That Guy Strikes Back, Part 2 of 2
Mar. 28th, 2012 07:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikificTitle: That Guy Strikes Back, Part 2 of 2
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Will young Toki Wartooth be accepted into the Jedi Order? Or will he be forced to remain forever on his boring crappy home planet, repairing cranky mining droids and drinking blue milk? This fic is set in the Star Wars universe, between the time of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and the original Star Wars: A New Hope (which some of you kiddies might also know as Episode IV).
Characters/Pairings: Dethklok ensemble; sorta S/T if you squint, hint of C/P, whiff of M/K.
Disclaimer: Apologies are owed, as usual, to Brendon Small and the Cartoon Network, for theft of characters; to Lucasfilm Limited, for pilfering an entire universe and settings; and lastly, to you, the reader, for bearing with this nonsense.
Warnings: Cursing, ridiculous side of the Force.
Notes: If you are one of those legendary folks who has never seen any of the Star Wars films: seriously, what the fuck? Beta by the incomparablezsomeone and the lovely acroamatica.
Part 2 of 2
“Remember, the saber comes out of this end,” Master Charles explained, flashing a dry smile over at Skwisgaar, who was standing nearby. “And, try not to lose it.” Skwisgaar scowled while Charles carefully stepped back a few paces.
Toki ignited the saber, the blade producing a rich vein of yellow light. Toki felt a very slight vibration in the hilt, and heard the soft hum. He tried a couple of strokes, as Charles wisely jumped back yet another pace.
“An' try not t' knock yer instructer's head awf,” laughed Pickles. He was sitting cross-legged up on some kind of refuse-strewn counter inside the common room in Captain Murderface's ship, lighting up another ever-present smoke.
“Hey, no schmoking on board!” warned Murderface, narrowing his yellow cat eyes.
“No?” asked Pickles, shrugging some head tentacles.
“Not unlessch you've brought enough for the captain!”
Pickles grinned and, fishing in his vest with a tentacle, produced a smoke for Murderface, who stuck it in his furry mouth and contentedly wandered back towards the bridge.
Toki snapped off the saber, the blade disappearing. He looked around. “So, we ams gots da blind navigator, and now da captains guy ams stoned?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” agreed Charles, who was fishing around in his bag. He tossed up a metal ball, which then hung suspended in the air. “Now, this is for training. What you wanna do, you wanna repel the blasts with your saber.”
“And what if I ams not does that?” asked Toki, who was immediately answered by a sharp sting to his posterior after the training ball fired a small voltage shock at him. “Owie, what da fucks?”
Pickles laughed. “You gotta get up your lightsaber,” said Charles.
“Why you ams does dis, Charles?” said Skwisgaar.
“Whats the matter now?” asked Charles.
Skwisgaar threw up an exasperated hand. “He ams obliviously too olds to trains. You ams just dragsing him into dis mess.”
“Well,” said Charles softly. “I think that's up to the boy, don't you? You said you're eighteen, isn't that right, Toki?”
“Dat ams rights!” said Toki.
“Pffft!” sneered Skwisgaar. “I gots to go help Nat'ans with some repairs,” he grumbled. “Dat ams actually useful!” And then he stalked off.
“What ams wit' him?” asked Toki. “Hims ams not likes me or something?”
“It's not that, Toki,” sighed Charles, crossing his arms into the sleeves of his robes. “Look. You know about Order 66 right?”
“Nat'an ams said dey hunted da Jedi?” asked Toki.
“That's right. The Empire ordered us all hunted down. But, it's hard to kill a Jedi, so they got a lot of us, but not all of us. They've been sending bounty hunters to finish off the last of us. And, well, there's this one guy.” Charles leaned back against the table, next to Pickles. “No one is quite sure who he is. He always wears a mask.” Charles traced a finger down the red scar on his cheek. “He's the guy who gave me this. He went after Skwisgaar too. Skwisgaar managed to get away, but.... He had a padawan.... An apprentice.”
“Dat guy...?” asked Toki, his eyes widening. “Da masked guys? He ams killed his apprentice?”
Charles nodded.
“Kid! You don't say KILLED! You never say KILLED!” raved Nathan. He had just entered the common area, greenish skin now smeared with black grease, and holding what looked like a badly burned out piece of equipment.
“You don't?” asked Charles.
“It's BAD LUCK! Everyone knows this,” averred the Crocodoid.
“What ams you say insteads?” asked Toki.
“He was GORBA MELTED!” said Nathan.
“Gorba melted?” asked Charles, exchanging a skeptical glance with Pickles.
“Gorbas melted,” repeated Toki, solemnly.
“Uh. Are you having a problem with the repairs, Nathan?” Charles asked.
“I can't fix this shit!” howled Nathan, waving the damaged equipment.
“What'sch the fussch?” asked Murderface, who was still smoking Pickles' spice joint, and had just wandered back into the compartment. “Scounds like Gundarksch mating scheason in here.”
“Your hyperdrive is FUCKED!” said Nathan.
“That'sch what I tried to tell you, Lizschard Facshe,” laughed Murderface.
“Yeah well we gotta buy another one, Tiger Ass.”
“You guysch got money?” asked Murderface, scratching behind a black-tipped ear and switching his tail. “Thosche thingsch ain't cheap.”
There was a mass shaking of heads. “The Empire just, uh, repossessed all I had,” said Charles sadly.
“I ams knows da guy, maybes,” piped up Toki.
“Yeah. Really kid?” asked Murderface.
“Ja. Dere ams da junk dealer in Mos Revenant. Sometimes he ams helps me gets stuff cheap for da mine.”
“A nice junk dealer?” said Nathan skeptically. “Eh, that doesn't sound good, most of those guys are pretty creepy.”
“Well,” said Charles, rubbing his forehead, “I don't really see that we have a choice. Murderface, can you take us to Mos Revenant?”
“Hey, DIC!” hollered Murderface. “Set course for Mosch Revenant!”
“Revenant, baby, yeah!” the nav droid yelled back.
“I dunno if I trust that pink droid,” muttered Nathan, narrowing his slitted eyed. “He seems like a weird dude.”
“Toki,” said Charles, pulling another saber handle out of the box. “Skwisgaar managed to lose his saber. Again. Why don't you go give this to him?” he asked, tossing it to Toki.
“OK, ja!” said Toki, eagerly grabbing the saber and running out of the room.
“Wut are yoo up to, chief?” inquired Pickles from his haze of spice smoke.
“What, me? Nothing,” shrugged Charles, looking after Toki.
Toki ran along the corridors of the ship and soon located Skwisgaar noisily banging on a piece of equipment.
“Oh, hey, let me helps!” said Toki. He expertly flipped a couple of switches, and then the formerly stubborn handle easily turned.
“Oh. Ja. I ams abouts to do dat,” muttered Skwisgaar. “Whats you doings here?”
“Charles said to gives you dis saber, because you lost da one he give you after you lost da other one he gives you after you lost your own sabers!”
Skwisgaar rolled his eyes, but took the lightsaber. He nodded to Toki, who turned to leave. “Look. Kid.”
Toki turned back.
“You ams not seem like the bad guys,” said Skwisgaar, experimentally waving the saber handle. “An'. I owes you one. But dis stuff? Ams dangerous. Maybe it ams not da life you wants.”
“I knows you ams has da padawans, and he ams … gorbas melted!” said Toki.
“Pfffft. You ams been talking to Nat'ans,” sighed Skwisgaar.
“But I ams not afraids!” vowed Toki.
“I know you ams braves, kid,” said Skwisgaar. “You ams not gots to tell me.” He reached out and traced a piece of Toki's fine brown hair between his fingertips. Toki blinked, and went very still.
“We're landing on MOS REVENANT, baby, YEAH!” trilled DIC the nav droid, who had just trundled into the room. Toki and Skwisgaar both jumped.
“Uh, ja, DIC?” grumbled Skwisgaar.
“Time to STRAP YOURSELVES IN, babies,” scolded the robot. “We're in for a BUMPY RIDE!”
Toki took this as his cue to scurry off and, in a moment, Skwisgaar followed.
“Hey! T-t-toki! You gotta p-p-problem for your Uncle Rockso?”
“Eh. Told you. Creepy dude,” Nathan muttered to Charles, who merely shook his head at the weird flying being who was now hovering around Toki. Rockso looked like someone had cut the spring off a jack in the box and just let it bounce around the room on its own. He had a large, white, oversized head and a small, almost shriveled looking body, as well as constantly, madly buzzing bright blue wings which, oddly enough, looked far too small to support such a big head.
They were inside an utterly chaotic looking junk shop. If the shop had any kind of specialty at all, it was difficult to determine, as it looked like a magpie's nest: a collection of everything bright and shiny that might have washed up from the alleyways of Mos Revenant.
“Harlequin,” Charles muttered to Nathan. “They're all like this. Unfortunately.” To Rockso he said, “We need a hyperdrive for a Necrophagia 1600.”
“N-necrophagia! You're l-lucky you c-c-c-came to Rockso, k-k-kids. That's an old model. No one's g-g-gonna stock a hyperdrive but meeee!”
“Great,” said Charles, who nevertheless didn't look terribly pleased.
“I g-g-g-gotta deal for you, little h-h-hoodie guy!” said Rockso, who was hovering uncomfortably close to Charles. “Let's s-s-step over here, for a private ch-ch-chat, dig?” he whispered, herding Charles and Nathan over to a far corner of the junk shop.
“Stay there, Toki,” called Charles. “We'll just be a minute.”
“I couldn't take more than a minute with this freak,” Nathan muttered, his eyes narrowed to slits.
“We can d-d-deal, Mister Mister,” Rockso was telling Charles. “Just slap my little H-h-harlequin palm with the cash, baby!”
“How much you want for it?” asked Charles.
“It's not how much but how h-h-h-high. You understand the p-plan, little man?”
“I understand I'd really like to punch him in the face just about now,” grumbled Nathan.
“No, I don't understand,” Charles told Rockso. “Care to enlighten me?”
“The kid's from a sp-sp-spice mine, daddy-o,” Rockso whispered in Charles' ear before the Jedi could bat him away. “I want a little t-t-taste, you dig?”
“You wanna be paid in spice?”
“I'm R-ROCKSO THE HARLEQUIN! I DO G-G-GLITTERSTIM!” squealed Rockso, now jumping around the shop like he really was attached to springs. “Seriously. Lots of glitterstim.”
“I never woulda guessed that one,” said Nathan.
“I DO G-G-G-GLITTERSTIM!” squealed Rockso the Harlequin.
“You and Skwisgaar dumped your stim stash when you got raided?” Charles was whispering to Nathan.
“Yeah. We had to. IMPERIAL BASTARDS. We got nothing left.”
“We'll have to mull this over,” Charles told the Harlequin. “C'mon,” he said to Nathan. But they stopped short when Rockso suddenly bounced in front of him.
“What about the k-k-k-kid, Mr. H-hoodie Man?”
Charles stopped and frowned. “What about the kid?”
“M-m-maybe he could stay here and work for R-Rockso! You know, do some SP-SP-SPECIAL WORK for a Harlequin? In exchange for your hyperd-d-drive?”
Charles jerked an arm. Rockso suddenly found himself force-pulled down so he was eye to eye with Charles. “Not. On your life. Clown.”
“Well, you don't need to get N-N-NASTY, H-hoodie Goodie!” Rockso, released from the grip, bounced off irritably.
“Toki,” growled Charles. “We're going.” Nathan grabbed Toki, who was still staring after the girl, and the three exited the shop, to the bustling streets of Mos Revenant.
“So, what are we gonna do?” asked Nathan.
“I don't know,” Charles confessed.
“You know. There's other ways to liberate a hyperdrive from a douchebag.”
“Yeah, but we don't want to attract any more attention,” said Charles.
“Look!” said Toki. He had just pulled a holo-poster down from a brick wall and was flourishing it at Charles and Nathan. “A race!”
“Yeah, Toki,” sighed Nathan. “That's very nice.”
“No, look, ams da steepleschases! I could ams do dat!”
“Let me see that,” said Charles, taking the poster.
“You guys are gonna go watch the fucking races now?” Nathan grumbled.
“Ams what I used to do in da speeder. When you guys ams saw me!” Toki explained.
“OK,” said Nathan. “Yeah, you could do it.” He shrugged. “You could probably win. You're actually pretty bad ass.”
“That's just the first part,” said Charles, looking at Toki. “Belphegorians? They're huge gamblers.”
“Eh. Well. Not much else to do on this fucking piece of shit planet,” said Nathan. “I mean, no offense to you piece of shit planet,” he told Toki.
“Ja. My planet ams da pieces of shit,” admitted Toki.
“We could definitely win more than enough for a hyperdrive,” mused Charles. “You could adapt one of those speeder bikes we, uh, appropriated from the Empire.”
“I could do that, but....” said Nathan. He looked closely at the holo-poster Charles was holding. As you moved it, it showed a speeder bike whiz by, and then crash, in flames, into a rock wall. “Look, you know the real reason guys go see steeplechases ain't the race?” he asked.
“It ams to see guys blow up!” Toki supplied. Nathan frowned at him. “Gorba melts!” concluded Toki.
“Let's head back to the ship,” said Charles.
“OK, kid, you're all set. Let's take 'er FOR A RIDE!” thundered Nathan.
“Uh, you ams fixed da t'ing with da....” asked Toki, pointing at the heavily modified Imperial speeder bike now parked just outside Murderface's ship.
“Oh, yeah! That's all fixed! That's fine!” said Nathan.
“An dat other t'ing?” asked Toki, now crouching by the bike and looking skeptical.
“Oh, yeah! I fixed that other thing! I fixed all the things! Everything is fixed! And READY TO RIDE!”
Sitting back on a rock outcropping, Pickles in his customary haze of spice smoke exchanged a glance with Charles. “Wanna bet?” Pickles whispered.
“Actually, no,” sighed Charles.
Toki had mounted the bike. He cringed as he fired it up, and then opened his eyes. He nodded at Nathan, as evidently the smooth start up indicated some issue had indeed been corrected.
And then he put it in gear, and eased off the brake.
The bike took off like a shot. “Wowee!” said Toki, momentarily impressed at the amazing acceleration. And then he screamed as it all went wrong. Suddenly he was upside down, having not slowed down at all.
“Oops,” said Nathan, “might've needed some work on those stabilizers.”
“Ya think?” sighed Charles, rubbing his eyes.
Nathan went running off after Toki, who had landed in some scrubby bushes, and the bike, which, lacking a driver, had come to rest, still upside-down, some meters down the road.
“Sooo,” Pickles asked Charles. “Wuz Skwisgaar as gud a Jedi as Nat'an is a mechanic?”
Charles frowned and snatched the smoke from Pickles. He inhaled deeply.
“Doo yoo t'ink we kin have somethin' ready before da race?”
Charles shook his head and handed the smoke back to Pickles. “This was a stupid idea. Why did I agree to this stupid idea?”
“Dis is actually one o' yer better ideas.”
“What?” scoffed Charles. “Name a worse idea!”
“Wut about dose Twi'lek dancin' gurls on Beherit V?”
“Oh,” laughed Charles. “Uh. Yeah. I guess that wasn't one ot my better ideas.”
“We need yoo back, yoo know,” said Pickles.
“Who needs me?” asked Charles, lifting an eyebrow.
Pickles exhaled. “Da Rebellyun.”
“Just the Rebellion?” asked Charles, eyeing Pickles.
“Do any of you babies want REFRESHMENT?” burbled DIC, who had minced out bearing a tray of metallic glasses.
“Refreshment?” barked Nathan, who was walking the speeder bike back, along with a slightly limping Toki. “I wanna goddam BEER.”
“Dee-One-See doesn't serve RUDE people!” chided the droid as Pickles and Charles both grabbed beverages from the tray. “Be nice to DIC and DIC be nice to you. Yeah.”
“Are you guysch annoying my droid?” asked Captain Murderface, switching his tail.
“Eh,” grumbled Nathan.
“How'sch it going?”
“Da stabilizers cud yoose sum work,” said Pickles.
“IT'S JUST A MINOR GLITCH!” protested Nathan.
“Minor?” asked Toki. “It ams takes my head off!”
“Don't be high maintenance, kid, no one likes that,” grumbled Nathan, as he set to work with a hydrospanner.
“I ams prefers da bike dat ams rightsides ups!” grumbled Toki.
“Is Skwisgaar back yet?” asked Charles.
“Haven't scheen him.”
“I ams back,” sighed Skwisgaar, who had indeed just walked up. He grabbed a glass from DIC's tray and took a very long swig.
“Wut's goin' awn in town?” asked Pickles.
“Ams not good. Dere ams a lot of Imperials in Mos Revenant.”
“Feck,” said Pickles.
“Yeah, we probably should stay out of the city until the race,” noted Charles.
“There we go! Try this!” said Nathan, who had just finished tinkering with the speeder bike.
“Ams it fixed?” asked Toki, rubbing his leg.
“Yeah, of course it's fixed! It's AWESOME!”
“And it ams not dumps me in da bushes agains?”
“Not unless you dump YOURSELF in the bushes!”
Toki, frowning skeptically at Nathan, climbed aboard the bike once again and kickstarted it. He looked uncertain.
“Come on, kid. IT'S FINE!” said Nathan.
“It ams be fine. Nat'an ams da best mechanic. Except when he ams not,” said Skwisgaar, to a lot of chuckling.
“Ja? Maybe you ams try riding it dis time!” said Toki.
“Ja, OK,” said Skwisgaar, hopping on the bike behind Toki, drink still in his hand. “Well, what you ams waiting for?”
Toki, clearly surprised, put the bike in gear.
And the were off.
“Holy feck!” said Pickles. “Dat's fast!”
“Of course it's fast!” said Nathan. “Didn't I tell you? What's wrong with you douchebags. Are you DOUBTING ME?
“Yesch,” grinned Murderface. “Yesch we were.”
“Oh, well, OK then,” said Nathan.
Toki was lighter than air. Finally, he thought. Nathan, damn him, was right, this bike was awesome.
He found a dried up stream bed and took the bike along, easily dodging rocks and hazards.
“Ams pretty good, huh?” The voice was Skwisgaar's. The Jedi was sitting just in back of him, pressing against him. Toki could smell the beer on his breath, and felt his hand resting lightly at his waist.
“Ja,” agreed Toki. “Ams pretty good.”
Toki came to a halt by an overlook. He stopped and got off, checking to make sure nothing important was rattling off the bike.
“Dat ams da stadiums,” said Skwisgaar, who stood on the overlook, patiently drinking his beer.
Toki came over and took a look. The racing track was huge, a lot bigger than he'd expected. He whistled low.
“You ams sure about dis?” Skwisgaar asked. His voice was mildly teasing, but Toki bristled.
“Of course I ams sure,” Toki grumbled. “Why wouldn't I be?”
“Ams just askings, kids,” said Skwisgaar.
“I ams just da kids to you, huh?”
Skwisgaar confidently eyed Toki up and down. Toki impatiently crossed his arms. The appraising eye made him uncomfortable for some reason.
“No. You ams more dan just da kids. Nat'ans ams rights. You gots somethings special.”
Toki almost gasped, unprepared for the praise. “You t'ink?”
“I knows. In da olds days, we would have found you, and trained you. But, dese days.... Ams no more Jedi Temples. Ams not many of us left. We ams da last of da Jedi,” he finished, now gazing back out over the racing track below.
“So. You ams not gonna train me?” Toki asked.
“You ams sure dat's what you wants, kid?”
“I ams has da name, you knows!”
Skwisgaar's blue eyes were now locked on Toki. He took a step towards the boy. “You sure that's what you wants,” he said, very softly, “Toki?” He reached out to touch Toki's cheek, very lightly. Toki forced himself to keep breathing. The eyes. He could have gotten lost in those eyes.
And then he was lost, somewhere in the universe, so very far away, as Skwisgaar reached over to kiss him: no annoying nav droid to interrupt them now, only the soft breeze there to witness.
Toki finally forced himself to pull back. He wanted to memorize the face, to remember the kiss, for the rest of his life.
“Now, I gots to tell you somet'ings,” said Skwisgaar, smiling and still holding Toki's face.
“Ja?”
“I beens wit' a lot of ladies, kid. And, mens too!” said Skwisgaar, grinning. “Ands other t'ings....”
“What you means?” asked Toki, taking a step backwards, out of Skwisgaar's grasp.
“Well, what dis is, it ams not exclusives! I ams not da types.”
“Ja?” asked Toki, sky blue eyes suddenly darkening.
“Nope!” said Skwisgaar.
“Ams you da types to walk home?” asked Toki, suddenly jumping on the bike and gunning it.
“Hey, whats?” asked Skwisgaar. “Wait! You ams not do dats!”
But Toki already had. The bike roared and disappeared down the creek bed.
“Fucks,” said Skwisgaar, throwing his glass across some rocks. “Pffft.” He stared, fuming, up the creek bed towards where they had started out, back at Murderface's ship. “And now I ams not got no more beer,” he moaned, looking at the spilled glass.
At length, he set off for the long walk home. He heard a rumbling, and looked up with a smile to see Toki.
Toki was not smiling. Toki idled the bike, and jerked his head for Skwisgaar to come aboard.
“Ja, I knew you coulds not abandon me!” cheered Skwisgaar, leaping towards the bike, which Toki immediately jerked out of his reach. “Hey!”
“Ja, I coulds abandons you. I ams not. Because I ams da nice guys,” sniffed Toki.
Skwisgaar carefully approached the bike again. “Ja. OK. T'anks, Toki,” he said.
And then he jumped on, and they roared off back down the creek bed.
It was a bright, clear day on Belphegore, or at least as bright and clear as days went on the planet, under its thick layer of brown smog. And it seemed the entire population of Mos Revenant, and perhaps the surrounding countryside as well, had come out to attend the steeplechase.
The starting point was in a massive venue just outside the city limits. The racers would do a lap around the stadium and then depart on a crazy obstacle course that had been laid out around the surrounding countryside. It was pretty standard for this sort of race, with plenty of low walls, molten lava-filled pools, burning wreckage, and even a sarlacc pit dug at one point.
The sarlacc was actually a monster not from Belphegore, but from another out of the way outer rim planet. As predators go, the creature was a lazy thing: it dug a deep pit, and waited at the bottom for the unwary to fall into its mouth. The falls were often aided by the creature's many snaking tentacles. However, unlike Belphegorian fauna, the sarlacc did not possess much in the way of crushing jaws. It simply relied on its prey, once fallen into its belly, to behave itself and sit still, being digested over a course that sometimes took centuries.
At the end of the steeplechase, officials would generally go extract any racers unlucky enough to find themselves in the sarlacc's digestive system. Falling in was more likely than not nonfatal, but it was inevitably annoying, as it usually took a week to completely wash out the sticky and irritating sarlacc digestive juices.
And, needless to say, finding yourself inside the sarlacc's stomach meant an immediate end to any chances of winning the race.
“This is not my idea of keeping a low profile,” Charles sighed to Pickles as they stood together in the crowded stands. Pickles had also dressed today in a hooded robe. Pickles snaked out a head tentacle and patted Charles on the shoulder.
“Yoo placed da bets?”
“Legal and otherwise,” said Charles, suddenly becoming silent and still as a couple of Imperial officers walked past.
“Why are dere so feckin' many of dose guys?” whispered Pickles. “Dis is an outer rim planet.”
“I wish I knew,” said Charles. “It doesn't make any sense. If they knew were I was, why did they pick now to chase me?”
“Dunno. Dey din't seem to care too much about mah bar before now neither.”
“Oh. Starting time!” said Charles, hearing the fanfare horns. He and Pickles moved stealthily to where they could get a good look at the starting lineup.
“What a race, what a race!” came the voice over the loudspeaker. “I mean, isn't it a race?”
“Well, I'm not sure.” came a second voice. ”I know we've all technically been called here for a race.”
“Yes, it's what we've been lead to expect isn't it?” said the first voice.
“Then I expect it will be a race!”
“It will be disappointing if it is not!”
“Let's announce it together, shall we?”
“Welcome to- Oh, wait. You go too.”
“Welcome- No, you have to start.”
“You start first.”
“No, I can't start first, then we won't both do it simultaneously!”
Pickles and Charles frowned at each other. “Dose are da worst announcers in history.”
Down on the race course, Toki looked up, astonished, at the cheering crowd. While he had been bursting with confidence the whole time Nathan had been rebuilding his speeder bike, he suddenly felt it all sap away. He had never seen so many people in one place. In fact, he was astonished to see there were actually that many beings on his ruined planet.
The drivers on either side glared at him as they pulled on their helmets. There were perhaps three dozen racers here today in all. Toki was the youngest person on the course, and, he thought, the only neophyte. He knew he could race his bike, but he had never tried any of his tricks in the presence of other bikers – at least, other than when they had been pursued by the biker scouts. And he had heard tales of these guys. They did not play nice out on the course. He spotted some spikes and snares sticking out from some of the other vehicles.
He searched the crowd. His keen eyes picked out Charles and Pickles, though, as they had agreed, he didn't hail them. But he didn't see Nathan.
Or Skwisgaar.
He had a sudden thought, what the fuck am I doing here? His mind drifted back to the spice mine. His uncle. And then, with determination, he pulled on his helmet and mounted his bike. He decided to take Nathan's suggestion, “Don't fucking crash.”
The horns sounded.
Toki held his breath.
And then, the flag flashed.
And they were off. Toki's bike, a disguised Imperial model, was lighter than many of the other vehicles. This, along with Toki's lightning fast reflexes and Jedi sense of the future, made him faster and fleeter than the other models. But as Nathan had also explained, he wouldn't have much of a chance if, as they were bound to do, the other racers decided to batter him off the course.
He had decided to treat the other bikes as simply more obstacles on an already crowded course. He would try to predict their course and skim around them. It sounded easy when you were sitting on the deck of Murderface's crowded star ship, knocking back another beer, but here, going at breakneck speed and trying not to get singed by a ring of fire or clobbered by a bike twice your size? It was abso-fucking-lutely nuts.
He saw another racer coming at him out of the corner of his eye. Wait. Wait. Wait. And then at the last second, he pulled the bike up, and let the guy who was trying to batter him instead careen into the unfortunate guy on the other side. Both ended up in a fire ball. Yeah, teach them to fuck with Toki!
He skimmed over the sarlacc pit, narrowly avoiding the tentacles, although he heard the screams of another racer who was not so fortunate. Charles had advised him to stay in the middle of the pack for the first couple of laps. Charles had told him to wait and make a break when the field had thinned, as it inevitably did on the first laps.
The racers turned at the furthest marker, and went heading back.
Unseen by Toki or any of the other racers, a lone figure awaited along the sidelines, watching through binoculars.
And then the lone figure dropped the glasses, and mounted his own bike.
“Admiral Ravenwood.”
Captain Crozier came to attention as Grand Moff Selatcia strode into the bridge of Ravenwood's ship.
“Are your men assembled?” demanded Selatcia.
“Yes,” puffed Ravenwood from somewhere under his elaborate ceremonial headdress. “Our agent will extract the boy, and then Captain Crozier's men who are arrayed at the raceway will take care of any of his rebel allies.”
“Grand Moff Selatcia, I don't like this,” piped up Crozier, although he cringed inside to see attention suddenly directed his way.
“Yes, Captian Crozier?” hissed Admiral Ravenwood as Selatcia stared at him.
Crozier steeled himself. “Some of the individuals who have been seen with the boy. They are not to be underestimated. I think.... I think we should extract him. Now.”
“Patience, Captain Crozier,” said Selatcia. “Patience. This is how we will crush the Rebellion.”
“Very good, sir,” said Crozier.
Selatcia strode off, as Ravenwood cast a furious glance back at Crozier. “Go tend to your men, Crozier,” said Ravenwood, as he too flounced off.
“Asshole,” grumbled Crozier under his breath.
“Pickles.”
“Wut, chief?”
“That racer?”
“Yeh.” Pickles stared hard as the racers came around for the first lap, and then started. “He don't gaht a number.”
“No. He doesn't,” said Charles.
They exchanged a worried glance. Pickles then inclined his head.
There were groups of stormtroopers assembling in back of the stands, obviously monitoring all the exits.
“Fuck,” said Charles.
“Hey, chief, dis is like da old days, huh? Two of us, agenst impahsible ahds!”
“Like old times, huh?”
Pickles' grin was visible under the hood.
Toki was doing very well. He had had a couple of narrow misses, but now, as Charles had predicted, the field had thinned considerably. He cast a quick glance at the still smoking wreckage of some racers from the first round. It was getting time to make a break for it.
He watched a bigger bike roar past him. The driver unfortunately couldn't get the bike up in time for a low rock wall. The driver made it over, but his bike didn't, crashing into the hazard, as the rider was flung out ahead.
Toki easily cleared the rock wall, and then tensed as another racer came too close alongside him, getting ready to maneuver away. Then he cringed as the racer beside him suddenly and inexplicably skidded out of control, careening into a rock hazard and dissolving instantly into dust. He cast a nervous glance in that direction. There was another bike nearby. A really big one, like Nathan's. Weird, he didn't remember it from the start, although the field had been crowded.
He veered around a tight corner and made up some ground, but then there was a stretch of straightaway where the new biker closed the distance. Toki chanced a look back. And then his stomach tightened.
The pursuing racer didn't have a face. He was wearing a mask. Made of metal.
“Oh, lookee dere! Dey're Rebels! Dey gaht to be!”
The confused stormtroopers, gathered near one of the stadium exits, looked at each other and then at the wildly gesticulating hooded man.
“Dey were saying 'Down wit' da Empire!' 'Viva da Rebellyun!'”
The troopers regarded him.
“An'.... An' 'Dart' Vader is a dumb mudderdouchebag!'”
The stormtroopers seemed to make a decision. “We should check it out. Let's go.”
Pickles watched them thunder away. And then, carefully reaching back with a head tentacle, pulled the fire alarm. He sauntered away, whistling.
Toki accelerated, wondering what the fuck he was gonna do.
The man with the metal face was now his constant companion, running the course with him, but then, agonizingly, backing off. If any of the other racers came too close, however, they were not so lucky: they were either forced off the course (usually into a fireball) or, more worryingly, seemed to lose control of their vehicle and spin off. He suspected the man in the mask was armed, although he hadn't been able to get a glace at the weapon. Did the guy have a gun?
He tried to keep his mind on the course. The sarlacc pit was coming up again. It was no worry getting over it, the trouble was the unpredictable tentacles that the monster tended to reach out just when an unwary racer was riding over.
Some of the racers, he noticed, actually detoured around the pit, which seemed unwise if you wanted to win. But Toki suddenly frowned. He had an idea. He pointed the bike straight for the middle of the pit. As he figured, the guy with the mask was seconds behind him.
Just as he made the middle of the pit, he brought out a small photon firecracker, and tossed it down in to the pit, where it impacted on a rather irritated sarlacc. He ducked as he was immediately surrounded by angry tentacles, but the man in the metal mask, a fraction of a second behind, ended up running right into them.
Toki emerged on the other side of the pit, but he heard a squalling of air brakes, and a sickening crunching of metal.
He grinned, and raced on.
“Oh, god, the fire alarm, everybody, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” wailed the voice over the loudspeakers.
“Yes, the whole place is coming down! Panic!”
“Yes, run rampant, everybody! Don't mind the women and children!”
“They can take care of themselves!”
Charles, sitting behind the two race announcers in their booth, waved his hand and said, “If you have any questions, ask a stormtrooper.”
”Yes, everybody, go and get a stormtrooper!”
“Go and ask them for help! Maybe you'll survive!”
“Or maybe you won't,” suggested Charles, waving a finger.
“Or maybe you won't!”
“Thanks, guys,” grinned Charles.
“You think they were Jedi?”
“The lead dude was, s-s-stormy baby! He was the m-m-magic man, with the m-m-magic hands. That's why Rockso t-t-tipped you off. Me and the Empire. We're c-c-c-close baby!”
“Yeah. We got the alert.”
“So, you brought some s-s-sweet stuff for R-rockso the Harlequin? I DO G-G-G-GLITTERSTIM!” Rockso announced, bouncing hither and thither around the junk shop as a rather bored-looking stormtrooper and his weird blind magenta protocol droid looked on.
“You do know, you are trafficking in an illegal drug?” asked the trooper, switching his long white tail.
“I didn't know the Empire r-r-recruited p-pussy cat men, P-pussy Cat Man,” said Rockso, suddenly suspicious.
“They don't,” offered the stormtrooper.
Rockso suddenly quit bouncing. “Something ain't s-s-square here, s-s-sugar daddy. Are you the f-f-fuzz or not?”
The trooper removed his helmet, scratching his white and black-striped head with his claws. “I'm definitely schaid to be fuzzschy,” he remarked.
Rockso turned to spring out of the store, but was suddenly confronted by the magenta robot.
“It's nothing but net for Rockso baby, YEAH!” said the robot, releasing something from his midsection. A large flap of netting flew across the room, capturing Rockso.
“This ain't c-c-cool, daddy-o!” wailed Rockso, futilely struggling against the net. “Let me out, bad k-k-k-kitty!”
“Scho,” said stormtrooper Murderface, standing casually over Rockso and regarding his claws. “About that hyperdrive....”
“It's a mob scene here!” roared Crozier over the communicator. “Someone pulled the fire alarm! My men have been swarmed! They can't do a goddamned thing!” Around him, at the stadium, chaos reigned.
“So you are too incompetent to deal with a crowd of civilians?” a bored looking Ravenwood asked Crozier's hologram as it stood on the deck of Ravenwood's star destroyer.
“You shoulda let me grab the boy when I wanted to!”
“Our agent will complete the extraction. My own troops will be landing shortly. I counsel patience. As our glorious commander Selatcia suggests.”
“Dammit, Ravenwood, you-”
But the transmission was cut off.
Toki suddenly heard the loud roar coming up behind him. “Oh, fucks no!” he whispered.
He turned.
It was Nathan on his giant bike, Skwisgaar in the sidecar.
“Toki! Dude! Fuck the race. We gotta get outta here! We're being surrounded!” yelled Nathan. “The Empire guys are everywhere!”
Toki slowed down beside them and looked around the course perimeter for the first time in a long time. Nathan was right: Imperial landing craft were now descending at points along the course.
“Dat masked guy, he ams beens following me,” breathed Toki as he slowed down beside them.
“Whats? Da metals masks guy?” asked Skwisgaar, his eyes widening.
“Ja man wit' da mask!” said Toki. “I swears, he ams here! He ams following me.”
“I gotta gets dat guy,” growled Skwisgaar. But suddenly, all of them ducked as the sound of Imperial gunfire reported.
“Ams dey shootsing at us? Again?” said Toki.
“No time for fucking around,” said Nathan, eyes slitted. “We gotta get outta here.”
“What about da hypers drive?” asked Toki.
“Murderface has taken care of it. Come on.”
They all looked up at the large figure suddenly and improbably emerging from the sarlacc pit.
“No,” whispered Toki. “Dat ams impossibles. He ams.... He ams gorba melted!”
But now running at them was a man in a mask. An acid-scarred metal mask.
Skwisgaar leapt from the sidecar and ignited his lightsaber. “You guys ams goes. We gots business.”
“Skwisgaar! There's no time for this shit! Come on!” urged Nathan, gunning his bike.
“No. I ams stays. I ams finishes dis now.”
“Fuck. Toki. Come on!”
“No,” said Toki, quietly dismounting from his own bike. “I ams stays with Skwisgaar.”
Nathan ducked under more Imperial fire. “Stupid assholes!” he shouted, gunning the bike.
Toki gulped, and ignited his own lightsaber, even though he had no fucking idea how to use the damned thing against anything but Master Charles' training ball.
“Ams dis guy da Jedi too?” he asked Skwisgaar.
“No,” said Skwisgaar. “He ams worse. Much worse.”
The masked man charged them, suddenly igniting a strange double-sided lightsaber as he came.
“He ams cuts his way outta da sarlacc,” whispered Toki. “How he ams does dat?”
Skwisgaar said nothing, not taking his eyes from the masked man.
And then the masked man and Skwisgaar flew at each other, their sabers flashing to quickly for Toki to even see what was happening. Toki tried feinting towards the masked man a couple of times, but found himself driven back as the masked man twirled the two-bladed saber. He was amazingly fast for someone so big.
Toki feinted again, but then stumbled back and found himself falling. They were dueling right at the edge of the sarlacc pit. Toki caught himself on the edge and began to scramble out, but suddenly screamed as he felt a tentacle snake around his ankle and was pulled back downwards into the pit.
“Toki!” yelled Skwisgaar. “Ams you all right?”
“Ams fine! No problems!” said Toki as he swiped his saber impotently at the tentacle and was dragged further into the pit.
Skwisgaar aimed a blow, and beat back the masked man. He then ran to the edge of the pit, where Toki was still clinging. “Ams holds still!” he yelled, dropping over and skillfully whacking the tentacle with his lightsaber.
“Skwisgaar!' screamed Toki as he scrambled out of the pit. “Watch out!”
Skwisgaar looked back, where the masked man was bearing down on him. He rolled to his side to escape a lightsaber blow. Skwisgaar leapt to his feet, but then he cried out. He was up off the ground now, gripped around the waist and lightsaber arm by a sarlacc tentacle. Skwisgaar's lightsaber dropped to the ground. The masked man lunged at a now defenseless Skwisgaar, but then he too was ensnared in a tentacle.
“Noooo!” screamed Toki
“Toki!” shouted Skwisgaar. “Gets outta here.” But then the giant tentacles retracted and he and the masked man disappeared into the sarlacc's burrow.
“No,” whispered Toki. “No, I nots abandons you.” He ran to the side of the pit to get a look, but then he felt himself yanked off his feet. The sarlacc had lassoed his ankle with another writhing tentacle. “Fucks, not agains!” wailed Toki as he dangled, upside-down, over the sarlacc pit, and the terrible mouth of the sarlacc.
Almost without thinking about it he pulled out his own lightsaber and struck blindly at the tentacle, once, twice, three times. But then he connected, and felt himself falling to the ground.
He tried to stand, but then he immediately dropped to the ground again. Imperial ships were still firing on the field. He looked back, and saw the looming tentacles from the pit.
Trapped.
Suddenly, Toki felt himself being yanked up yet again. He screamed and careened, this time going up instead of down, flying through the air.
And then, finally, he felt himself locked in someone's big arms.
He looked up into green slitted eyes.
Nathan. They were both sitting on the gangplank of Murderface's ship.
“Got him?” Charles' voice was a cracked whisper. Charles was collapsed on the floor, weakened by the effort of the great force pull.
“Got 'em!” shouted Nathan.
They all ducked as a blast from an Imperial laser cannon hit the gangplank.
“Murderface!” shouted Charles, his voice raw. “Get us the fuck outta here!”
“We're trying bossch! Lotscha Imperial ships,” came Murderface's voice.
“Go to light speed. Now.”
“What? From the atmoschphere?”
“Wut he sed!” screamed Pickles, helping Charles to his feet. “From da atmusphere!”
“DIC! Lightspeed! NOW!” shouted Murderface.
“Light speed, baby. Yeah!”
Toki looked back at the gangplank, which had just closed with a definite clank.
“Skwisgaar,” he whispered, his veins turning to ice.
And then....
The stars were a blur.
“Report, Admiral Ravenwood,” barked Grand Moff Selatcia.
“We have successfully apprehended one of the rebels,” bragged Ravenwood.
“Where is he?” asked Selactia.
“Our men are extracting him as we speak from the sarlacc pit, sir,” reported Captain Crozier.
“And the boy?”
“Yes. The boy,” said Ravenwood. “Ahem. That was unforseen.”
“Unforseen?” said Selatcia. There was a warning in his voice.
“The rebels jumped to hyperspace with him! From the low atmosphere. It was an impossible move. There was no practical way to intercept them.”
“So, you are saying, you have lost him?” rumbled Selatcia. Something about the Grand Moff's tone: Crozier felt his testicles slip up somewhere into his abdomen.
“There was no possibility of interception,” huffed Ravenwood. “The rebels are clearly mad men. Mad men!”
“You have failed me for the last time, Admiral Ravenwood,” hissed Selatcia. He gestured with one hand. Suddenly, Ravenwood was doubled over, seemingly choking. The reason for his dyspepsia was soon as apparent as it was horrifying: Ravenwood's intestines started to coil out of his mouth. No one moved, nor said a word. The entire room full of Imperial officers was frozen.
Ravenwood fell to the floor, his body collapsing in a heap of bloody entrails. His body spasmed, and then moved no more.
And then all was silence.
“Crozier?” barked Selatcia.
“Yessir,” said Crozier, snapping to attention. “I will.... We will continue the search. We will find the boy,” said Crozier.
“See that you do. I'm counting on you now, ADMIRAL Crozier,” said Selatcia.
And then he strode off.
Toki crouched by the pool and stared, utterly fascinated, at the water flowing into it. It tumbled down the mountainside, and collected here. He stuck a hand in. Cold!
“Dat's run awf,” Pickles, standing over him, told him.
“Is there a machine up the hill?” Toki asked.
“Naw, dood! It's from meltin' snow!”
“Snow?”
They both looked up at ear-splitting noise from the roaring starship engines.
“We're taking off, dousche bagsch!” yelled Captain Murderface from up the gangplank.
“We'll let you know when we find Skwisgaar, baby, yeah!” yelled DIC, who was standing beside him.
“Uh, who's pilotin' da craft?” Pickles whispered to Charles, who was standing nearby. Charles smiled and shrugged.
“May the Forcshe be with you asschholes!” yelled Murderface. The gangplank retracted, the ship blasted off.
“One o' yer old friends?” Pickles asked Charles. “Where da feckin' hell did yoo meet him?”
“That is a good story,” said Charles, rubbing his forehead. He turned to Toki. “Uh. We need to get going now too,” he told the boy. “We gotta stay separate for a while. Uh. Like we discussed. The empire is looking for us in a group.”
Toki nodded.
“Look, uh, I wouldn't worry about Skwisgaar. He's been in worse scrapes than this. OK?”
Toki nodded.
“And, uh, we're all looking for him. I'm sure he's not.... He's not.... Uh, gorba melted.”
Toki nodded, now clearly blinking back tears.
“Ah fer feck's sake!” Pickles strode towards Toki and then enveloped him in a huge arms-and-tentacles hug. “Yoo keep care o' yerself, kiddo! An' we'll be in touch, when we hear somethin'.”
Toki nodded as Pickles released him and this time managed to choke out an “OK.”
“And, uh, remember what I taught you. About the Force and stuff,” said Charles awkwardly. “Whoa!” he said, as Toki enveloped him in a hug. “Uh. There there. Yeah.”
“C'mon, dis is gettin' apallin'ly gay,” laughed Pickles as he jumped into a landspeeder. “Nat'an wud be outraged.”
“Where is Nathan?” asked Charles, hopping into the passenger seat. But Pickles honked the horn, and they were off, Toki waving to them.
Toki stood alone for a while, watching the waterfall with fascination. His whole life, he had never seen water just free, out in the wild before. And the skies: they were blue here. In the daytime. He wondered what the nighttime sky looked like.
He finally turned to the loud roar of an enormous speeder bike.
“Hey, kid, what're you waitin' for?” bellowed Nathan over the thunder of the engines.
Toki looked at the bike for a long moment. He did not reply.
“Whatsamatter? I thought you wanted to see the fucking universe!”
Toki grabbed his bag, jumped into a sidecar. “We ams go finds Skwisgaar?” he asked.
“Well, I tell ya kid,” said Nathan, crocodile eyes narrowing. “He'll be kinda sticky. After being in that sarlacc. You sure you still wanna find him?” he asked, grinning his pointed teeth grin.
“Ja. I ams sure.”
“Heh. OK then. Let's get the fuck outta here.”
And they were off.
And so the boys went on to have many metal and awesome space adventures, including rescuing Skwisgaar, who was very sticky from the sarlacc tummy and acted sort of pissy and ungrateful about the whole thing. But that is a story for another time.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Will young Toki Wartooth be accepted into the Jedi Order? Or will he be forced to remain forever on his boring crappy home planet, repairing cranky mining droids and drinking blue milk? This fic is set in the Star Wars universe, between the time of Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and the original Star Wars: A New Hope (which some of you kiddies might also know as Episode IV).
Characters/Pairings: Dethklok ensemble; sorta S/T if you squint, hint of C/P, whiff of M/K.
Disclaimer: Apologies are owed, as usual, to Brendon Small and the Cartoon Network, for theft of characters; to Lucasfilm Limited, for pilfering an entire universe and settings; and lastly, to you, the reader, for bearing with this nonsense.
Warnings: Cursing, ridiculous side of the Force.
Notes: If you are one of those legendary folks who has never seen any of the Star Wars films: seriously, what the fuck? Beta by the incomparable
zsomeone and the lovely acroamatica.Part 2 of 2
“Remember, the saber comes out of this end,” Master Charles explained, flashing a dry smile over at Skwisgaar, who was standing nearby. “And, try not to lose it.” Skwisgaar scowled while Charles carefully stepped back a few paces.
Toki ignited the saber, the blade producing a rich vein of yellow light. Toki felt a very slight vibration in the hilt, and heard the soft hum. He tried a couple of strokes, as Charles wisely jumped back yet another pace.
“An' try not t' knock yer instructer's head awf,” laughed Pickles. He was sitting cross-legged up on some kind of refuse-strewn counter inside the common room in Captain Murderface's ship, lighting up another ever-present smoke.
“Hey, no schmoking on board!” warned Murderface, narrowing his yellow cat eyes.
“No?” asked Pickles, shrugging some head tentacles.
“Not unlessch you've brought enough for the captain!”
Pickles grinned and, fishing in his vest with a tentacle, produced a smoke for Murderface, who stuck it in his furry mouth and contentedly wandered back towards the bridge.
Toki snapped off the saber, the blade disappearing. He looked around. “So, we ams gots da blind navigator, and now da captains guy ams stoned?”
“Yeah, pretty much,” agreed Charles, who was fishing around in his bag. He tossed up a metal ball, which then hung suspended in the air. “Now, this is for training. What you wanna do, you wanna repel the blasts with your saber.”
“And what if I ams not does that?” asked Toki, who was immediately answered by a sharp sting to his posterior after the training ball fired a small voltage shock at him. “Owie, what da fucks?”
Pickles laughed. “You gotta get up your lightsaber,” said Charles.
“Why you ams does dis, Charles?” said Skwisgaar.
“Whats the matter now?” asked Charles.
Skwisgaar threw up an exasperated hand. “He ams obliviously too olds to trains. You ams just dragsing him into dis mess.”
“Well,” said Charles softly. “I think that's up to the boy, don't you? You said you're eighteen, isn't that right, Toki?”
“Dat ams rights!” said Toki.
“Pffft!” sneered Skwisgaar. “I gots to go help Nat'ans with some repairs,” he grumbled. “Dat ams actually useful!” And then he stalked off.
“What ams wit' him?” asked Toki. “Hims ams not likes me or something?”
“It's not that, Toki,” sighed Charles, crossing his arms into the sleeves of his robes. “Look. You know about Order 66 right?”
“Nat'an ams said dey hunted da Jedi?” asked Toki.
“That's right. The Empire ordered us all hunted down. But, it's hard to kill a Jedi, so they got a lot of us, but not all of us. They've been sending bounty hunters to finish off the last of us. And, well, there's this one guy.” Charles leaned back against the table, next to Pickles. “No one is quite sure who he is. He always wears a mask.” Charles traced a finger down the red scar on his cheek. “He's the guy who gave me this. He went after Skwisgaar too. Skwisgaar managed to get away, but.... He had a padawan.... An apprentice.”
“Dat guy...?” asked Toki, his eyes widening. “Da masked guys? He ams killed his apprentice?”
Charles nodded.
“Kid! You don't say KILLED! You never say KILLED!” raved Nathan. He had just entered the common area, greenish skin now smeared with black grease, and holding what looked like a badly burned out piece of equipment.
“You don't?” asked Charles.
“It's BAD LUCK! Everyone knows this,” averred the Crocodoid.
“What ams you say insteads?” asked Toki.
“He was GORBA MELTED!” said Nathan.
“Gorba melted?” asked Charles, exchanging a skeptical glance with Pickles.
“Gorbas melted,” repeated Toki, solemnly.
“Uh. Are you having a problem with the repairs, Nathan?” Charles asked.
“I can't fix this shit!” howled Nathan, waving the damaged equipment.
“What'sch the fussch?” asked Murderface, who was still smoking Pickles' spice joint, and had just wandered back into the compartment. “Scounds like Gundarksch mating scheason in here.”
“Your hyperdrive is FUCKED!” said Nathan.
“That'sch what I tried to tell you, Lizschard Facshe,” laughed Murderface.
“Yeah well we gotta buy another one, Tiger Ass.”
“You guysch got money?” asked Murderface, scratching behind a black-tipped ear and switching his tail. “Thosche thingsch ain't cheap.”
There was a mass shaking of heads. “The Empire just, uh, repossessed all I had,” said Charles sadly.
“I ams knows da guy, maybes,” piped up Toki.
“Yeah. Really kid?” asked Murderface.
“Ja. Dere ams da junk dealer in Mos Revenant. Sometimes he ams helps me gets stuff cheap for da mine.”
“A nice junk dealer?” said Nathan skeptically. “Eh, that doesn't sound good, most of those guys are pretty creepy.”
“Well,” said Charles, rubbing his forehead, “I don't really see that we have a choice. Murderface, can you take us to Mos Revenant?”
“Hey, DIC!” hollered Murderface. “Set course for Mosch Revenant!”
“Revenant, baby, yeah!” the nav droid yelled back.
“I dunno if I trust that pink droid,” muttered Nathan, narrowing his slitted eyed. “He seems like a weird dude.”
“Toki,” said Charles, pulling another saber handle out of the box. “Skwisgaar managed to lose his saber. Again. Why don't you go give this to him?” he asked, tossing it to Toki.
“OK, ja!” said Toki, eagerly grabbing the saber and running out of the room.
“Wut are yoo up to, chief?” inquired Pickles from his haze of spice smoke.
“What, me? Nothing,” shrugged Charles, looking after Toki.
Toki ran along the corridors of the ship and soon located Skwisgaar noisily banging on a piece of equipment.
“Oh, hey, let me helps!” said Toki. He expertly flipped a couple of switches, and then the formerly stubborn handle easily turned.
“Oh. Ja. I ams abouts to do dat,” muttered Skwisgaar. “Whats you doings here?”
“Charles said to gives you dis saber, because you lost da one he give you after you lost da other one he gives you after you lost your own sabers!”
Skwisgaar rolled his eyes, but took the lightsaber. He nodded to Toki, who turned to leave. “Look. Kid.”
Toki turned back.
“You ams not seem like the bad guys,” said Skwisgaar, experimentally waving the saber handle. “An'. I owes you one. But dis stuff? Ams dangerous. Maybe it ams not da life you wants.”
“I knows you ams has da padawans, and he ams … gorbas melted!” said Toki.
“Pfffft. You ams been talking to Nat'ans,” sighed Skwisgaar.
“But I ams not afraids!” vowed Toki.
“I know you ams braves, kid,” said Skwisgaar. “You ams not gots to tell me.” He reached out and traced a piece of Toki's fine brown hair between his fingertips. Toki blinked, and went very still.
“We're landing on MOS REVENANT, baby, YEAH!” trilled DIC the nav droid, who had just trundled into the room. Toki and Skwisgaar both jumped.
“Uh, ja, DIC?” grumbled Skwisgaar.
“Time to STRAP YOURSELVES IN, babies,” scolded the robot. “We're in for a BUMPY RIDE!”
Toki took this as his cue to scurry off and, in a moment, Skwisgaar followed.
“Hey! T-t-toki! You gotta p-p-problem for your Uncle Rockso?”
“Eh. Told you. Creepy dude,” Nathan muttered to Charles, who merely shook his head at the weird flying being who was now hovering around Toki. Rockso looked like someone had cut the spring off a jack in the box and just let it bounce around the room on its own. He had a large, white, oversized head and a small, almost shriveled looking body, as well as constantly, madly buzzing bright blue wings which, oddly enough, looked far too small to support such a big head.
They were inside an utterly chaotic looking junk shop. If the shop had any kind of specialty at all, it was difficult to determine, as it looked like a magpie's nest: a collection of everything bright and shiny that might have washed up from the alleyways of Mos Revenant.
“Harlequin,” Charles muttered to Nathan. “They're all like this. Unfortunately.” To Rockso he said, “We need a hyperdrive for a Necrophagia 1600.”
“N-necrophagia! You're l-lucky you c-c-c-came to Rockso, k-k-kids. That's an old model. No one's g-g-gonna stock a hyperdrive but meeee!”
“Great,” said Charles, who nevertheless didn't look terribly pleased.
“I g-g-g-gotta deal for you, little h-h-hoodie guy!” said Rockso, who was hovering uncomfortably close to Charles. “Let's s-s-step over here, for a private ch-ch-chat, dig?” he whispered, herding Charles and Nathan over to a far corner of the junk shop.
“Stay there, Toki,” called Charles. “We'll just be a minute.”
“I couldn't take more than a minute with this freak,” Nathan muttered, his eyes narrowed to slits.
“We can d-d-deal, Mister Mister,” Rockso was telling Charles. “Just slap my little H-h-harlequin palm with the cash, baby!”
“How much you want for it?” asked Charles.
“It's not how much but how h-h-h-high. You understand the p-plan, little man?”
“I understand I'd really like to punch him in the face just about now,” grumbled Nathan.
“No, I don't understand,” Charles told Rockso. “Care to enlighten me?”
“The kid's from a sp-sp-spice mine, daddy-o,” Rockso whispered in Charles' ear before the Jedi could bat him away. “I want a little t-t-taste, you dig?”
“You wanna be paid in spice?”
“I'm R-ROCKSO THE HARLEQUIN! I DO G-G-GLITTERSTIM!” squealed Rockso, now jumping around the shop like he really was attached to springs. “Seriously. Lots of glitterstim.”
“I never woulda guessed that one,” said Nathan.
“I DO G-G-G-GLITTERSTIM!” squealed Rockso the Harlequin.
“You and Skwisgaar dumped your stim stash when you got raided?” Charles was whispering to Nathan.
“Yeah. We had to. IMPERIAL BASTARDS. We got nothing left.”
“We'll have to mull this over,” Charles told the Harlequin. “C'mon,” he said to Nathan. But they stopped short when Rockso suddenly bounced in front of him.
“What about the k-k-k-kid, Mr. H-hoodie Man?”
Charles stopped and frowned. “What about the kid?”
“M-m-maybe he could stay here and work for R-Rockso! You know, do some SP-SP-SPECIAL WORK for a Harlequin? In exchange for your hyperd-d-drive?”
Charles jerked an arm. Rockso suddenly found himself force-pulled down so he was eye to eye with Charles. “Not. On your life. Clown.”
“Well, you don't need to get N-N-NASTY, H-hoodie Goodie!” Rockso, released from the grip, bounced off irritably.
“Toki,” growled Charles. “We're going.” Nathan grabbed Toki, who was still staring after the girl, and the three exited the shop, to the bustling streets of Mos Revenant.
“So, what are we gonna do?” asked Nathan.
“I don't know,” Charles confessed.
“You know. There's other ways to liberate a hyperdrive from a douchebag.”
“Yeah, but we don't want to attract any more attention,” said Charles.
“Look!” said Toki. He had just pulled a holo-poster down from a brick wall and was flourishing it at Charles and Nathan. “A race!”
“Yeah, Toki,” sighed Nathan. “That's very nice.”
“No, look, ams da steepleschases! I could ams do dat!”
“Let me see that,” said Charles, taking the poster.
“You guys are gonna go watch the fucking races now?” Nathan grumbled.
“Ams what I used to do in da speeder. When you guys ams saw me!” Toki explained.
“OK,” said Nathan. “Yeah, you could do it.” He shrugged. “You could probably win. You're actually pretty bad ass.”
“That's just the first part,” said Charles, looking at Toki. “Belphegorians? They're huge gamblers.”
“Eh. Well. Not much else to do on this fucking piece of shit planet,” said Nathan. “I mean, no offense to you piece of shit planet,” he told Toki.
“Ja. My planet ams da pieces of shit,” admitted Toki.
“We could definitely win more than enough for a hyperdrive,” mused Charles. “You could adapt one of those speeder bikes we, uh, appropriated from the Empire.”
“I could do that, but....” said Nathan. He looked closely at the holo-poster Charles was holding. As you moved it, it showed a speeder bike whiz by, and then crash, in flames, into a rock wall. “Look, you know the real reason guys go see steeplechases ain't the race?” he asked.
“It ams to see guys blow up!” Toki supplied. Nathan frowned at him. “Gorba melts!” concluded Toki.
“Let's head back to the ship,” said Charles.
“OK, kid, you're all set. Let's take 'er FOR A RIDE!” thundered Nathan.
“Uh, you ams fixed da t'ing with da....” asked Toki, pointing at the heavily modified Imperial speeder bike now parked just outside Murderface's ship.
“Oh, yeah! That's all fixed! That's fine!” said Nathan.
“An dat other t'ing?” asked Toki, now crouching by the bike and looking skeptical.
“Oh, yeah! I fixed that other thing! I fixed all the things! Everything is fixed! And READY TO RIDE!”
Sitting back on a rock outcropping, Pickles in his customary haze of spice smoke exchanged a glance with Charles. “Wanna bet?” Pickles whispered.
“Actually, no,” sighed Charles.
Toki had mounted the bike. He cringed as he fired it up, and then opened his eyes. He nodded at Nathan, as evidently the smooth start up indicated some issue had indeed been corrected.
And then he put it in gear, and eased off the brake.
The bike took off like a shot. “Wowee!” said Toki, momentarily impressed at the amazing acceleration. And then he screamed as it all went wrong. Suddenly he was upside down, having not slowed down at all.
“Oops,” said Nathan, “might've needed some work on those stabilizers.”
“Ya think?” sighed Charles, rubbing his eyes.
Nathan went running off after Toki, who had landed in some scrubby bushes, and the bike, which, lacking a driver, had come to rest, still upside-down, some meters down the road.
“Sooo,” Pickles asked Charles. “Wuz Skwisgaar as gud a Jedi as Nat'an is a mechanic?”
Charles frowned and snatched the smoke from Pickles. He inhaled deeply.
“Doo yoo t'ink we kin have somethin' ready before da race?”
Charles shook his head and handed the smoke back to Pickles. “This was a stupid idea. Why did I agree to this stupid idea?”
“Dis is actually one o' yer better ideas.”
“What?” scoffed Charles. “Name a worse idea!”
“Wut about dose Twi'lek dancin' gurls on Beherit V?”
“Oh,” laughed Charles. “Uh. Yeah. I guess that wasn't one ot my better ideas.”
“We need yoo back, yoo know,” said Pickles.
“Who needs me?” asked Charles, lifting an eyebrow.
Pickles exhaled. “Da Rebellyun.”
“Just the Rebellion?” asked Charles, eyeing Pickles.
“Do any of you babies want REFRESHMENT?” burbled DIC, who had minced out bearing a tray of metallic glasses.
“Refreshment?” barked Nathan, who was walking the speeder bike back, along with a slightly limping Toki. “I wanna goddam BEER.”
“Dee-One-See doesn't serve RUDE people!” chided the droid as Pickles and Charles both grabbed beverages from the tray. “Be nice to DIC and DIC be nice to you. Yeah.”
“Are you guysch annoying my droid?” asked Captain Murderface, switching his tail.
“Eh,” grumbled Nathan.
“How'sch it going?”
“Da stabilizers cud yoose sum work,” said Pickles.
“IT'S JUST A MINOR GLITCH!” protested Nathan.
“Minor?” asked Toki. “It ams takes my head off!”
“Don't be high maintenance, kid, no one likes that,” grumbled Nathan, as he set to work with a hydrospanner.
“I ams prefers da bike dat ams rightsides ups!” grumbled Toki.
“Is Skwisgaar back yet?” asked Charles.
“Haven't scheen him.”
“I ams back,” sighed Skwisgaar, who had indeed just walked up. He grabbed a glass from DIC's tray and took a very long swig.
“Wut's goin' awn in town?” asked Pickles.
“Ams not good. Dere ams a lot of Imperials in Mos Revenant.”
“Feck,” said Pickles.
“Yeah, we probably should stay out of the city until the race,” noted Charles.
“There we go! Try this!” said Nathan, who had just finished tinkering with the speeder bike.
“Ams it fixed?” asked Toki, rubbing his leg.
“Yeah, of course it's fixed! It's AWESOME!”
“And it ams not dumps me in da bushes agains?”
“Not unless you dump YOURSELF in the bushes!”
Toki, frowning skeptically at Nathan, climbed aboard the bike once again and kickstarted it. He looked uncertain.
“Come on, kid. IT'S FINE!” said Nathan.
“It ams be fine. Nat'an ams da best mechanic. Except when he ams not,” said Skwisgaar, to a lot of chuckling.
“Ja? Maybe you ams try riding it dis time!” said Toki.
“Ja, OK,” said Skwisgaar, hopping on the bike behind Toki, drink still in his hand. “Well, what you ams waiting for?”
Toki, clearly surprised, put the bike in gear.
And the were off.
“Holy feck!” said Pickles. “Dat's fast!”
“Of course it's fast!” said Nathan. “Didn't I tell you? What's wrong with you douchebags. Are you DOUBTING ME?
“Yesch,” grinned Murderface. “Yesch we were.”
“Oh, well, OK then,” said Nathan.
Toki was lighter than air. Finally, he thought. Nathan, damn him, was right, this bike was awesome.
He found a dried up stream bed and took the bike along, easily dodging rocks and hazards.
“Ams pretty good, huh?” The voice was Skwisgaar's. The Jedi was sitting just in back of him, pressing against him. Toki could smell the beer on his breath, and felt his hand resting lightly at his waist.
“Ja,” agreed Toki. “Ams pretty good.”
Toki came to a halt by an overlook. He stopped and got off, checking to make sure nothing important was rattling off the bike.
“Dat ams da stadiums,” said Skwisgaar, who stood on the overlook, patiently drinking his beer.
Toki came over and took a look. The racing track was huge, a lot bigger than he'd expected. He whistled low.
“You ams sure about dis?” Skwisgaar asked. His voice was mildly teasing, but Toki bristled.
“Of course I ams sure,” Toki grumbled. “Why wouldn't I be?”
“Ams just askings, kids,” said Skwisgaar.
“I ams just da kids to you, huh?”
Skwisgaar confidently eyed Toki up and down. Toki impatiently crossed his arms. The appraising eye made him uncomfortable for some reason.
“No. You ams more dan just da kids. Nat'ans ams rights. You gots somethings special.”
Toki almost gasped, unprepared for the praise. “You t'ink?”
“I knows. In da olds days, we would have found you, and trained you. But, dese days.... Ams no more Jedi Temples. Ams not many of us left. We ams da last of da Jedi,” he finished, now gazing back out over the racing track below.
“So. You ams not gonna train me?” Toki asked.
“You ams sure dat's what you wants, kid?”
“I ams has da name, you knows!”
Skwisgaar's blue eyes were now locked on Toki. He took a step towards the boy. “You sure that's what you wants,” he said, very softly, “Toki?” He reached out to touch Toki's cheek, very lightly. Toki forced himself to keep breathing. The eyes. He could have gotten lost in those eyes.
And then he was lost, somewhere in the universe, so very far away, as Skwisgaar reached over to kiss him: no annoying nav droid to interrupt them now, only the soft breeze there to witness.
Toki finally forced himself to pull back. He wanted to memorize the face, to remember the kiss, for the rest of his life.
“Now, I gots to tell you somet'ings,” said Skwisgaar, smiling and still holding Toki's face.
“Ja?”
“I beens wit' a lot of ladies, kid. And, mens too!” said Skwisgaar, grinning. “Ands other t'ings....”
“What you means?” asked Toki, taking a step backwards, out of Skwisgaar's grasp.
“Well, what dis is, it ams not exclusives! I ams not da types.”
“Ja?” asked Toki, sky blue eyes suddenly darkening.
“Nope!” said Skwisgaar.
“Ams you da types to walk home?” asked Toki, suddenly jumping on the bike and gunning it.
“Hey, whats?” asked Skwisgaar. “Wait! You ams not do dats!”
But Toki already had. The bike roared and disappeared down the creek bed.
“Fucks,” said Skwisgaar, throwing his glass across some rocks. “Pffft.” He stared, fuming, up the creek bed towards where they had started out, back at Murderface's ship. “And now I ams not got no more beer,” he moaned, looking at the spilled glass.
At length, he set off for the long walk home. He heard a rumbling, and looked up with a smile to see Toki.
Toki was not smiling. Toki idled the bike, and jerked his head for Skwisgaar to come aboard.
“Ja, I knew you coulds not abandon me!” cheered Skwisgaar, leaping towards the bike, which Toki immediately jerked out of his reach. “Hey!”
“Ja, I coulds abandons you. I ams not. Because I ams da nice guys,” sniffed Toki.
Skwisgaar carefully approached the bike again. “Ja. OK. T'anks, Toki,” he said.
And then he jumped on, and they roared off back down the creek bed.
It was a bright, clear day on Belphegore, or at least as bright and clear as days went on the planet, under its thick layer of brown smog. And it seemed the entire population of Mos Revenant, and perhaps the surrounding countryside as well, had come out to attend the steeplechase.
The starting point was in a massive venue just outside the city limits. The racers would do a lap around the stadium and then depart on a crazy obstacle course that had been laid out around the surrounding countryside. It was pretty standard for this sort of race, with plenty of low walls, molten lava-filled pools, burning wreckage, and even a sarlacc pit dug at one point.
The sarlacc was actually a monster not from Belphegore, but from another out of the way outer rim planet. As predators go, the creature was a lazy thing: it dug a deep pit, and waited at the bottom for the unwary to fall into its mouth. The falls were often aided by the creature's many snaking tentacles. However, unlike Belphegorian fauna, the sarlacc did not possess much in the way of crushing jaws. It simply relied on its prey, once fallen into its belly, to behave itself and sit still, being digested over a course that sometimes took centuries.
At the end of the steeplechase, officials would generally go extract any racers unlucky enough to find themselves in the sarlacc's digestive system. Falling in was more likely than not nonfatal, but it was inevitably annoying, as it usually took a week to completely wash out the sticky and irritating sarlacc digestive juices.
And, needless to say, finding yourself inside the sarlacc's stomach meant an immediate end to any chances of winning the race.
“This is not my idea of keeping a low profile,” Charles sighed to Pickles as they stood together in the crowded stands. Pickles had also dressed today in a hooded robe. Pickles snaked out a head tentacle and patted Charles on the shoulder.
“Yoo placed da bets?”
“Legal and otherwise,” said Charles, suddenly becoming silent and still as a couple of Imperial officers walked past.
“Why are dere so feckin' many of dose guys?” whispered Pickles. “Dis is an outer rim planet.”
“I wish I knew,” said Charles. “It doesn't make any sense. If they knew were I was, why did they pick now to chase me?”
“Dunno. Dey din't seem to care too much about mah bar before now neither.”
“Oh. Starting time!” said Charles, hearing the fanfare horns. He and Pickles moved stealthily to where they could get a good look at the starting lineup.
“What a race, what a race!” came the voice over the loudspeaker. “I mean, isn't it a race?”
“Well, I'm not sure.” came a second voice. ”I know we've all technically been called here for a race.”
“Yes, it's what we've been lead to expect isn't it?” said the first voice.
“Then I expect it will be a race!”
“It will be disappointing if it is not!”
“Let's announce it together, shall we?”
“Welcome to- Oh, wait. You go too.”
“Welcome- No, you have to start.”
“You start first.”
“No, I can't start first, then we won't both do it simultaneously!”
Pickles and Charles frowned at each other. “Dose are da worst announcers in history.”
Down on the race course, Toki looked up, astonished, at the cheering crowd. While he had been bursting with confidence the whole time Nathan had been rebuilding his speeder bike, he suddenly felt it all sap away. He had never seen so many people in one place. In fact, he was astonished to see there were actually that many beings on his ruined planet.
The drivers on either side glared at him as they pulled on their helmets. There were perhaps three dozen racers here today in all. Toki was the youngest person on the course, and, he thought, the only neophyte. He knew he could race his bike, but he had never tried any of his tricks in the presence of other bikers – at least, other than when they had been pursued by the biker scouts. And he had heard tales of these guys. They did not play nice out on the course. He spotted some spikes and snares sticking out from some of the other vehicles.
He searched the crowd. His keen eyes picked out Charles and Pickles, though, as they had agreed, he didn't hail them. But he didn't see Nathan.
Or Skwisgaar.
He had a sudden thought, what the fuck am I doing here? His mind drifted back to the spice mine. His uncle. And then, with determination, he pulled on his helmet and mounted his bike. He decided to take Nathan's suggestion, “Don't fucking crash.”
The horns sounded.
Toki held his breath.
And then, the flag flashed.
And they were off. Toki's bike, a disguised Imperial model, was lighter than many of the other vehicles. This, along with Toki's lightning fast reflexes and Jedi sense of the future, made him faster and fleeter than the other models. But as Nathan had also explained, he wouldn't have much of a chance if, as they were bound to do, the other racers decided to batter him off the course.
He had decided to treat the other bikes as simply more obstacles on an already crowded course. He would try to predict their course and skim around them. It sounded easy when you were sitting on the deck of Murderface's crowded star ship, knocking back another beer, but here, going at breakneck speed and trying not to get singed by a ring of fire or clobbered by a bike twice your size? It was abso-fucking-lutely nuts.
He saw another racer coming at him out of the corner of his eye. Wait. Wait. Wait. And then at the last second, he pulled the bike up, and let the guy who was trying to batter him instead careen into the unfortunate guy on the other side. Both ended up in a fire ball. Yeah, teach them to fuck with Toki!
He skimmed over the sarlacc pit, narrowly avoiding the tentacles, although he heard the screams of another racer who was not so fortunate. Charles had advised him to stay in the middle of the pack for the first couple of laps. Charles had told him to wait and make a break when the field had thinned, as it inevitably did on the first laps.
The racers turned at the furthest marker, and went heading back.
Unseen by Toki or any of the other racers, a lone figure awaited along the sidelines, watching through binoculars.
And then the lone figure dropped the glasses, and mounted his own bike.
“Admiral Ravenwood.”
Captain Crozier came to attention as Grand Moff Selatcia strode into the bridge of Ravenwood's ship.
“Are your men assembled?” demanded Selatcia.
“Yes,” puffed Ravenwood from somewhere under his elaborate ceremonial headdress. “Our agent will extract the boy, and then Captain Crozier's men who are arrayed at the raceway will take care of any of his rebel allies.”
“Grand Moff Selatcia, I don't like this,” piped up Crozier, although he cringed inside to see attention suddenly directed his way.
“Yes, Captian Crozier?” hissed Admiral Ravenwood as Selatcia stared at him.
Crozier steeled himself. “Some of the individuals who have been seen with the boy. They are not to be underestimated. I think.... I think we should extract him. Now.”
“Patience, Captain Crozier,” said Selatcia. “Patience. This is how we will crush the Rebellion.”
“Very good, sir,” said Crozier.
Selatcia strode off, as Ravenwood cast a furious glance back at Crozier. “Go tend to your men, Crozier,” said Ravenwood, as he too flounced off.
“Asshole,” grumbled Crozier under his breath.
“Pickles.”
“Wut, chief?”
“That racer?”
“Yeh.” Pickles stared hard as the racers came around for the first lap, and then started. “He don't gaht a number.”
“No. He doesn't,” said Charles.
They exchanged a worried glance. Pickles then inclined his head.
There were groups of stormtroopers assembling in back of the stands, obviously monitoring all the exits.
“Fuck,” said Charles.
“Hey, chief, dis is like da old days, huh? Two of us, agenst impahsible ahds!”
“Like old times, huh?”
Pickles' grin was visible under the hood.
Toki was doing very well. He had had a couple of narrow misses, but now, as Charles had predicted, the field had thinned considerably. He cast a quick glance at the still smoking wreckage of some racers from the first round. It was getting time to make a break for it.
He watched a bigger bike roar past him. The driver unfortunately couldn't get the bike up in time for a low rock wall. The driver made it over, but his bike didn't, crashing into the hazard, as the rider was flung out ahead.
Toki easily cleared the rock wall, and then tensed as another racer came too close alongside him, getting ready to maneuver away. Then he cringed as the racer beside him suddenly and inexplicably skidded out of control, careening into a rock hazard and dissolving instantly into dust. He cast a nervous glance in that direction. There was another bike nearby. A really big one, like Nathan's. Weird, he didn't remember it from the start, although the field had been crowded.
He veered around a tight corner and made up some ground, but then there was a stretch of straightaway where the new biker closed the distance. Toki chanced a look back. And then his stomach tightened.
The pursuing racer didn't have a face. He was wearing a mask. Made of metal.
“Oh, lookee dere! Dey're Rebels! Dey gaht to be!”
The confused stormtroopers, gathered near one of the stadium exits, looked at each other and then at the wildly gesticulating hooded man.
“Dey were saying 'Down wit' da Empire!' 'Viva da Rebellyun!'”
The troopers regarded him.
“An'.... An' 'Dart' Vader is a dumb mudderdouchebag!'”
The stormtroopers seemed to make a decision. “We should check it out. Let's go.”
Pickles watched them thunder away. And then, carefully reaching back with a head tentacle, pulled the fire alarm. He sauntered away, whistling.
Toki accelerated, wondering what the fuck he was gonna do.
The man with the metal face was now his constant companion, running the course with him, but then, agonizingly, backing off. If any of the other racers came too close, however, they were not so lucky: they were either forced off the course (usually into a fireball) or, more worryingly, seemed to lose control of their vehicle and spin off. He suspected the man in the mask was armed, although he hadn't been able to get a glace at the weapon. Did the guy have a gun?
He tried to keep his mind on the course. The sarlacc pit was coming up again. It was no worry getting over it, the trouble was the unpredictable tentacles that the monster tended to reach out just when an unwary racer was riding over.
Some of the racers, he noticed, actually detoured around the pit, which seemed unwise if you wanted to win. But Toki suddenly frowned. He had an idea. He pointed the bike straight for the middle of the pit. As he figured, the guy with the mask was seconds behind him.
Just as he made the middle of the pit, he brought out a small photon firecracker, and tossed it down in to the pit, where it impacted on a rather irritated sarlacc. He ducked as he was immediately surrounded by angry tentacles, but the man in the metal mask, a fraction of a second behind, ended up running right into them.
Toki emerged on the other side of the pit, but he heard a squalling of air brakes, and a sickening crunching of metal.
He grinned, and raced on.
“Oh, god, the fire alarm, everybody, RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!” wailed the voice over the loudspeakers.
“Yes, the whole place is coming down! Panic!”
“Yes, run rampant, everybody! Don't mind the women and children!”
“They can take care of themselves!”
Charles, sitting behind the two race announcers in their booth, waved his hand and said, “If you have any questions, ask a stormtrooper.”
”Yes, everybody, go and get a stormtrooper!”
“Go and ask them for help! Maybe you'll survive!”
“Or maybe you won't,” suggested Charles, waving a finger.
“Or maybe you won't!”
“Thanks, guys,” grinned Charles.
“You think they were Jedi?”
“The lead dude was, s-s-stormy baby! He was the m-m-magic man, with the m-m-magic hands. That's why Rockso t-t-tipped you off. Me and the Empire. We're c-c-c-close baby!”
“Yeah. We got the alert.”
“So, you brought some s-s-sweet stuff for R-rockso the Harlequin? I DO G-G-G-GLITTERSTIM!” Rockso announced, bouncing hither and thither around the junk shop as a rather bored-looking stormtrooper and his weird blind magenta protocol droid looked on.
“You do know, you are trafficking in an illegal drug?” asked the trooper, switching his long white tail.
“I didn't know the Empire r-r-recruited p-pussy cat men, P-pussy Cat Man,” said Rockso, suddenly suspicious.
“They don't,” offered the stormtrooper.
Rockso suddenly quit bouncing. “Something ain't s-s-square here, s-s-sugar daddy. Are you the f-f-fuzz or not?”
The trooper removed his helmet, scratching his white and black-striped head with his claws. “I'm definitely schaid to be fuzzschy,” he remarked.
Rockso turned to spring out of the store, but was suddenly confronted by the magenta robot.
“It's nothing but net for Rockso baby, YEAH!” said the robot, releasing something from his midsection. A large flap of netting flew across the room, capturing Rockso.
“This ain't c-c-cool, daddy-o!” wailed Rockso, futilely struggling against the net. “Let me out, bad k-k-k-kitty!”
“Scho,” said stormtrooper Murderface, standing casually over Rockso and regarding his claws. “About that hyperdrive....”
“It's a mob scene here!” roared Crozier over the communicator. “Someone pulled the fire alarm! My men have been swarmed! They can't do a goddamned thing!” Around him, at the stadium, chaos reigned.
“So you are too incompetent to deal with a crowd of civilians?” a bored looking Ravenwood asked Crozier's hologram as it stood on the deck of Ravenwood's star destroyer.
“You shoulda let me grab the boy when I wanted to!”
“Our agent will complete the extraction. My own troops will be landing shortly. I counsel patience. As our glorious commander Selatcia suggests.”
“Dammit, Ravenwood, you-”
But the transmission was cut off.
Toki suddenly heard the loud roar coming up behind him. “Oh, fucks no!” he whispered.
He turned.
It was Nathan on his giant bike, Skwisgaar in the sidecar.
“Toki! Dude! Fuck the race. We gotta get outta here! We're being surrounded!” yelled Nathan. “The Empire guys are everywhere!”
Toki slowed down beside them and looked around the course perimeter for the first time in a long time. Nathan was right: Imperial landing craft were now descending at points along the course.
“Dat masked guy, he ams beens following me,” breathed Toki as he slowed down beside them.
“Whats? Da metals masks guy?” asked Skwisgaar, his eyes widening.
“Ja man wit' da mask!” said Toki. “I swears, he ams here! He ams following me.”
“I gotta gets dat guy,” growled Skwisgaar. But suddenly, all of them ducked as the sound of Imperial gunfire reported.
“Ams dey shootsing at us? Again?” said Toki.
“No time for fucking around,” said Nathan, eyes slitted. “We gotta get outta here.”
“What about da hypers drive?” asked Toki.
“Murderface has taken care of it. Come on.”
They all looked up at the large figure suddenly and improbably emerging from the sarlacc pit.
“No,” whispered Toki. “Dat ams impossibles. He ams.... He ams gorba melted!”
But now running at them was a man in a mask. An acid-scarred metal mask.
Skwisgaar leapt from the sidecar and ignited his lightsaber. “You guys ams goes. We gots business.”
“Skwisgaar! There's no time for this shit! Come on!” urged Nathan, gunning his bike.
“No. I ams stays. I ams finishes dis now.”
“Fuck. Toki. Come on!”
“No,” said Toki, quietly dismounting from his own bike. “I ams stays with Skwisgaar.”
Nathan ducked under more Imperial fire. “Stupid assholes!” he shouted, gunning the bike.
Toki gulped, and ignited his own lightsaber, even though he had no fucking idea how to use the damned thing against anything but Master Charles' training ball.
“Ams dis guy da Jedi too?” he asked Skwisgaar.
“No,” said Skwisgaar. “He ams worse. Much worse.”
The masked man charged them, suddenly igniting a strange double-sided lightsaber as he came.
“He ams cuts his way outta da sarlacc,” whispered Toki. “How he ams does dat?”
Skwisgaar said nothing, not taking his eyes from the masked man.
And then the masked man and Skwisgaar flew at each other, their sabers flashing to quickly for Toki to even see what was happening. Toki tried feinting towards the masked man a couple of times, but found himself driven back as the masked man twirled the two-bladed saber. He was amazingly fast for someone so big.
Toki feinted again, but then stumbled back and found himself falling. They were dueling right at the edge of the sarlacc pit. Toki caught himself on the edge and began to scramble out, but suddenly screamed as he felt a tentacle snake around his ankle and was pulled back downwards into the pit.
“Toki!” yelled Skwisgaar. “Ams you all right?”
“Ams fine! No problems!” said Toki as he swiped his saber impotently at the tentacle and was dragged further into the pit.
Skwisgaar aimed a blow, and beat back the masked man. He then ran to the edge of the pit, where Toki was still clinging. “Ams holds still!” he yelled, dropping over and skillfully whacking the tentacle with his lightsaber.
“Skwisgaar!' screamed Toki as he scrambled out of the pit. “Watch out!”
Skwisgaar looked back, where the masked man was bearing down on him. He rolled to his side to escape a lightsaber blow. Skwisgaar leapt to his feet, but then he cried out. He was up off the ground now, gripped around the waist and lightsaber arm by a sarlacc tentacle. Skwisgaar's lightsaber dropped to the ground. The masked man lunged at a now defenseless Skwisgaar, but then he too was ensnared in a tentacle.
“Noooo!” screamed Toki
“Toki!” shouted Skwisgaar. “Gets outta here.” But then the giant tentacles retracted and he and the masked man disappeared into the sarlacc's burrow.
“No,” whispered Toki. “No, I nots abandons you.” He ran to the side of the pit to get a look, but then he felt himself yanked off his feet. The sarlacc had lassoed his ankle with another writhing tentacle. “Fucks, not agains!” wailed Toki as he dangled, upside-down, over the sarlacc pit, and the terrible mouth of the sarlacc.
Almost without thinking about it he pulled out his own lightsaber and struck blindly at the tentacle, once, twice, three times. But then he connected, and felt himself falling to the ground.
He tried to stand, but then he immediately dropped to the ground again. Imperial ships were still firing on the field. He looked back, and saw the looming tentacles from the pit.
Trapped.
Suddenly, Toki felt himself being yanked up yet again. He screamed and careened, this time going up instead of down, flying through the air.
And then, finally, he felt himself locked in someone's big arms.
He looked up into green slitted eyes.
Nathan. They were both sitting on the gangplank of Murderface's ship.
“Got him?” Charles' voice was a cracked whisper. Charles was collapsed on the floor, weakened by the effort of the great force pull.
“Got 'em!” shouted Nathan.
They all ducked as a blast from an Imperial laser cannon hit the gangplank.
“Murderface!” shouted Charles, his voice raw. “Get us the fuck outta here!”
“We're trying bossch! Lotscha Imperial ships,” came Murderface's voice.
“Go to light speed. Now.”
“What? From the atmoschphere?”
“Wut he sed!” screamed Pickles, helping Charles to his feet. “From da atmusphere!”
“DIC! Lightspeed! NOW!” shouted Murderface.
“Light speed, baby. Yeah!”
Toki looked back at the gangplank, which had just closed with a definite clank.
“Skwisgaar,” he whispered, his veins turning to ice.
And then....
The stars were a blur.
“Report, Admiral Ravenwood,” barked Grand Moff Selatcia.
“We have successfully apprehended one of the rebels,” bragged Ravenwood.
“Where is he?” asked Selactia.
“Our men are extracting him as we speak from the sarlacc pit, sir,” reported Captain Crozier.
“And the boy?”
“Yes. The boy,” said Ravenwood. “Ahem. That was unforseen.”
“Unforseen?” said Selatcia. There was a warning in his voice.
“The rebels jumped to hyperspace with him! From the low atmosphere. It was an impossible move. There was no practical way to intercept them.”
“So, you are saying, you have lost him?” rumbled Selatcia. Something about the Grand Moff's tone: Crozier felt his testicles slip up somewhere into his abdomen.
“There was no possibility of interception,” huffed Ravenwood. “The rebels are clearly mad men. Mad men!”
“You have failed me for the last time, Admiral Ravenwood,” hissed Selatcia. He gestured with one hand. Suddenly, Ravenwood was doubled over, seemingly choking. The reason for his dyspepsia was soon as apparent as it was horrifying: Ravenwood's intestines started to coil out of his mouth. No one moved, nor said a word. The entire room full of Imperial officers was frozen.
Ravenwood fell to the floor, his body collapsing in a heap of bloody entrails. His body spasmed, and then moved no more.
And then all was silence.
“Crozier?” barked Selatcia.
“Yessir,” said Crozier, snapping to attention. “I will.... We will continue the search. We will find the boy,” said Crozier.
“See that you do. I'm counting on you now, ADMIRAL Crozier,” said Selatcia.
And then he strode off.
Toki crouched by the pool and stared, utterly fascinated, at the water flowing into it. It tumbled down the mountainside, and collected here. He stuck a hand in. Cold!
“Dat's run awf,” Pickles, standing over him, told him.
“Is there a machine up the hill?” Toki asked.
“Naw, dood! It's from meltin' snow!”
“Snow?”
They both looked up at ear-splitting noise from the roaring starship engines.
“We're taking off, dousche bagsch!” yelled Captain Murderface from up the gangplank.
“We'll let you know when we find Skwisgaar, baby, yeah!” yelled DIC, who was standing beside him.
“Uh, who's pilotin' da craft?” Pickles whispered to Charles, who was standing nearby. Charles smiled and shrugged.
“May the Forcshe be with you asschholes!” yelled Murderface. The gangplank retracted, the ship blasted off.
“One o' yer old friends?” Pickles asked Charles. “Where da feckin' hell did yoo meet him?”
“That is a good story,” said Charles, rubbing his forehead. He turned to Toki. “Uh. We need to get going now too,” he told the boy. “We gotta stay separate for a while. Uh. Like we discussed. The empire is looking for us in a group.”
Toki nodded.
“Look, uh, I wouldn't worry about Skwisgaar. He's been in worse scrapes than this. OK?”
Toki nodded.
“And, uh, we're all looking for him. I'm sure he's not.... He's not.... Uh, gorba melted.”
Toki nodded, now clearly blinking back tears.
“Ah fer feck's sake!” Pickles strode towards Toki and then enveloped him in a huge arms-and-tentacles hug. “Yoo keep care o' yerself, kiddo! An' we'll be in touch, when we hear somethin'.”
Toki nodded as Pickles released him and this time managed to choke out an “OK.”
“And, uh, remember what I taught you. About the Force and stuff,” said Charles awkwardly. “Whoa!” he said, as Toki enveloped him in a hug. “Uh. There there. Yeah.”
“C'mon, dis is gettin' apallin'ly gay,” laughed Pickles as he jumped into a landspeeder. “Nat'an wud be outraged.”
“Where is Nathan?” asked Charles, hopping into the passenger seat. But Pickles honked the horn, and they were off, Toki waving to them.
Toki stood alone for a while, watching the waterfall with fascination. His whole life, he had never seen water just free, out in the wild before. And the skies: they were blue here. In the daytime. He wondered what the nighttime sky looked like.
He finally turned to the loud roar of an enormous speeder bike.
“Hey, kid, what're you waitin' for?” bellowed Nathan over the thunder of the engines.
Toki looked at the bike for a long moment. He did not reply.
“Whatsamatter? I thought you wanted to see the fucking universe!”
Toki grabbed his bag, jumped into a sidecar. “We ams go finds Skwisgaar?” he asked.
“Well, I tell ya kid,” said Nathan, crocodile eyes narrowing. “He'll be kinda sticky. After being in that sarlacc. You sure you still wanna find him?” he asked, grinning his pointed teeth grin.
“Ja. I ams sure.”
“Heh. OK then. Let's get the fuck outta here.”
And they were off.
And so the boys went on to have many metal and awesome space adventures, including rescuing Skwisgaar, who was very sticky from the sarlacc tummy and acted sort of pissy and ungrateful about the whole thing. But that is a story for another time.
