Beyond - Legends Simple Heroism (Repost/Rewrite, NJO, OC)

Title: Simple Heroism
Author: Whiskers
Summary: Not all battles are grand and galaxy-changing, an Ithorian Jedi learns on a besieged passenger liner.

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A harsh alien language snarled orders down the hall, forcing the Ithorian to run faster. His jumpsuit, custom made to fit his anatomy, made the tactical retreat much easier than his normal attire; a fact that he was thankful for. His race was usually known as a physically slow and calculating group, but the Force aided his movements now.

Orren stopped three meters away from the corner that he had just crossed, the eyes on the top of his hammer-shaped head studying the bulkheads in front of him; analyzing if they could withstand the pressure of the attack that would follow. Not that it really mattered, he thought. The civilians aboard this luxury space-liner were almost completely evacuated, leaving the majority of the living things on this ship to be him and the Yuuzhan Vong warriors assaulting it. His mind spun slightly as he remembered the opening days of the invasion three years previously. His own home planet had been reduced to nothing but ashes by a Vong bioweapon and his father was killed during the defense when a razor sharp insect thrown by one of the invaders imbedded itself in his throat.

It had taken all he could to not to fall into the trap of despair and lash out at invaders in a very un-Jedi like blaze of hatred and anger. Even now his mind burned, tempting him to give in to his fear. He shook the thought aside. The dark side was no friend of his, nor would it ever be.

There was another snarl in the alien language, only the word “Jeedai” being intelligible to his ears. They were closer now, only a few seconds away from turning the corner and then be in range for their strange ranged weaponry. He shut his lightsaber off and quickly placed it on his belt. There was only one way to be able to gain an advantage and fend them off. They couldn’t be felt in the Force, or be affected by it. He had found that out before Ithor, but only truly learned the lesson that night.

He took a few breathes, each one of them growing progressively deeper. The fourth time, he sucked in all of the air that he could muster in, all four of his throats siphoning the thick air into his lungs. Seven Yuuzhan Vong warriors entered his line of sight. Like almost all of the other warriors of their kind they wore a living suit of armor that was incredibly resistant to lightsabers compared to the normal armoring that Orren and the rest of the Jedi had encountered. The leader of the squad was a mosaic of ritual scars and tattoos, his long black hair tied back in a topknot.

A disturbingly similar looking insect was hurled towards Orren; the Ithorian’s enhanced combat senses making the speedy projectile move in slow motion as it spun its way like a discus towards him. It reached halfway before Orren let out all of the air that he had inhaled in a Force-enhanced scream. A loud, low-pitched drone emitted from his twin mouths, overwhelming the Yuuzhan Vong. A thin trail of dark blood leaked out of their ears as their eardrums ruptured. The razor bug began to slow down in his vision before changing direction. The living weapon flapped its wings desperately to avoid being carried back by the force of the wind against it to avail. The bug was carried away by the force of Orren's bellowing, slamming into the forehead of the warrior that had thrown it.

The surviving Vong braced themselves against the floor, but were soon carried away. Their bodies slammed against the bulkhead behind them, a cracking sound audible over the impact.

Orren stopped as he exhausted his supply of air, breathing heavily for the briefest of moments before removing his lightsaber from his belt and igniting it. A blue beam of light illuminated the previously dimmed room as the Ithorian Jedi struck a combat stance. Three of the original five Yuuzhan Vong warriors stood up, slightly dizzy from the effects of the devastating bellow that had just thrown them into the wall. Two of their fellow warriors had died in the attack, the other one’s neck having been broke when he had hit the wall at an awkward angle. They raised their amphistaffs and charged towards the infidel wielding the energy weapon that was the ultimate insult to their race.

Orren gathered up as much Force power as he could, focusing it inside of him. He knew that the Force couldn’t affect the Vong, but he did know that he could use it to improve himself. His limbs felt lighter and somehow stronger, head clearer. The first warrior approached a snarl on his lips. Orren sent his lightsaber into a wide arc that was blocked by the serpentine weapon. The snake head at the end of the weapon hissed at him and unleashed a globule of venom that missed the Ithorian Jedi by a few centimeters. Orren moved his head out of the way of another amphistaff headed his way. The wind disturbed from the missed slice blew across Orren’s face as the Ithorian fell back a step.

He feigned a strike at the lead warrior who brought his staff up to block his strike. Orren changed his attack to a thrust that pierced the hard armor and went deep into the flesh of the Yuuzhan Vong warrior. The impaled Vong warrior slid off of the lightsaber and onto the ground, quickly being replaced by the other Yuuzhan Vong.

A well-timed attack by the second Vong warrior that was left opened up a several centimeter-long gash in his left arm. The pain welled up in his body, forcing Orren to do his best to try and suppress it as long as he could. He had to survive this combat, the few civilians on the ship that hadn’t been able to evacuate needed him to cover their escape the best that he could. He fell back slightly, sending a couple of half-hearted strikes toward the Vong warriors as they followed. The lead warrior brought his staff low against his guard, but Orren blocked it. The Vong swung his weapon back to take another strike and the Ithorian took advantage of the opening, sending a quick arc towards the neck and was rewarded with a swift decapitation. The dead Vong's head rolled down the hallway while its body took a few reflexive steps forward before toppling down.

One left, Orren thought. The last survivor twirled his amphistaff as he readying himself for the duel. His ears had to have been ringing from the assault minutes previously, but his will to fight and to kill had not been broken. Orren was tired from the fight and the run previously, and breathed in as much oxygen that he could. In his mind he could remember his first taste of hand-to-hand combat outside of Yavin IV: an Aqualish crimelord with a penchant for vibrobayonets had left several scars across his body before a Twi’lek Jedi was able to take him down. There were no allies here with him now, though.

Orren blocked the first attack that was aimed at him, the Ithorian Jedi resolving himself to fight this battle on the defensive. He deflected a few more strikes before finally making one of his own, a sideways swing that simply burned a gash in the living armor worn by his opponent. Several more ripostes from the Vong followed, each one of them ending on the edge of Orren’s lightsaber.

Two pinpricks of pain shot through Orren’s right arm as he blocked another attack, followed by a painful burning. Orren looked at the sight of the wound to see two fang marks and a hissing snake head backing away before straightening itself out at the end of the amphistaff. He knew what was stored in those fangs, having seen friends die slowly because of the poison inside of them. There was also no way to nullify it via the Force. The toxin, much like all other bits of the Yuuzhan Vong biotechnology, could not be effected by the Force.

Orren swung his lightsaber diagonally, finally hitting the Vong warrior and splitting him in two. As the dead warrior collapsed, the Ithorian breathed out a tremendous sigh of relief. His head began to feel light from the poison, but it did not damage his will. The civilians, he thought.

He walked the few meters towards a heavily sealed access hatch and used a simple manipulation of the Force to open it. From the inside, he could hear a panicked scream and the sound of cloth rustling. “Don' be afraid,” he said, trying to calm down the hiding survivors. Already, his own head was spinning with the effects of the poison. He needed to enter a healing trance soon. “I’m a Jedi. We need to get you all out of here.”

The civilians quickly—yet cautiously—filed out of their hiding place, seeing their rescuer leaning up against the bulkhead. They carried weaponry, but it was civilian grade only. Orren doubted that they could even remotely harm a Vong save for getting a lucky shot in the head.

“Are you okay, Master Jedi?” one of them—a teenaged human by the looks of him—said as he saw the wounds on Orren’s body.

“He’s been bitten!” a middle-aged woman carrying a stun baton said a few seconds later. “Poison..”

Orren nodded. “I don’t know if I can make it to my ship under my own power,” he said. “I may need some of you to help me.” Already he could feel his legs get weak.

“How many of those Vong are on the ship?” a female Rodian asked.

“15," Orren said. "Not in this area, though." The time to enter a healing trance to speed his body's own attempt to neutralize the poison was fast approaching. He looked at the civilians as they walked towards his shuttle, feeling that none of them likely knew how to pilot it or even set a course to hyperspace.

The group of survivors walked through the hallways, the lights constantly flickering due to the damage that the ship had received when the Yuuzhan Vong landing party had first attacked it. Orren was supported by two of the stronger civilians as the poison sapped the strength out of him.

Orren’s ship was a modified Lambda-class shuttle. A few extra guns had been installed on its two folding wings, along with an upgraded engine that made it a few minutes faster in realspace and a new Hyperdrive that shaved a couple of hours off of most long distance trips. A few other ships lay unattended in the hangar as their owners had made use of the escape pods or had fallen to the amphistaffs of Vong warriors. A remote located in one of Orren’s pockets opened up the entrance ramp of shuttle, filling the survivors and the wounded Jedi with a little bit more hope than they had previously.

A savage sounding pounding game from an adjacent, powered down door as they neared the shuttle. A fierce and bestial roaring emerged as the sound of claws upon metal grated the ears of those in the hangar bay. “They’ve found us!” a panicked cry emerged from a few of the surviving humans, causing them to half-drag the wounded Jedi towards the ship.

Three quarters of the way to the ship, the door gave way. An ear-assaulting howl reverberated throughout the hangar bay, causing those with their hands free to cover their ears from the sound of it. Out of the mangled and wrecked door stepped a beast that none of them had seen before in their lives. Six tall legs stretched its height to almost a full meter, greenish-black scales covered the long and muscular body, catching the flickering lights menacingly. Thick bristles traced along the creature’s spinal column before reaching a powerful looking tail.

Two of the surviving humans turned to face their new attacker and opened fire with their blaster pistols. The blue bolts soared through the air and quickly struck the creature in its canine-porcine face. The powerful scales absorbed the bolts with no effort, barely even making the creature angry. A growl escaped the toothsome maw of the beast as it pounced towards the two pesky humans who saw fit to stand in the way between it and its real prey.

“Sithspit, one of those things killed my wife!” the male human who had been carrying Orren cried out as the entrance ramp closed in front of him. Groggily looking towards him from the pilot’s chair, Orren blinked his eyes in empathy.

“She is with the Force now,” he said, his voice barely more than a whisper. A slick sheen of perspiration covered his head, the obvious result of the fever that burned throughout his body. “Let's not join her.” With the press of a button, the somewhat computer savvy Orren deactivated the containment field from within his own ship. The air rushed out of the hangar, taking the still hungry beast with it, the mad creature clawing superficial wounds into the hull of the shuttle as it went.

His mind now reeling, Orren piloted the shuttle out of the hangar, his tenous grip on the control panel causing the ship to tilt and pitch wildly. Thoughts swam in and out of his consciousness as he programmed the navicomputer. Where were they supposed to go again? Yavin 4? No, he thought.. The Jedi Praxeum on Yavin 4 had been destroyed months ago. Ossus? The thought surprised him. Why would they need to go to there? It was a completely dead planet. “Coruscant…” he finally muttered, letting the Force guide his hand to select the New Republic’s capital world. With what strength he could currently muster, the Ithorian Jedi pulled the lever, activating the Hyperdrive and sending them off to their destination. “Medbay…” he whispered to his companions, two of which helped carry him towards an offset bunk near the main quarters of the shuttle. Following his barely coherent instructions in setting up an IV that supplied basic nutrition to him. With a waking word given to the group, Orren collapsed into a Force trance.

"Do you think he'll be all right?" one of the men that had helped place the Ithorian in the converted cargo hold that served as a medbay.

"He better be," the other said. "Otherwise we're stranded."

Inside of the trance was a nightmare. The poison and the Force combined, creating a surreal landscape of bio-organic walls melding with durasteel. Open to the Force, using it to heal his own body, he felt a light burning in the distance. Despite being around the same age, he had never really known the being in question, but he could distinguish who it was. Anakin Solo. Somewhere, sometime, Anakin Solo burning through the Force. The light dimmed and flickered before finally extinguishing, taking the landscape in Orren's mind with it and replaced it with the large blue ocean that he visualized the Force as when he meditated..

The tidal wave of the young Solo's death moved through the Force, followed only by quiet. In this quiet, Orren's consciousness sat. How long he would have to remain in the trance he didn't know, but he could already sense his body's nervous system fighting the venom.

 

Quite an emotionally charged piece.

Very nice read. Great lightsabre and amphistaff choreography, which is not easy.

Would suggest a line having the survivors entering the shuttle, rather than two humans open fire on beast, then suddenly everyone is inside.

Nice job overall.

 

We've all read and seen stories about the major heroes during the Vong War, but I wanted to shrink the perspective to a less than powerful Jedi and simple people in the galaxy caught up in an absolute hell.

The amphistaves present a unique challenge in that they are a living, serpentine creature that a trained wielder can and will use to an advantage. That's why I added the staff spitting poison towards Orren's eyes during the fight and going limp to bite him. There was also an idea I had about the staff wrapping itself around the lightsaber, but I thought of it too late to add in my rewrite/edit.

I probably should have made it clear that the two survivors that turned to shoot at the voxyn would have been the last two in the ship if they hadn't died. I imagine the true final survivors seeing the beast maul the other two and then pressing the button for the ramp to close as quick as they could.

Thanks for reading, Sith. I'm glad you enjoyed it!

 

Wow, how did I miss this one? Excellent work! Great action scenes, and a poignant ending.

 

No worries. I wanted the action scenes to really flow, so I hope that I was able to properly do that. Thanks for reading!

 

If you mean around the energy blade, I am glad you did not; that would have been a Jump the Shark moment for me, regardless of the physics.

 

See, I actually think that it would be a cool thing to see. That's just my opinion, though.

 

Edge of seat action & genuine heroism.

 

I really wanted the title to be two-fold: a no-name, middle of the road Jedi facing off against an alien species that has killed countless of his kind, as well as the normal people who were just enjoying a cruise a few days previously standing up to the same. Thanks for reading, Nyota.