Smuggler Archive

Chapter V

Talon Korsairre In Thanks For The Memory.

Okay, Okay I know I’m still stuck behind that rock in Chapter III but I’m getting to it dam it.

Right now that’s settled.

So there I am, no money no ship and no memory, stuck on a backwater planet and now it would appear, working for the Trandoshan version of the Sy Snootles Band. Things dear reader did not look good.

Outside the speeder the wind was lessening and the dust was beginning to settle. Tatooine’s twin suns were starting to make an appearance and beginning to make it known to anyone who wanted to listen that although the day was getting on they were still contenders and could give those younger suns on Dantooine and Lok a run for their money, so you better wear your sun block young fella me lad.

The speeder crested a rise and began to slow as up ahead through the settling dust I began to make out some large shapes.

Holly JediCrap those things were huge!

“Holly JediCrap those things are huge!” I said not wanting to keep such a choice line to myself.

“Yesss, they are rather large aren’t they.” Orix hissed from behind me. “Still up for the job.” he smirked.

Well me being me, which I am, I think, I couldn’t really say no. Besides I needed the credits.

I popped the speeders canopy and jumped out as it pulled to a halt. I noticed that they didn’t get out with me.

“Umm.” I said, I was really starting to get the hang of this witty banter stuff. “Aren’t you going to help.”

“If we were fighters we wouldn’t need you would we.” Orix replied with what I thought was way too much smugness.

“Now got be a hero.” He chuckled.

“If I was a hero I’d have a better comedy sidekick.” I mumbled to myself as I picked my way through the rock scrub towards uncertain doom. That’s like certain doom, but with far more to worry about.

The Worts were in sitting in a clearing about 200 meters from the speeder. They were sunning themselves after the storm and mostly asleep. They were round scaly and looked just like balloons would look, if you wanted to put your kid off going to the fair and give him nightmares for the rest of his life.

I tried to be as quiet as a very dead mouse, as I approached them, blaster drawn, a look of death in my eye, whose, mine or theirs, I really wasn’t certain yet. It was at that moment that I realised that I hadn’t actually discussed a price for my daring do with the Trands, but going back now and haggling didn’t really seam to be an option.

I crawled behind a bolder and made ready to do my hero type stuff. From here I could see about 15 of the large beasts, all bigger than the speeder, all possibly dumber than me, but at this stage I wasn’t prepared to bet on it.

Well at least I was armed, one of the only things that was left after the street scum of Mos Eisley had picked over my almost departed remains, had been my blaster. It was an old republic model that was encoded to my DNA so no one else could use it, probably why the collective colour of Mos Eisley had left it alone. The model wasn’t made any more and this one had been modified by someone who new what he was doing. It looked un-sliced to the untrained eye but I’d realised in the Medi Centre that it was much more powerful than it looked. That was one of the reasons I was so keen to leave, the Imperials take a dim view these things. I don’t know why, you’re just as dead if you get hit from two blaster bolts as from one. But I don’t tend to argue with his imperial magnificence the Emperor as it makes him techy and liable to do something unpleasant like feed me to his pet, Vader.

“Hey wait a minuet.” I said to myself. “I don’t even know the emperor, how do I know what he will do, maybe he’d really think it’s a good idea that Talon Korsairre caries around a gun with enough firepower to take out an imperial cruiser.” Either way I was glad to have the gun with me.

Putting these not very useful thoughts out of my head I turned my attention back to the Worts. So fifteen of them, one of me, but I’ve got a very big gun. Still not the best odds I could ask for.

One thing I couldn’t see from my vantage point was the dam Oglaron, If what the Trands had said was true It ought to be sitting right in the middle of the beasts, but there was no sign of it.

Just then I got a lucky break something happened that caused the Worts to stop their collective sun worshiping and make a mad dash for the hills. Great you may say if I was telling you this story down the cantina one evening. Our hero triumphs; by using his wits, planning and sheer dumb luck.

True I would concur, whilst pointing out to you the fact that my glass was empty and it was your round. I’d continue to tell you though, as you went to get the drinks in, whilst first I downed your pint you had forgotten in your rush to get me alcohol. That this would only be a good thing, if the thing that had scared off the Worts had not be the return of the mysterious stranger from chapter two, firing at me with a blaster carbine from an outcrop of rocks above the Worts. Unfortunately that’s what it was.

So I’d then point, out as you were going back to the bar to get me a packet of Eopy Ears TM © that you didn’t get me when you got the drinks, It now leaves me in the situation I told you about at the beginning of chapter three.

You remember.

“Our hero, yours truly, hiding valiantly behind a rock. Why, you may ask, is our brave, courageous and above all good-looking, adventurer demeaning himself in this un-gentlemanly a fashion?”

Well I did tell you. But now I have to tell you what happened next.

To be continued

So what happens next, will our hero ever get a real drink not a metaphorical story telling device but a real honest to god, put hair on your Bantha, strong enough to pull the ears of a Gundar drink.

Find out this and the answer to the whole meaning of life the universe and everything, (Editor’s Note: It’s 42) in the next amazing instalment of:

The Exciting And Increasingly Inaccurate Adventures of Talon Korsairre

Message Edited by Mystique2000uk on 08-01-2005 04:37 PM