"Shock and Ore."

By: Anthony Hummerston.
STARRING
'Mama',   Rojic,   Jimmi,   Karnov,   Niall,   Kory,  
And introducing:
'Joe90' and Hen3ry as the droids.

AND
Storm Cutter
their ship.
And
Co-Starring:
Aima.

“How are we going to repulse such a large force of battle droids?”

“Well, we could go out on the speeder, and drive at Karnov speed, ^{[ 14 ]} shooting all the while….”

“That speeder’s not good for much -except for parking on corrugated iron roofs.”

Rojic makes a couple of valid points. “What about the creatures? We could swoop around and make them stampede into the droids, scattering them far and wide, and maybe swallow a few in the process. –That’d give me enough time to jury rig some kind of EMP device, and that should take out the rest.”

“That’s your plan?”

“Er….Yup!”

“Your entire plan?”

“Er….Yup!”

“Good plan!”

Karnov isn’t so sure. “I’m not sure I like the idea of the creatures fighting our battles for us.”

Kory joins in. “As for stampeding the local wildlife, I think we should leave that to Karnov. –He seems to have a knack for enraging them after all.”

“Not just them. He seems to have a knack for enraging most people.”

“I blame his education.”

Karnov can’t help but defend himself. “Hey! I was trained at the Jedi Academy. –We’re taught that harmony, peace and diplomacy are the ways to resolve disputes. – Look at Niall, he was trained there too. –A perfect model of calm restraint and quiet serenity.”

Niall turns around. “I vote for taking Storm Cutter up, and blasting the droids with both the cannon turrets. I’ll fire-link them together if I can find the right switch, and also use our missiles! I want to crank them up to eleven!”

Karnov shakes his head.

Jimmi volunteers to go up into the mountains, and try using the mining laser. “If we can get it aligned right, we might make use of it as a weapon.”

“I could help you set it up maybe. I know a few shortcuts to the laser station.” Says a girl, who works at the facility.

“Does anyone know what frequency the laser is?” Jimmi asks.

“Well, it’s red.” She says.

“Probably in the infra-red range, for generating heat. So all that we have to do is get it tuned to the battle droid’s frequencies.” Rojic chips in.

“What colour is that?”

“Err…A kind of greyish brown?”

The others agree. “Though you and a girl in the mountains…” ^{[ 15 ]}

“I’ll keep an eye on Jimmi.” Says the girl.

Jimmi turns sightless eyes on her. “-And I’ll keep an ‘eye’ on you.”

Kory tells the girl “Jimmi sees with other senses. Touch for instance….”

The girl warns Jimmi. “You run your ‘eyes’ over me and I swear I’ll….”

“I’ll drive!” Jimmi interrupts, and jumps onto a speeder bike, and revs it over the end of her oath. The girl shrugs and hops on.

“You can put your arms around my waist if you want.” Jimmi tells her, “It’ll be safer that way.”

“Pfft! I’ve ridden these things a thousand times. I’ve never had an accident!”

Kory tells her. “You haven’t seen Jimmi’s driving.”

“Neither has Jimmi! Ha! Ha! Ha!” Rojic is the only one to laugh. The others take a dim view.

“No sense of humour you lot.” He grumbles.

“Nonsense, we think Toydarians are funny.”

“Funny?”

“Actually I think of them as ‘bait!’” Karnov says, goading him.

Rojic is suddenly ready to go. “Right then! I’m ready! -All I have to do is violate the excitation chamber and….” The others all shoot him a look. “What? Oh! Did I say ‘violate?’ -I meant to say ‘invigorate.’”

Jimmi revs the speeder again, impatient to leave. The girl introduces herself as ‘Aima.’ Jimmi can’t help saying. “I’ll fire the laser while you Aima!” There is a moment’s silence as a tumble-weed skitters across the set in the wind, and then reverses direction to skitter back. ^{[ 16 ]} Aima gives him a hard stare. “You know I’ve never heard that one before….” She hisses through clenched teeth. Jimmi looks apologetic, and resists the temptation to whoop as they speed off along the mine-car tracks and up the mountainside.

Are you sure this is the right bike Jimmi?

The others go to their positions. The miners and crew gather around Kory who gives a rallying speech. Karnov and Niall head for Storm Cutter and prep for flight. It’s not a moment too late, as the droids are starting to disembark from their landing craft. Niall guns the engines as Storm Cutter glitters in the sunshine as he pulls a tight turn, fades left, and powers toward them.

The droid army are deploying from their ship. They are all packed in tight little balls, so the ship’s extenders pop out with racks and racks of infantry droids on them. They are deposited onto the ground, and start to form up into a big company, ready to advance. There are two commander droids and one of these strides forward along the rail track, flanked by two destroyer droids.

Niall and Karnov are speeding over the treetops. Karnov shouts into the comlink. “What’s our strategy? Blast them with cannon fire and use the cushion missiles?” Niall does a double-take. “‘Cushion?’ I think you mean ‘concussion.’ Cushion missiles are not fitted on this ship. -Not on any ship I know, -come to think of it!”

Back on the ground, Kory is scouting out the ore crusher and refinery plant. She thinks that this might make a good ambush point. She hopes that she can lure some droids into the plant, and then mangle them in the machinery. Satisfied at her plan, she starts to tell the miners what they are to do.

“They are but droids! They are but youths!” She tells them. “They give them drugs at night, they put hallucinatory pills in their drinks, their milk, and in their coffee!” The miners look on, rather bewildered. “They are gangs of drugged cockroaches!” The miners can’t quite believe what they are hearing. “What I’m trying to say, is that they are no match for dedicated defenders of this planetoid! We’re going to get through this! We’re going to live, and prosper. Live to find ourselves partners and settle down with children!” Several eyebrows shoot into several hairlines at this point. The worker droids are still trying to compute this last comment. Kory clarifies. “Of course the droids won’t have children! But we’re going to cut the enemy down like the walking tin cans they are! Soon they’ll be going the way of the talkie toaster!”

The defenders look at the floor, and the unfamiliar weapons in their hands. Kory tells them “We’re here to defend this base with your lives!” She corrects herself. “Our lives!” Finally one puts up his hand. “Please, miss. Are we going to die?”

Kory looks at the little Bimmisaari. “What do you want me to say?”

Pleadingly, he looks at her. “Lie to me.”

“No. You’re not going to die.”

“Liar.”

Speech over, she gets them to shout and hold hands and do other quick team-building exercises. Then she hands out smoke bombs and they rally to her cause. Kory herself takes up a position between a mine car and the refinery building.

There isn’t much time for any further argument, as there is an ominous clanking coming along the mine-car railway. Two driodeka destroyer droids are rolling into position. They deploy menacingly, and a droid commander strides up to stand between them.

“You are in violation of the blockade. Surrender peacefully, or be destroyed!” It yells.

“We’re perfectly happy for you to surrender!” Kory calls back from her cover.

This obviously does not compute with the droid’s programming – finally it repeats the statement. “We want YOU to surrender, and come with us!”

Kory can’t help herself. “Evacuate? In our moment of triumph? I think you overestimate your chances!” This takes another pause for the droid to process. Finally it gives an order, and the destroyer droids open fire. Blaster bolts fill the air like horizontal rain, and the defenders are forced to keep their heads down. The destroyer droids start to advance slowly, keeping up their ‘withering’^{[ 17 ]} firepower and the bulk of the droid army draws level.

Meanwhile, Karnov is settling into the gunner’s seat in Storm Cutter. Niall is getting some miles under them. He finds the switch for fire-linking the guns, and lets Karnov know. “Okay, both guns should bear on the same target. Assuming that it works, that should be some awesome firepower…..” He can’t help himself. “Now where’s that Toydarian?”

Karnov says longingly, “I only wish we had fighter support for this mission.”

“I wish we had a fighter full stop! -Not some old-fashioned, beaten-up freighter.”

“It’s hardly a ‘freighter.’ -At a hundred-ton capacity or so, we only just qualify as a light transport.”

“Point taken. -By the way, where is our target?”

“It should be coming right up.”

“That’s a mountain!”

“Mountain? What mountain? Yikes!…..A mountain!”

An audio warning cuts in. “Warning! Terrain! Pull up!”

Niall looks round for the source of the voice. In front of him a stuffed Ronto starts to flash.

“What’s that flashing?”

“Maybe the Ronto is no longer as inhibited as he was before!”

The voice is more insistent now. “Warning! Terrain! Pull up!”

“What do you mean ‘pull up?’”

The voice is getting desperate. “WARNING! TERRAIN! PULL UP!” ^{[ 18 ]}

Finally Niall sees the danger, fades left and yanks on the stick. Storm Cutter swoops upward, within inches of the mountainside. “Still no sign of the droid army.”

Karnov catches a glimpse of them. “We left them back a few^{[ 19 ]} HUNDRED clicks. -We need to come about.” Niall pulls a turn, and starts back. He programmes the missile launcher, and attempts to get a lock.

Meanwhile, up on the mountain pass, Jimmi and Aima are making good progress. “There!” she points. “That’ll shave a few minutes off.” Aima indicates a shortcut. As Jimmi swerves onto the route that she’s shown, Aima slips from the pillion seat, and lands awkwardly on the ground. Jimmi decides to turn the speeder around and pick her up. “I’m usually in the driving seat.” She explains sheepishly.

“Me too. I don’t see too well at the back.”

They share an awkward moment before continuing.

Once at the laser station, Jimmi realises that it isn’t going to be straightforward. The laser is in a fixed position, and swings in a series of limited arcs along the side of the mountain, stripping away the layers of ore from the surface as it goes.

Aima starts disassembling the traverse mechanism, while Jimmi pays out extra cables, and makes a makeshift mount from rocks and debris. They set up the laser without too much more trouble, and switch it on. Just then, they can see the distinctive shapes of battle droids coming through the trees toward their position. They assume that it is but one squad of ten or twelve – More than enough to stop their plan and kill them if they are not careful. They take a chance that the droids will be making slow progress up the mountain, as they still need to aim the laser at the droid’s drop-ship.

Between them they add shims under the laser to raise it up a bit, and when they think that it is on target, they fire it up. By now the droid squad are almost upon them. They decide to lead the squad away from the laser to give it more time to warm up and start doing damage. They rev up the speeder, and flank the droids, before stopping at a point where they can ambush their pursuers.

Karnov has the drop ship in his sights; he’s still trying to get both sights to line up at the range that Niall is approaching from. Hoping to tell by the impact point, he fires all the guns and blaster cannon bolts streak toward the droid ship…. But he’s aimed too low, and scorched a nice new path toward the enemy ship through the trees and undergrowth. Niall holds course and lets fly with a missile as soon as it locks on. Karnov isn’t too pleased at having missed. Niall is also critical. “You’re not on target Karnov!”

“Just clearing a path to see down!”

Multi troop transport, with targeting reticle.
(Bigger than a barn door.)

Karnov swings around in his seat, and shoots another volley of shots, this time they hit home, just as the missile strikes too. The droid drop-ship starts blossoming in flames. The laser up on the hillside is also starting to do its work. Then like a wave, fire and explosions wash over the ship. The un-deployed droids and those standing still in their squads nearby are caught in the blast. A fireball erupts, sending red-hot shards in all directions. The ship disappears in seconds. Niall has to pull up hard, and fade left to avoid the force of the detonation.

Up on the hill the mushroom cloud of the explosion can be seen. As the smoke rises over the trees, the defenders at the processing plant all cheer.

“The first transport is blown away!”

“Hooray….Hey! What do you mean ‘the first?’”

By this time, Jimmi and Aima are trading shots with their squad of droids, having hidden in the undergrowth and ambushed them. The droids shoot back, but can’t see the wood for the trees. “Where’s that shooting from?” One asks another. “No data!” the other replies. Jimmi fires again, felling one. “Aha!” the other replies, as its companion is blasted flat on its back. The droids all fire back, -although rather ineffectually.

After six droids are reduced to spare parts, the others wake up to the possibility that this might not be the best place to stand. Their shots become more concentrated and this in turn prompts the gallant twosome to make a tactical retreat toward their speeder. Jimmi receives a lucky shot, -quite a bad wound! Jimmi battles on. The droids close ranks and a volley of blaster bolts surge their way. Up in front, Jimmi is eager to leave. Aima shoots back to keep the droids at bay, and within a few seconds, they are sweeping through the forest in search of something or someone else to pick on. Jimmi decides to go on an outrun, and then sweep back and forth, hoping to scare some of the forest denizens into the droid army.

“Where did you get that idea?” Aima asks.

“Just a little trick I learned, from letting Karnov drive!”

“What about all the jinking?”

“Still compensating for the land-speeder I usually ride on!”

“What about revving the engine like that?”

“From Mama trying to lift Storm Cutter into orbit whith the handbrake still on!”

Jimmi senses three of the lizard creatures, and manages to scare two of them toward the droid army. Aima yells over their bellowing “You know, -they walk just as easy if you lead 'em.” Jimmi yells back. “I like scarin’ ‘em!” ^{[ 20 ]}

By the time the brutal bellowing beasts break from the tangled tree line they are both angry and afraid. They force forward into the rearmost ranks of the advancing army, scarily scattering the soldiers speedily left and right. ^{[ 21 ]}

Droid: “I’m sure that it looked smaller from eigtheen inches away!”
Droid: “Eeek! A monster! -And I’m all alone on the gravelly knoll!”

Kory has sight of a droid commander, two shots streak toward it. Her shots just impact on the surface. The commander is made of sterner -and more reflective stuff. Kory switches her target and blasts two droids before signalling her team to throw their smoke grenades. –Soon a wall of smoke is between the defenders and the approaching droids.

In Storm Cutter, Karnov is targeting the droidekas with the ship’s guns, but a poor shot only scatters several regular droids, but destroys one driodeka in the process. The remining one turns it’s guns toward the ship, and opens fire –somewhat uselessly. The ship’s shields are soaking up the damage easily. Niall targets another missile and takes out the droideka and several more droids. The army is stating to look a little ragged now, as big gaps have appeared in their ranks.

Kory lays down some covering fire, and ducks into the refinery. Sure enough, she is followed by a number of droids. She finds a vantage point, and shoots at them. Taking the bait, some approach by climbing into and among the machinery. Kory ducks beneath their blaster fire, as her hand rests on the start button.

“Come and meet your maker!” She taunts them,

“Roger, Roger….Eh?” They reply.

Rojic has been busy. The comms control tower is now a tangle of wires and power supplies; relays, couplings and tools. Various panels have been pried open and are spilling their innards all over the place. Under the cover of the smoke, a lone droid soldier approaches the tower. The droid ascends the steps and tries the door. Finding it latched, it blasts it. Rojic doesn’t notice the sound behind him, what with all the noise of the battle outside. He turns to the controls once more, when a metallic voice behind him barks out a command. “Hold it right there!”

Droid: “I’m certain thet he looked much bigger from eigtheen inches away!”

If Rojic is surprised, he doesn’t show it. He turns slowly toward the droid, who has a gun levelled at his chest. “You arrived just in time!” Rojic tells the droid. “Here….” He passes over a cable. “Hold this!” The droid starts to comply, and grabs the cable helpfully. Rojic kicks a switch behind him, and electricity courses over the droid. There is a comical ‘Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzz’ noise and the droid shudders and shakes as blue sparks play all over its body.

Unfortunately, Rojic has underestimated the power required to disable his opponent. The droid is still threatening him. “Hands up!” It commands. Rojic looks up. The droid looks up. Rojic quickly ascends to the height of the ceiling. The droid is a bit slow to cover him with the blaster. Rojic grabs a heavy duty cable. The droid is more insistent this time. “HANDS UP!” Rojic obliges and flings up his hands, and lets the cable drop. It strikes the droid on the nose, and several thousand volts course through the cable, through the droid and safely to earth. There is a flash, and a stronger ‘BZZZZZZZZZZ’ noise, as the droid smokes from its joints, and rattles violently. It then gently explodes in a shower of sparks and smoking shrapnel.^{[ 22 ]}

Rojic can’t help himself. “At that frequency….” He tells the smoking wreckage. “I bet that ‘megahertz!’” ^{[ 23 ]}He is still chuckling to himself, as he makes the final connections. Checking his jury-rugged setup, he hopes that he’s remembered everything. “Seems okay….” He switches on. Outside pretty lights play in the sky. However, the pulse is beamed directly at the ground. He needs to boost the power and align the dish. The only problem is that the dish is atop another building entirely. It’s time to leave!

Kory is in position, keeping her head down and hoping that more droids will arrive. The lead ones are starting to emerge from the danger zone, just as another couple enter the refinery. At the last possible moment Kory’s head pops up. The droids turn their guns toward her, and her hand slams down on the button.

Arms and cranes and movers and rotators and crushers all come to life and for a few seconds there are droids chopped and split and mashed and compacted and crushed and scraped and processed. Kory is pleased with her handiwork. However half a droid remains intact. Its head raises, and its gun too, pointing right at her.

Rojic takes a quick peek from the door of the control tower. All he has to do is fly over to the radio dish, angle it up a bit and plug it in. The coast is clear -apart from wisps of smoke still lingering in the air. “Time to go at top speed!” ^{[ 24 ]}He says to nobody in particular. So off he speeds, keeping low and looking fearfully over his shoulder.

Back aboard Storm Cutter, they are sweeping back for another pass. Karnov has got the hang of the fire-linked guns, and manages to blast a squad and a half –fifteen droids in one go! Another missile skews a bit wide of it’s mark, but even so takes care of another five. Several others are damaged in the blast radius.

At the rear of the army, the lizards are trampling and biting and lashing out at droids. Only when the army starts to lose significant numbers do they turn and start blasting at the lizards. This only enrages the beasts more, and the aggressors become their next prey. However, there are quite a few droids which manage to get shots in. Jimmi can see that the monsters are not going to last much longer. The speeder is pushed to the redline, and shoots forward to block the barrage of blaster bolts. However, it’s been rather over-revved and the speeder shoots out from under Jimmi and Aima, and up into the air. It loops around behind them, impacting the ground a hundred yards away at terminal velocity. Now it will tessellate with the crumpled land-speeder!

In the confusion, Jimmi is separated from Aima. She gets up face to face with a battle droid. They both raise their guns, the droid a faction before the girl. Jimmi tries to yell, “Noooooooooooo!” But before any sound comes out, there is a funny sound from the droid’s gun. ‘Pop!’ It goes. A misfire! Aima has no time to grin before shooting the droid, only her gun has jammed too! ‘Pop!’ Before either of them can sort out the problem, Jimmi has made up the lost ground, puts the blaster to the droid’s head, silently mouths, “Dodge this!” -And blows the head clean off! Aima raises her eyebrows at her saviour. Their respective hearts are beating fast. The wreckage sparks and smokes at their feet. –How romantic!

Niall and Karnov have scattered the bulk of the enemy. Niall decides that a better tactic on such a wide area would be to swoop in low- about five feet or so, and smash all the remaining robots with the prow of the ship. Then he realises that any wrong move or piece of terrain could send Storm Cutter ploughing a 10-G furrow across the plains and into the mountain. Instead he opts for the less risky twenty-five feet altitude, and fifteen degree attitude and blast the droids with the wash from the engine exhaust. To achieve this, he banks sharply, and commences an attack run, giving maximum thrust as he does so. Kory waves her defenders back, and Storm Cutter roars along the broken ranks of the droids. Seeing them scatter, he fades left, and touches down, rather roughly. Calling to Karnov to help, they meet at the cargo bay, and press the switch to extend the ramp. At the bottom there are a group of battle droids waiting for them, all with guns drawn.

Rojic is still flying at top speed toward the radio dish. Finally, he reaches the door, but finds to his horror that it is secured. Blaster bolts make a Rojic-shaped outline around him, “Can I come in…..Please!” He pleads, stabbing at the door control buttons. The droids fire again, this time on the run toward him. Rojic is scared that his wings are about to be shredded, and he’ll have to rely on walking to get to where he wants to go. He flies up and hides behind the radio dish on top of the building. He tips it up a bit. Talking to himself, he says, “Only a few modifications to go. It’s surprising how blaster bolts concentrate the mind.” Keeping his head down, and wings folded, he frantically plugs and unplugs connections, trying to tap into the feed from the control tower. The droids find their aim, and shots screech toward him.

Meanwhile, Niall and Karnov are ducking shots from the droids at the bottom of the ramp. Niall leaps behind the sentry gun and shoots back. Several shots blast several droids. Karnov is fending off one with his lightsabre. Droid parts rattle down the ramp to the feet of the remaining droid, which ducks for cover. It’s now or never for the droid who has the drop on Niall who is re-aiming the gun, and the drop on Karnov who is just too far up the ramp to hit it with the lightsabre. The droid blasts away, its shot going harmlessly over their heads. Karnov takes a huge risk and steps in front of the gun. The droid is about to fire again. More importantly Niall is about to fire again. As Karnov steps forward and down to meet it, Niall squeezes off a shot, destroying it.

Away a bit, other droids are regrouping; Kory has killed her droid in the crusher, just in time. More are starting to enter the building. Jimmi finishes off one, only to be surrounded. Bolts are slicing their way toward Rojic. The enemy finally have the advantage. Will this be the end of our heroes?

Rojic makes the final connection. The skies light up in a brilliant orange-tinged green colour and the pulse makes a low humming noise. The droids are caught up in the effect, they slow and then and stop. An instant later they slump down on their servos, and some start to topple over.

The defenders give a ragged cheer, then a stronger one. Our heroes slowly emerge from their positions. They push over the remaining droids; making sure that their weapons are out of action. They start to mop up.

They come together. Only Jimmi has a wound to speak of, and nothing that a spell in the Bacta tank won’t fix. “That was close!”

“Too close. I think we might have been overwhelmed any second.”

“Lucky for us, the droids aren’t made of sterner stuff.”

“Stern enough- though I reckon we put paid to well over a hundred of them, plus the command droids and the driodekas.”

“Not forgetting we took out their drop-ship!”

Rojic is counting up. “We’ve done over half a million credits of damage here!”

There is a guilty pause. Rojic’s eyes light up.

“Nice shooting Tex! Think of the spare parts!”

“You and your….” –Beep! –Beep! –Beep! Niall has to shout. “SPARE PARTS!”

“Actually.” –Beep! “That’s.” –Beep! “A.” –Beep! “Beeper.” –Beep! “Beeping!”

Very quickly, Niall replies. “Best-go-and-answer-it-then!”

-Beep!

Next time –Beep!

An adventure –Beep!

To –Beep!

Do with –Beep!

Gunboat –Beep!

Diplomacy Blee..…Crunch….Bleeooooopp-ffzzt!….. “Ah! Er…Oops! Sorry!”

TO BE CONTINUED...... NEXT EPISODE:

An annoying lump....

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Footnotes. (Click numbers to return to the story.)

[ 14 ]   R17 -And no more or less. Jim frequently rolls 17 –sometimes on a d12! -It’s even become to be known as ‘A Jim.’
[ 15 ]   See: Haku’s adventures in the mountains. [From David Holden's Bushido website. ]
[ 16 ]   This isn't the first time tumbleweeds have featured!
[ 17 ]   ‘Withering’ is actually how their fire is described.
[ 18 ]   ‘-Stupid!’ is the proper suffix for any really obvious or insulting statement. -See JTVS  [link not active -yet!]
[ 19 ]   Even the best pilots make mistakes sometimes!
[ 20 ]   Thanks to Jayne Cobb for this nugget of wisdom. [From List of Firefly Characters [Wkipedia.org] ]
[ 21 ]   Extra marks for alliteration. -You can’t spell 'illierttion' / 'aliitter...' / 'illetreration' etc.
[ 22 ]   Don’t start that again!
[ 23 ]   Is this the worst joke ever?
[ 24 ]   Rojic's top speed is listed as 18” – But is that 18 inches per round, or a minute or a second? –Even per second is actually only one mile per hour!