Warning lights flashed across Orllah's cockpit as the Republic Liberator fighters swarmed over her like a cloud of angry wyir hornets.
"T-6, plot a course to hyperspace!" she snapped as she spun her ship around, laying down a burst of covering fire to scatter the fighters in front of her. "I don't care where!" she shouted as the built in astromech chirped its nervous response. "Anywhere!"
She flicked a switch on her console, diverting power to the engines and her rear deflector shields as she sped away from the cruiser that had lain in wait for her arrival. It was clear to her that the information that had led her to the remote Terago System had been a trap. She was only frustrated that she had not spotted it sooner.
"Enjoying the party, schutta?" a voice called over the open comm. "Did you seriously think you could murder an SIS agent in broad daylight and just walk away?"
"Well he hardly put up much of a fight," Orllah responded through gritted teeth as her fighter shook to the impact of a grazing shot. "Unless you've let your training slip I figured he couldn't be real SIS..."
"You fucker! Flash was a good man!" the agent responded angrily. "Tell him we avenged him when you see him, would ya?"
Orllah smiled thinly as T-6 whistled in her ear. "Tell him yourself," she snarled. She punched a button on her dashboard, immediately reversing the thrust on her engines and reversing right into the path of the pursuing fighters. Ships scattered past her viewport, their shots flying wide of her even as she squeezed her trigger and atomised two of the Republic fighters. "Now, T-6!" she ordered.
The Republic vessels dissolved and the stars stretched into the familiar warped lines of hyperspace. She fell back into her seat, a breath of relief escaping her lips as T-6 beeped away in the background. After just a few minutes the stars began to take shape once more and they emerged from hyperspace before a cerulean planet encased in what appeared to be a vicious storm.
"Where are we?" she demanded. The information flashed up on her screen before her, the Imlerial data on the planet, known as Kintoone according to the records, reading only a single sentence:
No strategic or economical importance.
"Another fine forgotten corner of the galaxy," she muttered. "T-6, run the cooling system on the hyperdrive and plot a course for home. We're..." She trailed off as a flurry of laser shots lit up her viewport and a Liberator zoomed overhead.
"You can't outrun us, schutta!" the SIS agent called over the comm channel.
"Fuck!" Orllah spat, cycling the cannons and leaning hard on the throttle. "T-6, how did they find us?" The droid's response did nothing to calm her nerves. "What do you mean this is the most obvious jump? Why the fuck did you bring us here then?"
She ignored the droid as she gunned it towards the planet, hoping the storm might deter the Liberators from following. She had not gone far however, when she realised she had made a mistake.
"I know, I know!" she snarled as T-6 beeped a warning. The ship was travelling much too fast, sucked towards the planet by its sudden, uncharacteristically powerful gravitational pull. She pulled against the controls, fighting to turn the ship about, but without having been prepared for the pull this was easier said than done. She could hear the chatter on the republic comms as the SIS agents too were caught in the planet's sudden and deadly embrace. Her ship shuddered, panels groaning under the strain as her engines wheezed and gasped for release. Then the storm hit.
The ship was spinning. Sulphuric clouds fogged the viewport, broken only by flashes of emerald lightning. She could here screams as the SIS ships were pulled apart. T-6 howled as he tried to keep the ship in one piece, then fell abruptly silent as his dome was shattered by a bolt of lightning. Orllah could feel the planet pulling her down as the storm consumed the ship. She reached out with the Force, channeling her rage and hatred towards the SIS for landing her in this mess, and focused on every panel, every nut and bolt that kept the ship together and held them there. Beads of sweat ran down her cheeks as she strained with the effort and she could feel her senses starting to slip as darkness closed in around her. The ship lurched horribly as it struck the lower atmosphere, buffeted by wind and clouds alike and it was only then that she allowed herself to let go, the ship at last shearing apart about her as she drew on the last reserves of her energy to throw up a lightning shield around her body before finally succumbing to the darkness...
****
Orllah sat bolt upright in bed as if she had just been jabbed by a stun baton. For a moment she thought she was back in her disintegrating starship, plummeting towards Kintoone's surface, until Miley's breathing beside her brought her back to her chambers. She looked down at her sub whose hands and ankles were still shackled from the previous night's entertainment and smiled. She always joked that Miley could sleep through anything and there she was, proving her right once more.
