Here We Are, Juggernaut/Story

Here We Are, Juggernaut an MI5 Chronicles story

Shasta Moonreaper crept up the hill toward the structure. Her shoulder-length blond hair fluttered as the afternoon breeze picked up on the forested world called Myrkr. She stopped and knelt down in the foliage as a humanoid droid strolled past. It looked to Shasta like a modified HK-50 assassin droid carrying some heavy firepower. Judging by the droid's actions, it was probably being used as a sentry, patrolling the grounds.

The droid suddenly stopped in it's tracks. The head swiveled, searching. It may have picked up Shasta's presence on it's sensors. Shasta immediately reached into her pocket and pulled out an electromagnetic pulse grenade. She tossed the EMP grenade toward the HK-50 just as it spun around. The grenade went off and the blue EMP sizzled the droid, deactivating it. Shasta watched as the HK-50 fell forward and landed on it's face.

She broke cover from behind the foliage and headed for the structure.

Shasta was a 28-year-old Human female who worked as an assassin. She was hired by a Rodian to kill a man named Buzzy Bakken. Buzzy modified and sold droids. But his droids weren't always working correctly. He would program glitches into them or set them to malfunction in some way, then stiff the buyer on the price and neither fix, refund nor replace them. It had happened more than once. Buzzy apparently enjoyed screwing with people. And this structure on Myrkr was where Buzzy resided. Expecting to run into many droids, Shasta came equipped with plenty of EMP grenades.

No one had ever seen Buzzy in-person, so she didn't know exactly what he looked like.

She spotted an open window on the second story of the main part of the compound. It was a rectangular building protruding up over the treetops. She turned to the nearest tree and began climbing. Shimming out on to a large branch she reached out toward the window. It was too far. She climbed back to the trunk and took a running start. Part of the way across the branch, she leaped off her right foot and out of the tree toward the window. Her hands grasped the windowsill. Carefully peeking over the sill in the window, she dangled there making sure the coast was clear. She then hoisted herself in through the window.

As she cautiously made her way through the hallways, her mind began to wander. Her thoughts went to...the child she was carrying. She had fallen in love with a Zeltron named Jyn Landeskog not too long ago. And she found out just recently that she was pregnant. When Shasta mentioned it to Jyn, he disappeared from her life. It was then that she realized Jyn was using his Zeltron pheromones to manipulate her feelings toward him. He was using her for his own pleasure. Now she was left alone with this baby growing inside her. She wasn't ready to have children. Her assassin lifestyle didn't exactly call for that.

Deep in thought, Shasta suddenly found herself looking down the barrel of a blaster.

"Sithspit!" Shasta exclaimed, snapping back to reality.

"Shasta?!"

The blaster was lowered and Shasta realized it was her mercenary friend Valeria Kennt. "Valeria? What the hell are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," the brown-haired Valeria responded. Shasta and Valeria grew up and trained together on Alderaan. They were best friends and practically sisters. "I'm here tracking down a droid maker named Buzzy. Apparently he wronged some Hutt, so they hired me to come in and assassinate him."

"Me, too," Shasta said. "Except the guy that hired me was Rodian."

"Might as well work together, then," Valeria said, continuing down the hall. "Come on."

- - - - - - - - - -

Taking out a couple more sentry droids with EMP weapons, Valeria could tell something was wrong with Shasta. She wasn't acting like her usual self. "Okay, spill it. What's wrong?"

Shasta said, "It's nothing. I'm just thinking I may have to drop this whole assassin-for-hire job and, ya know, settle down."

"That doesn't sound like the Shasta I know," Valeria said. "That actually sounds more like me." Valeria quickly looked around for any other sentries as they continued onward. "So what makes you say that?"

Shasta hesitated for a moment.

"Is it you and Jyn?" Valeria probed.

"Yes and no," Shasta answered vaguely. "I'm...pregnant."

Valeria was surprised. "Wow! Well, congratulations." She glanced down at Shasta's body. There was still a nice figure, no belly. "You can't be too far along."

"I just found out the other day."

As they came to a doorway at the end of the hall, Valeria asked, "What did Jyn say?"

Shasta hesitated again, and then, "The frakker took off..."

"What?!" Valeria exclaimed just as the door slid open. They stepped into the room and noticed the walls were lined with deactivated BD-3000 luxury droids, all wearing different skimpy outfits. "Wow, this Buzzy has some serious issues..." Valeria commented. "I'm guessing he can't get a woman in real-life."

Turning back to Shasta, Valeria asked, "So what are you gonna do now?"

"Give up the baby for adoption, I guess," Shasta said. "I'm not really cut out for mothering."

Valeria approached the door on the opposite side of the luxury droid room. "Ya know, since I'm the one that wants to settle down, I would be willing to take the baby."

A bit surprised, Shasta glanced up at her. "Really?"

Valeria shrugged. "Sure. We're practically family anyway, right?"

They smiled at each other as Valeria opened the door. It slid upward and they saw a Human teenage boy standing in the next room. Shasta and Valeria glanced around the room a bit confused. They hadn't expected to see a kid here.

"Uh, we're looking for Buzzy Bakken," Shasta asked. "Are you his kid?"

The boy cocked his head and furrowed his brow. "His kid?!" he repeated. "No. I'm Buzzy."

Shasta and Valeria looked at each other. "That explains the luxury droids..." Valeria commented.

"I've actually been tracking you the entire time and listening in on your conversation," Buzzy said. "This is my compound. I've got cameras and microphones all over the place."

"So you could have killed us at any time," Valeria stated. "Why didn't you?"

Buzzy said, "I wanted to meet you two babes in person."

"Did he just call us babes?" Shasta said to Valeria, a little offended.

"Plus," Buzzy continued, "I wanted to hear your little drama. It's too bad neither of you will be able to raise that baby. Because you'll all be dead."

There was a sudden clanking noise to the right. Shasta and Valeria turned to see a heavily armed droid walking toward them. It was an old rebuilt and modified Juggernaut war droid. It stopped and trained it's weapons on the two women.

"You're trespassing. Now you're gonna pay the price," Buzzy said. "Get 'em, Juggy."

Shasta and Valeria turned and ran back through the luxury droid room as blaster bolts were fired at them.

The next door slid closed behind them and Valeria said, "How'd he get his hands on one of those? I didn't think any of them were even around any more."

Shasta pulled an EMP grenade out and said, "I'll take care of it." The door slid open again and Shasta tossed the grenade at the Juggernaut droid. When the grenade was in mid-air, the droid shot it. The grenade exploded before it was even close to the droid. The Juggernaut then began firing at them.

Shasta swore and they took off running.

- - - - - - - - - -

The women soon reached a wide corridor cluttered with astromechs, a couple protocol droids and a gonk droid. As they pushed their way by the droids, they heard one of them exclaim "Goodness gracious me!"

When they reached the end of the corridor, blaster bolts were fired at them from the other end. The droids scattered frantically, hoping not to get hit. The Juggernaut droid shoved them aside as he chased the two Human intruders.

Shasta peeked around the corner and fired her blaster at one of the nearest astromech's domes, causing it to exploded. She ducked back behind the corner as smoke began to obstruct the Juggernaut's view.

The Juggernaut was now unable to see the end of the corridor where the Humans were hiding. It lifted it's arm cannon, aimed though the smoke and fired a shatter beam. The steady beam of energy cut through the smoke and into the wall beyond it. Keeping the beam going, the Juggernaut droid swung it's arm horizontally, the beam not only slicing the head off of one of the protocol droids, but also cutting through the walls of the corridor.

Around the corner, Shasta and Valeria dropped to the floor when the beam got near them. It cut through the wall throwing debris on top of their heads.

When the beam shut off, Valeria said, "This kid may know how to program a droid, but he's young and doesn't think strategically. He's unleashed a droid meant for war inside his own house."

There was a creaking noise above them as the durasteel beams within the building threatened to collapse from the structural damage.

Shasta glanced back to Valeria. "We can use that to our advantage." The two of them stood up and scurried ahead as the Juggernaut droid emerged from the smoke.

- - - - - - - - - -

They stopped and waited near the turbolift. Valeria pulled a smoke grenade from her belt as Shasta pried the turbolift doors open. The lift was up a few floors, but when Shasta looked down, she could see the ground floor. It wasn't a very far drop down the empty tube since they were only on the second floor. Shasta was thankful the tube didn't extend underground. That would have been a much farther fall. They were going to try and bait the war droid into attacking and destroying more of the building causing it to collapse on top of the droid. Shasta and Valeria, on the other hand, would use the empty lift tube as their escape route.

The Juggernaut droid appeared around the corner. Shasta yelled to it. "Here we are, Juggernaut. Come and get us."

Valeria activated the smoke grenade and tossed it toward the droid, expecting to obstruct it's view. But before the room could fill with smoke, the Juggernaut activated the jets on it's back. The droid suddenly lifted off it's feet and flew directly toward them.

"Oh, frak!" Shasta exclaimed.

As blaster bolts were loosed from the Juggernaut's weapons, the Human women dropped down the empty lift tube. They both rolled to absorb the impact of the landing and headed for the exit door.

Back in the lift, the reckless Juggernaut slammed into the inside of the tube, damaging it. It then shut off the jets, dropped down a floor in the tube and landed feet first on the ground floor. It began firing at the Humans again.

Shasta and Valeria leaped through the exit door as the blaster bolts flew past them. While the door was still open, Valeria threw a thermal detonator inside and Shasta, with her incredible marksmanship skills, was able to hit it with a blaster bolt.

The detonator exploded, shooting fire and debris out the door. The force of the blast blew the two women down the hill. They skidded down the dirt incline and ended up in some lush foliage.

The explosion rocked the building, putting more pressure on the weakened structure damaged by the Juggernaut droid. With a rumble that shook the ground, the four-story compound began to collapse. Shasta and Valeria shielded their faces as the dirt and debris brushed over them.

- - - - - - - - - -

When the dust began to settle, Shasta and Valeria stood up, brushing the dirt from their clothing. They looked up at the pile of rubble that used to be a building. "I guess we won't be seeing that Juggernaut droid for a while," Shasta said with a cough, trying to get the crud she inhaled out of her lungs.

"I imagine Buzzy probably escaped," Valeria added.

Shasta shrugged in response.

"As much as I enjoy razing buildings to the ground," Valeria added, "I was serious about settling down and adopting your baby. I've always wanted children, but can't stand men."

They chuckled.

Shasta placed a hand over her abdomen, almost as if she was cradling her unborn child. A million thoughts and feeling ran through her head. As well as questions, about her life and her future.

Valeria hugged Shasta. "Hey, I'll always be there for you, even if Jyn isn't."

Shasta hugged her back. "Thanks, Val."

The two best friends stood there in each others arms for a moment, knowing that they will always have each other. Breaking the tender moment, Valeria pulled away and said, "Now come on, let's get the hell outta here."

After being used by Jyn Landeskog, Shasta trained hard to resist the effects of pheromones and vowed to never let something like that happen again. And that was when her hatred toward Zeltron's began.

End