Krenn
---
Krenn’s four hands where in motion constantly. Two worked the ship’s controlls while a third was working the power distributer. The fourth was just relieving Krenn from a terrible itch on his lower back as the ash of the cigar protruding from his mouth was calling to be disposed, giving rise to the thought that one can just not have enough hands.
“Come on shields, you can make it.”
Krenn muttered to himself as he made a barrel roll in the hope of evading the pursuing laser cannons. The sentence made the ash of his cigar drop on his smudged white wife-beater. A few flashy manoeuvres got him clear for a moment, relieving him of one alarm in the orchestra of beeps and sirens. A sudden dive followed as his two right hands moved away from the navi-computer and one tapped off his cigar in a small ashtray on the freighters dashboard. The other runs a small diagnostic on the ship’s systems console.
“You got to be kidding me, already overheating!?”
A few additional taps rerouted some cooling fluids to the rear deflector shields as the itch was finally gone. It left Krenn with a small moment for a reflective fuzzing of the hairs as his lower left arm takes over from his upper left arm on the controls to do so. Spread before him was the cityscape of Coruscant, it’s soft edged towers rising in the distance. Unfortunately they also came up right before Krenn as he set out another zig-zag around one to shake the pursuing TIEs.
“Persistent fuckers….”
A glance at his navi-computer showed him that a massive ventilation shaft was just coming up, he knew it was a dead end, but up was no option, he would come into range of the planetary lasers and the Star Destroyers in Orbit. Running a chase in the upper levels of Coruscant could keep the Imps busy for a while, but eventually he would be boxed in, and he knew the penalty for the things he pulled. So down it was.
---
An hour earlier:
“This is Coruscant Traffic control, continue your path to marker Y-2790, than slave your ship to frequency 7201XF, Any deviation will be handled appropriately.”
Krenn’s ship had just jumped out of hyperspace in Coruscant’s orbit. He had to travel there via a security station in the Deep Core, where his ship was checked and luckily his secret cargo remained undiscovered. Things would be easy from here on out, but still Krenn was tense.
“Will do Control, Marker Y-2790, than frequency 7201XF.”
He let go of the comms button, rolled his eyes and added an:
“Or else you will blacken my ship and fry my corpse with lasers. No wonder this pays well.”
Coruscant was still a majestic sight, he had seen it on Holos but never up close like this. Were it under more relaxed circumstances Krenn might have enjoyed it.
As planned the ship was slaved to the agreed upon unloading dock, an open air facility where the storage would be stowed under the platform. Though the exchange began uneventful they were thoroughly disturbed when their business was interrupted by an imperial patrol. A quick search would have yielded nothing out of order, had the Chagrian buyer not insisted upon sampling the spice. Scanners indicated a small traces of Thyssel Bark on one of the crates and the whole party was apprehended. Krenn had positioned himself near his ship just for such an event and while the patrol was apprehending the buyers, Krenn made a run for it.
The folly of that soon became clear.
---
As the edge of the vent came up beneath Krenn’s customized TD-23 Mantis, a ship that boasted 3 arm-mounted engines in addition to the on board hyperspace engine. The co-ordination of 3 of Krenn’s hands was required to have his lower engine reverse direction while the upper two kept propelling, steering him sharply down, than boosting all three engines forward. He shot into the vent as the two TIE’s were taken by surprise, and had to make larger turns to pursue.
“Get out of the way!”
Krenn shouted as his ship narrowly missed a passenger craft just coming up, a few sharp turns set him clear of some more traffic, but
Laser cannon bolts where already raining down on his rear-deflector, and he noticed that they had short-circuited.
“No, no no no! Not now!”
He was quickly descending level after level, but the TIE’s were way more manoeuvrable trough the traffic of the vent and systems went down in quick succession as shots rained down upon the ship. Krenn pulled the ship up to become level, all, three engines turning to maintain upward propulsion. The ship shrieked in protest that was followed by a loud crash of the ship bumping into something, Krenn hoped it was a TIE. Sparks flew out of one of the panels overhead while clicked off his seatbelt and pushed out of his already turning seat.
“Sorry old buddy, time to let you go.”
A few steps over the upper deck of the Mantis (mere grated steel over his cargo hold) showed him the damage his ship had sustained. Tears welled up, but his determination set him to pull the large lever of his upper cargo-hatch. Air rushed through the opening with deafening force.
3036
3035
3034
Read the holo-signs he passed, accompanied by the access platforms. The secondary propulsion controls, meant for docking the ship with the upper hatch responded slowly, he added propulsion to bring him closer to the platforms in this fall and the drop steadied.
3033
3032
He near missed the platform with his arm-mounted engine, steering to get into position to jump on the next one, but a flash of green rocked the ship and left Krenn with all four hands grasping the hatch.
3031
“FUCK!”
A second shot of the volley hit the ship and Krenn let go, flailing to keep a semblance of balance in mid-air as a platform sped up beneath him.
He hit it with a loud smack, black smoke completely blinding him when he bothered to open his eyes wide while grasping for air. Krenn lay there for a while, half-chocking on the smoke, but desperately trying to breathe. How he willed himself up is still unknown, but as the smoke started to clear there was it before him. Sprawling like a huge underground cavern filled with towers, speeders and holo-commercials. Krenn steadied himself on a nearby edge, eying some bystanders come and look for the origins of the smoke. A Weequay came up to him, asking what was happening and Krenn looked at him after a good rub in his eyes.
“I-“
A coughing fit prevented him from uttering more, while he pointed shakily over the railing.
“Don’t know, - probably a ship-“
He coughed up ‘crash’ but the weequay was already looking over the railing, his face suddenly lighting up orange, and heat surged passed moments later.
“Yeah, that’s a crash alright.”
When the weequay looked over his shoulder Krenn was already stumbling into the underworld. One hand on the railing, the others hanging by his side helplessly as his eyes steadied on a holo-sign by the platform.
3030.