by Ben Acker
One of the rancors spotted Mattis and growled deeply. The others all turned toward him. That low rumbling grew louder, angrier. The rancor that had first noticed Mattis took a lumbering step forward, reaching out its long arm. Mattis dove behind the fallen tree. The rancor lifted it up and tossed it aside as if it were a stick. It advanced on Mattis until a second rancor pushed it aside.
The rancors snapped and growled at each other, fighting over their easy prey. Finally, one of them snatched for him again, just as the boarding ramp to Dec’s transport opened with a sharp hiss. The rancor pack turned as one and made for the ship immediately.
Mattis rolled back into the mud and nearby brush. He was shaking, his whole body racked with fear. His teeth banged together; his head sounded like a rockslide. His shoulders, though he lay in the mud, were hot with terror. He peered out from the brush, but he could barely take in the scene without making himself sick.
The rancors surrounded Dec’s transport as it lifted out of the mud. Dec and Lorica hung on the ramp, firing the little stun rods they’d been given for defense against dianogas (which they had, stupidly, left on the ships earlier). The flares had little effect on the rancors, who swatted at the hovering ship. Sari did well steering just out of the rancors’ reach. She made sure all four were interested, which they very much were, and jetted forward a bit. The rancors followed her. At that rate, she could distract them long enough for Mattis to get on board the other ship with Klimo.
Klimo! He’d made it to the other transport. He sat in the cockpit, waving madly for Mattis to join him. Mattis leaped to his feet. If he made it to Klimo’s ship, they could take off and find AG and Jo. The others could get free.
Klimo was behind the controls of the transport. He pumped his fist at the other ship and punched the controls. His ship hovered in the air, distracting the rancors from Dec’s transport. What was he doing? Their plan, spontaneous as it was, had been working!
Mattis was in the middle of the clearing when two of the rancors lost interest in Dec’s ship. He suddenly found himself between them. They roared at each other. One grabbed for Mattis, and the other batted the first rancor’s claws away. A close call for Mattis and a lucky one. He wouldn’t be that lucky again. He dove into the knee-deep bog water and tried to keep out of sight. Both rancors splashed around, scraping in the mud with those scythe-like claws, looking for him, roaring.
The other two rancors were attacking the ships. One walloped Klimo’s ship, sending it spinning into Dec’s. Dec held on then climbed back into the transport, but Lorica was launched into the muck below.
It was chaos as Lorica evaded one rancor, Mattis two more, and Klimo’s ship went plunging into the swamp. If Mattis and Lorica didn’t get to it, they’d be eaten for sure.
Rancors lunged again for Dec’s ship, and it rose higher to dodge them.
Mattis and Lorica crawled for Klimo’s ship. A rancor claw came down close to Mattis. He rolled. Lucky again. That luck couldn’t hold.
Klimo gunned his transport out of the mud. None of the animals was paying him much attention, which was lucky, too. That might be their chance, but there were rancors between them and the ship.
Dec’s transport dipped again, then buzzed around the clearing. It was hard to maneuver in so small a space, but Sari was doing it. Her math, Mattis thought, wasn’t failing her. Distracted, the rancors chased her, waving their long arms in the air, clawing at the ship and sometimes scratching and denting it. But she kept on until, finally, Mattis and Lorica dragged themselves onto the boarding ramp of Klimo’s vessel.
“Friends!” Klimo said. “You made it!”
“We made it, friend,” Mattis agreed. “Now let’s get out of here.”
Mattis rolled over and gave a thumbs-up to the other ship. He could see Dec in the cockpit, grinning but determined. He could see Sari beside him, keeping the transport aloft in odd loops and corners. Dec nodded, turned, and said something to Sari, and suddenly the transport ship blasted into the night sky. It was only moments until it was indistinguishable from the stars beyond.
One ship gone, the rancors turned toward the other. The beasts were smarter than Mattis had realized. They hadn’t forgotten. They were also faster than he’d realized. All four galloped toward the ship. Klimo punched the controls, and the ship lifted into the air. Mattis and Lorica were still on the boarding ramp when a rancor—the biggest and tallest of the pack—grabbed on to it. Its claws sunk into the metal of the ship. The rancor roared. It tore the boarding ramp off, throwing Mattis and Lorica back into the bog. Mattis landed hard, the wind knocked out of his lungs. He heard Lorica beside him, saw her in a fog as she dragged herself into a crouch and then kicked him back to reality.
“Move,” she breathed. They did. They limped and struggled out of the fray while the rancors were still distracted by Klimo’s ship. The largest of the rancors hadn’t let the ship go. With all of its weight, it hauled the ship from the sky and smashed it into the swamp, splitting the vessel open like a nut. In a moment, all four rancors were upon it, clawing at the metal and rending the transport.
Mattis tried to get to it, to save Klimo, but Lorica held him back. There was nothing he could do. If Mattis made for the ship, threw himself in the middle of the wild rancors, he’d be dead, too. Klimo was gone. Their friend, always so enthusiastic, always so happy, was gone. But they would be next if they didn’t move out of there.
Lorica hadn’t taken two steps, practically dragging Mattis along with her, when the rancors turned again to find them. All four rose from their hunched positions over the remains of the second transport ship. The rancors moved toward them. There was no reason to rush their quarry any longer. Mattis and Lorica were trapped. There was no escape. Lorica took Mattis’s hand. They faced the rancors.
“Y’all lovebirds mind if we butt in?” AG’s voice came from the wall of twisted trees behind them.
Without thinking, both Mattis and Lorica plunged into the copse from which they’d heard AG’s voice. The rancors were quick behind them, picking up and throwing the trees, smashing them into splinters, crushing them into the mud under their wide feet. But Mattis and Lorica stayed a step ahead, finally stumbling into a clearing where AG and Jo had their ramshackle speeder bikes.
“Climb on,” Jo commanded. Mattis was happy to follow orders. He climbed onto one bike behind AG while Lorica leaped onto the other behind Jo.
“Hang on,” AG said, and as the rancors crashed after them, both gunned the speeder bikes, whizzing around and past the creatures and leaving the rancors to lumber behind, never fast enough to catch up.
THEY SPED THROUGH the swamps until the complaining roars of the rancors could no longer be heard. Then they raced even farther. They didn’t stop until the trees had thinned and the land beneath them was more meadow than bog. A distant sun lightened the sky north of them. Finally, they were safe.
When they stopped, they compared their stories. Jo asked, “Klimo?” and Mattis shook his head. Jo bowed his own head. They were all exhausted; even AG seemed wiped out from the efforts of the past couple of days. Jo surprised them by saying that he thought Klimo would have been good for the squadron.
“He wasn’t just a funny, weird little scrontch farmer,” Jo said. “He really wanted to make a difference.”
“Well, he was a funny, weird little scrontch farmer,” AG added with a smirk in his voice.
“Yeah, but not just,” said Lorica.
“I don’t think we would’ve gotten away without—” Mattis wanted to say “Klimo’s sacrifice,” but he couldn’t make his mouth form the words. He sobbed into his hands. Things were as bad as they could ever get.
“Where will Dec and Sari go?” Lorica asked. “We don’t know where the base is. The cargo ship won’t return for weeks, and they can’t just fly in circles until then.”
“They’ll come back for us,” Mattis said.
Lorica shook her head. “When they see what’s left of the second ship, they’ll think we’re dead. An
d then they’ll leave again.”
“They’ll look for us,” AG said. “We’re their friends. We’re their people.”
“How will they find us?” Mattis asked. His head hurt, his body hurt; he didn’t want to think of details. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to be somewhere safe, in a bed.
“We’ll make sure they can,” AG said. “We’ll make ourselves conspicuous.”
“At least we can get around,” Jo added, smiling at the bikes. Mattis couldn’t imagine smiling. Not for a long time.
AG noticed. “Look,” he said. He took Mattis by the shoulders. The four of them stood in a small square. “We’re safe. We got away. We’re alive. We faced more in the past couple a days than any of us have ever seen before, and we survived. Together. And that’s what we’re gonna do from here on out.”
Mattis nodded. Then, as it occurred to him, he actually did smile. “Besides,” he said. “How could things get worse?”
“All of you, freeze where you are.” The voice came from behind Mattis, but as he heard it, he saw the armor-clad figures coming into view all around them. They had weapons. They surrounded Mattis and his friends. By the insignia on their armor, he knew what they were.
First Order stormtroopers.
Things had just gotten worse.
Acker & Blacker wish to thank Michael Siglain for the opportunity, Jen Heddle for being the strongest and gentlest of editors, and Annie Wu for the beautiful, inspiring art. Thanks to Julie Lacouture for patience and early reads. And thanks to all of you Adventurekateers for your constant enthusiasm. Clink.
BEN ACKER & BEN BLACKER are the creators and writers/producers of the Thrilling Adventure Hour, a staged show in the style of old-time radio that is also a podcast on the Nerdist network. In television, they have written for CW’s Supernatural, Dreamworks/Netflix’s Puss in Boots, and FX’s Cassius and Clay. They’ve also developed original pilots for Fox, USA (twice), Spike, Paramount, Nickelodeon, and other entities. In comics, they’ve written for Marvel, Dynamite, Boom!, and others.
Acker has written for PRI’s Wits.
Blacker is the creator and host of The Writers Panel, a podcast about the business and process of writing, as well as its spin-off, the Nerdist Comics Panel. He’s the producer of Dead Pilots Society, a podcast in which unproduced television pilots by established writers are given the table reads they so richly deserve.
ANNIE WU is an illustrator currently living in Chicago. She is best known for her work in comics, including DC’s Black Canary and Marvel’s Hawkeye.