The Kom'rk Class shuttle soared above the Perune atmosphere with no set path. It didn’t need one, it’s occupants were in no rush to get anywhere in particular. It was just… Nice to get to spend time together as a family.
That’s what Appius thought at least.
Inside the cockpit, Shi'Kar sat on his knee as she oggled at all the lights, buttons and levers around her. Her eyes lit up like she was back in a toy store on Kasiya. Ankira sat in the passenger seat with Rausu, trying to stop him from pressing anything he should.
He was so close to walking.
“Now, Shikari, being a Mandalorian is more than just being able to fight,” Appius said. “You need to be able to navigate through the galaxy.”
Ankira pointed to a radar on the central console. “What do you think that is Shi'Kar?”
Shi'Kar stared at it for a moment, uhm-ing and ah-ing, but clearly getting nowhere.
“That’s a radar. It tells us everything we need to know,” Appius pointed at a little arrow symbol on the radar. “That’s us! And all those little white dots around us are nearby systems we can fly too.”
“What are all those red dots?” Shi'Kar asked.
“Red dots?” Appius took a look, and sure enough, there they were. Seven red dots in formation upon them.
The Kom'rk suddenly shook violently as a transmission came through.
“Unidentified craft, your ship belongs to the Slug Pirates now. Surrender, and we may be so gracious as to let you live.”
“Pirates…” Ankiea groaned. “Why does it always have to be Pirates.”
“Daddy, Mummy…” Shi'Kar looked to them both for protection.
Appius wrapped an arm around her. “Don’t worry, we won’t let anything happen to you.” Appius pressed the communicator for the ship. “Hello there! I hear what you are saying, but, and this is just my counter-retort…”
Appius didn’t finish, instead engaging the thrusters on the Kom'rk as it sped into the darkness of space towards the Caelus Asteroid Belt.
“Ankira, the guns!” Appius said to her.
If it was a fight they wanted, it was a fight they’d get.
Ankira quickly put Rausu in his safety seat and went to the back of the ship to man the guns. Taking control of the guns a grim determination came over her face and she started to take aim at one of their chasers. When she got a lock she let out a blast of shots at it and it quickly erupted in a blast of fire. The others weren’t going to let them go away that easily after they shot one of them down and returned fire at them.
“Appius, get us out of the open!”
“I’m doing my best, but they are slowly gaining on us!”
‘Blast it,’ Ankira thought as she focused fully on taking out another one. She would have to hope that Appius knew what he was doing.
Appius, as usual, decided that the best course of action was to wing it. Quite literally. He piloted the ship into the Caelus Asteroid belt, intending to use the asteroids as cover.
It worked, the Pirates split up around the floating rocks, and Appius so this as an opportunity to take down a second pirate.
He lowered power to the ship’s thrusters, raising one wing of the Kom'rk and spinning it one-hundred and eighty degrees. The Pirate was perfectly lined up for Ankira.
Ankira loosened a volley of blaster shots at it and it exploded in a big ball of fire. Two down, five more to go. The third one was quickly filing into place were the second flew moments ago. As Ankira lined up her sight she got warning signals.
“They are trying to get a lock!” she yelled at Appius while she did her best to down the fighter before it could.
And get a lock on it did. The ship unleashed a volley of blaster fire that struck the Kom'rk’s shields.
Shi'Kar screamed, and Rausu let out a loud cry.
“Appius!” Ankira called out.
“I heard! I heard!”
The Kom'rk veered around a large asteroid, with three starfighters now chasing them.
Ankira let out choice of curses as she got pressed back into her seat and quickly aimed at their followers. Their flight pattern didn’t help her as they and them did their best to avoid getting hit by pieces of asteroids. If it was a ground battle she would have easily won, but this was proving to be a challenge she didn’t like the odds off.
“Come on…” she said to herself as she aimed at one of them, and opened fire, just missing him as they evaded another rock. “Gah!”
Taking aim again, she was luckier this time, hitting the wing of the fighter following them, making it veer in a hard right and crashing into a rock.
“Appius, this isn’t getting any easier!” Ankira called out to the cockpit. At tbe moment, they were out of sight, but they wouldn’t be in a few moments.
Appius, however had an idea. He parked the Kom'rk on a large asteroid, and turned off the ship’s power. “Hold on, we’re going dark.”
The lights in the ship turned off, leaving only the small hum of little power being generated to provide them oxygen.
“You can come up, Ankira. They shouldn’t be able to detect us.”
Ankira got down from her turret and got back to the others.
“How long are we going to stay here? And how fast can we get away if they spot us?”
Rausu was reaching up for her as she got near him. She smiled at him and took him out of his seat.
“We have enough oxygen to last for two hours. I’ve got the cloak up. They’ll only spot us if i want them too,” Appius let out a heavy sigh. “It’s never simple, is it? There’s always something…”
Ankira leaned over, giving him a kiss on his cheek. Appius smiled. She had the best ways of cheering him up. She placed a hand on his shoulder. Appius placed his hand on hers, interlocking their fingers.
“Thanks…” he said. “We aren’t staying here. I’m just waiting for the right moment.”
Ships flew by unabated, searching for them amongst the rocks.
“Mummy, are we going yo be OK?” Shikari asked. Visible worry on her face.
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And that makes seven.
Appius counted the ships as they soared past. He reignited the Kom'rk, the lights in the cockpit whirring to life.
They gave chase to the fighter at the back, and once Appius had a lock-on, he fired the rocket.
The starfighter made no escape, and burst into an explosion with no hope of survival.
“Yeah!” Appius cheered. “How do you like that!”
They chased the starfighters out of the asteroid field, only to come face to face with a Pirate Baleen Freighter. Appius’ heart sank into his gut as the Kom'rk was captured in a tractor beam. <@417336769181122562>
Ankira held Shi'Kar and Rausu and stared towards Appius. “This also part of your plan?”
“Not really,” Appius said as he looked up out the window, “Seems these pirates need some beating.”
“I know we wanted to teach Shi'Kar how to be a proper Mandalorian, but don’t you think we are going a bit to fast?”
“I’m sure we will be fine… somehow.”
“Buir? What will they do to us?” Shi'Kar asked softly.
“I don’t know, but I won’t let them hurt you two.”
The Kom'rk landed in the middle of a hangar. The ramp lowered, and Appius and Ankira were taken aback to see…
“Freeze! Hands up in the air!”
The shrill voice of a B1 battle droid. The hangar was crawling with them. It looked like a small army.
“Well,” Appius rubbed the back of his neck. “This isn’t what I was expecting.”
The battle droid prodded Appius with its rifle. “No speaking unless you are spoken to, meatbag! The captain wants to speak with you. Have them escorted to tbe control room.”
A squad of B2 battle droids surrounded them, wrist blasters aimed and primed to gun them down if they dared to try anything funny.
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Ankira held Rausu and Shi'kar close to her and watches all the droids around them. If she was without the kids she would have tried to throw one of her grenades between them, but now the risk was to great. Instead she nodded towards the droids, showing them that they would comply so far.
The droids turned in unison towards the door and together with the Mandalorians marched towards the location the captain was holding up.
Appius had usually been indifferent to droids. Now, though? He was beginning to see Winch’s point of view.
Some of those EMP grenades would have been good right about now…
Once they were on the command bridge, they were greeted by the stench of a Hutt in what might as well had equated to a throne. The putrid stench filled the room, sending waves of nausea to the Mandalorians, as well as the children.
The Hutt spoke in Huttese, though seemed to address Ankira first.
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“He wants to know who has the audacity to shoot down several of his ships, and why a woman thinks she can play being a warrior in a man’s galaxy,” Appius translated for her.
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Shi'Kar was holding her nose next to Ankira while Rausu tried to hide his face into her armour. She was glad her helmet didn’t let in any of the smell, but felt sorry for her children.
She snorted, “I’m more man and warrior than you will be, Hutt. Your people began to fire on us first, can’t help they flew into our return fire.”