Project Boussh: Ewoks and E-Webs and X-Wings, Oh My!
by Nick Coghlan

The shuttle's ramp descended slowly to the ground. A scattered cordon of
Ewoks secured the area, while Nick helped the injured Josh aboard. The
protection provided by sheer adrenaline was starting to wear off, and
Josh was suffering badly from the effects of the scout walker's near
miss. As Nick emerged from the shuttle, a small horde of Ewoks slipped
past him in the opposite direction. Another small group, hefting the
unconscious form of the individual who appeared to be Face Loran,
followed them. Nick gazed after them, vaguely puzzled. It seemed Yarg
was sending a large portion of their remaining infantry force with the
injured men. A yubbed challenge, and a startled yelp from the perimeter
caught his attention.

"Hey, relax will you. It's just me." The Ewoks didn't seem inclined to
go along with Mike's calming suggestion.

Nick raised his voice just enough to carry to the belligerent perimeter
guards. "It's alright. Let them through."

The Terran Jedi shook his head as he approached. "Nothing personal, but
I'm not unhappy to be leaving the company of your friends," he said
softly as he reached the base of the shuttle's ramp.

Nick grinned knowingly. "Don't get too excited about that. You guys
don't exactly have an easy job ahead of you." Eyeing Mike's companion,
Nick commented, "You must be Sharon. Pretty fancy flying, docking with
the Home in flight like that."

Sharon merely smiled in reply. Mike grinned, "I'm more impressed with
her getting herself from the Home to here. She almost caught me by
surprise just before we ran into your guards."

Nick's comlink beeped. Glancing down, he said, "I guess Sci's impatient
to take off. See what you can do for stormie boy in there, and make sure
the fighters keep moving. No point making life easy for our trigger
happy friends upstairs." Nick pointed skyward.

Mike held up a placating hand. "We do have some idea what's going on,
you realise."

"Yeah, yeah. Better safe than sorry." Nick started to turn away, but
suddenly swung back again. "Oh. I almost forgot." Reaching into a
pocket, Nick pulled out a message canister and handed it to Mike. "Our
possibly Face in there had this on him when he showed up. I haven't had
a chance to look at it, but it might give you some idea what the
hell to do with him. Anyway, you better get moving before Sci comes out
and beats us all to a bloody pulp." Stepping off the side of the ramp,
the Australian bowed grandiosely towards the boarding Brit, sweeping his
hand in the general direction of the shuttle's hatch. "Come sir, your
chariot awaits." Mike merely grimaced in reply, but moved quickly up the
ramp, Sharon close on his heels.

As soon as Sharon palmed the switch to close the hatch, Sci brought up
the
shuttle's repulsors, and the craft rose rapidly into the air. With a
loud roar, he engaged the main drive and the ship blasted away, hugging
close to the treetops.

Turning back to the forest, Nick found Yarg, surrounded by far too many
Ewoks. "Whatinhell? Where the f***in' hell did this lot come from? We
didn't even bring this many over from Australia! Only the ones we had
blasters for!"

Yarg wore that knowing smirk, the one he always wore when he'd managed
to conceal something from his former overlord. <"Red Home is big ship.
Many places to hide. Even more places in forest. You and others were not
paying attention. Jedi probably assumed you already knew. No blasters,
but good knives. Enemy has learned this the hard way. Now you know the
easy way.">

The Ewok leader must have had a secret store of surprises stashed in a
pouch somewhere. He certainly seemed to produce a new one every time
Nick turned around. It did explain a few things though. Like the success
they'd enjoyed against the stormtroopers supporting the AT-STs.
"Anything else you want to tell me?" Yarg shook his head. "Hooray for
that. Let's go see about our ride out of here."

*******************************************

Still hidden well within the trees, Nick scanned the scene around the
Red Home. The craft looked abandoned, with gaping holes in her rear
hull, and her nose buried in the snow. It appeared the Imperials hadn't
even tried to secure the craft as a potential tactical asset. The place
had been swarming with troops while Nick and Josh had helplessly watched
Wedge and Vickie being led away. Surely their capture hadn't been
considered significant enough for the Imperial commander to withdraw all
his troops to escort them.

Lowering the macrobinocs he'd purloined from somewhere, he muttered to
himself, "What the hell is going on out there?"

*******************************************

"Patience, Evagar, patience. We have a perfect opportunity here, and we
shall not waste it." The Imperial officer turned to address the
subordinate standing next to him. The Red Home was just visible past the
thick copse of trees that sheltered the stormtrooper squad escorting
them. Whatever gem of wisdom he was about to impart was interrupted by
the insistent beeping of his comlink. He raised it to his mouth, "Terror
Command."

"Norom! What in the Emperor's name do you think you're trying to prove,
sitting on your arse back there? Secure that blasted freighter!"[1]

"Ahh, Lieutenant Chase. So kind of you to contact us. You seem to have
been diverted from your objective."

In the cockpit of their AT-ST, Yagger opened his mouth to protest the
accusation, but Chase cut him off. "Forget my squad and answer the
blasted question. What sort of stunt are you trying to pull?"

"Why, merely an attempt to simplify the task of clearing these woods. We
have some ideal bait waiting out there. When the enemy move in to take
it, we emerge from the woods and destroy them."

"C'mon, Norom! I know you're smarter than that. You must have seen the
size of that thing. Do you have any idea what resources they can pull
off it? Do you really want to let any of their troops get anywhere near
it?" Chase didn't think Norom would ever be annoyed enough to call him
up for insubordination, and, in this case, he figured he was justified
anyway.

Norom stroked his chin, his mien still calm and composed, despite the
obvious anger and frustration in Chase's voice. "I don't see what your
concern is. They would have put all their fighters in the sky to fend
off Fel, and deployed all of their ground forces to face you and your
machines. I'm quite sure the freighter has already been stripped of
whatever it once carried."

"And it didn't occur to you to that this was a Sith-forsaken _surprise_
attack? They deployed damn fast, and I very much doubt they got all of
their equipment where they wanted it." Yagger nodded firm agreement with
his commanding officer's point, despite the fact that Norom couldn't see
either of them.

As he assimilated that point of view, Norom's mask of composure cracked
slightly. Snapping off his comlink, he turned back to the junior
officer, "Evagar!" His lieutenant saluted sharply. "Issue the command.
We secure the freighter now."

As the lieutenant spoke into his communicator, a ripple of movement
spread across that region of the woods. The remaining flesh and blood
stormtroopers moved cautiously forward to the edge of the forest. The
droidtroopers were a clumsy imitation of their living counterparts,
painfully visible despite their attempts at stealth. Just as the first
of the droidtroopers reached the limits of the trees, Norom looked up to
see the freighter's main cargo bay door come crashing to the ground. Two
X-wing starfighters blasted clear and soared into the sky. Norom almost
missed the two human figures who emerged from a rent in the hull at
about the same time. It wasn't until they began methodically taking down
the droidtroopers emerging from the trees that he noticed their
presence. Concentrated return fire ended their attack, but Norom wasn't
sure if the assailants had been injured.

Not yet close enough to influence the erupting battle, Lieutenant Chase
swore as he worked the controls of his AT-ST, hoping Norom's stupidity
wasn't going to cost them too dearly.

*******************************************

As Kolot roared out of the Red Home's main bay, he caught numerous
flashes of white and grey on the edges of the forest. Barking out a
quick comment to Kirney, he hauled his fighter around viciously,
bringing it back towards the Red Home. Kicking in the repulsorlifts, he
dropped the fighter close to the ground, squarely in front of the
heaviest fire being directed at Myn and Wes. Toggling his lasers to
single fire, he worked the controls smoothly, scything fire back and
forth across the emerging lines of troops. Droidtroopers simply exploded
in showers of sparks as shots designed to take out starships slashed
through them, while the real stormtroopers screamed as the trees they
were attempting to use for cover detonated with great gouts of flame and
storms of splinters.

Kolot's com unit clicked on. "Wraith 11, Terra 6. Thanks for the assist,
but I strongly advise getting your butt out of here, NOW. We can cover
the rest of this situation." A little puzzled by the Terran's
insistence, Kolot inspected the dramatically altered situation. In the
sky, Kirney had looped back and was flying a covering pattern almost
directly above him. On the ground, the smouldering wreckage of
stormtroopers, droids and trees was beginning to send clouds of smoke
into the sky. At the limits of his vision, Kolot could see flickers of
what looked like a heavy lightfight between ground troops - it appeared
his fellow Ewoks had returned to the party. Myn and Wes had taken
advantage of the respite to find a safer position and something had
certainly had Nick concerned. Kolot shrugged to himself. Humans could be
a little unpredictable at times.

Firing up the sublight drive, he headed after the other starfighters
bound for Mendellia, Kirney forming up on his right wing.

*******************************************

Nick breathed a sigh of relief as Kolot took off with Kirney. He'd been
worried that the Ewok's stationary X-wing would prove as tempting a
target to the Admonitor's gunners as Wedge's had been. Even as he
thought that, emerald bolts of fire slashed down towards the Red Home,
peppering the now open door of the cargo bay. Nick wasn't sure what it
was intended to achieve, but maybe it made the gunner feel better about
missing the chance to take down Kolot's X-wing.

Scanning the binoculars back towards the Red Home, he spotted a couple
of interesting figures picking their way through the trees, away from
the mess made by Kolot's and the Star Destroyer's combined assaults.
Since Yarg seemed to have the current battle well in hand, Nick pocketed
the macrobinoculars and pulled out his comlink to contact the New
Republic pilots. "Threes, Terra Six. I have a proposal for you. Meet at
Alison's transporter."

With the destruction wrought by Kolot, and the attention-grabbing
efforts of Yarg and the other Ewoks, it was a simple matter to avoid
contact with the enemy. Nick didn't want any unnecessary attention on
this little expedition. He just hoped his reference to the 'Bago was
simple enough for Myn and Wes to get, but obscure enough to confuse any
Imperials who'd managed to intercept the message. Fortunately, the
Winnebago was on the opposite of the cabin to the bigtime furball that
the emergence of the X-Wings had triggered.

As he approached the 'Bago, Nick noticed that the sniper port above the
driver's cab was open. He could just make out the faintest hints of the
barrel of Myn's sniper rifle. He paused briefly, just to make sure Myn
got a good look at his face before he approached any further. Finally
slipping into the driver's cab, he spoke to both Myn, in his perch by
the sniper port and Wes, who was lovingly caressing the barrel of the
E-web heavy repeating blaster that had been recently secured in the rear
of the vehicle. A small box of thermal detonators lay at his feet. "Now
you know why I talked Alison into giving me the keys before she left.
So, how do you like the experiment?"

Both pilots gave approving nods. Wes commented, "The tracking is a
little limited, but it beats being stuck in a fixed emplacement."

Reaching for some switches on the dashboard, Nick said, "Well, shall we
light up a few Imp sensors for the sake of some serious property
damage?"

Myn & Wes grinned. "What are you waiting for?" they both said, almost in
unison.

Wes powered up the E-web as Nick brought the 'Bago's repulsorlifts
online. Trusting the vehicle's armour was as tough as Alison claimed, he
accelerated hard, slewing the vehicle around the corner of the cabin,
before taking off in the direction of the drop-barges used to deliver
the droidtrooper reinforcements to the battle.