Star Wars - Tales of the Black Curs 4 - Starter's Tale Read online

  The group of friends crept back through the streets of Wroona starport to the docking pit where Platt’s freighter, the Last Chance, was moored next to Tru’eb’s Luudrian Star. Everyone boarded the Last Chance and made themselves comfortable in the crew lounge.

  Dirk Harkness and Jai Raventhorn dropped themselves onto a musty old Wroonian divan, while Tru’eb took his time settling himself and his robes into the nashtah-skin throne Platt had won in a twisted sabacc game. Starter went straight for Platt’s carved beverage box and began rummaging through it. He pulled out a few glasses, then poured generous amounts of Gruvian Tovash into each one.

  Platt grabbed a glass and seated herself in the command chair near the auxiliary engineering station at one end of the cabin. Starter passed the other glasses out, took a sip from his own and leaned against the bulkhead near the bridge hatch. The entire group fell silent as each person took a sip of their drink and stared at the bottom of their glass.

  “Say, did I ever tell you guys about the time I made the Kessel run in less than seven parsecs?” Starter said, breaking the contemplative silence.

  Platt looked at him with one eyebrow raised. “Really? Solo only claimed he did it in less than 12. At least that was somewhat believable…”

  “No, really,” Starter pleaded over everyone’s chuckles. “I did make the Kessel run in under seven parsecs. Sure, I blew out my hyperdrive, but it was worth it. You see, I had just bought these stolen secret plans from Jabba the Hutt …”

  “Let me guess, these were the plans to the second Death Star, right?” Jai chided. “This isn’t going to be another story about how you single-handedly took out a Star Destroyer, is it?”

  “Hopefully it shall be told a bit more eloquently than his first tale,” Tru’eb said. “Although I’ll be the first to admit eloquence is not one of Starter’s more polished qualities.”

  “Hey, this is a great story,” Starter pleaded. “Much better than the Star Destroyer one …”

  The lone X-wing fighter dropped out of hyperspace and veered toward the large gas giant in the Anoat system. Starter tried to keep his course steady, but his hyperdrive was probably falling out the back of the starfighter by now. Flying through hyperspace too close to strong gravitational shadows had practically ripped the hyperdrive out earlier — now it was completely useless.

  Starter pulled a datapad from behind the cockpit and scanned through it again. The information he downloaded from Jabba’s illegal computer hookups would be invaluable to the Rebel Alliance. Nobody would believe him if he didn’t have proof of the Empire’s plans. If only he could get the datapad to the Rebel base on Renforra before the Empire knew he had it and unleashed the bounty hunters — or before Jabba figured out the four cases of ryll he paid for the information was really dried blue sand from the ocean beds of Wroona …

  Starter’s X-wing tore through the gas giant’s upper atmosphere and was soon ripping through the clouds. His astrogation droid called it Bespin, but he wasn’t going to trust that little bucket of junk after that last hyperspace jump. There was supposedly a mining settlement somewhere on this planet …

  A voice crackled over his ship’s comm channel. “Unidentified craft, hold your current course and transmit identification codes.” Starter looked to starboard and tracked the twin pod cloud car following alongside him.

  “This is Captain Stitar of the Seeker Cub — my scout ship’s been hit pretty bad, needs repairs.” Starter looked back at the cloud car crew for some indication of whether they were going for his story. “I cut my last hyperspace jump a bit too close and fried my hyperdrive. Could I get some clearance to land for repairs?”

  He noticed the cloud car pilot glance over the X-wing. Hopefully he didn’t know a beat-up modified X-wing with the S-foils closed from a patchwork scout ship. Starter was getting itchy — if this whole encounter blew up into a dogfight, he’d be stuck in the system with nowhere to turn to for repairs.

  “Seeker Cub,” the voice crackled over the comm channel. “You’re cleared to land on docking pad 142. A repair crew will be sent to your landing site soon after you set down.” The cloud car veered off and continued its patrol.

  An immense city floated above the clouds ahead. Starter veered his X-wing toward it and scanned for the beacon marking docking pad 142. When he locked on the beacon, he cruised in and set his starfighter gently onto the docking pad.

  Nobody was to be seen, not even the technicians Starter expected would show up soon to work on his X-wing’s hyperdrive. He jumped out of the cockpit, datapad in hand, and ambled out to the X-wing’s sensor access panel. He’d feel safer if the datapad with the secret information were hidden somewhere on the ship rather than on his person. If something happened to him in Cloud City, at least the information would be relatively safe with the ship. Popping the panel open with a well-placed punch, he began rummaging through the sensors’ innards, trying to find a place to hide the datapad.

  Behind him he heard the blast door to the city open up. Must be the technicians, he thought. But when he turned around, he found himself facing the most deadly bounty hunters in the galaxy — Zuckuss, Boddu Bocck, Dengar, Beylyssa, 4-LOM, Zardra, and Bossk. No doubt the Empire had sent them to capture Starter and retrieve the stolen data …

  “You have got to be kidding!” Platt said, sitting up in her seat. “There’s no way you could have escaped alive from all those hunters.”

  “It does not seem likely nor probable that your sharp tongue would have saved you,” Tru’eb added. “Although it could be likely you might have bored them to death with a similarly unbelievable story.”

  “Hey, I explain everything — just listen to the story,” Starter pleaded, pouring himself another drink.

  “This tale seems to get longer and more outrageous the more Gruvian Tovash you pour down your throat,” Jai snapped. “Save some for us.”

  Dirk sat slumped beside her, snoring.

  “Hey, someone wake Harkness up, I’m just getting to the part he’ll like,” Starter said.

  “Which part’s that?” Platt asked. “The part where you get pummeled by those bounty hunters?”

  “Okay, you don’t believe me?” Starter challenged. “Just remember I was cornered on a docking pad high above Cloud City. Those things don’t have safety railings, you know …”

  Starter backed up against the fuselage of his X-wing, his hand slowly easing toward his heavy blaster pistol.

  “Look, I’m not afraid of you,” he spat. “I could ace you all from here if I wanted to.”

  The bounty hunters kept advancing along the causeway out to the docking pad.

  Starter had enough. He pulled his blaster and brought it up, taking aim at Dengar, the lead hunter. But before he could even squeeze off a shot, a metal rod sliced right through the blaster above the trigger, knocking the gun from Starter’s hand. He looked up to see Boddu Bocck smiling to himself as he lowered his custom-built powered hunting crossbow.

  “What do you expect me to do, give up?” Starter sneered.

  “No,” Dengar growled. “We expect to kill you. A lot.”

  Beads of sweat began to form on Starter’s brow. The bounty hunters were coming closer. His mind raced through every con, every scam he had ever run, trying to think of one which could get him out of this mess. Then the idea came to him. He reached for his blaster belt, to the loop where he kept his rations case — a fistsized square case where he stored food and liquid to get him through long hyperspace trips in the X-wing.

  “You’re really going to get it this time,” Beylyssa sneered.

  Bossk just growled.

&
nbsp; “We’re going to tear you limb from limb,” Zardra said. “And you know I’ll be smiling all the way.”

  “Target acquired,” IG-88 droned. “Prepare to terminate.”

  Boddu Bocck fit another bolt into his crossbow. “Time to die.”

  In one swift motion Starter snatched the rations case from his belt and held it menacingly out toward the advancing bounty hunters. “Not while I’m holding this photon detonator!”

  The bounty hunters stopped only meters from where Starter was standing.

  Beylyssa turned to 4-LOM. “He’s joking,” she said. “There’s no such weapon as a photon detonator.”

  “Are you going to wait and find out?” Starter called. And with that, he tossed his rations case directly into the middle of the clustered bounty hunters. Most scattered for cover, their minds focused on the “photon detonator,” while Starter leapt forward and grappled 4-LOM.

  Starter knocked the droid off balance and gave him a flying kick to the head. 4-LOM’s head flew off, and his body followed, tottering off the edge of the docking pad and falling into Cloud City.

  Starter heard Beylyssa coming up behind him — he spun around, bashed his elbow into her helmet, then activated the thermal detonator she kept on her ammo belt. He tossed her back into the crowd of bounty hunters, hoping she’d explode far enough away. “We’ve got you,” Boddu Bocck sneered. He was on one side, his deadly crossbow leveled at Starter’s chest. On Starter’s other side stood Zardra, also brandishing a particularly nasty looking blaster weapon. “Now you’re mine,” Bocck said.

  Starter dropped to the docking pad as Bocck let loose his crossbow bolt and Zardra fired her blaster. The two bounty hunters dropped to the deck, dead.

  Starter lunged at Zuckuss, hashing him in the head and kicking him off the docking platform. Bossk grabbed Starter from behind, pinning his arms to his sides and picking him up. Starter shifted his weight forward until his feet were back on the platform, then flipped the heavy Trandoshan over his head to follow Zuckuss screaming into the Cloud City wind.

  Dengar was trying unsuccessfully to disarm Beylyssa’s ticking thermal detonator. Starter dove for cover just as it exploded.

  He picked himself up off the deck and brushed himself off as the dust was subsiding. So much for the bounty hunters, he thought. Then a huge form came stumbling out of the smoke, screaming “Terminate! Terminate!” IG-88 was headed right for him.

  Starter dodged out of the way and allowed the huge assassin droid to slam into the X-wing’s hull. He grabbed the droid’s torso and flung him into the X-wing a few more times until IG-88’s head was hanging limply from his neck. “So long, metal breath,” Starter said as he pushed the droid gently off the docking platform.

  He seemed so satisfied with himself, watching IG-88 fall to his doom, that he didn”t hear Boba Fett shut off his jet pack before he set down behind Starter. This is too easy, Fett thought to himself as he knocked Starter over the head …

  Darth Vader knelt before the hologram of Emperor Palpatine. Fett had brought the Rebel pilot to the Executor and collected his bounty, but Vader’s agents were having a difficult time breaking the feisty Rebel.

  “Has he revealed the location of the stolen plans, my friend?” the Emperor wheezed.

  “No, master, we are attempting to break his resolve, but to no avail.”

  “Then perhaps you must use more convincing methods,” the Emperor suggested. “Interrogate this Rebel yourself. Certainly he cannot resist the power of the dark side of the Force. And if he will not reveal the location of the plans to you, then you will bring him before me.”

  “Yes, master.” Vader rose as the Emperor’s image faded. He stalked back to his meditation capsule, contemplating ways he could manipulate the Rebel into revealing the location of the data he had stolen.

  The door to Vader’s chamber opened and Admiral Ozzel entered. “Lord Vader,” he stated. “We have tried to break the Rebel using conventional methods, but we’ve already gone through five interrogation droids. The technicians said they were disabled by something called sensory overload …”

  “Has he revealed anything of use?” Vader asked.

  “No, my lord. He’s talked continuously through each interrogation session, but most of it is complete and unbelievable nonsense. No doubt this irrational babble is responsible for disabling the interrogator droids …”

  “This Rebel seems unaffected by your technological monstrosities, Admiral. Let’s see how he stands up to the power of the dark side of the Force. Bring him to me at once.”

  “It seems obvious that your story has completely divorced itself from any semblance of reality,” Tru’eb stated. “Did you plan this sequence of unlikely events, or are you making this up as you go along?”

  “It’s true,” Starter pleaded. “Look, I had just stolen secret Imperial data.”

  “If it was so important, then what was contained in the data you stole?” Platt challenged.

  “Uh, I really didn’t have a chance to check it thoroughly …”

  “You mean you didn’t ask your good friends Vader and the Emperor to fill you in?””

  “Perhaps you shouldn’t have killed all those bounty hunters,” Tru’eb suggested. “They could have helped you decode the data.”

  “It’s all true,” Starter whined.

  Harkness snored. Jai was also fast asleep, her head leaning against Dirk’s shoulder.

  “Well, stang. You might as well finish the story,” Platt sneered. “Tru’eb and I are never going to be able to sleep tonight if we don’t hear how you escaped from Vader.”

  *

  The top portion of Darth Vader’s meditation chamber rose with an ominous hum as Starter was led into the room. The trooper escorting him stood to one side, staring nervously at his feet. Starter could feel Lord Vader look up and gaze coldly at him.

  “What have you done with the stolen data?” Vader asked in a booming bass voice.

  “You see, I don’t know anything about any stolen secret information,” Starter began, motioning with his hands and shrugging his shoulders. “l was just on my way from Dantooine to Alderaan when I forgot that you blew it up and so I had to make a quick detour but you see I fried my hyperdrive so I had to land at Cloud City for repairs and then …”

  “Enough!” Vader shouted. “Now, you will tell me the location of the secret plans you stole.”

  Starter looked at the trooper next to him — who was probably more frightened than Starter in the dark lord’s presence. “I guess I better do what Vader says,” he told the trooper. The trooper looked nervously toward Vader — and Starter whacked him aside the head with his fist. Before the guard fell to the deck. Starter grabbed his blaster pistol and spun to point it toward Vader.

  Several bursts of energy shot from the blaster, missing Vader completely, but hitting the command console within his meditation chamber. The top half of the chamber lowered quickly and locked Vader inside before the dark lord could even scream out in frustration.

  Bursting through the door. Starter blasted a few Imperial officers and troopers on the bridge as he headed for the turbolifts. He shot his way clear of Imperial troops right to one of the main docking bays, where he found a Lambda-class shuttle waiting on standby. After eliminating the stormtrooper guards, Starter dashed up the entry ramp, stunned the pilot, and zoomed out of the docking bay to freedom …

  “And that’s how I stole the shuttle Tydirium which they used for the Endor operation,” Starter said proudly. “Mon Mothma herself offered to step down to let me lead the Rebel Alliance — but I couldn’t part with my X-wings. I had to get back on the line and keep flying.”

  “Now I’ve heard just about everything,” Platt said. She dragged herself out of the chair and began rummaging through a bulkhead storage container. “I mean, Starter. I could understand if you were captured by Imperials, but being interrogated by Vader himself? And escaping without any help? In the Tydirium? I don’t believe a word of it.”

&nbs
p; “Really, Starter, why would Mon Mothma, a distinguished leader and diplomat, step down to let a braggart pilot like you run the Alliance?” Tru’eb asked. “And I really can’t believe you turning that offer down and returning to fly X-wings. If anyone thinks he knows how to run the Rebel Alliance better than Mon Mothma, I would certainly consider you to be perfectly qualified.”

  “I can’t believe you’re not taking my deeply personal battle experiences seriously,” Starter said, plopping himself down into Platt’s chair. “It all happened just as I told you.”

  “Shh,” Platt whispered, removing a blanket from the bulkhead storage compartment. She drew the blanket up over Jai and Dirk. “They’ve got the right idea,” she said, nodding to the two snoring soundly on the divan. “I think I’ve heard enough stories for one day.”

  Roleplaying Game Statistics

  Starter

  (At the time of Starter’s Tale)

  Type: Brash Pilot

  DEXTERITY 3D

  Blaster 6D, brawling parry 4D+2, dodge 5D+2, melee combat 5D, melee parry 4D, running 4D+2

  KNOWLEDGE 2D

  Alien species 3D, bureaucracy 2D+2, cultures 3D, planetary systems 5D+1, streetwise 4D+2, survival 5D

  MECHANICAL 4D

  Astrogation 6D, communications 4D+2, repulsorlift operation 5D, sensors 4D+2, space transports 5D, starfighter piloting 7D+2, starship gunnery 6D+1, starship shields 5D

  PERCEPTION 3D

  Bargain 4D, command 4D+2, con 6D+2, gambling 5D, persuasion 4D+1, sneak 5D

  STRENGTH 3D

  Brawling 4D+2, climbing/jumping 4D, lifting 3D+2, stamina 4D+1