The Weaving Force: Chapter 5 (Patreon)

Chapter 5:

Vicky was quite literally jerked awake, feeling fingers shaking her shoulder she hastily moved in her bed, swatting the hand away and hearing a hiss of pain before her eyes registered who exactly was standing over her.

“The fuck Ta-”

“Trouble,” Taylor’s tablet read in bright green letters. Again the villain’s face was blank- no expression in her stone like eyes.

Vicky’s eyes darted towards Tay’s other hand, cradled to her chest. “Shit! Did I hurt you!? My family never wakes me up like that so it was refle-”

Taylor dropped her pad, snapping her fingers infront of Vicky’s face

She pointed at the tablet again, as if demanding Victoria focus.

“Trouble,” Vicky read aloud, her mind still trying to catch up. “Trouble Trou- Shit. What’s happening?”

Taylor swiveled the pad around with the one hand, quickly typing out something.

“Gathering. Village center, Male Adults. Armed.”

Vicky blinked, then cast her eyes off the tablet and back onto Taylor’s face.

She looked ghoulish; her skin now sallow and corpselike in its paleness and again, now with much more concern than yesterday, Vicky had to wonder if Tay had gotten any sleep last night.

“Maybe they’re going hunting?” she hedged. “I mean, they do live off the land he-”

“Seen their hunts. They don’t usually carry grenades on those,”  came the quickly typed reply.

Vicky swallowed.

“I…” She paused.

Back home this felt… so much easier. Something was going down Glory Girl could come in and save the day.

Here though…

…

No.

Here wasn’t any different than back home, right?

People needed help so why shouldn’t she?

“I’ll get D-4,” she answered. “Maybe he can tell us what’s going on?”

Taylor nodded, expression still unnervingly blank.

(X)(X)(X)

Taylor had been right, something was indeed going down.

Vicky wasn’t an expert but it looked like the Wookies were getting ready for a big fight.

“Oh, dear me,” D-4 exclaimed.

“Translation for the non linguists over here D-4!” she hissed, leaning closer towards the droid.

The droid blinked, seemingly remembering she was there. “Oh. Well it seems, Miss Victoria, that there is a slaver raid inbound.”

Vicky balked. “Slavers!?” she screamed.

The droid nodded. “Trandoshan slavers, Miss.”

“Why!?” she spluttered.

How in the blue hell do these people still have shit like slavery!?

“Trandoshan slavers sell Wookie slaves for their labor. Wookies possess extreme physical strength in comparison to most species,” the droid explained, misinterpreting the question, “which, coupled to their comparably peaceful sociological nature makes the Tradoshans view them as ideal for such tasks. The Tradoshans are a physically comparable race to the Wookies, and much more sociologically prone to violence. Trandoshans are one of the few races physically capable of attacking Kashyyk with any chance of succe--”

“Not what I meant!” she screeched before rounding on Taylor, hands on her hips.

“We’re helping the Wookies!”

In response, the villainess raised a slender eyebrow.

“Don’t gimme that look! If the Wookies go down we’re out of any help we’ve got! So, villain or no, you’re helping! Being a Hero for five minutes isn’t gonna hurt you”

Taylor opened her mouth, then scrunched her features up in frustration.

Vicky didn’t give her a chance to protest overmuch before she reached over, grabbed Taylor’s wrist (the one that wasn’t injured earlier, luckily) and bodily dragged the bug girl forward.

They found Chieftain Attichitcuk in the center of the village square, decked out in ceremonial armor with a monstrous crossbow in his arms and a stupidly sized sword-spear at his back.

Marching straight past the cavalcade of Wookie warriors, Vicky noted somewhere in the back of her mind they must have looked ridiculous next to the towering bear people.

She didn’t let that stop her. “Where do you need us, Chief!?”

The Wookie chieftain roared something at the droid behind them.

“The Chieftain asks if you are willing to fight or if you’re asking to be evacuated with the females and cubs?”

“Fighting, thanks!” Vicky answered.

The chief apparently didn’t need to hear more, grunting something he soon had two smaller sized weapons.

“They are for children, but they will kill a Trandoshan easily,” the droid said.

Vicky was perhaps mildly irritated at being given a ‘child’s’ gun, but seeing the large unwieldy monsters in the hands of adult Wookies…

Yeah, made sense.

Taylor held up a pistol like a rifle, examining the weapon with a critical eye.

Yeah, Tay would probably need the gun, Vicky wasn’t sure how good bugs would be against aliens.

Then, Vicky remembered the bugs on this world.

Scratch that. The gun was probably just excess baggage at this point.

(X)(X)(X)

When the attack came, it came quick.

One doesn’t fully appreciate the term “raid” until they’re part of one.

Raids, by definition, were fast. Get in, fuck shit up, get out before you could get fucked up in turn.

That’s how they worked. But again. One thing is hearing about it, knowing about it and the other thing is experiencing it.

One moment, Chieftain Attichitcuk was barking orders and preparing a defense while sending out runners to call for help. The next, fire was raining down from the sky.

For a moment, Vicky saw a flash, a glimpse of somewhere else, Screams, Fires. Orders being shouted, names--

-valier: Down D-6, Gunsmith: Deceased D9, Alexand-

Then the moment was gone and she was back on the treetops of Kashyyyk, howls in the air marking the enemies and Wookies roaring in defiance as they opened up with their guns.

Vicky sneered.

Alright.

Shooting up off of the ground like a rocket, Vicky’s fist punched forward as she closed the distance. The first pilot either didn’t notice her or didn’t have the speed to react because before he’d even tried to move away she was punching a hole straight through the fuselage, ripping off one of the helicopter rotors on the gunship’s side.

Vicky heard warbling screams, throaty roars, and growls from within. The fuel burst in blue fire, spilling heat and flames across her face that her forcefield protected her from as she rose in the air, the gunship beginning an uncontrollable spin.

The Wookies roared in triumph, and the remaining four gunships in the sky wheeled about with uncanny precision that made her wonder how the ships functioned and differed so dramatically from their own back on earth.

Then they started shooting.

Blasts of poison green energy lanced through the air, looking to shoot her out of the sky. But for all their speed Vicky could move faster than them- rushing straight down into the canopy of trees to take some cover. She wasn’t sure how well her shield would hold up against those blasts and she wasn’t gonna risk it.

The Wookies fired up into the sky, seizing the opening for all they were worth, the males climbing even higher to the very tip tops of the trees to drop down onto the gunships in range, literally beating their fists against the bulkheads and clawing panels off of the machines.

Staring up from beneath the shroud of the treeline Vicky saw the gunships swooping down, their doors opening up to unload dozens of hulking aliens in heavy armor and weapons onto the village platforms.

She heard and recognized Attichitcuk roaring somewhere above her, and saw Wookies charging headlong into the fray.

Vicky was about to shoot upwards again, ready to rise and join the fight herself when she saw something slithering upwards alongside a tree.

She didn’t want to look.

She really really didn’t.

With a resigned groan she turned her head and looked.

…

Nope!

Vicky decided that the trees were… not a nice place to be right now and took again to the skies.

Looking down again; she could see the Wookies engaging in a straight up melee brawl with the alien Trandoshans.

Similar in size and bulk, the two species seemed to be smashing each other to pieces…and doing a damn good job of it.

Vicky had wondered, leading up to this, how monstrous these aliens had to be in order to fight and enslave such a physically overpowering race like the Wookies. She’d seen, even in her short time here, grown males lug around tree trunks that would give a powerlifter back home several hernias like it was nothing. And chew through the toughened hide of a fruit that Tay couldn’t cut open with a knife when she tried.

The answer now became blatantly obvious.

The Wookies lived ‘simple’ lives.

They didn’t have any armored vehicles to speak of, or hell any vehicles at all. Their weapons were simple and personal. Swords, axes, rifles and their bare hands… claws? Claws.

Trandoshans weren’t quite so primitive in their methods.

Gunships, heavy armor that could tank blows from the Wookies, superior weaponry both up close and at range- coupled with a physiology that allowed them to go toe to toe just by default- yeah… yeah she could see how and why the Wookies would lose to these guys.

Luckily, today, the fuzzy boys were gonna have help.

There was a howl above her, wind whipping her hair across her face as she turned and looked towards another gunship above her.

The Trandoshan pilot pitched the thing forward, seemingly confident in the fact that ten tons of armored ‘fuck you’ was about to win out in a fist fight against her.

Oh buddy… this is definitely not the right tree for you.

With a smirk, Vicky cocked back her fist, waited until the thing was getting in close in its attempt to ram her… and let him have it.

Her fist ripped through the gunship armor like wet tissue paper, fire and shrapnel bursting out everywhere as she carved her arm up through the guts of the machine.

Then she grabbed the screaming pilot and ripped him off of his seat.

The alien was battered, bleeding, in retrospect, she was surprised she hadn’t killed him, tearing him out of his seat and through the cockpit window, but he was alive, screaming and flailing, clawing at her as his gunship crashed down into the treetops in a smoking ruin of fire and twisted metal.

She smirked at the alien, his reflective helmet showing her the whites of her teeth.

“You came to the wrong neighborhood, buddy!”

It hissed something at her, the sound made her think of a snake gargling. Shoving with considerable strength she catapulted the Trandoshan pilot down onto the Wookie platform, his armored ass cracking through thick wood with a deafening snap of splinters and shrapnel.

There was a loud, deafening buzz and Vicky turned, finding Taylor riding ontop of Atlas two, the super dragonfly darting and weaving through the air, slipping between Gunships as its large, club-like tail battered the bulkheads, knocking the ships off target.

The wookies roared, some pointing up towards Taylor, it looked like a rallying call, those who spotted her on the giant bug charging in with renewed vigor.

It didn’t last long.

The gunships turned, ignoring Taylor as they realized her mount didn’t have the strength to truly threaten their ships before they sent a rain of laser fire and missiles downward;  tossing the Wookies into disarray, Vicky was just about ready to go after them--

Then the other bugs showed up.

And not bugs in the normal sense: fucking monsters. Because of course they were. Why would this planet ever deal in normal bugs?

If a centipede crossed with a crocodile and decided to become the size of a yacht… yeah that would about cover it.

They rose up from the trees, skittering on seemingly a thousand legs as they lunged.

Something that big didn’t have the right to fly but it did.

They slammed into the remaining gunships, coiling around them like constrictors, crushing the metal bulkheads and tightening their hold even as the vehicles fell to the village center in burning wreckage.

She heard soldiers screaming.

Vicky blanched, realizing that the Trandoshans in the gunships were being burnt alive.

“Taylor!” she screamed.

But she couldn’t see her, Taylor had rushed down between the trees somewhere, escaping the immediate firefight and Vicky didn’t know where she was.

She flew as fast as she could, now beginning to frantically search for the girl. “Taylor, let them out!” she screamed.

The chaos of the fight was cacophonous: fire, smoke, laser fire, Wookie howls and Trandoshan hissing-

She didn’t see her.

She tossed her eyes this way and that way and it wasn’t until a blast slammed into her side - knocking out her shield - that she remembered they were in an active warzone!

Throwing her attention towards the fight, she tried not to think of the screams quite literally dying off as the Trandoshan pirates tried to rally one last time.

Their last stand didn’t last very long.

Victoria punched through their hastily formed firing line like a battering ram.

The Wookies charged in after her.

Vicky didn’t consider herself a sheltered girl. But this… this was very different to the fights she was used to.

Heroes and villains. They took prisoners.

Wookies didn’t do the same.

With crude melee weapons and brute strength they tore into the slavers… and hacked them apart.

Vicky hovered in the air, watching the massacre as it unfolded.

The village square ran red with Trandoshan blood.

(X)(X)(X)

Hours later, as the bodies were piled up, the wounded were taken to the healers and the other villages called- Taylor found her.

She skulked out of the shadows like a wraith. Silent. The light of the torches making her already gaunt features look ghoulish and severe.

Vicky stared at her, mouth parting to say… something.

Then she stopped.

The question hovered at the tip of her tongue- she could taste it between her teeth.

Did you know?

Did you know they were burning?

And she realized…

This was it.

Taylor was it.

All that was left. All that connected her to home.

…

She didn’t want to know…

She swallowed down the words, choked on the bile and tears and Taylor’s face shifted, becoming something softer, almost pitying.

She knew what Vicky wanted to know.

Her smile was watery.

“Hey Tay-” She didn’t sob. “I found the lizard people! Folks back home are gonna flip!”

…

She didn’t cry…

Taylor hesitated a long time- before reaching forward to place her hand on Vicky’s shoulder.