Dune Sea

It was the sort of question that provoked genuine thought. Alkor rarely wanted for anything. When he went somewhere or did something, he did so out of necessity. In his years under the tutelage of Plaga, his baseline urges and senseless desires were whittled away. Chiseled from a debased chunk of hateful, venomous man, what remained was a grotesque shadow of what had once been a broken man. Alkor was content with that truth, however. The creature he was now lived a far more relevant life than anything he could have managed as a thug wandering the streets of Coronet. It offered a more fruitful, less indulgent lifestyle than he had seen in any Sith, and the knowledge he won came more plentifully than any a Jedi could learn.

So, what could Alkor possibly want?

In turn, he ignored the question. It was not Alkor who wanted anything, but Sakri who sought an answer. Her discontent tasted bitter and resentful on the gale. It turned frosty on his tongue and threatened to bite if she disliked his response. His dead gaze rifled over her wanton display of literal and metaphysical power, blatantly unimpressed. He reached out toward the cyclonic entity with his senses, opening himself up to the perversion that was the force, and he let a single thought resound in his mind, from a quiet whisper until it became a stern command.

Enough.

The winds whined in protest of his oppressive willpower. Alkor stared hard at the dust devil from where he stood, tight lipped. Sighing as if defeated, the winds began to slow. While he did not fully understand the subtleties of what magic she had learnt, Alkor had the teachings of Plaga under his command. To will the force into submission was a simple task, if seemingly more daunting than most. Around them, dust flittered from the breeze and returned to the dried out earth. 

"I came to this world for my own reasons. You have upset a careful balance, and it has cast a shadow that has not gone unseen." His eyes flashed to her, a look almost like amusement in them, but less charged and less lively. "But the shadow looms not over the world. It hangs over you."

His accusation hung on the dying winds, a thought for her to consider as she would.

"I suppose that warning may have drawn me thus. Consider the path you tread carefully. Power will consume, if not brought to heel."

Mig watched yet another convoy arrive at the complex. At first he had high hopes for the outpost, it was obviously a tech rich group. The structure on the surface was obviously a gate to a much larger underground compound. However, something had cautioned him to watch & wait before making contact. At first it had been like any other outsider compound. People coming & going on a fairly regular basis. While Mig didn't like it as much as going fast, The Book of Sand made it clear that laying in ambush was often as important as shooting straight & riding hard.

His patience had been rewarded though. Four days into the watch, a pair of large craft had rolled up to the compound entrance. They looked like some of the extremely old Jawa sand crawlers, but were obviously much too new to be one of those ancient craft. Each was marked with a giant logo on each side, like a bull's head, but with upright horns & wreathed in lightning.

The real surprise had been the massive vehicle's cargo. Instead of crates or barrels, a string of beings in chains were led from the craft into the underground compound. Mostly Jawas & Tuskens, Mig did spot a few humans in the mix. All told nearly sixty prisoners were led into the compound. That had been two weeks ago.

This time the group led from the pair of sand crawlers was smaller, only forty beings. If any of the first group had exited the building, they hadn't been Jawa or Tusken. There was definitely something wrong going on in the compound. Mig started worming his way back to where he hid his bike. It was long, slow going, mainly to keep the sand coloured poncho he was wearing in place & half covered in sand.

He knew from the last time that the two massive vehicles would stay at the compound for the rest of the day to refuel & stock up. Once they left, they would be walking into their own doom. A plan was already forming in his head. A wicked, evil, beautiful plan. But he would need his newly formed clan to help him. When the sand crawlers left the compound, Mig was ready. The crawlers didn't know they would be attacked. They didn't know they should be afraid. They didn't know Mig.

The bike rumbled softly beneath Mig as he watched the huge craft pull itself ever further from safety. Soon, they would strike. It was almost an hour by bike to the compound, much longer for the massive craft they were slowly stalking. Even now it was only moments away from the decided attack point. Nearly two hours in the other direction, the other craft would be lumbering along as well. It would be spared, for the moment at least. Only a few warboy scouts watched it.

-Mig
Geronimo!

At his metallic cry nearly a hundred bikes & landspeeders roared into motion, sweeping down toward the massive craft. The craft had not been prepared for a fight, those few that came out on the upper deck where often as not unarmed or only half clothed. There was no mercy. Warpups jumped screaming from the speeders they had hitched a ride on to land on the upper deck of the ponderous crawler. Few humans expected jawas to fight well. Few humans expected jawas to fight at all. Most warpups had some kind of ranged weapon, mostly pistols. But a few did not. Ever single warboy & warpup, however, had taken to crafting & carrying around a knife style the Good Book called a 'Bowie' knife. The Czerka personnel learned that even hiding in the smaller areas of the crawler did not save them from the wrath of the Sand Lightning clan.

The remains where dumped over the rail without a second glance. He didn't know if the crawler had managed to get a signal out, but he was going to try & take the craft intact. That said, anything loose of value was divided up among the bikes & speeders. They would scatter, leaving the vessel empty if the humans came for it. First however, the jawas began searching for any tracking equipment that might be on the crawler.

Eventually, it was decided that there wasn't any tracking equipment. Nor had a signal been sent, as the scouts watching both the other crawler & the compound reported no changes. Leaving the rig in the hands of a dozen warboys & nearly twice that many warpups, Mig ordered the craft to a rally point nearby. The campaign would continue, as the rest of the warboys turned & headed toward the second target of the day. The second sand crawler fell just as the second sun was setting. It to was aimed at the rally point & carefully checked for tracking gear. Mig didn't know how often the craft were supposed to check in, but he figured he could manage to draw out at least a few of the bikes & speeders he had seen around the compound entrance.

It didn't take long. A report went out from the warboys watching the compound the next day a few hours after noon. A pair of patrols headed off following the paths the sand crawlers took. Each was only a single speeder & a pair of bikes, but it would still be a drain on the compound's resources when they vanished as well. And vanish they would. The sand crawlers hadn't reached Silver yet, but Mig had no intentions of letting the patrols even close enough to see his first prizes. Teams of warboy snipers would do the trick, laying in wait along the tracks left by the M-ETTs. Plus a few extra to hunt down any survivors.

The next part would be more difficult. Mig had managed to whip a pair of his Docs into creating a jamming system that should prevent the compound from calling for help. But each node would need serious power to run. Four nodes meant four speeders out of the fight for the compound. Fortunately, Mig wasn't expecting much of a fight on the surface. The real battle would be inside.

The nodes sparked to life, causing the commlink Mig was hold to dissolve from a clear image of one of the scouts into a blanket of static. That was the signal to go. The combined roar of the repulsors causes the sand to ripple & shift below them, nearly the entire might of the Sand Lightning clan gathered into a single attack. Well over a hundred speeders & bikes, loaded down with nearly two hundred warpups along for the ride. They raced like a whip of dust across the sands & fell on the compound like the lightning they were named after. Those few humans tending the vehicles in the compound's hanger area fell quickly under the heavy fire-power of the mounted weapons.

Mig was the first to dismount. He turned and watched his warboys & warpups carefully while lighting a cigar laced with crystal. Many of the others were lighting cigars or cigarettes of their own, a few even had pipes. Only one warpup made the mistake of trying to loot before the battle had even started. A smooth draw & the wretch was laying on the ground smoking from a fresh crater in his side. Mig had been very clear on what would happen to anyone that tried to loot before the fighting was done.

Feeling the buzzing rush of the crystal in his cigar, nearly as good as maxing out his bike, Mig took a hard look at the entrance to the compound. Time to get the party started. With a nearly inarticulate roar, Mig drew his pistols & charged at the door leading deeper into the compound, followed by over three hundred jawas. The pair of guards cowering just inside the door stood no chance as they were swarmed by knife wielding warpups. Further in the paths began to branch off, & the first alarms began to ring. Mig's commands had been clear. Kill any humans not chained up. Find the prisoners & bring Mig to them.

The battle was long & not nearly as easy as Mig would have hoped for. Nearly a dozen warboys & three times that number of warpups had fallen before the fighting was done. He had been surprised by the number of prisoners waiting for him however. Nearly two hundred jawas & almost fifty tuskens. It seems the compound was some kind of weapon lab, run by Czerka. The prisoners had been forced to work expanding the lab, at least until they were chosen to be the next test subject for some weapon prototype or other.

The two M-ETTs were recalled from the rally point. Based on the reports of others & what he had seen himself, Mig granted a good number of warpups a status increase to warboy. The vehicles from the small hanger proved numerous enough to have several left over even after these rewards. The remainder were granted based on contests between the warpups. Some of the larger landspeeders were used to ferry the now free jawas & tuskens back to their clans. A fair number of jawas, their clans destroyed by Czerka, chose to join the Sand Lightning clan instead.

It was decided to take the time to completely strip the compound of anything useful, including a fair bit of the internal bulkheads & tons of wiring & otherwise built in components. Most was carried back & forth to Silver via the two sand crawlers. Which had huge repulsor arrays attached to their bellies, greatly increasing their speed. Though many of the speeders helped as well. Once the compound was stripped literally to the rock, the jawas carefully set a number of charges throughout the honeycomb of passages. Many dead bodies of jawas, tuskens & humans had been left within. Far too many to remove only to rebury. Instead the entire compound was carefully detonated, granting them the greatest burial possible to the Sand Lightning clan. Leaving only the still settling crater behind them, the clan returned to use their spoils of battle to once again raise Silver from the sand.

Having made for Slauce Canyon after departing from Mos Eisley, Kaiya had then made good time on the next leg of her journey, which took her to Motesta, where she had stopped to rest for the night prior to continuing onward in the morning into the Jundland Wastes, bound for the Western Dune Sea, where her unsuspecting prey was to be found.

The journey across the sands or through rocky canyons might have seemed a lonely one to some, or perhaps even a frightening one given the innumerable tales of the horrific fates met in the Jundland Wastes or Dune Sea by many an unwary traveler, but Kaiya has, since achieving the rank of Jedi Knight, operated so often alone that it no longer perturbs in the least to have only the Force and her thoughts for company, nor has she ever been one to let fear rule her. Remaining attuned to what her senses can tell her as well as to what the Force can reveal to those able to still themselves enough to hear Its whispered intimations about what transpires all around them, Kaiya had made her way towards the base of operations the slaving outfit she had been tasked with putting an end to lay waiting, hidden deep in the Western Dune Sea.

Leaving her Zephyr-G swoop hidden beneath a sand colored tarp that blends in with the dunes around it, Kaiya carefully makes her way to a small rocky outcropping overlooking the slaving outfit's base of operations, and then uses her electro-binoculars to begin her surveillance; making careful note of how many beings are present, what kinds of patrols are maintained, and other such details so that she can plan how best to approach the task ahead of her.

Once the sentries have been dealt with, Kaiya turns her attention to the ships, disabling all but one of them in the event she is able to effect the capture of the remaining slavers rather than resorting to killing as she has with the sentries. Leaving the Wayfarer-class medium transport operable as she believes she is capable of piloting that ship better than the other two starships, Kaiya rolls her neck and shoulders after stepping from the boarding ramp to the sands once more, stretching her senses out towards the main building of the encampment where the remaining slavers had gone earlier.

Opening her blue eyes once she has a sense of where the occupants of the building are, more of which are alike than she would prefer, Kaiya strides purposefully towards the structure, using the Force to leap nimbly onto the roof, where she darts swiftly and silently towards the entrance of the building's ventilation system, disappearing inside a moment later as she begins her infiltration.

The dunes rolled lazily, a light breeze carrying the smell of dirt and dust across the wastes. The land was barren, like most of the planet's surface. A Jawa sand crawler could be seen in the distance, resting against the horizon. The glaring rays of Tatooine's three suns glinted off of an object higher in the sky, an object which left a trail of smoke behind it as it plummeted towards the planet. As the object ever closer to the surface it's general form became discernable. It was the hull of a starship. Large chunks of hull could be seen missing, debris falling off in its wake. It appeared as if there had been some sort of engine malfunction as the rear half of the ship was charred and a mess of tangled durasteel and flame.

Debris began landing, expulsions of sand rising as pieces of metal and electronics slammed into the ground. A small rumble turned into a high roar as the mass of the hull approached, a shrill screech as it bounced off of one of the dunes, a cloud of sand erupting. The mass bounced once more before embedding itself halfway into a dune. Bits and pieces of hull rained from the sky, a strange silence interrupted by what sounded like loud raindrops settled over the wasteland. Debris had scattered over dunes as the hull had bounced before coming to rest half in, half out of a sand dune. A loud creaking came from the hull as some of the remaining pieces of the fractured hull came to rest.

Heat from the burning hulk had started to turn the sand around it to glass, the sparking and flaming wreck slowly starting to settle and go out. Smoke that had been billowing on its downward descent now began to dissipate, the sand suppressing the bulk of it.

2km away another streak could be seen, this one much smaller. As it got closer to the ground a blast of flame erupted from the thrusters. It appeared to slow down slightly but not enough. The pod slammed into the ground creating another burst of sand which shot up into the air. Small tendrils of smoke could be seen rising from the small crater the pod now rested in.

Another escape pod came into view, its descent appeared even more erratic than the first one. As it plummeted towards the ground small bursts could be seen coming from its thrusters, systematically slowing itself down enough to survive a rough landing. This pod landed roughly 200 meters from the now smoldering hull of the CR-90. The landing was rough, but much gentler than the previous pod landing. A spray of heated sand shot upwards as the pod hit the surface and came to rest on its side.

A mottled silence settled over the dunes as all the metal and debris finally came to a rest. Light clouds of smoke and small bursts of sparks periodically came from the wrecked hull of the CR-90. Two hours later, the scene remained untouched, smoke now drifting lightly into the air, sparks sporadically erupting from capacitors and cables. A small clanking noise could be heard, disrupting the ambient noise of the wreckage.

Sand shifted slightly as the metal hatch on the pod opened just a crack, then closed. Another small clanking noise could be heard before the hatch opened further this time. A man struggled free, his brown hair matted with blood, his face half covered in red. He half crawled half fell out of the pod, landing with a small thud. He lay there for a moment, curled into a ball, his eyes shut.

A groan escaped his lips as he forced himself up on one elbow, pushing himself upwards to his knees. The man squinted as he looked at his surroundings... the scene causing his breath to catch in his chest... a look of horror on his face.


*No... No no no no no... This can't be happening...*

Bren forced himself to take a deep breath.


A knot had begun forming in his stomach, twisting and turning as he tried to force down his fear. He closed his eyes for a moment, focusing on his breathing. He breathed in as far as he could, and then released his breath slowly, counting the seconds as he exhaled. He did this several times before opening his eyes again and observing the wreckage. As if a bolt of lightning struck him, Bren stood quickly, pushing himself over to the escape pod.

His body heaved. Bren steadied himself on the hull of the pod as he expelled a mixture of bile and vomit into the dry sand of the dunes. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and grunted as he opened the hatch to the pod once more. Rummaging around inside, he removed a small medical kit and a survival blaster from a locked compartment. Reaching into another compartment he removed a small survival pack and tossed it out of the open hatch. Bren scrambled out after it and closed the hatch behind him. He needed to get away from the wreckage. Looking at the control panel he'd seen that he'd been out for at least two hours, who knows who'd be coming to look at or salvage the wreckage. He couldn't stay here any longer.

He retrieved the survival pack, its contents included an emergency blanket, two large liter bottles of water, some dehydrated ration tabs, about 15 feet of nylon reinforced rope about the width of a bootlace, some fishing line and hooks, a small box of matches, a survival knife with serrated edge, and some water purification tablets. It also had a 2 way radio. He stuffed the small first aid kit into the pack and tucked the blaster into his belt. He needed to figure out where to go from here.

He still felt a little woozy from the impact to his head but he knew he couldn't afford to be weak now. He started heading for the top of the closest dune. From there he would be able to see in all directions and choose a direction of travel. As he ascended the tall dune he looked back at the wreckage. It was hard for him to process that just a few hours ago, they had been in space and now the 'Occam' was nothing but a shattered piece of hull in the middle of the desert. He didn't see any bodies... of course... He wasn't exactly looking, the thought made his stomach knot up again and he turned away.

It took him a few minutes to traverse the dune and arrive at the top. He let out an audible groan as his eyes followed the horizon; he didn't see anything but more dunes in sight. He sat down, setting the pack in the crook of his crossed legs. Bren pulled out the radio and switched it on. Perhaps he could intercept a transmission and gain his bearings.

The radio came to life with a small click and a beep. Bren began to systematically listen and adjust frequencies. For a long time he heard nothing but static, he couldn't sit here forever, he needed to go but deciding on a direction effectively blind could end him up even deeper into the wastes. He absent-mindedly continued switching channels as he observed the landscape. To his front he saw more dunes, endless in their sloping curves. To his left he saw a great plain, sand and rocks filled his view to the horizon. Behind him lay the wreckage of the ship and more dunes. To his right however he noticed something glinting under the gaze of the three suns of Tatooine. He squinted trying to see what it was.

Mountains. There were definitely mountains that direction, their brown rocky silhouette a small bump on the horizon. As he looked closer he thought he might be able to make out a structure but he couldn't tell for sure. A chirp on the radio surprised him so bad that he almost dropped it. He turned up the volume and strained to hear through the static.

He couldn't make out the language or the words but he could have sworn he'd heard the words "Mos Eisley". He didn't know where he was exactly, but maybe that glint on the horizon was the spaceport. He could only hope. With his direction decided, he trekked onwards, his sole intent on reaching the spaceport. From there he could regroup... if he could make it to Mos Eisley, he had at least a sliver of hope. He tried to stay on the ridge of the dunes, paying no attention to whether or not he could be seen as he plodded onwards towards the speck on the horizon.

The two warboys spotted the figure easily enough. They also noticed the blaster. Of course being armed on this planet wasn't unusual, it was a lot closer to common sense actually. As long as it remained pointed at the ground the warboys didn't care. They chittered at each other for a few moments, deciding who would talk to the stranger. After a few moments, one of them walked closer to the human, leaving the other several paces behind to cover his back. Fiddling with a bright band on steel just showing beneath his face concealing veil, the figure began to chitter again. This time a mechanical tone of basic sounded out a moment later.

-Jawa warboy
Greetings from the Sand Lightning Jawa Clan. What brings you to our range?

==At the Wreck of the Occam==

Well shy of the wreck itself, Preacher Thatch had ordered the speakers silenced, wary of damaging anything that might have survived the crash. As the Silver, the war rigs & the mass of smaller craft settled down around the wreck, it was clear that they were the first to reach it. Warboys & Warpups poured from the larger transports. The Warboys began to work themselves into the main body of the ship, putting out any lingering fires & looking for survivors. The Warpups scattered out to begin collecting the wreckage that had been thrown across a wide chunk of the landscape. Speeder bikes & landspeeders used mounted cables to drag the heavier loose pieces to a central gathering point under the prow of the Silver.