[H6 - Parnassos - FF] Wreckage on the Violent Violet Wastelands

[RocketBoy]

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Crashlanded after their ship was disabled by ion cannon fire, two Wookiees are stranded in the vibrant wastelands of Parnassos. Attiharr is taken captive by the vicious Moon Cult, raiders who worship the prophet they call the "Moon-Talk Man". In order to rescue him, Mowbacca will have to team up with a feared circle of "Witches", a group of women with their own reasons to hate the cult.

Read the full story to learn about Blood-Bizzards, the Crashlands, and the terrifying weapon called The-One-Who-Hates-The-Sky.

Story

Spoiler

The Crash


The ominous sound of an approaching engine. Abandoning their efforts to unload their cargo, the muscular female Mowbacca and the pilot--little Attiharr--scurried into cover. Mowbacca let out a growl as she felt her leg cramp and buckle beneath her--she must have injured it in the crash. Attiharr rushed to support her. They both collapsed into the shadows behind their crashed ship, breathing hard, peering out with wide eyes at whatever was coming.

Two skiffs pulled up. Though the Wookiees didn't know it, the ones who climbed off were Blood-Bizzards, and as always, they were desperate and looking for food. It wasn't the durasteel they wanted; too rough on the teeth, even melted down. They'd take the soft material--the rubber and the plastoid-- and make it edible in their clay ovens. The Wookiees watched them pick through their ship's remains until they all raised their heads to the desert, spooked by an even larger arrival, a deep rumble.
A massive, horned speeder truck charged across the sand.
Blaster fire and crossbow bolts tore the buzzards to shreds. They died with shouts on their mouths.

"Got 'em! Nasty bizzards."

The speeder truck shook to a stop, and a crowd of skull-faced, white-painted raiders climbed out. They hunched and prowled, clutching weapons in their fists. The largest wore a cape and a tall, black helmet, and walked with the air of a priest.

"This is a big one! Bless the crashlands, bless the One Who Hates The Sky! Strip the sky-corpse for whatcha can! We'll hafta come back with the pullers for the big grabs."

The frightened Wookiees looked at one another and tried to make themselves as small and invisible as they could. The cultists kept creeping closer, spreading around, knocking open their cargo containers. Any moment now and they'd be discovered. Mowbacca knew her leg would give out if she and her companion tried to run. Worried, she looked at him. She didn't like what she saw.
Attiharr had a determined fire in his eye. Small build and determination was a dangerous combo, and she waved a huge hand to try and calm him. It was her who had to protect him, not the other way around.
He wouldn't be dissuaded. he leaned down, resting his forehead against hers, and then clambered to his feet.
To her horror, he left her in the hiding spot and burst into the open, roaring and raising his arms while sprinting hard across the purple sands away from the wreck.

"Got a live one! Grab 'em!"

Helpless, Mowbacca muffled her cries as she watched the cultists net and bag her friend. She heard him kicking against his captors as they dragged him to their speeder.

"Might be another sky-mind, good for making! The Moon-Talk Man will know!" shouted the leader, and his minions agreed. "We better get the cranes here, before someone else shows! We're pulling back to the pits, Ascendants! You two! Wait here, stake the claim 'till we come with the pullers. Watch out for any bizzards, or Greevers, or dust-snouts, or worse: those crackamack witches!" The leader looked around, then barked out the beginning of a chant. "Ascendants! I am a priest!"

"He is a priest!" replied the cultists.

"I speak for the prophet, the Moon-Talk Man!"

"He speaks for the Moon-Talk Man!"

"We are one step closer to the ascension, brothers!"

"Hurrah!"

"White and cold as the moon!"

"White and cold as the moon!" they screamed, and they clambered back onto their truck and rumbled away, leaving only the two to guard the wookiee shipwreck.
Mowbacco sat huddled in the dark, mourning her friend, churning with guilt over his capture. She clutched her leg angrily and planned her escape.
Then she heard something.
The piercing crack of a slugthrower. Struggle!

"Witches!? Augh!"

Mowbacca saw the dark shape of a figure smashing the last cultist with their weapon. Witches? That couldn't be good. She looked for a pole or something to defend herself with, as the figure approached her last.
An old human woman, a smile on her weary, wrinkled face, stepped into the moonlight. She wore rags and strips of cloth, and a cloak around her shoulders. Contrasting with her pleasant demeanor was the cultists' blood splattered across the butt of her rifle. As flecked with grime as it was, her gray hair curled and bounced in a way that heralded her personality.

"A live one! I mean ya no harm, if ya can say the same."

Mowbacca roared a confused, but peaceful, agreement.

"Saw the One-Who-Hates-The-Sky spit off, then you coming down. Wanted to see if ya was the kind of folk worth helpin' out. We knew the Moonies would come for ya, they snabble up every bit of good scavage on the Crashlands. And the Bizzards too," she said, kicking at one of the dead. "Can't resist a wee bite. Bringing the fleet would've made for a terrible scuffle. Couldn't risk the fleet, y'know. Had to come alone. Sorry about your friend, it's an awful shame...but still. Maybe them's not a goner just yet. It's good to have a little hope. Not too much, mind you."

Mowbacca moaned.

The woman nodded her approval of the display of despair. "Good, good. I'm called Happy Mag, or Mag Smiles, or Ol' Mag, or Smiles, but I s'pose you won't be able to say any of those, will ya! So ya can call me whatcha like. You wanna getcha friend back?"

Mowbacca roared an affirmative. Of course she did, it was all she could think about. He wouldn't last long out there.

"Thought ya might. We witches want somethin' from the Moonies ourselves. The cultists turned our menfolk into slaves ages ago. Have 'em working on their 'ascension'. Crazy leckers. In love with the Moon, they are. You better come with me and see the other sisters. Strong girl like you, might change things 'round here."

Mowbacca roared a question. She still wasn't sure she could trust this woman, or these 'witches'. Mag seemed to catch her meaning.

"No need to fear us, if yer decent folk. We's really called Clan Have-Hare, since time memorial, but then we lost the Moonies took the men. And then Earsa--she's a sky-child, like you!--she taught us to hear. The crashlanders call us Witches 'cause we hear from the Truth-Talk Spirit. Gives us visions, gives us an edge," she said with a wicked grin. "C'mon, let me getcha on my speeder. Ooh, watch that leg."

Mowbacca and Happy Mag raced across the dark dunes to a small hidden camp in a labyrinth of rocks. There she met the other witches: Hansa ("vicious with a rifle or a stick."), Isa ("swear she can see for leagues!"), and finally, Earsa. Earsa, a Miralian, wore simple robes and lacked the slightly-crazy quality of the others. She was, as Mag had said, a sky-child. Just like Mowbacca. They all sat around the fire, and the Witches offered Mowbacca something to eat. Mowbacca tried to explain what all had happened.

(Left to Right: Isa, Happy Mag, Hansa, Earsa, Mowbacca)

"You were on your way to Ilum?" Earsa said seriously, and Mowbacca shot her a surprised look. "Yes, I understand you. I know a smattering of Shyriwook. I got around as a Warden, before I made my wrong turn. When I found out about the disasters, I wanted to try to help the planet. Fool that I was. The One-Who-Hates-The-Sky stranded me, too. He's an old orbital defense cannon, left running by the Con Star corporation--the ones behind the meltdown. Shoots anything in range. Seems to have a mind of its own. A dark mind. I swear, sometimes I can feel it in the force."

Earsa explained her past as a Jedi dropout, from before the Empire. She still had a slight connection to the Force, and when she arrived on Parnassos, discovered that the natives had their own name for it--the Truth-Talk Spirit. Together, she and the witches found new ways to learn and commune.
Mowbacca showed her one of the Kyber crystals from the ship, rescued from the crash. Earsa nearly cried when she saw it, and seemed to think it would finally change things. She did her best to treat Mowbacca's leg through both mystical and natural means, and they began to form a plan.

"We've got some messages in an' out to the husbands," Hansa told the Wookiee. "They hold 'em at the Pits, a lil' fortress in the Violent Violet Wasteland. Workin' on somethin', somethin' like your sky-corpse. The Moonies is always skulkin' about the One-Who-Hates-The-Sky, too. Tryna parley with him. Tryna make a deal. Y'know why they paint themselves white, yeah?" she smirked. "They're in heat for the moon."

"Ain't never seen the Moon-Talk Man himself, though. Mysterious fella," Mag said, with a dour shake of her head that seemed to say she thought he was better left alone.

Happy Mag laid out a plan, and they worked on it into the night. Mowbacca added her deductions based on what the husbands said they were building; the "ascension" the cultists were going on about, and the One Who Hates the Sky. Centered around the Kyber crystal, the witches communed, gathering visions to themselves while Mowbacca watched in nervous, transfixed silence. Finally, they drifted off to sleep, resting up for the day ahead.



The bright sun made the black spires of rock shine in a way Mowbacca had never seen, and the dunes looked like fields of lavender flowers. They struck out into the wastes; Mowbacca riding with Earsa on a beast she called Long-Leg, while Hansa and Happy Mag took Mag's speeder. Isa hooked herself to a small ramshackle droid, and hovered off the ground.

"See ya soon, New Friend. I'm off to my Perch."

And she took off into the sky.

After some time of riding, they heard a far-off rumble.

Isa cruised down towards them, shouting over the sound of Mag's engine. "We got company, sisters! Just got spotted by a glass-eye a mile off."

"It's the Hornbull, I know it's voice," Hansa growled.

"We not runnin' today! We'll take it down!"

They caught up to the bulky speeder and its flatbed, a mess of dangerous poles and spikes laid over by tarps. The Moon Cultists aboard shouted and screamed war cries, and Mowbacca found herself dodging crossbow bolts.

"It's time to use the Boom!" Earsa said.

"But we said we were saving it!" shouted Happy Mag. "We've only got the one!"

"We saw this in the visions, Mag! New Friend, throw the Boom!" Earsa cried. Mowbacca did as she was told--she reached into one of the saddle bags worn by their steed and pulled out what she recognized as a scavenged thermal detonator. She fumbled with the priming switch, took careful aim, and hurled the ball at the center connection point between the speeder and the flatbed.

BOOM!
It lived up to its name.

The explosion threw the flatbed into the air, dislodging many of the cultists on board. The speeder smashed into the ground and came to a stop.





They circled around the survivors like wolves, picking off any stragglers with Earsa's spear, Mag's rifle, and the auto-gun on the speeder bike.

Mowbacca roared a question. What was the point of that?

"New Friend asked why we did that!" Earsa told the others.

"Does there have to be one? One less speeder full of schlackers," Hansa scowled.

"And they won't tell anyone we're out in the Wastes," Mag told the Wookiee. "Now, let's get you and your sky-mind to the Hill."

The Hill was once a Con Star defense installation, but it had withered to become a durasteel basin of sand, surrounding the cannon called the One Who Hates The Sky. The giant ball swiveled restlessly in increments of inches, practicing sweeping patterns or perhaps just looking for something to shoot. It groaned with every movement, a great hollow, metal sound that could be heard from far away. Mowbacca understood why the locals were afraid of this place, and why they believed the cannon was a living thing.

"Go on up! Sky-talk to it!" Happy Mag encouraged. Mowbacca needed the motivation; she wasn't liking this plan quite as much as when they had been around the campfire.

Red warning lights and an ominous drone greeted the Wookiee in what was once the atrium. Undeterred, Mowbacca made her way toward what she guessed would be the engineering block, the innards of the beast. She ducked through dark corridors littered with debris and broken droids and scrawled, painted warnings, until she finally found an entrance to its heart via an interior hatch. The tunnels were too small for Wookiees, but she thought of Attiharr and the danger he was in, and she did everything she could to squeeze through the tight spaces. She felt panic and bile rising in her throat, but she pushed it down and descended deeper into the darkness.
The core of the cannon's programming felt eerily like the organs of a creature. A deep, rhythmic humming resounding in the walls, wires swung as power surged inside their skins. and dim red lights followed her like a thousand eyes. The system wasn't a complicated one, not from here, and she had been a mechanic for long enough that she knew what she was looking for. She found the right binding of cables and raised a knife, but hesitated. It felt like killing a living thing. Pausing to think, she isolated the firing core, but let the programming alone. If she could lose the ion pressure, she could render it harmless. Did it matter? Of course not, this was just a machine. But still, something nagged at her nerves and her emotions. Even though she was alone, she roared out something like an apology.
You didn't know what you were doing. I have nothing against you. But I can't leave you the way that you are.
She pulled at the firing control, then what looked like its redundancies. Warning lights appeared on an old monitor: "READY TO FIRE" blinked, and then disappeared. The warm thrumming of the machine still surrounded her. She had done it.

Mowbacca slid down the dunes outside the hill, returning to the Witches.

"What happened in there?" Happy Mag asked. "He still groans! He still moves!"

Mowbacca roared her answer, and Earsa, uncertain, translated. "She took away its weapon. It can hate the sky, but it can no longer attack the sky."

"She untoothed the One Who Hates the Sky?" Hansa cried.

Hansa, Mag, and Isa gathered around their new friend, touching her with slow, ceremonial gratitude. "Thank you, New Friend."


The Pit was a smoke-spewing furnace of a camp, walled-in by durasteel plating and punctured with thousands of spears.
The Witches pulled up, but no one greeted them. No guards, no patrols, no look-outs.

"Where're the Moonies?" Hansa asked, frowning.

"Bit weird, don'tcha think?" Mag said. "This wasn't in the visions, Earsa."

Then they heard the chanting inside. A hundred voices, raised to the twilight sky.
Raised to the Moon, hanging overhead.

Isa looked at the others, their eyes all wide. "I don't believe it," she said. "They're really doin' it! The ascension!"

With all her strength, Mowbacca ripped open one of the rusty gates to let the Witches slip inside. The camp was full of cages and machinery and old parts of starships. There were idols of the moon, big white spheres surrounded by offerings. And all of the Moon Cultists were gathered in the center of the camp, on their knees with their hands lifted to the most ramshackle, kitbashed, broken-down piece of junk ship Mowbacca had ever seen in her considerably long life.

The Moon-Talk Man stood over them, hands raised towards the moon. As soon as she saw him, Mobacca knew he was not from Parnassos. He was a "sky-child". And she realized that everything around her---the slave cages, the weapons, the dead, white-painted raiders--were part of the Moon-Talk Man's way of getting off the planet.
Mowbacca and the Witches snuck to the cages, sharing quiet, tearful reunions once they had found their husbands. Mowbacca saw Attiharr, curled up in a corner, and murmured a desperate greeting. Relief flooded his face, and he crawled towards her.
He had finished the ship, he told her. It had some kind of stealth plating, something the Moon Cultists believed would let them pass by the Cannon, but Attiharr thought it would still be blown out of the air. Mowbacca told him what had happened, and he listened in increasing awe. There would be no ion fire from the One Who Hates The Sky. The cannon would be silent.
"<It's a good thing I had a backup plan, then,>" he told her with a smile.
"<You rigged it to explode?>" she asked.
"<Of course>", Attiharr replied.

They broke the men out of their cages as quietly as possible. Hansa's husband told them about a plan he had, to rig the Pit to explode. He and Hansa hurried to complete the final stages. They would escape and blow the place to kingdom come. The rest tried to sneak the other slaves out of the camp, banking on the distraction of the Moon-Talk Man's speech.

"My children! The Moon is pleased with all of you," said the Moon-Talk Man. "The Moon smiles on you from above! Do you see it?"

"We see it," murmured the cultists.

"You have paid many tributes to the Moon, God of the Purple Lands. You have hoped that it would come down, that it would heal the cracked world. You have proved your faithfulness, your usefulness, your good-hands! And now we stand on the verge of the last of its tasks, as you send the Moon's prophet home. The Ascension!"

A roar from the crowd. "The Moon-Talk Man talks for the Moon!" they cried.

"I must go. But know this! My love for you is forever! You are the people of the Moon! Ascendants! I am the prophet!"

"He is the prophet!"

"I speak for the god, the Moon, white and cold!"

"He speaks for the god, the Moon, white and cold!"

"We have arrived at the Ascension!"

"The ASCENSION!"

The Moon-Talk Man climbed aboard the starship, and its engines began to glow with power.

"Earsa, what are you doing!?"

"I can't stay here anymore, I'm sorry!"

Mowbacca turned when she heard Isa shout. Earsa dashed past her, running for the starship. She climbed the plinth, passed the cultists, and wrenched open the cockpit as the ship started to leave the ground. It soared into the air, and they all watched in stunned shock as it arced further and further away. Someone fell, it was impossible to tell who. The course changed, and then, as it was disappearing into the dark blue of the night, it was replaced by a bright, blooming explosion.

There was madness in the camp, mass confusion. The Witches told the slaves to run, and it was Happy Mag who jumped onto the stage, occupied moments before by the Moon Talk Man.

"How're all you Moonies doing!"

Sudden silence, as they all turned to look at her. She laughed nervously.

"Well, I don't mean ya any harm, as long as ya can say the same. Looks like things didn't end so well for yer prophet! Sorry about that. Seems like we just lost someone ourselves. But can't live in the past forever! Who wants to come live a peaceful life, now? There's more than just the Moon. How many of ya really thought the Moon was gonna save the planet, anyway!"

A few raised their hands, but more sat in a mix of disbelief and rising shame.

"It's up to us! The people from here! The crashlanders! We gotta find a better place, or we gotta fix this one! Also, this place is gonna explode soon, I believe. Right?" she asked off stage. She got a thumbs-up. "Right, yeah, so it is. Anyone who wants to live nice and peace-like, without some lousy prophet, follow us. The rest of ya are schlankers, and you can die in a fireball because that's better than you'd give any of us."

And she leapt off the stage. This speech eliticed a variety of emotions: many of the cultists knew when the getting was good, and were very inclined to side with the new power. Some had been looking for a way out already. But others were committed, and those were the ones Hansa, Isa, Mag, and Mowbacca had to ward off, as the others made a break for it. Many former Moonies joined them, fighting their brethren, getting them back for any and all resentments and cruelty suffered at their hands. Everyone fled into the desert who could, and turned to watch the magnificent fireworks of the Pit turning into an explosion so big it knocked all of them on their backs.


The battle was a hard one, and it lasted into the night. The Blood-Bizzards would no doubt pick across what was left later, looking for anything they could eat.
The survivors—witches, slaves, and former cultists—had a complicated next few months to look forward to, but a clear horizon ahead. Some of the slaves were engineers, or at least said they knew their way around an engine. Over the next week and a half they were able to repair both the Wookiees’ ship and a few other wrecks left behind, the ones with the valuable parts the Moonies hadn't known to look for. There were enough ships that most of those who wanted to leave would be able to, while the rest could return to Clan Have-Hare and try and make a living there. One of the husbands had been a “sky-child” himself, but he had no intentions of leaving Parnassos, or his wife. No intention at all.

It was the Moon-Talk Man who had fallen from the starship, and Earsa who’d been inside when it exploded. Attiharr was wracked with guilt, but the witches told him he could never have known she would try to escape like she did.
            They held a funeral for her, a pyre where the Witches communed and said their favorite things about their friend. It was particularly sad because of her last actions. They’d known she hated the planet since she’d been stranded there, but they hadn’t known how it had built up for her over time, how desperate she must have been to leave. Acting on her fear was, in the end, the last thing she ever did.

Not all the Moon Cultists came around. There would still be fighting, but the Have-Hare’s felt up to the task.
Just before the ships were about to leave, Mowbacca told Happy Mag about the green, healthy continents they had seen from orbit. Mag grinned and told her they’d have to take a ship of their own to find one. The two hugged each other tightly and said goodbye.

Attiharr and Mowbacca took their places in the cockpit of their ship, smiled at each other, and Attiharr eased forward on the throttle. Like a cloud of bees, the tiny armada lifted off the planet’s surface. Many were heading back for the colonies, or the Core Worlds—eager to see civilization after their stint in the wastelands. A few ships planned to return to Parnassos with aid, and settlers who could help Clan Have-Hare.
But Attiharr and Mowbacca had one course in mind.

Mowbacca unfolded her hand and looked down at the Kyber crystal sitting in her palm, admiring the blue light that seemed to come from within the shard. She held it preciously and thanked the Force they were both safe, as Attiharr jumped to light speed. 
They were on their way, finally, to the conclusion of their pilgrimage, to the Unknown Regions.

Pictures

Spoiler

Left to Right: Isa, Happy Mag, Hansa, Earsa, Mowbacca

Thanks for looking!

 

Edited February 7, 2021 by goatman461

[Bociephus]

Moon cult could be a minor faction one day. Nice work here!

[Ross Fisher]

Some really nice parts used here. And the colours work so well. Good work all round!

[MKJoshA]

So much detail in your story! The build is good.Thought the big speeder looks a little clunky to me. Love your Ralph McQaurrie animal!

[dvogon]

Nice build, story and characters. The black paper behind helps a lot to let the figures stand out. The skiff is quite interesting and the animal is fantastic! 

[marvelBoy123]

Some really nice figures and I love how you have spread stuff out. The little patches of landscape have really enabled you to make the most of the space without having to find lots of pink bricks for landscaping. The animal is great too - making creatures that look organic is really difficult but something you always do really well!