Astro'lor - One of Us

[Zef Halo]

A crystal living in an astromech body.

If that was not shocking enough for you, here's the rest.

A crystal living in an astromech body who wanted to be a Mandalorian.

Well it gets better.

Zef had put his feet up on the pilot terminal on board of his prized freighter - The Corellian Bolt. He was almost dozing off waiting for the damn Shard to get his arse here. The viewport was almost completely covered by the planet or...space object. He was not sure how to describe it.

Malachor V.

So much history concerning Mandalorians here, so much death, so much tragedy. A pivotal point in the Mandalorian Wars. A painful reminder to the Mandalorians that they could be defeated even by the most surprising foes. That they were mortal just like anybody else. That they fell like everyone else.

But what made a Mando was his ability to stand up. Every. Single. Time.

That ability would be examined today as the Shard [member="Goran"] was expected to finally become what he wanted to be. As long as he passed his...

Verd'goten.

 

[Goran]

It had been a long, boring journey latched to the hull of [member="Zef Halo"]'s ship.

Goran had intended to catch a ride, seeing as how its own craft was in the shop, but the bastard had apparently not checked his comms, because by the time Goran got to the spaceport, he was already in the process of taking off. A little quick thinking with Absorb and a pile of plastic explosives had hurled the little Shard on top of the ship right before it stood on its tail and exited the atmosphere, and they were in hyperspace not long after.

Like most astromechs, Goran's body was designed to stay securely attached to ships in flight, since they were designed to fix them and all. That didn't make the journey any less boring.

Finally, they exited hyperspace above a seriously karked up planet. Once again, Goran tried the comms. Nothing.

It was time for drastic measures.

The Shard rolled along until it reached the viewport on the cockpit, then maneuvered itself so that it was staring in. One of its attachments was a speaker with a suction cup that would conduct soundwaves through transparisteel. Goran fired it onto the viewport.

"Will you open the goddamn door?"

 

[Zef Halo]

"Holy kark!" Zef spat out startled as he fell from the pilot's seat and on the floor. "What the hell are you doing there, you piece of scrap?!"

Shaking his head, the Mandalorian went for the button to open the ramp that was located at the back of the ship but before he could press it he stopped. Zef's hand lingered over the button as a smirk formed on his face and an idea in his head.

Kark it.

"Hold yourself tight, tin can." The ex-smuggler warned the shard over the comms and pulled the lever of the thrusters for maximum acceleration.

The engines roared like a beast and lunged the ship forward with great speed. The scoundrel held the joystick tight as he navigated the direction towards Malachor's surface. Recklessly, like a child, he went with greater speed and less caution. It did not bode well for anyone when Zef began doing loops and twists in space.

Entering the orbit of the dead planet and into the clouds of Malachor's atmosphere, various beeps and lights began flashing on the pilot terminal changing the experienced smuggler's smirk to a grimace. Green lightning rummaged through the thick grey clouds of Malachor and by the time he could switch off the systems and drag along through the storm before reactivating him, Zef realized he was karked thanks to his earlier recklessness.

The green lightnings seemed to have finally found their target in their erratic search for victims as they struck with ferocity the hull of the ship. Yet, the Corellian Bolt withstood. The systems flashed but the polarizing field insulation which made this ship a great blockade runner withstood. The de-ionizers kicked in but the lightning did not stop and it seemed the green bolts just grew in number and in strength. The Mandalorian switched off the whole ship and abruptly the lightnings stopped battering the ship.

Silence crawled into the cockpit as the bolt glided through the clouds and began accelerating due to the gravity's pull. Finally after what seemed to be an endless ride through the thick clouds, they emerged beneath them and saw the devastated surface of the planet from a close up. The ship continued accelerating on its own despite Zef's stubborn use of the flaps. They wouldn't hold.

Lighting up the engine, he immediately focused all power on the backthrusters and the shields to increase the drag. Grinding his teeth while pulling the joystick up and trying to pull the ship up and away from the ground, the ex-smuggler knew that escaping the ground was out of the question.

Kark.

His mindset shifted to landing the freighter rather than pulling it up in the sky.

"Hold on, you damn droid!!" Was all Zef could utter as the Corellian Bolt dragged through the land digging up the surface as it finally went into a halt. Immediately after with a whine, the ship shut down on its own.

They were stuck on Malachor.

"Right, right..." Zef nodded innocently as if nothing had happened. "So yeah, let's check up on the damage, yeah ? It's what astromechs do, right ?"

He jumped up from his seat and left for the back of the ship where he expected to meet [member="Goran"] and have a maintenance check. Zef knew all too well that they were karked. Big time.

 

[Goran]

"REALLY?!?" Goran bellowed as Zef strode down the ramp. "THAT'S YOUR IDEA OF A LANDING? WHAT IS KARKING WRONG WITH YOU?"

The trip down had not been pleasant. It wasn't the acrobatics, as the Shard had been securely mag clamped. It was the lightning.

See, Goran, like most Force sensitive Shards, had a thing for Absorb. It wasn't a universal talent, but more had it than not. And it was among the best. It wasn't necessarily a powerhouse like Eralam, but if the leader of the Shard Network was a sledgehammer, Goran was a scalpel. Redirecting vast amounts of energy wasn't its thing, but like it or not, it didn't have any choice but to learn.

Somehow, miraculously, they both landed, and they were both alive.

Though that might change in the next few seconds.

"Alright, I am tired of being jerked around," it said, barely resisting the urge to decapitate the bastard. "Why are we here?"

[member="Zef Halo"]

 

[Zef Halo]

"Circuit breakers, power converters and..." Zef muttered to himself while the Shard behind him complained. "And that's it."

Not a big problem.

If one was not on karkin' Malachor V.

"We were supposed to be here for a simple reason. Now there's two of them. We're gonna do both of 'em simultaneously." Zef explained as he tossed way the wash cloth having washed away the grease that was on his crushgaunts. "First. We got to find parts or something to fix this so we can fly again. Power converters and circuit breakers. Actually, just four power converters. I have a way through with this circuit breakers."

"Second. This, little piece of junk, is your verd'goten. You're gonna be a Mandalorian or get sold as scrap. Both work for me." The scoundrel shrugged as he ventured into the vast nothingness of Malachor. "Let's go."

"We've got a lot of ground to cover."

[member="Goran"]

 

[Goran]

"Verd'goten? Again? What, were the last three not good enough?"

It never failed. Goran would hang around for a few decades, do its Mando thing, and then vanish, and when it came back a few centuries later, the new faces had no recollection of the Shard. And, inevitably, they would want to test it all over again. Honestly, it was getting kind of tiresome.

For the moment, however, they had bigger issues.

"There are ships crashed pretty much all over the planet," it said, in response to the mention of power converters. "Most of them seem to have suffered the same fate as ours, but conveniently, there's a crash site about three klicks from here that looked to be more turbolaser damage related than anything. If we're lucky, it lost power before hitting the lightning. Should be able to get the converters there."

With waiting to see if [member="Zef Halo"] would follow, Goran set off towards the crash, picking its way carefully over the rocky terrain. Ordinarily, it would be stymied by the rough ground, since its mechanical body wasn't meant for cross country treks, but it had Absorbed a frankly absurd amount of lightning on the way down, to say nothing of the thermal energy from atmospheric entry. The telekinesis that was normally beyond it came easily now, and by using little pushes and nudges, it was able to cross the lifeless terrain with little difficulty.