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The Ton Phanan Chronicles...

And aren't you excited about all this? How're you enjoying it so far? Well, don't fall off your logs yet, there's more to come. Wagons roll! Or something.

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Chapters 8 - 9

Chapter 6.

Phanan had lost track of the path they had taken from their ship to the cantina where they had met Blue. He became even more lost when Kat suggested they take a different route back for security reasons. Finally he decided to just saunter behind the girls and hope he looked imposing with a stern look on his half-metal face and his black coat billowing behind him with occasional draughts.

Mish and Kat strode in front of him looking oh-so-casual with one arm swinging each and the other resting on the holster of one of the many blasters they carried. Ton was about to ask if they were there yet when Mish and Kat both stopped dead in their tracks.

"What, what?" he asked. Mish shushed him. "What is it?" he whispered as Kat ran into one of the many cantinas lining the corridor of the asteroid. Mish pointed to what looked like a blur of fur directly in Kat's path. "Who is it?" Phanan asked, still whispering.

"Earnest the Wonder Ewok," Mish whispered back. She took hold of one of Ton's sleeves and dragged him into the cantina. She sat him down at a table. He gingerly changed position on the filthy chair and craned his neck in Kat's direction.

He could barely hear what his nurse was saying to the Ewok he had narrowly escaped disguising himself as. "--Ria Amber, sir, we met a few years back on Mos Eisley. Of course I don't expect you to remember me, but…"

She was cut off by a shrill chattering. The only words Ton could make out were "Yub, yub!" The Ewok leaned backwards in his chair, seemingly very pleased with himself.

Kat clasped her hands together in front of her chest. She flushed a charming shade of rose. "Oh, you do remember me? I'm honoured, sir, I really am. To think that someone like you, sir, would actually remember me after all this time…"

Ton turned to Mish. "What's she doing?" he asked, mildly nauseated.

"Chatting him up," Mish replied matter-of-factly.

"CHATTING HIM --" Ton suddenly remembered they were supposed to be whispering. "Chatting him up?" he hissed. "Why?" He was outraged. What right did his nurse have to go around chatting up random Ewoks? At least he still had Mish, he consoled himself.

"He might have information," she explained. "He typically does, and flirting with him is the best way to get it out of him."

"Oh." Phanan was somewhat mollified. "So why's she doing it and not you?"

"I don't speak Ewokese; she does."

"Oh my god, how many does that make? Ewokese and Bothan and Calamari and Twi'lek and Ancient Alderaanian…"

"Seventeen at my last count," Mish interrupted him. "Now shut up, I want to listen."
 

Fifteen minutes later, Kat came over to their table triumphantly. "I've got Parc!" she said in an exultant whisper.

"Where is he?" Ton asked.

"Nar Shaddaa. He tried to pay off his debt to the Hutts with bad spice, so he's working for them now."

"So do we want to go to Dathomir or Nar Shaddaa then?" Phanan wanted to know.

"Dathomir," Kat answered immediately. "I hate Nar Shaddaa, it's almost as dirty as it is here."

"I'm allergic to Dathomir!" Mish exclaimed. "Remember the last time we went there…"

"You just had a cold or something," Kat scoffed. "Baby," she added under her breath.

Mish gasped, enraged. "Who're you calling a baby?"

"You. Wanna make something of it?" Kat demanded. "I know why you really want to go to Nar Shaddaa. You just want to see --"

Mish gasped again and launched herself at Kat.

Ton toyed a moment with just letting the two blondes have it out. He'd often wondered which of them would come out best in a catfight. Kat was taller, to be sure, but he suspected Mish would be more likely to fight dirty. It would be interesting to see what happened. He slowly realised that people were looking at them. "Ladies, ladies," he said, separating them. He pried Mish’s fingers off Kat’s ponytail. "Come on, we'll decide on the ship."

He walked between Kat and Mish the rest of the way. Kat was glaring at Mish over him, and Mish was staring straight ahead haughtily. Ton hated it when they fought like this,

Back on the freighter, Phanan pulled out a decicred coin. "Call it," he said.

"Heads," Mish said just as Kat said, "Tails."

Ton tossed the coin up and caught it easily. He flipped it onto the back of his other hand and lifted his fingers…


Chapter 7.

""Tails," Ton said, no emotion in his voice. He wondered who would be the first to do the exclaiming thing.

"WHAT?" Mish exclaimed.

"YES!" Kat exclaimed at the same time.

"Dathomir it is," Ton said. "Lay in the course."

Kat took the pilot's seat, and Mish glared some more at her, sitting down in the co-pilot's seat. She wondered if her Kat-Has-Tampered-With-My-Plan mechanism would kick in and take them to Nar Shaddaa . . .

Nothing of the sort happened.

"Damn," Mish said under her breath.

"What?" Kat asked, smiling.

"Nothing, nothing at all. I hate Dathomir!" Mish switched to her I'm-From-Tatooine-Whiney-Farmboy voice and then back, since she found it annoying. "Can't we go to Nar Shaddaa instead? I'll buy you some Ryshcate?"

Kat was tempted, but shook her head. "Nope, Dathomir it is. The coin decided it, Mish. Fate and all that."

"I'm allergic to Dathomir!" she protested again.

"Here." Kat passed her some antihistamine pills that were endorsed by a chap called Daniel Jackson.

Mish took them and put them in her pocket, sighing deeply. "Wake me up when it's over," she said.

"When we get there, or after we've found Lievel?"

"Yeah, one of those," Mish said, and turned in the seat, closing her eyes. She wished she had a cowboy hat so she could fall asleep Indiana Jones style, and made a mental note to buy one on the next planet they visited. Then she realised the next planet they were going to visit was Dathomir. I bet you can get one on Nar Shaddaa . . . she thought before drifting to sleep.

Kat punched in the hyperdrive, then waited for something to happen. Whose great idea was it to have a Millennium Falcon-esque ship? she mused bitterly, glancing at her sleeping co-pilot. She kicked the hyperdrive generator. The stars elongated as they went into hyperspace. She went off to find Ton. Well, there had to be something she could do besides sleep until they got to Dathomir. She had just the plan . . .
 

Four hours and fourty-two seconds later, Mish awoke. Kat wasn't in the cockpit, neither was Ton. Ah well, she thought, time to fix the back-up hyperdrive. She looked at the instruments and walked off to get a hydrospanner – Woah! - Wait a second, she thought, just as she was exiting the cockpit. What the heck is going on? Those instruments belong to . . . The back-up hyperdrive. Sithspit, we might be in trouble. As Kat had been so used to punching in the hyperdrive from the co-pilot's seat, due to Mish incessantly protesting whenever she was made co-pilot instead, Kat had punched in the wrong hyperdrive. The broken one. Who knew where they'd end up?!

Mish did some quick mental calculations, then groaned and picked up the calculator she kept under the pilot's seat for just such an occasion, and did some calculations on that. Nine minutes and eighteen seconds from the time she'd woken up, they were supposed to be directly over Dathomir.

She picked up a small bag of miscellaneous nurse's stuff Kat had brought along for the ride, and pulled out a scalpel; the Doctor's friend. She put this to work on the back-up hyperdrive.

Eight minutes and twelve seconds after Mish had woken up, Kat and Ton staggered into the cockpit. "What's up?" Ton asked, seeing Mish cursing away at the hyperdrive.

"Some, uh, fault, with the, uh, that is, wait a sec," Mish mumbled back, half way underneath the generator.

"Need a hand?" Kat asked, crouching next to the generator.

"On the count of hit . . ." Mish said, coming out from under the electronics and brushing herself down. "HIT!"

Mish and Kat attacked the back-up hyperdrive.

The stars made themselves apparent again, and Mish grinned. "I love you, Kell Tainer," she said.

 "What?"

"Ah, I did some favours for him, he taught me the basics . . ."

"Of?" Phanan wanted to know.

"Of hyperdrive maintenance, of course! Whatever else?"

"Oh." The colouration of the non-metallic part of Phanan’s face increased slightly. "So this is Dathomir?" he recovered smoothly.

"Yeah," Mish said, wiping some grease off her hands onto her trousers. "Well, time to get in costume." She looked out of the cockpit view port distastefully at the planet. She then looked up at Ton for the first time, and her eyes widened. "What have you done to his hair?" she demanded of Kat.

"I dyed it." Kat grinned. "It looks better black with that outfit, don't you think? Pity we didn't have time to dye it before we landed on Smuggler's Run."

Mish gave Ton an evaluating look. "Hmm. It does look pretty good, I guess. Although I'd suggest dark brown instead of black next time."

"I'll remember that," Ton quipped back.

"Right. Phanan, land the ship. C'mon Kat," Mish said, pulling her into a cabin which seemed to be stuffed full of clothes from around the galaxy. If they were going to get around on Dathomir, they had to look like the locals. And if this meant they had to dress in cool clothes and pull Ton around like he was beneath them, then that's what they had to do. It's a hard life.
 
"Ah-ah-ah-CLECHU!!!!!" Mish sneezed as they exited the ship. "I hate this planet."


To chapters 8 - 9