Star Wars: Red Five

Epilogue: Dunegliders No More

Tatooine. A vast desolate outlying world considered farthest from the bright center of the known galaxy. It is often told from time immemorial that there was no worse fate than being marooned in such bleak ball of solar baked celestial manifestation. It is long believed that no sane sentient would even imagine surviving, or practically downright existing in the aforementioned yellow-brown excuse for a floating rock in the middle of nowhere. But such notion could not be said to those who call it home. Though the twin suns’ perpetual vigil above it insures that no offworlder would dare consider it an ideal place to live, the inhabitants of the theorized once lush habitat have managed to defy the wildest assumptions of scholars and planetologists as far dated as the earliest centuries of the Galactic Republic. It is so hard to think that these people have managed to even build a number of clustered livable if not desirable civilizations. Ironically, despite its barren nature it had grown for some inconceivable reason as a refuge albeit usually temporarily thought sometimes even permanently by those sentient beings across the immense confederate of worlds consider as scum and villainies. Here and only here a small band of youngsters were brought together either by fate or chance to share a dream nursed since the moment they learned to ride the domesticated eopies and sweep the Dune Seas with their earsplitting dust ridden assembled speederbikes locally known as swoops. Camie, Fixer, Wormie and a few others that consists the young bunch known from Mos Espa to Mos Eisley as the Dunegliders made a pact to leave the planet the first chance they could grab and never to return again. It was because of this childhood wishful thinking that Wormie felt so desperately hopeless, being to be the last of the ragtag gang to be left stranded and possibly fated to grown old and die in the desert world. Standing on the ledge of the top of his uncle’s homestead with a longing glare at the setting of the twin suns from the red-orange imbued sky, Wormie, aka Luke Skywalker was wishing for so many things all of which he could never possibly have as long as he is trapped under the gruff simple-minded brain of his unbelievably content uncle. “Luke! Get inside! We’re shutting the power down for the night!” the familiar and predictable yell from his aunt inside his hellhole called home.

Chapter 1: Prized Catch

Toprawa. An average inhabited world conquered by the Galactic Empire, home of one of the most heavily guarded communications facility and a hot spot for rebel attack. Rebel Commander Bria Tharen crouches behind what remains of a small structure’s wall accompanied by ten other rebel soldiers. Their supposed to be stealth assault was spoiled by the unexpected ultra-high detection technology recently installed by Moff Tian Jerjerrod, a well-known and feared Imperial leader often whispered as the next Wilhuff Tarkin due to his cold and brutal employment of Imperial discipline among his people especially against the enemies of the Emperor’s New Order. Explosions left and right sends their eardrums ringing and in the first hour alone almost half of Bria’s units were destroyed. Fifty gargantuan quadruped machines of death shakes the ground with their broad circular metallic feet, powerful laserbolts endlessly shooting out from the tusks-like protrusions in the head of the lumbering All-Terrain Attack Transports led by the infamous General Maximillian Veers. His Death Squadron already obliterated the aerial support team of the rebels. Bria closed her eyes trying hard but failing miserably to ignore the cries of her men in her earpiece. The Imperial forces stationed in their target were almost tripled from what her superior and fellow Corellian Senator Garm Bel Iblis have provided her. Her thoughts were interrupted by the Gungan soldier beside her. “Dessa no way outa here Commander. Watsa we goin ta do?” Kankun asks between fires of his long-range Merson Rifle. “Tell Gobrikkucc to flank the west end hostiles and have his men and what remains with our forces to regroup in the Tachune Canal in the Southeast River as close as they can to the target!” Bria shouted over the noise of explosions. The Gungan complied but before he could finish his communiqué in his radio a solid blast hit him in the chest melting armor and flesh in seconds. Kankun was dead before he fell and Bria quickly grabbed the handset and relayed her orders herself. Static answered her instead. Cursing in the most graphic tongue in Corellia she threw the useless headset away. Sizing up her men from as far she could see, she decided to take only five and have the rest retreat to the equally dangerous woods behind them. She and her selected soldiers were making their way as fast as they could to the facility when two AT-ATs appeared through the haze of black smoke in front and behind them. Bria and her men formed a circle with their back at each other and started firing with abandon embracing their doom fighting rather than surrendering when the scorched AT-AT behind suddenly aimed it’s cannons on the other and fired a direct hit at its control center. The second Imperial Walker’s head exploded and Bria’s earpiece suddenly crackles with a familiar grunts and growls of Gobrikkucc.