//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: First Casualty // Story: The Imperial Ace // by Navanastra //------------------------------// Chapter 4: First Casualty Edited by: WrittenWord333, Chrome Masquerade Proofread by: Sergeant Luftfahrer Riggs was expecting a lot of things, but finding an over sized lizard with wings that can also breathe fire was not one of them. One question still ran through his mind, though, as he was busy dodging a stream of flames with a simple flick to his right. Why did his scanners pick up this one particular over sized creature and nothing else? Maybe this fire breathing scale-head was really the only creature large enough to be detected by his long range scanners for kilometers around? Maybe he came down on the wrong side of the world, empty of civilization, or even worst they might be no civilization on this rock at all which would mean that he would be stuck here much, MUCH longer then he felt comfortable with. The only thing Riggs knew at the moment was that this oversized exotic hide provider was challenging him, and with that in mind, he was quickly beginning to get a bit irritated. His day was already bad enough as it is and he really didn’t needed an oversized gecko to make it even more annoying then it already is. “If that scale brain wants to pick a fight, then oh, is he going to get one!” Riggs thought as he fully primed his weapons. Now he was ready to show the scale-head how it gets done in space. Dodging a torrent of flames with ease, Riggs quickly twisted his controls to the left, turning his ship a full 180° on the spot as he pulled down the throttle and began to charge the beast in a head on dive from high above. Pressing down the triggers on both of his control sticks immediately unleashed a deadly torrent of highly energized laser bolts from his six main cannons, reaching the target in mere milliseconds and exploding on impact around the beast’s head and back in a brilliant blinding flashed and fire, before flying past it and pulling back up into a climb and turning back around. Riggs was a bit surprised to see that the damage he caused on the thing was nothing like what he was expecting. Instead of killing it outright, he had only scorched off the outer scales and exposed raw burned flesh. There were a couple of natural creatures he could think of that could take a full-on blast from a laser cannon and still walk away with it, but such creatures were rare and mostly unheard of. This being was one of them, it seemed. That and he hasn’t calibrated his cannon to fire at full power for the sake of saving up energy a bit since he doesn't know how long he is going to be stuck on this rock for the foreseeable future. That could easily be the issue too. Another thing that surprised him a bit more was the sudden additional punch his bolts got despite being in there low setting. Usually they didn’t create such a sizable explosion on impact unless firing at something that’s combustible. But yet again, it was something he was forced to put to the back of his mind, as he had other problems to deal with. Problems like turning that thing into a burning carcass, no matter how apparently heat resistant it was. “Let’s see how how long this thing can take a beating before going down.” Riggs thought to himself as he turned for another run, dodging yet another gush of flames as he closed the distance. Refusing to ramp up the energy output on his lasers for whatever reason (probably just for the sake of dragging this fight out longer) Riggs pushed down his triggers once more, unleashing another volley of deadly laser bolts down towards his target and engulfing it yet again in a chaotic display of explosions, intense heat and white flashes, making it roar in pain as the bolts struck true. The sound of explosions and the beast’s roars were music to his ears, as it helped him vent some of his annoyance at the thing for just randomly attacking him. As he zipped past the enraged beast and prepared for a third and final run, the dragon spread its immense wings with a mighty WHOOMPH as it prepared to chase the intruder that had so rudely interrupted its rage for just generally being there. Roaring into the air as it hauled its bulk up on its hind legs, ready to take to the skies. “I will be most surprised if that thing could actually fly with those, with its size and the many holes on the ends of its wings.” He thought as he observed everything high above. Before Riggs could even raise an eyebrow, the beast released another ear shattering roar, crouched down on all fours, flapped its mighty wings and hauled itself into the air, its wings easily carrying it into the sky, breaking clouds with its wings as it flew by. “Well… it seems it can fly. Call me impressed, to say the least.” Riggs thought as he watched the giant beast flying high above the clouds and temporarily disappearing from eyesight before eventually re-emerging, spotting its adversary and directly diving towards its enemy. Another gust of flames erupted from its maw as it drew closer to Riggs, the clouds around the flames’ trajectory evaporating from its intense heat as it raced towards Riggs’ Defender. Acting on simple instinct, Riggs easily dodged the incoming attack by pushing his controls to the right and rolling his ship away from its path.The flames harmlessly flew past him as he continued his attack run. He began to pull up into the clouds above him, trying to break line of sight and to get some distance between himself and the monster following him. As expected, the beast below him was slow and sluggish compared to his ship. It constantly tried again and again to hit its mark with streams and balls of fire as it continued its futile pursuit on the much smaller and vastly faster target, not even coming close to hitting, as Riggs’ distance, speed and superior maneuverability made a mockery of the dragon. Soon the skies above the clouds had become a massive light show of orange and yellow as more and more flames erupted from the creature's maw in a desperately attempt to burn the TIE Defender to a cinder. A bestial roar echoed through the skies as Riggs continued to toy with him, the dragon’s anger reaching a boiling point. “Ok, that is enough. I don’t have the time or the patience for this anymore. Time to take that winged lizard back down to the ground.” Riggs snarled aloud as he pulled up on his controls, looping back and readying himself to face the beast once more, slowing back down into attack position as his cannons primed, his targeting systems locking on with a beep. Both adversaries were now charging for one another. Both ready to attack as they grew closer and closer. The first one to attack was the beast, letting loose a massive torrent of flames, superheating the air around it and blasting layers of clouds out from its path with a hiss of steam. Riggs didn’t even bother to avoid this attack. Rather than dodging, he simply kept his course and flew right through the flames, letting the heat shielding do its job as he re-emerged from the other side completely unscaved, all the while overcharging his energy cells with another volley of super charged laser bolts from his main guns. Once again the beast roared in pain as its scales got pummeled by Riggs’ attack. The sound of Riggs lasers could be heard firing through the air as they hit their marks with deadly precision, exploding on impact and scorching the scales right off the creature’s thick hide, blowing huge smoking holes into the dragon’s natural armour as he whipped past the reptilian behemoth with a shriek from his two ion engines. “Hmmm… that thing seems to be tougher than I thought, maybe switching the laser energy output to above low may just finish this thing off once and for all . I’m going to have to get myself some of its hide when all is done. Maybe I can manufacture some kind of armor.” Riggs thought as he did just that, pressing a sliding a bar on one of his screens to slightly increase the energy input into his primary weapons. While the beast was still flying, and still trying to roast him with its fiery breath, it was now much more sluggish - its sustained injuries were finally wearing it down. But the monster was far from giving up, by the look of it. It was going to defeat him or die trying, something Riggs had absolutely no problem with granting as he felt that the fight had dragged on for long enough. “One more run should finally take this beast down, and then I can finally land and rest for a while. That meadow looks perfect to land on.”Riggs thought to himself as he got some distance and immediately turned himself back around for another attack run. This time, without any incoming flames, it was almost laughably easy for Riggs to pummel the beast with flawless precision as the slight energy increase on the lasers did the expected results he was looking for before rocketing past it and away again in a shower of scorched shards of rock-hard scale.. As Riggs turned around he watched with a small grin on his face that whatever was left from the dragon was now just falling out from the sky and onto the distant ground below them in a flaming mangled, and unrecognizable mess of scorched flesh and thick smoke. The burning carcass slammed into the ground, kicking up dust and debris and wrecking the earth underneath it, accompanied by a fiery explosion as something inside the dead beast supposedly detonated in combination to the fire and the hard impact it suffered from. The fight was over. Riggs watched the unexpected explosion with slight interest as he angle his Defender down for a landing. “Time to land and assess the damage. Then I can finally have a proper rest. But first I need to see if anything useful for me survived that blast. if a sizable section of its hide is still intact I could get some serious credits for it.” Riggs thought to himself as he brought his ship down, slowly pulling the throttle back as he gently touched down onto the tips of his two lower wings, making planetfall for the first time on this uncharted rock since he got there. Riggs sat back and relaxed for a moment as his craft’s engines’ frantic whirring powered down and slowed to a stop. Everything had been so hectic and so unpredictable lately. First the intense battle over Coruscant, their retreat, his disastrous hyperspace malfunction and then ending up on an undiscovered world, then fighting a giant, flying, fire breathing lizard. A list of things he never thought he would do in a row. Or individually, come to that. A few questions he pondered about earlier quickly resurfaced within the serenity of the moment. Like how and why his hyperdrive malfunctioned so disastrously or what that faint, distant cry for help was. Another question, one that quickly dominated his mind after he opened his eyes, was what that thing was that he just blasted from the sky. Seeing the still burning remains through the viewport of his ship, Riggs quickly made up his mind to investigate it close up and to see if some of its hide was still intact. Riggs pressed the release button on the exit hatch, a hiss of air escaping the void-proof seal as it opened on the alien world. Hoisting himself through the open hatch, his boots crunched down on the virgin grass. The first thing he noticed was the clean, fresh air that surrounded him, a nice change indeed from the sterile and eternally filtered air within ships or the polluted smog on some of the more highly populated worlds. It felt cool and refreshing. “First few steps on an uncharted world and the first thing I do is skin the nearest local creature. Anyway, let’s see if I can get some samples of its hide. Make this little fight not as much of a waste of time for me.” Riggs stated to himself as he jumped off his ship. The impact site of the alien reptile was a very small distance from where he landed, the green grass squeaking softly beneath his boots as he made his way over. Alas, everything was completely trashed and unusable to him. Not that it mattered, though he still would have liked to collect some sort of trophy from this, as he did so many times in the past. The last war trophy he got was a vibrosword from a droid commando he shot down when he and his squad attacked some old Separatist hideouts a few months back. A simple and straightforward operation, fly in, kill the fighter, bomb the place, land, kill everything, grab the info and then bomb the place again. Basically just go, destroy, kill, take, and screw off. No complications needed. It was in the middle of reliving some of his previous operations that he suddenly spotted something in the corner of his eye. A yellowish body hidden behind some tall grass a couple of meters away from where he was standing. Curiosity got the better of him as Riggs decided to investigate the obtrusive color within these green fields. Walking over the tall undergrowth he eventually came face to face with the creature in question. Riggs’ right eyebrow rose in curiosity as he laid eyes on the creature in front of him. It looked like some kind of quadruped hoofed creature with yellow fur, covered in what he assumed was its own blood, darker and lighter split orange mane and tail and a pair of wings on its glistening crimson-covered back. The wings, though, were the most interesting feature on Riggs mind, if you can still call them that from just how twisted and mangled they were, with only a few feathers still attached to the flesh, a number of broken bones having pierced the skin in multiple places as well as half of its flesh and muscles completely ripped off and hanging from its sides. For a second there Riggs thought that this thing might just be another carcass until he noticed that it was still breathing shallowly and giving off the occasional twitch here and there. Though it wouldn’t be alive for much longer if it wouldn’t get help. Its injuries were severe and blood continued to ooze from its large gashes, especially from its back. The creature’s breathing was weak and irregular and it would only take minutes for its life to finally go out. For some reason Riggs started to feel a bit of empathy as the sight immediately brought a distant memories A past that eventually shaped him to what he became. Riggs rubbed his head to get the momentary reminders out of his system. Memories that were just filled with anger and a hint of sorrow too. He slowly began to bend down, observing the badly founded animal with much greater detail. Out of curiosity sake he began to move his right hand over the creatures face before placing his fingers carefully on what he guess where its eyelids and gently parting them to see what lay underneath it. What he saw quickly made him pause for a second. “Those are not as dull and generic as I thought they would be on simple animals. These do seem to have a level of sapiens behind them if I am not mistaken. A Sapient quadruple creature, unusual but also rare.” Riggs thought to himself as he slowly got back up and contemplating on what to do with it now knowing that. He could just as easily let it be and let the rules of life take its course, though then again, if this thing was truly intelligent according to his evaluations then it must easily be one of the natives of this planet which also means that there might easily be some form of civilization out here after all. If not then...well whatever, then he might be the proud owner of a new and exotic pet instead. “Ehhh… screw it. Why not?” Riggs decided as he knelt down and carefully picked the equine up from the ground and under his left arm. Riggs was somewhat surprised in how light it was, given its size. Once back at his ship he laid the creature gently down onto a patch of grassless dirt right next to a large rock as he began to inspect the injuries much more closely. “Most injuries seemed to be created via hard impacts and tearing. Don’t know exactly what happened to it, but it will die if I don’t do something.” Riggs spoke quietly as he continued to look for more injuries. “Hmm... I do have one last syringe filled with Bacta fluid back at my ship. I have no idea how this creature will react to Bacta, but that’s all I have at the moment. But if it somehow does work it will accelerate tissue regrowth greatly, helping it heal up faster and possible save its life too.” Riggs thought while he rubbed his chin and confirming (after looking behind the creature's tail) that it was female… or so he guessed. Ways of reproductions do tend to be different on some alien creatures throughout the galaxy, and he isn’t much of a biologist anyway. That title goes to Berren, knowledge the guy picked up from his father as he always told. From Dantooin as far as he could recall Berrens background files. Getting back on track, Riggs quickly walked back over to his ship to search for his medical equipment stored behind the pilot seat. Just like many other things he carried with him, the back had always functioned as a storage space, big enough to stack several large boxes in. After climbing back inside his ship and rummaging through the containers and shelves behind his seat he came across something that completely escaped his mind since the start of his mission over Coruscant. A deactivated little ball shaped prototype Astromech droid, branded as BB-5 Prototype, or just BB-5. Riggs remembered well how he found and taken the little guy; but that was a memory for another time. Right then he needed to find his medical kit, though he also needed to remember to re-activate him afterwards, once everything was done and unpacked. “Ah, here it is! And of course it’s in the very last container.” Riggs reached in and grabbed the hefty box, hauling it from the pile of boxes behind his seat. The white plastic with the universally-known red cross was a little scuffed, but that wasn’t a problem. With the medical case now at hand, Riggs quickly climbed back out of his ship and made his way back towards the yellow-furred creature. He placed the case down right next to it and opened it up. The box was mostly filled with very basic things like sterile bandages and simple meds, but also with more advanced things like a laser scalpel. Riggs continued to dig through the medical case until he found what he was looking for; a still-filled and unused syringe filled with Bacta serum. Again, Riggs had no idea if this would work or not, or if this would suddenly turn its yellow fur green or cause it to grow a fifth leg or whatever, but he didn’t have a choice. It was this or certain death. Shrugging mentally, Riggs simply grabbed one of its forelegs and gently pierced the needle into to it, slowly squeezing the serum out until the tube was empty. Gently retracting the needle again, Riggs placed the empty syringe back into the case and began to pull out some bandages. He carefully wrapped and covered the wounds and injuries with it, including the mangled wings. After everything was good and done, he closed the case and stood back up, observing the creature in front of him as its chest continued to move in and out gently. Now all he could do was wait. “Might as well unpack everything and set up camp while the Bacta does its thing. Also still need to review the damage on my ship and check out the hyperdrive. I’d love to find out exactly what went wrong so I can give the engineers back at HQ a piece of my bloody mind.” Riggs thought as he let the creature be and headed back towards his ship. Unbeknownst to him, a pair of curious and astonished pink eyes were observing him from afar, hidden behind a pair of bushes on the edge of the tree line. It slowly lifted its head above the bush it was hiding in to get a better look, revealing a face covered in bluish-grey fur with a head full of white, wildly styled hair. The creature continued to observe the scene in front of it with a look of disbelief and astonishment. “No… freaking… WAY.” Cloud Chaser muttered to herself as she jumped out from the bush and took to the skies, feeling quietly stunned by what she had just witnessed.