Unlucky Charms

1999 short story by Jonathan Hicks

Seven years after Episode IV - A New Hope

The Lone Light ducked under the wreck of the cruiser, pulling up tightly to avoid the hulk of the frigate drifting lifelessly across its path. The Corellian freighter, with a single cockpit on the side of it’s disc-shaped hull and the two forward mandibles glaring brightly with strobes in the shadow of the dark side of Leogards moon, banked sideways to slip between the frigate and the shell of a recently destroyed fighter.

Two Zobian fighterboats pursued it, bright lances of energy leaping out from their forward weapon banks and blowing apart the dead starships the Lone Light was trying to use as cover. Their long sleek forms, stencilled with their well-known symbol, jinked and rolled as the pilots, veterans of many space battles, kept pace easily.

At the controls of the Lone Light was Beon Odiss, a self-styled smuggler who had come to the industrial planet of Leogard to collect a cargo he had been contracted to take back to Amagad. After docking with one of the huge orbiting ore processors, he had picked up the contract, taken off and, with a sudden need to try his skill as a free trader, decided to try and slip behind the moon so that any scrutinisers of his trajectory couldn’t try and work out his direction and possible destination.

His co-pilot for this mission, a short humanoid alien with bright smooth skin and orange eyes most other people called Dodge, was watching his manoeuvres. He had to admit Beon handled the ship like a professional.

And then the proximity alarms and collision detectors starting screaming for attention. As view screens filled with possible near-space conflict data, the two had looked out of the cockpit window to see the danger.

Eight Zobian fighterboats, belonging to the feared Zobian Pirates who had been terrorising space lanes for years, had, at that very moment Beon had arrived behind the moon, started an attack against a private convoy owned by one of the biggest ore dealers from Leogard. They had parked their assorted vessels behind the moon as they prepared for a mass jump into hyperspace.

The convoy launched fighters, assorted models of outdated ships that would serve as a delaying action so that the convoy could jump. The first thing Beon and Dodge saw was the tail ends of these fighters, slowly moving into an attack position. The Lone Light, screaming up behind the fighters, lit up each pilot’s tactical screen. They were forced to break formation to avoid the vessel.

The Zobian’s had been given the chance they needed and, whilst the fighters were pre-occupied by the careering newcomer, had opened fire with all weapons.

Every convoy vessel was hit by a huge barrage of fire from energy weapons and missiles. Whole sides blew out, the ships spilling holds of processed ore out into the moon’s orbit. Without fighter protection, they were easy targets. With the moon blocking both view and transmissions to and from the planet, the Zobian's had timed their attack well.

When the fighters, in those few brief seconds of panic, had finally rejoined the fight, over three-quarters of the fleet had been destroyed or disabled. The rest jumped into hyperspace, scattering to different co-ordinates to lose their assailants.

Dodge had shouted in surprise as laser fire splashed off their rear shields. Considering them a threat, with no other reason to believe otherwise, the fighters had opened fire on the Lone Light.

Concentrating fire on the freighter and not the real threat of the Zobian fighterboats, the fighters were picked off by skilled gunners with ease. The fight was brief, with all the fighters being destroyed and only one fighterboat being severely damaged. As the rest of the Zobian attack force had directed it’s attentions to picking their victories clean of riches, two of them had decided to target Beon and Dodge’s small ship, chasing them through the wrecks of the space battle.

   “Bank left! Bank left!” Dodge was screaming. He slammed his hands on control boards to angle the deflector shields as the Zobian’s fired again. The bolts of destruction came so close that Dodge was sure he could feel the heat from them. They exploded harmlessly to the right.

   “Shut up!” Beon retorted, “I know what I’m doing!”

The words had hardly left his mouth when a destroyed fighter drifted into view. Both Beon and Odiss screamed, embarrassingly high-pitched, as the wreck came spinning towards them. Beon had no time to evade; the fighter slammed into the lower hull of the ship, making the deflectors shimmer brightly, and ricocheted away. Impact sirens started wailing, joining the cacophony of noise already in the vessel.

Dodge had left his seat with the impact, flying sideways across the cockpit and into Beon’s lap. One hand on the yoke, Beon grabbed the scruff of his friend’s neck and yanked him off, spinning him back across the cockpit to the other side. Dodge slammed into the viewport, face pressed against it and hands splayed on the glass.

The fighter wreck spun off. One of the chasing fighterboat pilots, not expecting several tons of so much scrap metal to suddenly appear from under the fleeing freighter, pulled hard on the steering handles.

It was too late. The impromptu missile slammed into the craft’s left engine, tearing through casing and ripping apart internal workings. With a huge malfunction the engine flared up brightly, adding uneven force to the vessel’s course. It started to turn, the pilot fighting the slew as best he could.

The nose of the Zobian ship slammed straight into another hulk, disappearing in a huge fireball as both ships started to intermingle. The engine, devoid of forward movement, overheated and then exploded, sending debris and fire in all directions. The second pursuer flew through the sparkling wreckage with a grandiose roll.

Dodge had forced himself back into his seat, trying to look out of the cockpit to see the carnage to the rear. Beon, securely strapped into his seat, his eyes on the danger before him, jerked a thumb back over his shoulder, indicating the collision.

   “Did ya see that? Did ya see that? I meant to do that!” he roared over the alarms.

Dodge wasn’t convinced.

   “Oh, yeah? Then why did you scream like a stuck Womp Rat?” he shouted.

Beon tried to respond with something about a war cry, but another alarm had entered the orchestra of annoying sounds and it drowned him out. Dodge searched the boards, trying to find where the alarm was coming from.

   “What the hell is that?”

The two ships had left the field of wrecks. Another volley of laser fire bounced off the rear shields of the freighter and a readout indicated partial deflector failure. Beon flicked his glance from the view ahead to the relevant panel and pointed at it. “Dodge, the shields!”

   “To freck with the shields, we’ve got a lower hull breach!”

   “We’ll have an all-over breach if you don’t get back to station!”

Dodge glared at his partner with venom.

   “Who do you think...”

Regretting he had never strapped himself in, Dodge left his seat as another shot connected with the Lone Light. A whole series of lights lit up on the board as systems started shutting down. With a shower of sparks the shield control panel took the brunt of a power surge. Dodge rolled along the cockpit floor to the back and gonged against the door.

The engines were the only things obviously working properly and Beon turned the vessel out of the moons shadow. Applying as much thrust as he dared, he made a run for the planet.

Leogard shone brightly, muddy brown from decades of strip-mining. It raced closer as Beon poured on the power.

If he had seen his ship from the outside he would have wept. A whole rear quarter was virtually missing, parts of the hull and internal workings spitting out into space as the ship fled for the relative safety of the planet.

   “What do we do? What?” Dodge shouted groggily as he clambered to his feet.

   “Communications are out! I’m heading for Leogard! If we shoot for the planet we might get noticed by traffic control and they’ll send out help!”

Dodge climbed into his seat and grabbed the safety harness.

   “Good idea!”

It had been a quiet day, with next to no traffic around Leogard. The man in the traffic control satellite snored loudly.

The cockpit glowed red as the Lone Light hit the atmosphere at the wrong angle. Beon turned the vessel to decrease the pressure against the ablative heat shield, easing off the thrust so that the build-up of energy outside the ship lessened.

The Zobian still gave chase, not wanting a witness to their attack go free. They, too, were forced to slow as they began atmospheric insertion. The two vessels glowed in the upper atmosphere of Leogard.

   “Dammit!”

   “What?” Dodge looked over at Beon, confused by the exclamation.

   “Engines are failing, and we’re going down on the Deadzone!”

   “The what?”

   “The Deadzone! The part of the planet stripped bare! There’ll be no-one there to help us!”

Dodge just gazed ahead as they hit clouds, his face screwed up in a dejected expression.

   “So we’re gonna crash-land in the middle of nowhere? Probably die slowly on bare ground, hunted by Zobian Pirates?”

   “No, we might just impact the ground at supersonic speeds and die instantly!”

   “Only if our luck changes!”

Dodge started unbuckling his seatbelts as the ship stared to vibrate violently. Beon looked over at him with shock.

   “What are you doing?”

   “Lifepod! I’m outta here!” He pressed the cockpit door release stud.

Mountains loomed out of the clouds, making Beon turn the vessel sharply. Dodge stumbled forward, out of the opened door and down the circular corridor. He lost his footing as Beon dived steeply, ducking under a natural rock bridge. They were lower than he had realised.

Dodge all but flew back into the cockpit and landed, once again, in Beon’s lap. Beon had the control yoke kicked out of his hands by Dodge’s flailing limbs and he was forced to stare in horror as the ship flipped over, upside down. Dodge fell out of his lap and ended up on the ceiling, which had suddenly become the floor. Beon, his ragged hair hanging from his sweating scalp, grabbed for the wildly swinging yoke. He managed to grab it and turned the ship back over quickly.

Dodge fell from the ceiling, which had resumed its rightful position, and landed on the floor directly behind Beon’s seat.

With a final burst of energy, the Lone Light slammed into the ground, in a valley between two huge brown mountains. The land was covered with long brown furrows, all the way to the horizon, where automated strip-mining machines had torn up the ground. The freighter trailed along one of these furrows, it’s landing gear failing to extend. Smoke, dirt and wreckage were strewn about as the vessel slid to a halt under a rocky outcrop. The power core trip-switch activated and the whole craft shut down.

Silence. Blessed unblemished silence.

Beon held his breath. Out of the vessel’s cockpit window he could see the black form of the Zobian vessel emerge from the clouds above. Dodge, struggling to untangle himself from exposed wiring, grabbed his arm and said, “So much for traffic control.”

   “Shhh!” Beon held a finger to his lips.

Dodge looked at him, frowning.

   “Why?” he whispered.

   “The Light is fitted with basic sensor deflectors. We’re hidden under this rock which will enhance the effect and they’ll be scanning for us. The only way they’ll pick us up is by sonic scan, so be quiet.”

They both stayed in their positions, Beon leaning forward in his seat and looking out of the window, Dodge on the floor, covered in wiring. He had one hand on the bundle, and as he let go something gave in the ceiling boards.

A wide part of the ceiling disconnected from the structure, dropping towards the metal floor. As quick as a flash, Dodge stuck out his foot to catch the panel and stop the noisy collision. They both sucked in their breaths.

The panel landed squarely on Dodge’s foot. He bit back a yelp of pain; some of the soldered connections had stuck into his skin. Still, the panel lay evenly on his limb.

Beon looked back out, and saw that the Zobian vessel hadn’t noticed their crash site, obviously confused by the multitude of long grooves in the ground. They began to rise back into the cloud.

   “They’re going.” he said.

Dodge let out an exaggerated but quiet, “Ow!” and reached down to take the panel off his foot.

Beon sighed with relief.

   “I’ll power up and try to repair the com, call for help.”

   Dodge nodded.

   “Good idea,” he said and then his face twisted, as if he had suddenly thought of something important. “Hold on a minute...”

But it was too late. As soon as Beon had hit the power re-activation switch, energy flooded back into the vessel’s systems and the multitude of alarms, klaxons and sirens started their serenade once again. Dodge clamped his hands over his ears.

   “Turn it off! Quick!”

As Beon hit the power switch he knew it was hopeless. Quickly looking up out of the window he saw the Zobian vessel starting to descend obviously alerted by the sudden sound lighting up their sensor boards.

   “Out!” Beon shouted. “Run for it!” He tried to stand but his seat belt cut into him. He hissed with the sharp pain and hit the quick release stud.

By the time the two smugglers had clambered out of the cockpit and into the corridor, the Zobian vessel had already come down to ground level. It hovered evenly and prepared to fire at the prone ship.

   “We’re gonna die!” Dodge screamed and threw himself towards the entry ramp, suddenly realising it would be jammed under the starships underbelly. Beon, running wildly, suddenly felt something entangle around his feet. He looked down to see the wires Dodge had become entwined with stretching down the corridor from the cockpit, still wrapped around his lower leg. He staggered as the wires tripped him, bowling forward into Dodge.

Dodge was flung forward by the impact, wildly swinging his arms, flailing as he fell. Accidentally he hit the release switch of the escape pod mounted by the main door.

The fighterboat had lowered a missile rack, the warheads protruding forward like needles, intending to destroy the vessel with a decisive barrage of high explosive. The escape pod, its explosive latches rupturing and the high-pressure throw-clear instigators activating at the same instant, was catapulted towards the Zobian craft.

Before the ship had chance to fire, the pod struck the missile rack and prematurely detonated them. One missile streaked from its launch tube successfully but only connected with the rocky overhang over the Lone Light. The other weapon’s energies were forced back into the fighter boat. It exploded utterly, with such violence that a huge crater formed under the fireball. Parts of the ship rained down around Beon and Dodge as they emerged from the hole left by the departed escape pod.

They looked at the devastation in awe.

   “Wow,” Beon said. “What a stroke of luck.”

The fire started to die almost immediately so they walked towards the wreck to inspect the carnage see if anything useful was left. As they approached it, they heard a rumble behind them.

The rocky overhang was splitting, the missile impact had weakened the natural support and it was slowly cracking. Both Dodge and Beon watched as the whole multi-tonned chunk of rock, once their protection, collapsed down onto the Lone Light, crushing it utterly. Gases and fire spewed from the very few gaps left by the avalanche.

Dodge looked at Beon dejectedly.

   “You were saying about luck?” he asked sarcastically.

Beon looked at Dodge, thinking about his co-pilot’s screaming, moaning and panicking, and punched him in the face.

Unlucky Charms

1999 short story by Jonathan Hicks

Seven years after Episode IV - A New Hope

Histories – Bad Luck Beon Odiss, a Jonathan Hicks character and the sectors answer to the classic unlucky card.  Whatever he does and wherever he goes, bad luck follows him like a bad smell.

Cast of Characters

Bad Luck Beon Odiss

Dodge