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Anakin
"You're a droid, Echo," Daniah said with a roll of her eyes. "You don't believe, you know. Now tell me what's wrong."
"When the power surged, my programming did what it could to reroute or break circuits."
"And..."
"And in this process, the hyperdrive may have been...deactivated."
"And you didn't think to re-route to something less critical, like say, your electronic brain?" Daniah exclaimed. "I'm going down to the engine bay to fix this problem, and if I can't, I swear I'm going to deactivate you before we're boarded."
"Anakin," Daniah ordered, "you handled yourself well back there, and my ship. I'll be on the comm if you need me." She grabbed a tool belt, and strapped it to her waist.
"Wait, you want me to pilot your ship, alone?" Anakin said incredulously.
"Yeah, and don't worry, I'll have Obi-Wan check on you from time to time to make sure there are no monsters under your seat." She paused at the door and said gravely, "I'll be back before the Kur'zo intercepts us."
Anakin leaned back in his chair, taking the flight deck in once again. Now that he had the run of the ship to himself and wasn't being shot at, he poured over the meters and systems he was less familiar with. The more he saw, the more he found to like.
The Halcyon had a fairly impressive tractor beam system for a ship its size. He practiced vectoring the grav beams like he used to in his E-77. Granted there wasn't a lot to vector against out here, but it might come in handy versus the Kur'zo.
Daniah's voice came in over the comm. "Anakin, I'm gonna have to patch at least two major circuits in the engine bay. Even with the help of Kenobi's engineer, it'll take at least 30 minutes. How far out is the Kur'zo?"
"At our current speed and trajectory, the Kur'zo intercepts in about 25 minutes, just before the H-point."
"We need to slow this ship down to buy time," Daniah ordered. "If we hit H-point and don't jump straight to hyperspace, those buddies of ours are likely to jump all the same. And that would leave us facing the Kur'zo alone."
"OK...I'll throttle down the engines and fake that they were partially damaged in the power surge."
"Good. I'll explain the situation to Rauoo," Daniah said ironically, and cut the channel.
With Daniah gone, Anakin noticed an incoming message from a lone interceptor tailing them from several RU away. Other than the Kur'zo, most vessels had abandoned chase at this point. There was no way they would intercept before the Halcyon jumped to hyperspace. Which made this small interceptor a curiosity. Despite his reservations, Anakin opened the message.
Before him was Chona. Chona who had singed his flesh, stabbed his tongue, and carved underneath his nails. Chona who had relished in his pain, dangled hope in front of him only to snatch it away, and done all of this and more to Owen. The purple demon's mouth opened, and her viscious voice poured out.
"I am coming for you, young pups. Sadly, our time was cut short. I had hoped to spend more time teaching you before I sent you on your journey to Jadu. Know this. I will not rest until you, and your family, and every cajala chupa who thinks they have escaped, is dead."
Anakin didn't know how long he sat there, wondering about what it would be like to have Chona hunting him, and his family, for the rest of his life. Would he be at a restaurant with Owen, when Chona sniped them both through a window? Or would Anakin choke on his food, discovering only too late that he had been poisoned? Or would he be about to take a bite, when his brother started choking, and he watched the life seep away from Owen's eyes?
No. He slammed his fist against his chair. "No!" the thought escaped his lips. If he escaped today, he would not sit by while Chona hunted down his family and everyone he loved. He would hunt her down, or put a bounty out on her head, or both.
"Anakin, are you alright?" Echo politely interrupted.
"Yes, I'm fine." Anakin replied, his fist flexing.
"What is it with humans and lying? Is it so impossible to give a simple report of your current state of -- oh heavens, missile launch!" Echo wailed as battle alarms blared to life.
"At this range?" Anakin asked, as he gathered himself. The Kur'zo was at least another 10 minutes out. "Won't our flak cannons just take it out?" And then he saw it. It wasn't one missile, it was a cluster of fifty Hunter class missiles.
"What do we do? What do we do?" Echo panicked. "Even if we turn around, they'll catch up to us, and with our hyperdrive out... Should we turn ourselves in? Mistress! We could use some of your sage, expert advice."
"By the Force - what kind of ship is the Kur'zo?"
"The worst kind," Captain Daniah answered as she swung into the seat beside him. "Legend has it that the Kur'zo was once piloted by a Rodian bounty hunter. He had a perfect streak of ninety-nine bounties. On his hundredth bounty, his prey escaped into the Unknown regions, and he was forced to call off the hunt when he ran low on life support. Determined never to lose his prey again, he surgically removed as much of his body as possible, turning himself into a cyborg that can hunt non-stop for months on end. No one even knows the name of the pilot anymore. He and the ship are simply the Kur'zo..." Daniah trailed off. "Anyways, story time's over. Get me Rauoo."
Rauoo's liquid black helmet filled the screen. "Fifty Hunter missiles. I should have asked you to quadruple the money," he said mockingly.
"You can have that chat with Jabba," Daniah countered. "Any ideas?"
"We set up a chaff wall here, launch decoys here, and anything that gets through, we shoot with our flak cannons."
Echo displayed the probability of the plan's success at three percent.
Daniah laughed. "That's it? One minute left to missile intercept and that's the best you've got?"
"No. One more thing. We give you control of our flak cannons. I'm the best pilot in Rodian space, and I haven't seen a gunner like yours. You lasted twice as long in that last firefight as I expected. Networked, our flak cannon defense might stand a chance at taking these missiles out."
"OK." Daniah glanced at Anakin. "Get to it gunner boy!"
Anakin worked furiously as Rauoo and his wingmen networked flak cannon control. Thirty seconds. He set up a defense web of interlocking fires, staggering the ships to maximize coverage. Twenty seconds. He saw that the missiles had stopped targeting the Halcyon, and were focused on Rauoo's squadron instead. Interesting. He reconfigured the defensive web to focus on threats to Rauoo's squadron. Five seconds. The squadron flew forward, criss-crossing and releasing a wall of chaff. One second. The ships burned hard, releasing decoys and returning to Anakin's defensive web.
Zero seconds. The lead missiles struck the chaff wall, exploding into nothingness. The missiles that followed deftly maneuvered around the chaff, some following the decoys off into deep space. The Halcyon's flak cannons thrummed to life as missile after missile slammed into the flak web, testing angle after angle.
A missile broke through, incinerating one of Rauoo's wingmen to dust. Anakin stayed focused, adjusting the defensive web to compensate. The missiles hit the flak in a rising crescendo, and just when it seemed they would be overwhelmed, the last missile was destroyed.
"Damn..." Rauoo said over the comm, his voice trailing off.
The Kur'zo hailed them. Daniah opened the channel, and a metallic voice echoed through the cabin. "The first blood is mine, and so sweet to taste. After I crush your champion, you are all mine."
"You see this here," Rauoo replied over the channel. "This is the side of my ship - with all my kills listed next to it. And you see that empty space right there. That's where I'm going to put the Kur'zo."
The metallic voice rumbled a laugh. "Jookees. You take great pride in swatting flies. This time you face the Kur'zo."
Daniah flipped to a private channel. "Hey Rauoo, let me know when you boys are done flexing your pecs."
"Just playing with his head." Rauoo answered nonchalantly. "He's about three minutes out from intercept." Rauoo paused, then began again. "Daniah, there's no way we can destroy the Kur'zo. It's too heavily shielded."
"Ah, come on, I thought you had a special place--"
Rauoo talked over her. "Instead we're targeting the weapon and tractor beam systems, maybe even take out some drives if we're lucky. You're only about five minutes to H-point, and he's three minutes out. It'll be a long two minutes, but if we can distract him long enough, we can all jump to safety."
"Good plan," Daniah faked agreement, then flipped to the Engine bay. "Sergeant Fett, how's it coming with the hyperdrive?"
"Probably another ten minutes in here, running cable."
"Better make it five."
"Right. We're gonna need your help then."
"I'll give you two minutes," Daniah said, already climbing out of her seat. "Then I've got to get back to piloting my ship."
Anakin glanced over the ship's readouts, the ones he had been able to decipher so far. There were a few amber alerts, mostly around the starboard shields, and a red alert on the hyperdrive. He calculated the most likely locations of the weapon and tractor beam systems, based on the networked data of Rauoo's squadron and the Halcyon, and pre-loaded fires upon intercept.
A part of him was outside himself as he went through these motions. He was a swirl of fear, of determination, of courage. In a few minutes, they would either have jumped to hyperspace, or be the hapless thralls of the Kur'zo.
Either way, the certainty of what he had to do was intoxicating. The Kur'zo hadn't fired any more Hunter missiles, meaning it had probably shot them all off in one big salvo. So it was all coming down to close quarters combat. Cripple, or be crippled. Kill, or be killed.
"Ready?" Daniah asked.
"Yea--" Anakin started. He'd been so in the zone that he hadn't noticed her return to the flight seat next to him. "Let's do this."
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