The team executed the next mission flawlessly, working as one to procure some data records from a mine on Garban and disappear without raising any alarm. Spirits were high as they returned to the Marauder. Wrecker gave Crosshair a fond smack on the arm, nearly knocking him over.
"That would have been perfect if we had just blown up the entire place on our way out!" he yelled, completely unaware of his volume.
"That would have entirely defeated the purpose," Crosshair replied, scowling harmlessly.
"Yeah but it would have been fun," Wrecker concluded, kicking a stray rock in his path.
As they neared the ship, Hunter squinted at the underside. "Tech, did you start a repair project before we left?"
"Negative," Tech responded, looking up from his datapad to follow Hunter's gaze to the ship. "Oh... It would appear that someone has taken some parts. The Jenets, native to this planet, are notorious scavengers. I thought we were far enough away from any of their Community Heaps, but it appears we were not."
"Great," Crosshair said, with his usual amount of enthusiasm.
Panels hung open and various pieces were strewn about the ground; the door was still shut but the entire underside of the ship was in complete disarray. Hunter grimaced as they got closer, lowering the stairs and heading straight for the hold.
The lift opened and he went for Vel's corner, fully expecting to see it empty and assuming that she was the culprit. But to his surprise, and perhaps dismay, she was sitting cross-legged on her cot, watching him with folded arms.
"Sounded like someone was busy out there," she remarked primly, pursing her lips.
"What happened?" Hunter asked, "The ship is a mess."
"Well, from my great view in here," Vel snarked, "I couldn't see a thing. I had to content myself with merely sitting and listening."
"Did you hear any voices? Languages? Anything?" Hunter asked.
"Just garbled snarling and lots of banging around," Vel responded listlessly.
Hunter sighed deeply, leaning on the bars of her door. There were too many messes to clean up at once. "Look, I don't know what to do with you. Where can we take you, once the ship is up and running?"
Vel's heart sank as she realized she didn't have an answer. Her mechanic days on Corellia were long behind her and she had burned that bridge entirely. She couldn't remember her home planet, other than a source of comfort in her dreams, and her father was no longer around for her to ask about it. She was useless to the Jedi, useless to this team.
She shrugged, "Anywhere, I guess. I'm starting from scratch, anyway."
Hunter felt some compassion, absently running a hand back and forth across the door frame. He had some sense of what it was like to not belong, but he also always had his squad. He had no words of encouragement to offer, so he simply nodded.
"You could start by letting me out of here though," Vel continued, "I'm not a danger."
"Maybe not," Hunter agreed, eyeing her thoughtfully, "But I don't trust you. Better safe than sorry, you know?"
She frowned and shrugged, turning her back to him as if she couldn't care less, and Hunter returned to the lift.
Outside, Tech was elbows deep in the ship, rummaging through mixed wires while simultaneous directing Wrecker, who was rearranging the elements on the underside. Crosshair welded the finished panels shut behind them, sparks flying in front of his face shield. He paused his work for a moment, lifting his head to examine the trees around them.
"There's something out there," he muttered.
Wrecker popped his head out from below, "Like what? The weird rat people?"
"They are called Jenets," Tech corrected without moving, "And while they are a humanoid species, they--"
He was cut off by a loud screech, and the trees around them came to life with movement. Scaling down the trunks from all directions were tall, gangly creatures, all emitting a shrill howl as they galloped toward the ship. They leaped onto it from above, sliding down the sides with long claws. Hunter came running out of the ship, firing off a few shots. The bolts bounced off the scaly, horned shoulders of the animals until he landed a shot square in one's chest, and it dropped to the ground.
But there were too many of them. "Danchaf!" Tech yelled, scrambling to extricate himself from the panels.
"That's a new one," Wrecker yelled, swinging his wrench and knocking one out cold.
"It's not an expletive, it's the species!" Tech responded, finally free of the tangle of wires, "Tree goblins!"
"Tree goblins?!" Wrecker replied, half delighted and half terrified, "Awesome!" He laughed as he clobbered another one with a wrench, pulling his blaster from its holster with his free hand and squeezing off a few rounds.
The squad kept the first wave at bay, but more and more Danchaf were flooding out from the trees. Hunter tore through the pack, flipping a knife into one while ducking and blasting another. Three rushed him at once, slamming him into the underside of the ship, and one lunged for his neck, stopped midair before it could reach him by Wrecker.
Inside, Vel heard the commotion, leaping to her feet in alarm. She fidgeted with the door, gently at first, then with increasing frustration. She started in surprise as one of the floor panels suddenly flew up into her cell, propelled by Hunter's thick skull as he was thrown into the ship. The panel fell to the side, revealing a large gap under the bars.
Grabbing her pack, Vel slung it over her shoulder and slid through the opening, out into the hold. She couldn't believe her luck. Feeling elated, she ran to the bridge to inspect the scene outside and determine the next course of action.
Her hopes of heroism promptly fizzled. The squad was entirely overrun by the tall creatures, alternating between galloping on all fours and rising onto their back legs to swing long-clawed arms. Tech and Crosshair had been working back to back, turning in sync to eliminate targets as Wrecker charged back and forth, but they separated, with Tech turning to face the ship to shoot some off the top of it.
Simultaneously, Wrecker threw two Danchaf at once across the clearing, and two more leapt from the trees at Tech's exposed back. In an incredibly unfortunate split-second timing, somehow perfect for the purposes of this story, the four creatures collided all at once with Tech, throwing him to the ground. The side of his head smacked a rock with a sickening thwack as he fell, and he didn't move again.
Vel gasped, watching more waves of tree goblins rusting their way from the canopies. She looked down at the controls of the ship below her, trying to come up with a coherent thought, when her eyes landed on the perimeter sensors. Normally used to alert of any intruders when the ship was unattended, it would make a violently loud noise when triggered from the inside.
She flipped the switch and the area was instantly flooded with a deafening siren, drowning out even the howls of the animals. Humans and Danchaf alike squawked their dismay, covering their ears and fleeing for the trees, respectively. The tree goblins yelped in pain, scrambling to get as far away from the sound as they could.
The clearing emptied, leaving behind an exhausted team and one unconscious Tech. Vel switched the alarm off, still watching for any returning creatures. Wrecker threw Tech over his shoulder and joined the other two on the ship as the stairs folded up behind him.
***
Taking a moment to collect themselves inside the safety of the ship, it was only then that Hunter noticed Vel's freedom, shortly followed by the realization of her efforts to help them.
"I don't think my ears will ever stop ringing, but that was a clever move," he said tersely.
"Sorry, I didn't know what else to do," she replied.
"Well, I guess we know what to do if they return, then," Hunter said, "But this time I'd like to be on the inside of the ship."
"How are we getting out of here?" Crosshair asked, frowning at the flashing lights on the control panels, all indicating missing parts or disconnected wires.
"Time to wake up!" Wrecker yelled, flopping Tech's unresponsive body into a chair. "Oh man," he said, upon closer inspection of the crumpled heap of an engineer, "He is out cold."
"Can you finish the repairs?" Hunter asked.
"I can put some stuff back, yeah, but there's a whole wiring mess on the capacitor that he was in the middle of, and I don't want to be out there if those things come back!" Wrecker replied, eyes growing wide. Vel tilted her head at the comedic trepidation coming from such a hulking, fearless tank of a man.
"Well, let's do what we can until Tech wakes up," Hunter replied.
"If they return, they will break through the open panels," Crosshair pointed out. "I'm not sure our little alarm trick will deter them again."
"I can look at the capacitor," Vel piped up from the corner, as three pairs of brown eyes turned on her. Taken aback by their sudden attention, she held her hands up, "I mean, I was a mechanic on Corellia for years. I know wiring like the back of my hand."
Hunter squinted. She seemed earnest enough, and she shared the same urgency to get off the planet. He nodded toward the door, "Wrecker, go with her, and work quickly. We'll keep watch here."
***