Doonium-Xesh

Posted on Sat Jun 1st, 2019 @ 5:21pm by Kalen "Rex" Vickers & Reave & Mentis
Edited on on Thu Oct 3rd, 2019 @ 11:30pm

3,672 words; about a 18 minute read

Chapter: Chapter V: Unbound
Location: Janna cockpit, Hyperspace
Timeline: Day Three

OLD

Mentis sat back, absorbing the ending of the story. Up until that point, he had hoped that Sanchester would finally claim his revenge against his tormenter and, once again, become a hero to his people. But the unfortunate end placed a different view on the whole tale. Rather than being a tale of defeating the villain, it instead became about the personal struggle of a man; a man who had suffered, firstly, by the Tuskens and then, perhaps more so, by his own need for revenge.

After watching the Rattataki for a prolonged moment from his backwards-leaning seated position, Rex finally threw himself up, jumping firmly onto both feet and passing his half-finished cigarra to Reave, who casually took over the puffing from his Human friend.

"Well," Rex began, stretching and letting out an exaggerated sigh as he began to pace past Mentis, "I think that's me for the day, fellas." As he began to walk by his guest, he patted his shoulder and squeezed it briefly with a surprisingly firm grip. "Just think about what I told ya, Mantis. There's a lot worth livin' for in this life, but vengeance ain't one of 'em. You'll just get yourself eaten by a krayt dragon."

NEW

"I still can't believe I let you talk me into this," Rex complained for the seventh time in the space of an hour, his hands resting (or rather, shaking) over the main console of the Janna's cockpit. And, for the seventh time, Reave, sat comfortably in his personal chair (which he guarded jealously) uttered something from behind puffs of his cigarra in Jawaese, which Mentis was soon learning was some sort of heavy curse. "It ain't too late to turn back, y'know," Rex went on, false hope in his smooth voice. "There's plenty o' work for a man of your talents back on Nar Shaddaa - with a man of my talents backing you up, of course."

"The offer is appreciated, Rex," Mentis reassured him, moving up in the cockpit so he was standing just behind the pilot's chair and staring out into hyperspace, "But this is something I have to do or I will never be able to carry on without always thinking..."

He trailed off before adding, "Well, at least travelling to Korriban and finding these people, I am actually taking some action, not simply running or hiding."

Mentis thought again about the tale Rex had told about Tusken Cruel-Sea and the folly of waging a pointless conflict. He had been giving a lot of thought, not only to the message of the story itself, but also to what it meant that Rex had chosen to tell him the tale. He had never considered himself a magnetic character, given he had always been under the thumb of someone else, but it was odd that practically the first person he shared a meaningful interaction with outside of the Cult had developed this level of concern for him in such a short time. He was not sure how he felt about it all and, in many ways, it was another thing was was simpler to run away from than face.

Mentis turned the conversation onto Reave, although he really was still talking to Rex, "Is he always this jittery about a job? I thought you guys smuggled stuff all the time. You're just smuggling me down to this planet."

Reave, predictably, said nothing. If it were possible to even see a scowl within the Jawa's shadowed face and beneath his wide-brimmed hat, it was almost a certainty that Reave was wearing one for Mentis at the Rattataki's comments.

"Uhh, well, kinda," Rex answered in a jittery and non-committal Rex way. "I mean, I always considered smuggling people to be more like trafficking, and that ain't really my sorta game," the Human went on, twisting a few dials aimlessly on the centre console. "More and besides, it's been a long time since I tried to sneak anything past any Jedi, but we never had a... whatever you are... on board. I mean, we recently tried to shift some spice past a Rifter outpost at Boonta..."

“Look, Rex,” Mentis cut him off, “I get it. This is not the usual job and I know don’t like to attract a lot of attention. But trust me; having me hang around is only going to get you in more trouble. Besides, you haven’t known me long: it really doesn’t…”

Before he could finish, a chiming alarm began to beep just above the pilot’s seat indicating that they were coming towards the end of their jump.

Rex turned his attention entirely to the console, pulling at a few switches and knobs. The gestures seemed almost aimless, being a bit of theatre employed by the spacefaring Human to give the impression of exerting more control over the spaceship than he really did, or perhaps really even needed to.

The ship about them shuddered and the streaking stars bounced back to shining pin-pricks as they returned to realspace, now finding themselves just on the very fringes of the Horuset system, just far enough out from their destination that a hyperspace drop should remain undetected.

“So, there’s a Jedi outpost guarding the planet, you said?” Mentis squinted out of the cockpit window, but they were too distant to see anything noteworthy despite a belt of rugged asteroids.

"There is," Rex confirmed, squinting with suspicion into the dark distance, as if his organic eyes would be able to discern the station in question. "I don't know a great deal about the Jedi or their history - beyond the usual mumbo-jumbo, that is, like the 'Force', Skywalkers, Darths and their comeback after all that Dark Age stuff. I know, after all the kark they went through in the past, or so the legends say, they're a bit touchy about stuff they don't agree with. Anything with the slightest whiff of the nasties, and they come down on you like a ton of bantha fodder." The smuggler nodded out of the viewport. "It's these guys, some special group o' Jedi, that get all up in your cockpit about it. Almost impossible to get good trade in Jedi relics without one of 'em frisking you and all your maternal ancestors." Rex shook his head in some nervous dismay. "More trouble than it's worth, you ask me."

“I trust you have some backdoor way to slip past without alerting them?” Mentis asked.

At that, Rex finally offered one of his trademark winning smiles. "This ain't my first eopie rodeo," he said mirthfully, and as if on cue, Reave tumbled over to stand beside his partner at the console, and both men began twisting and turning the various dials once more. After a bit of Jawaese babbling from Reave, and a lot of the Janna spinning about in space in quite a disorientating fashion (particularly as the ship's inertial dampeners performed surprisingly efficiently), they found themselves setting course towards the nearby asteroids.

Whilst Reave continued to attend to the consoles with increasing diligence alongside the Human pilot, a certain degree of focus seemed to overcome Rex, an expression Mentis had not yet really seen on the happy-go-lucky con man, his arms and hands splayed with an odd precision over the console. Beyond the viewport, the asteroids had grown to almost epic proportions now that the ship had drawn close, absolutely dwarfing the Janna.

Off to the sides of the cockpit, various monitors began to flicker or had their images disappear either entirely or intermittently. Rex tapped one a couple of times, as if it would prompt some recovery of the display. Behind them, the battered astromech Brick had wheeled in and was already plugged into the ship's navicomputer.

"You ever heard of doonium?" He then asked, not looking away from his task.

“Doonium,” repeated the Rattataki, who was finding even his precognitive powers were making it hard to remain standing as the Janna swept this way and that, “Like the metal?”

The ship began to dip into a cluster of asteroids and the sudden scattering of micrometeoroids, that burned up harmlessly against the deflector shields, caused a steady clattering to resonate through the interior of the ship. While Rex was managing to avoid the larger objects, he seemed to purposefully be weaving around them, making the ride extremely disorienting.

At this point, Mentis decided he would rather be seated and strapped himself down in one of the rear chairs beside where Brick was interfacing. He gave the disoriented man a quick glance and a robotic chirrup, to which Mentis shrugged back at him, not familiar with droidspeak.

“I presume that it has something to do with why we are suddenly ploughing through this minefield of cosmic debris?” Mentis was starting to find being left in suspense rather irritating.

"It does!" Rex confirmed loudly after a few more seconds of sharp twisting-and-turning between the asteroids. "These 'roids are stuffed full of it. Now, you're prob'ly thinking, 'but Rex, doonium is a major material used in starship construction; they couldn't possibly have left this much unmined like this!'." The Human turned to face Mentis just quickly, clicking his thumb and finger in approval at the words he had put in his passenger's mouth. "And you'd be right! Ancient dusty world like this, now home to penny-pinching Jedi and mercenary gravediggers, it's a wonder it wasn't discovered and horded centuries ago. But this stuff ain't normal doonium. It's doonium-"

A tirade of Jawaese finished Rex's sentence, with little Reave proudly announcing the continuation in a dialect entirely unintelligible to Mentis still.

"Yeah. Thanks, Reave," Rex said sarcastically, rolling his eyes between bouts of spinning the Janna about the deadly stellar rocks narrowly avoiding the hull of their small ship. "Doonium-xesh," he then translated, slightly strained with their latest manoeuvre. "Like normal doonium, only much more fun and far less effective as hull plating. When you consider your ship's armour is meant to be between you and all the nasty radiation and stuff in space, doonium-xesh would probably ace you in half the time." A little shrug punctuated the pause between his comments. "I'm no scientist, as you know, so I can't pretend to get all the ins and outs of dangerous space-farin' alloys, but I know that doonium-xesh emits some sort of radiation or field that will bleed into a ship's shields, concealing it from the karky GalactaWerks sensors the Jedi will have on their station for a time. It's too easy!"

Reave then babbled again, only his tone was eerily conversational.

"Oh, yeah," Rex agreed. "Apart from the risk of it getting past the shields." He looked back to Mentis with an unconvincing smile. "We'll be fine."

Mentis considered the second-hand science Rex had thrown his way, “So, we might just have to dose ourselves with toxic radiation in order to pull this off? Yes, that does sound like your sort of plan. Just how deadly is the radiation from this Doonium-Xesh?”

It seemed his question provoked a faint chortle from Brick as he disconnected from the terminal and rolled away to the other corner of the cockpit, but it may have been Mentis' misunderstanding of the binary language again.

Rex seemed to mull over that for a moment, a serious and thoughtful expression stealing his jovial features. After a punctuated few seconds where he seemed to be adding up numbers on his hands, he turned to Mentis and asked, "Well, you're a Rattataki, right?"

“Indeed,” Mentis replied, pleased that Rex had correctly remembered his race, when it could often be mistaken for other pale-skinned humanoids, “Rattataki may be bred as strong and agile warriors, but that does not help us much when fighting cosmic radiation. I am not sure about Doonium-Xesh, but our pale skin means we have to be careful about even too much UV radiation.”

They watched as the dust and debris swirled around the ship. Mentis realised that the deflectors were not completely burning up the miniature rocks and allowing tiny particles through to the surface of the ship. It seemed a bit late for him to complain about being dosed with radiation at this point.

Rex had brought the Janna to an almost-complete halt, having selected a spot between two larger asteroids within the cluster that seemed to satisfy whatever criteria his mind had selected during their arduous and turbulent adventure through the stellar maze. Whilst their vision was almost entirely obscured by the slow-moving objects surrounding them, there was the occasional glimpse of their orange destination in the far-distance.

"Y'know, Mantis, I've been meaning to bring it up for a little while now," Rex opened, spinning his chair to face his companion, crossing his arms in the same movement. "All your magical powers and arm-slicing aside, you seem pretty damn well-rounded. Educationally, I mean. Socially, you're a wreck, but you know a lot of stuff about... well, stuff. That Dark Master of yours... he big in history lessons, or something? Does he have a little map of the galaxy he likes to get a little pointy stick out for from time-to-time, asking questions about the names of trade routes and that?"

Mentis scoffed, falling for Rex’s taunt, “I’ll have you know; I was not denied any kind of education within the cult. Unlike my life before, Axion taught me much of the Galaxy; Nala and I…” he broke off, realising he had been goaded, “Well, let’s just say, we don’t make very effective tools if we don’t know our Xagobah from our Dagobah.”

He smiled and tried to throw the comment back, “I am sure it beats whatever education they provide on Tatooine and don’t tell me you attended the ‘School of Hard Knocks’. That’s what all the street scum back on Rattatak used to say.”

"Hey, my School of Hard Knocks diploma's worth ten o' your death cult degrees!" Rex threw back in mock-seriousness, but it was clear that Mentis had not managed to quite rile the seasoned spacer. Presumably, years of suffering the insults of his fellow Tatooinian Reave had softened any such blows, and Rex had hardly spoken well of his homeworld during his weeks with Mentis. Even so, a degree of genuine seriousness seemed to dawn on the Human. "So... how long were you, uh, with Axion and this Nala? D'you remember your parents?"

The ship had settled and there was an odd calmness in the ship, punctuated only by the odd creak of the metal framework settling, “I… have no real memory of my parents,” Mentis said finally, his mis-matched eyes squinting towards the human with distrust at the serious line of questioning, “I don’t know their reasons for giving me away and I suppose I never will know.”

He softened his gaze when it appeared that Rex was genuinely listening and even Reave had tilted his hat up slightly to look over at him with moderate interest. The scarred Rattataki’s voice slipped away from its usual eloquence as he spoke plainly, “I guess I hated em’ for a long time, as well as the karking Siniteen who made me fight in the rings; my… first master.”

He stopped himself but quickly carried on in his usual considered accent, somehow worried his past as a slave would lead to some kind of judgement, “I think what I really hated was how my life seemed to have no purpose and no value. When Axion took me in, he gave me that purpose, even if it was just as a part of his own greater purpose. Nala was just like me: another lost youth who found meaning in Axion’s shadow, but she was always the favourite disciple. But I never hated her, and I never hated Axion, even after fifteen years of being broken and abused. Even now.”

Rex watched Mentis in a comfortable silence for a few long seconds, and even Reave was politely quiet for the sombre mood. Eventually, the Human spoke again. "So, whaddya think'll happen when you come face-to-face with 'em again? 'Cause you know it's gonna happen. Men like Axion... if he's half as crazy as you've said, he's not the type to let somethin' like this go."

Mentis grimaced at the hypothetical, but very likely, scenario, “Axion is a very persuasive man,” the Rattataki answered, thinking back to the day the tattooed human had come to him in the slums of Rattatak, like a warm fatherly figure so unlike anything he had met in his life until that point. It was only over years of being by his side that the cracks were seen in that façade, “If he asked me to return, I think I probably would but… I cannot foresee a scenario where he would let me live. I need to be mentally stronger so that, when we do come face to face, I have the power to walk away. To tell him he does not own my life; to tell him I am free, just as he said to me when we first met.”

The former cultist looked away and out into the dust-filled space around the Janna, realising his pulse was raised despite being stationary. It filled him with dread to know that he still did not have any clear plans on how to accomplish this goal. He felt like he was floating through the Galaxy; for the first time, being pulled by the Force alone.

“Listen, Rex, Reave,” he turned back, “I may well be a lost cause and I have been very closed off during our time together. But if there is any chance for me to resist the draw of the cult, it is down on that planet ahead, so I… appreciate your assistance in delivering me here. If Axion does catch up to me before I find what I seek, then you…”

He didn’t know quite what he wanted to say. Rex, in particular, had given his life some purpose over the last month, even if he continued to be a source of irritation. That background anger and fear kept him from really speaking what he wanted to say.

He carried on, after a pause, “Well, you just be careful he doesn’t find out you helped me or you’ll be next.”

Rex frowned, apparently unimpressed. For a moment, it seemed as if the smuggler was unsure as to whether he should remain jovial or become serious in light of Mentis' honest exposure to his newfound companion. "Reave and I have bin doin' just find ourselves against the likes of you laser sword-wielding magic maniacs for enough years, and I'm sure that ain't about to change," he began, not unfriendly. "Even so, if Mr Axon and his little club really are as bad as you say, it ain't too late for you to turn back from this."

The Human pulled a few multicoloured credit chips from within his vest and splayed them between his fingers artfully, although his face was really quite serious. A hint of the man's sincerity bled through his Force presence, even though the man was seemingly quite practised at concealing his core thoughts and feelings.

"You can take these - and more - and me 'n' Reave'll get you outta here, to the far side of the galaxy. We could get you lost, remake your identity... lose that scar of yours. Hells, there's a face sculptor I know down Jabiim way," Rex went on, "and I could get you completely remade and back in the saddle with us - I'd even front the money. You're a good worker, Mentis; you work well with us, and I can see you love the work and the freedom, 'specially with a mind like yours." He spun the credits back into his pocket. "Don't throw away a good life 'cause of this lunatic and some puffed-up nonsense about resolving daddy issues. Your smarter than that."

Reave, for his part, remained silent, watching intently from behind the cigarra smoke rings he was puffing out periodically.

Mentis rubbed his face lightly at the mention of his injury, “I'm not throwing my life away, Rex. I can’t just disappear,” he spoke with a tinge of sadness, “Not until Axion is finished. No surgeon can remove the scars that the cult has inflicted, but perhaps that Jedi can.”

In all honesty, the pull that drew him to that Ithorian Jedi and his crew was hard to explain, but the image of the powerful Force-wielder who bested them on Jericho was burnt into his mind. Now he was adrift, it seemed the only anchor in the void he now found himself in.

He sharpened his expression, fighting away the spark of temptation that Rex dangled before him, “Now, you have my share; let's finish this job. I trust your Doonium-Xesh camouflage will work, so let’s get down there.”

Rex had watched Mentis carefully, with a level of seriousness that was now betraying the sincerity within the man more deeply, saying little. Instead, the Janna's panels began blurting out a series of bleeps and warbles. Several crimson warning lights began to flicker (barring one that fizzed out after just two flashes), and a string of aurebesh characters flooded numerous displays.

With a thump of his fist, Rex silenced them all. "Well, Mantis," he sighed, "I hope you know what you're doin', because we're about to head down there. No turnin' back after this, I guess."

“There was never any turning back,” Mentis lowered his eyebrows as he glared at the displays that now blared, “Let’s do this, Rex.”

Leaving behind a trail of Doonium-Xesh dust, the radiation-soaked Janna sped forwards once again, weaving out of the asteroid belt and towards the glinting orange light of Korriban.

TBC

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