wrong character

"You!" the mayor said sounding astonished. "Why are you here?"

Dennis was surprised at this. He'd hoped for a more positive reaction from his host. He wasn't sure what was going on and he had hoped that he would find a few answers upon coming here.

Dennis then launched into his tale. The story of how his shuttle was shot down, his attack upon the searchers and the note telling him to come here. The mayor frowned as he considered this seemingly impossible tale and Dennis began to feel a bit of anxiety about whether or not he would receive any shelter here.

"Well you're here know," he said. "I have a question though. In the landspeeder, was there anything at all that was out of place? Something small and insignificant perhaps?"

"Well," said Dennis. "I did notice a green scrape down the side. I assumed the speeder had just gotten into a small accident with somebody else."

The mayor's eyes flickered at this latest information.

"Well, I know who saved you and why they sent you here," he allowed.

"Why?" Dennis asked full of curiosity.

"That's for later. Right know we're going to have to move you. Who knows when the real representative from the herdsmen will show up.
****


Dennis looked around his palatial living accomadations. The room was unadorned and the only furniture was a single bed.

"This bedroom used to be servant quarters long ago. Know we mainly use droid help so they're vacant." the mayor explained.

Dennis nodded as he sat down on his bed facing the mayor.

"So can you tell me now?" he asked.

The mayor sighed as he leaned against the doorjamb.

"Right around the time that rumours started flying about joining the Onyxian Commonwealth, a secret meeting of high-ranking Senat officials was held. I was one of the people present. It was decided then that the decision to join the Commonwealth would be the flashpoint upon which the Senat would start a rebellion against the government. It had been hoped that the planet would be split roughly fifty-fifty in their opinion on the matter and that we would have a lot of support. I was one of the few at the meeting who dissented from the general opinion but they kept me around because I was powerful and they hoped to persuade me to join their cause. However, the Senat underestimated the persuasion abilities of your father. In the end, we were the only clan that was against joining the Onyxian Commonwealth, and even in that we were divided. Your father on the other hand had suceeded in uniting all the other clans, a feat that had only been accomplished on one other occasion, following the terrorist attack on Iridonia. The Senat were surprised, certain of them including me advocated that we just join the general consensus but there were some who were more warlike and who disagreed. Mere days before the Senate voted in favour of petitioning the Commonwealth to join these Senat held a secret meeting. Immideately I noticed that the number of Senat favouring joining the Commonwealth began to decrease. I was threatened that if I didn't speak up in favour of rebellion, my family would be killed. So of course publicly I began to favour the rebellion. Secretly, however I and a small number of other Senat began to meet and plan. Immediately we began to spy on the more warlike of the Senat. We discovered that they had smuggled in 12 fighters, likely the same ones that attacked your shuttle and that they had a plan to start a war called Operation Jonas. That's all I know. I presume that one of our agents learned of your shuttle being shot down and warned another team of agents, your rescuers. The green stripe was meant to be a symbol to me, for the warlike Senat had adopted as their symbols the colour red. I don't know what to do now. Protect you I presume."

But already a plan had begun to form in Dennis' head.

"Could you contact the agents who rescued me?" he asked.

"Probably," replied the Mayor, curious as to the newest line of questioning.

"Good," Dennis said. "I have a plan."

God damn

Dennis sat in the passenger's seat of a landspeeder that was nestled in a nook in a deep, deserted looking canyon. With the unaided eye he could barely make out the dark spot that his guide was pointing at.

"Right there, about 20 meters below the canyon rim."

Dennis brought the electro-binoculars to his eyes and began to scan the wall. Almost immediately the dark spot resolved itself into the image of a huge blast door.

"And that's where they keep the fighters?"

"Yep," the guide responded as though he had was insulted that somebody had questioned his integrity. "I've seen them fly in and out."

"Looks like they have turrets guarding the blast door." Dennis commented.

"Maybe," the guide allowed.

"Alright," Dennis said, motioning to the guide to start the motor. "We've figured out everything we need to know."


<center>*****</center>


Dennis and a small group of Zabrak's huddled sheltered against the driving winds. They were protected by a camouflage coated wind-shelter designed for when a Zabrak was caught outside the shelter of a canyon. Usually they were used only after some accident. In this case, Dennis and his squad were here on purpose.

"We'll blast here and here," the explosives expert shouted to Dennis pointing at the locations where he had marked an X in the dirt. "That'll get us down to the hangar."

Dennis nodded his agreement with the man's plan and then moved on to let the expert work in peace.

"Ten minutes," he told his second in command, the Zabrak who had guided him here.

With him was the team that had saved his life two nights ago out in the canyons. They were a group of disaffected Senat Special Forces Troopers. They had joined the resistance's side and had thus far been limited to the action when they aided Dennis and intelligence gathering. Now they were about to strike a decisive blow.

The explosives expert scampered back to the main group that was sheltering behind a blast shield.

"Explosives Set!" he shouted.

"Detonate!"

"Fire in the hole!" A muffled boom was heard and the ground shuddered as the explosives raised two twin towers of dirt.

The commandoes darted forward in two groups of four. As the commandoes reached the hole they would jump upwards ever so slightly and then drop without a sound into the hole. Then it was Dennis' turn. He and the explosives expert were last in the group and this was when the problem in Dennis' plan became apparent to him, he couldn't jump into a hole to a deck a hundred feet below, he'd die!

The explosives expert perhaps sensing Dennis' hesitation flipped him a salute and did a little twirl as he jumped into his hole. Perhaps this show of bravado comforted Dennis because he then jumped in right after the explosive's expert.

Down, down, down, Dennis flew. Faster and faster until suddenly the emergency stops on his repulsor pack came on and he floated gently to the ground. He had landed in the middle of a battle zone. The commandoes were already sending waves of fire every which way as they worked to quickly disable the fighters. Luckily for Dennis and his team there was no real security presence and there was no organized resistance. Within minutes they had accomplished their primary goal of disabling the fighters. Then they began to move through the base in search of the pilots.

The squad slowly moved down a long corridor, prepared for an ambush at any second. At the end of the corridor was a big reinforced blast door. Without Dennis even needing to order his explosives expert forward a charge was placed on the door. Retreating once again behing their blast shields the charge was detonated.

The area behing the door was empty except for the command consoles and the bodies strewn about. Dennis stepped over one body in a flight suit and looked around. He recognized some of the most influential Senat leaders among the bodies. Each body had various identical burn marks on their bodies.

"What the hell happened here?" one of the commandoes asked.

"I don't know," Dennis replied. "But I think the insurrection is over."

This isn't even one of my accounts god dammit.

Dennis strode resolutely on to the starliner, the first of many to begin regular trips between the Onyxian Commonwealth and Iridonia. Following the death, no murder, of the high-ranking individuals in the Senat, the rebellion was quickly at an end. Dennis could still feel the hole inside him that had been left by the death of his parent's. And the worse part was that their murderers were dead, he couldn't take any revenge upon their killers.

The only thing he had left to do was search after the one who had caused the mysterious burn marks on all the corpses. He had a strange feeling that it was that man who was behind all the revolution and the murder of his parents and that he was somehow strangely connected to him.

As Dennis settled back into the couch that was designated on his ticket he had no plan for how he was going to go about in his search. He would just follow his gut instinct as he always had. It hadn't done him wrong yet.

The comm crackled as the pilot's voice came over the comm with the usual warning and Dennis settled into his seat and buckled up. He was off to a whole new beginning.