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“Commander.”
Crosshair glanced up from his datapad at his subordinate slowly. ES-04 stood in the recently empty doorway, helmet missing, her eyes wide. She was breathing heavily, he noted a moment later, and her eyes were darting urgently from place to place. Something was wrong.
“What is it?” He stood slowly, flicking his datapad off and setting it down in his seat.
“ES-03 reports the ship is malfunctioning.” She reported, glancing back at the cockpit once more.
Crosshair’s eyes narrowed, and he stepped past her, out the door. “What do you mean, malfunctioning?” He asked over his shoulder, striding towards the cockpit as ES-04 hurried to follow him.
“It’s reporting that we’re suddenly out of fuel.” ES-04 informed him, her voice uneasy. Crosshair’s eyes narrowed ever further as he reached the cockpit door of the small ship. It slid open in front of him, revealing his other subordinates all present and gathered around the controls.
“You’re certain that you refueled it at the last stop?” ES-05 was asking, standing right in front of the fuel gauge, blocking it from Crosshair’s view.
ES-03 was seated in the pilot seat as he nodded furiously, flicking various switches - most of them attempts to save power, Crosshair catalogued after a moment. “How could I possibly forget the whole reason that we landed?”
ES-02, the only one who seemed to have heard the cockpit door slide open, turned and saluted sharply. She wasn’t wearing her helmet either - none of them were, kriffing nat-borns - though he’d seen them stacked in a corner when he’d stepped in. “Sir.” ES-03 spun in his chair at ES-02’s voice, paling slightly, and ES-05 hurriedly stepped away from the console, making room for Crosshair to step up to the panels.
“The fuel gauge suddenly reported that the second tank is empty, sir.” ES-03 informed Crosshair, saluting in his seat. “I refueled it at our last stop, but it’s somehow empty far too early. There might have been a leak.”
“Almost certainly.” Crosshair said flatly, moving to the navigation console. He’d noticed they’d stopped out of hyperspace oddly early, but he hadn’t bothered to question it. ES-03 tended to be a rather reliable pilot, especially when compared to the dimwits Crosshair had been saddled with up till Kamino. If he’d known killing his former squad would get him a better one, he’d have shot the lot of them a kriffing lot earlier.
On the star map, Crosshair checked the areas around the ship for the nearest planet. “We’ll have to land, then.” His displeasure was evident in his voice. They would be expected at their destination shortly, and delays were entirely unwanted.
ES-03 nodded sharply. “Yes sir.”
Rather unhelpfully, they were in the Outer Rim, in a stretch of planets that official Empire records listed as abandoned. There would be nowhere to refuel there. This would mean they would have to land the ship and then comm the Empire for a pick up before their rations ran out. Crosshair tapped the screen, zooming into the nearest planet. “Land here.” He ordered, before staring out the cockpit in the direction of the planet. “It’s that way.”
Accordingly, ES-03 started to steer the ship in the direction Crosshair had pointed. Crosshair ignored ES-05, who had opened his mouth to question how precisely Crosshair knew that, before closing his mouth again, apparently deciding that was unwise.
But the moment ES-03 began the turn, Crosshair knew instantly something was wrong. The ship was in low-power mode, so the steering was expected to be slightly sluggish, but it was almost entirely unresponsive. ES-03 noted this also, as his eyes widened, and he started checking over the ship’s systems. The low fuel warning had begun to flash a warning red light at them, an irritating beeping accompanying it.
“Is that all this is turning?” ES-02 squinted out the plexiglass, before shooting a worried look at ES-03. “There’s no way we can turn that far if the steering is shot.” ES-04 and ES-05 shifted in the background, but thankfully remained quiet.
Crosshair considered the issue for a moment. ES-02 was correct, the turn they needed to make was impossible with the steering like this. “Not if we use the engines to steer.” He said slowly. It was a technique that he’d seen Tech his squad’s pilot do when the steering was broken repeatedly over the war, and although he was no excellent pilot, he was almost certainly more capable at doing that than ES-03, who had never seen it before.
ES-03 shot him a startled look over his shoulder before continuing to check the diagnostic. The scan of the steering system he pulled up had a host of red, reporting that it was almost entirely broken. “Do you think we can do that without spiralling out of control?” He asked, visibly nervous.
Crosshair narrowed his eyes at the fuel, and then at the distance they’d have to cross. It’d be cutting it close, but he’d rather crashland on a planet than be stuck in space with no fuel. The latter was a one-way route to likely starvation, while the former offered more options to survive until the Empire would send a ship for them. The landing wouldn’t be comfortable, but he should be able to do it.
“Yes.” He said decisively, not giving any hint of the uncertainty he felt. There was no point making the nat-borns panic, or they’d probably do something unwise. “I can do it.”
ES-02’s eyes were narrowed at him when he glanced her way. “You have a piloting certification?”
“Yes.” Crosshair answered flatly. “And I’ve seen this technique in action before.” She raised an eyebrow, but said nothing to that, glancing back out in the direction of the planet.
“Can we repair anything while we’re moving?” ES-04 asked from behind. Crosshair knew they couldn’t, but he let ES-02 consider it before the nat-born shook his head.
“It wouldn’t work.” He sighed. “Most of the steering system is on the outside of the ship, and we can’t reach that.” He exhaled sharply, then turned his attention to Crosshair. “If you’re going to use the engines to steer, you should probably do that now, before we run out of fuel.”
Crosshair gave him a firm nod, and ES-03 unbuckled himself, moving over to the co-pilot chair. Crosshair took his seat, glancing carefully over the controls. He’d never actually flown this model - he was trained on Republic ships, and Imperial ships were slightly different - but he wasn’t going to tell the nat-borns that. Behind them, he could hear them getting into seats before he’d had to order them to. At least they had that much sense.
He turned the steering slightly experimentally, and it barely had any effect under his hands, too. He hadn’t doubted ES-03, but it was good to check…
Then he turned his attention to the engines. The auxiliary engines were already off, leaving only the main ones on opposite ends. There wasn’t much fuel left, so they were already on a low setting.
This would be incredibly delicate work to make it to the planet without running out of fuel or overshooting it. Slowly, he shifted the right engine’s fuel intake down. For a moment, nothing happened, and Crosshair’s eyes narrowed. If the engines were damaged, then there would be no way they got to the planet in one piece.
But a moment later, the shift responded, beginning to arc slowly towards the left. Crosshair moved the fuel intake back up a tiny amount, and the arc slowed enough for him to map an accurate trajectory towards the planet. He’d have to turn the engine back up when they got closer to avoid overshooting it, but as long as he wasn’t distracted, it would be fine.
He noted a few moments later that ES-03 was leaning forward in his seat, squinting in the direction of the planet. Clearly, his inferior vision wasn’t seeing the planet they were aiming at, and that was making him nervous. The rest of the nat-borns were quiet for once, also staring out the plexi-glass nervously.
It took a few tense minutes of silence for ES-03 to relax and lean back, presumably seeing the planet they were aiming at. Crosshair adjusted the engines slightly, cutting a bit from the left engine so they wouldn’t make too much of a turn.
“We’re entering the gravitational pull.” ES-03 read off a sensor, before wincing slightly. “This - is a really absurdly dense planet.”
Crosshair, eyes narrowed, scanned the same readings, before his jaw tensed. He flicked back over to the Imperial information and noted that the gravitational potential that his sensors noted was far higher than the one reported for this planet. He’d calculated his trajectory with the incorrect gravity numbers in mind, which would mean that their trajectory wouldn’t be approaching the planet at an angle - but rather, heading straight at it.
He cursed quietly, increasing the power to the right engine to try and balance the forces, but a moment later, the ship shuddered around him. The low fuel beeping had gotten more intense, though he’d been ignoring it, and there was hardly anything left in the fuel tanks.
This was not going to be a good landing.
He cut down the power to both engines as much as possible without shutting the engines down, trying the steering of the ship again - but it was still unresponsive. The gravity’s force was getting stronger on them as it loomed large in the windshield, and the chance of crashing straight into the planet was increasing quickly by the second. How the nat-borns hadn’t noticed this was beyond him, but he was hardly going to tell them this was going wrong.
—
“We’ve got an unidentified ship heading towards the planet, sir.”
Rex crossed the room to the sensors in seconds, Echo hurrying behind him. The clone monitoring the scanners, an experienced vod named Brass, nodded to them as they approached.
“It’s clearly Imperial in design.” Brass said flatly, pointing at the scans of the approaching ship, before turning his attention to the ship’s trajectory relative to the planet. “And they’ve also clearly planned their trajectory around the incorrect gravitational numbers, so it’s not one of ours.”
Rex nodded sharply. “Is it going to crash? And if so, is it near the base?”
Brass frowned, considering it for a second. “Not very close,” he decided. “But not too far. Close enough that if they try, they might locate this base. You should probably make sure there are no survivors.” Rex nodded grimly.
Hacking into the Imperial system to place false information about the planet had been one of their first methods of security from the Empire. Almost every ship that didn’t know the true data of the planet had crashed, with very few survivors over all. It was one thing to try to land on a planet, but entirely another to try and land on a planet with a gravity that was almost three times more than expected.
Making sure that none of the Imperials that had managed to land lived long enough to send back any accurate information about it was another. Their jammers extended to where the gravity started to kick in, so when the Imperials would notice something was wrong, they wouldn’t be able to contact anyone.
Brass was still intently staring at the scanners. “This ship doesn’t appear to have functioning engines.” He informed them after a few moments of silence as Rex checked for any other ships approaching. “Or at least they’re not in use. It’s practically being dragged in by only gravity to crash pretty badly.”
Rex nodded once more. “Good.” He answered flatly. “I’ll lead a search party to eliminate any threats. Comm me the coordinates.” Brass nodded, his focus mostly upon the scanners.
Rex turned sharply, almost running into Howzer as the clone approached them. “There’s an Imperial ship approaching, and it’ll crash near the base.” Rex informed him, and Howzer grimaced, nodding. “Can you get a search and destroy party ready in five?”
“Certainly.” Howzer agreed, already raising his comm to contact some of the other clones on the base.
—-
Lights were flashing all around the console, bright, red, and distracting. He could feel light intensity beginning to trigger a headache, though he ignored it completely. At least three alarms were blaring also, half-drowning out the startled and panicked shouts of his squad further back in the cockpit. They’d finally noticed something was going wrong when an alarm had started to blare, alerting them to the engines being completely out of fuel.
The ground was looming up ahead of them, covered entirely in a tall forest. Trees were the only thing visible all around them, and although he’d been trying to find a place that might be decent to land (crash) in, there was nothing except trees around him.
The altitude was falling quickly now that the engines were no longer firing, and Crosshair was just trying to force the broken steering to level the ship out enough to try and limit the plummeting headlong towards the planet. It was entirely unsuccessful.
Behind him, someone was screaming. Someone else was cursing loudly in a rather impressively varied vocabulary. In the edge of his vision, he could see ES-03 clutching his seat tightly, staring at the rapidly approaching ground in horror.
Altitude: 1000 kilometers.
Crosshair swore under his breath, scanning the panel for any sort of emergency features. The Marauder ship he’d taken in the war had quite a few for emergency crashes, but this appeared to have none.
Instead, he tried to level the ship, so the nose would no longer be plunging towards the ground at such a high speed. This was slightly successful, although he yanked at the controls far harder than he should and the ship jerked upwards with a loud rattle.
“You trying to kill us?” One of the kriffing nat-borns shouted.
Altitude: 750 kilometers.
Slowly, keeping his hands steady despite the adrenaline, Crosshair leveled the ship out more to increase the air resistance to hopefully slow the ship down. The acceleration sensor did level out slightly, but it wasn’t enough to make a noticeable difference.
Altitude: 500 kilometers.
More alarms blared.
The lights almost felt blinding now.
His head throbbed from the forces exerting themselves on it. The buckles keeping him in the seat felt strained almost too bursting by the force.
Altitude: 250 kilometers.
His vision went black for a moment. Crosshair blinked it away.
Then he yanked the leveling control to tilt the nose away from the ground.
Altitude: 100 kilometers.
The ship rolled in response, head over heels. He’d pulled the control too hard.
Altitude: 50 kilometers.
He tried to even it out.
It was too late.
Altitude: 0 kilometers.
CRASH!