Towards the Voice
Corik headed down the hall toward the voices and where he figured Jethra must have gone. He found Jethra stopped at what appeared to be the door to the hangar. However, missing from it was a hole about 5 feet in diameter. The edges were charred and still glowing hot; only a few bits and pieces of metal remained on the floor below. Where did it all go? He knew whatever did this was no mere blaster; in fact he didn’t know a gun that could literally incinerate metal to such an extent.
Shrugging his shoulders, he and Jethra stepped through the hole and into the hangar bay. He looked around to see the enormous size of the facility, almost three quarters of it unoccupied where goods, equipment, and landing gear normally lay.
He heard nothing of the voices from before, and saw nothing either. What he did see was a few fighters still docked in the back of the hangar. Again, Jethra was off before Corik had a chance to say anything.
He followed, and both made their way in and out of the shelves of ship docking areas. If anyone was around, this would at least keep them largely unseen. They eventually got to the first shelf with a ship.
This one was different. It was painted black, with a yellow ‘C’ imprinted on its sides. Crates were stacked behind it, the only crates he had seen in the entire hangar facility. He was just about to head on to the next ship when he heard something behind him.
He turned around, but seeing nothing turned back. Ahead of him were now two new faces. One was a well built man over 6’5”. The other was much shorter, somewhere around 5’5”, but still seemed strong. The two men wore black and gray robes with hoods that concealed their visages. Peering at their belts Corik saw something that caught him off guard: lightsabers. The weapons of Jedi knights. Corik knew only from stories how the weightless beam of light could cut seamlessly through almost any substance, except another lightsaber. He now had an explanation for the hole in the hangar door.
What he saw next was most disturbing. Jethra was being held tightly around the neck by the taller of the two men. His friend’s face seemed mortified. He turned to the smaller one as he spoke.
“So you really thought you could escape?” he said. “This planet, like many others before it, is being looted and erased, all at my command. I have more power in the tips of my fingers than you could possibly imagine. Observe.” The man snapped his fingers, and the taller Jedi released his grip on Jethra as he grabbed his saber. In a flash, before Corik could blink, his friend lay on the ground, a hole pierced in his chest.
Corik, in the midst of his unrivaled devastation and agony, stared at the two Jedi. His eyes, though blurred by tears, caught a hint of a grin on the shorter one’s face.
Just then a colossal noise boomed in Corik’s ears as flames burst out of the ceiling above. Huge chunks of debris landed all around, and the Jedi sped away from the scene in a blink of an eye. Flaming metal landed all around and on top of Jethra’s remains. After everything had settled, Corik realized the hangar was being bombed.
He needed to get a grip of himself and get out. After glancing at the controls he hit the ignition switch and strapped himself in. The fighter hovered to life and levitated about 4 feet off the ground. Grabbing the lever in front of him, he pulled back and slammed the afterburner down. This sent him rocketing out of the hole in the hangar and into the sky.
Corik knew he couldn’t land on this planet anymore. With the number of bombers across the surface, in a few hours there would be no more place to land. He would need to find a new home and a new life on some other planet. With that thought, he set a course out into space and hoped for the best.