Star Wars: Journey to The Force Awakens: The Crimson Corsair and the Lost Treasure of Count Dooku

by Landry Q. Walker

  The Crimson Corsair was not so far ahead as rumored.

  The captain sighed, waving forward his first mate—another Weequay by the name of Grinko.

  “It makes me sad,” Scorza said with a heavy, insincere sigh. “So sad to watch a good ship speed toward certain destruction. I’ll tell you what…”

  Scorza grinned, his sharp teeth framed by thick-scaled reptilian skin.

  “I’m a compassionate man. Bring all cannons to bear as we pass. Let’s put Sidon Ithano and his crew out of their misery.”

  DO YOU HAVE any idea what the odds of surviving direct contact with a class three sandstorm are?” Not waiting for an answer, the easily panicked Pendewqell continued. “Zero! The odds are zero! The barge will be torn apart!”

  Quiggold nodded in agreement. “You’re absolutely right. Unfortunately, someone on this ship swore that this was the path to the greatest treasure haul of all time! So…here we are!”

  The Corsair raised a gloved hand, signaling Quiggold.

  “Three,” the first mate shouted. Reeg Brosna activated the torpedo’s targeting system.

  “Two…”

  The Arcona chambered the special missile. They only had the one, and if it missed its target or misfired…

  “One.”

  SCORZA COULDN’T help himself, pushing his fellow Weequay out of the gunner’s seat. The heaving dunes made the shot difficult, but hardly impossible—not for an old pirate like Scorza. He gripped the cannon’s twin triggers as he hungrily scanned the screen of the targeting computer.

  The skiff dropped ten meters, the repulsors struggling in the powerful windstorm. The air was caustic and thick. High above, ionic lightning arced across the inky skies.

  And then there it was, like a gift from Am-Shak, the god of thunder himself: the ship of the Crimson Corsair, spiraling into the great sand vortex.

  “At last…” Scorza muttered. “At last I will have my revenge.”

  And with that, he squeezed the triggers.

  FIRE!” SHOUTED THE FIRST MATE.

  Reeg Brosna didn’t hesitate. With his yellow eyes closed, whispering silently to himself, he slammed his three-fingered fist onto the torpedo launch button.

  The Shrike’s missile screamed across the ocean of sand, piercing through a rising drift and blasting its way straight into the heart of the swirling vortex of death that threatened to engulf and destroy the heavy sail barge.

  Nothing happened.

  “Well…that’s a problem,” Quiggold muttered.

  To underscore that point, several heavy blasts abruptly struck the sail barge, causing it to lurch violently to port. Quiggold whirled. Squeaky snorted. Reeg, particularly well-known for his grace and agility under fire, fell overboard and was immediately swept away by the increasingly volatile maelstrom of sand.

  The Shrike was under attack.

  SCORZA COULDN’T stop laughing. He had watched the Shrike fire its useless missile into the vortex. Whatever the great and mighty Crimson Corsair was planning, it had clearly failed.

  Finally, the Weequay captain would watch his hated enemy suffer. It was a great day to be a pirate.

  And that’s when the distant Shrike launched its tow cables. Hundreds of meters of heavy cable suddenly locked on to the hull of Scorza’s skiff via a powerful magnetic clamp.

  Scorza had neither the time nor the inclination to be impressed with the shot, as suddenly the cable between the two vessels was pulled taut and the skiff found itself being wrenched toward the sandy gyre and the Shrike.

  “All engines!” Scorza yelled. “Reverse!”

  TOW CABLES ATTACHED, Captain!” yelled Reveth, who had taken over the gunning station.

  “It’s working!” whooped Quiggold, usefully. “They’re pulling us away from the vortex!”

  The first mate ducked as a volley of blaster fire struck the rigging above his head.

  “And they’re shooting at us, too!” he added, less usefully.

  SCORZA’S SKIFF’S capable engines were pulling the Shrike from the vortex while, in turn, the Shrike’s even more powerful engines were pulling Scorza and his crew closer and closer to the sail barge.

  As a result, the two ships—connected through a heavy magnetic tow cable—were rapidly closing in on each other.

  Scorza scowled. “So,” he said to no one in particular, “it comes to this.

  “Brothers!” the Weequay captain roared. “Prepare for boarding!” All around him, his vicious and cutthroat crew of thieves and killers drew their weapons.

  So of course, that’s exactly when the Gray Gundarks attacked.

  THE SPEEDER bike gang circled the two larger vessels, firing concussive blaster weapons. Two of them, a pair of greenish-blue Rodians in spiked leather vests, began climbing the side of the Corsair’s barge. A third, a large and furry, double-axe-wielding Hassk, hooked the skiff with a grapple cable.

  Scorza howled with rage, nearly drowning out the sound of the storm itself. The Weequay captain grabbed a handy vibro-pike, and with a look of pure bloodlust in his sunken yellow eyes, leapt from his skiff to the larger sail barge, intent on confronting his old nemesis face to face.

  ALL THE WHILE, the Ortolan’s slow-and-steady sandcrawler plodded forward. One-Eye laughed as he watched the battle unfold from his viewscreens deep within the armored hull of the crawler. It was mayhem, and it seemed quite clear to him that all sides would soon perish in the oncoming storm.

  The crawler plowed forward, barely affected by the punishing, turbulent tempest outside. While everyone else was fighting, the Ortolan had his eye on the prize. It wasn’t far, really, but the combination of the storm and the battle had kept all the other pirates on all the other ships far too busy to search for the treasure. If his luck held out, the treasure would be his for the taking.

  One-Eye stretched, breathing in the cool reconditioned air of the crawler. It was really turning out to be quite a lovely day.

  And then the crawler was swallowed whole by a gigantic sand worm, and the one-eyed Ortolan disappeared from the field of battle without anyone actually knowing he had been present in the first place.

  Turned out the day wasn’t quite so lovely for One-Eye after all.

  QUIGGOLD DUCKED the long metal blade of a Rodian biker while Squeaky kicked another over a railing.

  The Gabdorin peered over the edge. Hard to tell, between crashing waves of sand and the chaos of the battle, but it looked like more pirates were climbing the hull.

  A lot more.

  Of course there were, Quiggold thought.

  Just then, a geyser of lava erupted from the desert right next to the barge, and suddenly everything was on fire—including most of the Gray Gundarks and the Weequay skiff.

  That just meant there were even more attackers leaping onto the deck of the Shrike—a deck that was now burning and melting simultaneously.

  “Even better,” Quiggold muttered, without the barest trace of sincerity.

  UNAWARE THAT the transport he had just vacated was exploding, Scorza landed with a heavy thud and a roll on the careening deck of the Shrike. The Crimson Corsair was only a few steps away, defending himself against a pair of Gray Gundarks who had suddenly appeared before him. With a quick draw of his blaster, Scorza dispatched the enemies of his enemy.

  In the immediate vicinity, only the Corsair and Scorza were still standing—with a fire spreading across the deck that left the Corsair cut off from his crew. This was it. No one was going to rob the Weequay of his revenge.

  Scorza laughed. “You always thought you were better than me, didn’t you, Corsair? All these years you’ve taken the best contracts, stolen plunder that was mine by right, treated me like I was nothing! Like I didn’t even exist!”

  Scorza’s smile disappeared as he aimed his weapon. “Well…look at you now,” he sneered. “Bet you never thought it
would end this way.”

  The Corsair glanced around. He took an uncomfortable step forward. A honking noise from an inhuman throat emanated from behind the Corsair’s bright red mask.

  Scorza felt a rage that dwarfed anything he had ever known before.

  “What?” The Weequay choked back bile. “How…how can you not know who I am?” he hissed.

  Sidon Ithano, the most dangerous pirate ever to sail the Lost Clusters beyond the Outer Rim, the most feared fighter of the skirmish of Adratharpe 7, the most notorious thief of his species, simply shrugged apologetically. He had met a lot of Weequay pirates. They were kind of everywhere.

  Dropping his pistol, Scorza drew his high-density vibro-blade from its scabbard. He would end the life of his enemy with his own hands; nothing else would restore the Weequay’s honor.

  The battle was on: Scorza swung his weapon wildly. The Crimson Corsair moved deftly, parrying the attack with his own blade and stepping inside the Weequay’s guard. For a brief moment, Scorza thought he had the upper hand. Then Sidon Ithano lashed out with a solid kick and sent his surprised enemy over the edge of the sail barge.

  Just then, the heart of the churning vortex exploded with a pale blue energy, and suddenly every grain of sand in the desert froze in place.

  THE MISSILE the Shrike had fired wasn’t just any missile; it was a rare and highly illegal piece of hardware known as a kinetic disruptor.

  The kinetic disruptor had been designed for use on gas-mining colonies, intended to separate particulate matter from gaseous resources in volatile work conditions. In a factory setting, the disruptors were highly effective, and for a brief time they were in high demand.

  Unfortunately, when they were used outside simulated environments, it soon became clear that the kinetic energy disrupted by the missiles would return, much more dangerous and volatile than it had been before. Meaning that if you disrupted, say, a sandstorm…you had a certain number of minutes before the frozen particles resumed motion. An hour after that, those previously frozen particles tended to become extraordinarily explosive.

  Consequently, the disruptors were pulled from the market; however, they remained available in limited supply in less-than-reputable corners of the galaxy.

  The vortex that had been slowly drawing the two tethered repulsor vessels together abruptly dissipated. The desert froze. Accustomed to the never-ending movement of the sand dunes, several of the pirates, bikers, and thieves abruptly stumbled to the deck. But the Crimson Corsair and his crew were ready.

  “Release the tow cable!” Quiggold yelled. “Reset coordinates! We’re not through this yet!”

  Pendewqell shoved a confused Gray Gundark over the edge of the still-burning sail barge.

  “There it is! The battle cruiser!” he shouted excitedly.

  And so it was—the ancient wreck of the Confederacy, just on the other side of where the vortex had been raging only moments before.

  And with that, the Shrike blasted forward, leaving the disoriented pirates and bikers behind to their burning doom.

  THE DESERT was already returning to life by the time the crew of the Shrike reached the air lock of the Separatist ship. To make matters worse, it was immediately clear that the Shrike was not the first to reach the prize.

  Struggling with the controls of the battle cruiser’s hatch, Squeaky grunted. Quiggold nodded, gesturing to the heavy speeders lashed to the hull of the cruiser. “The Fangs of the Hutt! Leave it to those filthy womp rats to sneak past us. If we see them—”

  The hatch opened, and Quiggold stopped his ranting. Inside were all the members of the Fangs of the Hutt. Dead.

  “Well…” continued Quiggold. “Okay then.”

  Squeaky managed a frightened squeal. The Corsair waved the pig-snouted pirate’s fear away with a gloved hand. Quiggold echoed his captain’s sentiment. “They…were unprepared. We are not. This ship has been leaking durilliam gases from its core for decades. Everyone…breathers. Now.”

  Masked against the dangerous fumes, the crew members of the Shrike made their way into the belly of the downed ship, seeking their spoils.

  CRAWLING UP from the burning hull of the Shrike, where he had been clinging since being kicked overboard, was the furious Scorza. He was a patient Weequay, and once inside the Separatist ship, he knew he could best his hated foes.

  Then the plunder he so richly deserved would at last be his.

  THE CRUISER’S interior was difficult to navigate: decades of corrosion had done a thorough job on the walkways, and there was very little room to maneuver among the fallen debris and inactive battle droids.

  But maneuver they did, and in short time the Corsair’s crew had reached the command deck—ruined and derelict as the rest of the craft, with a half-smashed battle droid sitting at the command station.

  The droid in question was moving, albeit slightly. There was a small click and whir as the droid’s arm moved up and back down again—over and over.

  Reveth was baffled. “It…it has power?”

  “Barely,” Pendewqell answered. “A magnetic storm six months ago caused a system reboot of several derelict ships in the region. The charge has been slowly building in the ship’s energy cyclers ever since. That’s what sparked the broadcast we’ve tracked.”

  “Ah,” Quiggold said. “So the ship has been slowly powering back up?”

  “Exactly right,” Pendewqell answered, scanning the cruiser’s manifest.

  The Corsair shook his head, dismayed.

  “Pen,” Quiggold began as he used a portable booster to spark the ship’s secondary computer. “You and I have served together a very long time. So I want you to know I ask this in the kindest possible manner.”

  “Uh…yes, Quiggold?”

  “Are you an idiot?”

  “Um.”

  “It’s a yes-or-no question, Pendewqell. Are. You. An. Idiot?”

  “Uh…no, sir. Nope. Not I.”

  “Oh, good,” Quiggold said with mock sincerity. “Then I suppose the fact that we are on a battle cruiser filled with reactivating battle droids is something you considered when you first suggested this treasure hunt?”

  The Ishi Tib paused, turning to look back and forth between the impassive captain and the irritated first mate.

  “Oh,” he said. “Ah,” he added.

  Neither of which was any help.

  OUTSIDE, Toltek the Devaronian had finally reached the ship.

  The band of Devaronian pirates had seen the battle from afar, and wanting no part of it, had circled wide around, hoping to cut off the combatants and reach the downed Separatist ship first. Unfortunately, when the sandstorm died, so did their wind-powered sailer—and it had taken the better part of an hour for the momentum of the storm to return with enough intensity for the Devaronian ship to become mobile again.

  Toltek smiled. It didn’t matter. He had all the other pirates outgunned, and his crew had control of the exit. All they had to do was wait, and the Crimson Corsair would eventually emerge with the prize.

  Simple.

  Unfortunately for Toltek, he did not know about the spectacular reaction the Crimson Corsair’s kinetic disruptor would soon cause, and he and his crew were completely unprepared for the moment when each and every grain of sand swirling around them suddenly began exploding with the force of a thermal detonator.

  And thus ended the tale of Toltek the Devaronian.

  THE CRUISER shuddered. The crew of the Shrike ran through the ruined corridors as quickly as the wreckage would allow. They all had been briefed by the Corsair, so they knew the window for their escape was closing rapidly.

  Reveth studied the ship’s holo-schematics. “The vault should be this way,” she said, pointing to a large partially open door.

  Pendewqell paused. “Right through there? You mean right through the droid-charging stations?”


  “They’re not active,” countered Reveth.

  “They’re not active…yet,” exclaimed the Ishi Tib.

  “Here or in there,” Quiggold said, waving away the concerns. “Either way we’ve got problems once they’re active. So let’s get the treasure and get off this ship.”

  The crew moved through the large chambers. Hundreds of battle droids hung lifelessly from their inert charging stations.

  “I’ve got a bad feeling about this…” muttered the Ishi Tib.

  Quiggold glared at Pendewqell. “You have a bad feeling? Really? Now of all times you suddenly have ‘a bad feeling’?”

  The Ishi Tib looked a bit defensive. “It’s just a figure of speech….”

  “Well it’s stupid! Of course you have a bad feeling! We’re in the middle of a derelict warship that’s half-buried at the heart of a sand maelstrom, filled with droids programmed to kill intruders! We all have a bad feeling about this! And it was your idea!”

  “The treasure!” Pendewqell squawked. “That will make it all worthwhile! Billions of credits’ worth of crystals! You’ll see! You’ll all see!”

  “We better…” muttered Quiggold.

  Behind them, far enough not to be seen by anyone except the seemingly inert droid army, Scorza followed, planning his inevitable revenge.

  A cryo-cycle stasis pod?” said Pendewqell, his voice laced with desperation.

  The crew had reached the vault and, with some quick blaster fire and well-placed explosives, had managed to break it open.

  But there were no lightsaber crystals to be found. Just a single cryo-cycle stasis pod. Cryo-cycle stasis was usually used only for short periods, but this pod had clearly been here a long time. The clear glass of the pod was frosted over, making it impossible to discern what was inside.