Standard disclaimer applies. I'd like to dedicate this chapter to my wonderful prereaders, whose devotion and love of Ranma 1/2 is matched only by their devotion and love of Star Wars.

Chapter 10
Planetfall
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"Rac, do we have anything? Anything at all? What's your status? RAC!! Where are you?" Rayden shouted into his wrist bracer, frowning. Pushing a button next to the small communications relay screen, he was suddenly assaulted by a number of garbled tones and static.
"Damn... it's gotta be something in all these crystals here... nothing else around that could disrupt a comm signal..." Rayden frowned, and then slowly stepped out of the hallway he had been walking through, his left hand fingering his blaster carbine.
The room he had stepped into was much larger than any of the other rooms he had happened across, with a number of large pods with skeletal frames embedded in several pits in the floor. Naturally, each pod was made of the same biological material that made up the ship, with veins and small organs pulsating beneath a thin layer of flesh. Next to each pod was a small spire, with a crystal head that didn't appear to be firmly attached to the base.
The room also held a number of enemy Krell, most of them panicking and clutching their heads as they ran about in confusion.
"What's all this?" Rayden wondered aloud, flexing his right hand experimentally. He had run into a few small groups of the aliens before, and had taken a few bad hits in the arm. With the wounds already healing though, he still figured he could mop up any more regiments that he came across.
One of the blue aliens, the ones with the metal backpacks and wrist-mounted blasters, seemed to notice him as it scurried by, and stopped suddenly, unsure of what to do.
"Suck it." *Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* Three blaster bolts struck it in the head and chest, and the creature crumpled to the ground lifelessly.
Snorting, Rayden reached his right hand into his trench coat, and then pulled out another blaster carbine, arming it as he flipped it over in his hand to take aim.
With both guns being held straight out at his opponents (who still wandered around unaware of him), the space pirate cleared his throat loudly before speaking.
"Yo! I don't know what you freaks are, what you're doing here, or why there's a gigantic eye embedded in the ceiling!" he shouted, having realized that there was, in fact, a huge eye ball in the center of the ceiling looking down. Looked kind of red and hazy too.
At this point, all of the Krell stopped wandering about the room, and were now looking directly at him.
"You all have 'till the count of four to scurry on out of here before I kill all of you! Understand? ... I said, 'Do you understand?' Any of you speak basic? No? None of you? You guys suck! Seriously!" Rayden sighed. "There's not even anything to steal... the backpacks might be worth something... but I doubt it..."
He looked around again, and noted that he still had the room's inhabitants at rapt attention. "Well, if it's all the same to you then, I'm just gonna start shooting stuff, okay? ... Okay."
What happened next could only be called a massacre of the most brutal level. The Krell, confused and hurt by the sudden, unexpected death of their ship's psionic core, started firing back and running only after their attacker had opened fire, and were cut down swiftly.
Rayden jumped from his position and hit the ground rolling, flipping back to his feet with new power packs in his blasters and two dead clips bouncing across the fleshy ground.
Juking left and right almost at random to throw off the defenders' aim, Rayden released a new hail of blaster fire, killing most of the aliens at they tried to defend themselves and throwing the rest into a retreat into the hall along the opposite wall.
Rayden winced as an energy bolt slammed into his left shoulder, and then glared at the translucent blue creature that had only just started to fall back.
*Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* The alien's body collapsed within moments, its neck ending in a charred stump.
Rayden frowned as he scanned over the rest of the room, casting the occasional glance at the gigantic eye in the ceiling. Weird. It almost looked like it was getting worse. Like an itchy eye that kept getting scratched.
Feeling a tingling feeling in the back of his head, the space pirate whirled around and aimed his blaster, only to get it slapped out of his hand by a red tentacle.
"Gyah!" A second tentacle thrust toward him and wrapped around his leg, and Rayden braced himself as it tugged at him. Looking at the twin tendrils, they seemed to be coming out of the wall he was next to, but Rayden had seen these types of appendages before.
"Stupid psychics, coming out of nowhere and grabbin' whatever..." Rayden trailed off grumbling, and then threw himself forward, thrusting his hand deep into the fleshy wall and grabbing firm.
"Come out and face me ya alien freak!!" Rayden growled as he pulled back hard, the tentacles having lost their tension around him when he had closed the distance.
Within moments the slimy matter he was holding was torn from the wall, and the space pirate found his hands lodged into the chest of one of the red aliens, the Krell psychics.
Rayden blinked. "Whoa... I didn't actually think that would work..." He shrugged, grinning.
*Crack* *Snap* *Crunch* *Snap* The creature made a shrill whining noise as its entire spinal column was mutilated, and its body began melting away in the strange manner unique to the psions.
Rayden turned away from the scene, idly wiping his hand on his coat. "Okay... now what?" He picked his blasters off the ground, still casting occasional glances at the eye stuck in the ceiling. "I've gotta find Ranma, but... where did he go?" He frowned, and then looked at the wall. Several long ridges were visible beneath the strange "skin" of the ship's walls, which Rayden had assumed to be veins. "Weren't those things pulsing a minute ago? What's going on?"
"I heard something! Down here!"
Rayden whirled around at the voice, aiming the carbines in his hand down the hall he had come from. "Waitaminute. None of those freaks can talk..."
The pirate grinned when he saw Unit 01 roll around the corner and into his line of sight, and dropped his arms. "Hey Rac! There you are! What're you doing out here?"
The battle drone turned its red visor eye towards it. "THE UNIT DISPATCHED WITH YOU AND SAOTOME WAS DESTROYED, AND THE WILD HORSE WAS COMPROMISED. IT SEEMED LOGICAL TO UNITE OUR RESOURCES."
"Good to see you too," Rayden muttered, and then blinked as Yuri, Arak, and Katrina all exited the hallway, followed by the second battle drone and a spherical drone.
Yuri breathed a sigh of relief as she saw him. Then she looked around the room. "Where's Ranma? And what is this place?"
Rayden scratched the back of his head. "I dunno what this room is for. It definitely seems important, though. As for Ranma, he's not with me. He got sucked up."
Katrina blinked. "'Sucked up'?"
Rayden nodded. "Yup. Sucked up. Like a meteor into a black hole."
Yuri tilted her head slightly to one side. "Sucked up where?"
Rayden frowned. "I dunno. Somewhere over there." He gestured vaguely to the wall beside him. "He took my grenade launcher, too."
Yuri tapped her lip thoughtfully. "Well, then we should probably-"
*Beep!* "SCAN COMPLETED. ENEMY VESSEL DAMAGE ASSESMENT EVALUATES THAT ENERGY CORE HAS BEEN COMPROMISED. STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY HAS BEGAN A GRADUAL DETERIORATION THAT WILL REACH CRITICAL IN APPROXIMATELY 10 MINUTES."
Arak blinked. "Eh? What happened?"
"Yeah!" Katrina protested, whirling on the tiny floating drone. "This thing hasn't taken nearly enough damage to start breaking apart! We would have noticed!"
The drone turned towards her and burned its red gaze into her eyes, causing the rogue Jedi to wince slightly. "SCANS INDICATE THAT THE LOSS OF CORE FUNCTION WAS NOT CAUSED BY EXTERNAL DAMAGE, BUT BY A SIGNIFICANT ENERGY DISCHARGE WITHIN THE VESSEL AT A CRUCIAL POINT. ALL PRIMARY VESSEL FUNCTIONS, AS FAR AS I CAN TELL WITH THIS TYPE OF SHIP, HAVE BEEN COMPROMISED, AND WITHOUT THE ENERGY CORE, THE SHIP ITSELF IS DYING."
Yuri blinked. "Dying?"
The sphere swiveled up, and then sharply back down in imitation of a nod. "DYING."
Rayden scratched his head. "Well, that would explain a lot."
"Like what?" Arak asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Well, like this." Rayden pointed to the eyeball set in the ceiling. It looked totally blank and fogged over now, and blood was slowly trailing along the edges of where it was set into the ceiling, like red tears.
He looked at it for a moment, then raised his blaster at it.
"Whoa! Whoa! What are you doing?!" Yuri shouted, quickly echoed by Arak.
Rayden looked at them as if they were stupid. "I'm going to shoot it."
Arak blinked. "Why?"
Rayden shrugged. "Why not?"
Before either the scientist or the diplomat could ponder a response to that, Rayden had raised his blaster straight up and pulled the trigger.
*Thriick!* The sound of tearing membranes and shriveling flesh rang sharply throughout the room, and the eye exploded outward, spilling a huge mess of thick liquids, and a smaller, more solid mass, toward the soft floor below.
*Spluck* *Wham!* *Thud!*
"Ow!"
"*Cough!* *Hack!* *Ptooey!* Glaaaugh... ow..."
Yuri, Arak, and Katrina all blinked in perfect synchronization.
The grayish slimeball began to shake itself, and two grime-covered hands started to wipe off a grime-covered face disgustedly.
"Aw geez... stupid evil weirdo psychic... uh... ship... thingy..." Ranma frowned, and then shook his head rapidly to try and get some of the slime out of his hair. "Well, whatever it was, it was stupid."
Yuri gasped. "Ranma! There you are! Are you okay?!" She began to rush toward him, but then stopped when he thrust his palm out toward her.
"I'm fine. Stay there, please." Ranma grimaced and began to wipe off his arms.
"Hey man... glad to see you're all right... could you get off me now?" Rayden asked weakly, still lying under the mound of goo.
Ranma blinked, and then jumped up. "Aw, geez! Sorry man! You okay?"
"A little slimy, but I'll live," the gunman muttered, pushing himself to his feet. "Glad we found you. Can we go now?"
Ranma blinked. "Yeah, actually. Sounds good to-"
*Brreeep!!* "WARNING!! ENEMY COMBATANTS INCOMING!!"
"Oh, cripes..." Ranma scanned the edges of the cavernous room they were in, and then dashed behind one of the skeletal pods that were set in the floor. "Rac, have Units 01 and 02 cover the East hallway! Ray, get ready to push through back to the ship! Arak, Yuri, come here! Katrina, can you cover our rear?"
Ranma continued shouting out orders, and Rayden looked down the hall he had come from curiously. "Hey Rac, can we get some stats on the enemy? Where are they?"
*Beep* "UNCOMFIRMED. ENEMY ENERGY SIGNATURES APPEAR TO BE MOVING THROUGH SHIP MASS AT WILL."
Yuri jerked to a stop and turned around to face the metal sphere. "Huh? You mean-GYAH!!!" She shouted in surprise as two crimson tendrils blasted up through the floor, swiftly wrapping around her ankles and waist.
Ranma whirled around and grit his teeth as he saw glowing red appendages seep out of the walls around them. "Psions! Damn!"
Rayden blinked. "What?"
Ranma pointed to the form that was slowly seeping out of the floor in front of Yuri, revealing the rest of its body. "It's a Psion!"
Rayden stared at him for a moment. "How do you know-"
"Shut up and kill it!" Ranma growled, and then brandished his own blaster as two more of the psychic shock troops emerged from the fleshy wall in front of him.
"Yessir!" Rayden shouted, and then curtly incinerated the creature's skull with a well-placed blaster bolt.
Yuri gasped and tumbled backward as she was freed, looking wildly about her as she saw everybody but herself and Arak begin to engage the ghost-like aliens. Katrina had waded into a mess of them warily near the hallway, with Rayden cutting down everything that wasn't near her. The combat drones had powered up their weapons systems in the rear, and she could feel the vibrations of their plasma projectors as they laid waste to their section of the alien hangar.
She got up unsteadily, and then noticed one of Rayden's blasters on the ground near the mound of slime that he had unintentionally formed.
"Pleasedon'tletmedie, pleasedon'tletmedie, pleasedon'tletmedie..." Walking past Arak, and ignoring his muttering as he clasped his hands above his forehead, Yuri glanced around the chaos surrounding her, and then snatched up the weapon.
Arming it with a switch on the side, Yuri clambered up next to one of the flesh-and-bone mounds that stuck up out of the floor and inspected her blaster. It looked like the Imperial model, probably an E-11 or something of similar make.
Frowning, she found another switch on the side, and a panel on the side of the weapon lit up brightly.
*Shoo* *Shoo* She jerked back quickly as two wild energy bolts sailed past her and cut into the soft, fleshy floor, and quickly turned toward the group that was converging on Ranma.

*Sho-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-sh-shoo!*
Ranma nearly jumped away as a sudden rain of energy cut into the group of psions converging on his left, but a quick glance over his shoulder revealed that Yuri had taken it upon herself to join the battle. While her accuracy left something to be desired, Ranma couldn't fault her ingenuity; using the autofire seemed to compensate for her aim.
Ranma ducked a tentacle, and then rolled forward as more tentacles began sprouting from the floor, thrashing at him. He hit two nearby aliens with his blaster, and then jumped into another to avoid a psionic bolt, kicking it in its small ribcage before driving a fist into its thin neck, killing it.
Jerking to the right to avoid another bolt, Ranma jumped backward to gain some distance and reassess the battlefield.
Suddenly a number of glowing red tentacles erupted from the ground beneath him, and Ranma fell backward as he was quickly entangled in the ghostly limbs, his blaster rendered useless against such an attack.

"UNIT 01 MOBILITY COMPROMISED! 7 MINUTES UNTIL VESSEL STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY REACHES CRITICAL!"
The sphere hovering next to Rayden beeped incessantly, and then seemed to split apart, with small antennae poking out from the globular shell.
"WILD HORSE POWER RESTORED. ATTACK PATTERN HARBRINGER-THETA INITIATED. MAPPING TORPEDO ATTACK PATHWAYS..."

The sound of the crossfire, the dying screeches of the Krell, the electronic voice of Rac... all began to fade from Ranma's mind as his consciousness was bombarded by a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. Within seconds, his body stopped responding to the writhing tentacles that held him, and he rest lazily atop them, his arms limp as his brain was awhirl in sheer chaos.

"Ranma! They got Ranma! Rayden, Arak, somebody, do something!" Yuri shouted, and then once again hit the trigger on her blaster, only to have the weapon beep loudly, and then dispense its depleted energy cartridge.
"TORPEDO PATHWAYS SET. PROTON TORPEDO ATTACK SUBROUTINES... SET. ATTACK COORDINATES... SET."

But there was something odd. Ranma KNEW that this was a tactic to distract him. He could still feel the light sting of the tentacles' grasp. He could feel the happy warmth that Yuri would show such concern for him. And he could feel the urgent need to take cover as he recalled what "attack pattern harbringer-theta" entailed.
At the same time, he could feel the minds of his attackers. Confused, panicked, and beyond all else, afraid. These things were scared out of their wits, even as they invaded his mind and assaulted his crew in overwhelming numbers.

"ATTACK PATTERN HARBRINGER-THETA INITIATED... FIRING CYCLE COMPLETE. TORPEDO DETONATION IN 27 SECONDS. 6.5 MINUTES UNTIL VESSEL STRUCTURAL INTEGRITY REACHES CRITICAL."
"Arrgh!" Rayden shouted out in pain and frustration as a wave of psionic pulses slammed into him, causing him to stagger to the side. He turned to return fire, but was suddenly aware of a severe burning in his hands.
Realizing that the blasts had damaged his blasters' power cells, Rayden quickly threw both weapons blindly into the swarm of attackers, and then wearily stepped behind one of the numerous skeletal drop-pods strewn about the room.
*Brzzt!* *Thakoom!* *Brrrkkk...* Unit 02, already non-functional, began to leak freon and plasma as psionic bolts continued to pummel it.
*Tshzit!* One bolt slammed into the battle drone's front chest panel, its energies slowly leeching through the final layers of blast armor and seeping into the drone's power supply.
*Brzzzzt!!* *Gzaaack!*

Ranma reached out to them, forced his way into their minds through their own psychic links. At once the tide of emotions began to slightly shift, and the creatures' remaining anger and determination were soon enveloped in fear.
'I can feel them... interact with them... UNDERSTAND them...' Ranma thought, strangely at peace as the psionic beings tightened their grip on him.
'They're terrified of me.'
Ranma grinned under his blank stare, his eyes fogged over.
One psion slowly phased through the floor beneath the pirate captain, its fogged, bulbous eyes glowering. Slowly it stalked up to the glowing mass of tentacles that desperately writhed about the man, trying to smother and choke him.
The psion stopped, its face just centimeters away from Ranma. Slowly, it raised a hand toward the human's face.
*Thrick!* Ranma's eyes snapped open as his hand shot forward, driving into the psion's chest and breaking through its thin skin instantly.
Ranma stared at the red alien before him as it jerked it head about in agony, and then quickly tugged his hand back. "Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to do that..." He trailed off as the psion began to melt away into nothingness, its very essence disappearing before him.
"Oh... Never mind, then." Ranma shrugged his shoulders, then grimaced as he began to tear away from the tendrils that held him.
*Ka-KROOM!!*

Metal scrap and armor plates were thrown across the room violently as Unit 02 exploded, and Katrina gasped as a twisted mess of durasteel flew by her back, cutting it open in a thin gash.
The damage wasn't so bad, however, as the opponent whom she was about to assault, who had a piece of arm smash into it at such a velocity as to separate its upper torso from the lower.
Gritting her teeth, Katrina still possessed the will to turn on her heel and deflect an incoming psionic bolt with her lightsaber, and then cut low at a number of tentacles that were trying to ensnare her from the floor.
Katrina twisted to one side as the red, glowing tendrils continued to rise toward her, waving her saber in a wide arc and deflecting another psionic blast. Quickly she located the nearest concentration of attackers, and rushed toward them, her saber aimed to block any initial strikes, and then cut shallowly once she was in attacking distance.
At the entrance which the whole group had come from, another batch of Krell were ruthlessly assaulting Rayden's position, and the pod which he had ducked behind already had a large gouge blasted into it.
Suddenly the pod started to move, and the alien onslaught lessened as a few of the creatures curiously waited to see what would occur.
*K-k-k-rick* The tearing of tissues and tendons surrounded the shifting pod, and suddenly the entire vessel was hefted into the air, having been ripped free of its anchor.
"Hyagh!" Rayden issued a savage grunt as he hurled the large object at his foes, who scattered ineffectually before being smashed like bowling pins.
Grinning maliciously, Rayden slipped his hands into his trench coat and whipped out two more blasters, eagerly cutting down the remaining Krell that had escaped his projectile.
Ranma dodged to the side as the pod bounced off a wall and began to roll about the room, crushing anything that happened to be in its path. As the pod passed, Ranma thrust himself back into the group of psions that had assaulted him, sweeping one with his leg before pushing into a spin-kick that slammed another Krell back into the hall that it had come from. Ranma ducked a tentacle as it lashed out at him, and withdrew his blaster as he jumped away toward the hall entrance.
"WARNING! TORPEDO DETONATION IN SIX SECONDS! ALL UNITS, ON DEFENSIVE!"
Ranma hit the ground rolling to slide under a series of incoming energy bolts, and then flipped upright again just in time for his back to hit the fleshy wall of the cavernous room. "Everybody, get as far away from the center of the room, NOW!!!" He snapped off two shots at a few aliens stalking Arak and Yuri's position, and grit his teeth as he saw a blue light flood the opposite entrance. 'Not enough time!'

Rayden backhanded the psion that was trying to grapple him, and then kicked back hard on the ground, skidding backwards toward the wall on one foot.
*Thud* He sunk heavily into the wet, soggy membrane that made up the room's walls, and took a deep breath as he readied the weapons in his coat.
As a blue light appeared in the entrance leading back to the ship and began to intensify, the entire room started to quake as vibrations wracked the halls.
"Let's get ready to burn..."

Yuri gulped as she heard Ranma yell at her, and turned to Arak to follow him to the nearest safe haven.
Her confidence, already suffering from the danger and panic around her, wasn't helped one bit when she saw the self-proclaimed genius standing in the middle of the room awkwardly, shaking like a leaf.
"Oh, you are SO hopeless!" She shouted, and ran straight ahead, grabbing the man in passing and forcing him to start running alongside her.
They hadn't made it halfway along the radius of the room when the room began to shake from the incoming projectile, and Yuri spared a glance to her right.
"Take cover! Now!" Grabbing Arak once again, she yanked them both to the left, falling heavily onto the soft floor right behind a heavily scarred pod just as a bright blue streak sailed overhead.

Katrina ignored Ranma's warning, ducking under an energy bolt and slicing through the blue Krell that was trying to flank her. Thrusting out her palm, she threw out a wave of power with the Force, and four other Krell that she had been trying to get to were knocked down onto their backs roughly.
*Rrrrrrrrrummmmble...*
The room began to quake, and Katrina grinned as she quickly found the closest wall. As a powerful Force user, she was gifted with supernatural speed, and wasn't worried about getting caught in whatever blast Ranma's short-sighted computer friend was setting up.
Quickly shifting her mental focus, Katrina took off toward the wall like a missile...
And fell like a rock.
As her lightsaber deactivated and bounced harmlessly along the floor away from her, she cast a panicked look behind her. Much to her distress, her boot was firmly entwined in a coil of translucent red flesh that indicated that a psion had taken hold of her.
*ShooOO!* The blue streak of a proton torpedo sped by overhead, twisting slightly to bring its course precisely toward the center of the room.
Then, with it's first task completed, the sophisticated munition performed its second, and final service.
*KA-THOOOOM!!!*

"KYAAAAAAA!!!" Katrina screamed as a blistering heat wave slammed into her back, and then she stopped to suck in air as she felt the low-energy proton pulse pierce her body, like a million tiny needles stabbing into her back.
She tried to scream again, but she found that she was unable to, for whatever reason. Her vision went blank and her mind began to fog over, even as she fought harshly to try and concentrate.
Through the haze she was in, she forced her body to move; with all her strength she moved a hand forward, then gripped the ground with that hand and dragged her body ahead.
'Must... get to my... lightsaber...' Katrina coughed mightily, but continued crawling forward with all the life she could still muster, not even stopping to try and identify what exactly it was she had just coughed up.
Her hand reached forward again, and pressed into something soft.
'Lightsaber... must get... don't want to die... must...' She pressed harder on whatever it was, and it gave way, generating a momentary spark of hope within the murky fog of her mind.
Then, just as quickly, the spark was drowned in panic as she felt her entire body being sucked up into whatever hole she had just forced her arm into.

Ranma swallowed shallowly as he searched for Katrina's position, his senses thrown into mild disarray from the detonation. He knew that she had tripped somehow and caught in the blast, but he wasn't yet sure if she had survived it.
The proton torpedo had been a small warhead, specially designed for the admittedly foolhardy tactic of launching into the middle of a skirmish (rather than being launched specifically at the enemy). Thus, those enemies directly under and around the center of the room had been totally annihilated, while those a little further away had only been killed or mortally wounded. While Katrina had been within that particular circle, he supposed there was a CHANCE that she had survived.
Despite that admission, Ranma was just as surprised as relieved when he saw the false Jedi crawling along the ground, her back charred and bloody.
Ranma quickly turned toward the other end of the room. "Ray, get Katrina, quick! Rac, can you dispose of the remaining unfriendlies?" There were still a few aliens scattered around the outer rim of the room, though they were so heavily shell-shocked from the blast that the firefight had completely stopped.
*Bzt!* "NEGATIVE. UNIT 02 HAS SUSTAINED CRITICAL DAMAGE AND IS NON-FUNCTIONAL."
Ranma glanced to his left at the remaining droid as he raised his blaster, and grimaced as he saw the sparking patches of bare circuitry all along one side of the battle drone. Apparently the energy pulse had pierced the small holes that the Krell had made and finished off the mighty machine.
*Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* Ranma pegged two of the aliens hugging the wall while his eyes continued searching the room.
"Yuri! Arak!" *Pshoo!* *Pshoo!*
"We're here!" Yuri exclaimed, poking her head out from behind one of the pods.
"All right!" Ranma yelled back, dodging to the left as a sudden spurt of energy bolts came back at him. *Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* "Follow Rayden out of here, and then... what the?" Ranma glanced over at Katrina to see her push her hand against one of the pods lying in the pits around the cavernous room. To his surprise, the pod wall seemed to slit open, and then suck her entire body in on its own before reforming into a solid sheet of thick flesh.
"Uh oh..." He watched from a distance as Rayden strafed over to the pod, razing the entire opposite wall with blaster fire. 'Well, as long as Rayden can get to her...'
Then, something tugged sharply at the back of his mind. "Damn! Rayden, look out!"

Rayden jerked back in surprise as he felt his legs being suddenly constricted, and lowered the blasters in his hand to destroy whatever it was that had taken a hold of him.
He didn't get a chance to, as a series of glowing red tentacles phased upward out of the ground, slamming into him with a speed and ferocity that he hadn't yet seen in the rather fragile Krell.
He quickly struggled to get to his feet, only to feel his entire body begin to succumb to paralysis.

Ranma took off like a bullet as the psion's tentacles writhed around his friend, not willing to trust his blaster against the Krell's psychic shields.
The psion phased upward through the ground much faster than the others had, and turned to face Ranma just as the pirate captain had reached striking distance.
*Bzak!* Ranma winced as his gauntlet glanced off of the psion's shield with no ill effect, and then somersaulted as several tentacles whipped toward his legs, intending to trip him.
The psion followed his movements carefully, and then twitched as Ranma flipped back onto his feet with a small metal object in his hand.
"Let's see ya block THIS, freak," Ranma grinned, and switched on Katrina's lightsaber. *Pssshoo* *Hummmm...*
The psion looked hesitant, and then swiftly withdrew all its tentacles, releasing Rayden from its grip.
As Ranma stood before it cautiously, the alien whipped one tentacle around behind it, smashing it into the flesh pylon next to pod Katrina had been sucked into. The crystal atop the pylon went flying across the room, bouncing haphazardly across the floor.
'What's it doing? What was that?' Ranma thought, holding his position. If he waited long enough, Rayden would come to and crush the stupid alien himself. If not...
*Shlooooook!* The pod that held Katrina began to sink into the pit in the floor, and Ranma's eyes widened as the entire vessel suddenly dropped out of sight, the pit it had sunk into sealing up after it.
"Wh-What in the-?" Ranma gaped as he stared at the spot, then glared hard at the psion as it stared back at him defiantly. "You little sonnuva-"
*Pshoo!* A spear of white pierced the alien's head, and it teetered to the side lifelessly, falling to the floor in a slowly evaporating heap.
Yuri smirked slightly as she lowered Ranma's blaster. "Heh. These things aren't so hard to handle after you get used to them." Behind her, Arak stared at the scene with wide eyes, apparently surprised that the girl had taken to the fight so easily.
To everyone's surprise, Ranma ran over to where Katrina had been sucked up, and then fell onto his knees to feel along the soft, fleshy floor.
Rayden got to his feet groggily, holding a hand to his head. "Hey, thanks for the save man. That was... Ranma? What's up?"
"Damn it," Ranma muttered, feeling along a slight opening in the skin of the pit. Then he turned toward Rac's sphere drone. "Rac, these openings lead out into space, don't they?"
*Beep* "AFFIRMATIVE."
Rayden frowned. "You know something we don't?"
Ranma turned toward him, biting his lower lip. "These pods... I saw them on Morcan. They're drop ships. This is a hangar."
Arak blinked. "Which means..."
"... That Katrina was just launched toward Ryloth," Yuri finished.
"....... Bummer," Rayden added, "well, I'm ready to get out of here. Let's go."
"THAT IS ADVISABLE. VESSEL HULL INTEGRITY WILL REACH CRITICAL IN 5.6 MINUTES."
Ranma turned his head slowly as the others began to turn away and head toward the hallway, having accepted Katrina's loss with apparent ease. And really, why shouldn't they? Katrina was an accidental burden; an assassin that Ranma didn't have the heart to kill, and had kidnapped instead. It was extremely likely that she was planning on sabotaging them and killing them later at an opportunistic moment.
Yuri had apparently noticed that Ranma wasn't following them into the hall, and had turned to look at Ranma sadly. Ranma knew that Yuri, at least, didn't hold the same apathy toward the woman's fate that the others did. She wasn't like that. But despite her sad expression, her eyes still told of helpless acceptance and detached, impersonal grief.
'Aw man, why do I put myself through this crap?' Ranma thought to himself as he turned and made a beeline for the nearest pod.
Yuri, who was still giving Ranma her best sad and empathetic stare, blinked as she saw Ranma walk toward one of the remaining drop pods and slap the crystal off the activation pylon. "Ranma! What are you doing?!"
Doing his best to ignore her, Ranma stepped up to the fleshy wall of the pod and pressed hard against it. After a moment the barrier split open, and Ranma was quickly sucked inside even as the entire pod began to drop through the floor.
"What in Palpatine's name does he think he's doing?!" Arak yelled, rushing back toward where Yuri was standing.
"Ranma! No! She's not worth it!" Rayden yelled.
*Shlooooook!*
"Oh, sithspit."
Yuri, Arak, Rayden and Rac all stared listlessly at the spot where Ranma's pod had dropped out of the hangar, practically unable to believe what their leader had just done.
"R... Ranma... he... went after her..." Yuri mumbled softly.
"MOST UNFORTUNATE. SCANS INDICATE THAT IT WILL BE EXCEEDINGLY DIFFICULT TO GET TO RYLOTH UNDETECTED WITH THE INTENSITY OF THE CURRENT FIREFIGHT IN PROGRESS."
"I'm sick of this," Arak growled, "let's get back to the ship, before this whole damn thing falls apart with us inside."
"Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!" Rayden yelled, stepping in front of Arak and shoving the scientist back with an open palm. "We are NOT going to just let Ranma get himself killed for that Jedi chick! We're going down after him!"
"The hell we are!" Arak yelled back, glaring up at the larger man. "Ranma's always playing the hero like this! If he's going to be an idiot and risk his life for that woman, he has no right to expect us to do the same! He understands that!"
"But that don't MATTER, because we're going down after him anyway," Rayden insisted, narrowing his eyes.
Arak flinched, then grit his teeth. "Step aside and return to the ship. Now. We don't have much time."
"And since when do I follow your orders?" Rayden replied, crossing his arms over his chest.
"Well, I'm the smarter and more logical of us, which has been made all the more obvious by this little exchange." Arak spat back. "Clearly, I should be the one in charge in Ranma's stead."
Rayden grabbed Arak suddenly by the shirt collar, and then lifted him up into the air to look him in the eyes. "And how long is Ranma's 'stead', considering you're gonna leave him to die?"
"L-Let me go, you Neanderthal!" Arak screamed, thrashing about helplessly in Rayden's grip.
"STOP!! JUST STOP IT!! BOTH OF YOU!!" Yuri screamed.
Rayden and Arak both jerked their heads toward the teenage girl, the former of them dropping the latter onto the ground.
Yuri took a deep breath, then turned toward Rayden. "Ray, I know you really want to go after Ranma right now, but it's more important that we get back to the ship."
"B... But... we can't just..." Rayden stuttered, looking devastated.
"I know," Yuri said softly, "we'll have to figure something out once we're out of here. We won't leave Ranma behind, I promise."
Rayden turned away sadly, and Yuri couldn't help but smile a bit. For a hardened, murderous pirate, the big lummox could just a big a softy at times.
*Beep!*
Yuri turned, startled, as Rac's probe beeped loudly behind her.
"HULL INTEGRITY WILL REACH CRITICAL IN APPROXIMATELY 4 MINUTES. I ADVISE THAT WE RETURN TO THE SHIP WITH ALL HASTE."
Yuri blinked. "Uh... okay. But why are you telling me that?"
"APPARENTLY, YOU'RE THE ONE IN COMMAND HERE."
Arak's eye twitched. "Oh, verrrrrry funny. You're becoming a regular comedian, you know that?"
The computer ignored the jibe, still pointing its active sensor at Yuri. "YOUR ORDERS?"
Yuri gulped, then nodded slowly. "Okay... well, let's get back to the ship first. Then we should... uhm..." she trailed off, even as she began to lead the way into the decaying hallways of the alien vessel. "Hmmmmm... I think I've got an idea."
__________________________________________________________________________________

Ranma took a deep breath to calm himself as he sat in the center of the dropship, trying to avoid touching any of the walls, and to try and rationalize the huge mistake he had just made.
"Okay. Lady comes up to me and tries to kill me. Later, the lady complains because I don't risk my life and my ship instead of just saving her life. Lady makes an ass of herself so that everyone onboard the ship hates her. Lady disobeys orders and gets herself hurt and launched toward a planet being invaded by murderous aliens. And I follow her on the incredibly small chance she survived, to try and save her. I am the galaxy's biggest moron."
Ranma sighed and began to lean back, then remembered about the walls and jerked upright.
The reason for this was that the interior of the pod had been outfitted with several layers of soft, sticky skin flaps over the walls, no doubt to cushion the soldiers inside from the eventual impact. While these layers probably didn't stick very well to the relatively hard skin of the Krell or the metal of their equipment, Ranma found that it was an excellent adhesive as far as his own clothes were concerned.
"How come every time I try to do something GOOD, it comes back to bite me in the ass? No wonder I chose killing and looting as a career path," he muttered to himself, letting himself fall backward. He was still very tired from the earlier engagements.
*Squick* "Gah! Bloody &#^%$(@* Krell and their +!@#$!% bio-ships! Damn freaks can't make their ships out of metal like everyone else!" Breathing heavily, Ranma began the most annoying task of picking strands of slime off of his back.
*Rrrrrumble*
Ranma stopped as the vessel began to shake. "Huh? What's going on?"
*Ssssss*
The shaking intensified, and Ranma noted that the floor was beginning to heat up.
"Huh. I must be entering the atmosphere already." The sniffed the air a few times. "Hm. Smells like bacon."
As the disturbances continued, Ranma looked for some way to brace himself for the impact. If he remembered correctly, these things only survived the landing due to the flexibility of the bone structure, and he couldn't imagine that the natural shock absorbers did much to soften the blow for those inside the vessel.
Of course, looking around, there wasn't a whole lot to hold onto, unless one counted the numerous flaps of disgusting skin fibers.
"I swear, if we both survive this, Katrina's gonna owe me lunch."
*THOOOOOOOOOOOM!!* *Splack!*

Ranma tried to groan, but only succeeded in getting more of the sticky, disgusting film in his mouth.
The impact had thrown him directly into the surface he had spent the whole trip trying to avoid, and he was currently plastered against one of the bone pylons of the pod's skeleton, with cushioning skin wrapped around his legs and arms.
"Ptooey! Ptooey! Blech! Get it off!" Ranma tried to push himself away from the interior wall, but found that the film that held him was a lot stronger than it looked. Which was probably by design, since they were made to cushion a powerful impact.
"Hey! How do you get out of here, anyway?!" Ranma yelled in frustration, struggling in place.
He never did figure out exactly what action triggered the expulsion, but at some point, Ranma suddenly felt a powerful suction take hold of his body. It was painful at first, as his limbs were still tangled in the flaps of skin, but before long the film gave way, and Ranma was ripped through the pod wall and tossed roughly onto the rocky ground of Ryloth.

Ranma didn't get up immediately, because his lungs were suddenly assaulted by a dramatic, but not quite life-threatening, change in atmosphere. While the air on the Krell battlecruiser had been relatively thin, but humid, the air on Ryloth was almost painfully dry, and had a few chemicals that he was used to, to boot.
"Lunch AND dinner," Ranma gasped, trying to catch his breath, "she owes me both now."
Slowly, the space pirate got to his feet, and his bleary eyes took in the surrounding landscape.
"Mostly hydroponics. Looks like an agricultural center." It didn't take long to spot the pale brown bio-organic drop pod amidst the rows of green plants, and Ranma quickly jogged over to it.
"Okay, so I find Katrina, make sure she's alive, and then we'll... um... wait for rescue, I guess..." Ranma was really starting to wish he had put more thought into this whole operation. But then again, if he hadn't reacted to his heroic impulse and planned it out, that would have given the others ample time to hammer him with the voice of reason and talk him out of it. Ranma just wished that he could decide whether that would have been good or bad.
"Katrina! Katrina! You there?" Ranma staggered up to the drop pod, which was still melted near the bottom because of the heat generated while it entered the atmosphere. "Well, if she is there, she's probably not in any condition to answer me," he mused.
Walking up to the pod, he looked over the wall, deciding whether or not to trust its strange entrance mechanism. After all, he still wasn't sure how he had exited the vessel.
"Aw, what the hell?" Ranma shrugged, then took a deep breath and pushed hard on the pod wall.
*Shloook!* The vacuum took hold of his arm, and Ranma was momentarily disoriented as his body was enveloped by the flesh of the Krell drop pod.
*Moosh* Ranma tripped over something as he was sucked inside, and fell roughly onto something firm and bumpy. He was still a bit disoriented, so it wasn't until he had pushed away from his landing spot that he could tell what he had landed on.
"Seeee!" The blue Krell complained, raising its arm blaster to aim at the human who had stumbled into it.
Ranma's eyes widened. All around him, lined up along the walls of the pod, the Krell raised their weapons and prepared to fire.
"Now she owes me breakfast, too," Ranma mumbled.
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Wha... what happened...?" Katrina mumbled softly, trying hard to collect her thoughts surrounding the splitting pain along her back. It felt like she was on fire. Every twitch of her muscles brought such sharp daggers of agony, she wasn't even sure whether the muscle in question had moved successfully. It was like all of her senses had been physically attacked.
Were she a fully trained Jedi, Katrina likely could have fallen into a healing trance and at least recovered her ability to concentrate and think straight, but as it was, her mind was a helpless wreck.
A fuzzy, blunted rhythm beat in her head.
'What is that? ...... Footsteps?'
*Shloooook!* The sickening sound of the drop pod admitting another occupant seemed to bring her hearing back to normalcy, and she grasped onto those sounds and concentrated on them as best she could.
"Kreeeek... Seee!"
*Shloooook!*
"Seeee."
"Heeeees. Kreeeek!"
"Sheeeek."
Suddenly pain flared within Katrina's body, and she came to realize that she was moving, and not under her own power.
"Seeeeek!"
*Kashlak*
Katrina's vision, which she had all but given up on at that point, turned from inky black to fuzzy white.
'Where... light? Am I outside? Where am I...?'
Trying harder to focus her mind, Katrina slowly forced her eyelids all the way open, and the sheets of white slowly began to darken into a hazy sketch of shapes and shadows.
'I... I'm on a planet? How did I get here? What's going on?'
*Thud!* "Ow!" Katrina yelped as she was dropped onto the ground, and looked up at the sky painfully.
"SREEEE!!"
"Kyeeek!"
"Keeek! Keeeee."
Katrina slowly moved her head to one side, trying to take in what was happening as her vision returned to her.
Her eyes widened. Had she the muscle control at this point, she would have gasped.
To her right was a small mound of Twi'lek corpses, all of them peppered with black pockmarks. Behind THAT was another mound of Krell corpses, and while smaller, the dead Krell were all warriors, while all but a few of the Twi'lek bodies looked to be civilians.
'Is it an invasion, or genocide?' She thought to herself, trying hard to turn over to see the live Krell. That might yield some clue as to what they were trying to accomplish.
While turning over didn't reveal any of their long-range plans, she was able to make out one of the Krell aiming its blaster at her head.
'No... please... not like this... no......'
*Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* The alien jerked to the side as two blaster bolts cut into it, and Katrina could make out several of the other Krell orienting on the source of the fire.
"Sreeee!" *Choom!* *Choom!* *Choom!*
*Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* *Crack!* *Wham!*
"Suck it, freaks!" *Pshoo!* *Pshoo!* *Thwack!*
Katrina flinched from where she lay on the ground. 'Ranma? He's here?'
*Thud* The last of the Krell in the immediate vicinity fell to the ground next to Katrina, who tried to control her breathing as best she could so that she could speak.
"Ra... *Gasp* Ranma? You-You... *Gasp*" she sucked in air harshly and shut her mouth as her body protested the tiny allocation of energy and breath toward speaking.
After a moment, Ranma was standing over her, and the Jedi stared.
"You owe me breakfast, lunch, and TWO dinners," Ranma muttered. He had burn marks on his flight vest, his hair was ragged and dirty, and if Katrina had been in any state to notice, she would have realized that he was favoring his left leg. "You can cook 'em or buy 'em. I don't care. But you owe 'em to me."
He sat down heavily next to her, and then pushed her shoulder down when the woman started to get up. "Just lie down for now, will ya? By all accounts, you're lucky to be alive. Don't push it."
Katrina winced at the pressure Ranma put on her shoulder, but stopped trying to get up.
"Why... d-did you... come... after me?" She gasped out.
"Don't ask stupid questions I can't answer," Ranma mumbled. "I'm here now, and if I let you die, then all the nonsense I've been through to get here was for nuthin'. So just sit back and keep breathing."

Ranma sighed and tapped a few buttons on the bracer on his right arm, activating the scanners. He frowned. 'Scanners can't pick up jack. Those Krell use so much bio-technology that searching for energy wavelengths is a waste of time. Maybe later Arak can put something in to scan for those weird crystal energies.'
Ranma leaned back a little bit and looked up into the sky. His eye twitched.
"Crud! More drop pods!" Ranma exclaimed, jumping to his feet. Then something else caught his eye on a distant hilltop. "Gah! More troops! Aw, man..." Ranma looked around him for any area he could use to hide himself and Katrina. Eventually, his eyes settled on the pile of dead Twi'lek.
"................ HELL no." He turned to Katrina. "Can you walk?"
Katrina's face contorted into a vaguely angry expression. "I can... barely speak..."
"Crap." Ranma concluded. Then he picked the Jedi up into his arms, causing the young woman to gasp in surprise and pain. "In your condition, this might hurt, but it'll hurt a lot less than if those freaks find ya."
Katrina winced as Ranma began running; every time his foot hit the ground, it felt like an electric shock wave blasted through her body.
'He came here... to save me? That's impossible! I tried to kill him... But... here he is...'
The pain all along her body started to numb over, and Katrina felt her mind slip into unconsciousness as her physical senses began to dull.
'Does he care about me... that much?'
Her head slumped against Ranma's chest, and her eyes closed.
'Damn you Ranma... at this rate I'll never be able to kill you...'
__________________________________________________________________________________

*GRRRZHAACK!!!* Huge ribbons of blue and white lanced out into the armor of the Nebulon-B frigate, searing and melting bulkheads while cutting through the armor like a knife through butter.
*KAA-DOOM!!* The relatively thin middle segment connecting the two primary sections of the frigate burst apart as another energy ribbon pulsed into it, and the command section and weapons platforms lost power as the engines and power core went floating off into space.
*BOOM!!* *Boom!* *Boom-Boom!* *Ba-Boom-Boom!!* The explosions began to increase in frequency and power as the chain reaction began in the engine core, speeding up until the rear section of the frigate detonated in a bright flash of over-charged plasma and metal debris.
Above the swarm of ejecting escape pods that burst from the command segment of the frigate, one of the smaller Krell capital ships loomed, slowly making its way toward the next defending vessel.
*Ka-Kroom!* *Ka-Kroom!* The Krell destroyer's light, biological armor caved in like a soap bubble before the destructive power of the barrage of proton bombs, and the same vessel that had just moments before claimed victory ruptured and swelled as an entire squadron of Y-wings rained destruction upon it.

*Look at that thing burst. Like a bad brain tumor.*
*Shit! The starboard side is sealing up again!*
*Break Squadron, form up on me. Get ready for another pass.*
*Where the hell is the bridge on that thing?! Where the hell are we supposed to put our bombs?*
*Bogeys at 9 o'clock!*
*Dagger Squadron, you're up!*
*Gotcha Break Squadron, we've got your back.*

As the Y-wings turned back toward the crippled frigate, a squad of A-wings cut sharply into the ranks of the Krell's inferior pod fighters, creating clouds of burnt flesh and twisted gore as their lasers tore apart the alien invaders.

*Thanks for the backup Dagger Squadron. Let's drop the hammer.*
*This is the Rekthurst! Black Squadron! Iron Squadron! Somebody, take out that enemy battleship before-*
*No good! Too many fighters! We need interceptor support!*
*There's no time for that! We've got to-BvvvVVT!!-NO!! AAAAAAAAA-psssssssssssssht...*

The Twi'lek admiral frowned deeply as the signal cut off into static, marking the loss of another destroyer.
"Have the dreadnaughts pull back with us. Concentrate on the fighters, and keep the hell away from those capital ships!"
"Sir! Units Claymore and Yarimus are not responding!"
"Damn it all! Pull back! Let our fighters take them down!"
"Admiral! You'd better take a look at this!"
The admiral's brain tails twitched in annoyance, and he stalked over to the scanner station that he had been called to.
"You had best have good news, ensign, because if you have a problem, you can just shout it to me like everybody else!"
Rather than being intimidated, the man shrugged and put up his scope readout on the viewscreen. "I think you'll find this interesting, sir."
The viewscreen lit up to show the enemy battlecruiser nearest to the line of defenders.
The admiral frowned. This battlecruiser was unusual not only because of the lava-vein pattern over its hull, but also because it had stopped functioning earlier in the battle for no apparent reason.
"What's wrong? Is it active again?"
At that moment, a chunk of the battlecruiser seemed to break off the rear of the vessel, and the admiral sweatdropped.
"Well, yes and no, Admiral. The vessel still appears to be non-functional and right now seems to be coming apart. But it's also moving toward Ryloth. I don't think it's the gravity field though; otherwise, it'd be suffering drag from the moon's gravity well."
The admiral's eyes widened, and he involuntarily took a step away from the monitor.
"...... Take our remaining cruisers and position them to block the craft's progress toward Ryloth. Take that thing down."
"Sir? If its weapons power up, and all our fighters are occupied with the remaining alien invasion force-"
"I'm well aware of what might happen!" He snapped, causing the ensign to flinch back. "Let's just hope that it's as dead as you say it is!"
With that matter finished, the admiral turned back toward the main viewglass, looking out into the vast expanse of space. All across Ryloth's normally calm skies, darts of red and sparks of blue flashed back and forth, occasionally dwarfed by a particularly large explosion of bloodspray or a series of blazing detonations.
There was an awkward silence on the bridge as the technicians and officers ceased giving their reports, not having anything particularly different or useful to say.
"Units are engaging..." the ensign muttered softly, unsure as to whether the admiral even wanted to hear it.
Apparently he didn't, because another twitch of his brain tail was the only indication that he had heard anything.
"Now that's odd..." the man mumbled, crouching over the relays. "Since when did these things have metal cores? And what kind of core propels itself with plasma relay propulsion systems?"
The admiral blinked, then slowly turned toward his subordinate. "What did you say?"
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Well, there goes our little disguise," Arak muttered, watching huge strips of dead, disintegrating flesh rip away from the Wild Horse and float away in its engine wash.
"ESTIMATES PLACE US AS BEING SUSCEPTIBLE TO LOW-INTENSITY SCANNERS NOW. IT IS SAFE TO ASSUME THAT THEY KNOW WE ARE USING THE ALIEN CRUISER AS COVER."
Yuri nodded as she sat in Ranma's normal chair, her chin resting on her hands. She had thought that rather than blasting out and trying to navigate through the firefight toward Ryloth, that they could simply feed enough power to the engines to bring the battleship into the atmosphere with them still inside it. However, the alien ship had broken down faster than even Rac had anticipated, and it certainly hadn't helped any when two cruisers had opened fire on them.
Another large piece of dying bio-matter tore away from the head of the ship, and Yuri watched as it slid off of the window that would normally show an unfettered view of space.
She shuddered slightly as her new perspective revealed two mighty New Republic cruisers bearing down on them, bristling with weapons. Apparently Ryloth had managed to bring the rest of its defense fleet around for this battle.
"Well, they're not firing yet. That's good." Yuri muttered to herself. "Rac, open up a channel and put it on-screen."
"AFFIRMATIVE." *Beep*
A monitor lowered itself in front of the captain's chair for Yuri, and after a moment it activated, displaying the upper torso of a Twi'lek captain.
The man's initial harsh and determined manner was quickly shattered when he realized he was facing a teenage girl, however, and he began to stutter in confusion.
*Wh-Who is... what-*
"Captain," Yuri began professionally, taking hold of the conversation, "I am Yuri Xero, currently in command of the battle frigate Wild Horse." She kept a smug smile off her face as the captain gaped; this was the first time since stowing away she had gotten the opportunity to exercise her diplomatic experience, which was really the only particular skill she had.
"I ask that you and your assisting vessel stand down, captain. We wish to collect a member of our crew that we believe may be stranded on Ryloth. In return, we offer our assistance in keeping the advancing enemy at bay." She finished calmly, and smiled pleasantly, without the slightest trace of malice.
The Twi'lek captain was clearly overwhelmed, and his brain tails twitched nervously as he tried to sort out this most confusing turn of events.
Seeing this, Rayden took it upon himself to help speed up the decision. "Yeah. Plus, if you don't, we'll destroy you."
*Slap* Yuri grimaced as she held her face in her hands.
The Twi'lek captain's bewildered expression shifted into a glare, and he snorted. *If those are our choices, then prepare for battle, pirates.*
"PRAY TO YOUR OTHERWORDLY SUPERIOR BEINGS, BIO-UNIT," Rac's eerie simulated voice pierced the signal as he interjected his own threats, "YOUR RESISTANCE ONLY BRINGS ABOUT YOUR SUFFERING. END TRANSMISSION."
Yuri sweatdropped. "What are you people doing?" She mumbled half-heartedly.
"Just doin' our job," Rayden said, grinning. "Now let's toast those losers!"
"No! No! Wait!" Yuri cried, grabbing onto Rayden's arm. "We can't just blow them up!"
Rayden blinked. "Sure we can."
"SHIKODAN IS CORRECT. COMPLETE ELIMINATION OF THE ENEMY UNITS SEEMS COMPLETELY LOGICAL."
Yuri grimaced and tried hard to think of a plausible reason to spare the lives of the defenders.
"Well, I don't know," Arak began, swiveling his chair around to face the middle of the room. "It's not gonna be easy to take out two fully-armed cruisers, even when their fighter complement is elsewhere."
Rayden blinked. "Why not?"
One of Rac's drones suddenly bobbed upward to look Rayden in the eyes. "I BELIEVE TETSUMI IS REFERRING TO OUR RECENT CONVERSION OF THE TURBOLASER CANNONS INTO PAINTBALL WEAPONS."
Rayden blinked again. "Oh yeah. Forgot about that."
*BOOM!* The bridge shook as a volley of turbolaser fire slammed into the front of the ship, and Yuri was nearly thrown from the command chair.
"THE ENEMY CRUISER HAVE OPENED FIRE. I SUGGEST USING ION CANNONS TO DRAIN THE SHIELDS AND THEN USE TORPEDOES TO DESTROY THE ENGINE CORE, RUPTURING THE POWER SUPPLY."
Yuri gulped. "Is there any way we can cloak and get past them?" She shouted to Arak.
"No," he said simply. "And the Apocalypse cannon will just get us killed, since we can't line up a shot to take them both down from here."
Yuri frowned. She hadn't asked about the Apocalypse cannon, and she wasn't about to. They had enough to worry about without fighting the Twi'lek! "Okay... take us around the right side of-"
"Starboard side," Rayden corrected. "Gotta know the lingo."
Yuri's eye twitched. "Starboard side of the nearest cruiser to try and minimize how much fire we take! Keep us on a collision course with the cruiser for as long as possible so that we can hit them with the heavy ion cannons. After we're past, we make a break for the planet. Got it?"
Rayden scratched his head. "Isn't there some way we can do this that involves blowing up the cruisers?"
"AGREED. ALTHOUGH DIFFICULT, IT WOULD-"
"I already told you what to do! Now do it!" Yuri shouted, her face red.
"Yes ma'am!" "AFFIRMATIVE!"
"Violent psychopaths..." she mumbled to herself as she shifted back into Ranma's chair. Once situated, she watched as twin blue spheres blasted toward the nearest cruiser, outlined by webs of red laser blasts.
'Please watch over me, Ranma...'
__________________________________________________________________________________

"Aw, crap!" Ranma yelled, ducking under a series of blue energy blasts as he ran for the city limits, an unconscious Katrina still in his arms.
*Choom!* *Choom!*
Ranma jumped forward, avoiding a few blasts that tagged the ground he had been running on.
"Almost there... geez, is she even still alive? ... Yeah, okay, she's breathing..."
Ranma looked left and right as he screeched to a halt just past the outskirts of the city, and quickly caught sight of several Twi'lek soldiers that had barricaded themselves in the building that he had just passed.
"What the-? Is that a human?"
"No way! Nobody can move that fast!"
Ranma swallowed as one of the soldiers pointed his weapon at him and advanced. Those Krell were right behind him!
"Hey, slow down there! Who are you and what are you doing here?!"
Ranma's eye twitched. Either the soldier didn't see that he was hauling a nearly-dead woman, or didn't know that a number of hostile units were advancing on his position.
"Forget who I am!" Ranma yelled, "I need to get to a med center! Or at least, I need to get to a ship!"
The Twi'lek jabbed the muzzle of his blaster carbine at Ranma menacingly, and the space pirate found his irritation growing. In different surroundings, he probably would have strangled the moron with his own brain tails.
"What you NEED is to pull out some I.D., round-head!"
*Choom!* *Choom!*
Ranma sighed as the soldier jerked forward, and then fell flat onto the ground face-first. Apparently the Krell had caught up with him.
"Oh geez, the enemy!"
"Take cover! Stop them here!"

Ranma shook his head as he leapt onto the roof of a nearby building, and began dashing further into the city.
Stopping on the roof of speeder shop, Ranma looked toward the skyline of the city's buildings, watching as several fighters launched from the city and headed out of the atmosphere.
"A fighter port! Maybe I can finally get out of here!" Glancing down at Katrina, and making sure that she was still breathing, Ranma jumped down to the streets and began rushing toward the location he had seen the fighters lifting off from.
As he ran through the streets, entire squads of soldiers and civilians wielding blasters ran the other way, occasionally giving confused glances at the near-blur that was racing downtown at velocities normally reserved for speeders.
Ranma soon arrived at the star port, and dug his heel into the ground to kill his momentum, creating such a blast of dirt and rock that the guard on duty nearly shot him right then and there.
"Who in the-... who are you? What are you doing here?"
Ranma sweatdropped as the guard pointed his weapon at him. "Uh... Rogue Squadron?"
The guard snorted. "Yeah, right."
Ranma sweatdropped some more. "Er... Wraith Squadron?"
The guard blinked, then lowered his blaster. "Well, I might be more inclined to believe that, except that you already tried to say you-" *Thwack!*
Ranma smiled happily and walked toward the door with Katrina in his arms, letting the unconscious Twi'lek slump to the ground behind him.
"Let's see... damn. Looks like they already manned most of 'em." Looking inside the fighter hangar, Ranma could only see fighters that looked to be either broken and in the midst of the repair, or undergoing a complete salvage.
Turning to the far corner of the hangar, Ranma smiled as he saw an old Headhunter Mk. I that already had all its armor ripped off. Though it was entirely possible that someone had already cannibalized a vital component for parts, it looked to be the most functional craft still in the hangar, and Ranma wasn't going to be terribly choosy about ships now; he just wanted to get back to his own.
As he neared the craft, Ranma looked over the bare circuitry with a little more scrutiny.
"Wait a minute. Ion dampers and detrium converters? No Headhunter has that kind of technology! They weren't taking this thing apart, they were refitting it!" Ranma grinned. This would certainly make his escape more interesting; a Headhunter Mk. I was almost worthless, except possibly as scrap or target practice. However, some of the newer components might be worth quite a bit. He'd have to ask Rayden to look at it later to see how far it had been juiced up.
"All right... in ya go!" Ranma gently slipped Katrina into a small cavity that had been carved out behind the pilot's seat (likely to hold the personal cargo of whoever had previously owned the craft).
Jumping into the pilot's seat, Ranma hit a few buttons on the activation console. Red lights immediately flared, and a panel flipped up demanding an activation key and code.
"Figures," Ranma muttered, "personal ship, lock it down. Too bad for whoever owns this heap that I make a career outta taking stuff that isn't mine." Sliding a switch down on the bracer on his right wrist, a small rod flipped out and then split open, revealing a small head covered in prongs and small pressure wires to fit any number of computer orifices. Sliding it gently into the key slot, Ranma tapped the command screen of his bracer, and a low grinding noise emanated from the key as it did its work.
*Whoooooosh...*
Ranma's head jerked up as the faint sound of wind pierced his ears. Then, after a moment, he decided that what he had heard probably wasn't a faint wind if it had arrested his attention so fully and effectively.
"The hell...?"
A slight buzzing in the back of his head began to grow in intensity, and soon Ranma could no longer hear the soft sounds of his computer jack at work.
"Wha-What's happening? What-"

Flash!
Thoughts and images spilled into Ranma's head.
Find the ruins.
Kill the defenders.
Ruins. Direction. Salvation.
The tablets have been found.
Decryption?
The defenders are too strong.
Fight harder.
Kill them all.
No, the ruins come first.
We must have direction.
It is our only hope.
Destroy all that gets in our way!
That is their way, not ours.
Fight for survival.
We have direction.
The stars will now guide us.
We have no more purpose here.
RUN!

*Beep!*
Reality seemed to snap back into place around Ranma as his bracer chimed that it was finished, and he suddenly crouched over and grabbed his chest as he gasped for breath.
"Wh-Wha... What... in the name of ALL of Endor's moons... was THAT?!"
Ranma slapped the side of his head a few times when no clear external answer appeared to be forthcoming, but only succeeded in making the side of his head hurt.
"Geez... did that weird psychic core thing do this to me?"
Swallowing slightly, Ranma pulled his computer jack out of the key slot and noted that all the fighter status displays were green, except for a few that noted the lack of component pressure and indicated the status of the armor.
"Well... I guess I'll figure that out later..."
*JoooooooOOOOOOOOOO*
The small craft slowly lifted off the ground as the anti-gravity lifts activated, and Ranma carefully pointed the craft upward.
*Pssssht!* *Ranma! Are you there?! Ranma! Please answer me!*
Ranma blinked as his bracer started spouting his name. Gunning the engines, his fighter accelerated swiftly as it shot upward into Ryloth's stratosphere, leaving a thin trail of scrap wire and tools that Ranma had neglected to take off the fighter first.
"Yeah, I'm here. Is that you Yuri? What're you doing at the comm?"
*Ranma, you're alive! I'm so relieved... Listen, we're heading into the atmosphere right now, so-*
"Yeah, I see ya," Ranma interrupted, noting the large red shape that was penetrating the yellow clouds several kilometers away. "I'm on my way. Just have a bacta tank ready; Jedi girl's pretty banged up. Over and out." He hit the button on his bracer to cut the transmission and returned his attention fully to his piloting.
'The Krell... where did they come from? And what are they searching for?'
Bereft of answers, Ranma gave more power to the engines and sped toward his ship. Speculation could wait for another day. For now, he had a life to preserve.

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End Chapter 10