Will someone do what I couldn't?

[Revan Skywalker]

OK, most of you know that I tried to make a kotor movie last year, but, being only fourteen, got the 3D movie maker destroyed (long story, check out the thread, noooooooooo). I have part of a script, excpet it's not in script form. Are any one of you people movie makers or animation artists? If so, tell me and I will send you the script. Also, is there anyone with the name if Chris Ganle here? Please respond; kotor, I think, is good enough to be made a fanfilm. I wish I could do it, but I can't, so best of luck to this post!

[Meatbag]

Ummmm... so you think a KoTOR fan that can make a movie might want to use your script that isn't in script form? Uhhhhhh... how about post it?

[Revan Skywalker]

Well, it's not totally done. But It's pretty far. At the end of Taris.

This is just a little bit.

 

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away….

STAR

WARS

KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC

 

 

Four thousand years before the rise of the Galactic Empire, the Republic verges on collapse. DARTH MALAK, last surviving apprentice of the Dark Lord Revan, has unleashed an invincible Sith armada upon the unsuspecting galaxy.

Crushing all resistance, Malak’s war of conquest has left the Jedi Order scattered and vulnerable as countless JEDI KNIGHTS fall in battle, and many more swear allegiance to the new Sith Master.

In the skies above the Outer Rim world TARIS, a Jedi battle fleet engages the forces of Darth Malak in a desperate attempt to halt the Sith’s galactic domination….

 

 

 

 

Nothing seemed out of the ordinary aboard the Republic warship Endar Spire, drifting silently through space above the orbit of Taris, an Outer Rim world that was currently occupied by neither the Republic nor the Sith.

Inside the ship, crewmen continued with their normal lives. Chefs prepared meals, engineers tinkered with the engine mechanics, and the pilots on the bridge chatted about the most recent holodrama released on Coruscant as they allowed the ship’s autopilot to carry them through the system.

Suddenly, the ship jolted as though a massive rancor had slammed its meaty fist into the side of the Spire’s hull. Alarm klaxons began wailing in time to the pulsing red alert lights throughout the ship.

“What the hell was that?” the Spire’s captain, a middle-aged native of Coruscant and veteran of the Mandalorian Wars, shouted. “Onasi, what’s going on?”

“Sensors are showing a massive Sith war fleet dropping out of hyperspace, Captain,” the pilot replied, his hands flying over his controls. “That shot was one of their cruisers disabling our shield generators. We’re defenseless.”

The captain swore. “We may be dead, but we can still be a nasty corpse.” He turned to the row of crewmen along the right side of the bridge. “Gunners, get me firing solutions immediately. If we’re going to go down, then I want them coming with us!”

“Captain,” the sensor officer reported calmly, “Sith boarding craft are approaching from our guns’ blind zone. Estimating contact in two minutes.”

“Damn it. They knew we were coming,” the captain mused, then shook it off. “Comms, give me ship intercom.”

“Ready, Captain.”

“All hands, this is the bridge,” the captain’s voice boomed over the ship’s intercom. “We’re under attack by a Sith war fleet, and we have transports incoming. All hands, prepare to repel boarders.”

Throughout the ship, this announcement sparked a riot of activity. Armed and armored soldiers rushed through the ship’s corridors, moving toward security checkpoints and barricades set up near the points that the Sith boarders would likely enter the ship. In the galley, the chefs traded their cutting knives for blaster pistols, tipping over the tables they had been preparing food on and steeling themselves for the coming battle.

Then, the first of the Sith long-range bombardments began striking the unshielded ship.

---

A massive tremor rocked the vessel as the Spire’s portside engines exploded. The blast destroyed the coolant regulators, filling the engineering section with deadly coolant gas capable of searing the flesh right off a humanoid’s bones. Crewmen died without realizing their peril as the hyper-pressurized coolant spread throughout the section within seconds.

Yet another alert klaxon wailed as the emergency blast doors sealed shut, containing the coolant from spreading to the rest of the ship, but trapping the poor crewmen who had somehow survived the escape of the coolant.

With no one able to control the engines, the still-firing starboard engines began to push the Republic warship into a flat spin, slipping sideways into the gravity well of Taris. The world then exacted its own punishment; the gravity of Taris twisted the spin of the Endar Spire until it became a downward spiral into Taris’ crushing embrace.

Another blast rocked the ship as the starboard engines finally detonated, but far too late to save the ship from the doom it was plummeting toward.

It was this blast that rocked through the crew quarters, shaking into wakefulness the only Republic soldier still aboard the ship who was not aware of or engaged in the current battle.

The soldier’s dark blue eyes snapped open as another violent blast rocked the ship. He sat up on his small bunk, looking around to determine the cause of the commotion. Jumping off the bed, he ran to the nearest viewports, looking out at the vista of stars swirling around the axis of the ship.

As he watched, a quartet of Sith interceptors shot into his field of view, raking laser fire across the ship’s hull. Swearing, the soldier dropped to his knees at the footlocker near the viewports, keying in his personal code. The seal popped open, and he lifted the lid, pulling out his clothing and personal weapons.

He quickly dressed himself, laying his blaster rifle on the floor as he slipped his combat vibroblade, a shorter, knife-sized version of the combat swords found throughout known space, into a sheath strapped to the side of his right boot.

The door to his quarters slid open. The soldier spun, still crouched, and leveled his blaster rifle on the figure standing at the door. Then, as he caught sight of the Republic colors that the soldier was wearing, he shifted the barrel of his weapon away.

“We’ve been ambushed by a Sith battle fleet,” the soldier told him, checking the charge in his blaster pistol. “The Endar Spire is under attack. Hurry up, we don’t have much time!”

“Who are you?”

“I’m Trask Ulgo, ensign with the Republic fleet,” the blond soldier replied, shifting his blaster pistol to his left hand to shake hands with the soldier. “I’m your bunk mate here on the Endar Spire. We work opposite shifts; I guess that’s why you haven’t seen me before.”

Returning the pistol to his strong hand, Trask looked over his shoulder at the corridor behind him. “Now hurry up!” he said as he turned back to the soldier. “We have to find Bastila and make sure she makes it off the ship alive.”

The soldier’s right eyebrow rose slightly. “Bastila?”

“Bastila’s the commanding officer on the Endar Spire,” Trask answered. He paused, then shrugged. “Well, not an officer really. But she’s the one in charge of this mission. One of our primary duties is to guarantee her survival in the event of an enemy attack. You swore an oath just like everyone else on this mission. Now it’s time to make good on that oath.”

Nodding, the soldier disabled the safety governor of his blaster rifle and motioned toward the open corridor. “Let’s go, then.”

The pair exited the crew quarters, weapons raised and at the ready, advancing toward the next closed door ten meters down the hall. As they advanced, a comlink attached to Trask’s belt beeped, then a voice boomed out,

“This is Carth Onasi. The Sith are threatening to overrun our position. We can’t hold out long against their firepower. All hands to the bridge!”

Trask swore a violent curse from the Corellian system. “That was Carth, the Spire’s pilot,” he explained. “He’s one of the Republic’s best fliers. He’s seen more combat than the rest of the ship’s crew put together. If he says things are bad, you better believe it. We have to get to the bridge to help defend Bastila.”

The soldier nodded, then led the way, past an astromech unit trying to repair a power conduit, past several bulkhead panels that had shaken loose and fallen to the deck during all the fighting. The soldier stepped up to the next door, but nothing happened. He calmly reached over and keyed the manual release, but still nothing.

“Locked,” he called over his shoulder to Trask.

“I don’t have the override codes to open that door,” he replied. “But I may be able to slice into the access system and open the door.”

With a gesture from the soldier, Trask stepped forward and popped open the manual control panel, inserting a thin computer tool and probing around inside. Within a few moments, something clicked, and then the door slid open.

Just in time for the pair to watch a Republic soldier spin around to crash down into the deck plates, burned through with blaster fire. His combat instincts taking over, the soldier pulled Trask away from the door, then pressed himself against the near bulkhead.

Holding his blaster rifle in his left hand, he drew his vibroblade with the other and held it up near his face, allowing the corridor lighting to light up the reflective surface, effectively using the weapon as a mirror to show him what was around the corridor.

“Two Sith troopers,” he whispered, sheathing the vibroblade again. “Blaster rifles. I’d say five meters down.”

“They must be the advance boarding party,” Trask replied. Suddenly, the blond man leapt out from behind the corner, his blaster pistol spitting hot red light at the troopers. “FOR THE REPUBLIC!”

Swearing under his breath, the soldier leaned out from cover, sighting down the barrel of his blaster rifle and firing a trio of bolts from his rifle. Letting out an anguished outcry, the Sith trooper on his left collapsed to the deck plates, three neat holes burned in his torso armor.

Shifting his sights around, the soldier quickly ducked back around the corner as a handful of bolts burned into the durasteel wall, boring holes into it. Leaning back out, he drew a careful bead and fired once. Moments later, the crash of metallic armor on the deck plates signified the end of the battle.

The soldier came around the corner, watching smoke rise from the charred crater in the second trooper’s helmet. He turned to glare at his obviously green comrade. “Don’t ever do that again,” he warned, pointing a finger menacingly at him.

With that, he passed the blond man and continued forward, carefully stalking toward the junction with the next corridor, which branched off to the right. As he approached, stepping over the Sith corpses, something exploded. Instinctively, he flattened himself to the wall, but as he glanced around the corner, he saw it had only been a T3 model astromech unit.

Next to the astromech fragments he saw a dead Republic soldier, obviously a higher rank than him, wearing experimental white body armor. He pointed Trask toward the corpse. “Put that armor on. If you’re going to get yourself shot at, you may as well have some minor protection.”

Trask grumbled something incoherently, but did as he was told. The other soldier kept watch as Trask pulled the complex armor sections on over his uniform. While Trask grumbled, the soldier rummaged around the corpse of one of the dead Sith, finding a frag grenade.

“That’ll come in handy,” he muttered, slipping it into a utility pouch on his belt.

As he turned around again, his comrade had finished donning the new armor. Shrugging, the soldier motioned him to follow and moved toward the next doorway. He flattened himself against the corridor wall by the manual access pad; taking a hint, Trask mirrored his move on the other side, then nodded that he was ready.

Returning the nod, the soldier triggered the manual opening of the doors. His precaution had saved them; a staccato hailstorm of blasterfire shot out of the doors, peppering the far corridor wall.

As Trask fired his pistol blindly into the room, the soldier pulled the grenade out of his belt, primed it, and then rolled into the room. He pressed himself further into the bulkhead and counted off seconds as the sound of the rolling grenade vanished beneath the hail of blasterfire.

“Grenade, grenade!” one of the Sith troopers cried.

Too late, the soldier thought to himself.

The grenade exploded a few scant seconds later, the sound of its blast drowning out the outcries of the luckless troopers.

Sweeping into the room with his blaster rifle leading the way, the soldier found one of the Sith troopers crammed into a corner, his armor blackened and burnt by the explosion. The other was pitched haphazardly against the viewports, pieces of his armor shattered by the blast.

“Clear,” he told Trask, then moved to the next doorway. Stopping in front of it, he placed his ear to the metal, listening for tell-tale signs of enemy movement beyond the door. He heard blasterfire.

Raising his weapon, he triggered the door open and stepped beyond it. Just before the curve of the corridor, he saw a Republic soldier crouching behind the corner for cover, leaning out to fire his weapon at unseen Sith boarders. Two more soldiers were standing in the open, firing their weapons on full-auto against the enemy troops.

Beyond the corner, he could hear the clash of full-on vibroswords, and then a scream of pain as one melee weapon or the other struck home. It sounded like a Republic trooper.

Suddenly, the farthest Republic soldier that he could see stopped firing, bringing his blaster rifle up to block the strike of a Sith vibrosword. The trooper’s left foot lashed out, and the sound of boot impacting with synthmetal armor could be heard. The enemy stumbled back, allowing the Republic soldier to shift his grip on the rifle and swing it around like a club.

But before he could contact, a grenade exploded in their midst, killing all three Republic troopers and the Sith melee fighter.

Swearing a Corellian oath, the soldier shielded his face from shrapnel, then rushed in a crouch toward the corner. As he expected, the Sith trooper that had thrown the grenade, confident that he had taken out all the Republic forces, was advancing.

Oh how he wished he could’ve seen the face beneath that helmet when he leaned out, his blaster rifle spitting hot light. It was the last thing the Sith trooper ever saw.

The other trooper rushed forward, obviously intending to crush his skull in with his own rifle. But the soldier brought his rifle up, blocking the downward strike of the enemy. He released his own rifle, grabbing the Sith’s right arm, and flipping him over and onto his back with a powerful hip toss. As the soldier laid there, stunned, Trask calmly shot the armored trooper in the face.

Nodding, the soldier recovered his own rifle and stood up, moving into the four-corridor intersection. From the door on his right, he could hear sounds of a melee scuffle. With a jerk of his head, he communicated to Trask that the doorway was their destination.

As the soldier got to work opening the door, Trask turned to see a trio of Sith troopers turning around the corner to their right, coming toward them. “We’ve got company!” the ensign warned, before pulling a grenade off his belt and lobbing it toward the troopers.

They scattered, but the grenade rolled off the curved wall of the corridor and bounced around after them. Moments later, the blast of the grenade rocked the intersection, not managing to drown out the death screams of the Sith troops.

Satisfied with himself, Trask turned around as the door opened, only to find himself joining his comrade, staring in open-mouthed shock at the scene that lay before them.

The hum and crackle of energy weapons filled the air before the two soldiers as they watched a Jedi female take on a Sith dark Jedi in a lightsaber duel, their azure and crimson blades sparking and hissing off one another.

“Dark Jedi,” Trask muttered. “We better stay back. All we’d do is get in the way.”

With a nod of compliance, the other soldier satisfied himself to watch the duel closely, studying their movements and footwork intently. The dark Jedi stepped back on his right foot, drawing power for a forward lunge with his blade, an attack which his counterpart deftly sidestepped, her blade sliding his away to ensure that it did not strike her as she spun around.

An explosion rocked the corridor, causing the Jedi to stumble. Pressing his advantage, the dark Jedi lunged at her again. But almost as if she could read his movements, she took a small step to the side, letting the crimson blade sweep past her left side. Before the dark Jedi could withdraw, she looped her arm over, then under his, grabbing him by the shoulder of his tunic and trapping his sword arm in place.

“He’s done,” the soldier commented, off-hand. “No way he can break that hold.”

“You sure about that?” Trask asked. “He is a dark Jedi after all.”

“Force can’t help you if you’re trapped like a gizka,” his companion answered, shaking his head. “Watch.”

The young ensign did so, watching wide-eyed as the Jedi drew back her own sword arm, swinging it laterally toward the dark Jedi. At the last moment, both men glanced away as the sound of lightsaber shearing through human flesh accompanied an explosion somewhere on the ship.

As the dark Jedi’s body dropped to the deck with a thud, the victorious Jedi turned toward the two soldiers, opening her mouth to speak. Before she could get a word out, a massive explosion blasted a hole through the side of the corridor, all the way out into space. Killed instantly by the explosion, the Jedi’s corpse was sucked out into the void, as was that of the dark Jedi and two still-living Sith troopers.

A magnetic containment shield activated over the hole in the wall, removing the danger of the two Republcians being sucked out as well. In silence, the two made their way to the wound in the side of the ship, looking out through the blue glow of the shield as the bodies sailed away into space.

Trask shook his head slowly and sighed. “We sure could’ve used her help.”

“No time to worry about that now,” the soldier replied. “Escape’s the name of the game.”

“Right,” Trask replied with a nod, following his comrade forward. He pointed to the only working door in the corridor. “That door leads to the bridge. It’ll be close quarters in there, so I suggest melee weapons.”

“Or, we could let them use the melee weapons, and we blast them before they get to us.”

“Or we could do that,” the ensign nodded.

“Be on your toes,” the soldier warned, drawing his combat vibroblade and snapping it into a specialized groove on his blaster rifle, enabling the blade of the weapon to protrude beyond the barrel. “No plan survives initial contact with the enemy. The only plan we should count on here is react.”

Trask nodded, revising his opinion of his comrade. Sure, he’d known that the soldier had gotten top scores in all his training exams, and had seen some of the fiercest fighting in the Mandalorian Wars, but this man was wise beyond his rank and his years. At least, in terms of causing other sentient beings to become one with the Force.

“Ready?” the soldier asked.

“As ever.”

Trask keyed the access panel for the bridge doors, and everything seemed to fall into slow motion for the soldier. He leapt over the slowly-retreating doors, his first victim already chosen.

In front of him, no more than two meters, a Sith trooper was turning slowly, trying to bring his vibrosword around toward the new threat. No time; the soldier’s vibroblade-augmented blaster rose up, the metallic point of the weapon driving up under the Sith’s arm, where they had no armor plating to protect them. The blade sank deep into the trooper’s armpit, severing the major artery within.

The soldier kicked his first victim off of his vibroblade, then ducked his upper body as a second trooper’s vibrosword sliced through the air where his head had been. As the Sith tried to bring his blade back around, the soldier struck, his own weapon point stabbing up beneath the enemy trooper’s helmet, directly into the sensitive area where jaw meets throat.

His vibrosword clattering to the deck, that trooper pressed both hands up against his helmet, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood from the mortal wound as he staggered away.

Ducking behind a bridge console, the soldier calmly slid his vibroblade out of its special groove as Sith blasterfire hammered the other side of his console. Trask let off a volley of shots to scatter the remaining two soldiers, a diversion the other man took advantage of.

Standing just enough to look over the console, the soldier waited until the Sith troopers came out from behind cover. One of them took a blaster bolt from Trask’s pistol to the chest, grunting as he spun away and collapsed to the deck.

The other trooper simply stopped shooting, stumbling back in shock. His blaster rifle clattered to the deck as his trembling hands reached up to his forehead and grasped something there. He pulled once, then stared at the bloody weapon lying across his palms. He got as far as realizing that the soldier had hurled his vibroblade across the bridge, then fell back, dead.

Wordlessly, the soldier stood up, moving to the Sith corpse and retrieving his vibroblade. Wiping the blood off of it on the dead man’s uniform, he calmly slid it back into the sheath on his boot and looked up at Trask, whose wide-eyed expression told him exactly what the ensign thought of his combat skills.

Shrugging, the soldier looked around, looking to see if any of the Republic bodies wore Jedi clothing. No luck; none of them were even female. “She’s not here,” he reported calmly, then checked the charge of his blaster rifle. “Back to hunting for us.”

“They must have retreated to the escape pods,” Trask confirmed. “We’d better get there too. The Sith want Jedi Shan alive, but once they realize that she’s not on the ship anymore, it’ll be no more than space dust.”

“Sounds like good incentive to me,” the soldier said, already keying the access pad to the other set of doors off the bridge.

Ahead of them was an empty corridor. As they moved into it, a burst of laser fire, presumably from one of the Sith capital ships, completely blew away the forward section of the bridge. Air screamed through the small corridor they were in, drawn out into the void along with whatever corpses hadn’t been vaporized in the attack.

Instinctively, the soldier’s right hand latched onto a cable running the length of the corridor at shoulder level, securing him in place against the howling vortex. Behind him, Trask grabbed him by the wrist of his left hand, keeping himself from sailing into space as well.

The blast doors they had just came through finally sealed shut, removing the danger of death by asphyxiation. Letting go of the cable he had grabbed onto, the soldier looked at the closed blast door, then shook his head slowly. “Trask, what is it with us and almost taking swims out in the void?”

“It’s a habit we do need to shake,” the ensign replied, nodding sagely. “Not good for our health, or so the medics say.”

“Pah,” the soldier said, keying the access panel into the next room. “What do they know?”

As the pair entered the room, the soldier turned immediately toward the first door on the left, which would lead to the starboard section and the escape pods. Trask, however, walked toward the far door, which led back toward the docking bay.

“Hey, Trask,” the soldier said. “Escape pods are this way.”

“No, there’s something behind here,” Trask muttered, easing up on the doorway.

Before he could get to it, the doors slid open, revealing a black-garbed figure, with a bald head and a black beard. This man reached to his left hip, drawing and igniting a crimson-bladed lightsaber.

“Damn! Another dark Jedi. I’ll try to hold him off,” Trask said, scooping up a discarded vibrosword from the floor. “You get to the escape pods!”

With that, the brave ensign charged through the doors. They slid shut behind him, and an explosion of sparks from the control panel told him that the door wasn’t opening again. Sighing, the soldier resigned himself to his comrade’s fate, then stepped through the doors leading to the starboard section of the ship.

As soon as the doors had closed behind him, a faint voice began to issue from his comlink, mindful of the thought that he could be attempting to stealth past the Sith. “This is Carth Onasi. I’m tracking your position through the Spire’s life support systems. Commander Shan’s escape pod is away, and you’re the last surviving crewman on the ship. You have to get to the escape pods now; I can’t wait much longer.”

“Oh,” the soldier said to himself, not responding over the comlink. “Well that’s great.”

He crept up to the right curve of the corridor, then peeked around the corner, quickly pulling his head back. One Sith trooper. No issue. The soldier stepped out from behind the corner, his blaster rifle blazing. A pair of bolts caught the lone trooper in the gut, drilling through his armor and body and hurling him to the deck plates.

At the intersection the trooper had been guarding, he turned left, shielding his face with his right arm as a series of power couplings in the other door went off, sending flashes of electricity out into the corridor.

Crouching down at the rightmost wall-mounted panel into the next door, the soldier readied his blaster rifle, then triggered the panel left-handed. The door slid open, and before it had even opened all the way, his blaster rifle kicked once, and the faceplate of a Sith trooper fragmented, burned completely through by the blaster bolt. The trooper dropped.

There was another soldier in the room, hammering the door jamb with blasterfire. As he waited for the trooper to stop shooting, he caught sight of one of the crates on the floor, labeled “WARNING! EXPLOSIVE ORDNANCE! KEEP AWAY FROM HEAT!”

He swore. This was the ordnance room. Any stray shots would blow this whole section of the ship out to the void.

Drawing his vibroblade left-handed, he reared back and threw his rifle into the room. The ploy worked; the trooper stopped shooting as he watched the weapon skid into the room. He switched the blade to his right hand, then came around the door frame and ran forward, charging at the trooper at top speed.

The armored man saw him, tried to bring his blaster in line, but he was already atop him. Slamming into his midsection, the soldier felt something in his shoulder give way as the momentum of his charge lifted the trooper up. Locking his arms around the man’s waist, the soldier lifted him up, then slammed him back into the deck as hard as he could.

Dazed, the Sith’s blaster clattered away, his head lolling to the side. The soldier’s vibroblade came around, slashing open the armored man’s throat. His upraised left hand blocked most of the blood from squirting into his face.

Standing up, the soldier worked his right shoulder testingly, wincing in the process. Dislocated. He should’ve known better than to shoulder-tackle an armored Sith trooper. Ensuring that there was no blood on his vibroblade, the soldier sheathed it, then took his right elbow in his left hand. He paused for a moment, readying himself, then shoved upward with all his strength.

A loud CRACK echoed through the ordnance room, and the soldier grunted. He circled his shoulder once, satisfied that it would at least work properly. He retrieved his blaster rifle, then turned to enter the next room.

“Be careful,” Carth’s voice called out from the communicator. “There’s a whole squad of Sith soldiers on the other side of that door. You’ll have to find some way to thin their numbers.”

Wordlessly, the soldier walked up to the security panel near the door, entered his ID, then pulled up a security monitor of the adjacent room. Four Sith soldiers and one higher-ranking Sith non-commissioned officer. Two of the soldiers were working on getting the far door, not the one he was near, open, while the NCO watched. The other two soldiers were looting the dead Republic soldiers in the room.

“Hmm,” the soldier mused, calling up a list of all the security features in that room. “What can I do to…oh.”

The other room, like the one he was standing in, was an ordnance room. As per Republic safety regulations, there had to be a failsafe mechanism to vent the entire room to space should there be a breach of any explosive ordnance. Better to lose a few crewmen than the entire ship, after all.

“Now, let’s just sent this emergency vent procedure,” he muttered to himself as he worked. “Slice in a false ordnance breach and…”

The holocam view showed red warning lights flashing in the room, before a seal in the starboard bulkhead split open, exposing the entire room to the vacuum of space. Several of the Sith screamed in abject terror as they were sucked out into the void, their screams quickly dying out; unable to carry against the vacuum. The Sith NCO managed to grab hold of the task bench in the center of the room, but one of the Republic corpses slammed full on into him, its dead weight loosing his grip and sending them both into space.

“Beautiful,” the soldier said, activating the emergency override to seal the room again. He waited until pressure and oxygen had been cycled back into the room, then stepped through, and crossed quickly to the far door.

The door slid open for him, revealing the owner of the voice that had guided him so far. “Nice trick venting the ordnance room to space!” he said, then stuck out his right hand. “Carth Onasi. Good to meet a man with a grasp of tactics.”

Nodding, the soldier switched his rifle to his left hand and shook the pilot’s hand. Strong grip, fast shake; he made no effort to attempt a show of strength. “Kagi Vayun, Republic SpecForces commando.”

Carth’s eyebrows shot up at that comment. “So that’s why they assigned you to this mission,” he said, then waved that thought off. “No matter. You made it just in time. We’ve only got one escape pod left, so now would be a good time to use it and get off this crate. We can hide on the planet below.”

“You’ll get no argument from me,” Kagi replied, moving to the control panel of the escape pod and keying in the activation sequence. It was a sequence that he, like every other sentient being employed by the Republic, could perform in his sleep. The entrance doors of the pod slid open. “Anyplace is better than here. After you, pilot. You’ll be flying us, after all.”

Nodding, Carth entered the escape pod first, taking his position at the rudimentary controls of the craft. Kagi checked one last time to make sure they were clear, then stepped into the pod and sealed the hatch behind him.

“We clear?” Carth asked.

“Clear,” Kagi answered. “Move it, driver. Get us out of here.”

---

The outer hatch of the escape pod launch tube irised open, allowing the ovoid escape vehicle shoot out of the Endar Spire’s embrace on a jet of blue flame. Inside the pod, Carth piloted the little craft to the best of his ability, while Kagi peered out the viewports at the rapidly-shrinking Endar Spire.

As he watched, a Sith battle cruiser slid up alongside the Republic ship, as though intending to dock with it. But then a vicious broadside of the Sith cruiser’s turbolasers raked the crippled vessel. Two more broadsides followed, cutting deep scars across the Spire’s armor and lighting fires as fuel and ordnance stores were detonated. Kagi watched in mild fascination as the ordnance rooms he had been through went up with a minor flash of orange light.

Finally, as a fourth broadside raked the Endar Spire, her reactor core gave out, explosions spreading through the ship, before one final explosion shattered the mighty war vessel, flinging airspeeder-sized chunks of durasteel through space.

The Sith cruiser was only buffeted slightly by the explosion’s shockwaves.

“Hang on,” Carth called back to him. The soldier turned around, just in time to see flames sparking off the forward edge of the ship. “We’re entering the atmosphere now. It’s going to be rough.”

Kagi silently sat down and strapped himself in, securing his blaster rifle in a storage bin beneath his seat. This is always the part he hated about space travel…