“They’ll be fine,” Obi-Wan answered, then added, “no thanks to you.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?!” Trinkatta snapped. “Can I help it if the sight of Bartokks scares the stuffing out of me?” Trinkatta leaned forward and looked at the Bartokk-designed device clasped by Obi-Wan. It had ten colored buttons. “What’s this? A stun net remote control?”
“Don’t worry,” Obi-Wan said as he lowered a finger toward a green button on the device. “I think I’ve figured out how to use it.”
With his good arm, Trinkatta lashed out and grabbed Obi-Wan’s wrist. “First of all, you’re holding the remote upside down,” warned Trinkatta. “Second, that button you were about to push will kill everything within the net. Now, if you’ll allow me?”
Obi-Wan handed the remote control unit over to Trinkatta, who pressed two yellow buttons at the same time. Instantly, the stun net fell away from the three unconscious bodies.
Trinkatta saw the look of concern in Obi-Wan’s face as the Padawan pulled his Master’s limp body up from the ground. “He’ll be okay,” the Kloodavian assured. “They’ll all be fine. They just need some time to recover.”
Obi-Wan carefully lifted Qui-Gon and carried him to the parked landspeeder. After Obi-Wan placed his Master within the vehicle, he turned for Bama Vook. “Help me with this guy, Trinkatta. He’s pretty heavy.”
Without argument, the Kloodavian helped carry both Bama and Leeper to the landspeeder. After the three unconscious figures were secured, Trinkatta asked, “So what’s your plan, kid?”
“You should take this speeder back to your factory,” Obi-Wan answered. “Until they wake up, our friends here need someone to watch over and protect them. They need you, Trinkatta.”
“But… why can’t you watch them?” Trinkatta asked nervously.
“That Bartokk freighter’s carrying the Trade Federation’s starfighters and hyperdrive engine. I’m going after it.”
“By yourself?” Trinkatta gasped. “Is that a good idea?”
“It’s the only idea I have,” Obi-Wan admitted. “The Bartokks have a hostage, and right now I’m the only one who can pursue them. Unless the Bartokks did something to Bama’s starships, there should be a Corellian freighter and a Z-95 Headhunter in Docking Bay 28. I’ll take a ship to fly after the freighter.”
“But think of the odds you’ll be up against,” Trinkatta warned. “Let’s see, fifteen Bartokks to a hive, minus the first two at the factory, then the three who jumped us, and the one with the net…” He wagged the fingers on his left hand as he counted. “Why, there are still nine Bartokks left in this gang of assassins!”
“Then wish me luck,” Obi-Wan said as he picked up Trinkatta and dropped him onto the speeder’s driver seat. “Now get moving”
Trinkatta started the speeder. As he zoomed down the street with his three passengers, Obi-Wan noticed two hooded figures lurking across the street. He was not certain, but they looked like two Neimoidians, possibly the same pair that Bama had described earlier. Obi-Wan wondered whether the Neimoidians had overheard his conversation with Trinkatta about the freighter’s cargo, but he did not have time to deal with them. He ran for the lift tube to Docking Bay 28.
Obi-Wan pressed a switch but the lift did not descend. Something was wrong with the lift mechanism.
The headstrong Padawan did not waste time with any thoughts of repairing the damaged lift. Instead, he reached for his lightsaber, activated the blade, and carved a neat hole in the lift’s metal floor.
The ruined metal grating fell away, tumbling down until it crashed at the bottom of the tube. Obi-Wan jumped down through the hole he had created and caught the edge of the broken grating. Clinging to the bottom of the lift, he dangled in the air. He realized the drop to the floor was farther than he had expected.
A wall-mounted energy cable offered a solution. Obi-Wan reached out and grabbed the cable. He quickly scrambled down the cable to the floor of the docking bay.
Just as Bama had claimed, there were two starships. Obi-Wan recognized the different models. The larger ship was a bulky Corellian YT-1300 Transport with a starboard-mounted cockpit. The smaller ship was a dart-shaped, twin-engined Incom Z-95 Headhunter. According to Bama, the Headhunter had been modified to carry a second passenger and was capable of space travel.
Although the YT-1300 had a greater carrying capacity, Obi-Wan did not expect to retrieve much from the Bartokk freighter. The modified Headhunter offered enough room for both Bama’s son and the Neimoidian prototype hyperdrive engine. Because Obi-Wan suspected the Headhunter was probably much faster, he decided against the Corellian transport and went for the Headhunter. Obi-Wan preferred speed over bulk any day.
Obi-Wan raised the Headhunter’s canopy and slipped into the cockpit’s front seat. He scanned the instrument panel and found himself impressed by the many modifications made by Bama and Leeper. Most remarkable was the way they had expanded the cockpit interior to accommodate a second seat behind the cockpit. There was even a fairly sophisticated autopilot system.
Setting the controls on manual, Obi-Wan prepared for liftoff. He reached up and lowered the canopy, but as it locked into position, he heard an odd beeping noise.
It was a bomb.
There wasn’t any doubt in Obi-Wan’s mind that the bomb had been placed in the Headhunter by the Bartokks. Anyone else might have simply disabled the starship’s engine to prevent it from launching. Rigging the ship to blow up and kill anyone on board was more the Bartokks’ style.
Closing the transparisteel canopy had triggered the bomb’s timer. The beeping timer was also indicative of the Bartokks’ flair for booby traps. They didn’t just want their victims to be blown to pieces; they wanted them to know they were about to die.
Fortunately, Obi-Wan had studied bomb disposal on Coruscant and knew what to do. He located the trigger-wire that ran down from the timer in the canopy and traced it to the bomb’s location. It was directly under the seat. He reached down and let his fingers hover over the bomb, using the Force to trace the weapon’s subtle contours.
The bomb was a canister-shaped proton grenade, and Obi-Wan was familiar with the design. He pressed the twist plunger release and the grenade was instantly disarmed.
Obi-Wan removed the deactivated proton grenade from under his seat and gave it a quick study, then he secured it to his own weapons belt. He had a feeling the explosive device would come in handy later on, and he could hardly wait to return it to the Bartokks.
He activated the Headhunter’s repulsorlift. Dust kicked out from under the Headhunter as its engines fired, and Obi-Wan steered the fighter up and out of Docking Bay 28. He accelerated and zoomed away from Calamar. The Headhunter rocketed into the sky with great speed as Obi-Wan clenched his teeth and gripped the controls. Less than a minute later, the fighter had ascended through Esseles’ atmosphere and entered space.
Obi-Wan gazed outside the cockpit canopy and searched for the Bartokk freighter, but he only saw a field of stars. Even without a hyperdrive engine, the freighter was already well beyond visual range of Esseles.
Among Bama’s many modifications to the Headhunter was a powerful scan-mode sensor. Obi-Wan activated the unit and two distant blips appeared on the scanner grid. Uncertain of which blip represented the Bartokk freighter, the Padawan closed his eyes and reached out with the Force. From across space, he sensed a trail of fear leading directly to the nearest blip on the grid.
Obi-Wan was certain the trail was emanating from the young Talz hostage. Although he was reassured to know Bama’s son was still alive, it disturbed him to know the youth was in such a frightened state. Because of Obi-Wan’s upbringing among the Jedi, fear was not something he easily understood, but he felt sorry for Chup-Chup and was eager to rescue him from the Bartokks.
Obi-Wan opened his eyes and shook his head. “Perhaps some of Qui-Gon’s compassion has been rubbing off on me after all,” he muttered to himself.
He entered the nearest blip’s coordinates into the Headhu
nter’s nav computer and activated the drive system. The Headhunter’s speed increased so rapidly that he found himself suddenly pressed back into his seat. He fought the pressure and reached for the acceleration compensator. After he quickly stabilized the artificial gravity within the starship, Obi-Wan wondered if the Headhunter’s modifications held any more surprises.
Two minutes later, the Bartokk freighter came into view. The Bartokks had ignored spacer protocol and switched off their running lights; their freighter appeared as a dark blot against the vast starfield. Except for the distinctive silhouette of the triangular sensor dish, Obi-Wan almost mistook the freighter for a large meteor.
An alarm sounded and a red light flashed within the Headhunter’s cockpit. Obi-Wan had accidentally flown within the Bartokk freighter’s sensor range. The freighter’s running lights suddenly illuminated.
The Bartokks knew the Headhunter had arrived.
As Obi-Wan pondered his next move, he saw a small engine flare at the side of the freighter. The flare was from the engine exhausts of the sixwinged Bartokk fighter craft. The fighter broke away from the larger ship and swung out in a wide approach toward the Headhunter.
Obi-Wan had once seen a diagram of a Bartokk starfighter. If he remembered correctly, such a fighter required a crew of three: a pilot, a gunner, and a tailgunner. The three Bartokks would be positioned with their backs to one another, and each assassin had a view through a triangular viewport. Because the Bartokks communicated telepathically and shared a hive mind, they functioned as a single twelve-armed pilot.
The Bartokk fighter fired a proton torpedo. As the explosive warhead streaked toward the Headhunter, Obi-Wan tried to avoid a direct hit by banking hard and away from its path. But instead of exploding, the torpedo curved back and continued to pursue the Headhunter. Obi-Wan realized the torpedo had a built-in homing sensor, and decided to take a more evasive action against his attackers.
With the torpedo hot on the Headhunter’s tail, Obi-Wan pulled back on the controls and navigated his fighter through an insanely tight loop. The Headhunter rolled out of the loop and onto a straight course for the Bartokk freighter.
The Bartokks must not have anticipated Obi-Wan’s daring maneuver, for the proton torpedo suddenly veered out of the Headhunter’s trail and soared away from the freighter. Its retreating flightpath confirmed Obi-Wan’s suspicion that the torpedo had been equipped with a remote destruct mechanism as well as a homing sensor. When the torpedo was a safe distance from the Bartokk ships, it detonated in a wild explosion.
The Bartokk starfighter zoomed so close to the Headhunter that Obi-Wan could see the three assassins in the craft’s cockpit. The Bartokks pulled their fighter back in a tight loop and circled back to attack from the rear.
Obi-Wan’s hands flew over his controls to channel energy from his engines to his deflector shields. The Bartokk gunner fired, and a hail of crimson energy bolts spat out from the laser cannons mounted to each of the fighter’s six wings.
The energy bolts hammered at the Headhunter’s shields, and Obi-Wan’s ship shuddered at the assault. He knew the shields wouldn’t hold up much longer, so he threw the Headhunter hard to the left, then right, then down into an outside loop. The Bartokk starfighter tried to follow Obi-Wan’s zigzag path. Their ship seemed to wobble at high speed.
As soon as Obi-Wan saw the sixwinged starfighter waver, he seized his opportunity and hit the Headhunter’s intertial dampers. The Headhunter appeared to flip and roll, but it was a controlled maneuver that brought the Bartokk starfighter into Obi-Wan’s sights.
He fired the Headhunter’s laser cannons and drilled the Bartokk starfighter. The Bartokk tailgunner trained his cannons on the Headhunter and fired back. Obi-Wan felt his ship’s shields buckle as he targeted the tailgunner’s viewport and released a concussion missile.
The missile streaked away from the Headhunter and smashed through the Bartokk starfighter’s cockpit, then detonated. The explosion sent starfighter fragments in all directions.
Obi-Wan angled back toward the Bartokk freighter. During his battle with the sixwinged starfighter, the freighter had neared the edge of an asteroid belt. Many of the asteroids were relatively small chunks of planetary debris, but some were much larger than the Headhunter.
As Obi-Wan approached the spike-covered freighter, he saw a hatch open at the main cargo hold. From out of the hatch, three objects were released into space. At first, Obi-Wan thought the freighter was jettisoning a few long pieces of metal scrap. This wouldn’t have surprised him, since unethical pilots routinely dumped their junk in space to lighten their load and increase speed. But when the released objects extended dartlike wings and began to move toward the Headhunter, Obi-Wan realized the Bartokks had deployed something far more hazardous than space junk.
The three objects were droid starfighters.
The droid starfighters had been clearly programmed to attack Obi-Wan’s ship, and would do so without fear or remorse. The three fighters assumed a triangulated assault formation and zoomed in for the kill.
Obi-Wan knew his deflector shields would not hold for long against the three fighters. He yanked the controls to the side and aimed the Headhunter for the nearby asteroid belt.
With one droid starfighter leading their formation, all three fighters followed the Headhunter. The field of asteroids became increasingly dense and difficult to navigate, but Obi-Wan poured on the speed.
The lead droid starfighter fired, unleashing a steady stream of red energy bolts after Obi-Wan. The Headhunter’s shields absorbed the blasts, but Obi-Wan saw a warning light flash on his console. His ship wouldn’t be able to take much more.
Obi-Wan drove the Headhunter into a sickening dive toward a wide, gray asteroid. The droid starfighters pursued him without a trace of hesitation. When the gray asteroid was so close that it nearly filled Obi-Wan’s range of vision, he pulled out of the dive. The trailing droid fighters broke away from the dive, but the lead fighter was not able to pull out in time. It smashed into the asteroid like a glass ornament striking a stone wall.
For a moment, Obi-Wan thought he had also managed to lose the other two droid starfighters. Then he saw them soaring after him. They were gaining fast when he saw two oblong meteoroids suspended close to one another in space.
Obi-Wan aimed his ship at the space between the meteoroids, as a hail of energy bolts pounded at his shields from behind. As Obi-Wan passed between the two meteoroids, he flared his engines and pulled back on the controls. The backdraft from his engines caused the meteoroids to rotate on their axes and draw closer to one another. The nearest droid fighter was about to fire again at the Headhunter when it was crushed between the converging meteoroids.
The remaining droid starfighter kept a safe distance behind Obi-Wan, and unleashed a barrage of firepower on the Headhunter’s deflector shields. Obi-Wan flew fast and hard, but no matter what he did, he couldn’t seem to shake the last fighter.
Outside and beyond the asteroid field, Obi-Wan caught sight of the Bartokk freighter. Right then, he remembered an important fact about droid starfighters: instead of having individual electronic brains, each starfighter responded to commands transmitted by a remote central droid control unit. In this case, the control unit was probably located somewhere within the Bartokk freighter.
Obi-Wan punched a series of commands into the Headhunter’s communications system. If he could isolate the droid starfighter’s operating frequency, he could jam its signal. And if he jammed the signal, the fighter would be defenseless.
Despite his efforts, Obi-Wan could not manage to find the starfighter’s operating frequency. However, he did not abandon the idea of knocking out the fighter’s signal. He just decided to execute the idea in a more destructive manner.
Obi-Wan steered the Headhunter out of the asteroid field and flew after the Bartokk freighter. It was a dangerous tactic, since he was now out in the open and no longer surrounded by the protective cover of so many meteoroids. The droid starfighter f
ollowed him out of the field and increased speed.
The Bartokk freighter’s outer hull was protected by the long metal spikes that protruded from its hull. Each spike was capable of releasing concentrated charges of energy. As the Headhunter drew within firing range, several spikes began to glow, then ejected deadly green charges at Obi-Wan’s ship.
Obi-Wan neatly evaded the explosive charges and fired his laser cannons at the Bartokk freighter’s triangular sensor dish. The dish was heavily reinforced, but Obi-Wan kept his finger on the trigger until the entire sensor array ruptured and exploded.
Behind the Headhunter, the last droid starfighter was suddenly cut off from its controlling brain. Flying without any guidance, the starfighter maintained its high velocity as it headed straight for the freighter.
Obi-Wan wanted to board the freighter before it released any more starfighters, so he angled back toward the large ship. The Bartokks’ deflector-shield generator was located within a small dome on top of their freighter. The ship’s protective spikes began to glow, preparing to fire again at Obi-Wan, but as the out-of-control droid fighter raced closer, the freighter’s defense system targeted the droid fighter instead. While the freighter’s spikes hurled energy charges at the incoming fighter, Obi-Wan targeted the Bartokk ship’s deflector-shield generator.
There were simultaneous explosions as both the Trade Federation droid fighter and Bartokk shield generator blew. The freighter’s shields dropped and Obi-Wan raced for the docking port that had been previously occupied by the sixwinged starfighter. Before the freighter’s spikes could recharge, Obi-Wan had docked the Headhunter. He knew the Bartokks would not fire at his ship when it was directly linked to their own freighter.
He scrambled out of his ship and into the freighter’s docking port tube. An eight-sided metal hatch was built within a thick plastoid frame at the end of the tube. Obi-Wan pushed against the hatch and found that it was locked.
Obi-Wan passed his hand over an illuminated control panel to open the hatch. Suddenly, he heard a hissing sound. He realized he must have activated an anti-intruder security system and triggered the release of poison gas into the docking port tube.
Star Wars - Episode I Adventures 002 - The Bartokk Assassins Page 3