phifer sollight

Coming to and pulling my slumped form from where it was hunched over the front console, I slowly got my bearings and tried to remember how we ended up where we were. I looked over to see Morrigan beginning to stir from where she was slumped over. As she began to sit up I looked behind me to see Deeters pined between the copilot's and com op's chair, with his computer interface arm still plugged into the nav computer on the other side of the cokpit. Stretching out the last of the kinks in her neck, Morrigan groaned and asked, "Oooh man, how long were we out?"

Slamming my fist against the side panel to bring the chrono back up I said, "Looks like about half an hour." Turning back to face Morrigan I added with a half smile, "I'm guessing we were able to get the repulsers back up before we hit bottom."

Laughing slightly Morrigan added, "Probably, I don?t think the after life is supposed to hurt so bad."

Hearing the bangs and crashes of some equipment settleing somewhere amid ships I let out a big sigh, "Guess I better see if I can get Deeters back online," pausing to look at his interface arm still plugged into the nav computer, "as long as his secondary interface is still working and that thing's not jammed in there, he'll be able to help us see if this thing is still space worthy."

Morrigan, grimacing as she looked from Deeters to the nav computer, began to shake her head as she spoke, "Well, while you are doing that I'll try to get as many systems back up as I can, to see what we can learn about the ship in the mean time."

About twenty minutes later I had Deeters back online and his interface arm removed from the Nav computer. "What do you think little buddy," I said to Deeters as he preformed a self scan, "your vital systems still working alright?"

Letting out a low ominous warble followed by a small whine, Deeters spun his dome around so his photo receptor looked directly at me. "That bad huh?" I said as I place my hand on his dome in and attempt to comfort him. "what about your secondary interface, that still working?"

Letting out a quick double chirp that could almost pass as cheerful, he extended the interface arm. "Fantastic buddy, I need you to run a scan of the hull to find out if we can still fly this thing, let alone bring it into space." Rolling over to the nearest computer terminal and beeping an affirmative, I called back to him, "Com me when your done, I'll be up front with Morrigan." With that he got to work.

As I walked around the corridor back to the front of the ship, I ran into Morrigan walking up the ramp from being outside. "What's wrong?" I asked as she closed the ramp behind her.

"I couldn't get the holonet transceiver working so I went out to check if the relay dish was still attached." she said as we walked together towards the cokpit.

"Yeah", I said as I walked in and sat down in the pilot's chair, "I kinda figured that thing was gone."

"I didn?t see it anywhere." Morrigan said as she sat down. "It also looked like we skidded for about a kilometer or so before we finally came to a stop. So, do you want to hear the good news first or the bad news first?"

"The relay dish wasn't the bad news?" I said from between clenched teeth. Running through a quick calming technique I finally answered, "Bad news first."

"Well, as I just told you the relay dish is gone. The lower turbo laser battery's not responding, the missile tubes aren't working, and one of the landing struts is jammed.", Morrigan said.

Arching an eyebrow at her I said, "You mentioned something abut good news?"

"Yes, the good news." Morrigan said with a visible sigh. "The good news is that the hyper drive is still working, and so are the engines. They will need a cold start though. So, pending this thing is still space worthy, we can be out of here in about forty five minutes."

"Well, Deeters is performing a scan now, so we will know soon enough," I said as I turned to look out the cokpit window.

"I know," Morrigan said, her stare matching mine, "It's been way two quiet."

Using the Force to scan the aria around the ship, I turned to Morrigan and said, "We've been down here for almost an hour now, an their is no one anywhere near the ship."

"I was thinking about that while you were in the back trying to fix Deeters." she said grimly. "It's hard to know for sure, but my best guess is we must have crashed on the opposite side of the moon from where their base is."

"Well," I said as I let the Force flood my senses, "Let see if I can find out." Stretching my Force filled senses to almost their limits; I searched for clumps of life forces that were most likely belonging to sentient life. "Seem like you where almost right." I said with only a slight amount of strain creeping into my voice, "There's a grouping of people at the far end of the continent, it's not that big of one, but they are at the opposite side. There is a much smaller grouping roughly halfway between us and them, which is definitely getting closer. My guess is that is the welcoming party."

"Can you tell how many there are?" Morrigan asked concerned.

"At this distance, no. I'll need to be closer before I can get an exact number. But, judging by their speed they are not in much of a hurry." I said.

"They probably think we are dead." Morrigan added.

"That's my guess too. At this rate they won?t be getting here for another 35/40 minutes." I said as I tried to judge their spend relative from where they were between their base and us.

Just then the ships internal com beeped. It was Deeters letting me know the results of the hull scan. "Well?" Morrigan asked tentatively, "How bad is it?"

"Looks like we are still space worthy." I said as I continued to read the translation of what Deeters was saying. "Deeters says that most of the damage is either just cosmetic, or to our lower hull armor and deflector shield generator."

Turning to see the concern in Morrigan?s eyes after the news about the armor and shields, I hesitated to add, "Don't worry, they will still hold, as long as no one is shooting turbo lasers at us we?ll be fine." Glancing over to see one more message scroll across the screen, I turned back to face Morrigan, "Deeters says they should even hold against blaster cannons."

Letting out a slight laugh, I then turned to the control board to start the engines warming up. Morrigan pulled out her blaster and check its charge. Turning to me she said, "What do you say we go meet our hosts."

Letting a grin of anticipation creep across my face I said, "Lets." Turning over to the com I said to Deeters, "Morrigan and I are heading out to see if we can delay the pirates long enough to let the engine start up. As soon as that happens, you get this bucket of bolts over to pick us up." Hearing Deeters affirmative bleeps, I turned to Morrigan and said, "Let's do this. I might even have a thermal detonator in the weapons locker with my blaster."

"What do you want to do with that?" she asked. The thought of the destructive weapon caused a smile to creep across her face.

"I have no idea, but I could be fun." I said, the smile on my face covering up the feeling of dread that was slowly washing over me.


More to come.