel the electromag energy.”
“Excellent!” Ridge
barked with another of his roguish grins.
He commed the two
enemy pilots.
“Are you two sure
you want to tangle with this rancor?”
They didn’t know
what a rancor was, but the threat from Ridge was not veiled at all.
“Buddy, you’re
on!,” growled the male voice.
Unknown to Ridge,
the female pilot commed her male counterpart on a secure transmission.
“Deej, are you
sure about this? That craft appears to
be of a design unknown to our databases.
Maybe we better just try and talk him down. I mean, he hasn’t done anything directly
against us or our ground bases at this point.
And, he has not made any real threat either.”
“Shut your yap
Sarah! I’ve been flyin’ since before you
entered middle school and my gut is telling me we better finish this guy before
all of us regret it. I’m going to force
this issue to conclusion now!”
Deej disengaged
the safety locks on all of his weapons and accelerated his aircraft into a
steep climb on a trajectory that would intercept the offworlder’s craft.
Ridge immediately
received a warning from his onboard systems that there were multiple weapon
locks on his ship.
“Shab!” Ridge
bellowed into his com system. “What are
you two up to? I’m warning you now, if
you attack me, you won’t survive.”
“We’ll see about
that dirtbag!” Came the male voice over the com.
Ridge flicked on
his laser targeting and brought his missile system up to standby.
Ridge tried one
last time. “Listen, I don’t know who you
are or what planet this is, but the last thing I want is to start an
intergalactic incident. Stand down and
I’ll follow you to wherever you’re based.”
“Nothing doing
buddy! Our defense net tagged you as an
enemy craft inbound from outside our solar system. You didn’t answer any of our communications
when you were inbound and you took out one of our listening posts. You’re done!”
With that, Ridge’s
systems began wailing out their warnings of incoming weapons fire.
“Nine-Eight, what
are we looking at?”
“Sir,
we have incoming two missiles and numerous ballistic rounds of some kind. The rounds are of a large caliber sir. If any penetrate our shielding, they may
cause hull breaches.”
Ridge snap rolled
his ship and made a run planetward straight towards the male stranger while
spinning a large circle around the trajectory of the ballistic rounds.
“Nine-Eight, are
the electromags ready to go?”
“Yes sir. I took the liberty of warming them up sir.”
“Excellent!
Ridge threw the
switches that would start the electromag guns building charges. He was rewarded quickly with a green light
letting him know their readiness.
“Bye bye
missiles! Ridge was almost giddy with a
realization that much of the tech that these enemies were deploying was far
outdated by the tech on his ship.
“Aaarggghh! The male voice bellowed over the open
channel. “What the frag was that?”
“Get used to
disappointment,” Ridge said. “Now, do you want to change your mind? It’s not too late to change the out come
here.”
“Not happening
dirtbag! You and your scrapheap are
gonna be nothing but crater in a minute!” The male voice snapped. This was followed by 2 missiles and a barrage
of cannon rounds.
“Have it your way
then,” Ridge conceded. Then he fired the
automag cannons.
“What
the..!!” Then the comm. filled with
static.
Ridge verified
he’d connected with the enemy as he could see the enemy craft heeled over,
engines coughing and flaming out. The
craft then went into a crazy dance of out of control flips, cartwheels and flat
spins.
Another frantic
voice came over the comm. “What have you
done to Deej’s plane? Deej! Can you hear me? Try and restart your engines. Deej!
Answer me!”
Ridge calmly spoke
into his mic. “Deej can’t hear you. My automags fried all his circuits. If he is as good as he claimed, he better go
evac before that ship of his disintegrates.”
“Did you have to
do that to his ship?”
“If I wanted to
live miss, yes. Let’s not forget who the
aggressor was here. I had no other
options if I was going to keep this “scrap pile” airworthy so that I can hopefully
make it home one day. If you promise to
hold off firing on me, we can both follow him down and see if he gets out.”
“I’ll hold off if
you promise to come with me and face an inquiry by our commanders.”
Ridge’s mind was
racing through multiple scenarios. And,
none of them seemed promising at the moment.
He didn’t have much else to lose at this point.
“Ok missy, let’s
follow him dirtside and then we’ll see what happens.”
Ridge kicked the
atmospheric thrusters to full throttle and raced planetward attempting to catch
up with Deej in what Ridge assumed was a death spiral. As he caught up with Deej’s craft, he could
see that he was not unconscious, but instead was frantically trying to get his
canopy to open. Ridge was helpless to do
anything and in frustration blurted out his first thought over the open
mic. “He’s a goner. He’ll never be able to pop the lid in time.”
The female
following him then broke in and said, “Thanks bud, for your assessment but I’ll
keep hoping.”
“Deej! Deej! Can you
hear me? If you can, then give me a thumbs up.
To Ridge’s
surprise, Deej did exactly that. “Whoa, that barv’s one strong soldier! I’m not
sure many men could keep conscious with all of the g’s that guy is pulling
right now?”
The woman’s voice
was filled with exasperation. “Nevermind
what you think right now! I just want to save my wingman Deej.”
Ridge barked into
his comm. “Can you reach your sidearm?”
A thumbs up.
“Blow the lock
with a shot or two.” Ridge suggested. “It’s your only chance.”
Ridge saw Deej’s
arm come up with a small pistol and then two puffs of smoke or gas breached the
canopy near the front of the cockpit. Then Deej hit the ceiling with both
hands. The canopy shot quickly out of sight and almost as fast, he was sucked
out, or pushed off from the cockpit. Luckily for Deej, he had his crash helmet
on and it came with a small oxygen supply connected from cells in his vest.
Deej’s flight suit also appeared to have small sections of webbing in the
underarms and in the crotch. Deej kicked hard away from his cockpit rim, spun
briefly into a fetal position until he was clear of the wreckage and then
spread his arms and legs to reveal the webbing there. The webbing caught the air and jerked his
body into a slowing descent. Once Deej
oriented himself with the landmarks below him, he could be seen to go into
several controlled turns and dives that resulted with him angled steeply toward
a high plain below a moderately sized mountain range. Some distance to the West of the plain, a
river could be seen flowing from North to South. Even farther to the West, a much larger
mountain range could be seen, hazy in the distance, but obviously covered in
snow at the higher elevations.
Ridge was now sure
that he could bring his ship in for a fairly smooth landing, but was
increasingly unsure as to whether he would be a free man once he stood
dirtside. His astromech was now warning
him that there were at least four additional fighter craft coming in from the
North and South to prevent him from escaping. Ridge felt he could take on these craft but
also knew that in his ships condition, if he sustained much more damage, he
would be unlikely to lift off this rock again, let alone finding his way
home. Wherever home might be from here.
Ridge’s comm.
crackled and shook him out of his thoughts.
“Hey! Are you still with me in there? I need you to follow my directions
carefully. That is if you don’t want the
rest of these trigger happy flyboys to light you up like a Christmas tree.”
“A what?”
“Nevermind right
now. Just stick close and I’ll try and
make sure you live long enough to get a hearing. Maybe you’ll get to be a free man if you’re a
good boy.”
Ridge just about
barked out a harsh reply, but then thought better of it and said, “I’ll do my
best to stick close. By the way, I did
not get your name miss.”
“I’m not a miss. I
am a fighter pilot. But, you can call me
Sarah.”
As they approached
the valley floor, Ridge realized that this area was a desert and appeared to
have no surface water other than the river that sat a number of miles to the
West of their location. The installation
that they were approaching was large but appeared to be old and spread out over
a large area. It did not have the look
of a military installation, at least not in comparison to the places he was
accustomed to back in the core.
“Miss…, I mean
Sarah, what sort of military base is this? Ridge questioned. It does not seem
very fortified. Where are the gun
emplacements and where are your assault ships stationed? This seems more like a …”
A crackle came
over the comm..
“Cut the chatter,
whoever you are,” barked a rather stern male voice. “And, Sarah, knock off the info sharing
immediately!”
“Alien craft, set
your ship down over by the light array to your North East immediately.” Said
the same stern voice. “Stand down your
weapons, cut power to your primary flight systems, and prepare to be boarded.”
Ridge bit his
tongue and responded as if to one of his commanders back in the GAR. “Yes sir. Understood sir.”
Unknown to Ridge,
Sarah received a secure transmission from her commander. “Who is this guy? Sir.
Yes Sir! Where did you find him
anyway? Sounds like the ideal
soldier. Ha! We’ll see how respectful he feels after a
little interrogation.”
“Commander, I…just… Please remember that this guy saved Deej’s
life.
“Yeah, right after
he shot his plane full of holes!” He said sarcastically. “At the moment, he is an enemy and he is
flying tech that none of us are familiar with.
He better be cooperative and he better continue showing respect or he might
be spending the rest of his pathetic life in the brig.”
As Ridge brought
his ship low over the alien tarmac he was again struck at how old and worn out
the facility looked. Sure, the old
fashioned runways appeared to have been recently resurfaced, but most of the
buildings were of a sort unfamiliar to him.
Many of them looked as if they were barely standing and even the
sturdier ones were heavily weathered and patched in many places with scraps of
metal and what appeared to be wood. Back
home in the GAR, most permanent facilities were constructed of ferrocrete and
transparisteel. At worst a more
temporary setup would be created by linking numerous plasti-form modular
units. This appeared to be a pretty
backrocket world if he’d ever seen one.
Ridge couldn’t
resist showing off his piloting skills to these areutyc, so called pilots. He accelerated towards his final landing
position and just as he overshot it, he pitched the ship towards the sky which
pushed the inertial dampers screaming to the edge of their limits. At the top of his loop he snap rolled the
ship through several complete spins for maximum effect and then he plunged at
high speed straight for the ground which produced some loud bangs from
somewhere back towards the cargo section.
At the bottom of his run he kicked the repulsors to maximum and spun the
craft into a sideways slide until he was centered over the tarmac landing
lights. He rotated the craft lightly one
last time so that he could see his captors approaching him in vehicles from
what he assumed must be the command hanger.
Ridge could see four small vehicles approaching his
ship. As the ship cooled he could hear
various pings and ticks as the surface temps dropped. After a moment, he could here Nine-Eight
coming up the corridor, apparently grumbling about show off pilots. Ridge laughed uncertainly. Though he was confident he could fight his
way out of just about any situation, he was not at all adept at
negotiations. And, he was sure this was
going to require some new skills on his part.
