Star Wars Missions 008 - Togarian Trap Read online

  Table of Contents

  COPYRIGHT

  PRELIMINARY MISSION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  MISSION BRIEFING

  YOUR MISSION: TOGARIAN TRAP

  THE AFTER-MISSION

  “This is it,” Han Solo shouted. “I’m going to get those bounty hunters once and for all — before they get us. Luke, Leia — get to the gun bays. Chewie — put full power to our forward shields.”

  There was a worried beep from the droid Artoo-Detoo, who was back on the forward observation deck. His fellow droid, See-Threepio, calmed him down, saying, “I wouldn’t worry about Master Solo. He knows what he’s doing. I just hope there aren’t any droids aboard that vessel.”

  Solo hit the thrusters and hurtled toward the small ship that had just dropped out of hyperspace. The ship was a Corellian JumpMaster 5000 and it was aiming to attack the Falcon. Solo knew the model well. More important, he recognized this particular ship as one that had fled the Ithorian system only a few days ago. It had some modified weapons systems, but it was still much weaker than the Falcon. The pilot had clearly been relying upon a surprise attack. But Solo was ready.

  Behind Solo, Grubba the Hutt slithered down the hall. Seeing the ship on the monitor, Grubba shouted, “Wait! You can’t blow that ship — those guys still owe me a gambling debt!”

  “Sorry, Grubba,” Solo said. “You’ll just have to find someone else to cheat.”

  Solo navigated toward the oncoming ship. The other pilot hesitated, no doubt attempting to power his shields and weapons.

  A moment was all Solo needed. He broadcast a tight-beam message to the enemy ship: “Hate to do this to you buddy, but you’ve been on my tail for weeks!” He hoped that the message wouldn’t be picked up by any Imperials. His location, planet Togoria, was mighty close to an Imperial shipyard.

  The bounty hunters fired a blaster cannon — five or six shots in rapid succession. The Falcon bucked as its shields took the impact.

  Solo fired his ion cannon, and the smaller vessel was immediately enveloped in a web of blue lightning. The electric bolts wriggled over the hull of the ship, magnetizing its sensors, destroying its circuitry, and ruining its weapons tracking systems. A perfect hit.

  “Yeeeeoooooowww!” Grubba shouted. “That fried them!”

  Solo got a sinking feeling. He knew the despair and horror the bounty hunters must be feeling. Their ship was a tomb. Even the escape pod would be useless.

  They wouldn’t be able to communicate or flee. Their life-support systems would go down. They would either freeze in the depths of space or, if the ship was captured by Togoria’s gravity, they would burn up as the ship plunged through the planet’s atmosphere.

  The bounty hunters only had one slight chance: In a matter of minutes, they would have to de-ionize the ship, make the necessary repairs, and escape the tomb.

  The chance that the bounty hunters would hear his final words was very slim, Solo knew. The ion blast would probably have fried the circuitry. “So long,” Solo whispered into his communicator. “Sorry it had to end this way. But it’s either you or me.”

  “Sorry it had to end this way.” The words were a hissing sound through the crackle of static. Yet from the inside of his ship, Dengar heard Solo.

  He already had his de-ionizer in hand, and was desperately struggling to clear the static electricity from his operations console. From the back of his ship, he heard the cries of Udin the Kubaz and Eron Stonefield. The Punishing One’s hull was blown wide, and bits of shrapnel had burst through a containment wall. The cabin was quickly losing air. Udin had applied a patch to the hole, and was now sealing it with durofoam. Unfortunately, the artificial gravity had been deactivated, causing Udin to float away from the job.

  “Give me a hand here, when you can!” Dengar shouted.

  “How about giving us a hand when you can!” Eron yelled. She was trying to help Udin. “If we can’t breathe, it doesn’t matter if we can fly!”

  “And I really don’t care if I’m breathing when I crash into the planet!” Dengar shouted. He turned back to the console. It was hopeless. Far too much work, far too little time.

  At that moment, the air pressure punched through Udin’s patch. The hole was too big. The thin metal twisted and flew through the hole. The air in the cabin was escaping.

  “Quick, this way!” Dengar shouted. He unstrapped himself from the pilot’s seat and kicked toward the escape pod.

  “What good will that do?” Eron cried as she and Udin moved toward the door. With the escape pod ionized, they wouldn’t be able to eject from the ship. They might have a little more air, but they’d still crash.

  Eron and Udin flew through the weightless air like ghosts, and entered the tiny round hatch of the pod.

  Just then, a minor explosion rocked the ship. Eron locked the hatch down, inhaling gratefully.

  “I’m glad you got us in here!” Udin cried in relief.

  There were no lights in the escape pod. Dengar held up his de-ionizer, and worked by the dim glare of its little green running lights.

  The escape pod didn’t have many controls. A tiny electronic brain managed the life support and the jets. The brain wasn’t smart. It only knew to fire its thrusters and keep the craft from crashing. It would also try to fall on even ground, rather than hard rocks — if it had any choice in the matter.

  The Punishing One began to shudder. Eron knew the feeling: the ship had hit the atmosphere of a planet.

  “We’re going to burn up on entry!” Udin cried.

  Eron bit her lip and looked out the view port. She saw the Millennium Falcon veer away. Below was a beautiful planet — a jewel with sapphire-colored oceans, a few emerald jungles, and tawny plains, all obscured by sunlight reflecting off of clouds. “We’ve lost the Falcon,” she reported. “At least they won’t be tailing us anymore.”

  Dengar was sweating and straining, running the deionizer over the delicate controls. Suddenly, a single green running light shone on the control panel.

  Eron read the words under the light “Parachutes — automatic deployment.” She gasped in relief. The parachutes could slow their descent. This might give Dengar time to get the jets running, or at least control the crash.

  Dengar rushed for a handle at the bottom of the escape pod and pulled it. Eron covered her ears to block out the grinding sound of metal against metal. Then she felt the pod float away from the body of the Punishing One. Not far — only a few feet.

  The escape pod twisted so that sunlight showed through the hatch and lit Dengar’s face. Eron could see enormous beads of sweat on his brow as he kicked back toward the computer console and resumed the de-ionization.

  “We need these thrusters!” he muttered.

  As the ship rushed through the upper atmosphere, the friction of metal against air heated the skin of the ship. It began to get very hot.

  “Can you get the life support working?” Udin pleaded. “I need fresh air.”

  “We’ve got enough,” Dengar shouted. “We’ll crash before we run out of oxygen.”

  “Perhaps you have enough for a human,” Udin argued, the voice from his translator sounding tinny, “but I am a Kubaz. I feel... faint.”

  With that, the Kubaz’s eyes rolled up in his head. His tiny trunk wriggled up in the air, then went limp.

  “You look faint.” Eron said.

  Udin pitched forward, unconscious.

  Dengar grunted, trying to focus on getting the controls to work.

  The fall to Togoria stretched out for minutes. The escape pod rolled and tumbled with seeming slowness toward the planet. Within the pod, gravity
returned slowly as they fell.

  Eron watched Dengar work with unswerving determination, touching the de-ionizer to each tiny circuit and component under the maintenance panel. She searched desperately for a way to help.

  There was a booming noise and a sudden lurch as the automatic parachute deployed.

  Within moments, the pod began swinging by the lines of its parachutes. But that wasn’t enough to make Eron feel safe. By now the escape pod felt like an oven. And it was only getting worse.

  “Just a moment,” Dengar muttered to himself. “I’ve almost got it I’ve almost got it.”

  Eron looked out the hatch, just as a blanket of clouds rushed toward them.

  The pod slowed, but not enough. If it hit ground, Eron knew that they’d explode into a bloody spot on the rocks.

  Dengar shouted, “Just about! I just about have it!”

  Eron was suddenly blinded, as the ship descended through clouds. Gray fog obscured her view.

  Then they were beneath the clouds, plunging toward the jungle.

  Regretting she had ever become a bounty hunter, Eron Stonefield screamed.

  The city of Caross, the capitol of Togoria, was a marvel to behold. Leia had never imagined anything like it, though she had long had relations with the Margrave’s sister, Ffaseer effet Ihsss. The Margrave-sister secretly supported the Rebellion. Her people could not bear the thought of being ruled by the Empire. Unfortunately, the nearby Imperial shipyards made it hard for the Togorians to openly rebel.

  The Togorians seldom invited aliens to their world, but Leia found that when she asked for permission to land, the response was overwhelming. The Margrave-sister herself spoke on the comm console. In a leathery, purring voice, she invited Leia and the others to be royal guests in Caross.

  Soon they were winging toward the city. The plains around Caross were a brown savanna of tall grass, with a few watering holes and enormous trees. The land was dotted by herds of shaggy dark creatures that looked (and sometimes acted) like living hills. Giant flying reptiles called mosgoths hunted overhead.

  The catlike Togorians had evolved strangely. The plains of Togoria could be dangerous, with the reptiles hunting above and the vicious predators on ground. And the shaggy creatures would crush anything that moved beneath them.

  The Togorians’ ancestors had sought refuge in the trees during the day, and hunted at night. Hidden in the upper branches, they were shaded from the burning sun and shielded from reptiles. Even now, the nomadic Togorian males still camped in trees.

  The females preferred not to wander, and had built cities where they could bear their litters in peace. Each city was located near a nesting site for mosgoths. By living with these creatures, the Togorians had learned to protect themselves from some of their enemies.

  The city of Caross looked like a grove from a distance. Its brightly painted domes shone like jewels on platforms built into enormous sandstone-red trees.

  Grubba the Hutt watched the skyline warily. “Let’s not go there,” the young Hutt groaned at last. “I’m afraid of heights.”

  “It’s really not too dangerous,” Solo said, “as long as you mind your manners. I hear that the Togorians have a rule with unwanted guests: they invite them to leave by dragging them to the edge of the city and throwing them off.”

  Grubba’s yellow eyes widened. Then the young Hutt slithered away — closing the hatch with a slam.

  Leia shook her head, wondering if it was wise to frighten the Hutt. After all, Grubba came from a powerful family.

  On the platforms, Leia could see aviaries where mosgoths perched. Some of the giant reptiles were ridden by Togorian girls with gray pelts and enormous fangs, who carried heavy blasters on their hips. As the Falcon neared Caross, the mosgoths swarmed after the ship.

  Solo veered toward the largest landing pad and settled the ship down in what looked to be a market square. A sun-dappled village squatted beneath the platforms. Togorian females herded their litters of “kits” everywhere along the streets. Various stalls sold fresh fish, reptiles, and mammals for food.

  Leia stepped from the Falcon first. In Togorian society, it was customary for women to lead. After Leia came See-Threepio, to translate, followed by Artoo-Detoo. Last of all came the males.

  There were few adult male Togorians in the capital. They were considered too wild for polite company.

  Leia walked into the sunlight. Everywhere she could smell the scents of fresh meat — dark shaggy etelo and the slender forms of giant silver bist. She looked up, and saw the pelts of leathery foora, large green lizards, drying in the sun like enormous green leaves.

  Almost immediately, the Margrave-sister bounded toward her. The Sister’s black claws were retracted, a sign of peace. Leia folded her hands to hide her fingernails — the best she could do to show her own peaceful intentions. The Sister’s pelt was a charcoal gray, with a streak of white between the eyes. The diamond-shaped pupils in her red eyes narrowed to slits in the sunlight. She stood a full head taller than Leia, though she was only half the height of a Togorian male.

  “Welcome, Leia of the humans,” the Margrave-sister purred. “I hear you shot down a ship?”

  “Imperial bounty hunters,” Leia said. “They’d been following us for weeks.”

  The Sister’s whiskers twitched, and her triangular ears went backward. She hissed, claws flexing, “After what your friends did to the Death Star, I am not surprised. Still, you need not fear Imperials here. You are my royal guests.”

  With merely seconds remaining, Dengar hunched over the control panels, trying to save his hide.

  The escape pod hurtled into the upper branches of the jungle, shearing through the canopy. The first few small branches barely slowed the vehicle, and then it smashed into a limb. Metal buckled beneath Dengar’s feet, and a great wedge of wood drove through the metal fabric of the escape pod. For half a second, he hoped that the branch would support the pod, but quickly the branch was torn away, and the pod dropped another dozen yards. The parachute tangled wildly in the branches and began to tear. The pod lurched sideways, and Eron Stonefield fell to the floor with a grunt

  Then the pod bounced in midair. The parachute jostled and swayed, swinging wide. Dengar felt sick to his stomach. He feared the parachute lines would rip the rest of the way, dropping the pod who-knows-how-far.

  But the pod held.

  Dengar’s heart hammered. The Imperial physicians who had turned him into an assassin, who had cut away that portion of his brain that allowed him to feel love and compassion, had also cut away his ability to feel fear.

  He was not frightened now. Yet his heart hammered, and a sheen of sweat was on his brow. Some deep part of him still knew fear. It was mingled with another emotion, one that the physicians had left in him.

  Rage. A seething rage that burned like a coal in his belly. He told himself silently, I will have vengeance. I will have Solo.

  The jungles of Togoria proved forbidding even to Dengar and his comrades. The trees blotted out nearly all light, and everywhere on the flat ground were bogs and pools of quicksand. Dengar had never seen a snake over a hundred feet long until he tried to climb over what he’d thought was a log. Lightning fast, it moved to strike. Dengar dodged out of the way just in time, coming way too close to its oddly triangular head and its trio of venomous fangs.

  Dengar did not have any idea where he was going. He and the other bounty hunters stumbled along through thick, strange-smelling moss. The odor numbed his nose and tongue, as if the moss had emitted a mild sleeping gas to repel any herbivores that might try to feed on it

  Dengar pulled a bandage from his neck to cover his nose. Then he turned back to look at the others. Eron Stonefield was already half asleep on her feet, while Udin — awake now — seemed not to be bothered by the gas at all. Sometimes it paid to be an alien.

  Dengar took one last look at the Punishing One — amazingly, it had not been destroyed in the crash. But it would need plenty of repairs before it flew again. />
  Dengar’s thoughts were disturbed once more by the odor. Just as Dengar realized that he had to get away from the moss, an enormous gray shape dropped to the ground in front of him. He saw the cat’s eyes in the dark — then the raking claws, the twitching whiskers, and the long teeth oozing spit. The Togorian landed almost silently on its padded feet.

  The tall creature sniffed him and hissed, “What are you doing here, human?”

  “Hunting snakes,” Dengar answered.

  “You are not a white-shell. You are not a stormtrooper. What are you?”

  Dengar knew that the cat people hated the Empire. “I’m not an Imperial, but I’ve killed a few of them,” he boasted casually.

  “It is forbidden for humans to land on Togoria,” the cat-man said.

  Eron Stonefield cut in. “Our ship crashed.”

  Dozen of Togorians leaped from the trees, falling like huge fruit “It is lawful to crash—” the Togorian said, “— but you may crash only once. We will take you to Caross, where freighter pilots will dispose of you. If you ever crash on our world again, it would be less painful to die in the crash than to fall into our hands.”

  “I am in a hurry,” Dengar told the Togorian leader. “I am hunting a man who will be in Caross for only a few hours.”

  The Togorian raked the air with giant claws. “So you are a human who hunts other humans,” the Togorian mused. “Interesting. We are hunters, too, though we do not hunt our own kind.”

  “This man is a criminal,” Dengar said.

  “On Togoria, the mighty rule. Might is law. This way is best.”

  “I am mightier than this man,” Dengar stated. “He is evil. He has stolen an alien child, and demands a ransom.”

  The Togorian snarled. “He stole a mother’s kitten?”

  Dengar smiled. Male Togorians were not allowed to run loose in the cities. He suspected that when they did go to the cities, honor would demand that they behave. “Such men dishonor all males everywhere. The human’s name is Han Solo. He has the child, and will try to sell it in Caross. ”