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Nathaniel Reed's
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:: An ongoing episodic story of fan-fic set after Episode VI Return of the Jedi, and inspired by George Lucas' historical draft concepts ::
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| July 2025 |
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The Virtual Edition : Alana and her team are pursued !
31st July 2025 |
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The Virtual Edition Episode XI continues, and Alana Skywalker's team of Jedi and Pan-Alliance bureaucrats and scientists are now fleeing for their lives ! Inadvertantly joined as well by the illegal plasma miners, they have fled the destruction wrecked by the two droidai - tall bipedal armoured droids, with the surprising abillity to exploit the magnetic fields around them, allowing them to mimic the 'Force Push and Pull' - and have departed in their starship. But the remaining droidai that survived the plasma explosion within the drift mine has been able to pursue them, and leap up on to the ship !
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The ungainly bulbous Multi-Purpose Jedi Transport growled as it lifted off the grassy bank outside the entrance to the illegal plasma mine. The able-bodied had supported the injured to clamber up the ship’s boarding ramp as soon as they had seen the droidai eject out from Boss Serrad’s makeshift office. The bipedal reptilian Jedi, Nayton, and the lupine Shistavanen, Rick-Pa Moor, had aided Alana and Sihram and Dixon into the vessel, following the anxious Pan-Alliance bureaucrats and scientists and the rattled miners.
Inside the main hold of the transport, as the survivors settled onto simple padded benches, Nayton moved quickly to an internal comms panel, and hissed and warbled urgently into it.
His reptilian tail flicked tensely back and forth in tight short bursts.
A tinny voice came over the intercom from the cockpit : “Yes, sir, I see it sir, I’ll angle the guns on to it now !”
Outside the ship, the droidai clambered to its feet. It angled its ovoid faceplate up and regarded the rising transport with its three crimson eyes. It registered the increasing whine of the engines, getting ready to auto-adjust its thrusters for an upcoming climb, and noted a small ventral battery of double cannon on the ship’s underbelly clank into action, angling towards the droid. The larger gun turrets would require to be manned, so this anti-personnel auto-cannon would have to suffice initially.
A scarlet rain of double laser fire cascaded wildly down upon the droidai. A blue shimmer lit a halo around its skeletal figure as it nimbly stepped left and right to avoid the blasts ; one bolt glanced off its shielded shoulder, causing the droid to briefly recoil to the side, before it regained its poise.
Intent on its basic mission – to combat Jedi – it angled its left arm down and the nozzle emitted its polarising electro-magnetic whump that launched the droid high. In mid-air, it reached out with its right claw arm, and as it did so, it swung the left-hand nozzle towards the Jedi transport. Another whump meant a reversed polarity would now attract it towards the metal hull of the fleeing ship.
Another spray of cannon fire flared past the flying droid impotently, and then its open claw clamped down on a utility rail fixed to the hull. It had latched on to the Jedi transport and it wasn’t going to let go !
The vessel accelerated as it climbed higher into the sky, the base of the lowest clouds fast coming into view.
Inside the MPT, the human pilot now focused on reaching orbit. He reached over to a comms switch, and began to speak.
“Lost sight of the droid, sir ! The auto-targetting---“
The cockpit door swished open and Nayton clumped inside, his booted hind legs thumping on the decking.
He gave a sibilant hiss and pointed out of the cockpit window.
“On the hull ?!” cried out the pilot incredulously.
Nayton once more hissed and spat.
“Yeah, we might not get a clean shot with any of the guns.”
The pilot swung back around to face the view outside, the clouds now almost completing the window, and focus on the instruments. “I’ll go atmospheric, that should lose it !”
He leaned back on the yoke with one hand and drew on an accelerator lever with the other. The ship roared in response.
Outside, the droid, holding now with its blocky feet magnetically clamped to the hull as well as with its claw hand on the rail, raised its right hand T-bar and aimed it towards the aft engine cowling. Clouds now surrounded the ship entirely. A red glow pulsed down its right arm and out through the midpoint of the T-bar, and a burning globule of energy smacked into the hull. Plating exploded and fell away in shards.
The droidai released its claw hand and, in an unsteady tottering fashion it sequentially and methodically released one magnetised foot and reset it, and then followed with the other. The velocity wind whistled through the skeletal frame as it slowly marched its way, perpendicular, down the hull of the racing airborne ship.
It reached the damaged engine cowling and registered the bare wiring and pipes with studious intent. Identifying suitably vulnerable points, it hunkered down with its two claw hands reaching out, and snatched at the conduits. Sparks flew and a small fire exploded into view.
Immediately, the ship shuddered and whined, and then lurched as it lost speed. The attitude rolled and yawed and the droidai found itself nearly upside down.
Inside the cockpit the pilot was frantically trying to hold the ship as level as possible. The passengers in the hold had all been thrown to the decking and were now scrabbling back to the bench seats and trying to find something to hold on to. The three injured Jedi winced in pain as they struggled to get a fix.
Outside, the droid, satisfied that its damage had been sufficient to disable but not jeopardise the ship, was now marching its slow and magnetised inexorable way to the boarding hatch on the flank. The droidai reached the coloured border that marked the hatch, and the external door controls were at its feet. It leaned down and a clawed hand delicately activated the emergency over-ride. The hatch door slid open, a clawed hand gripped the doorframe, and, releasing its magnetic hold, it swung itself around and into the ship. The feet landed with a magnetic thump.
The droid righted itself just as the pilot regained levelling control of the pitch of the ship.
Pausing, the three red eyes flickered as it carried out a simple near-range scan of the interior. It detected heat sources in the main hold on this lowest deck, and made its way towards them.
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| Nathaniel Reed, 31st July 2025 |
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