Pilot Archive

The shrill warble of my alarm clock ripped my attention away from the Twi'lek giving me the lap dance and rudely jarred me back into consciousness.

"Dammit!", I thought. I had set my alarm ten minutes later this morning hoping I could get the dream Twi'lek past the lap-dance stage, but it didn't work. I fumbled for the shutoff button and finally my second shoe toss found it.

I swung my legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. My head was throbbing in tune with the ship's engines. "I shouldn't have drunk that Denebian Ale", I thought. I was paying the price now.

I shuffled across the floor and slapped at the beverage dispenser controls. A click followed by a soft hum gave me some comfort. Coffee is on its way. The machine dinged when done and nearly split my skull. I opened the overhead and shook out a couple of spice tablets and dropped them into the steaming coffee and took a few preliminary sips. Ouch. Too early. My tongue complained along with my head.

"Lights on", I commanded, and the ship's computer switched from the ambient lighting to full bright mode. I stood there blinking a few minutes while my eyes adjusted to the light. That hurt too.

Still squinting, I stumbled toward the workroom on my YT1300 and opened the porta-potty. "Stupid engineers", I thought for the kabillionth time, "too dumb to put a toilet in a spaceship." Being a shipwright and pilot myself, I had written hundreds of letters to the Ship Designers imploring for a decent set of facilities on ships to no avail.

Other than four restraining orders, no acknowledgement to my correspondence had been forthcoming.

The whine of the waste disposal unit was still audible as I slipped into my flightsuit and brought up the day's schedule on the ship's computer.

"Crap", I thought, "today I have to scout for more steel."

I didn't relish the task of scanning for resources and setting up harvesters. It's pretty boring. But, I had orders piling up and I was out of steel. The money I was making as Shipwright was pretty good though and kept me in a nicely furnished ship and up to date on my . . . err. . . more expensive habits.

You would think that my weekly runs to deliver Lord Vader's slightly-illegal asthma medication would have made me rich but that black plastic man is incredibly cheap. He barely pays enough to cover my expenses on those runs but for some reason I just feel . . . compelled . . . to make them. The same with his penchant for Limericks. They're terrible, but I have to sit through at least half a dozen every time.

I settled into the pilot seat. The spice was working and my headache was slowly fading away. I punched up the Dantooine coordinates on the Nav computer and hit go. I remembered to close my eyes just in time as the ship lurched forward into hyperspace. I was in no condition to watch the light show right now.

Half an hour later I brought the ship down gently just outside the outpost. The ship's computer reported hot and muggy outside and four new furry stains on the underside of the ship. "Great", I thought, "just what I needed. A sauna and another ship cleaning bill."

The cargo ramp lowered slowly and I drove out in my fully air-conditioned AV-21. I hit the cargo door remote control and it slowly started closing as I gunned the engine on the AV. Sliding the scanner next to me on the seat I popped open the display and powered up the unit. A few seconds later I was pondering the list of steel resources displayed in green letters.

I picked one at random and got lucky. A sizeable trace was showing and rapidly increasing toward the southeast. I changed heading on the AV and opened up the jets, taking scans every few seconds. Fifteen minutes later I hopped out and placed the scanner on the ground. Two steel tubes extended from the bottom and penetrated the ground. There was a big "POOF" as the unit injected compressed gases into the ground and analyzed the resulting material.

I checked the readings. Not too bad, but not quite what I was looking for. I hopped back into the AV and selected the next type of steel and took off to the soutwest. I was still scanning for the highest concentration when the scanner display started flashing and the unit emitted double-chirps.

"Wha-??", I thought as I slammed on the brakes sending the scanner crashing to the floorboard. I reached down and picked it up and stared at the screen. I recognized the double-chirp sound. It was from a modification I had made on the unit by a smuggler friend of mine but I had never actually heard it kick in before. I knocked the scanner a few times on the side but it kept chirping at me. That was the range of my technical skills.

"It must be working. Could it be??" My heart started racing as I changed scan mode on the unit. It indicated a trace rapidly increasing due south. I swung the AV around and carefully started following the trace. Ten minutes later I rounded a hill and the scanner's beep-beep indicated I had reached the highest concentration.

I looked out the window to my left and couldn't believe my eyes. I fumbled for the sample button on the scanner out of nervousness and shortly a big POOF resulted as it analyzed the contents.

The readout made me drop to my knees in disbelief. I used my technical skills and slapped the unit on the side with my hand and re-sampled. The results came back the same. I stood up and surveyed my find.

In front of me was the biggest field of Denebian Gan'Jaa that I had ever seen. What it was doing on Dantooine I couldn't say, but if the readings on my scanner were even remotely correct, this was primo smoke. More than primo. The Overall Quality reading showed 994, Taste was at 833 and the Effectiveness rating was a whopping 998.

"I'm RICH!!!!", I thought to myself, hardly able to contain my excitement. "Screw Rich," I corrected myself, "my stash is gonna be full for a looooong time."

I opened my glove compartment and dumped most of the contents on the floorboard in my hurry to find my rolling papers. I stifled a brief panic attack until my hands found the papers stuck to the back of a Donut wrapper. I carefully unstuck my prize and loaded it with the sample. A field test of the sample would just be . . . um . . . being thorough.

I lit one end of my clumsily wrapped and overstuffed spliff and took a long drag. Smoooth. Good taste. Just a little on the fruity side with a hint of mustiness. A mellow calm engulfed my brain. I noticed my headache was gone. Shortly I was feeling at peace with everything, including the stale half a donut I had found behind the passenger seat which I was happily munching on while collecting more samples.

I worked feverishly until late evening and had a sizeable pile collected. The cargo space on the AV was stuffed so full I could barely close the lid. Next to the vehicle were two piles almost as tall as me.

Whether it was the effect of the Gan'Jaa or whether I was just tired, I don't remember, but I decided to camp out there for the night. Sitting by the fire which I was feeding with leftover samples, I breathed deeply and moistened my cottonmouth with imported Denebian Ale. Always good to keep a bottle of that around.

I had forgotten my bout with the Ale the night before and the resulting headache the morning after. Right now, the buzzing in my head, the warm, muggy summer breeze and the crackling of the fire lulled me to a deep sleep, filled with half-naked Twi'leks, unending lap dances and giant chocolate-glazed donuts.