Redemption
2000 short story by Louis Turfrey Twenty-seven years after Episode IV - A New Hope "I could see the guy move, but I
couldn't keep track. You know, like when you've had too much to drink, and
you try to move too quickly?" The
old man took another drink from his Vineau. His companion for the night, a
taller than average Rodian, grunted in appreciation. He replied in badly
spoken standard, his translator struggling to make sense of the alcohol
induced slurring. "Isss leek yuu saa. There wasss noo better bonty honteer iin thees sectoor." "I beg to differ." The
voice came from the table in the next booth. "There was once a bounty hunter in
this sector, who would have wiped Boba Fett off of the face of this galaxy.
He just didn't care enough to do it." A powerfully built man leant
forwards into the light. They could see a careworn face and greying temples
but very little else. "You should
check out your local history, when you're sober." The man stood and
walked out of the bar, disappearing into the night. The two drunks looked at
each other, shrugged and continued drinking. Tarr
Ranth almost sprinted out of the bar. Why did he do this to himself? He was
sixty-six years old and he still wished he were living the life of a bounty
hunter. It wasn't as if he couldn't do that any more, he was fit, always had
an edge. Somehow, since he had managed to get involved in the Coruscant War
Trials, he had neglected his old arts. His father would be turning in his
grave if he had one! He didn't even wear his armour any more, preferring
instead hard wearing civilian casual clothes. What had he done to deny
himself his heritage? He knew what. The
girl. Jenna
Lee had been seventeen years old when she had been kidnapped from her family
on Corellia. Her father, a powerful industrialist, had raised a bounty of a
hundred thousand credits for her safe return. He stipulated that he would pay
another fifty thousand credits for the destruction of her kidnappers. Tarr
Ranth had accepted the bounty. The trail had led to an old mining colony,
deep within the heart of the Quarshannel Sector. By the time Ranth had got there, the girl
had been subjected to abuse and a bad beating. Tarr Ranth didn't ask the
kidnappers any questions. They fired, he responded. They paid dearly for their indiscretions.
Tarr Ranth returned the girl to her father the following week, after a good
physician had treated her. She didn't speak the whole time he was with her.
He had collected the bounty and walked away. Jenna Lee had been found dead
two days later, beaten, abused and mutilated. Her father had been arrested,
charged and convicted. It later turned out that it was he who had beaten her
previously. She had been kidnapped by members of her own family to try and
safeguard her life and her sanity. Tarr Ranth had wondered at the time why it
had taken so little effort to track them down. He knew then that he had been
in the job too long. He had forgotten to question the motives for the bounty.
He had just done the job. He had lost his own personal honour. The
lower levels of Coruscant were not one of the most pleasant environs. Filled
with scum and low life, it was just like any other part of the galaxy. The
only difference was that here, there were richer pickings. That, along with the
ever-growing threat of the Yuuzhan Vong made the situation even more urgent. The
two men walked quickly. Their bundle, wrapped tightly in a binding cloak, was
struggling furiously against her assailants. They pitched the woman into a
speeder and were about to jump in themselves when Tarr Ranth turned the
corner. He eyed up the situation in an instant, noticing the binding cloaks,
which were illegal on Coruscant, and went to draw his blaster. Too late he
realised he wasn't wearing one, by which time he had started running towards
the speeder and shouting at the drivers. They turned in his direction and
started to draw blasters. Reflexes, dulled by years of inactivity, were not
enough to dodge both blaster bolts. Tarr
Ranth lay bleeding on the street corner, just metres from the speeder. Before
loosing consciousness, and as the speeder started to pull away, he managed to
clip his comm unit onto the vehicles underside. Then
blackness. They
repaired the damage and reactivated some of the new nerve grafts. He was as
good as new and as frustrated as hell. The 2-1-C droid had refused to release
him until he had fully healed. Tarr Ranth walked out anyway. He knew more
than anybody else did the limitations of his own body. It took two hours to
track down the speeder. A rental. He should have known. The trail became
cold, but Tarr Ranth didn't give up. He never gave up. It had never been his
style before, and he couldn't understand why it had become his style of late.
He made a decision that it would never become his style again. How
had he known that he would need this again? Why had he maintained it? The
black armour hadn't been worn in anger
for a very long time. Many years ago he had developed it as a back up to his
own. He needed the edge it would give him now. The fit was a little snugger
than he would have liked, but even he had to admit he looked good in it. He
smiled to himself as he saw his reflection in the mirror. Good. It would put the fear of Gods
into anybody that saw him. The black armour gleamed. Where his eyes looked
out of the visor two strongly glowing lights could be seen, even up close
they looked like demonic eyes. They widened as his eyes widened and narrowed
as his eyes narrowed. They were an expensive effect. The
armour looked essentially the same as it had the day his father had died, but
there was one notable addition. The Lightsabre. He detached it, activating
its blade, moving into a defensive posture. His training, as a Jedi, had
begun only three years ago. His mentor and friend Blake De'Athe had insisted
that he needed to focus, learn and expand the abilities he had used
unknowingly for the majority of his lifetime. Skills that Ranth had used
instinctively now had to be re-learnt. Detection skills, his sixth sense,
combat skills, whatever Ranth had previously called them, all had to be honed
and focused. New names were applied to old abilities, and Tarr Ranth became a
humbler man. Then he had created the lightsabre and all had come into focus.
The circle his father had started became complete. Now Ranth felt like he had
a purpose again. Of course he hadn't always kept up the practice, but the
moves and instincts honed as a warrior and bounty hunter had come to him
naturally, without the use of the force. When he applied what little force
ability he thought he had, his ability to use the blade matched some of the
best. The
blade arced outwards, in a broad sweep, a fake parry, a twist and then it was
deactivated and re-attached. Yes, he was ready. As he left his quarters, he
thought absentmindedly what effect it would have on his ability when he
activated the armours full capability. The
rental vehicle sat where Ranth had left it. He had purchased it off of the
rental agency, intact, without it being cleaned. He went to work. Two
hours later he had four unique fibres, three DNA traces, one female, two
males, and a ticket receipt to a local opera. He started with the receipt. Within
an hour he had traced it to an apartment building in one of the richer areas
of Coruscant. The name on the payment details surprised him. The two male DNA
traces brought up a complete blank, but the remaining female trace was
registered to the same individual as the apartment. It surprised him. He
decided to wait until it was dark. What really bothered him was why he hadn't
heard about the kidnapping on the news. As
he approached the building, dressed in his full armour, he smiled to himself.
He activated the armour fully. Now he felt alive. His scanners told him that
there was a concierge in the foyer to the building and two guards, fully
armed, hidden behind each entrance pillar. He walked straight up to the
concierge. "My name is Tarr Ranth and I am a
licensed agent of the local law enforcement agencies. I require an audience
with Councillor Goran. Now." The
concierge, a rather slimy looking Twi'lek, looked at him with some scorn. "May I see your identification?"
He smirked. The two hidden guards drew their weapons, the energy signatures
lit up Ranth's scanners. As Tarr Ranth stood back from the counter and
reached towards his ID pass, one of the guards made a mistake and lost his
nerve. He fired at Tarr Ranth. The Lightsabre was ignited, had deflected the
blaster bolt and disarmed his opponent before the concierge had blinked. The
other guard lowered his weapon. The guard that had fired had received some
minor burns on his hand. Tarr Ranth threw him a small medpack.
He turned back to the Twi'lek. "Nervous isn't he? Now, if you
please, I would like to talk to the Councillor." Councillor
Goran greeted Tarr Ranth as any friend would, with a smile and a glass of
Duarga. He ushered Ranth to a seat, not asking why he had arrived, and handed
him a drink. Tarr Ranth removed his helmet before accepting the drink, and
the world became normal. He nodded to Goran. "When was she kidnapped?" He
came straight to the point. The councillor didn't know Ranth had seen the kidnapping, he wanted it to remain that way. Goran
frowned, his smile dropping from his face. "Last week. How did you find
out?" The slight note of suspicion in his voice betrayed his worry. Tarr
Ranth leaned forwards. "It doesn't matter. I want to help.
Any way I can, and as discreetly as you would like." Ranth patted his
lightsabre, drawing the councillors' attention to it. "I'm still in the
game, but I follow a different path now." He hoped that the Councillor
would believe he was a Jedi. He needed his trust. The
Councillor seemed to relax slightly, a weight lifting off of his shoulders. "My men on the door told me. Drax'l
described your little display. He's a reader, half Twi'lek; he can spot a
force sensitive from fifteen metres. Unfortunately that’s his only force
skill. He said he couldn't read you, so either you're lying, or that blasted
armour blocks him out. I'd prefer to think of it as the armour." He
paused and looked at Ranth. "I'll give you fifty thousand credits to
bring her back alive. What you do with her assailants is up to you. They want
one million for her safe return. I drop off the package tonight, they return
her tomorrow. I'm due to leave in an hour. If you want to help, do it after
the money is dropped off. If you fail." He paused, leaning towards his
old friend. "If you fail, and she dies because of your mistakes, nowhere
will be safe for you." He handed Tarr Ranth a picture from his pocket. "Keep the money old friend. I'll bring her back alive." Ranth stood up,
placing the glass on the table and replacing his helmet. Before exiting, he
took one last look back over his shoulder and stared at the councillor, his
voice lowering and becoming harder "If I find out that you've lied to me
Goran, in any small detail, I'll kill you myself." Tarr
Ranth had known the councillor since well before the death of Jenna. The man had been the judge at the trial of
her father. His summing up of the evidence, most of which had been
circumstantial, had swayed the Jury to convict her father. A confession from
her father, which he later retracted, had helped along matters. The
councillor left his apartments in a private skimmer. Tarr Ranth followed
using his repulsor belt and the occasional burst from his jetpack. From a
kilometre above him, Tarr Ranth's equipment tracked the councillor as if he
sat next to him. The drop off was made, in an air vent on top of a building,
and the councillor returned home. Tarr Ranth waited. Two
hours later, just before sunrise, a man picked up the package. The man was
about two metres in height, wore his hair long, and was driving a speeder
swoop. He fixed the case of high value jewels to his swoop, powered up the
engines, and burst up and out into the atmosphere. Tarr Ranth followed. This
guy was good, he avoided the traffic as if it no longer existed and nearly
lost Ranth on several occasions. Then, out of nowhere, a
YT-1500 transport dropped down in front of the swoop. A modified cargo door
opened on one side and the swoop pilot barrelled his craft inside with inches
to spare. Ranth's heart sank as he realised he wouldn't be able to match the
transports speed. Just as he was about to give up the chase, the ship looped
around and shot up in his direction. Taking advantage of the situation, he
powered off his repulsors and dropped. As the craft shot over him, he
released and shot out his magnetic line, snagging the craft. Within seconds
he was being dragged into the wash of the ships repulsors. Slowly, and
suffering a gut wrenching pull, he fought his way up the line. Using the
motors on the grapple, combining the force and brute strength, he managed to
attach himself to the hull just before the line gave way. He watched it
tumble away into the atmosphere. The
situation would have been grim to anyone else, but to Tarr Ranth it was pure
exhilaration. He hadn't felt so alive in almost a decade. He crawled around
the ship, using the molecular adhesive fields on his boots and gloves, all
the time avoiding view ports. He reached the top hatch and stopped - eight
metres from the hatch was the shield motivator. Tarr Ranth grinned to
himself. The
pilot of the Merry Crusader was a
Sullustian by the name of Silas D'Pat. He had been a member of Codel Drass's
crew for nearly a year now. He had loved his job up until this point, hoping
to work in it until he amassed his own giant fortune. Now he was worried. The
readings on the screens told a sorry tale. If they were correct then there
was only one way to fix the problem. He called his co-pilot and fellow swoop
jockey, Miko Trace on the in-ship communicator. "We have a problem that I need you to
fix. The shield power has dropped below hyperspace minimum." His Sullustian
warble sounded thin at the other end of the communicator. Miko
Trace sighed to himself and pressed the respond button. "Which one this time?" The
transport slowed as it reached the edge of space. Tarr
Ranths' suit could protect him in space for several hours before the oxygen
supply would be depleted. He crouched down behind the main antenna and waited
while the hatch opened. A figure appeared, wearing a beat up old spacesuit.
Turning his back to where Tarr Ranth was concealed, he headed towards the
sabotaged generator. The hatch started to close. Tarr Ranth made a calculated
leap and struggled through the opening in the hatch before it automatically
sealed. It started to auto cycle and soon the door opened. Tarr Ranth stood
out of sight, waiting for the barrage of laser fire. None
came. Using
his newly adapted force skills, he relaxed and tried to judge if anyone else
was aboard. He could feel only one
other life form, towards the front of the ship. Tarr Ranth stepped out of the
hatchway and activated the silencing field on his suit. It would give him
just enough time to get to the cargo areas before its power cell ran out. He
just hoped there weren't any droids aboard. Once in the cargo area he took
out a small package, about eighteen centimetres by ten centimetres, and
activated it. The small but powerful homing beacon was the key to his whole
plan. He found a suitable place to hide it on the swoop. A quick flick of his
wrist communicator, and his ship was ready to follow. Moving towards the front
of the ship he saw the airlock light turn from red to green. Damn! He thought,
I must be getting old. He sank back
towards the shadows of the old tramp freighters cargo area and waited.
Summoning up all that he had learnt about the force
he scanned the upper levels of the returning kidnappers mind, waiting for the
telltale surge of alarm that would indicate danger. None
came. He
heard the spacesuit being discarded, and footsteps walking away towards the
cockpit area. Brief seconds later there was a surge, and the freighter
entered hyperspace. Ten
minutes later the ship dropped out into normal space. Tarr Ranth wasn't
ready. He had replaced the powercell on his
silencing field. A new cell gave him about five minutes of silence. He would
wait until he needed it. He had hoped for more time to flesh out his plan of
action, now all he had was luck and instinct. Who was he kidding - he had the
Force. He moved towards the cockpit area and tapped into the ships' intercom
system. After isolating the correct frequencies he was able to listen in on
the cockpit banter. It
wasn't pleasant listening. "This is the Merry Crusader requesting permission to dock with Invader Base please respond."
There was the sound of space static and then the reply. "Invader
Base to Merry Crusader,
permission granted. Welcome back Miko! Did you manage to loose the old bounty
hunter?" Tarr
Ranth scowled. Why would the councillor betray him? His anger started to
rise. "Roger that. We nearly mowed him down
with one of Silas' barrel roles! I'll bet the old fool is still spinning from
the repulsor blast!" There was the sound of several people laughing,
some more general banter and the line was cut. Ranths fury started to take
hold of him, and before he could stop he found himself standing and clenching
his fists into tight rings around his lightsabre. He struggled to regain
equilibrium and called upon the calming effect of the Force. He relaxed.
Waiting for the ship to touch down, he then moved towards the cockpit. The
resulting firefight was brief and nearly fatal - for the crew. He left them
in need of serious medical attention. The glare filters to he
cockpit were raised, which meant that the craft must have needed to block out
some extreme starlight. Lucky for Ranth, it meant that nobody could see into
the ship, otherwise his plan would have rapidly turned to disaster. The
councillors com unit bleeped. "Yes!" The reply was sharper
than he had intended but got the desired result. "Sir, a craft has just exited
hyperspace near to the Invader. Its
markings and beacon identify it as the Dark
Star II. What should we do sir?" The councillor delayed his reply
for only a second. "Destroy it. Destroy it
completely." Solumni
Goran sat opposite her father. His face showed no emotion. Her face showed
only contempt. He turned his attention back to his daughter. "It’s a shame you discovered my
little operation in this sector. Why did you try to escape?" He leant
back into his seat. "You must have known what would happen to you?"
She
spat across the table, struggling furiously with the cuffs that bound her to
the chair. He said nothing but waited for her rage to subside a little. It
took ten full minutes. She stopped struggling and her shoulders stooped. He
smiled. She sobbed. "Bastard! How could you do that to
her! She wasn't even an adult! You'll never get away with it!" He
stood up sharply and slapped her hard across the face. "Oh, but I already have my dearest.
Her own family helped me. They hated the fact that their father had left
everything to her. I used them and Tarr Ranth. The old industrialist should
have sold me his holdings when I approached him. He paid the price for his
arrogance. So did she!" He walked around the
table, grabbed his daughters' face cruelly and twisted her head towards him.
"Soon my dear, you will be dead, and I will blame Tarr Ranths arrogance
for your demise. He will finally be broken, and any possibility of anyone
discovering my business interests
in this sector will be out of the picture. Permanently!" The
onboard computers and evasive programs did a good job evading the gun
platforms of the modified ISD Invader.
However, they could not evade them forever. No program could match the
instinct of an experienced cannon operator for very long. Tarr Ranth hadn't
used them for a long time and so they had lost some ability. The Dark Star II survived for ten
minutes, inflicting minor damage on seemingly redundant areas of the ship.
When she exploded, she took out the main docking tractor beam and half the
docking bay. It made an inspired distraction. Tarr Ranth briefly mourned the
loss of his ship; he had known her since birth, but took some comfort in the
knowledge that her systems were duplicated on Correllia.
She had performed her job well, once he had sent her the brief coded
instructions from the cockpit of the Merry
Crusader. He had used the time she had gained him to work his way into
the star destroyers systems. He used a mixture of force ability and computing
skills to track down the location of the councillor. Luckily he had not had
to travel very far. Soon he was outside the room where he sensed, rather than
reasoned, that the councillor had stationed himself. Bringing his armours
power systems up to full, he scanned the interior. Thermal energy readings
provided the positions of four individuals. One seated, two standing
motionless and one pacing back and forth. He heard shouting, and raised the
audio sensor, pointing it towards the door. He froze when he heard the
conversation. Councillor
Goran released the face of his daughter, and moved over towards one of the
guards stationed next to her. He unclipped the mans
blaster and motioned both men away from his daughter. He moved around in
front of her and raised the blaster. Half a metre separated the end of the
barrel and her face. She visibly blanched. He sneered. "You know, if you'd have been a male,
I would have eventually have allowed you to join my little empire. Now you
are no more use to me than space dust." He dropped the blaster to his
side, looked her straight in the eyes, and she could see no mercy. "I'm sorry my dear." He started
to raise the gun, and time slowed. The
detonite charge blew the door off of its hinges,
straight towards the councillor. It struck him dead centre, knocking the gun
out of his hand, and throwing him over the table. He was unconscious. Three
smoke canisters fell into the room and within seconds there was no
visibility. The one armed guard raised his weapon, but had nothing to shoot
at. A green glow approached him through the smoke. He fired at the seemingly
disembodied lightsabre blade and was felled by his own shot. Solumni felt the
binders on her hands release and was soon being herded around the desk
towards the doorway. Coughing and spluttering from the smoke fumes, she
emerged into the corridor, closely followed by Tarr Ranth. He turned his
visor towards her. "I presume you have evidence of your fathers wrong doing?" She
nodded between coughs. "Good, stick close to me and we'll be
out of here in no time at all." He released a small hold out blaster
from his belt and handed it to her. She was starring at his still activated
lightsabre. "I'd prefer if you shot to wound or
stun, but I'll leave that to your conscience." He started to walk off down
the corridor. She followed three paces behind. Getting
to the Merry Crusader was not easy.
The crew had been discovered only seconds after Tarr Ranth had freed Solumni
Goran. Even with the use of the force, and his armour, he would have found it
nearly impossible to return to the freighter. However, Tarr Ranth had
carefully charted the route back to the hanger. He had also prepared some
seriously explosive surprises for anyone that would hinder him. The girl
helped as well. She was an excellent shot, and showed no fear or loss of
control under pressure. He found himself enjoying her company and it reminded
him of old times in the Setnin Sector. It was funny, he reminded himself, that years ago, he might have been the one trying to stop
the escape. He smiled at that thought, but was brought quickly out of his
reverie as a blaster bolt broke his guard and impacted upon his armour chest
plate. It knocked him backwards. There was no discernible damage to his
systems, but it caused Tarr Ranth to focus more upon the present. Now his
attackers assumed they had scored a victory and were starting to become more
confident in their approach. He knew it would be only a matter of time before
the confines of the corridor opened out into the main hanger area. There, they
would be sitting ducks. He pressed a couple of studs on his wrist
communicator, and hoped that the cockpit to the Merry Crusader had not been searched. Then, right on cue, he
heard the build up of repulsors and sublight
engines in the hanger ahead of him. He powered up his repulsor pack and
started to charge the rocket pack. "Solumni, stop firing and run towards
me, I'll cover you!" The
young girl nodded and dashed across the corridor as Tarr Ranth holstered his
lightsabre and activated the energy weapons on his suit. His blaster shot up
into his hand and he took out two men in two shots. Using the neural link on
his suit, he activated the jetpack and shot towards Solumni. She took his cue
and leapt up towards him. With a little aid from the force and some fancy
flying he caught her in mid flight. They shot out into the hanger. The Merry Crusader was hovering, modified
cargo bay open, ready for his entry. Thirty seconds later, after a volley of
intense laser fire, he landed heavily on the cargo bay floor. Solumni groaned
as she nursed a bruised shoulder and several torn muscles. Not taking time to
check on his charge, he hit the closing stud on the bay door and dashed
towards the cockpit. Fifteen seconds later he was flying out of the Invader towards clear space. Looping
around the star destroyer, he scanned the ship and found two areas that had
not been repaired since the attack of the Dark
Star II. Changing the angle of his deflector shields he powered up the
two concussion bombs that this small freighter possessed, and swooped in for
the kill. One bomb took out the already damaged shields,
the second took out the main outflow exhaust to the ships reactor. Blake
De'Athe was returning from a test run on his new ship, the Twisted Sabre when he picked up the
distress beacon from the Dark Star II.
Recognising his friends' ident code he plotted a
course that would allow him to reach the ship within minutes. What he saw,
when he arrived, was astounding. A crippled star destroyer was falling slowly
into the gravity well of the Coruscant sun. Hundreds of small ships and
escape pods were shooting away from the ships surface, and one ship in
particular was doing a good job of disabling as many as possible. He started
to reach out with the force but was interrupted by his com board lighting up.
He flicked a switch. "Hello Blake, what took you so
long?" "So you see, when the exhaust from
the reactor got destroyed, there was nowhere for the charged plasma to vent.
It caused a chain reaction and half of the ships systems were wiped out in
one go!" Solumni
Goran was taking great pleasure in telling her friends just how they had
escaped the star destroyer. The party she was hosting was in aid of the
victims of her fathers twisted justice, and she had
invited the Jedi friends as honoured guests. Tarr Ranth was looking a little
embarrassed at all the attention, so Blake decided to go over to his old
friend and rescue him. After making his friends excuses he managed to pull
him away to the bar. "Have you thought any more about the
invite from Nias?" Blake
looked his friend in the eyes and answered honestly. "I have but I don't think I'll be
going. I know it's still a couple of months away, but it wouldn't feel right.
Besides, I still feel guilty about the pain I caused everyone." Ranth
nodded his understanding, but persisted nonetheless. "It wasn't your fault. Your ex-disciple was a twisted
individual. You couldn't have
known." Blake
changed the subject, by turning the question around. "What about you. Have you decided
yet?" Ranth
smiled at Blake. "I'll be there, after I've picked up
Goran. The senate has raised a bounty of fifty thousand credits. He is wanted
for over six hundred individual crimes and nearly sixty wrongful
incarcerations. It will be my last bounty for a while." At
this Blake smiled and patted his friend on the shoulders. "You've been a Jedi for most of your
life, whether you knew it or not. Your father was a great teacher, and so was
your career. I hope that you never turn to the dark side my friend, for I
suspect that even the great Luke Skywalker would find you difficult to put
down!" At
this both men laughed, then they re-joined the party. Redemption 2000 short story by Louis Turfrey Twenty-seven years after Episode IV - A New Hope Histories - Set twenty-seven years after Star Wars - A New Hope,
this Louis Turfrey story tells of
the attempts by the bounty hunter Tarr
Ranth to explore his Jedi heritage and learn more from the saved dark Jedi Blake De'Athe. Set at the same time as the Yuuzhan Vong push upon Coruscant and the New Republic this is a
dangerous place for Ranth to be. Cast of
Characters Tarr
Ranth Blake
De'Athe Councillor
Goran Jenna
Lee Solumni
Goran Miko
Trace Drax'l Silas
D'Pat
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