|
Redemption 2000 short story by Louis
Turfrey Twenty-seven years after Episode
IV - A New Hope "I
could see the guy move, but I couldn't keep track. You know, like when you've
had too much to drink, and you try to move too quickly?" The old man took another drink from his Vineau.
His companion for the night, a taller than average Rodian, grunted in
appreciation. He replied in badly spoken standard, his translator struggling
to make sense of the alcohol induced slurring.
"Isss leek yuu saa. There wasss noo better bonty honteer iin
thees sectoor." "I
beg to differ." The voice came from the table in the next booth.
"There was once a bounty hunter in this sector, who would have
wiped Boba Fett off of the face of this galaxy. He just didn't care enough to
do it." A powerfully built man leant forwards into the light. They could
see a careworn face and greying temples but very little else. "You should check out your local
history, when you're sober." The man stood and walked out of the bar,
disappearing into the night. The two drunks looked at each other, shrugged
and continued drinking. Tarr Ranth almost sprinted out of the bar. Why did
he do this to himself? He was sixty-six years old and he still wished he were
living the life of a bounty hunter. It wasn't as if he couldn't do that any
more, he was fit, always had an edge. Somehow, since he had managed to get
involved in the Coruscant War Trials, he had neglected his old arts. His
father would be turning in his grave if he had one! He didn't even wear his
armour any more, preferring instead hard wearing civilian casual clothes.
What had he done to deny himself his heritage? He knew what. The girl. Jenna Lee had been seventeen years old when she
had been kidnapped from her family on Corellia. Her father, a powerful
industrialist, had raised a bounty of a hundred thousand credits for her safe
return. He stipulated that he would pay another fifty thousand credits for
the destruction of her kidnappers. Tarr Ranth had accepted the bounty. The
trail had led to an old mining colony, deep within the heart of the
Quarshannel Sector. By the time Ranth
had got there, the girl had been subjected to abuse and a bad beating. Tarr
Ranth didn't ask the kidnappers any questions. They fired, he responded. They paid dearly for their indiscretions.
Tarr Ranth returned the girl to her father the following week, after a good
physician had treated her. She didn't speak the whole time he was with her.
He had collected the bounty and walked away. Jenna Lee had been found dead
two days later, beaten, abused and mutilated. Her father had been arrested,
charged and convicted. It later turned out that it was he who had beaten her
previously. She had been kidnapped by members of her own family to try and
safeguard her life and her sanity. Tarr Ranth had wondered at the time why it
had taken so little effort to track them down. He knew then that he had been
in the job too long. He had forgotten to question the motives for the bounty.
He had just done the job. He had lost his own personal honour. The lower levels of Coruscant were not one of the
most pleasant environs. Filled with scum and low life, it was just like any
other part of the galaxy. The only difference was that here, there were
richer pickings. That, along with the ever-growing threat of the Yuuzhan Vong
made the situation even more urgent. The two men walked quickly. Their bundle, wrapped
tightly in a binding cloak, was struggling furiously against her assailants.
They pitched the woman into a speeder and were about to jump in themselves
when Tarr Ranth turned the corner. He eyed up the situation in an instant,
noticing the binding cloaks, which were illegal on Coruscant, and went to
draw his blaster. Too late he realised he wasn't wearing one, by which time
he had started running towards the speeder and shouting at the drivers. They
turned in his direction and started to draw blasters. Reflexes, dulled by
years of inactivity, were not enough to dodge both blaster bolts. Tarr Ranth lay bleeding on the street corner, just
metres from the speeder. Before loosing consciousness, and as the speeder
started to pull away, he managed to clip his comm unit onto the vehicles
underside. Then blackness. They repaired the damage and reactivated some of
the new nerve grafts. He was as good as new and as frustrated as hell. The
2-1-C droid had refused to release him until he had fully healed. Tarr Ranth
walked out anyway. He knew more than anybody else did the limitations of his
own body. It took two hours to track down the speeder. A rental. He should
have known. The trail became cold, but Tarr Ranth didn't give up. He never
gave up. It had never been his style before, and he couldn't understand why
it had become his style of late. He made a decision that it would never become
his style again. How had he known that he would need this again?
Why had he maintained it? The black armour hadn't been worn in anger for a very long time. Many
years ago he had developed it as a back up to his own. He needed the edge it
would give him now. The fit was a little snugger than he would have liked,
but even he had to admit he looked good in it. He smiled to himself as he saw
his reflection in the mirror. Good.
It would put the fear of Gods into anybody that saw him. The black armour
gleamed. Where his eyes looked out of the visor two strongly glowing lights
could be seen, even up close they looked like demonic eyes. They widened as
his eyes widened and narrowed as his eyes narrowed. They were an expensive
effect. The armour looked essentially the same as it had
the day his father had died, but there was one notable addition. The
Lightsabre. He detached it, activating its blade, moving into a defensive
posture. His training, as a Jedi, had begun only three years ago. His mentor
and friend Blake De'Athe had insisted that he needed to focus, learn and
expand the abilities he had used unknowingly for the majority of his
lifetime. Skills that Ranth had used instinctively now had to be re-learnt.
Detection skills, his sixth sense, combat skills, whatever Ranth had
previously called them, all had to be honed and focused. New names were
applied to old abilities, and Tarr Ranth became a humbler man. Then he had
created the lightsabre and all had come into focus. The circle his father had
started became complete. Now Ranth felt like he had a purpose again. Of
course he hadn't always kept up the practice, but the moves and instincts
honed as a warrior and bounty hunter had come to him naturally, without the
use of the force. When he applied what little force ability he thought he
had, his ability to use the blade matched some of the best. The blade arced outwards, in a broad sweep, a fake
parry, a twist and then it was deactivated and re-attached. Yes, he was
ready. As he left his quarters, he thought absentmindedly what effect it
would have on his ability when he activated the armours full capability. The rental vehicle sat where Ranth had left it. He
had purchased it off of the rental agency, intact, without it being cleaned.
He went to work. Two hours later he had four unique fibres, three
DNA traces, one female, two males, and a ticket receipt to a local opera. He
started with the receipt. Within an hour he had traced it to an apartment
building in one of the richer areas of Coruscant. The name on the payment
details surprised him. The two male DNA traces brought up a complete blank,
but the remaining female trace was registered to the same individual as the
apartment. It surprised him. He decided to wait until it was dark. What
really bothered him was why he hadn't heard about the kidnapping on the news. As he approached the building, dressed in his full
armour, he smiled to himself. He activated the armour fully. Now he felt
alive. His scanners told him that there was a concierge in the foyer to the
building and two guards, fully armed, hidden behind each entrance pillar. He
walked straight up to the concierge. "My
name is Tarr Ranth and I am a licensed agent of the local law enforcement
agencies. I require an audience with Councillor Goran. Now." The concierge, a rather slimy looking Twi'lek,
looked at him with some scorn.
"May I see your identification?" He smirked. The two hidden
guards drew their weapons, the energy signatures lit up Ranth's scanners. As
Tarr Ranth stood back from the counter and reached towards his ID pass, one
of the guards made a mistake and lost his nerve. He fired at Tarr Ranth. The
Lightsabre was ignited, had deflected the blaster bolt and disarmed his
opponent before the concierge had blinked. The other guard lowered his
weapon. The guard that had fired had received some minor burns on his hand.
Tarr Ranth threw him a small medpack. He turned back to the Twi'lek.
"Nervous isn't he? Now, if you please, I would like to talk to
the Councillor." Councillor Goran greeted Tarr Ranth as any friend
would, with a smile and a glass of Duarga. He ushered Ranth to a seat, not
asking why he had arrived, and handed him a drink. Tarr Ranth removed his
helmet before accepting the drink, and the world became normal. He nodded to
Goran.
"When was she kidnapped?" He came straight to the point. The
councillor didn't know Ranth had seen the kidnapping, he wanted it to remain
that way. Goran frowned, his smile dropping from his face.
"Last week. How did you find out?" The slight note of
suspicion in his voice betrayed his worry. Tarr Ranth leaned forwards. "It
doesn't matter. I want to help. Any way I can, and as discreetly as you would
like." Ranth patted his lightsabre, drawing the councillors' attention
to it. "I'm still in the game, but I follow a different path now."
He hoped that the Councillor would believe he was a Jedi. He needed his
trust. The Councillor seemed to relax slightly, a weight
lifting off of his shoulders. "My
men on the door told me. Drax'l described your little display. He's a reader,
half Twi'lek; he can spot a force sensitive from fifteen metres.
Unfortunately that’s his only force skill. He said he couldn't read you, so
either you're lying, or that blasted armour blocks him out. I'd prefer to
think of it as the armour." He paused and looked at Ranth. "I'll
give you fifty thousand credits to bring her back alive. What you do with her
assailants is up to you. They want one million for her safe return. I drop
off the package tonight, they return her tomorrow. I'm due to leave in an
hour. If you want to help, do it after the money is dropped off. If you
fail." He paused, leaning towards his old friend. "If you fail, and
she dies because of your mistakes, nowhere will be safe for you." He handed
Tarr Ranth a picture from his pocket.
"Keep the money old friend.
I'll bring her back alive." Ranth stood up, placing the glass on the
table and replacing his helmet. Before exiting, he took one last look back
over his shoulder and stared at the councillor, his voice lowering and
becoming harder "If
I find out that you've lied to me Goran, in any small detail, I'll kill you
myself." Tarr Ranth had known the councillor since well
before the death of Jenna. The man
had been the judge at the trial of her father. His summing up of the
evidence, most of which had been circumstantial, had swayed the Jury to
convict her father. A confession from her father, which he later retracted,
had helped along matters. The councillor left his apartments in a private
skimmer. Tarr Ranth followed using his repulsor belt and the occasional burst
from his jetpack. From a kilometre above him, Tarr Ranth's equipment tracked
the councillor as if he sat next to him. The drop off was made, in an air
vent on top of a building, and the councillor returned home. Tarr Ranth
waited. Two hours later, just before sunrise, a man picked
up the package. The man was about two metres in height, wore his hair long,
and was driving a speeder swoop. He fixed the case of high value jewels to
his swoop, powered up the engines, and burst up and out into the atmosphere.
Tarr Ranth followed. This guy was good, he avoided the traffic as if it no
longer existed and nearly lost Ranth on several occasions. Then, out of
nowhere, a YT-1500 transport dropped down in front of the swoop. A modified
cargo door opened on one side and the swoop pilot barrelled his craft inside
with inches to spare. Ranth's heart sank as he realised he wouldn't be able
to match the transports speed. Just as he was about to give up the chase, the
ship looped around and shot up in his direction. Taking advantage of the
situation, he powered off his repulsors and dropped. As the craft shot over
him, he released and shot out his magnetic line, snagging the craft. Within
seconds he was being dragged into the wash of the ships repulsors. Slowly,
and suffering a gut wrenching pull, he fought his way up the line. Using the
motors on the grapple, combining the force and brute strength, he managed to
attach himself to the hull just before the line gave way. He watched it
tumble away into the atmosphere. The situation would have been grim to anyone else,
but to Tarr Ranth it was pure exhilaration. He hadn't felt so alive in almost
a decade. He crawled around the ship, using the molecular adhesive fields on
his boots and gloves, all the time avoiding view ports. He reached the top
hatch and stopped - eight metres from the hatch was the shield motivator.
Tarr Ranth grinned to himself. The pilot of the Merry Crusader was a Sullustian by the name of Silas D'Pat. He
had been a member of Codel Drass's crew for nearly a year now. He had loved
his job up until this point, hoping to work in it until he amassed his own
giant fortune. Now he was worried. The readings on the screens told a sorry
tale. If they were correct then there was only one way to fix the problem. He
called his co-pilot and fellow swoop jockey, Miko Trace on the in-ship
communicator. "We
have a problem that I need you to fix. The shield power has dropped below
hyperspace minimum." His Sullustian warble sounded thin at the other end
of the communicator. Miko Trace sighed to himself and pressed the
respond button.
"Which one this time?" The transport slowed as it reached the edge of
space. Tarr Ranths' suit could protect him in space for
several hours before the oxygen supply would be depleted. He crouched down
behind the main antenna and waited while the hatch opened. A figure appeared,
wearing a beat up old spacesuit. Turning his back to where Tarr Ranth was
concealed, he headed towards the sabotaged generator. The hatch started to
close. Tarr Ranth made a calculated leap and struggled through the opening in
the hatch before it automatically sealed. It started to auto cycle and soon
the door opened. Tarr Ranth stood out of sight, waiting for the barrage of
laser fire. None came. Using his newly adapted force skills, he relaxed
and tried to judge if anyone else was aboard. He could feel only one other life form, towards the front of the ship.
Tarr Ranth stepped out of the hatchway and activated the silencing field on
his suit. It would give him just enough time to get to the cargo areas before
its power cell ran out. He just hoped there weren't any droids aboard. Once
in the cargo area he took out a small package, about eighteen centimetres by
ten centimetres, and activated it. The small but powerful homing beacon was
the key to his whole plan. He found a suitable place to hide it on the swoop.
A quick flick of his wrist communicator, and his ship was ready to follow.
Moving towards the front of the ship he saw the airlock light turn from red
to green. Damn! He thought, I must be getting old. He sank back
towards the shadows of the old tramp freighters cargo area and waited.
Summoning up all that he had learnt about the force he scanned the upper
levels of the returning kidnappers mind, waiting for the telltale surge of
alarm that would indicate danger. None came. He heard the spacesuit being discarded, and
footsteps walking away towards the cockpit area. Brief seconds later there
was a surge, and the freighter entered hyperspace. Ten minutes later the ship dropped out into normal
space. Tarr Ranth wasn't ready. He had replaced the powercell on his
silencing field. A new cell gave him about five minutes of silence. He would
wait until he needed it. He had hoped for more time to flesh out his plan of
action, now all he had was luck and instinct. Who was he kidding - he had the
Force. He moved towards the cockpit area and tapped into the ships' intercom
system. After isolating the correct frequencies he was able to listen in on
the cockpit banter. It wasn't pleasant listening.
"This is the Merry Crusader
requesting permission to dock with Invader
Base please respond." There was the sound of space static and then
the reply. "Invader Base to Merry Crusader, permission granted. Welcome back Miko! Did you
manage to loose the old bounty hunter?" Tarr Ranth scowled. Why would the councillor
betray him? His anger started to rise.
"Roger that. We nearly mowed him down with one of Silas' barrel
roles! I'll bet the old fool is still spinning from the repulsor blast!"
There was the sound of several people laughing, some more general banter and
the line was cut. Ranths fury started to take hold of him, and before he
could stop he found himself standing and clenching his fists into tight rings
around his lightsabre. He struggled to regain equilibrium and called upon the
calming effect of the Force. He relaxed. Waiting for the ship to touch down,
he then moved towards the cockpit. The resulting firefight was brief and nearly fatal
- for the crew. He left them in need of serious medical attention. The glare
filters to he cockpit were raised, which meant that the craft must have
needed to block out some extreme starlight. Lucky for Ranth, it meant that
nobody could see into the ship, otherwise his plan would have rapidly turned
to disaster. The councillors com unit bleeped.
"Yes!" The reply was sharper than he had intended but got
the desired result.
"Sir, a craft has just exited hyperspace near to the Invader. Its markings and beacon
identify it as the Dark Star II.
What should we do sir?" The councillor delayed his reply for only a
second.
"Destroy it. Destroy it completely." Solumni Goran sat opposite her father. His face
showed no emotion. Her face showed only contempt. He turned his attention
back to his daughter.
"It’s a shame you discovered my little operation in this sector.
Why did you try to escape?" He leant back into his seat. "You must
have known what would happen to you?" She spat across the table, struggling furiously
with the cuffs that bound her to the chair. He said nothing but waited for
her rage to subside a little. It took ten full minutes. She stopped
struggling and her shoulders stooped. He smiled. She sobbed. "Bastard!
How could you do that to her! She wasn't even an adult! You'll never get away
with it!" He stood up sharply and slapped her hard across
the face.
"Oh, but I already have my dearest. Her own family helped me.
They hated the fact that their father had left everything to her. I used them
and Tarr Ranth. The old industrialist should have sold me his holdings when I
approached him. He paid the price for his arrogance. So did she!" He
walked around the table, grabbed his daughters' face cruelly and twisted her
head towards him. "Soon my dear, you will be dead, and I will blame Tarr
Ranths arrogance for your demise. He will finally be broken, and any
possibility of anyone discovering my business
interests in this sector will be out of the picture. Permanently!" The onboard computers and evasive programs did a
good job evading the gun platforms of the modified ISD Invader. However, they could not evade them forever. No
program could match the instinct of an experienced cannon operator for very
long. Tarr Ranth hadn't used them for a long time and so they had lost some
ability. The Dark Star II survived
for ten minutes, inflicting minor damage on seemingly redundant areas of the
ship. When she exploded, she took out the main docking tractor beam and half
the docking bay. It made an inspired distraction. Tarr Ranth briefly mourned
the loss of his ship; he had known her since birth, but took some comfort in
the knowledge that her systems were duplicated on Correllia. She had
performed her job well, once he had sent her the brief coded instructions
from the cockpit of the Merry Crusader.
He had used the time she had gained him to work his way into the star
destroyers systems. He used a mixture of force ability and computing skills
to track down the location of the councillor. Luckily he had not had to
travel very far. Soon he was outside the room where he sensed, rather than
reasoned, that the councillor had stationed himself. Bringing his armours
power systems up to full, he scanned the interior. Thermal energy readings
provided the positions of four individuals. One seated, two standing
motionless and one pacing back and forth. He heard shouting, and raised the
audio sensor, pointing it towards the door. He froze when he heard the
conversation. Councillor Goran released the face of his
daughter, and moved over towards one of the guards stationed next to her. He
unclipped the mans blaster and motioned both men away from his daughter. He
moved around in front of her and raised the blaster. Half a metre separated
the end of the barrel and her face. She visibly blanched. He sneered.
"You know, if you'd have been a male, I would have eventually
have allowed you to join my little empire. Now you are no more use to me than
space dust." He dropped the blaster to his side, looked her straight in
the eyes, and she could see no mercy.
"I'm sorry my dear." He started to raise the gun, and time
slowed. The detonite charge blew the door off of its
hinges, straight towards the councillor. It struck him dead centre, knocking
the gun out of his hand, and throwing him over the table. He was unconscious.
Three smoke canisters fell into the room and within seconds there was no
visibility. The one armed guard raised his weapon, but had nothing to shoot
at. A green glow approached him through the smoke. He fired at the seemingly
disembodied lightsabre blade and was felled by his own shot. Solumni felt the
binders on her hands release and was soon being herded around the desk
towards the doorway. Coughing and spluttering from the smoke fumes, she
emerged into the corridor, closely followed by Tarr Ranth. He turned his
visor towards her. "I
presume you have evidence of your fathers wrong doing?" She nodded between coughs.
"Good, stick close to me and we'll be out of here in no time at
all." He released a small hold out blaster from his belt and handed it
to her. She was starring at his still activated lightsabre.
"I'd prefer if you shot to wound or stun, but I'll leave that to
your conscience." He started to walk off down the corridor. She followed
three paces behind. Getting to the Merry
Crusader was not easy. The crew had been discovered only seconds after
Tarr Ranth had freed Solumni Goran. Even with the use of the force, and his
armour, he would have found it nearly impossible to return to the freighter.
However, Tarr Ranth had carefully charted the route back to the hanger. He
had also prepared some seriously explosive surprises for anyone that would
hinder him. The girl helped as well. She was an excellent shot, and showed no
fear or loss of control under pressure. He found himself enjoying her company
and it reminded him of old times in the Setnin Sector. It was funny, he
reminded himself, that years ago, he might have been the one trying to stop
the escape. He smiled at that thought, but was brought quickly out of his
reverie as a blaster bolt broke his guard and impacted upon his armour chest
plate. It knocked him backwards. There was no discernible damage to his
systems, but it caused Tarr Ranth to focus more upon the present. Now his
attackers assumed they had scored a victory and were starting to become more
confident in their approach. He knew it would be only a matter of time before
the confines of the corridor opened out into the main hanger area. There, they
would be sitting ducks. He pressed a couple of studs on his wrist
communicator, and hoped that the cockpit to the Merry Crusader had not been searched. Then, right on cue, he
heard the build up of repulsors and sublight engines in the hanger ahead of
him. He powered up his repulsor pack and started to charge the rocket pack.
"Solumni, stop firing and run towards me, I'll cover you!" The young girl nodded and dashed across the
corridor as Tarr Ranth holstered his lightsabre and activated the energy
weapons on his suit. His blaster shot up into his hand and he took out two
men in two shots. Using the neural link on his suit, he activated the jetpack
and shot towards Solumni. She took his cue and leapt up towards him. With a
little aid from the force and some fancy flying he caught her in mid flight.
They shot out into the hanger. The Merry
Crusader was hovering, modified cargo bay open, ready for his entry.
Thirty seconds later, after a volley of intense laser fire, he landed heavily
on the cargo bay floor. Solumni groaned as she nursed a bruised shoulder and
several torn muscles. Not taking time to check on his charge, he hit the
closing stud on the bay door and dashed towards the cockpit. Fifteen seconds
later he was flying out of the Invader
towards clear space. Looping around the star destroyer, he scanned the ship
and found two areas that had not been repaired since the attack of the Dark Star II. Changing the angle of
his deflector shields he powered up the two concussion bombs that this small
freighter possessed, and swooped in for the kill. One bomb took out the
already damaged shields, the second took out the main outflow exhaust to the
ships reactor. Blake De'Athe was returning from a test run on his
new ship, the Twisted Sabre when he
picked up the distress beacon from the Dark
Star II. Recognising his friends' ident code he plotted a course that
would allow him to reach the ship within minutes. What he saw, when he
arrived, was astounding. A crippled star destroyer was falling slowly into
the gravity well of the Coruscant sun. Hundreds of small ships and escape
pods were shooting away from the ships surface, and one ship in particular
was doing a good job of disabling as many as possible. He started to reach
out with the force but was interrupted by his com board lighting up. He
flicked a switch.
"Hello Blake, what took you so long?" "So
you see, when the exhaust from the reactor got destroyed, there was nowhere
for the charged plasma to vent. It caused a chain reaction and half of the ships
systems were wiped out in one go!" Solumni Goran was taking great pleasure in telling
her friends just how they had escaped the star destroyer. The party she was
hosting was in aid of the victims of her fathers twisted justice, and she had
invited the Jedi friends as honoured guests. Tarr Ranth was looking a little
embarrassed at all the attention, so Blake decided to go over to his old
friend and rescue him. After making his friends excuses he managed to pull
him away to the bar.
"Have you thought any more about the invite from Nias?" Blake looked his friend in the eyes and answered
honestly. "I
have but I don't think I'll be going. I know it's still a couple of months
away, but it wouldn't feel right. Besides, I still feel guilty about the pain
I caused everyone." Ranth nodded his understanding, but persisted
nonetheless. "It
wasn't your fault. Your ex-disciple
was a twisted individual. You
couldn't have known." Blake changed the subject, by turning the question
around.
"What about you. Have you decided yet?" Ranth smiled at Blake.
"I'll be there, after I've picked up Goran. The senate has raised
a bounty of fifty thousand credits. He is wanted for over six hundred
individual crimes and nearly sixty wrongful incarcerations. It will be my
last bounty for a while." At this Blake smiled and patted his friend on the
shoulders.
"You've been a Jedi for most of your life, whether you knew it or
not. Your father was a great teacher, and so was your career. I hope that you
never turn to the dark side my friend, for I suspect that even the great Luke
Skywalker would find you difficult to put down!" At this both men laughed, then they re-joined the
party. Redemption 2000 short story by Louis
Turfrey Twenty-seven years after Episode
IV - A New Hope Histories - Set
Twenty-seven years after Star Wars - A New Hope, this Louis Turfrey story
tells of the attempts by the bounty hunter Tarr Ranth to explore his Jedi heritage and learn more from the saved dark Jedi Blake De'Athe. Set at the same time as the Yuuzhan
Vong push upon Coruscant
and the New Republic this is a dangerous place for Ranth to be. Cast of Characters Tarr Ranth Blake De'Athe Councillor Goran Jenna Lee Solumni Goran Miko Trace Drax'l Silas D'Pat
|